Lizzie pushed the letters to the side and slumped back against the wall She looked down at the tattered and soiled shift she had been wearing since her death and subsequent escape. "Look at me, I'm a mess."

Tucker looked up from petting Rex and studied her closely: the way a particular strand of hair hung over her sparkling eyes, the way her pale hands folded together like she was praying unconsciously, the way the material seemed to pick which curve to cling to and which to reveal. An interesting idea formed of its own will on a level beyond comprehension. "You look fine to me. Better than fine. But I did bring you some clothes from your apartment."

She brushed the hair back from her face so that now it was exquisitely framed. He stood up and moved beside her. "What?" she asked. Tucker said nothing still, so she asked again.

He sat down and stretched his feet out in front of him, crossing his boots at the ankle. "I been thinking."

"Oh, you have, have you? About what?" Her voice had taken on the ghost of a smile, a coy sort of happiness that he had feared had been erased.

"Well, I've only really ever kissed you when you was dead. Now that you're alive - well, more or less," he winked, "and there ain't no one chasing us or trying to kill us, I think I might like to see what it would feel like to kiss you for real."

She laughed, a real laugh. "Dear Penthouse, I never thought this would happen to me, but there was this dead girl..." she let her voice trail off and scooted into his arms.

"That ain't funny" He craned his head around to press his lips to hers and they were surprisingly warm and pliant, unlike before.

His rational mind wrestled a brief instant with the thought of someone else's blood coursing through her, but before it could take hold, she pushed him roughly back to the wall and leaned her body into him. With one hand in his hair, she pulled his head back, exposing his throat.

Nipping at it playfully, letting the tips of her teeth and tongue tease the skin, she paused long enough to look laughing into his eyes. "Are you scared?" she teased.

"A little."

"Why?" She nipped at his cheek and ear. "Afraid I'll hurt you?"

"It ain't that. It's been a long time," he whispered hoarsely "I'm afraid I might be a little quick on the trigger, if you know what I mean."

She ripped his shirt open, ran her burning hands across his chest. His back arched involuntarily. "Don't worry, I'll be gentle. The first time." She raked her nails down the tender skin of his chest, raising welts. He gasped in surprise. She kissed the marks quickly and took his head in both hands to rain kisses on him, kisses that took away his breath and made his heart hammer in his chest.

Raising herself enough to untangle the shift bunched between her legs, she fumbled at his belt buckle. He slumped almost helplessly as her hands encircled his desire. With her guidance, he entered her and they remained locked there, her atop him, rocking gently.

All his pent-up anxiety and frustration of the last week disappeared in a swirl of pleasure and a physical reaffirming of all the love he held for her. He closed his hands around her waist, the skin as soft as her hot breath in his ear, as he pulled her close again and again. Lizzie trembled in his grasp, twisting and moaning as memories of mortality mixed with heightened responses heretofore unimaginable. A whirlwind of ecstasy ribboned inside her, lifting her to dizzying heights that stretched every sense into a taut, quivering wire of rainbow extremes. The myriad colors stretched tighter and tighter until they snaked around Tucker as well, his wrists, ankles, arms, and eyes. They re wove themselves into a solid arc of joy that arched from one heart to the other and back again.

Time retreated, ashamed at becoming a simple bystander, as they were pulled higher and farther away from all constraints of the physical. The church held them loosely in the arms of sanctity and in that holy silence of bodies joined, love laid its claim on the future. A wave of pleasure crashed over them, so intense it burned like fire, and Tucker melted into her with a groan and she blazed around him, trembling as her body took him deep within. And then it was done. Time rushed heedless into the void that had been created. She fell onto him, and he held her tightly in silence.

At last his back started hurting from the position and he pushed her gently to the side. "Good Lord." He thought about it a minute. "Think it's sacrilegious to, you know, do it in a church?"

She shook her head. "I don't think He would mind very much."

Tucker's eyes started sliding closed, but he fought against it.

She traced the tips of her fingers against the stubble of his cheek. "Tucker?"

She arched her eyebrow. "I think I might go grab a bite to eat."

He sat bolt upright. "A human?"

"No," she responded, "but maybe I could do an animal of some kind, one that would die soon anyway..." her voice trailed off.

"Can't you just have a cigarette or something?"

"I thought you were trying to help me quit."

"Yeah, well that was before."

"It's just that I feel so alive right now."

"Well you ain't," he grumbled matter-of-factly, rolled over onto his shoulder and pulled his jacket over him. Rex, who had watched their writhing with typical disdain, curled up against him. "You're dead," Tucker said.

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