🔥 Exclusive Bonus: The Commission 🔥

A bonus chapter for Wet Paint

Thank You for Reading! 💜

You made it to the bonus content—which means you’ve experienced Victoria and Jax’s journey from strangers to soulmates. This scene takes place one year after the epilogue, when a very special commission gives them both a reason to revisit where it all began…

The Commission

One Year After the Epilogue

“Absolutely not.”

Victoria looked up from her laptop, eyebrow raised. Jax was standing in the doorway of their loft, phone in hand, expression thunderous.

“Problem?”

“Helen Ashworth wants to commission a piece.” Jax crossed to the kitchen, yanked open the refrigerator with unnecessary force. “A private piece. For her bedroom.”

Victoria set down her laptop. Helen Ashworth was one of the most prominent collectors in New York—old money, excellent taste, and a notorious appetite for provocative art. She’d purchased three pieces from the CORPUS collection and two from AMALGAM.

“What kind of piece?”

“She wants me to paint you.” Jax emerged with a beer, twisted off the cap. “Again. But this time, she wants to watch.”

Victoria’s breath caught.

“She offered two hundred thousand dollars,” Jax continued, taking a long pull from the bottle. “For the experience. Said she wanted to see the ‘creative process’ up close. Said she’d stay perfectly silent, perfectly still, wouldn’t interfere at all.”

“And you said no.”

“Of course I said no.” Jax’s eyes were dark. “You’re not a performance. What we do isn’t—it’s not for anyone else.”

Victoria stood slowly, crossed to where Jax was leaning against the counter. She took the beer from her hand, set it aside, and stepped into her space.

“What if I wanted to?”

Jax went very still. “What?”

“Not for Helen.” Victoria traced a finger down the center of Jax’s chest, over the soft cotton of her tank top. “For us. What if I wanted you to paint me again? Really paint me—the way you used to. Canvas and skin and hours of your hands on my body.”

“Victoria—”

“I miss it.” She looked up, met Jax’s eyes. “Don’t you? Those sessions were… they were everything. Being your canvas. Feeling you see me.”

Jax’s throat worked. “I see you every day.”

“Not like that. Not with paint on your hands and that look in your eyes—like you’re studying me, discovering me, claiming me with every brushstroke.” Victoria’s voice dropped. “I want to feel that again. I want you to make me your art.”

The silence stretched between them, electric and charged.

“No audience,” Jax said finally, her voice rough.

“No audience.”

“No commission.”

“No commission.” Victoria smiled. “Just us. Just because.”

Jax pulled her in, kissed her hard. When she pulled back, her eyes were blazing.

“Tonight,” she said. “After dinner. I need to prepare.”

“Prepare what?”

Jax’s smile was slow and dangerous. “You’ll see.”

Victoria couldn’t eat.

They’d ordered Thai—their usual—but she pushed pad see ew around her plate, too aware of Jax across the table, too aware of what was coming. Jax, annoyingly, ate with perfect calm, occasionally catching Victoria’s eye with a look that made heat pool low in her belly.

“Nervous?” Jax asked, setting down her chopsticks.

“No.”

“Liar.” Jax’s smile was fond. “Your tell is showing.”

“I don’t have a tell.”

“You’re tapping your finger against your glass. You do it when you’re anticipating something.” Jax stood, came around the table, and pulled Victoria to her feet. “Come on. I’ve got everything set up.”

The studio corner of their loft had been transformed. The platform was back—draped in a white sheet that glowed in the golden light of a dozen candles scattered across every surface. On the table beside it, Jax had laid out her supplies: jars of body-safe paint in colors Victoria remembered—ultramarine, cadmium red, titanium white—plus several she didn’t recognize. Brushes of every size. A pitcher of water. And a large canvas, propped on an easel, stark white and waiting.

“Two canvases tonight,” Jax said, coming up behind her, hands settling on Victoria’s hips. “You. And that.”

“How does that work?”

“I paint on you. Then I press you to the canvas. The imprint becomes the piece.” Jax’s lips brushed her ear. “It’s called a body print. Very intimate. Very… involved.”

Victoria shivered. “And you’ll be—”

“Painting every inch of you that will touch that canvas. Front. Back.” Jax’s hands slid lower, squeezed. “Everywhere.”

“Oh.”

“Strip for me.” The command was soft but absolute. “On the platform. Like before.”

Victoria’s fingers trembled as she reached for the hem of her silk blouse. She’d dressed simply tonight—intuiting, perhaps, that whatever she wore wouldn’t be on for long. The fabric slithered off her shoulders. Her skirt followed. She unhooked her bra, slid off her underwear, and climbed onto the platform, standing in the candlelight like an offering.

