Candle Wax and Contract Negotiations

“This is pointless. They’re airtight,” Kenzi muttered under her breath, hands buried in her hair, elbows resting on the obsidian desk in her office.

A slew of contracts and agreements fanned across the desktop, their edges curling as she’d read and reread them a hundred times. In order to gain full control over her music and the direction she went in, she had to give them this last album.

She’d cheekily suggested a greatest hits record, malicious compliance. But no, they’d ensured that didn’t count. The cedarwood and eucalyptus candle she’d bought earlier that day—or was it yesterday now?—flickered, flame almost guttering as she sighed and closed her eyes.

Her chest tightened. Her mind didn’t want to be here. It wanted to replay every moment she’d ever spent naked with Tyler. Not enough for her liking. But her mother’s call after dinner had sent her here, to suffer in reading through her past decisions.

Again. They wouldn’t let her move the deadline. Six weeks stood between her and it. She didn’t want to give them more than they already had. In the beginning, she’d have served up her soul and been happy to bleed for them. But money soon became more important than the artists.

Now, she had one last album to finish, and she could find new pastures. Or do it herself. She had the resources. She had the support. If only she could finish this damned record and get there.

“How about a cover album? Would that work? I’ll even throw in some old demos.”

She directed the questions toward the wall. But she jumped, hand pressed to her chest, and swore aloud when someone answered.

“Do an instrumental album. It worked for Andre3000.”

The door closed with an audible snap as Tyler prowled inside the small room. It abruptly felt even smaller, like she’d rub shoulders with the brick if she breathed too deeply.

A fluttering in her belly, the elevated pulse that thrummed around him, turned her voice low and roughened at the edges.

“That was an incredible body of music. He made that flute sing.”

His mask was gone, hands behind his back, but she heard the leather creaking, and her fingers tapped on the desk to distract her mind from wandering down that path too soon. He wore a tiny little smile, eyes sharp as polished daggers as he arched a brow at her.

She crossed her legs, foot circling the air as his gaze crawled over her freckled face and locked on her smirking mouth. She thought she’d be just fine if her blood stopped flowing, so long as he kept looking at her like he didn’t believe she were real.

She sat with her back to the door, preferring to stare out the window when she spent time here instead of watching the entrance for an intruder. She’d closed the blinds, lit a candle, and sat here tearing her hair out for the past few hours.

Wondering when and how Tyler would arrive tonight. His glove still burned against her breast, warming as he neared. It carried her fragrance now.

The candle’s flame shuddered, cinnamon mixing with its scent as his bare knuckles nudged a stray contract. Her throat thickened as she lifted her chin to meet his sapphire gaze.

Looking for a loophole was now the furthest thing from her mind. Her spine straightened as familiar heat threatened to flash.

He didn’t speak, just hovered over her, his shadow swallowing her whole. Tension, taut and alive, stitched them together. The fine strands vibrating with their synced shallow breaths.

“I didn’t think you’d encourage my childish attempts at rebellion.”

His smile sharpened, tone dry and dark as he said, “I didn’t take you for someone who’d sign her voice away.”

She chuckled bitterly, a muscle feathering in her jaw, and hands fisting so tightly her knuckles ached.

“I was young and dumb. We can’t all be born with a silver Glock in our hands, Callahan.”

He’d told her about his family’s money. How he’d walked away from it. His other hand flattened atop the desk; this one was gloved. She smelled the mint on his whispering tongue.

“Silver’s for amateurs.” He braced his leatherless hand on her headrest, leaning down until his breath ghosted the shell of her ear and trickled down her back. “Real weapons don’t shine.”

She craned her head back, the collar of her blouse lowered enough to show the rusted poppy his teeth had brought to bloom on her throat. His nostrils flared, pupils blowing black.

Embers flamed back to life low in her belly, inner thighs already tingling, overactive brain trying to figure out how he’d ruin her tonight.

She didn’t have time to respond. Glorious.

“You’ve been playing with fire all day, Kenzi.” His leathery thumb brushed her collar, pressing into his mark, rough and deliberate. “Smirking at cameras. Wearing that skirt. Don’t think I don’t notice. I see everything when it comes to you.”

Something restless in her settled. She had a sudden urge to laugh—full on throw her head back and cackle, then bolt from the room just so he had to chase her. Her feet burned to do just that.

Kenzi barely held the impulse in. Heart hammering too loudly in the silent room. His skin smelled warm and clean and spiced. How hadn’t she noticed its potency before they’d given in to the pull between them?

