"Ugh," Tara groaned as sunlight beamed into her barely open eyes. She understood why the vampires closed the drapes to the bed. The light cut off not a moment later, and she turned to Jesse's naked body leaned over her with his hand on the long navy cloth.

Tara crawled her eyes over the smooth lines of his mocha muscles and remembered the prior night, fast forwarded in vivid detail. Right. That had happened. This was why she didn't put snacks by the bed when she slept. She had a compulsion to taste them in her sleep. A flush colored her face as Jesse settled next to her with a stupid grin plastered on his face. The white of his teeth brought out the lighter blue flecks in his eyes and made his skin seemed darker, like milk chocolate. Tara took in a slow breath as she counted to ten in her mind.

Too much stimulation this early. Jesse's presence was enhanced by the walls of fabric now surrounding most of them and the stacked pillows and comforters edging the bed like castle walls, some in maroon, others royal purple, and the rest sinking into navy and black the further outside they ran.

Tara groaned as she was forced to face those ecstatic white teeth attached to the hottest man alive. The sun blinding her was starting to appeal to her sense of decency as she molested Jesse's lifted upper torso with her gaze. The guy'd been tortured in a dungeon for weeks, but no one would know that looking at the ridges and valleys on that wash board.

She had some clothes that needed washing.

"What's so great?" Tara tried words, but her brain and lips couldn't make that many with all the drool she was keeping in her mouth.

"You," Jesse said simply, bringing the covers up to tuck around her. He took care to wrap them gently around her breasts but under her arms before he leaned his head on a hand and loomed over with that bliss. "I was a little messed up yesterday, and I apologize if my words hurt you."

Forget his words. Tara had already forgotten about them. All she could think about was how her pleasure had ruptured through her skin like someone had set off a flash grenade inside of her body. Don't try that at home kids.

"You nearly dusted Matt for sticking it to you too." Tara changed the subject to keep her mind off of what Jesse had under the covers.

The pectorals of the god's were enough. If he slipped up any further she'd get a full view of his six pack and it would be all over if there was anything tight below that. Thinking about Matt was a sure-fire turnoff, and she cringed inwardly as she thought about the guaranteed bruises under his chin and around his neck. Hopefully a mage had healed them, or removed the memory of it happening, or something.

"Why was he here?" Jesse paused, gritting his teeth so hard that his smile fell. It closed those white teeth and darkened his pallor as he crunched his dark eyebrows downward. "Why are you here?"

"Well, it's a really long story, and the longer I look at you the more rickety I realize you are." Tara gave his arm a tap and Jesse wobbled before he flopped his head on the pillow with poorly concealed exhaustion. While he looked good enough to eat, she could read the weariness in his dim blue eyes. "Short story, I hassled the hell out of the Levisca complex, even broke into the damn place with Matt's help to find someone who would believe you were in imminent danger. Shook a couple of mage trees until I found Silvia and convinced her you needed rescuing now and not later."

Jesse blanked at her, his expression flattening to confusion or bewilderment, and then he rubbed his face with a hand. "That was dangerous. You haven't the slightest how poorly sneaking into that complex could have gone."

"Oh, I figured that out. Met a nice vampire named Ezra who took me to Silvia after I explained what I was there for. Almost lost my head getting too close to his daughter..." Tara trailed off as she remembered the happenings from before all this. Selena's teal eyes filled with fear as she threw herself into the void were burned into the back of Tara's mind, as was the broken way Ezra had collapsed after.

"Tara." The tightness in Jesse's tone made her think he was going to scold her, but instead he brought a hand to her face and ran it down her cheek so gently that it tickled. "Thank you... for saving my life even if I'd sunk into a pit of despair so deep that I didn't want to be saved."

"Speaking of saving." Tara reddened and she couldn't hold Jesse's direct gaze. It was worse that his didn't wander, fixated on her face like it was the Holy Grail. "I thought you said someone would interrupt us if I screamed, and I'm pretty sure I shook the walls."

Jesse laughed and his shoulders shook as he dropped his face into the crook of her neck and shoulder. "Tara, no matter how weak a vampire is, they would never pleasure someone they cared for within hearing of others. The moment things turned... safe, I lined the room with my power. It acts as a sort of barrier, blocking sound and sense unless someone enters. No one will ever know the sounds of your pleasure but me."

Jesse growled the words and his fangs did that weird extendo thing over his lips. As possessive as the words were, they gave her both a flutter in her chest and a rock sinking through her stomach. Jesse didn't know how true those words were.

