Burns Like Fire (Dangerous Creatures #1) (9 page)

If Cindy noticed something different about the flesh on his back, she didn’t say anything. She was clearly too busy having one of the better orgasms of her life.

Well, he lived to serve, after all, and it was a pleasure watching her face as she came. The inner walls of Cindy's sex throbbed and tightened around him, milking everything out of him and prolonging his torture. She was moaning and thrashing beneath him, sharp nails still digging into his ruined skin, gripping him tight and cutting deep.

Jack collapsed on top of Cindy's chest before he could catch himself, but she didn't push him away or make any complaints at his weight. That was good because he was too drained to want to move.

Her hands were much gentler as she moved them up and down his rough back. The chain was warm in some places from his body heat, but cold in others, which added a whole new sensation to his skin.

They caught their breath. That was the only sound in the room, heavy breathing, and Jack wasn't even looking at her as he kept his cheek on the mattress. He was too busy soaking up the sensation of having a warm body beneath him, someone to hang onto as he came down from the high of an orgasm.

He was so fucking stupid, but he'd missed this. It hadn't ever been this way with Jessica, or anyone else he'd had since.

"What's this?" Cindy asked quietly, and her fingertips were still moving over the scar that ate up most of his back and shoulders, and even down his arms. Her hands covered a lot of ground, and it made him shiver, and kind of tickled, as she touched him there.

"Burn scars, from the house fire," Jack said, and he was kind of stunned that it came out so easily.

Cindy's hands froze over the ruined skin. "Oh," she said.

Jack had to get off of her. Cindy winced a little as he sat up, pulling his cock from her entrance. He needed to get cleaned up. He was sweaty and wanted another shower.

"Come on, get up," he said.

Cindy did as she was told, and it was almost a shame, considering she looked good enough to be fucked again from her place on the bed. Hands out on either side of her head, wild hair fanned all over the place, and her entire body flushed pink from the sex.

"Where are we going?" Cindy asked.

"You need a shower," he said. "I'll be getting in with you."

"We're going to the shower together?"

"I'm not just going to stand beside you while you do it, and I don't want to let you out of my sight if I don't have to."

It was decent enough excuse, and wouldn't at all give away the fact that he just wanted to get naked with her.

"You left me alone when I was using your bathroom before."

He looked at her. "You're going to be shy about that after I was just inside of you?"

Her cheeks darkened with a blush that just increased her sex appeal, but then shook her head.

Christ. He wished she wouldn't look so damned innocent all the time. It was unnerving.

"Your scar," Cindy said. "Does it hurt?"

And there she went with the being innocent thing again. "Sometimes. Not as much as it used to, but it feels weird when I stretch my back out, and I can't do any yard work without a shirt on anymore."

"Because of the sun?"

He nodded as they stepped into his bathroom. "Yeah."

"How are you going to get your shirt—" Cindy stopped speaking when Jack reached behind himself to his back pocket and produced the key to their shackles.

Her eyes went wide. "Are you serious? You were keeping it in your
back pocket
? What was all that about not getting undressed then?"

Jack shrugged and grinned at her, but he only undid his shackle so he could take off his sweater, which immediately felt good on his warm skin. He didn't remove her shackle, of course, and when his top half was naked, he reattached the shackle to his wrist.

"I just wanted to see if you were still willing to do it if I stayed clothed."

Cindy narrowed her eyes at him. "You're a jerk. What was that supposed to prove?"

She was angry, but her eyes still glanced down to the scars she hadn't seen before on his shoulders, down his arms, and each reaching around his ribs. His chest and stomach were pretty much untouched. His back was the worst, and he could pretty much see the wheels turning in her head. She wanted to see it for herself, but she wasn't about to ask. Not yet at least.

Jack got out of his jeans and kicked them into the corner. "It proved that you would have sex with me if I didn't get naked."

He reached over and turned the dial for the hot water, and the spray immediately started up.

Jack heard Cindy's tiny gasp as he showed her his back, letting her see the damage for the first time. He pretended he hadn't heard a thing.

"After you," he said, looking back at her.

Cindy jumped, and to mask her horror, she sent him a dirty look. He thought it was pretty half-assed, but she stepped into the shower anyway. "I hope the chain rusts."

"It'll keep for one shower, and I'll dry it off after we're done," Jack said, and he stepped in after her before closing the curtain.

Cindy put her face under the spray, which only partially wet her hair since it was so thick. She always needed to stay under for a good five minutes, running her hands through the red strands, before it got fully soaked.