Had her brain blacked out all of that to save her the embarrassment? Save her from losing her fragile grip on her sanity when he was around?

She doubted it mattered. If the treacherous road to fall in love didn’t drive you a little mad. Was it really love? The drama followed her.

Maybe she was the problem. Her therapist was about to make a fortune from their next sessions. First though? She’d let herself enjoy him.

She hooked a finger through his belt loop, tugging him closer. “Did you count the stitches again?”

“Sixteen,” He affirmed, gloved hand sliding beneath said skirt, fingers crawling up her trembling thigh, hiking the hem even higher. “Each one is a crime scene.”

Her legs automatically uncrossed as his fingers teased the waistband of the scant underwear covering her under the denim. She’d been wet since they’d returned home.

Her nipples peaked, rubbing against the fabric of her bra, nerves sparking alight. An emptiness opened inside her. Heat and want quickly took over sense, his hand cupping her through charcoal leather and expensive cream lace.

Her stomach dipped as his finger traced the slick seam of her, hating the thin barrier between them as her breathing hitched. She’d ask him questions later. Now was for indulging.

She practically purred as she said, “Arrest me then.”

His bare hand wrapped around her nape, fingers pressing into her rushing veins, blood stuttering and racing faster as his touch set it ablaze. His growl rumbled against her neck.

Her entire body slackened at the sound, her eyes venom-bright. Blackened by the shaking, aching lust he so easily inspired.

“Already tried. You keep slipping the cuffs.”

Her laugh dissolved into a gasp when he moved too fast for her syrup-slow mind to keep track of. He yanked her forward, her knees bumping the desk’s edge and sending a jar of pens skittering across it.

Glitter and ink pens went awol. Clattering to the floor loud enough to wake the dead. Luckily, this place had soundproofing. Like her own bedroom.

Paper wings went flying as Tyler swiped the contracts away and hoisted her onto the stone slab. Her eyes fixed on that fucking gloved hand, pulse rattling with her bones as he pried her thighs apart and angled her how he wanted her.

She moved without thinking. Grabbing his wrist as she said, “You missed this one,” and she bit down on the tips of his fingers, tearing it off with her teeth.

Spit gleamed on the leather as she flung it over her shoulder. Tyler had gone still enough she thought she’d pissed him off. A stare so deadly it would turn the devil to stone pinned her in place.

Something dark, something she wanted to see come out and play, danced in the dark waters of his irises. It matched the darkness in her that wanted to fuck everything up just to feel something.

Screaming in her head; keep it. So you remember whose you are. But saying it aloud would make it real. She surrendered instead.

His other hand clamped her wrist. Gripping just shy of leaving a bruise-violet bracelet on her skin. Then he groaned, voice tattered, fisting her hair as she licked her bottom lip, and he tracked the movement.

“Christ, you’re relentless. A menace.”

He stood between her knees, her legs dangling off the desk’s icy edge. Her skin felt too small for her bones, overheated and colored in pink, wetness stickying her inner thighs.

“Say the word, Tyler. Stop me. Tell me to go.”

The room itself seemed to hold its breath as he smirked at her. Observant eyes cataloged every hint of desire flashing like warning signs all over her. Musk and vanilla salt infused the air as she ignored the urge to rub her thighs together to ease the ache gnawing inside her.

He didn’t stop her.

He acted.

Her back hit obsidian, freezing cold and making her hiss at first, but it soon warmed to her fervid temperature. The candlelight gilded his silhouette as he kneeled at the altar of her hips.

She lifted herself up on her elbows, hands gripping the table edge as her stomach tensed and relaxed, every inch of naked skin howling for his teeth to taste her.

“You’re still glowing. You’ve been wet since your little show, haven’t you?” He muttered, fingers hooking around the wet lace and pulling. Riiip. The noise echoed like a gunshot in the quiet office.

Her whimper intertwined with the crinkling of an old tour rider that he hadn’t removed from the crime scene.

“Why don’t you find out for yourself?” She managed, gritting her teeth as he peppered her thighs with featherlight open-mouthed kisses, nipping harder as he neared where she needed him.

“I will.” The response was simple. Scalding in its truth.

She shivered, unable to suppress it as his bristled jaw scraped her thighs. “Make sure you’re thorough. Wouldn’t want to give you a bad score on your next review.”

