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He came to her and took the brush from her hand, fingers brushing against hers. It felt like the first step in a dance both of them hadn’t learned yet. He slowly looked around the room before his eyes returned to hers. “Where’s the canvas?”

She held his gaze, lips parting with a smile just crooked enough to soften the weight between them. “My body is the canvas,” she said, swallowing her fears as he stared at her, brush motionless in his hand.

The room seemed to shrink around her words. His throat worked around a sound he didn’t make. He moved toward her then paused beside the shallow dish. He eyed it and dipped the brush into the gold, soaking the bristles. Then he stepped close, standing just inside her breath, where the air between them quaked.

Her breath caught as his eyes drifted downward—lingering at her chest still covered by her arms.

Don’t hide from him.

She forced her arms to lower and his breath rushed out as he stared at her breasts, heavy with anticipation, flush with shame. A sharp flutter lit in her belly at the idea of him starting his painting spree there. She suddenly lifted her elbow between them like a shield. “Elbow,” she whispered again, softer this time. “That’s still on the list.”

****

He studied the angle of her arm, the tension hiding in its curve, the way she offered it like a tether to steady them both. All while the sight of her breasts burned holes in his fears. The brush hovered, gold dripping.

Elbow.

He forced his gaze on the sharp bone and let the bristles kiss it just barely. It felt like one wrong stroke might splinter the moment. Surely reverence had rules.

Color spread slow across her skin. The gold shimmered as it moved beneath his brush, catching light in delicate ripples. She stood steady under his gaze, breath held, letting him explore her. She bravely breathed through it, like she wanted him to believe he could do this. Like she believed it.

He moved the brush again—up, then down, across the gentle slope of her forearm—dragging light, deliberate lines he didn’t know he’d memorized until now. Each stroke slowed his thoughts. Softened the roar in his chest.

This was her idea of him learning her. How did she know he needed to? For the first time since the shower, he didn’t search his humanity for control.

“What are you feeling right now?”

He felt the subtle tremor riding her words. Was it nerves? The same kind twisting through him, making his breath drag and burn beneath the surface? Or was it the way her bare skin demanded more than reverence? His chest ached with it—want, full and sharp, climbing past control. Did she feel that too?

His eyes didn’t leave her skin, jaw shifting once. He remembered the honesty clause he’d first set up with her. “I’m overwhelmed. By how much I want you. By how much I don’t want to fuck this up.”

He moved the brush higher, but his fingers brushed the inside of her wrist—an accident that pulled his breath tight. He stilled, brush suspended midair.

Her breath had hitched and he’d felt it down to his spine.

He let the brush linger above her skin, hovering as if waiting for her to vanish. But she didn’t. She stayed open—bare and trembling and real. He shifted, brought the brush to hershoulder. Gold followed, sliding over bone. A line. A pause. A breath. Then another.

His hand slowed. The brush skimmed her shoulder, each pass gentle, deliberate, asking more than taking. She was being a canvas that pulled the man to the surface, one stroke at a time.

He dipped the brush again, slower. Dragged it across her collarbone—center to shoulder—then let his eyes settle on her breasts—soft curves that tightened his grip on the brush, demanded his focus, and stoked something hot behind his ribs. Her breath snagged under his gaze, caught in the silence thick between them.

She held still. Fierce surrender, chest rising as if her body had chosen him before her mind could catch up. He tracked the flicker in her throat, the shift in her fingers next to her thighs. Every twitch pulled his focus. Every stillness asked him to stay present. He moved lower, brush sweeping along the arc of her bicep. His hand steadied, but the hunger behind it didn’t. He moved down her arm, but his focus had already shifted back to her breasts. Pink peaks tipped tight from cold or anticipation—he didn’t care which. His gaze only cared about studying them, drawn like a tide. The ache that had gripped him in the shower flared sharp behind his ribs. Not just need. Hunger.

His grip shifted. The brush slowed.

“You’rebeautiful,” he murmured, voice caught between wonder and ache.

She gasped. “Okay—stop.”

He froze.

She stepped back, breath stuttering in her chest. “New game,” she hurried, voice lit with something wild. Her fingers brushed hair from her eyes. Sheturned toward the shelves and grabbed something—whatever it was, it wasn’t paint. She didn’t meet his eyes when she faced him. “Your turn to follow.”

****

Jaxi moved quietly, one arm across her chest, and reached for the paint. She didn’t speak. She dipped two fingers into the gold and dragged a smooth arc across her forehead, curving it up over her temples like a coronet. For a princess. Not a queen. She didn’t need to be a queen, a princess was enough.

She knelt on the floor, gaze locked on him. Before she could stop herself, she blurted, “I realize I’m not her.”