Paris, 1874
The smell of oil paints and old wood filled the atelier, mixing with the crisp spring air that drifted through the open windows. The golden haze of late afternoon light filtered across canvases, draping the room in a muted glow that felt almost holy.
Elias dipped his brush in crimson and dragged it along the canvas in a single stroke, his fingers moving as if possessed. He'd never seen her face in waking life, but his hands knew every curve. Each flick of the brush brought her closer. Eyes like warm dusk, lips slightly parted, as if whispering his name through time.
He was painting the same woman again.
She came to him in dreams, always in fragments. In the darkened hallways of his sleep, her touch would linger on his skin like smoke. He didn't know her name, but he knew her scent jasmine and something older, deeper. She was never the same, yet always her.
The clang of the studio door pulled him from his trance.
"She's here," Pierre announced, pushing the door open wider. "The girl you wanted to model. Liora, was it?"
Elias froze, brush mid-air.
"Liora?"
She stepped into the light.
Blue velvet hugged her frame like the fabric had been made solely for her body. Her posture was defiant, chin tilted slightly upward, but her eyes flickered the moment they met his. For a second, the air between them thickened suspended.
Elias swallowed hard.
"Have we met before?" he asked, the words slipping out before he could stop them.
Liora blinked, lips parted in faint confusion. Then she smiled. "I don't think so. I'd remember."
But something shimmered in her eyes. A pause. A flicker of doubt. The kind that lives in the marrow, not the mind.
"You... look like someone I dreamed about," he confessed quietly.
Liora tilted her head, intrigued. "Was I beautiful in it?"
He smiled, a half-sad, half-awed curve of his mouth. "You were devastating."
She laughed lightly, but the sound carried weight, as if her body remembered laughter it hadn't learned yet in this life.
"Where should I sit?" she asked, brushing her fingers across the draped chaise by the window.
He motioned to it without a word.
As she sat, sunlight wrapped around her like a second skin. Elias struggled to look away. His brush trembled in his hand not from nervousness, but from something older. A tremor in his soul.
He positioned her carefully, placing her legs slightly off to the side, her arm draped across the chair's edge. But when his fingers grazed her wrist, their eyes locked.
It was like touching fire.
Liora flinched slightly not from fear, but recognition.
"What was that?" she asked breathlessly.
"I don't know," he whispered. "But I've felt it before."
His fingers lingered on her pulse. It throbbed wildly beneath her skin, mirroring the rush in his own veins.
He stepped back quickly, as if afraid of what might unravel if he touched her again.
That Evening
He couldn't sleep.
The sketch lay before him in charcoal lines, but her image shimmered beyond the page. His hand had captured her likeness, but not her essence not the way her presence made the air taste sweeter, sharper.
He needed more.
She returned in a darker shade of blue. This time, she brought wine.
"I thought artists liked a little indulgence," she teased, uncorking the bottle with a confident twist of her wrist.
He smiled, accepting the glass she offered. Their fingers brushed. Again, the spark.
They drank in silence as he worked, their glances lingering too long, words dissolving before they reached the lips. The silence became thick, sultry, charged.
"Do you believe in déjà vu?" she asked suddenly, eyes fixed on the painting.
"Yes," Elias said without hesitation. "But what I feel with you isn't just déjà vu. It's like my body knows you better than my mind does."
Liora nodded slowly, her expression unreadable. "I've had dreams. Dreams that leave me aching in the morning."
He froze.
"So have I."
She set the glass down. "Do you ever wake up with your hands between your thighs, like your body was finishing something your mind couldn't remember?"
His throat dried.
"Yes."
Liora stood and crossed the room. She wasn't wearing a corset today just the velvet dress, soft and flowing, sensual in its simplicity. She stopped in front of him, her breath mingling with his.
"I want to know what it feels like. Awake," she said.
He didn't ask for permission. He just pulled her close and kissed her like he'd been starving for centuries.
Her lips parted immediately, accepting him like they'd kissed in ten lifetimes before. His hands roamed her back, clutching her like he needed proof that she was real this time. That he wouldn't wake up in his bed alone, drenched in sweat and longing.
She moaned softly, her fingers threading into his hair as their bodies pressed together, heartbeats pounding in chaotic rhythm. He guided her backward toward the chaise.
The velvet caught her skin as she lay down, her dress slipping up her thighs, revealing smooth, pale skin that begged for reverence.
Elias hovered above her, their breath syncing.
"I don't know why I'm drawn to you," he said hoarsely.
"You don't have to. Just don't stop."
She lay draped in the folds of her dress, cheeks flushed, lips bruised from his kisses. He watched her, memorizing the soft rise and fall of her chest, the way her fingers traced lazy circles across her collarbone.
"I think we've done this before," he said quietly.
"I know," she whispered. "And I think we'll do it again."