I feel seen.
I feel healed.
“I feel beautiful when you look at me.”
“And ye are,” he says, kissing me again. “So fecking beautiful.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
In which there is fire, and skin, and sex.
Scarlett…
The platform under me is solid and immobile as I climb on to it, stretching out face down, the leather cool against my cheek. There are straps there for restraints, but Wallace unhooks them, throwing them aside.
“Do ye remember your safe word?”
“Fever.” It comes out as more of a croak, but he accepts it.
“Good. So good for me.”
He soothes me for a while, the way you would a spooked horse, gentling me.His calloused fingertips run down my spine, gently smoothing over my ass and down my legs. I can hear him dipping something in the water, and the rustle of a glove, the process repeated twice more, and then I smell the acrid scent of rubbing alcohol. The warmth of a candle close to my skin. Wallaceleans down to kiss my neck, gently nipping at the taut tendon there, betraying my anxiety.
“Do ye trust me, Little Cinder?”
I know he’s giving me one last chance to back out, so I turn my head, giving him a smile that is part shaky, part sultry. Kissing his hand not wearing the glove, I force myself to be still. There’s a small “whoosh!” as the candle sets the glove on Wallace’s hand aflame. My muscles turn to concrete as he runs it up my spine, just as he’d done with his bare hand. I could feel the heat of the fire, almostfeelthe pores on my skin slam shut in anxiety.
But as he runs the fiery glove over the globes of my ass, the feverish bite on my skin feels strangely arousing, my hips move slightly on their own accord as the glove passes by. Gently parting my legs, he chuckles as my knees try to slam shut on their own. A brisk slap on the thin skin of my inner thigh spreads them back open.
I trust him... I trust him- AH!
My frantic inner monologue is cut short as the glove is re-lit and swoops its way up my calf and over the delicate skin leading to my center. I bite my lower lip hard, trying to stop my sputtering nerve endings from twitching away from the sweep of the glove.
This pass of Wallace’s blazing hand hurts a little more. Not terribly, but enough to feel a bite, the sting of the alcohol, the brief spreading heat of the flame. I remember how it looked on the table that night on the terrace, dancing and swirling its way onto Wallace’s arm.
He’s hugely hard, his cock pressing against my hip as the blaze lingers just over my pussy, then vanishes.
“Take a breath. Do ye need to stop?” He’s crouched down by my face, pushing little, sweaty strands of hair off my forehead.
“Is there more?”
“Dark places,” he says, like he did in the tunnels. “For doing dark deeds.” Oh, that smile. It promises the most dangerous, delicious things, his full lips drawn over even white teeth. His incisors are pointier, more like a wolf’s grin.
Wallace puts his hand just under the crease of my ass and squeezes. “I dinnae think ye have ever looked more beautiful, my sweet, perfect lass. The light of the flame on your body makes ye…incandescent.”He kisses me appreciatively as his hands move to my hips.
Not understanding, I move to stand up, and he shakes his head. His eyes glow with an utterly diabolical light. “Oh, we’re not done, love. Roll over onto your back.” He chuckles darkly as myeyes widen, and I slowly roll over, trying to arrange suddenly shaky arms and legs to stretch over the platform, looking and feeling more like some pagan sacrifice.
“Look to your left.”
Idolook like a pagan sacrifice.
There’s a mirror stretching across that side of the room, angled so I can see everything, the long line of my body over the platform, my pale skin. Wallace is beautifully, brazenly naked and his gaze meets mine.
“Dinnae take your eyes off your reflection. Do ye understand me?” he says, stroking the soft skin of my stomach.
“I understand,” I say, mouth dry.
He sheds the gloves, and I watch as he picks up a thick piece of gauze and applies the rubbing alcohol to the fabric. A thin, high-pitched shriek nearly leaves my lips as Wallace gracefully runs a long streak of the liquid down my thigh, instantly touching the candle to it. The blue flame leaps from my leg and dies down almost instantly with a swipe of his hand. This way definitely leaves more of a sting with the heat, and I’m strangely fascinated with the glow that moves over my bare skin. Running a longer streak down the length of my other leg, the flame touches again.
