Burns Like Fire (Dangerous Creatures #1) (4 page)

“Jack,” Cindy said, thrusting her hips to meet his hand, but then didn’t say anything else as she groaned and fell back.

He was starting to love how she repeatedly moaned his name. “Been looking forward to this for a long time."

She smiled at him, still pushing her fingers through his hair in a motion he really enjoyed. She touched him everywhere she could get. “Been thinking about it a lot, huh?”

“Hell yes,” he said. He wasn’t embarrassed to admit to it either.

The denim shorts were tight against her ass and hips. Jack had to flatten his hand against her stomach and let his palm slide beneath the button and zipper. It barely fit as he searched for her wet folds. She was partially shaved. She really had been planning this. “You’re so wet for me,” he said.

“Muh huh,” Cindy said, her eyes shut and her head thrown back as Jack pushed his hand up and down her clit. The few pubic hairs that were near her slit weren't as rough as expected. They were almost soft. Soon he slid two fingers inside of that slick, wet space. Despite what practice she'd claimed to have done, she was incredibly tight, and her walls clamped down on the digits.

His dick pulsed as if her sex was clamping down on his cock instead.

Cindy suddenly yelped and squeezed her legs together, almost crushing his hand, but then she opened her eyes, and her body relaxed.

“Are you okay?” Jack asked.

“Yeah,” Cindy said, and she was panting again, her hair even wilder than normal. “Keep doing that.”

Jack pulled his hand free instead. His fingers were slick and shiny with her juices, which made him smile. He had to get her shorts off before this went any further.

Cindy was helpful, wiggling her hips and pushing them off her legs as Jack yanked them down, and then he was leaning over her again, mouthing her nipple as he stroked his fingers through the wet folds of her sex.

Every moan, every shudder sent wave after wave of pleasure through Jack’s body, and it built up at the small of his back, at the bottom of his feet, and inside of his cock and balls. If he managed to hold off long enough to just get inside of her then it was going to be a miracle.

Then Cindy was gripping his shoulder especially tight, digging her nails into his skin. The pain brought on another sort of pleasure, and Jack realized she was calling his name, not just because she was moaning. She was trying to get his attention.

He looked up at her, and fuck him, she looked like a gorgeous woman who'd already been satisfyingly fucked. “What is it?” he asked. Jack didn’t stop the movement of his hand.

Cindy was panting through her open mouth. “I want...I want you to put your mouth on me. Down there,” she said, her eyes glancing down between them.

Down there.
Such an innocent way to describe it. Jack couldn’t help but feel a little playful as he slid down her body. “Tell me that again,” he said.

“I want you to put your mouth there,” she said.

“Right here?” Jack asked, and he stroked his hand over her wet folds once more just for good measure. He leaned in close, his mouth inches away from her sex.

The scent of her juices was heavy in the air. Her musk, proof that she wanted him, was almost too much for him to handle. The desire to lick her there until she had fistfuls of his hair and moaning loud was everything, his sole focus. Nothing else in the world existed but the fact that he wanted to put his lips between her legs and suck on her until she screamed.

Cindy’s eyes dropped shut. She was close already. “Yes, right there.”

“But you have to tell me,” Jack said.

Cindy opened her eyes and stared down at him, like she didn’t understand what this was about. “I did. I did tell you,” she said, and then she shivered again as Jack leaned in and pressed a brief kiss between her legs, but he pulled back again before she could get much pleasure out of it.

“Tell me in a way that I can understand,” Jack said.

He could see it in her eyes the second she understood him. Her face became even redder, but she was still so damned gorgeous. “I...I want you to go down on me. Suck on my clit,” she said, just in case the first way she said it wouldn’t be good enough.

It was definitely good enough. “Your wish is my command,” Jack replied, dipping his head and pressing his mouth to her wet cunt.

Cindy arched her spine and grabbed onto Jack’s hair as she groaned, and the second he slipped his tongue inside, licking her deep and tasting her finally, he could feel her inner muscles clamping down on him in a tight and pulsing grip as she came hard.

He didn’t stop sucking or licking her. He let her ride his face, ride him until she was slumped down and blinking blearily, red hair spread all over the place.

Jack was suffering from what had to be the worst case of blue balls that he’d ever had in his entire life, but he was also smiling wide as he slid up her body.

“Sorry,” she said, as if she'd disappointed him or something. “I was hoping to go a little longer before that happened.”

Jack leaned in and kissed her, and he was pleased when she immediately opened her mouth for his tongue, tasting herself on his mouth. He wanted to make sure she savored how damned good she was.

He didn’t pull back until he was satisfied she’d gotten enough. “We’re nowhere near done yet,” he said.

