Chapter Four #3
Kaos studied her profile, his instincts to touch her becoming sharp. “I’m not an angel,” he said, sneaking in the confession. He realized he wanted her to know the truth about him. About all of him.
She returned her face to his, filled with her smile. “You are,” she assured lightly, as if her belief made it so. “An angel who needs to learn how to live a little.”
Kaos stared at her. “I’m trying.”
Jaxi bumped her shoulder lightly against his. “And I’m here for it.” She patted his hand on his thigh. “I’ll see that you learn to fly.”
Kaos let the moment breathe until her eyes left him for the window. “I’ve only ever guarded one woman before you.”
Her face returned, brows lifted. “Seriously?”
He nodded once.
She leaned forward slightly. “Okay, now I’m curious. Was she royalty? A criminal? Some kind of cosmic VIP?”
Kaos’s hand slowly curled into a fist on his thigh as he sorted through various descriptions. “She was a special girl.” A lot like you. “She was bonded to me. But my presence became a threat.”
Jaxi’s brows lifted slightly. “Bonded? Like…”
“Like a contract,” he said, not wanting her to think marriage even though it was technically that exactly.
Her expression settled a little before getting curious. “Protect her from what?”
He stared ahead now. “From me.”
Her silence finally drew his gaze to her confused one. “My presence became dangerous,” he further explained.
“To her?”
“Yes.”
“But you were guarding her.”
He realized he was back to that bond. “We were connected,” he said carefully.
Her head tilted, more confused. “How, exactly?”
Yes. How exactly.
“Actually, don’t tell me,” she said quickly, swiping the air with her hand. “I might get jealous .”
She said it like a promise, and he immediately longed for it.
She gave a soft chuckle. “You’re really not going to answer that, huh?”
He glanced out the window, tapping his finger against his leg.
She let out a playful groan. “Okay, next question. Was she prettier than me?”
This fucking humanity .
He turned slightly toward her, weighing the words. “She was… exceptionally unique.”
Jaxi blinked, then drew back with a mock squint. “Let me guess. Star-crossed lovers? She fell for her silent protector, and it all went up in flames?”
Kaos searched for an exit out of the topic. “You would never guess right.”
“Try me,” she nudged, half-grinning. “Enemies-to-lovers complicated? Or like, she tried to stab you, and you still made her coffee?”
Kaos shifted slightly, the weight of her question stretching between them as he faced her.
She arched a brow. “So, definitely not breakfast. Noted.”
Kaos leaned back slightly, tracing her silhouette in silence. “You’re not pretty.”
Her smile faltered, breath catching.
“You’re beautiful,” he added, letting the truth land without defense. “A universal difference.”
She blinked, her jaw dropped a little. “So… I’m… pretty like her?”
“Galaxies apart. She’s nothing like you, you’re nothing like her.”
She wrinkled her nose, suspicious. “So that means what? She was a star system and I’m... the houseplant?”
Kaos watched her in silence for a moment, taking in the wild softness of her. “No,” he said quietly. “You’re something that earth painted… to seduce heaven.”
Her jaw dropped open just slightly, blinking at him in silence.
He looked out the window again. “That’s what I meant.”
She didn’t speak, and neither did he. His hand flexed once on his thigh before his voice cut the quiet.
“Did you touch them so freely?”
Her brows pulled together. “Touch who?”
“The men in your life. Did you touch them the way you do me? Without restraint. Without invite.”
She stiffened a little, face coloring. “Oh. I—sorry. I’ll learn to keep my hands to myself.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
She hesitated, then gave a quieter, more sincere, “No. Definitely not.”
He let the truth settle between them before adding, “You have questions for me. I can have questions for you?”
She nodded slowly, something playful lighting in her eyes. “Fair is fair. Why did you want to know?”
He studied her, watched the way her gaze flicked between his eyes and mouth. “I’m curious about you.”
“Because of your job?”
“No.”
“Because you’re just nosy?”
He considered the term. “No.”
She leaned closer with a teasing whisper. “Because you’re obsessed with me?”
He weighed his words carefully, realizing their power. “Curious about what’s mine to care for.”
She blinked, then frowned. “You mean your job.”
He turned his head, eyes narrowing slightly. “No. I mean with the girl who walks like temptation dressed in skin. Who laughs about secrets I’m supposed to chase, and touches like she already owns me.”
She turned toward him again, tucking one leg under the other as she studied him. Her lips parted slightly, gaze dazed and fixed on him. “Do you practice those lines in the mirror, or do they just fall out of you like magic?”
He didn’t flinch. “I’m learning.”
“Learning to speak human? Or angel?”
He studied her. The way she smiled, talked, filled the silence. It reminded him of a time in death—trapped, drifting, losing self—until a voice reached him. A queen’s voice. Rambling and endless and alive.
Like Jaxi’s.
But where the Queen’s voice had tethered him to something beyond himself, Jaxi’s seemed to tether herself to him.
“Something like that,” he said, turning to the window when their stare became a burning torment. A prison where he wanted to kiss her with his soul and never stop.