Page 25

The water hit his shoulders like judgment.

Too warm. Too soft. Nothing about it could burn away what was gnawing through his chest. He leaned forward, braced his hands on the tile, and let the stream run down his back.

It wasn’t enough. Nothing was. Not the soap, not the silence.

Not the time he thought would give him distance from what Kaos had done. From what he had done.

They told him it had to be done in human form.

To protect the truth. To seal the deception in layers they couldn’t trace.

But nobody told him how to walk into her arms like a man who hadn’t watched her fall for something more than human.

Something perfect. Kaos had taken her first. Claimed her with wings and fire, fangs and prophecy.

The divine standard had already been set—stamped in her moans, her cries, the trembling way she whispered his name like a goddamn vow. And now... she had to have him. Kohl.

His hands fisted against the tile. What did she see when looking at him?

A placeholder? A body with the right shape?

She said she loved Kaos. He was Kaos. And yet not.

She saw them differently. And they were.

Kaos wasn’t just in his blood—he was the blood.

The pulse. The lust he couldn’t always leash.

And yet here he stood, forbidden to borrow a single note of divine knowing, ordered to fumble his way forward like a mortal lover with no knowledge of how to please.

His heart thundered as he lowered his head, letting the shame run down his spine with the water. She would be waiting. She’d bathed. Prepared. Maybe even hoped .

He exhaled roughly and opened his eyes as the stream numbed his skin. He whispered the truth aloud for the first time. “I’m not enough.” The words echoed without rebuttal. Not from the water, not from the walls and not from the god inside him.

Kohl stepped back, water dripping from his body, breath ragged. He would go to her anyway. Not as Kaos. Not as a shadow of something holy. But as a man. And if he failed—if he shattered under the weight of not being divine—then at least he’d do it with her name on his lips.

He dressed in only black lounge pants and stepped into the hallway, heart braced for impact. Jaxi was there, damp hair clinging to her neck, cheeks still pink from her own shower. She looked at him for a long second, something quiet and steady in her eyes.

“I have an idea,” she said simply. “Come with me to the studio.”

He stilled, watching her walk to the door wearing only a thick white bathrobe. “Why?”

She looked over her shoulder, the corner of her mouth lifting just enough to challenge his breath. “Because I want you to explore .” She tossed her head at the door. “Follow me,” she urged. “Bring your curiosity. And maybe a little courage.”

He fell in step behind her, gaze fixed on the back of her neck, where damp strands clung like brushstrokes still drying—rough, imperfect, alive. Each step pulled him deeper into something he hadn’t named yet, but already obeyed. And prayed he’d survive.

****

Jaxi crossed to the center of the room, keeping her back to him—not because she was afraid, but because she knew what he’d been ordered to do.

Knew the man behind her had no inherited knowledge, no divine muscle memory to pull from.

They’d told him he had to come to her in human skin with no skill, no instinct, no edge.

A god hollowed out and forced to be tender.

He’d have to learn everything from scratch and there wasn’t time.

But maybe—if she held her nerve—she could give him a chance to be curious.

To explore. To fail without shame. To be a man without needing to be a myth.

And to see that she was just a girl. A girl that had fantasies about him, the man, before the god.

He needed to know that he was his own god. In human form. And it fell to her to teach him that. Which required lots and lots of nerve. And she had just enough to do it without crying, screaming, or exploding into glitter.

She stopped near the spot where she’d painted him before. The mural still whispered to her as her heart did its best hummingbird impression. Kohl stood somewhere behind her—silent and carved from tension. But she felt him. All that sexy gravity with angry opinions.

“No need to talk,” she said lightly, plucking a brush from the mason jar on the table. “You already look like you’re solving quantum physics with your shoulder blades.”

She turned to face him, brush in hand. Her smile came crooked, a little sideways, but it was real. “I thought this might help,” she said gently. “To start with something that asks for presence. And attention.”

The mural was behind him, all shadow and lust and memory. Her stomach tightened at realizing. His first time with her under the stare of a god who’d already taken her. Already known her. Already conquered her with power Kohl wasn’t even allowed to reach for.

She walked in a wide circle till the mural was behind him. “I don’t want you standing in his shadow,” she said softly. “I didn’t bring you here to compare.”

He shifted slightly, jaw flexing. “But now you’re the one looking at him.”

Her pulse skipped a beat at hearing his jealousy.

She hesitated, then crossed to the supply shelf and grabbed a gallon of dark slate paint.

She opened it and poured it in a shallow tray then walked straight to the mural and launched the entire gallon at it.

The splash cracked the silence, thick and final.

Paint ran down Kaos’s face, over his chest, his eyes, his mouth.

She turned back to Kohl, breath catching. “Not tonight,” she said, tossing the empty tray behind her with a clatter and smile. She remembered her original plan and hurried to the paint supplies, selecting a soft gold body paint and emptying it into a fresh tray.

“So tonight, you get to learn me. One stroke at a time.” She stepped back, untied her robe and took a quick breath before letting it fall to the floor.

Oh God, I’m naked and he’s looking.

Breathe. You still have panties.

She spun around, arms forming an X over her breasts.

She took in every ounce of him—the storm behind his eyes, the barely bridled need in his clenched hands, the way his breath caught like he didn’t know where to look.

Vulnerability suited him. It made him more real, more touchable.

She saw the man who never asked to be worshipped, who didn’t expect reverence. Just a chance. And she loved that.

Her right hand cupped her opposite shoulder as she turned and selected a brush from the jar and held it out to him.

“Start anywhere besides the obvious,” she said, voice thin.

“Elbow. Knee. Collarbone. Somewhere that lets you breathe.” Her voice trembled, but she didn’t drop her eyes.

“I trust you,” she said. And she waited—for him to take the brush, or catch his breath, or her heart to remember how to beat.

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.”