Late night. Aria is painting in silk pyjamas. Rael enters first… then Kai. Then Zavian. They don't touch her at first. They just… look.

She felt them before she saw them.

The soft click of Rael’s lighter. The sharp scent of Zavian’s cologne. The dead-silent intensity of Kai.

Aria’s brush paused mid-stroke.

“Keep painting,” Kai said, voice low. “Don’t stop unless we say.”

Her fingers trembled around the brush, but she obeyed. She always did. At least, until they made her beg to disobey.

Rael was the first to touch.

Two fingers beneath her jaw. Tilting her chin up. “Look at me,” he murmured. “Eyes on me while you finish.”

She tried to focus on the canvas. But Kai was behind her now, untying her robe like it was his right. Because it was.

Silk slid down her shoulders, baring her skin to the cold room. Her nipples peaked instantly.

Zavian knelt.

She gasped when his tongue traced the dip of her spine, slow, reverent. Her body jerked.

“I said paint,” Kai growled.

Rael caught her wrist, steadying her. “Good girl. Almost done.”

But how could she focus when Zavian's mouth was on the back of her thigh? When Kai was biting her neck and whispering, “You smell like sin and turpentine.”

Rael took the brush from her hand the moment the final stroke landed.

“Now,” he said, “we paint you.”

Three sets of hands grabbed her. Lifted her. Laid her on a velvet chaise.

Zavian poured black ink down her chest, letting it drip between her breasts.

Rael dipped his fingers in it, and began to write across her stomach.

Kai undid his belt.

“Ready?” he asked, though it wasn’t really a question.

And Aria, blushing, breathless, already soaked, whimpered, "Please...paint me, yours."

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