A/N
Here is a long chapter. I wanted to divide it in two, but I just couldn`t. Hope you have the patience to read a long chapter – and to wait a liiiitle bit longer for the next one.
I have used some of my (and probably yours too) favorite parts from the books (and no, I don`t have any rights to anything, unfortunately) and I hope I managed to do them justice.
Thank you so much to Rascalthemutant at the Alexander Skarsgård Library Forum for encouraging both the story and this chapter – and for making it readable.
Did you see that Suki59 entered another story to the Halloween-contest? It`s called Dead Boys and I am amazed at how she can just throw out one great story after the other. Being her beta is a walk in the park!
After a slow drive in his electric car, we were at the same airport I had landed at less than a week ago, believing I would live happily ever after with Bill. It seemed like ages ago. Now I was on my way to make Bill… I realized I wasn`t sure what our mission in Copenhagen was.
Eric had us checked in and we were through security when I asked him.
“We are going to Copenhagen to locate Bill, but what are we going to do when we and if we find him?”
Eric looked the other way for a moment.
“We actually need Bill to come back to Oslo with us.” He finally said.
“WHAT?” I couldn`t believe him. For days he had wanted me to break up with Bill and now he wanted me to get Bill home?
“Bill stole a lot of our source code and I can`t think of any other way to make him give it back to us than to give him a job at Viking Games again. It is so far from what I want to do to Bill, but it`s the only way for Viking Games to recover the loss.”
I was so mad, I kept my mouth shut to make sure I didn`t blurt out something I would later regret saying. I looked out the window when I suddenly felt Eric`s arm on my shoulders. I was pulled into his body.
“I`m sorry. I should have told you. You can still break up with Bill, of course, and I certainly hope you do. But I wish you could wait until we are back in Oslo. I want Bill to have as many incentives as possible to want to go with us.” Eric actually looked embarrassed.
“This was what you brought me to Oslo for in the first place, right?” I escaped his embrace. “To be some honey trap for Bill?”
“Yes. We didn`t think we could just give Bill a great job offer to make him come back with us.” Eric tried to grab my hands, but I put them in my pockets. “Actually we thought he wouldn`t even talk to us if we didn`t bring you along.”
“So what was all this `yield to me`-crap you have been pulling?” I couldn`t believe what I was hearing and I was also mad at myself for never asking Eric about his plans for me.
“It was completely counterproductive, but I couldn`t help myself. I like you and I want you, Sookie.” He held my head with both hands and looked me in the eyes. “I unfortunately also need you to save Viking Games and that means asking you to do something I don`t want you to do. If it wasn`t for Viking Games, I would just forget I ever had a weasel of an employee named Bill. As it is, I need to suck up to him and ask him to come work for me again.” Eric looked mad.
We sat quietly on the plane and were in Denmark`s airspace in no time. I looked out the window and saw a country that looked the complete opposite of Norway. Where Norway had high mountains and deep fjords, Denmark was flat. And by flat I mean really flat. No mountains, no hills, not even a little top anywhere.
We landed in Copenhagen and Eric pulled us towards the Metro.
“The Copenhagen Metro was built just a couple of years ago. If you notice, there are no drivers on the trains. It`s pretty fancy and I wish we could have something like this in Oslo.” Eric had transformed into my personal tour guide which was just fine by me since I was still chewing on the news he had given me earlier.
We arrived at the central train station in Copenhagen and Eric grabbed both of our bags and suitcases and walked us to a very tall hotel across the street. Radisson SAS Royal Hotel it said on the sign.
“This is the first designer hotel in the world,” Eric said. “It was designed by the famous Danish designer Arne Jacobsen back in 1960 and was meant to reflect the sky. All the furniture and everything inside the hotel was made by Arne Jacobsen.”
I nodded and smiled even if I had never heard the name Arne Jacobsen before. But when I went inside the hotel lobby, I knew what he meant by design. The whole hotel was in what I would have called `Scandinavian design` – something I had never liked. It was too sterile, too hospital for my taste. I liked table cloths, little knickknacks and pictures on the walls.
