Desire Howard lives by precision. A true Virgo, she thrives on structure, solitude, and the kind of peace only a blank canvas can bring. But after a devastating fire destroys her childhood home and the early paintings that defined her, Desire loses more than just art. She loses her creative soul.
Now, months later, her once-thriving studio is surviving off old work and gallery appearances she no longer connects to. Desire paints nothing new. Feels nothing real. Until the night she meets Onyx Bradford, a stranger as dark and mysterious as the sculpture he anonymously donates to a silent auction.
Onyx is everything she avoids: unfiltered, chaotic, and emotionally dangerous. He doesn’t ask to be painted, he tells her she will. And when she finally does, Desire finds her spark returning… but only when he’s near.
As their sessions intensify, Onyx becomes both her muse and her undoing. Her brush obeys only when his presence is close. His truths unravel her walls. But behind his sharp eyes lies a man whose world is littered with secrets, violence, and shadows that follow him like ghosts.
Desire doesn’t do unpredictable. Onyx doesn’t do controlled women. But between broken trust, raw desire, and an act of sabotage that nearly ruins her comeback, they’ll have to confront the truth: Maybe the muse isn’t the one you paint, but the one who forces you to face yourself.