Page 71 of The Candlemaker

This was insane. I was insane.The way I felt about her was driving me insane.But I didn’t care. I’d go mad if that was the price of one night with her. Or maybe that was the very definition of my madness.

“On the bed,” I growled into her mouth. “Hands above your head.”

I gave her a little push, watching her backpedal until her legs bumped the inflated mattress and she lowered onto the blankets, her gaze never leaving mine as she tipped back.

Fuck.

Hot air hissed through my lips, and I couldn’t help but stare. It wasn’t restraint that paralyzed me, it was reverence.Frankie was fucking gorgeous. Her damp hair clung to her chest like hot honey, the ends sticking to the swells of her breasts. She looked like a damn siren captured straight from the sea, begging for a taste of my world.

I kneeled onto the bed next to her, watching her pink tongue dart out over her lips as her gaze shifted to my cock. The damn thing was right at mouth level for her, the end dripping with how fucking bad I wanted her. My jaw locked. It would be so easy to give it to her. To feed her my swollen length until she choked. But that would be the end of me. A tidal wave of accelerant onto an already uncontrolled wildfire.

“Eyes on me,” I rasped, waiting for her stare to lift before I held the candle over her, high enough so it wouldn’t truly burn her.

“Show me,” she begged softly, her back bowing with how bad she wanted it.

A growl scratched its way from my chest as I slowly tipped the candle. Her breath hitched just as the wax fell, and time suspended just like the molten heat for a second as our eyes connected. There was no going back. No undoing. No unmelting the wax or unlighting the flame.

There was no undoing us.

The wax splattered on her sternum, and time galloped forward again, leading to her sharp gasp at the sensation. My eyes locked on my first mark, watching her skin redden around it, and the force of my groan shook my grip on the candle.

“Beautiful,” I murmured, losing the last threads of my sanity at the sight of her. The dark honey of her hair. The cinnamon peaks of her nipples. The flush of goose bumps across her skin. Desire chewed through my veins like a starving beast. If I wasn’t careful, the next thing that dripped on her would be cum from my painfully hard dick.

“Chandler…”

“Does it hurt?”

“Yes,” she breathed out the word.

I lowered my head slowly, watching her stomach tremble as I got close and blew on the wax to temper it.“Do you like it?”

“Yes.” She arched as she answered, and my body quaked at her responsiveness.

“I see it,” I rumbled. “How flushed you are. How hard your nipples are.” My eyes flicked to the bare skin of her pussy, and I started to salivate. “I wonder how wet it made you…how wet it will make you when I drip this on your tits.”

“Stop wondering and find out,” she dared, and my jaw locked tighter, so fucking tempted to obey.

“Soon,” I promised, holding the candle above her again, but this time so thewax fell onto the slope of her left breast.

The sound she made—a gasp that melted into a moan—made my cock jerk. She was fucking perfect for this. All pale skin and unabashed desire. Her back bowed into the burn, her nipples pebbled so fucking tight, all I wanted was to sink my teeth into them.

“So fucking perfect,” I muttered, letting the wax run closer to the peak before I lowered my head and stopped it with my breath.

With my lips hovering just above her skin, I saw every tremor and tremble of her flesh. Every goose bump and hungry beat of her pulse. And it was all for me. I pushed my fingers into the soft heat of the wax, dragging around the slope of her tit. I painted her skin with the warmth, watching it pebble and pink—watching her tremble and come undone.

“Chandler, please,” she whimpered, and, in my periphery, I caught how her thighs rubbed together. And that was how I missed her hand reaching for my head. I hissed when her fingers curled into my hair and pulled my head toward her.

I gritted my teeth for a fraction of a second, but I couldn’tresist. Not anymore. I cupped the weight of her breast, feeling the wax mold it to my palm as I fed the tight bud of her nipple to my mouth.

“Fuck,” I growled as my teeth hooked her soft flesh first, giving her that bite of pain before I pulled the soft bud between my lips. My deep groan came straight from the marrow of my bones. She tasted like cinnamon—or maybe it was the wax so close that my brain conflated scent with taste. Whatever it was, I couldn’t get enough.

“Yes,” she whimpered and writhed under me when I sucked hard, her hand clutching me tighter, not wanting me to stop.

Every stroke and flick of my tongue made her wild. I slid my hand to her other breast, pinching and teasing it with my fingers to mimic the movement of my mouth. She twisted underneath me, and there was part of me that knew I could make her come like this—knew I could come like this. Just from touching her—tasting her if I didn’t stop now.

Her nipple popped from my lips, and I dragged myself away. “Another time I’ll feast on every inch of you,” I promised, like having more than this night—more than this inn was even a possibility. Isat back on my thighs, my palm grazing across the trembling softness of her stomach, resting there for a beat. “Arms above your head,” I reminded her and sat still until her hand that had slid onto my forearm lifted and returned above her head.

“I want to touch you.” Her eyes flicked down to my cock.

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