A/N: Next part up. Other than a couple of minor edits, there's actually no new material in this. No worries though because part 3 is coming up soon. It's kind of funny how quickly I can write when I'm procrastinating at work (not that I do that a lot...). Anyhow, enjoy!

THE PORTRAIT

TWO

Nibelheim, 1710

Tifa Lockhart was a fool.

At least that was the constant refrain in her head after her narrow escape and subsequent flight from the infuriating Duke of Arrogant in the drawing room. Her skin tingled, her cheeks—and some other unnamable parts of her as well—flushing with heat just thinking about the encounter with who must be the most irresistible man alive.

And she who prided herself on her good sense and level head found to her miserable surprise that he wasirresistible, even to her. Because if she were honest with herself, and she liked to think that she usually was, the truth was that if Cloud hadn't stopped, she didn't think she would have put up any real resistance.

Dear lord, what was happening to her? One kiss was all it took to steal away all her good sense?

But goodness, what a kiss it was!

If he had come with fire and force, perhaps she would have still had the presence of mind to refuse. After all, he was not the first suitor who'd tried to press unwelcome advances—she cringed slightly in acknowledgement that his advances were not quite unwelcome—on her. She was quite adept at fending them off, a feat that usually involved a well-aimed knee to a certain unmentionable male body part.

No, Cloud Strife didn't overwhelm her by physical force nor did he come at her against her will. That, she scolded herself, was the worst part. She'd practically begged for him to ravish her. He'd seduced her with feather light touches that had her aching for more pressure, more friction, more something and she recalled with a hot blush that she'd actually followed his mouth eagerly when he'd pulled back a fraction of an inch.

She thought she'd felt his lips spread into a smirk at this point, but she was already too far gone to care that she'd fallen into his trap.

Oh, but what a glorious trap it was!

His kisses were a scorching temptation that drugged her more thoroughly than all the opium in the world. They lit a fire in her that threatened at every moment to suddenly burst into a raging inferno. He teased and taught her lips and tongue to move and dance in ways she'd never even dreamed and all she could do was moan for more.

Her whole body felt flushed at the recollection.

Before, she'd never quite understood the obsession with Cloud that ran rampant throughout the aristocracy. She certainly knew now his appeal to the female sex; perhaps that should be termed danger, really.

If she hadn't seen him and experienced it for herself, she would have never believed that Cloud Strife was capable of rendering a usually sensible woman so completely undone simply by virtue of a single kiss.

After all, she'd practically grown up with him. Their mothers were best friends, and they'd often spent their summers together in the country. Of course she'd noticed when he started growing into his limbs and his face, which had always had an ephemeral beauty to it, hardened into the sculpted splendor of a man, but it was with the somewhat detached curiosity of a sister noticing a brother becoming, God forbid, attractive to the opposite sex, not through the eyes of a grown woman that relished such masculine perfection.

Their ways parted when she was thirteen and he eighteen; Cloud had gone to study at the reputable SOLDIER institution, and she had remained in Nibelheim, supposedly in training to be a proper lady of society. At times her mother despaired that she would never grow out of her unladylike ways, what with the shooting, the hunting, and—the revered Countess of Nibelheim once nearly fainted at the mention—riding horseback astride. Fortunately, her mother acknowledged that, and for which Tifa rejoiced, Tifa possessed an innate grace that allowed her to skimp on many a lesson on decorum in favor of the decidedly less ladylike pursuits aforementioned.

Seven years passed and in the interim Tifa and Cloud had exchanged the occasional letter, but with distance and time between them, the letters grew increasingly formal. Tifa thought it a shame, but acknowledged sensibly that it was only natural. It wasn't as if they could just romp together in the fields any longer. (The mental image of romping in the fields with the current Cloud Strife had her all a-tingling once again.)

Imagine her surprise when, at the largest ball of the year, the most gorgeous man there was none other than her childhood friend Cloud Strife and not only that, he seemed intent on capturing the favor of herself.

