Hi folks. It's been a year since I first began posting The Expert, my without a doubt favourite Eric/Sookie story to write. To celebrate that, and perhaps to motivate me to get back to work on the original version, I've decided to write a bit of an extension. It'll probably be around 12 chapters, but who the hell knows. I may get sucked in for more.

So, timeline refresher is in order, I suppose. Max is seven, Ceci is three. It kind of picks up after the end of the Amateur, or around there. If you're looking to read the Expert, which isn't on FF dot net, it's on my blog, seastarr08 dot wordpress dot com . The rest of the stories and outtakes are on this site.

I apologize in advance for any errors. I'm my own beta for these stories.

Thanks for reading!

Eric

Sookie's ass was tight. That body bootcamp thing that Pam had been dragging her to all summer was paying off in spades. It was worth having to give the kids lunch three times a week on my own, when all they wanted to do was go to the beach, if I got to see that ass more. Not that it wasn't great before, but she was much more willing to show it off when she thought it was great too.

I patted it, as she lay on her stomach on the Mickey Mouse towel that Ceci insisted on dragging to the beach every day, despite the growing hole in the left corner. "Your ass looks fantastic."

She rolled over, and smiled up at me, her eyes covered with huge sunglasses. "Yours too. I don't even need to see it to know that."

"Even though I don't go to body bootcamp?" I pulled her giant sunglasses off and kissed her, just as Ceci jumped on my back.

"Dad, I want a drink."

I raised an eyebrow at her. "What's the magic word?"

"Please, and now." She grinned back.

"No more Aunty Pam for you. That's two words." I reached in the cooler and handed her a bottle of water. "We're going home in ten, so go say bye to your friends."

She nodded, and ran off, the bottle of water held tightly in her little hands. Sookie shook her head. "She's lucky she's so cute. It's date night tonight."

Our kids were the ultimate cockblockers. Especially Ceci. At three, it was like she had some sort of sex radar. Her mission was to make sure neither of us ever got laid, and when we did, it was fast. "Is it five, yet?" I continued my blatant ogling, straightening out the straps on her bikini.

She buried her head in the crook of my neck. "You know, if we weren't married, I'd never let you get away with that."

"Good thing I don't have to worry about that." I kissed her forehead, taking in her unique scent, which was usually some combination of this really cheap cocoa butter she liked for tanning and the ocean. "You smell like the beach."

"That's because we're at the beach." She pulled herself up, and dusted the sand off her ass. "What are we doing tonight? It's your turn to plan."

I looked up, thinking about it. "Pizza? Bad movie? Sex under the stars? Do you think Liz would mind if we dropped Ceci off before five?"

"No, but we're not. I want to feed her before I send her over there. That way," she stood on her tiptoes and whispered in my ear, "She'll keep her for lunch."

"Max is back on Tuesday, right?" He was spending a few days upstate with Alcide and his father, who was desperate for man time lately, since Pam had had Gaby. They were fishing or something, at some country estate that his dad owned. He'd called daily and told us how awesome it was. Ceci drove him nuts a lot of the time, so it was nice for him to get a break.

We made it through dinner, and despite Ceci's negotiating tactics, we got her to eat all her veggies before Sookie dropped her off with Liz. We tried to do a weekly date night, even though it sometimes just involved getting the kids to bed on time and falling asleep on the couch lately.

Because of Sookie's new job title, she managed to talk Sam into letting her work from the Hamptons for July and August, arguing that it was a good place to network, and that really, no one was in their offices through the summer anyway. I was proof of that, as were the endless stream of academics that I seemed to run into at the grocery store and at the coffee shop I frequented.

No one was in New York in the summer. It was madness.

I decided to check my email while Sookie dropped Ceci off, and immediately frowned when I saw the first email, with the little red urgent flag checked.

Fucking Appius Occela.

Sometime, maybe a year ago, my department got a new dean, someone I'd heard of for years, but never met. Appius was Italian-born, and a genius, and it had been a real coup for NYU, scooping him from Harvard.

