Jamais Vu

Chapter 5

As the couple rode back up to the eighth floor, Nessa's terror returned in a wave. What if Dan couldn't see the little old lady, but she could? Or worse – what if the lady couldn't see Dan? Would that be definite proof that he was imaginary?

He doesn't feel imaginary. Dan still held her in the elevator, warm and real. Nessa ran her fingers around his back between his jacket and his shirt, and she was rewarded with his shiver of pleasure. Silently, he lifted her other hand to his lips then kissed the back of her knuckles, and her skin prickled in bliss. She didn't have the capacity to imagine sensation like this; she'd never experienced it before to even have a basis of comparison.

A mad urge enveloped Nessa's mind. As the elevator doors opened up and let them out, she tugged Dan to a stop against a corridor wall. "Wait," she said breathlessly. "If this is all a coma vision or emotional delusion-"

"It's not," he said, running his hands through her hair.

"If it is, then I'm just going to take a selfish moment and enjoy it." Without waiting for his response, she pulled his face down to hers and kissed him.

Wham. Just like the first time, that hadn't felt like a first time at all, Nessa's universe shifted. This wasn't a kiss, it was a mingling of their souls. Her lips were alive with sensation as his tongue pressed forward against hers. A small, hopeless noise escaped her, the sound of a woman who was falling freely.

Dan's hands crept up under the hem of her loose tank, finding bare skin. The mere touch of his fingers against her belly, and she was rocked with desperate desire. Her hands clutched in his hair as she slid a leg between his, intertwining them like vines on a wall.

Dan understood her invitation, grabbing her waist and lifting her easily. Her legs wrapped tightly around his waist as she tried to imprint herself upon him, that real or not, this moment might have a lasting effect.

Their kisses deepened, melting between scorching and needful, to sweet and soulful. Nessa's body began to whirl like a centrifuge, and she gasped as Dan's mouth suddenly moved to her neck, trailing a line of burning kisses down to her collarbone. "Dan..."

He groaned, dropping his head backwards. "God, Nessa, when you say my name like that..." Gently, he lowered her to the ground. "We need to take this inside, before we scare the neighbours."

"Okay," she said nervously. She cared very little if her university professor came bursting out of his door and began to swat them with a newspaper for acting like randy teens in public. She cared deeply if this spell was about to collapse because either the little old lady wasn't real – or Dan wasn't.

He led her down the hall and slid his key into the lock. Nessa held her breath.

But the door opened easily, and instead of the burgundy apartment which smelled like cat pee, the décor from the other night greeted her, the home as familiar as Dan's face. "Oh, thank god," Nessa breathed.

"What?" Dan asked, following her inside and taking her coat.

"It sounds crazy, but I thought I came to your apartment just a few minutes ago, but none of this was here. It was a little old lady with god-awful taste in wallpaper and an ugly yellow cat." She laughed, the fear lifting. "I must have gone to a different place by mistake. I've been really vague lately."

Dan was lowering himself to the couch, and he paused mid-squat to say, "An old lady?"

"Yeah, Mrs. O'Neil? She seemed really sweet."

As she sat beside Dan, she noticed his face, which had gone a strange shade of grey. "Dan, what's wrong?"

"Nessa... What's the date today?"