Eric checked us in while I looked around. When he came back, he handed me a key card and started carrying our luggage.
“We are on the top floor.” He nodded towards the elevator. “It has a view all the way over to Tivoli.”
My mind was still on what Eric wanted from me. I trusted Eric, for some reason, but I still felt a lot more cautious around him. Eric apparently took my silence very seriously and worked hard at breaking it down. He told me about Tivoli, which was a very old amusement park in the heart of Copenhagen, and without really realizing it, I had agreed to go there with Eric later that day.
At the 22nd floor Eric pulled our luggage and me out of the elevator. He went to the end of the corridor and put his key card in the hole. I looked at my key card, but the door number was not printed on it.
“Which room is mine?” I asked.
“You are here as well, Sookie,” Eric stated as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
“Excuse me, Eric. I can`t stay in the same room as you.”
Eric turned around in the doorway and flashed me a smile.
“Don`t worry, Sookie. This is a suite. You`ll have your own room and we even have a living room.”
He was right. It was the hugest hotel room I had ever seen. Of course it would be since I had never stayed in a hotel suite before. It was beautiful and the view was spectacular. I could see the Ferris wheels and rollercoasters of Tivoli and I suddenly looked forward to going there. With Eric. I must have been out of my mind.
Xxxx
I unpacked my bags, cleaned my face and applied a little lip gloss. Eric knocked on my door and I came out to see that he and I were almost dressed alike. We were both wearing a white sleeveless shirt and blue jeans. We laughed a little over the coincidence and soon we were on our way to the convention area of the hotel. We signed in and went looking for the stand operated by Lorena`s company, Bill`s new employer.
I went over to the stand alone as we figured it would confuse Bill to see Eric and me together, and I braced myself to see Bill again. It was a huge stand so it took me some time to check every corner for the man I had once thought was the love of my life. After some time I realized that he wasn`t there and was surprised that I actually felt relief. I asked a young guy at the stand who first didn`t even know who I meant and then said that Bill wouldn`t be back before the next day.
I went back to Eric and told him what had happened and witnessed relief on his face as well. None of us apparently wanted to deal with Bill.
I knew I had to take the bull by its horns and flipped out my cell phone and pressed Bill`s number. Eric didn`t look too pleased, but he never said anything. He did give me a warm smile when Bill never answered and I hung up.
“Now it`s time for Tivoli, it seems.” The little kid inside the big Eric jumped up and down and even in my more apprehensive state, I couldn`t help cheering with him.
Eric grabbed my hand before I could tuck it away in the safety of my pockets and I soon relaxed having Eric`s large, warm hand surround my small one.
Xxx
Tivoli was like nothing I had ever seen before. The first thing that struck me was the mixture of old and new. One could almost see how ladies in corsets and long dresses met with men in suits and ties a century ago. Eric told me about the little ballet that was played a couple of times every day year in, year out, always with Harlequin, Pierrot and Columbine.
Eric and I walked around hand in hand and the park was so romantic, I for the first time, wished I could just yield to Eric, heart and body. Of course that wasn`t going to happen anytime soon, with everything being so uncertain.
Eric and I took a few cute little rides, among them a rollercoaster that, according to Eric, was at least 150 years old. Then he got a devilish look in his eyes and started pulling me towards `Dæmonen`- The Demon.
“You aren`t a chicken, are you?” He teased me and I of course had to say no.
Before I knew it I was in the worst rollercoaster ride I had ever taken. Before the ride started, I had agreed with myself that I would not give Eric the satisfaction of hearing me scream. I would only laugh and smile and be so cool throughout the ride.
Apparently my body does not remember agreements when it`s hanging upside-down or going through cobra rolls because I screamed from start to end. In the deepest drop, I felt Eric`s hand on my lap, squeezing it slightly.