Unfortunately, his ideas of how the department should be ran varied drastically from mine. I was at a spot in my career where I was quite content to publish as much as I needed to to stay relevant, but not work my ass off as I had when I was trying to establish myself. I had the market leading introduction to sexuality text, I'd been invited to participate in several prestigious lecture series, and had been turning down offers from ivy league schools for years. NYU was lucky to have me. I knew it, they knew it, and that's how it was.

Occela, on the other hand, didn't quite share that philosophy. And this email was the icing on the cake. The subject line was "Guest Lecture Opportunity."

Dear Eric,

I hope you are enjoying your summer in the Hamptons. I spent a week recently in Bridgehampton with my partner's family, and it was just lovely.

I've decided that we need to raise our department's international profile. In order to do that, you and a few other senior faculty members will be required to take a guest lecturer position at an international institution for at least a semester. I have a few suggestions that I'd like to discuss with you on Tuesday, but feel free to bring your own ideas. This is a really exciting opportunity, and I hope you're as enthusiastic about this as I am.

Sincerly,

Occela

No. Maybe when I was thirty, even thirty-five, I would have been up for it. In fact, I probably would have welcome the opportunity to chase foreign pussy for four commitment-free months. However, now, that sounded like a nightmare. I checked the time on the email, which was sent about an hour before and called him. I wasn't waiting until Tuesday.

He answered right away, his voice bubbling with enthusiasm He didn't even wait for a hello. "Eric, I hope you're as excited about this as I am. I've wanted to make this happen since I started, but it took me a while to convince everyone that sending away our most talented professors for a semester was a good long-term plan."

"I can't do that. I have a family here."

He was not deterred. "Take them with you. It'll be a great adventure."

I rolled my eyes. "My wife has a career, and my son is in school. I can't just uproot them for four months on a whim."

He was quiet for a minute. "You're up for chair, if you do this. Three year term. No classes, no students. Nine to five. Time to research. I'll make it happen, if you do this. If not, I'll have to consider someone that is more concerned with the needs of the department."

Motherfucker. I'd been gunning for chair since Max was born. "I have to think about it."

"Think fast. The chair seat is up next May. I have a contact at the Sorbonne that's very open to someone coming for September."

And it was at an incredible school. Of course it was. And I'd have to leave in a month. "Give me a week to think it over."

"I can't really say this, but you know how I'll feel if you say no. I'll be terribly disappointed. Enjoy your summer Eric, and I'll look forward to your answer."

What he really meant was that I'd be teaching the sexuality night course until ten three nights a week for the rest of my teaching career if I said no. I fucking hated that course. "Great. Bye."

I sat on the couch for a minute, thinking about how this could possibly work. Maybe Sookie could take a leave from work, and we could all go, have a little adventure. Then I'd be able to be home every day after school, not have to do marking on holidays, hell, I wouldn't have to see a student for weeks if I didn't want to.

When Sookie got home about twenty minutes later, I realized that something was very wrong. She slumped down on the couch beside me, her brow furrowed. "Sam had a heart attack. A really bad one. I just got a call from the president of the company. They want me to cover for him until he's back on his feet."

"Oh, I'm sorry, baby." I kissed her forehead. Her and Sam were close. Sam was only a year older than me. Shit. "Is he going to be okay?"

She nodded. "They think so. But I don't know how long he'll be off work for. He needed a bypass of some sort."

"Any idea of the cause?"

She thought about it. "Well, he had put on some weight over the last couple of years. And he wasn't exactly into exercise. He always took the elevator."

They worked on the third floor. That was ridiculous. "So they asked you to take over his director job?"

She nodded. "Yea. It's a lot of extra work. It's not just the editorial stuff. It's all the sales and marketing shit that I hate too."

"What's in it for you?"

"A salary bump, which I get to keep when Sam comes back, an extra week of vacation, and the undying gratitude of my boss's boss."

"That sounds okay."

She shrugged. "It means less working at home for a while." She grimaced. "Full weeks in the office. What's that about?" She sighed. "Poor Sam."

I couldn't tell her. Not today, and not until I knew I had to consider it for sure. But then, I should have told her. We should have been discussing it right now.

