Chapter 9: The Candle Game
The ache was a deep, permanent hum in her bones. Sadie lay on her stomach in the unfamiliar bed, the coarse wool blanket scratching her cheek. The wax on her thigh had hardened into a delicate, pearlescent skin, a tender map of her failure. Every shift sent a dull throb through her ass, the memory of the paddle’s impact layered over the deeper bruises from the barn, from the porch.
The room was dark now, the candle a puddle of cold wax on the floorboards. The storm had quieted to a steady, hushed rain. She could make out their shapes in the gloom: Rhett in a chair by the window, a sharp cut-out against the faint light, Jace sprawled on the floor near the door, one arm flung over his eyes.
She’d cried herself hollow. The sobs had been silent, wretched things she'd muffled in the musty pillow. Now, she felt scraped clean. Empty. The fierce independence she wore like armor lay in pieces around her. They’d seen her break, not once, but over and over. They’d orchestrated it. And they’d stayed.
“You’re thinking too loud,” Jace’s voice came from the floor, gravelly with exhaustion.
“Fuck off,” she whispered, no heat left in it.
Rhett moved. The chair creaked. She heard his boots on the floor, a soft, measured approach. The mattress dipped as he sat on the edge of the bed. His hand, warm and surprisingly gentle, settled on the small of her back, over the blanket. The touch was a brand of a different kind.
“Hurts?” he asked.
“Everything hurts.”
He was silent for a long minute. His thumb moved in a slow, absent circle. “Bathroom’s down the hall. There’s a deep tub. Epsom salts under the sink.”
It wasn’t an apology. It was a solution. A thing he could fix.
Jace rose to his feet in a fluid motion. “I’ll fill it.”
She wanted to refuse. To tell them she could manage. But the thought of moving, of being alone in a strange, dark house with her own wreckage, was worse. She let Rhett pull the blanket back. The cool air raised goosebumps on her naked skin. He didn’t comment on the bruises, the wax, the tear-streaks on her face. He just bent, slid one arm under her knees, the other behind her shoulders, and lifted her against his chest as if she weighed nothing.
She didn’t have the will to protest. She tucked her face against the worn cotton of his shirt, breathed in the scent of motor oil, leather, and him. He carried her down a dim hallway to a bathroom where steam was already beginning to fog the mirror. Jace was on his knees by the clawfoot tub, the water thundering from the tap, a box of salts overturned beside him.
Rhett set her on her feet but kept an arm around her waist as she swayed. The water shimmered, promising oblivion. Jace shut off the tap and turned. His eyes, usually so full of mocking light, were dark and serious as he looked her over.
“In you go,” he said, his voice softer than she’d ever heard it.
She stepped into the water. It was almost scalding, a sharp jolt that melted into a deep, penetrating heat. She sank down with a groan that was half-pain, half-profound relief. The salts stung the tiny wax-burn on her thigh, then soothed it. She submerged to her chin, closing her eyes.
For a while, there was only the sound of water sloshing, her own slow breaths, and the rain outside. Then she felt a presence at the side of the tub. She opened her eyes.
Jace was sitting on the floor, his back against the wall. Rhett stood in the doorway, leaning on the frame, watching. Guardians. Or jailers. The line had blurred into something else entirely.
“Why?” The word left her before she could catch it, small and broken.
Jace leaned his head back against the wall. “Why what, sweetheart?”
“All of it. The candle. The… the game. Why not just fuck me and be done with it?”
Rhett spoke from the doorway, his voice low. “Anyone can fuck you.”
The statement hung in the steamy air, brutal in its simplicity.
Jace picked up the thread, his gaze locked on her. “That night at the bonfire. You were laughing, that wild fucking laugh, dancing on the dock. Every man there was picturing you on your back. It was cheap. Easy. We didn’t want easy.”
“We wanted this,” Rhett said, pushing off the doorframe. He came to kneel by the tub, his sleeves rolled up, his tattoos swirling over the muscles of his forearms. He dipped a hand in the water, cupped it, and let it trickle over her shoulder. “You, undressed in more ways than one. You, knowing you can break and we’ll be here. You, trusting us with the pieces.”