Why did her wet hair have to be such a turn on? Water flowed down her smooth skin, over the swell of her ass and in between her cheeks as well. He could just imagine how her breasts looked.

Actually, he could picture that because of course, he'd seen her in the shower before. Which meant thinking about the last time they'd bathed together. Fucking great.

He turned around, picked up his body wash and got to work scrubbing off the sweat, ignoring his stupid dick that was half hard again.

Cindy was a little too quiet. Even with the sound of running water, he should have heard her doing something. Scrubbing her hair, using his body wash, anything. He turned to look at her, and found her staring at him again. This time she couldn't seem to hide the sorrow on her face. "What?"

She shook her head, that sad frown still on her brow and mouth. "Jesus, Jack, your back. I didn't know—"

"Yeah, yeah," Jack muttered, not the least bit happy with the reaction he was finally getting. "It looks like raw ground beef. I get it."

Maybe it would have been better if she'd laughed at him. This whole innocent act was getting to him in ways her seduction hadn't.

"I'm so sorry," Cindy said.

Equal parts of anger and pain flooded him, and Jack had to turn around again before he said or did something he regretted. Like told her how long it had taken for his hair and eyebrows to grow back, the agony he felt while lying in the hospital bed, and how he'd cried like a little kid when he learned he was the only one who'd made it out of the house. "Whatever, it's over and everything's going to be fine after the collectors get here."

Cindy hesitated. "Don't you even want to know what happened?"

"The only thing I want to know is what you did with the baby," Jack said, looking down at her stomach, her still very firm, very flat stomach. She didn't look like she had ever carried a child. He'd seen girls online post pictures of themselves after having kids. Some of them looked great, but despite how gorgeous Cindy was, Jack doubted she could be part of that fraction of a percentage of women who could carry a child without there being any differences to her breasts, hips and stomach. "If there ever was one."

"Of course there was," Cindy said. "I wouldn't lie to you about something like that."

Or, maybe she was part of that percentage. "So where is it? Did you drop it off at a fire station? Because I checked out your living conditions, and there was no sign of a toddler living with you."

That had been the first thing he'd checked on when he took her. The last thing Jack wanted to do was leave a child, a baby, alone and defenseless without an adult around to feed and care for it.

There had been nothing. No crib, no toys, no pictures. Not even a second bedroom and definitely nothing in her room that suggested she had a guy who stayed over some nights. Cindy lived alone.

"Miscarriage," Cindy said, and she was looking down at her hands, playing with her fingers.

Jack's stomach dropped, and the sick sensation of all the blood within him draining from his face and body came next, which was the first clue that he believed her.

He believed her. She had been pregnant, and she'd lost the baby.

It was on the tip of his tongue to ask her if that was why she'd burned down the house, but looking at her now, he was dangerously close to seeing her the way he used to see her. She was just a girl, a woman at this point, and despite her dangerous powers, he hadn't thought her capable of squashing a spider.

Really. She always made him do it.

"I-I'm sorry," Jack said.

Cindy was avoiding his eyes now. "You don't have to apologize to me, you know. It was yours, too. I already dealt with it."

If that was true, then why wasn't she looking at him?

"Aren't you upset?" Cindy asked, and now she finally was looking up at him. "I just told you that you were almost a father."

"I heard you," Jack said, and he felt some warmth return to his limbs. "I believe you. I'm just more concerned about you right now."

And it was true. The second the words came out of his mouth, he knew them to be the truth. He believed her about the pregnancy and the miscarriage. He didn't think she was lying about that.

Cindy stared at him, her purple eyes wide and so damned innocent. Nothing was as easy or as clear cut as he thought it would be. He almost wished for everything to go back to when he had thought it was so simple. To when he hated her and despised her. Everything was easy, then. His mission had been simple.

Why couldn't Jack have a radar? An inner lie detector? Something! Something that he could use that would tell him with a hundred percent certainty whether or not this was all an act? He wanted to pull her to him and just hold onto her.

He handed her his body wash instead. "It doubles as shampoo," he said when she took it with a questioning glance.

"Seriously?" she asked, giving him a look. The corner of her mouth was turned up in a sexy half smile.

"I'm a guy," Jack said. "I don't keep girly conditioners and soaps in here. Old Spice is all I got."

Cindy continued to stare at him, but then she smiled and opened the cap. Jack couldn't take his eyes away from her as she soaped herself up.

To make matters worse, she looked over her shoulder and grinned at him. "Want to wash my back?"