She just looked so damn sad about Sam. I'd wait until I knew for sure. "You should send him flowers. Maybe a fruit basket?"

"Maybe I will. I'll go see him when I'm back in the city. I have a feeling Daphne is taking good care of him." The new girlfriend that Sookie hated. That's why she wasn't in a hurry to call. "Are you okay watching the kids for a few days next week? I have to go in. Maybe Stella can come help us out." Stella was crazy enough to take a waitressing job in New York for the summer. She called to bitch about it daily, and came down every time she had a free day. Johan was TAing all summer at NYU, which was why she'd stuck around. I was half expecting him to come to me for a man to man chat sometime, because it was obvious, from the non-existent relationship she'd developed with Gus, that I was going to be footing the bill for the wedding.

"I can handle it." I smiled. "So I ordered the pizza, and selected a few Netflix's options for tonight. If you still want to do that."

"I just want something mindless. I'm going to have to think my ass off next week. Thank God the sales meeting was two weeks ago." She'd gone down for most of it, but she'd simply been able to oversee her editors, and proof presentations, instead of having to organize the whole thing like Sam did. "Eric?" She smiled sweetly. "Can you get me a beer?"

"Sure." She was stressed. She never drank beer. "You sure you don't want something else?"

She cocked her head at me. "Maybe a gin and tonic? I was trying to think of something that went with pizza."

"Red wine?"

"Yes, that's it." She smiled. "You're so great. I know this is going to be a bit of extra work for you, being solo parent for a bit."

I hoped she was alright with it too, when I potentially got shipped off to France for four months. "Oh, it'll be fine. Ceci's getting bigger. Having her out of diapers is huge."

We both exhaled loudly. That had been a lot of work. "Yea, I thank God or whoever for that every day." She snorted. "I swear, if I hadn't gone through the excruciating pain of giving birth to her, I'd swear she was Pam's child."

Ceci was certainly precocious. That was for sure.

"So you don't want another yet, is what you're saying." I glanced at her, and we both cracked up laughing. "Sorry, I couldn't resist." We were sticking at two, and taking it very seriously. The old snip snip was the best move I had ever made. Fucking without even the slightest thought of pregnancy was a pretty good feeling. I knew the stats, but the odds were incredibly low. It hadn't really altered our sex life either, in fact, we both kind of wanted to do it more, since we'd more or less taken pregnancy off the table. It all felt the same to me.

Also, the kids were a bit older, and didn't need our constant attention. Max had kind of figured out that mom and dad needed adult time, and was quite content to busy himself in his room if our door was closed from time to time in the evening, but Ceci didn't really understand that logic.

She also still hadn't mastered knocking, no matter how many times we tried to explain it to her. I couldn't even count the number of awkward situations we'd had to explain away. If there was another adult in the house we locked the bedroom door, but both of us were nervous about doing that when it was just us around.

"When's the pizza coming?" Sookie wrinkled up her nose at the wine. "Is this the crap that Bill left us last week?"

"Yes, and any minute." I sniffed my glass. "Do you want to open a new bottle?"

"Later. No use letting this go to waste, just because Bill has terrible taste in wine." She tipped the glass up. "Tonight, we're getting drunk."

"Do you want to call Sam or something?" It was obvious that she was upset, and I was guessing that was the cause. I finished my glass of wine. It was terrible, and a shame, because there were so many good, reasonably priced wines out there. Why anyone would pay fifty bucks for crap was beyond me.

"I should, before I get too drunk." She leaned over, and whispered in my ear. "Promise to take advantage of me later?"

I nodded, "Of course," and pulled her onto my lap, getting one good kiss in before she wiggled away.

She stood up, winked, grabbed her phone and headed into our room.

The pizza came a few minutes later, and she emerged just after, her face slightly screwed up in irritation. "I know this is mean, but I hate his fucking girlfriend, and I'm mad at him for needing a bypass, because that means I'm going to have to do his job longer."

"So it was serious, then."