I had trouble standing on my feet when the ride ended. Eric pulled me close to his body and had his strong arms around me. Before I knew what was happening, he had his lips on mine and gave me a deep kiss, which didn`t help my sense of balance any.
We went down the stairs and passed a booth that sold pictures from the ride. Eric went over there.
“Just go find a place to sit down and I`ll buy the cute picture taken of us together.”
I didn`t really want to sit down and felt like getting an ice cream instead. I don`t know if it was the loss of Eric`s sweet kiss or the heat in my body that made me crave something cold and sweet, but I soon found myself in the line at the ice cream stand.
I looked over the menu and was surprised to see an ice cream called `Amerikaner`. I asked the ice cream-seller if it did mean `American` and she confirmed it.
“It`s huge, you know, because we think everything is big in the USA.” She smiled and I ordered one with chocolate and pistachio. I had a small shock when the ice cream-seller also put whipped cream, a chocolate cream bun and something she called `guf` on it.
“Do you want jam on it as well?” She asked me with a smile. I shook my head. I was pretty sure I would never be able to eat the icecream as it was.
Just as I was paying the modest sum of 35 Danish kroner for a week`s ration of calories, I spotted a brown-haired head I knew too well on the other side of the ice cream stand. I quickly picked up my `Amerikaner` and started running.
He was far away, but I ran as fast as a person possibly can with a huge ice cream in her hand. Just as I was in shouting range of him, and my mouth was starting to form the word “Bill”, I saw a woman with dark hair close in on him and pull her hand around his waist. I stopped in my tracks.
As if Bill felt my presence, he started to turn around. My gut reaction was to run backwards almost as fast as I had been running forwards just seconds before. The only thing about running backwards is that you, at least if you aren`t lucky enough to be born with eyes in the back of your head, can`t see where you`re running.
My left calf felt the obstacle first and then my right calf smacked right into it too. When you are falling it often feels like time is standing still and you are going down in slow-motion. This was why I had all the time in the world to consider why I suddenly felt a strong hand on the back of my head and on my shoulders.
I fell hard, but didn`t hurt my head on the asphalt I had landed on. The reason was lying on top of me. Eric had apparently seen me fall and had managed to protect my more vital parts from the fall, but had gone down too.
“I knew I would get on top of you somehow,” he said while making some improper moves with his hips.
“Are you trying to make me mad at you so I`ll forget the pain from the fall?”
“No, I`m just opportunistic.”
I wiggled, trying to get out from under him, and he said, “Oh, do that again. It felt great.”
Then even Eric felt the embarrassment of lying on the ground, him on top of me.
“No excuse to linger,” Eric said with a mock sigh, and lifted off of me. He looked down at himself and I noticed that half of my ice cream was on his shoulder.
“Oh shit, Eric.” I got to my knees with clumsy haste. “You have ice cream all over you!” The ice cream was starting to drip and soon his white shirt would be green and brown. I secretly thanked myself for saying no to the jam on the ice, but truth be told a little red wouldn`t really make that big a difference on the mess.
Eric looked down at his shoulder. “Lick it up.”
“What?” I gaped at him.
“If you don’t lick it up, it will drip down and ruin my shirt. If you are so squeamish, go get a napkin and wipe it off.”
“But I can’t do that.”
He smiled at me. “I took this fall for you. You can lick up some ice cream.”
I stood up on my toes. The ice cream had started to run, and soon it would make some major damage to Eric`s nice shirt. I sighed in resignation.
I managed to lick all the ice cream off his shoulder. Eric gave a long moan as I licked and I wasn`t really sure how I felt about that. When I was finished, he looked at me.
“Your lips are full of ice cream.” He seized my face in both hands and kissed me.
It’s hard not to respond when a master of the art of kissing is laying one on you. And I might have let myself enjoy it—well, enjoy it more—if I hadn’t just seen Bill.