"They will however figure out I mauled you." Jesse added with a short hiss of breath, flipping his long dark hair back over a shoulder to gesture to his neck.

Tara reached up to hers and found bandages covering the holes on either side as well as a few spots lower on the one side. Jesse must have wandered with his nibbling at some point. She doubted that he'd left the room in his condition, so the adjoining bathroom must be fully stocked for a massacre. Tara was unsure if that was creepy or considerate, but at least they were well prepared here. If Jesse had opened her vein in her apartment, she'd probably have to hire one of those mafia cleanup crews from the movies to make it look like no one had died there.

"Can I ask you a totally rude question?" Tara asked, trailing her fingers over the perfect edges of his shoulder muscles.

The words 'I love you' lingered in her mind, but she still wasn't sure if she'd imagined him saying them or not. A feeling had been gnawing at her ever since the high of having him all over her had slowly worn off. How many other people had touched him naked, had felt the way she did when he tantalized them, and how many others he'd loved. There were such nosy thoughts when the reality didn't matter, but she still wondered.

"I am completely at your mercy, Tara. Ask me anything," Jesse's voice rumbled against her face and he trailed his hand over her hair. The progression was growing slower with time and she knew he was going to pass back out. Even if he'd rested the night away, he was a vampire and weaker during the day. Tara doubted vampire kind just brushed off weeks of torture with a catnap.

"How many... other women have you pleasured with your undeniably hot vampire body." Tara couldn't ask him how many other people he'd professed his love to. It would be too painful to know if she was just a drop in the bucket, so she figured keeping it superficial was best.

"As a vampire?" Jesse's voice was near a whisper as his hand stopped on the side of her face and fell limp. "None."

Tara ground her nails against his abs in silent frustration, and they tightened to protect themselves. "Well, you're no virgin." Tara managed with a sigh.

"No, I'm not." Jesse eased a hand under her arms, and she grumbled in protest as he pulled her closer. With a soft inhale of breath against her hair, he tucked her face into his neck and groaned quietly.

"Do you not want to talk about it?"

Jesse was still and quiet for so long, she thought he'd fallen asleep. Then, with the barest of sound, he answered. "I have loved once in my life, as a human. As a vampire, I feared my sire Tanya's ire if I even grew close to another female. The woman had no reservations when it came to atrocities, so I spent my vampire life quite celibate."

"Oh..." Tara felt like a complete jerk now. Since the moment she'd met Jesse, she'd assumed he wrapped women around his finger for sport because no one would be able to rationally resist him. Instead, he'd been imprisoned his entire life to one leader or another. Why was she so shallow? "What was she like?" Tara asked, wanting to know now for reasons not at all related to jealousy. She wanted to know what had captured his love so long ago.

"I do not know." Jesse dropped his face into her hair to lay a kiss on her head. "Tanya was my sire and she wanted me to forget them. I resisted her power for a hundred years or so, but eventually I gave in. I was tired of starving to death in a cell and gave up my hold on my family. They were dead, and I could not join them, so I relinquished my mind to Tanya's control.

"I know I had a wife and a daughter, but I cannot remember their faces or our life. Sometimes I see a face in my mind and I wonder if that was hers, but I will never know for sure. That was so many hundreds of years ago that cameras weren't a thing." Jesse lifted her face to his and smiled gently, just a lift of his dark lips. "Part of me hopes my wife was like you. Strong but gentle, beautiful like no other, and honest to a fault."

There went that rock falling through her stomach and taking her heart with it.

"I-I need food and to do human things." Tara stuttered as she pulled out of his grasps. Jesse let her go, but it seemed more out of an inability to hold her than a willingness to let her go. "You look ready to pass out with the sun." Tara took the covers with her to cover her breasts as Jesse's eyes finally wandered. Their probing meant nothing when weighted with the words he'd just spit at her like knives into her chest.

It was better if she'd just been a passing fancy. What was she supposed to say to being the only woman he'd loved in hundreds of years? Gee thanks for loving me. BYE.

"I do need rest." Jesse grumbled the words like he wanted just the opposite. Tara knew that, but if he pulled her back into the bed, she might never leave it. "You are no safer than with the Arcs, so I will rest at ease. Please don't feel trapped in bed because of me." Jesse flicked a smirk at her from where he'd tucked himself in the covers. "Unless you want to."

"Want and need are two different things."

Tara dropped her feet to the floor and cringed from the cold stone as she headed over to where her spare clothes were. Although invasive, Tara appreciated Silvia finding her apartment and grabbing her some fresh clothes once they realized she'd be staying there to heal. Super weird when she's brought things like bras and underwear. Thankfully Silvia hadn't found her lingerie, or admitted to finding it, so Tara slipped on a simple, black, cotton bra and stepped into her underwear. By the time she had them halfway up her legs, she noticed Jesse downright drinking her with his eyes.