Initially she was flattered, and not just a little bit smug that the most eligible but elusive bachelor would choose her, but it became clear that he had already made an arrangement with her parents that they would marry within the season.

Then she was simply angry. She knew exactly why he was offering for her now. She was a logical choice, a convenient one, she reflected bitterly. Her bloodlines were impeccable, her dowry considerable, and she was not humble enough to deny her beauty. There was also the little added benefit that he'd known her practically since birth and therefore knew that she would never stray from her marriage vows, a welcome though rare asset in a society where fidelity was seen as superfluous.

The reminder of his cold-blooded arrangement for their marriage rekindled her ire. Did he think to woo her so easily with a single (well, perhaps their encounter numbered slightly more than that), measly (she was actively lying to herself now) kiss? He would dare to try to seduce a favorable response from her?

Fie on him! He'll learn better than to underestimate a Lockhart.

Midgar, 2010

It was a strange feeling, being able to move his limbs again. Three hundred years was a long time to have one's soul trapped in a portrait after all.

Unconsciously, Cloud kept on flexing and wriggling his fingers, pleasantly delighted each time his digits responded nimbly and in automatic accordance with his commands. It amazed him to think how much he had taken for granted. Three hundred years of only being able to rely on two senses, his hearing and his sight, gave him a new appreciation for the ones he'd been deprived of these long, slow years.

Ridiculous as it was, he even relished the arid stink of garbage that pervaded the back alley behind the bar. If he could take joy in even the worst of odors, he could only imagine the ecstasy he would find in breathing in her personal aroma. Of course, smell was not the only sense he intended to explore her with.

His eyes, having already burned into his visual memory the delicate lines of her beauty, teased him with the knowledge that her skin was probably just as soft as it looked. His ears taunted him with thoughts of what her naturally husky tones, which already spoke to him melodies of an innate sensuality tempered with sweet innocence, would sound like moaning his name.

But it was not enough to only see and hear her. He had to touch her, smell her…taste her. Oh yes, taste…perhaps his favorite sense of all.

It pleased him to think that her lips would taste the same even after three hundred years. If anything, that deliciously sensual mouth of hers was more potent than ever, and he hadn't even sampled her in reality yet. His body burned just at the thought of her.

"You are certain that it is wise to confront her here?"

The deep voice interrupted his salacious thoughts and Cloud Strife turned to his companion. Vincent Valentine, as he was known now, was a stoic sort, all dark hair and dark clothes and dark everything save for his skin, which boasted a shade so pale white, it sometimes looked translucent.

Cloud had long ago given up trying to determine which of the two of them had been betrayed more grievously, but the end results were much the same. While Cloud had been doomed to an eternity bound to a portrait, Vincent had been damned to forever wander the earth as something not completely human. It was little wonder they became friends; it had been the same man who'd destroyed both their lives.

That, and for reasons still unknown to both of them, Vincent had been the only one able to communicate with Cloud on that ethereal plane that existed somewhere between dreams and reality these past three hundred years until she finally appeared.

He couldn't decide what he was feeling now that she was finally here. For the first hundred years after his curse, he'd despaired of her never showing up. He'd raged and raged and plotted his revenge with single-minded ruthlessness. Consumed with hatred, it had been Vincent's calming presence that finally taught him to do more with his time than hatch plans of a vengeance that would likely never happen. Over the next two hundred years, he redirected his burning passion toward learning. Vincent had procured his portrait long ago and done him the great favor of hanging him in the great halls of his mansions or in the stately rooms of his museums. Always though, it was in a place where he would be able to hear the lectures on the newest theories on politics, science, economics, and so on. If he had thought himself learned as a duke, he realized now that he was ignorant.

"What are you in this lifetime again?" he questioned the tall man with long dark hair, seemingly ignoring his earlier question.

If Vincent was confused by the turn in conversation, he did not show it. "You know very well that I am the curator of the museum in which your portrait was housed."

Cloud made an amused sound. "Appropriate. The never-dead acting as guardian over the remnants of the dead."