Her throat tightened. “It’s cruel.”
“It’s honest,” Jace countered. “You walk around like you’re made of fucking steel. We wanted the girl under the armor. The one who’s scared of being left. We’re not leaving, Sadie.”
The direct hit to her secret fear stole her breath. She looked away, at the water, at the distorted reflection of her own pale body.
“Show me,” Rhett said.
She looked back at him. “What?”
“The wax. Let me see.”
Slowly, she lifted her leg, breaking the surface of the water. The hardened droplet on her inner thigh was whitish-blue, shaped like a teardrop. Rhett’s fingers, careful, brushed over it. A shiver that had nothing to do with temperature went through her.
“Mark of a rule breaker,” Jace said, but his tone held a strange pride.
Rhett’s hand slid from the wax, up the sensitive skin of her inner thigh, his touch shifting from clinical to possessive. His fingers grazed her folds, already slick from the heat of the water. She jerked, a gasp catching in her throat.
“Still sensitive?” he murmured, his dark eyes lifting to hers.
She could only nod.
“Good.”
Jace moved then, coming to kneel on her other side. The two of them flanked her, a wall of muscle and intent. Rhett’s fingers continued their slow, torturous exploration, parting her, circling her swollen clit with a rough pad. Jace’s hand went to her breast, pinching her nipple underwater, the sensation diffuse and shocking.
“You’re not done,” Jace said, his mouth close to her ear. “We’re not done with you.”
Rhett pushed two fingers inside her, a smooth, deep invasion. Her hips bucked, water sloshing over the rim of the tub. There was no vibrator this time, no candle, no countdown. Just their hands, their eyes on her, the raw, unfiltered claim of it.
“This isn’t a game now,” Rhett growled, curling his fingers. “This is us. You. Here.”
Jace’s mouth found hers, swallowing her moan. The kiss was demanding, deep, a mimicry of what Rhett’s fingers were doing below the water. She was pinned between them, utterly opened. Rhett added a third finger, stretching her, the faint burn a delicious counterpoint to the building pleasure. Jace broke the kiss, biting down on her neck, a sharp claim of his own.
“Come,” Rhett commanded, his thumb finding her clit, pressing hard.
It was too much and not enough. The orgasm built not as a sharp crest, but as a deep, rolling quake. It started low in her belly and spread outwards, a wave of pure, mindless submission. She cried out against Jace’s shoulder, her body convulsing around Rhett’s fingers, the water churning around her. It went on and on, wringing her out, until she was boneless, supported only by their hands.
They let her ride it until the last tremor faded. Rhett slowly withdrew his fingers. Jace released his gentle bite on her neck, laving the mark with his tongue.
Slowly, carefully, they washed her. Rhett soaped a cloth and ran it over her back, her arms. Jace lifted her hair, rinsing the salt from it with a cup of clean water. It was so shockingly tender after the violence of before that fresh tears, silent and confused, tracked down her cheeks. They didn’t comment. They just tended to her.
When the water began to cool, Rhett lifted her out, wrapping her in a thick, rough towel. Jace dried her, his hands brisk but not unkind. They led her, naked and pliant, back to the bedroom. The sheets had been changed. Cool, clean cotton greeted her skin.
They flanked her again in the bed, Rhett behind her, pulling her spine against his chest, Jace in front, facing her. Their bodies were warm walls, enclosing her. The rain pattered a steady rhythm on the roof.
Jace brushed a damp strand of hair from her forehead. “Sleep, Sadie.”
Rhett’s arms tightened around her.
In the dark, surrounded, sore, and more exposed than she’d ever been, Sadie did something she hadn’t done since she was a child. She let go completely. She fell into a deep, dreamless sleep, not questioning what it meant. Not fearing the morning. For the first time, the silence in her head wasn’t filled with the echo of footsteps walking away. It was filled with the solid, unwavering sound of two heartbeats, keeping time with her own.