Jax circled her slowly, eyes dark with something that was part artist, part predator.

“God, you’re beautiful.” She stopped in front of Victoria, reached up to trace the line of her collarbone. “After all this time, you still take my breath away.”

“Jax—”

“Lie down. On your back. Arms above your head.”

Victoria lowered herself to the sheet, stretched her arms overhead, and felt the familiar vulnerability wash over her. Exposed. Open. Completely at Jax’s mercy.

She’d never felt safer in her life.

Jax knelt beside her, dipped a brush into the ultramarine blue. “Close your eyes. Don’t open them until I say.”

Victoria obeyed.

The first stroke was cold—a shock of sensation that made her gasp. Jax painted a line from Victoria’s throat to the hollow between her breasts, slow and deliberate.

“The blue first,” Jax murmured. “For the foundation. For trust.”

More strokes followed—over her shoulders, down her arms, across her ribcage. The paint warmed as Jax worked, but each new application brought another cold kiss, another sharp intake of breath. Victoria lost track of where Jax was painting, lost track of time itself. There was only sensation: the soft pressure of bristles, the cool glide of pigment, the warmth of Jax’s breath whenever she leaned close.

“You’re doing so well.” Jax’s voice was low, reverent. “So still for me. So perfect.”

The praise sparked through Victoria’s nerve endings, made her clench around nothing. She was already wet—embarrassingly, achingly wet—and Jax hadn’t even touched her where she needed it most.

The brush traced the curve of her breast, spiraling inward.

Victoria’s back arched involuntarily.

“Still,” Jax reminded her, and the brush continued its spiral until it reached her nipple—circling once, twice, painting it with cold blue that made Victoria whimper.

Then the other breast. The same treatment. The same maddening slowness.

“Red now.” Jax’s voice had dropped lower, rougher. “For passion. For fire.”

The red was warmer—or maybe Victoria was just so sensitized that everything felt warmer now. Jax painted lines down her stomach, over her hips, along the tops of her thighs. The brush dipped lower, traced the crease where her leg met her body, and Victoria’s breath stuttered.

“Please—”

“Not yet.” But there was a tremor in Jax’s voice. She wasn’t unaffected. “I’m not finished with you.”

The brush moved to Victoria’s inner thighs, painting delicate patterns that made her shake. So close to where she was desperate to be touched. So deliberately avoiding it.

“Jax, please, I need—”

“What do you need?” The brush stilled. “Tell me.”

“Touch me. Please. I can’t—”

“Can’t what?”

“Can’t wait anymore.” Victoria was trembling, her whole body one exposed nerve. “I need you. Please.”

A pause. Then: “Open your eyes.”

Victoria opened them.

Jax was kneeling between her thighs, brush set aside, her expression raw with want. Her tank top was gone—she was in just her sports bra now, her tattooed shoulders gleaming in the candlelight, blue and red paint smeared across her forearms.

“Look at yourself,” Jax said.

Victoria looked down. Her body was covered in swirling patterns—blues and reds intertwining like galaxies, like flames, like the way their lives had tangled together and become something new. She was a masterpiece. Jax’s masterpiece.

“Beautiful,” she breathed.

“You’re always beautiful.” Jax’s hands settled on her thighs, pushed them wider. “But now you’re mine. Marked. Claimed. Everyone who sees this piece will know—” She leaned down, pressed a kiss to Victoria’s hip bone. “—that you belong to me.”

“I do.” Victoria’s voice cracked. “I always have.”

Jax’s mouth moved lower.

The first touch of her tongue was lightning—a bolt of pure sensation that made Victoria cry out, her hips bucking up into Jax’s mouth. Jax held her down, hands firm on her thighs, and licked again, slow and deliberate.

“Oh god—”

“Stay still.” The command vibrated against her. “Don’t smear my work.”

Victoria bit down on a moan, forced herself to stillness even as Jax’s tongue worked her with devastating precision. She knew Victoria’s body like she knew her own palette—every sensitive spot, every rhythm that made her shake. She used that knowledge now, bringing Victoria to the edge with ruthless efficiency.

“Not yet.” Jax pulled back, and Victoria sobbed at the loss. “Not until I say.”

“Please—”

“Turn over. On your stomach.”

Victoria rolled, trembling, and felt Jax’s hands on her back—pressing her flat, arranging her limbs. Then the brush again, cold and wet, painting down her spine.

“White,” Jax murmured. “For surrender. For trust. For the way you give yourself to me.”