She rolled her eyes. "Well, from the two minutes I was allowed to speak to him before Daphne decided he'd had enough, yes. Jesus, does she think I'm going to have phone sex with him while he's in the ICU?"

The new girlfriend was quite threatened by Sookie, for some reason. It was weird, since I was Sam's superior in every way. He'd really gained a lot of weight in the last couple of years, and Sookie was incredibly professional, besides that. I guess they worked quite closely on things, but I wasn't threatened by Sam in the least. If anyone should have been threatened, it should have been Sam, when it came to Sookie and his job.

"I'd expect it if I was in the ICU." I pulled her onto my knee and passed her a slice.

"I know you would." She giggled, pouring us each other glass of wine.

We made it through a bottle and a half a pizza before we'd had enough. I closed the pizza box to keep Lily out of it, and threw her over my shoulder, before heading for our room.

After seven years, two kids, and a hell of a lot of shit being thrown at us from our friends and family, we were good as gold in every way that mattered. I sat against the headboard, and she straddled my lap, while we struggled to get undressed without breaking contact. Finally we gave up, splitting apart long enough to get our pants off, and resumed.

"Are those new underwear?" I murmured, trying to tug them down, before finally setting for tugging them aside. "I like them." They were pink. With some lace. And a bow.

"Not new. You just never look at my underwear before you chuck them on the floor." She giggled, stopping me mid thrust to remove them. "That's better. Why don't you take yours off too. Kids are gone. We don't have to rush quite so much, remember?"

I looked down, realizing that I'd just pulled my dick out of my boxers. "Yea, that's a good call."

Once we were divested of all our clothing, she sat back in my lap. It was a bit of a favourite of ours, and when I thought about it, because I was constantly thinking about sex, I'd decided there were probably a few reasons for that. Firstly, no one was on top. It was nice to be on top, sure, but we were both kind of pushy and liked to be in charge. This position negated that. It was a very egalitarian way to fuck. Secondly, we were more or less eye to eye, which we both liked, because it added an extra level of intimacy. Thirdly, there was lots of skin to skin contact. Yea, that was good, I thought, as Sookie's nipples brushed my chest. It was also a good take off position for a lot of other positions. Either one of us could get on top easily, or we could lay on our sides, which we also did quite often. I could go forever on my side, since it was mostly shallow thrusting.

However, as Sookie so hotly reminded me from time to time, my shallow thrusting wasn't so shallow.

The upright sitting lap position, or whatever it was technically called certainly didn't involve shallow anything. It felt fucking incredible, as did Sookie's hot little mouth on my nipple. I was done for when she reached behind and fingered my balls.

But she wasn't done yet. I was a gentleman, and I usually made she she came first. She saw it as a bit of a challenge at times, to try and get me off first, and I was a sucker for a ball fondle . I made sure I was good and done, before shoving her down on her back, and moving a mouth to her breast and not so gently moving my fingers to fill the void my dick left. She gasped, arching her back to meet my fingers. "Oh, you like that, do you?" I whispered in her ear.

"Please, baby," she whispered back.

I was never one to resist her pleas. Delayed gratification wasn't really part of our sexual vocabulary. Sookie's climax button, in a situation like this, where we'd been at it a while, and she wasn't far off anyway, was something she'd resisted for a long time, but now couldn't get enough of. Oh, so deviant, but incredibly erotic anal stimulation. I had to admit, it wasn't something I had a great deal of experience either, since it wasn't a move you pulled out with someone didn't have a serious relationship with. Anyway, it worked every time. Not that I used it every time. I was better than that.

I happily listened to her chant my name like a mantra, as she writhed on our bed. I loved her O face. Her orgasm usually lasted a hell of a lot longer than mine. It was interesting how that worked.

We curled up together later, on the couch, and watched some totally cheeseball romantic comedy about a long distance relationship with that annoying guy from the Apple commercials, and Drew Barrymore, who I totally would have fucked.

"Man, I'm glad we never had to do long distance. That was a terrible movie, and it made it look so shitty," Sookie yawned, as we meandered off to bed.

I was so fucked. I needed to figure out a way to make this semester in Paris thing go away, and fast.