Heian didn't draw her.
He consumed her with his eyes first.
Liora lay still on the chaise, her soaked slip clinging to every curve like a second skin begging to be peeled. Her breath was shallow, but not nervous. Instead, she breathed like someone on the edge of being baptized—or sacrificed.
Heian circled her in silence. Charcoal in hand, sketchbook ready, but he hadn't made a single mark.
"Why haven't you started?" she asked, her voice slicing softly through the quiet.
He didn't answer. He crouched beside her instead, watching the pulse at her neck, the slight parting of her lips, the glint of defiance hiding in her surrender.
Then he whispered, "Because if I begin, I might not stop until you disappear into me."
He finally drew. A single line. Then another. A curve of her thigh. The hollow just below her collarbone. Not perfect, not accurate—intimate. This wasn't anatomy; this was exposure.
Liora's eyes fluttered shut.
She imagined the lines. Knew what he was doing to her without touching her. Every stroke on the paper felt like it was being etched into her skin.
"You're not painting me," she said.
"No," Heian murmured, "I'm undressing your soul."
He put down the sketchbook. The charcoal left a streak across his palm as he reached out. His fingers grazed her cheek. Then her jaw. Down to the soft dip of her throat. She didn't move. She didn't stop him.
When he reached the strap of her slip, he paused.
"Do you want me to?" he asked. Not for permission—
—for surrender.
Liora turned her head, pressing her lips against the inside of his wrist.
"I came here to be used, Heian. Make art of me. Break me into pieces you can frame."
That was it. The first stroke had already been drawn.
Now came the ruin.
He pulled the strap down slowly. The fabric slipped, revealing her shoulder, the gentle slope of her breast. His hands weren't soft, and she didn't want them to be.
He kissed her collarbone—not with love, but with need.
And she arched, not from pleasure—
—but because she had been claimed.