Captured Boxed Set: 9 Alpha Bad-Boys Who Will Capture Your Heart (64 page)

He was so close. So fucking close
he could feel it right there, just out of his reach and ready to burst free if
he just kept on going.

Cindy's hands moved under Jack's
shirt, pushing it up his back, and she let her nails claw down his spine, down
his ragged scar before his brain could even put together what was happening.
The sudden flare of pain coupled with the mind numbing pleasure made his balls
seize up almost all the way into his body, and like there was a miniature jet
engine inside of him, his orgasm shot through him with the force of a bullet,
or a rocket, and Jack bit down on the sheets beside Cindy's face as he came
with a muffled yell.

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.