"Didn't get enough last night?" Tara asked in jest as she slipped on a comfortable grey T-shirt. No reason to die in buttons and a miniskirt squeezing her thighs over leggings. If she was going out, she was doing it in the comfort of jeans and her weekend shirt of a kitten leaning over a broken glass that said 'I do what I want'.

"I will never get enough of you, Tara." Jesse groaned but his eyes shut as she took a step into the sunlight. She could have sank back into the shadow of the wardrobe, but Jesse needed his rest, and it was better that he didn't know about what they had planned for today.

Tara skipped the shower, brushing her hair and teeth, and using the bathroom. The last thing she needed was more temptation, and she doubted she'd get the warm water over her skin before Jesse was pressing her wet body against his rock hard body and erection. Before she slipped out of the room, she ducked her head into the bed. Jesse was out cold, not even rising on her approach, and she gave him a soft kiss on his forehead before slipping out.

The Arcs were nice enough to provide her breakfast, but she couldn't eat more than a piece of toast and some juice. The nervousness was starting to make her stomach turn. It should have torn her apart by now, but she'd been compartmentalizing trauma for years. She kept thinking she should cry, but that had been just as useless a sentiment when her mother had been sick as it was now.

This was the end. As it had been for her mother.

"Tara," someone said her name, and it took her a long moment to place the voice. It had been a while since she'd heard it, and she rubbed her temples as she turned to the ghostly form sitting on the stool next to her. Tara's doom mood had kept the kitchen empty so it was just her and the ghost hooker.

"Tanya," Tara spat the name, and the dead vampire laughed. The squeal of her amusement damaged Tara's ears, but she was glad the woman had her legs crossed and was leaning forward on the counter with her hands against her face. That way, she couldn't see any of her privates. "What do you want?"

"To say thank you, as much as it curdles my insides." The woman snapped her fangs on the words, and Tara felt like that had to hurt, dead or not. Indigo curled around skin eight shades darker than Jesse's, and her dark pink lips puckered her distaste from any show of gratitude.

For an unbiased moment, Tara imagined that Tanya might be pretty if she wasn't such a complete bitch. Sort of like Matt. Maybe if the world of the living toppled into that of the dead those two could get together or something.

"Well enjoy your visions of this world. I didn't do it for you." Tara took a sip of some weak coffee as she waited for Silvia to join her. It was eventual, but she figured the mage was either giving her time or was passed out still.

"I meant for Jesse's life, not myself. I wouldn't thank you for that. As you said, you didn't do it for me." Tanya made little sense, and Tara glanced over at her chin tucked in both palms as she stared out over the kitchen island to the stove. "She was prettier than me," Tanya said, and a snarl lifted her lips as she leered at the kitchen backsplash. "Kinder, gentler, and better than me in every way. I wanted Jesse, so I killed the ones he loved and took him."

Tara swished coffee around in her mouth and considering whether or not ghosts could feel her spitting on them when Tanya spoke again.

"I was so petty I didn't realize that would kill the man I loved. I figured with time he would forget her, move on and go back to the way he'd been, but he never did. The shine in his eyes died, and the easy smiles on his lips melted away. Jesse played around with that mage for a brief time, but even then, he never glowed like he did just now with you. Not since the day I took what was his." Tanya turned her completely pitch eyes on her, and Tara was wordless to the regretful frown worked down her lips. "Thank you for bringing him back to life. Just seeing him that way makes me want to throttle you to death."

The deranged look returned to the woman's face and she smirked, teasing a finger on her fangs. Tara rolled her eyes. "I'm dying anyway." Tanya was silent to that and Tara couldn't look at her in case glee shined in her eyes. It would piss her off, and the morning was crappy enough. "Can you do me a solid since you're so grateful and all?"

"What is it I can do for you from this side, human?" Tanya narrowed her eyes as if this was a ruse. Like Tara could somehow find a way to trap her in the void.

"It's nothing like that. Just later today, if I'm at the doorway and I hesitate. Push me in." Tanya's jaw unhinged as Tara looked to the woman. "Force me forward with your presence, take my body, whatever. Just don't let me baulk, okay?"

"You're asking me to kill you?" Tanya clarified, and a slow, fang revealing smile stretched over her face. A laugh escaped her, dark and sinister as her bared fangs and soulless pitch eyes. "As you wish."

Word Count: 3015