He chuckled, and the sound wove through her nerves and embedded itself there, ruffling every last one and going straight to her clit. That he still hadn’t gone near.

Her hips jerked as he breathed her in and lingered before he rapidly unbuttoned her blouse, baring her flushed, heavy chest to his starving gaze. Part of her wanted him to unhook her bra and start there.

The remaining sensible side of her slumped in relief when he didn’t, so he wouldn’t find the glove she’d stashed there like some kind of trophy. He held her down, palm flat on her stomach and roasting through her twitching muscles.

His laugh was a fiery blade dipped in honey. “Thorough’s my middle name, Princess. Hold on. I expect to be promoted to your bed permanently.”

The position’s already yours…

The thought ricocheted off her skull until it faded away. She had nothing to grab before his mouth was on her. The first lick was a slow, intentional stripe to open her up.

To sample her dripping essence. It stole her breath. His moan as he drank her down stole the strength from her body. Her head thumped back on the stone as the hard tip of his tongue circled her clit.

The hand on her belly pushed harder when her fingers found his hair and tried to guide him. He didn’t need it. Her cry was animalistic as he sucked that bundle of nerves into his mouth whole.

A volley of spiked, searing pleasure shot through her, the bristle of his beard against her slippery folds adding another layer of luscious sensation she’d long dreamed of. Her weighty eyelids fluttered, vision hazed, and she swore she tasted smoke at the back of her mouth.

She tugged at his dark hair, nails scratching his scalp and making him groan. He took her apart with military precision—target acquired, weaknesses exploited, defenses obliterated.

His mouth mapped the right coordinates to decimate her. Leave her quivering and dripping, make her forget he couldn’t stay. She couldn’t wait for it.

The hollowness inside her ate at her, a pathetic whimper escaping her as he lapped up everything she gave him and sent her thoughts scattering. Close to begging for him to banish it as his name tripped off her lips.

“Tyler—“

“Eyes open.” His command vibrated through her clit, a flick of his tongue as if to emphasize. “Watch the door.”

She nearly said it. Nearly blurted; I’d rather watch you! She bit her tongue, swallowing it. He hesitated for a fraction of a second. She didn’t know why. Then it didn’t matter.

She choked on a moan as her eyes opened, and he drank her need for him straight from the source. Of course he’d positioned her to watch the entrance, his body angled to shield her disarray.

Legs splayed, skirt rucked up to her waist, every tremble and jerk of her hips visible in the glass cabinet behind him. Even now, drowning between her quaking thighs, protocol clung to him like sweat.

It was a predator’s calculus. She wondered if he ever dropped it. Could he ever drop it? A twinge in her chest almost dragged her down a negative spiral before she throttled it. They only had right now.

She’d make it count. He remained infuriatingly clothed and composed as she writhed and whimpered under his clever mouth. Spine trying to arch, but he wouldn’t allow it. It had never felt this intense.

She didn’t know how to withstand it. Her blood turned molten, her heart frothed behind her sternum, and she quivered as his tongue pushed inside her. Her pleading was incoherent, but she had no control over it.

He relented only to taunt her. “Still think I’m all business?” His bearded jaw scraped her as he spoke, the dual sensation of wet and rough making her shout.

“You’re… ah—fuck…overcompensating.”

His teeth closed gently around her clit, grazing it subtly. She went rigid as wetness flooded his chin. Tension twisted tighter within her. Denial was an impossible task as her body sang for him.

“Is this your idea of a negotiation?” He didn’t wait for an answer.

His free hand went to work. She arched as much as he allowed as two long fingers slid inside her empty cunt, fluttering inner muscles gripping him tight. His tongue on her clit, tapping and gliding, and she forgot what they were talking about.

If this is how he touches me when he’s not mine, how would he touch me if he ever let himself keep me?

She had no answer. She only shook under his onslaught. Her movement dislodged the glove in her bra; she couldn’t hear the slight thud as it hit the desk over the roaring in her ears. Tyler chuckled, teeth nipping her inner thigh in warning as he snatched it.

“Evidence.” Was all he said. She didn’t know whether to demand it back or beg for mercy.

She didn’t see where it went, not as his fingers plunged deep, curling and pulling, catching the spot that reignited every other nerve. Her hips stuttered against his mouth as his palm pressed on her stomach to still her. And his fingers trembled slightly as she cried out.

Tension coiled and coiled as he coaxed moans and whines from her. Her own wetness dripped from her onto the obsidian.