But I had just seen Bill, and I was shocked by him being so close to him and yet so far away, so I pulled away from Eric`s kiss. Eric’s lips were green and brown from the ice cream now. He licked them slowly.
When we started walking, I felt a slight pain in the back. As most people who spend their days in front of the computer, I have had my brushes with shoulder and back pain. The fall, even with Eric`s save, hadn`t improved things.
“I have to get back to the hotel,” I told Eric.
He looked at me and when he saw the pain in my eyes, he gently laid his hand on my shoulder and guided me through Tivoli and back to the hotel.
Xxxxxx
Eric fixed me a gin and tonic that was way stronger than any gin and tonic I had ever tasted. We were sitting in the living room of our suite and Eric had just convinced me of the wisdom of drinking and consuming pain killers when one has severe back pain. Muscles would be less tense and the back pain wouldn`t accelerate.
I took the drink and the pills and soon felt a happy buzz in my head. I am not a heavy drinker and on top of it, I was drinking on a half-empty stomach. The `Amerikaner` may have been huge, but I hadn`t really had that much of it. And I suppose it wouldn`t be what Gran would call a full meal anyway.
Eric ordered room service and when I had eaten my share, I figured I would go lay down. It wasn`t really evening yet, but my back was screaming for a stretch out and my eyes wanted a little nap.
Unfortunately my back gave out a weird noise when I tried to stand up and the pain made me scream worse than in `Dæmonen`. I couldn`t move and I couldn`t walk or unbend my back.
Eric was at my side and before I could refuse his touch, he had me in his arms Rhett Butler-style. I had expected more of the pain, but Eric had picked me up so fast my back hadn`t had time to complain.
“Rhett and Scarlet,” I said.
“I don’t understand,” Eric told me.
“You haven’t seen Gone with the Wind!” I was horrified. But then, why should a Norwegian Game company manager have seen that staple of the Southern mystique?
“You’ll have to watch it on video.”
Eric put me on the bed, very carefully. I had to lie on my side since by back was still bent in a sitting position.
“I`m going to call for a chiropractor to fix that back of yours,” Eric said and he was out of the room before I could protest. I dosed off which was probably the best thing I could do in my current state of pain.
When I woke up, Eric was getting up from the chair in the corner of my room. Then I heard the knock on the door again and Eric opened. In came a man with a long, horsy face, blond eyebrows and eyelashes that were almost invisible against his pallor.
“Miss Stackhouse, I`m Ray Don,” the man said. “I`m a chiropractor and I`ll have that back of yours fixed in no time. I understand that you had a fall, but back pains like this are usually caused by stress and the fall may just have been the last drop.” He smiled reassuring.
“How de do.” Good manners would make you welcome anywhere, my gran had always told me.
Ray Don directed Eric to sit at the headpost and to hold my head while he started to push and pull on my legs and hip. My back made bone-breaking noises, but I actually felt relief from the pain.
Then he gave Eric a look that told me something awful was going to happen.
“Sookie, I am going to use my elbows to put pressure on some areas in your hips. It is going to be very painful, but it has to be done.” He gave me a stern look. Then he turned to Eric and said something in what was probably Danish. Eric nodded and held my head and shoulders tight. I grabbed hold on Eric`s wrists. The Big Bad Thing was coming.
“Look at me,” Eric demanded. “Look at me, Sookie.”
I felt the bed indent, and I assumed Ray Don was kneeling beside it and leaning over to my hip.
I felt the blood leave my face and hysteria bubbling up in my throat.
“Don’t, Sookie! Look at me!” Eric said urgently.
I looked down to see that Ray Don had his elbow situated on my hip and he pushed hard.
I screamed over and over, until I didn’t have the energy. I met Eric’s eyes as I felt Ray Don’s elbow go down on another painful place on my hip. Eric was holding my hands and I was digging my nails into him like we were doing something else. He won’t mind, I thought.