He recognized a come on when he heard it. Just like he recognized how she was deflecting so he wouldn't ask her any emotional questions involving their child.

Despite that, he couldn't bring himself to care as his cock took over the thinking for him. "Hell yes, I do."

Chapter Eleven

Cindy hadn't been this satisfied in years. Not since Jack was taken away from her, and there was nothing in the world better than being made to face the tiled wall of the shower, having her hands thrust above her head and her feet nudged wider apart before being mounted.

This was just proof of the fact that she hadn't been laid in forever, otherwise it just made no sense for her to be able to get off so soon after her last orgasm.

Or Jack was just that talented.

Either way, he left her gasping and shaking, with a smile on her face, before he finally got to washing her back like he said he would. He even helped with her hair.

Yeah, this definitely felt like they were two years back in time. Even as they rinsed their bodies and Jack turned the water off so they could dry and get out, it was only when the chain clinked between them that Cindy remembered that she was still a prisoner.

"Here, dry off," Jack said, handing her a towel, back to being cold and unapproachable again.

Cindy toweled herself, but only because she was freezing now that she was out of the warm water. Otherwise she might've been a little too terrified to move.

She couldn't stop staring at the long, thick scar on his back. It was clearly a from a burn, and with how deep it was in some places was impressive in a morbid sort of way. She was grateful that he was even still walking. "I didn't mean for what happened to your family to happen, but it did, and I'm sorry," she said quickly before he could cut her off.

"I
don't
want to talk about that with you," he said, not looking at her as he pulled his jeans on.

"I didn't start that fire, Jack. You have to know that! There would have been a police report, or some kind of investigation that said it was regular arson—"

Jack slammed his fist down on the bathroom counter. The bang was as loud as a gunshot, and Cindy was instantly quiet.

Her heart was pounding in her chest, and Jack looked like he was gasping for breath when he turned to look at her. "Stop talking to me about that," he said, and he looked absolutely serious.

Cindy looked down at his hand, which was still clenched into a fist on the counter. She was surprised that the surface hadn't cracked.

Cindy nodded. "Okay," she said. "But I will be talking to you about it later."

Jack’s face softened for a brief moment, but then he glared at her again, before turning around so that she couldn't see it.

Cindy's heart hurt for him. Not for herself, and the fact that he thought she was a murderer, but for him.

She wasn't going to give up on this. "What should I get dressed in? My clothes are dirty and torn and I can't put on any of your shirts."

Jack sighed. "Just...wrap the towel around yourself. I'll bring you something from my room."

He'd bring her something
from
his room? "I'm not going back with you?"

"I'm tired. I want to just lie down for a while. I'm going to put you back downstairs."

"In the basement where it's cold and dirty? What was the point of having the shower then?" Cindy snapped.

"It's not dirty down there. I cleaned up before you came."

"It's still cold, and muggy. You really need a dehumidifier down there."

"Cindy, stop it."

"I don't want to go back down there!" Cindy yelled. She hated it, but a feeling of hysteria bubbled up inside her at the thought of going downstairs, maybe being put into the box, and then left alone, no chance to speak with Jack again, until the Collectors came for her."

"Jack, seriously, please, let me stay up here with you. You have me chained up and it's not like I can do anything to you anyway."

"You're right, you can't do anything to me because if you tried it, I would just kill you."

She didn't believe him. It was just the fact that he'd said it at all that made her shiver. "So, does that mean you won't make me go back into the basement?" Cindy asked. She was supposed to be seducing her way into his bed again, but for the moment, that plan looked like it was sailing right out the window, because there wasn't much of anything that was sexy about begging. Not this sort of begging, anyway.

Jack let his head fall back, and he sighed as he stared up at the ceiling. It was something he always did when he was losing his patience.

"Yes," he said finally.

Cindy breathed a sigh of relief.

Because Jack didn't look like the sort of guy who owned a hair dryer, she towel dried her hair quickly, which left it damp, and then followed him out with the big yellow towel wrapped around her middle.

She was definitely feeling better when they got back to his room.

"We're not going to have sex again," Jack said softly. "So you don't have to worry about that."

"You make it sound like what we did was a bad thing," Cindy replied, and she went to sit down on the bed.

Something about knowing that she was going to be sleeping in it made her sigh as she flopped down and rolled onto her side.

Jack only had to stretch out his arm just a little as he walked around the other side of the bed.

He kept his jeans on as he let himself fall face first onto the mattress.