The frantic thought that she should remember to clean it was soon forgotten. Incapable of focusing on anything other than the dizzying, crude sounds of his famished feasting.

He lifted his head long enough to feed the flames licking her from the inside a gallon of gasoline. “Don’t move. Don’t hide,” The words slithered inside her, braiding with the coiling tension and sending spitting embers roasting through her. “Let me watch you break.”

His mouth descended like a verdict. The candle nearly drowned in its own wax as he focused entirely on making her come apart. Her vision fractured, a kaleidoscope of smoked scarlet and smoldering sapphire, as he worked her with merciless precision.

Broad strokes for the invisible cameras outside, flickers of his tongue for the woman unraveling beneath him. All she knew was fire, scorching her blood and bones, weaving around and embracing her.

She floated in a blazing sea of her own making. Even the air seemed to shimmer with it. Every suckle and twist of his fingers inside her soaked, clenching cunt pulled a broken sound from her throat.

Her breathing grew too fast, head thrashing, and her hips shuddering to rock into his face, but he held her down. The graze of his teeth over her clit threatened to rewrite her DNA until it could only sing for him.

The edge of release was a tightrope walk, slicing at the soles of her feet as her blood rained on the onlookers gawking from below. The tension shivered and stretched too taut.

Her muscles strained with it as his bearded jaw rubbed her inner thighs raw. Her hands yanked his hair, to drag him off or pull him nearer in, she wasn’t sure.

The skin of her stomach twitched under his heavy palm, voice ragged as it burst through her gritted teeth.

“Tyler. I’m—“

He hummed in approval, blue eyes the color of a midnight sky as she met them. The starving, awed glint she found there sent another simmering wave of pleasure cresting inside her. The vibration of his hum laced through her clit and detonated her first release.

White-hot and as sudden as a muzzle flash, she couldn’t even make a sound. It was violent, volcanic. He let her move now. She arched wildly as it spread out in torturous ripples.

Each one stronger than the last as he kept working her until she sobbed his name. His palm pushing against her stomach again was the only anchor in the storm.

Sweat beaded diamond freckles across her flesh, thighs clamping his head and quaking so hard she lost control of them. Tyler didn’t ease up. He observed.

“Again,” he ordered, not pausing as he added a third finger inside her fluttering cunt. “I didn’t say stop, Princess.”

Her sob caught fire then too. He redoubled his efforts as her first release still thrummed. Alternating brutal suction with phantom flutters that melted her marrow. She’d never been this wet.

She never knew this kind of pleasure existed outside of the steamy romance novels she read as if they were going out of fashion.

The crook of his fingers, the ruthless seal of his mouth around her clit, and the greedy, satisfied grunts he made as he devoured her were all too much. Too soon. Her entire body jerked as she came again.

Thighs still wrapped around his head in silent supplication as he lazily lapped at her oversensitive folds. She wasn’t cognizant of how she reacted or what she said as she shattered on her own desk. Her fragmented pieces glistened under the candlelight, and she let him see all of her.

She only came to as Tyler pressed a kiss to her knee, beard glossed with her essence. It wasn’t gentle. It was reverent. She trembled like confetti fighting against a stiff breeze, palms pressed flat against the stone, and she couldn’t remember when she let go of his hair.

He tugged her skirt back down with surprising care, grabbing her hands in his as he said, “Up.” He let go, and his fingers toyed with the frayed denim hem. “Before you pass out.”

He helped her stand. She swayed on weak knees as if she’d downed too many tequila shots, her breathy laugh as he steadied her smothered into his shirt. With one arm wrapped around her, the other lifted, hand tilting her face to his.

He let go of her chin to tuck a loose lock of hair behind her ear before rubbing his thumb under her eye. Wiping away the mascara smudge there.

“Ruined,” she said, whispering. Unsure if she meant her makeup or herself. She thought they were probably the same thing.

Her pulse still thudded, fingers curled on his lapels, her shadow clung to him too. His mask slipped as pulled back, just a tiny crack. Calloused palms cradled her face, framing her in this moment, and she almost wished for someone to snap a picture.

So she had tangible proof this had happened when it all came tumbling down. He kissed her, startling her with its softness, as though it was a secret passed from his lips to hers. Her hummingbird heart vibrated off her ribs. His response to her ‘ruined’ comment when he broke away only mired her deeper into whatever this was between them.

“You’re not ruined.” Another chaste kiss. “Rebuilt. But this time, it’s only for you.”