Cindy grinned at him, but then her grin melted away. The light in her eyes went out, and her grip on him was so tight that he wouldn't have been shocked to look down and see that her knuckles had turned bone white. "I'm a pyro," she said, and then, as if she'd felt the need to prove it, she held up her hand and willed a small, but strong wisp of fire to appear in her palm.

Jack stared at her, then at the flame, and back at her. His heart literally stopped for a few seconds, a painful sensation, and he had no fucking idea what he was supposed to do.

He didn't say anything right away. He couldn't think of what
to
say. The flame in Cindy's hand went out as she immediately started to cry.

*****

Jack sighed and pressed his forehead against the cold tile wall of the shower. His hand gripped his cock in a tight fist as the last of his orgasm shuddered out of him.

He didn't stop the motion of his hand. He worked his erection until every drop of cum, every ounce of pleasure, was released from his body. Only then did the muscles in his shoulders and back, the ones he hadn't even realized were tensing up, relax.

Then the regret sank in.

Jerking off to that memory had been kind of unexpected. It said a lot about him, that he could still get off on the memory of the woman who'd tricked him, but he couldn't help himself.

The second his body had been under the hot spray, her face was all he could think about, followed by memory of how her skin had felt as he'd fought her in the car. Much more pleasant memories came after that, like their first time having sex together. It was bad enough that Jack could masturbate to a woman who'd killed his family, but at least he wasn't the sort of pervert who would do it to the thought of an unconscious woman who had just been fighting to get away from him.

Jack quickly washed away his cum from the shower wall, and then he started soap himself off, pretending as if nothing had happened at all. She didn't have to know about it. No one did. So it wasn't like it mattered anyway.

Chapter Five

Cindy listened to the water run through the pipes in the house. Jack must be in the shower, which was the only reason she was picturing him naked.

But then she thought about the last time they'd had sex, and how calm and serene his face had been when he'd kissed her.

Why the hell was she thinking about
that
? It didn't help that it aroused her either. Her blood flowed hot, down to lower places that caused all sorts of problems, especially considering she was in chains.

Maybe it meant she secretly had an S&M fetish of some kind. Maybe it meant she was the kind of girl who got turned on when she was chained up. But now was definitely not the time to be exploring her sexuality

Was it longing? That was most likely it. She was longing for a time back when she had everything her heart desired, and life didn’t seem quite as grim as what those other paranormals had painted for her. Especially when Jack had hugged and kissed her after her confession—and embarrassing bout of crying—telling her everything would be okay, and that he would keep her secret.

She and Jack did end up going all the way that day. After she'd managed to stop crying and the mood returned to what it had been before she'd rudely interrupted it.

They’d lain together and talked about all the things they were going to do, and then Jack made slow love to her again, and Cindy thought she would die from happiness.

Cindy was trying to summon her fire now while Jack was busy upstairs. He'd probably already called the collectors to bring her in.

No fire came. No hopeful little spark. Her skin didn't even glow or get warmer. She might as well have been normal.

She'd heard of some vampires and werewolves putting spelled cuffs on themselves in order to go out in the daylight, or stop a transformation during the full moon, but the difference was they kept the keys with them at all times. Some had the cuffs fashioned into bracelets. Cindy was stuck.

As much as she hated her powers sometimes, she felt naked without them. It was enough to make her struggle against the shackles around her wrists. She tried to fold in her thumb as much as possible to squeeze the damned thing off. When that didn’t work, only causing her to bleed a little, she tried to summon a flame again.

The chains worked great though, and she still couldn't summon any fire. Even though she had much better control of her powers now than when she was young, nothing came. Maybe if she had some of these shackles made into bracelets growing up she might not have been kicked out of her parents house on her ninth birthday.

She had to keep thinking. There had to be another way to get out of here. She was in chains inside a concrete room. Her powers were gone, and the metal ring holding her chains to the concrete was pretty secure. Not even the slightest wiggle.

Jack had planned for everything.

It took Cindy another few minutes to realize that there wasn't even an air duct in the room with her.
Oh God
. Her heart pounded as she thought about her oxygen depleting. She yanked on her chains some more, pulled at the metal ring that was drilled into the wall, but still couldn't break free, and her wrists bled some more. The pain was better than thinking about suffocating.

Jack wouldn't let her die in here, would he?

Cindy began to hyperventilate. She balled herself up as small as she could as the air in her lungs literally felt like it was being stolen from her.

The door to her prison slammed open. Jack walked in.

Cindy stared up at him. She watched him, and noted how he didn't shut the door behind him. She could breathe again. She sighed and slumped against the wall.