The white paint was the coldest yet—or maybe Victoria was just burning hotter. Jax painted her shoulders, her back, the curve of her ass, the backs of her thighs. Every stroke felt like a brand, like a promise, like Jax was writing love letters on her skin.

“I’m going to make you come,” Jax said, setting the brush aside. “And then I’m going to press you against that canvas while you’re still shaking. I want to capture this—you, undone, marked by me, absolutely wrecked.”

“Yes.” Victoria’s voice was barely a whisper. “Yes. Anything.”

Jax’s hand slid between her thighs from behind, finding her slick and swollen. Two fingers pressed inside, and Victoria keened into the sheet.

“That’s it.” Jax’s other hand fisted in Victoria’s hair, pulled her head back just enough to arch her spine. “Let me hear you. Let me feel you.”

She fucked Victoria with deep, steady strokes, her thumb finding her clit, rubbing in circles that made Victoria see stars. The combination of sensation—the paint cooling on her skin, Jax’s fingers inside her, the possessive grip in her hair—was overwhelming.

“Close,” Victoria gasped. “I’m so close—”

“I know.” Jax’s rhythm didn’t falter. “I can feel you. Feel how much you need this. How much you need me.”

“I do. I need you. Only you. Always—”

“Come for me.” The command was steel wrapped in velvet. “Now.”

Victoria shattered.

The orgasm ripped through her like a storm, wave after wave of pleasure that left her sobbing into the sheet, her whole body clenching around Jax’s fingers. She was distantly aware of Jax gathering her up, lifting her, pressing her paint-covered body against the cold canvas—

The shock of it extended her orgasm, the contrast of cold canvas and hot skin, the knowledge that she was leaving her imprint, her pleasure, her surrender on something permanent.

Jax held her there, pressed her harder, ground against her from behind.

“Again,” Jax growled. “Give me another.”

Her hand found Victoria’s clit again, worked her with brutal efficiency, and Victoria was too far gone to resist, too lost in sensation to do anything but surrender to the next wave already building.

“I can’t—”

“You can.” Jax bit down on her shoulder. “You will. Because you’re mine, and I’m not done with you.”

The second orgasm hit even harder than the first—Victoria screamed into the canvas, her knees buckling, paint smearing everywhere as Jax held her through it, fingers never stopping, mouth on her neck, her shoulder, her ear.

“That’s my girl,” Jax whispered. “That’s my beautiful girl.”

Victoria collapsed against the canvas, boneless and wrecked, tears and paint and sweat mixing on her skin. Jax caught her before she could fall, lowered them both to the floor, cradled Victoria in her arms.

“I’ve got you.” Jax’s voice was thick with emotion. “I’ve got you. You were perfect. You’re always perfect.”

Victoria couldn’t speak. Could only press closer, hide her face in Jax’s neck, let herself be held.

After a long moment, she found her voice. “Your turn.”

“You don’t have to—”

“I want to.” Victoria pulled back, met Jax’s eyes. “Let me.”

It had taken months—months of patience and trust and careful negotiation—for Jax to let Victoria touch her. Let herself receive. But she’d learned, slowly, that vulnerability with Victoria wasn’t weakness. It was the deepest kind of strength.

“Okay,” Jax whispered. “Okay.”

Victoria pushed her onto her back, straddled her hips, and reached for one of the paint jars.

“My turn to paint,” she said, and dipped her fingers into the gold.

Later—much later—they lay tangled together on the paint-smeared sheet, exhausted and satisfied and covered in every color Jax owned.

The canvas stood propped against the wall, drying. It was chaos—a riot of blue and red and white, the clear imprint of Victoria’s body at the center, surrounded by smears and handprints where they’d pressed against it again and again throughout the night.

“It’s a mess,” Victoria said, studying it.

“It’s us.” Jax pressed a kiss to her temple. “Beautiful disaster.”

“Are you going to sell it?”

“Never.” Jax’s arm tightened around her. “This one’s private. Just for us.”

Victoria smiled, settled deeper into her embrace. “What will you tell Helen Ashworth?”

“That the commission is complete.” Jax’s smile was wicked. “And the artist isn’t accepting feedback.”

Victoria laughed—bright and unguarded, the laugh she only gave to Jax.

“I love you,” she said.

“I love you too.” Jax kissed her, soft and sweet after all that fire. “The paint’s still wet.”

“It always is.” Victoria pressed her forehead to Jax’s, breathing her in. “That’s how I like it.”

Outside, the city hummed its endless song.

Inside, wrapped in color and love and each other, they were exactly where they belonged.

~ The End ~

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