She didn’t know how to answer that. A seriousness she thought she should understand underscored it, but her frazzled mind still played the closing harmonies of the pleasure he’d wrought in her. She filed it away to obsess over later.

Her hands fell to his belt, the cool leather sparking ideas of restraint and playing the willing victim. He tasted of her as he’d kissed her, sharp and sweet, with that minted edge that only stoked the heat he inspired in her. But his phone buzzed as she unbuckled it.

Their synced cursing turned the air blue when it kept going. Tyler stepped back, mask snapping back into place. Emotionless once more.

She despised it. Even though she knew it was necessary and wasn’t real, she hated it with such ferocity I took everything she had not to smash his phone to smithereens to get rid of it.

She sighed as he checked it.

“Fuck. He’s early.” He scratched at the back of his neck, eyes full of sorrow as they hooked onto hers. “Stefan’s at the East exit.”

“Tell him you’re busy defiling America’s sweetheart,” she said, joking, but secretly, she almost wished he would.

He scrubbed a hand across his jaw, groaning as he inhaled. “I already reek of you, best not push it.”

She chuckled, a strange possessiveness swelled in her, and she silently hoped he’d always smell like her. Haunted by the specter of her desire as he went about his duties. They should know who wrecked him first. She touched her bitten and kiss-swollen lips.

Heart sinking and stomach wrenching painfully as reality slammed back in. “And after he goes? What then?”

She wondered if heard what she really wanted to say. What is this? What are we? How much are we willing to risk just to feel something?

If he did, he didn’t show it. He stooped to retrieve the glove she’d dropped, and he’d taken back. He folded it into his inside jacket pocket without looking, eyes locked on her. She never said a thing about how he patted his pocket twice as if in comfort.

“I warned you.” His small smile was wicked. “I finish what I start.”

He faltered at the end. His voice caught on the word ‘start’ as though he weren’t only talking about sex. It made her chest constrict and ache. He wanted the same as she did.

He sighed, snarled, “fuck it,” before grabbing her and kissing her until she was gasping for air. His hands shook as he ended it. She said nothing as he pulled on his gloves and black mask.

She only nodded as he said, “Keep your door unlocked for me.”

And she watched him turn, square his shoulders, and walk away. The thump of his boots on the floor was a metronome she was rapidly becoming resentful of.

The door clicked shut, and she loosed a long breath as she sank into her chair. It sounded like a tomb sealing shut, even as she knew he’d return later tonight. She stared at the mess on the desk.

A puddle of candle wax had solidified on the obsidian—the imprint of Tyler’s glove was a temporary fossil entombed in it.

Destined to be cleared away. She traced its shape with her fingers. A hot bolt pierced her, growing stronger as she geared herself up and quickly tidied up.

She gathered armfuls of crumpled contracts, using an old library card to scrape the wax off, and ensuring only the air smelled like created, eucalyptus, and sex.

The last contract she picked off the hardwood floor mocked her. Emblazoned in big scarlet letters read the words: Termination Clause. She shoved it in the back of a drawer under her desk, crumpled amongst half-finished song lyrics, and scanned the room.

The housekeeper would wonder why the space was so clean, but it made her feel better as she padded out and headed upstairs. Keeping her expression neutral for the surveillance cameras until she was safely inside her room.

She stripped off and climbed into bed, the cold sheets warming as she warded off sleep with more carnal thoughts. Her thighs rubbed together, holding onto the ghost of his touch. Hoping they’d talk some more after. They had only the night, but she wanted to know him.

Wanted him to know her in ways no one else ever had. Give him the parts of herself everyone else tried to suppress. For once, she didn’t want to hide the jagged, unpolished parts of her.

See if he would hold them and not try to mold them. Midnight Surrender had never appeared so much like a victory.

The question of whether she got to keep it remained a mystery.

While half of her hoped they’d trade secrets under cover of darkness. The other half wanted to run from it. Talking made it too real. Too… fragile. Breakable.

Reality had teeth. It would chew them up and spit them out. Despite having Tyler warming every part of her at night, she accepted a painful, eye-stinging truth.

Even though she no longer needed to imagine how he would feel under her hands and fuck her, she was still trapped in a fantasy.

The stakes were high. Every promise they made was a lie, and stars always burn brightest right before they die.

Fuck it. She’d burn brighter than them all—even if it turned her to ash after. She’d give them a show they’d never forget.