Jack had a tray in his hand with food on it, and that was about when she realized how hungry she was. How long had it been since he'd taken her? She didn't even know how long she'd been inside of that horrible box.

"Please," she said, wincing as she remembered his no speaking rule. Too late now. "How long have I been here?"

Jack didn't just have a tray of food with him; he was also carrying a small folding stool under one arm. He walked across the small room, right to the other side where she wouldn't be able to reach him. "It's almost noon," he replied, and sat down before arranging the tray on his knees.

He certainly looked better than the last time she'd seen him. The colour had returned to his cheeks – though he still hadn't shaved – and he was wearing clean clothes. Jeans with a long sleeved dark shirt. His hair looked slightly damp. He'd showered.

"Noon," Cindy said, turning over those words in her head. Nearly fourteen hours, and she'd had nothing to eat since before six yesterday, nearly twenty-four hours ago.

She stared at the tray on his legs. He had a sandwich on it, something thick with turkey and bacon, what looked like a small plastic container of potato salad that came from the grocery store, and a bottle of water.

The sandwich was cut into fours, and Jack took one of them and bit into it. "Hungry?" he asked.

Of course she was. Cindy nodded.

Jack took another bite. "The collectors won't be here for another two or three days. Something bigger came up," he said. "If you want to eat while you're here then you're going to earn your food."

Cindy swallowed hard. Her mind was racing about the few ways she could earn a meal with a man who hated her guts. "Earn it how?"

Jack shrugged. He was putting a look on his face that suggested how little he cared about this whole thing, but he was never very good about hiding things from her. Whatever he was thinking about, it was bothering him.

"You can start by telling me where you were going last night."

For what had to be the tenth time in just so many hours, Cindy's heart stopped. She wasn't telling him about Jamie. No way in hell.

"I was just going out by myself," she said. "Dancing, you know?"

"Hoping to meet someone?"

"Maybe."

"Liar." Jack glared at her, and he finished off the triangle of sandwich he was eating. "Fine, I'll figure it out eventually anyway."

"Jack—"

"
Be quiet
," he snapped, and his glare intensified. She almost thought he could burn through her with a look like that, and he wasn't the one with fire powers.

Cindy knew what he was thinking about. It wasn't the fact that she wasn't answering him that was really bothering him. "I didn't kill your family, Jack."

"Bull-
fucking
-shit," he barked, and Cindy had never seen so much hatred in those blue eyes.

"I didn't! I swear I didn't!"

Jack hurled his water bottle at her before Cindy could say another word. She ducked her head, and luckily the bottle missed. It was just one of the thin and cheap plastic things, but it was full of water, and with the force that Jack had thrown it, if it had gotten her head, then it would have hurt like crazy.

Cindy barely dared to lift her head away from the protection of her arms to look at him. Her cheek throbbed, a reminder that Jack had already struck her once. She was sure he would do it again.

"Fuck," Jack cursed, then shot to his feet, knocking over the rest of the sandwich, and the tray clattered to the ground.

He rubbed his hands over his face and paced in a full circle around the room before stopping in front of her.

"My house was burned to the ground, Cindy.
Burned
to the
ground
! With me and my family inside of it, right after I told you..." He trailed off, looked away from her, and then bit his lips before speaking again in that dangerous tone. "Don't tell me it wasn't you."

He wasn't going to believe her. Jack's fists were clenched tight, and his body trembled. He was holding back by a thread.

She kept her mouth closed and just watched him, waiting.

The shaking in his shoulders eventually stopped, and his body relaxed ever so slightly. Jack blew out a long breath. He ran his fingers through his blond hair, causing the short strands to stick up in several places. He bent over and started to pick up the ruined sandwich off the floor, but he nudged the container of potato salad toward her. "I'll be back later," he said, and then he left her again.

Cindy stayed where she was. She didn't move and just hugged her knees to her chest.

She stared at the little cup of potato salad, and the bottle of water that hadn't rolled too far away. Cindy didn't want to eat anything that had been kicked toward her, or drink something that had been thrown at her.

Her growling stomach and dry throat eventually won over her crumbling willpower, and she reached for the water and the salad.

She consoled herself with the thought that both the water bottle and the cup of potato salad were still sealed, so it wasn't like she would be eating or drinking something dirty.

The only downside was that she had to pull the potato salad out of the container with her fingers, because Jack had been too angry to think of leaving her a fork.

Maybe he didn't trust her enough to have one.

At least he left the door open so she didn't have too worry about suffocating.

She was going to get out of here. She hadn't done anything wrong, and she wasn't going to let Jack hurt her for something she didn't do. She had to think and plan. Luckily it seemed she was going to have more time for that… as long as Jack hadn't been lying to her about the collectors.