Dead Ever After: A True Blood Novel

down to it soon I was going to explode, and not in the way I needed to.
    “Please don’t change your mind,” he said, and began walking me back to the trailer. “I think I’d have to go out and shoot something.”
    “Not gonna happen,” I said, working at the button on his shorts. He said, “Hold up your arms,” and I did, and the gauze cover-up was history. We’d made it to the trailer door, and he reached behind me to turn the knob. We tumbled into the dark interior of the trailer, and though I paused by the couch, he said, “No, a real bed.” He picked me up and turned sideways to get us through the narrow trailer hall, and then we were in his bedroom and there was indeed a bed, in fact a king-sized one.
    “Yay,” I said as he laid me on the bed and joined me, practically in one movement, and then I couldn’t say another word, though I was thinking plenty of them, one-syllable words like good please again dick long hard. My bikini bra was history, and he was so happy with my breasts. “I knew they’d be even better than I remembered,” he said. “I am so . . . wow.” And while he was busy with those, he was working with the bikini bottom, which proved Sam could multitask. I was freeing him from the ancient cutoffs he’d been wearing, and they might have had a new hole or two by the time I finally skinned them down his legs and tossed them off the bed. “Can’t wait,” I said. “You ready?” He fumbled in his night table drawer.
    “I’ve been ready for years,” he told me, and he rolled on a condom and plunged in.
    Oh my God, it was so good. The years of experience of my vampire lovers might have made them skillful, but there is so much to say for sheer heartfelt enthusiasm; and the heat of Sam, the warmth of him, it was like the sun was soaking into my body. The tanning lotion and the sweat meant we slid against each other like seals, and it was wonderful all the way to the shuddering, straining climax.
    Would we have ended up making the best love ever if we both hadn’t been altered by the magic of the cluviel dor, if Sam had never died and I had never brought him back?
    I don’t know and I don’t care.
    The air-conditioned cool of the trailer was heaven after the heat of our joining. I shivered with the cooling of my skin and the aftershocks of the explosion.
    “Don’t even think of asking if it was good for me,” I said in a limp voice, and he laughed breathlessly.
    “If I lie very still for about four hours, I might be ready to see if we could match the experience,” he said.
    “I can’t even think about that right now,” I said. “I feel like I just plowed the back forty with a team of mules.”
    “If that’s a euphemism, I can’t figure it out,” he said. The best I could manage was a feeble giggle.
    Sam rolled to his side to face me, and I mimicked his move. He put his arm around me. I could feel him get ready to say something at least three times, but every time he’d relax, as if he’d thought the better of it.
    “What do you want to tell me that’s taking you so long?” I asked.
    “I keep thinking of things to say and deciding not to,” Sam said. “Like, I hope we can do this again, and lots. Like, I hope this was something you wanted as much as I did. Like . . . I hope this is the beginning of something and not just . . . recreation. But you aren’t casual about who you decide to go to bed with.”
    I thought carefully before I spoke. “I wanted to do this a lot,” I said. “I’ve put you off forever, because I didn’t want to lose the good thing I had in my job and your friendship. But I’ve always thought you’re wonderful, a great man.” I ran my thumbnail down his back, and he did a little shivering of his own. “Now I think you’re even greater.” I kissed his neck. “It’s awful soon after the ending of my relationship with Eric. For that reason, if no other, I’d like to take the heart-to-hearts slow. As we said when we first talked about this.”
    I could feel him smiling against my forehead. “Are you saying you want us to have wild, insane sex and not talk about a relationship? Are you aware that’s most guys’ dream?”
    “I’m real aware of that, believe me,” I said. “Telepath, remember? But I know there’s more to you than that, Sam. I’m giving you respect, and I’m giving myself some time to make sure I’m not rebounding.”
    “Speaking of rebounding . . .” Sam guided my hand down to his shaft, which was