And sure enough, he didn’t. “Let go,” he advised me, and I loosened my grip on his hands. “No, not of me,” he said, smiling. “You can hold on to me as long as you want. Let go of the pain, Sookie. Let go. You need to drift away.”
It was the first time I had relinquished my will to someone else. As I looked at him, it became easy, and I retreated from the suffering and uncertainty.
xxxxx
The next thing I knew, I was awake. I was tucked in the bed, lying on my back, my jeans and shirt removed. I was still wearing my underwear, which was good. Eric was in the bed with me, which was not. He was really making a habit of this. I was on my back and he was lying on his side, his arm draped over me, one leg thrown over mine. His hair was tangled with my hair, and the strands were almost indistinguishable, the color was so similar. I contemplated that for a while, in a sort of misty, drifting state.
Eric was asleep and only wearing silk boxers.
I started to move my legs and my hips to check if I was still in one piece. I was still in pain, but it was greatly reduced.
“How are you feeling?” Eric asked, and I gasped. I hadn’t felt him wake up.
“Thank you, Eric.” I didn’t care for how shaky I sounded, but an obligation is an obligation.
“For what?” His hand gently stroked my stomach.
“For getting the chiropractor for me.”
“You are welcome” he whispered, his mouth hovering over mine. His eyes were very alert now, and his gaze was boring into mine.
His mouth was on mine then. Try as I might to stay detached, I wasn’t too successful. For one thing, Eric had a lot of practice. Up until now, I had considered all the women Eric had dated as something negative, but for the first time I actually saw them as an asset. His kissing technique was out of this world.
I snuck my hands up to his shoulders, and I am ashamed to say I responded to his kiss. As sore and tired as my body was, it wanted what it wanted, and my mind and will were running far behind.
I kissed him with the passion and little practice I had in me. I kissed him and forgot all my reservations. All the ladies in Eric`s life, Eric`s plans for me and even Bill were all lost in the kiss.
Eric had his hands all over my body and my hands were on his. I could feel the muscles work on his shoulders and let my hands slide further down. Eric`s hands had the same desire to travel south and they slipped under the elastic of my panties and soon I felt a finger inside me and a thumb working miracles on the outside.
I made a loud sound and it wasn`t the sound of pain and certainly not of rejection. I spread my legs wider to give him access and just enjoyed what he was giving me, which was pure pleasure. I started getting light headed and soon my orgasm just washed over me accompanied by a deep moan and a few muscle spasms.
Afterwards I just lay there with closed eyes, panting.
“Look at me, elsker,” Eric whispered.
I was almost afraid of opening my eyes, afraid of seeing Eric looking smug or full of himself. But I did open my eyes and all that met me was pure happiness staring down at me. Eric smiled a smile so full of joy, I would almost have thought it was he who had just had the orgasm of his life.
“Come here,” I whispered and pulled him down for another kiss. Now that I had already waved all of my senses goodbye, I might as well do it properly.
It made totally sense to me when I suddenly heard Elvis sing `Love me Tender`, but Eric pulled away from the kiss.
“It`s your phone, elsker,” he whispered.
I looked at him. My phone? My ringtone wasn`t Elvis, it was a standard ringtone. Then it dawned upon me.
“You changed my ringtone?”
“I couldn`t find a ringtone saying `Yield to me`. This was the best I could do.” He smiled.
I jumped out of the bed and grabbed my phone. I stared at the display and sighed. Bill.
“Hello?” I answered. What else could I say?
A/N:
I`m so sorry to all you book lovers that I gave Sookie an orgasm. I have tried hard to follow the spirit of the books, but I just had to part from the books here. My fingers kept writing and they wouldn`t leave Sookie unsatisfied. Now my fingers are suffering from intense nail biting instead….
Håper du likte det? (hope you liked it?)
PS. I will have my own submission to the Halloween-contest out shortly. I hope you like that one too 😀 Eric is a vampire, Sookie a telepath and the vampires are not out of the coffin. And where it takes place? Oh, in my back yard, of course…