Cindy bounced a little, and she was somewhat surprised. He wasn't kidding when he said he was tired.

But he didn't stay that way either. He lifted himself up and turned onto his side as well, and he was now looking at her.

"We're both going to get your pillows wet," Cindy said.

He nodded. "Probably."

"You don't have to watch me. I'm not going to do anything and even if I could, I wouldn't," Cindy said.

"I know."

Cindy frowned. "Because you would kill me if I tried, right?"

He actually looked a bit uncomfortable at the mention of that. "I wasn't...that wasn't what I meant to say," he said, and then he looked at her from top to bottom. "When did you lose the baby? If it's okay that I ask."

Cindy cringed at the question, but she nodded. "I miscarried the day of the fire."

Jack's eyes widened at that. "Are you serious?"

Cindy turned onto her back. She could still feel the pain in her gut sometimes. "Yeah. I was punched in the stomach a couple of time. He didn't make it."

She could
feel
the weird way Jack was looking at her, if that made any sense. "How do you know it was a him?"

"Not because of some paranormal power I have, I promise you that," Cindy said. "That's just...I'd just rather call the baby a
him
than an
it
."

"Oh, that makes sense," Jack said, and when Cindy looked at him, he was staring down at the space between them, and the chain that connected them, before their eyes met again. "Who punched you?"

"It doesn't matter."

"Yes, it kind of does," Jack said.

Cindy was stunned. "You actually sound kind of angry."

"I am. You were carrying my baby."

Cindy was silent. She was trying to think of what to say, trying to read what was going through Jack's mind. She must've taken too long because he started talking again.

"I believed you then and I believe you now, so tell me who was it that punched you? If it was a collector then I can find him and deal with him. They have rules about handling pregnant paranormals."

"You believe me about being pregnant, but not the fact that I wasn't the one who lit your house on fire?"

Jack pursed his lips, but now it looked like the glare he had on his face was directed at her, instead of the person who killed their child.

"Stop looking at me like that," Cindy said. She decided to risk getting kicked out of his bed and thrown into that box because she was tired of this and tired of being pushed around. "You can't have it both ways. You believed me when I said that I was pregnant but you don't believe me when I try to tell you that I'm not the one who set the fire."

"My house burned down with me, my father, and my brothers all inside of it the night after I told you what I was, and I hadn't seen you the morning before it happened either. That is not a coincidence."

"You're right, its not," Cindy agreed.

Jack frowned at her, but it was a curious one. "What?" He sat up and looked at her. "You were telling me all this time that it wasn't your fault and now you're going to say that it was?"

"That isn't what I said," Cindy replied. She tried to keep herself from yelling or getting emotional. She knew for a fact that if she started yelling, then Jack was going to start yelling, and then neither of them were going to hear the other.

She had to stay calm while Jack was still listening. The problem, however, was that Cindy's throat almost immediately closed up in a painful way that happened whenever she became so monumentally sad that she was about to cry.

"Stacy punched me," Cindy said.

Jack frowned, and she could almost see the wheels in his head turning as he tried to remember who exactly Stacy was. "Stacy...your old roommate?"

Cindy nodded and wiped both hands over her face. At least she wasn't wearing any makeup anymore. "Her and Stephanie. You didn't know this, and I didn't tell you, but they're paranormals, too."

Jack raised his blond brows for a hair of a second before he rolled his eyes and fell down on his back again. "I guess I should've seen that coming. You all lived together. Jamie, too?"

Cindy nodded, and then stopped and stared hard at him. As far as she could remember, she'd never introduced him to Jamie.

"His name was on your phone," Jack said in response to the look on her face. "Don't worry, I didn't find him," he said, as if trying to calm a scared animal.

That helped only barely. "I guess there's no point in hiding anything else from you since you're going to find out about him sooner or later. He can control electricity. Sucks it up from the wiring in the walls, or batteries, wherever he can get it," she said.

Jack's body was tense again, his hands clenched into fists and his eyes hard and angry. "He hit you?"

Cindy probably should have been happy that Jack still cared about her even this much, enough to be angry about the idea of someone hurting her, but she was still caught up in what had happened that day. "No. Just Stacy. Jamie was at work, and when he got back and found out what had happened, he was the one to let me out. He didn't have anything to do with what Stacy and Stephanie did."

"You said,
let you out
. What do you mean by that?"

Cindy knew she would have to reveal more details about this. She took a deep breath and got braced herself, even though she wasn't ready by a long shot.