He breathed in the stench once again and closed his eyes in anticipation. Three hundred years. He couldn't decide whether he should seek vengeance or satisfaction first. Perhaps a little of both, he mused as he rubbed chapped lips in remembrance of the searing brand of her lips. Yes, both will do nicely.

"No, I will not confront her here. But I will make certain that she is…aware. After all, I should think that my bride will be happy to see me alive and well. Don't you?"

Vincent did not answer but he did not need to. The dark smile on Cloud's face said it all. Cold he may be, but even Vincent felt a pang of unease for the unknowing girl. She might as well have sold her soul to the devil for Cloud will not let her go this time.

…

Tifa wondered if she might be going insane.

It was one thing to have an overactive imagination which saw her ravished beyond her senses by a man in a portrait three hundred years old, but it was an entirely other thing to see that same man—living, breathing, real—following her wherever she went.

He was standing in the shadows watching her with that unsettling intense gaze when she made small talk with the bartender, and he hovered at the fringe of her vision when she tried to shake off the weight of his stare on the dance floor. She could have sworn she'd felt his touch burning across her bare shoulders sometimes but when she turned to see, he was never there. It was driving her crazy. Or maybe she was already crazy and he was a figment of her imagination?

But no. Yuffie had noticed him too and teased her mercilessly about his singular attention to her. Tifa didn't go out much, so Yuffie was always trying to find reasons she should. Apparently, hot men with stalker-ish tendencies fell under "reasons to go out." Tifa didn't quite get the logic in that.

He was such a persistent shadow all night, she was somewhat surprised to find her apartment empty when she finally went home frustrated and strangely restless. For a while she kept on jumping at the shadows and freezing at the slightest sounds, and every time she berated herself for being so foolish. Tifa considered herself a rational woman at heart, so by the time she finished her nightly routine, she was already laughing at herself for being so paranoid. Slipping into her small but comfortable bed, she fell into sleep's embrace quickly, her mind blissfully free of any dark strangers.

She was happy too early for he was in every one of her dreams that night.

They came in successive bursts, an endless assault on her subconscious that had her alternately squirming with desire and cowering in shame. It was a strange contrast, those dreams. Some proved so sensually addictive that it made her heated body writhe against her bed sheets. But for every sweet imagination (or was it a memory?), there followed quickly after another of horror. Those cooled her ardor as quickly as the fantasies of his touch fired it.

Because in those other dreams, she'd betrayed him.

Ohgodohgodohgod, what had she done? She hadn't wanted this. She never wanted this! Give him back, give him back, give him back, damn it!

"Why, Tifa?" his eyes accused her. She had no answer.

Selfish. She was selfish and she thought herself so clever in dodging their betrothal. Manipulated and fooled, she sold his soul, something not even hers to sell. But the worst part was that she hadn't trulywanted to break off their impending and inevitable marriage; she'd just wanted it to happen on different terms—her terms. She hadn't wanted a marriage of convenience; she'd wanted love.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry! Cloud…

All she managed to do was doom him to an eternal hell.

His screams of agony reverberated around, within, her and she clutched her head in pain.

In the end, she was left with nothing. No, it was worse than nothing. She owed a debt, one that could not be repaid with even a lifetime.

Give him back! Please, give him back to me. Please…

His eyes—anguished and betrayed—kept flashing before her, mocking her for her stupidity.

Maniacal laughter. "It is done, my Lady. As you had wished."

No, no, NO! She didn't wish. She didn't! Give him back! She just wanted him back.

Hot tears spilled from her sleeping eyes and her fingers clenched white against the sheets.

"It is done." The voice of a madman rang in her ears.

She dropped to her knees, a pistol suddenly clutched in her hand.

BANG!

She woke with a start, lungs fighting desperately for air while tears and sweat ran mingled down her cheeks.

The hand came out of nowhere to force her against a hard chest. "So you begin to remember, do you, my sweet?"

Her scream pierced the air.