We’re leaving Tank and Eva, and I’m grateful. I’ve met them both, and my head knows that Eva is at least as capable of saying no as I am and Tank would be absolutely horrified if he did anything to abuse her trust, but the rest of me is having trouble getting past the fact that this is what the two of them want to do together.

Past that fact that this doesn’t feel like anything I ever want Eli and I to do together.

I don’t know enough about what he likes. I could probably still take a good guess at his favorite foods and his favorite music and the things he dreams about at night, but I don’t have a clue what his kinks are. I just know he has some, and right now that feels like a deep, dark chasm.

He doesn’t say a word. He guides me over to another spotlight, shining down on a table where the action is a lot quieter—and far more intense. A woman I don’t know is thoroughly strapped down. There are wide leather straps over her legs in three places, her arms, her belly, her forehead, cupping her breasts. She’s spread-eagled enough to be on display, but that’s not what anyone is watching.

A couple of feet above her belly, a candle is tipping.

The man holding the candle smiles slightly and lets a single drip fall on her quivering skin, just below her belly button. I can see the trail he’s been making from the valley between her breasts. I can see where he’s going.

The woman barely reacts as the next drop lands, but the small shiver that shakes her makes more noise than all of Eva’s yelling. I hear how loudly I’m breathing and quiet it. There aren’t as many people watching here, and all of them are caught in the hush of hot wax meeting skin.

Eli’s hand brushes down my back.

Every hair on my body orients toward him, but I don’t take my eyes off the woman on the table or off the man who is utterly focused on the trail of waxy tears he’s building. Her eyes are closed and his are glued to the candle wax, but they’re as attuned to each other as any two people I have ever seen. Melded together by small splatters of falling molten wax.

His control is absolute—and it’s all for her. For what builds between them.

He lets a drop fall on his inner wrist and lifts the hand holding the candle a little higher. The next drop heads straight for the valley between her legs.

The sound that comes from her is a glacier cracking off into the sea, an iceberg chipped off her soul by hot wax and the man holding it. Her muscles tense, pushing against the straps. Telling me what I already know. They’re not melded anymore. She’s fighting this.

Eli straightens beside me, the hand on my back a wordless warning.

I know better than to speak. The hush of this moment is fragile and taut and filled with impending doom—and somehow holy. The eyes of the man holding the candle have gone from focused to utterly, unmistakably tender. Those of a man watching his love do a hard thing, the very hardest of things, while six people watch and breathe together and somehow try to will her back into the place of melting.

I already know it won’t be us who gets her there. It will be her, and her trust in the straps and the candle and the man who’s offered them for her journey.

Another drop.

Another cracking. This one causes her Dom’s eyes to cloud with pain, but his hands on the candle remain absolutely steady. A man looking hard in the eye and not flinching—so that maybe the woman on the table can too.

Yet another drop, and this time her reaction is less sharp. More potent. More poignant.

Eli breathes beside me, the first inhale I’ve heard him take. His hands wrap around mine, and I realize I’ve made them into fists. He moves slowly behind me, enveloping me in his arms. In his care. In his reassurance, entirely unspoken, that no matter what happens on that table, the woman trying to take this journey will be held. Will be caught. Will be loved, whether she cracks or melts or can’t find her way to either.

I can feel the tears pushing hot into my eyes, clogging my throat. This isn’t theater. It’s absolutely real and it’s stunningly beautiful.

One more drop, and this time, whatever is building breaks through the straps inside the woman, the ones we can’t see, and sets her free. Her soft moan is one of complete surrender. The candle pours a waterfall of wax, straight onto the sensitive skin between her legs, and I bear witness to the quietest, most intense orgasm I have ever seen. One so strong it turns my legs to goo.

Eli has me, holding me up and moving me away. I can see the other watchers making haste to leave too, and that feels wrong somehow. An abrupt end to the sacred, for us and for her.

Eli feels my hesitation. “Her Dom asked us to leave. He knows she won’t want eyes on her now that she’s come apart.”

I missed the signal, whatever it was. It doesn’t matter. I’m carrying the echoes of her surrender with me as I walk. I lean into Eli’s strength. The desire to feel held is blazing inside me right now, but I don’t know if it’s truly my need or echoes of the artistry I just watched.

Eli asks me no questions. He merely guides me to the edge of yet another small gathering of people.