wax

"What...! Now?!" The look on her face is a picture of incredulity with a suggestion of stubbornness mixed in.
"Now would be a good time, I'm not doing anything else". Placing my hands behind my head, I sit back on the couch, the leather groaning beneath me.
She glares at me, petulance creeping into her green eyes. I smirk. She drops her gaze and begins to slip out of her shirt pulling it above her head, her breasts falling free, bouncing slightly as they're released from the confining material. She gathers them up in her hands to briefly fondle them, flicking her thumbs across the gradually stiffening nipples. She grunts, pouting, her eyes smoldering with a mixture of turbulent passion and disobedience.
"Now what?". Her voice drips with indignation.
"Pick up the candle"
"No!"
"It was not a request my Precious. Pick up the candle, please"

Turning with a rebellious slowness, she gathers her unruly hair, tying it back. Her eyes have not left my face. She picks up the carved pewter candle holder, the flame flickering in protest, a small black tendril of soot twisting upwards, wraithlike.
"This is going to hurt". Her voice has taken on a plaintive whine, the corners of her mouth turned down in a child-like pout.
"We've been through this before. You'll be just fine. Would you rather I did it?"
"I think I can manage for now"

She raises the red candle up before her as if for sacrifice, the flickering tongue throwing dancing shadows against her pale skin. She draws in a deep breath, bites down on her lower lip and tips it over. I take in an equally deep breath and hold it. She squeezes her eyes shut. I stare with fixed intent at the bubble of molten wax that grows mercilessly ever larger, smirk as it looms inexorably over the edge...