Burning Up Inside

Chapter Two

Cindy let the heat pool into her hands, let it rise and increase. She didn't give it free reign. No. This wasn't a time to be showing off her new control, the ability she had now compared to two years ago. Not when her boyfriend, who was uncomfortable around fire in general, and had suspected her up until very recently of burning his family alive and giving him these scars, lay on his stomach beneath her.
He already knew she had control anyway. She'd told him, and he'd seen her summon fire easily enough a couple of times to believe that she could handle the flames.
Fire was practically alive sometimes, coming and going only when it wanted to, despite how much she'd called it. It had taken Cindy years to be able to summon the fire and have it answer her call in a timely manner.
Jack's arms were crossed and his chin propped onto his forearms. Could he actually be as calm as he looked? Or was he just really good at hiding.
Cindy touched one warm hand to the rough and uneven flesh of Jack's back.
He might be comfortable taking off his shirt and showing his scar, but it still made Cindy wince every time she saw it. According to Jack, it wasn't even that bad, not compared to other burn victims, he'd said.
Despite that, and the fact that she hadn't been the one to burn him, to hurt him like this, she still felt responsible for what happened. His scars, his lost family. It wouldn't have happened if the people she'd been living with, angry and frightened paranormals, hadn't figured out that Cindy was dating a man related to so many hunters.
Without meaning for it to happen, the heat in her hand increased by several degrees.
Jack flinched at her touch, and a bitten off groan escaped his lips. He might've hissed if he hadn't clamped his lips shut first.
Cindy yanked her hand back. "Too hot?" she asked, knowing that it wasn't, even after her mistake, but offering him a way to stop this without being embarrassed.
Jack shook his head. He even smiled at her over his shoulder. "No, sorry. It just surprised me."
"Do you want me to keep going?"
Jack settled his cheek back down on his arms. He might've even sighed. "Definitely."
Cindy took in a deep breath. She'd promised to give it her worst, after all.
Cindy pressed both of her palms down flat just below Jack's shoulder blades. The scarred flesh wasn't completely covering his back, or his arms, so there were places Cindy could touch without running her fingers over his scars.
They didn't bother her, his scars, but she was way more concerned about the scars bothering him.
"Does it hurt you when I touch them?" Cindy asked.
"My scars?"
She nodded. Then she remembered that he wasn't exactly looking at her, so she spoke up quickly. "Yeah. Will it hurt you if I add too much pressure? I don't know a lot about how they feel to you."
It was weird just coming to the realization that she didn't know much about him, period. They'd been separated for two years, and they were only recently back together.
Something that almost didn't happen, if not for Jack's ability to see beyond his boiling rage, his need for vengeance.
Cindy had wanted to get back at people a time or two during her life. When she'd been punched in the stomach and miscarried thanks to a few angry paranormals, that was the first thing to come to mind.
The anger inside of her had been like a trapped rat that had been trying and failing to chew its way out of her.
Eventually, after weeks and weeks, and then months, of having no one around to take her anger out on, the rat inside her had died, and she'd been able to let go.
Jack had her for less than two days, and he'd been able to let go so easily.
Jack released a long breath, but it didn't exactly sound like a sigh. More like he was thinking. "Sometimes it itches."
"Really?" Cindy hadn't expected that.
She pressed her palms back down, harder against his back, searching for any knots.
Jack sighed. When Cindy tilted her head a little, it looked like his eyes were falling half shut. Pleasure and relaxation suddenly wafted from him. "Yeah," he said, his voice carrying like a moan. It drew a pleasurable shiver right out of Cindy's body.
Considering she was sitting on Jack's ass, straddling him, it was a wonder he couldn't feel it in her thighs.
"Sometimes it burns though, and I re meme how much it hurt. I need a cold pack on those days."
Cindy hadn't seen him use one since she first realized he was alive. That was a while ago now. Had he been in pain and was hiding it because there were no ice packs?
She imagined Jessica using her ice powers on Jack's back, and the jealous rat inside of where started to gnaw at her.
The vengeful rat was dead, but the jealous one would likely never go away. Not really.
She was still able to quickly settle it when she reminded herself that Jack hadn't known about Jessica's powers until recently, so there was no point in making herself jealous over it.
She told herself that once they were done here, she'd find him a bag of frozen peas if that was what he needed.
Then Cindy realized what she was doing, and she turned down the heat in her hands. "Are you sure I should be doing this then? I mean, if the cold is what helps--"
"Not all the time," Jack said. "Seriously, please don't stop doing that. It feels really good. Hot and cold work well together and right now your hands are awesome."
Heat built up inside of Cindy's body, and not because she could control fire. Usually, that heat wasn't building between her thighs, making her frustrated.
Cindy thought of all kinds of different ways she could turn this into something sexual. She'd started this to help Jack relax, to maybe even let him rest his eyes for any hour, a half an hour, or even just fifteen minutes because he was clearly thinking so much about this coming mission, and it was sucking the life out of him worse than any vampire could pull off.
Jack didn't look so pale, and his cheeks so sallow as the minutes ticked by. The problem was that every sigh Jack let out, every shift of his ass beneath Cindy's thighs, and every shift of his chest beneath her hands, made her burn and ache.
"When was the last time we did something like this?" Jack asked, and then opened his previously peacefully shut eyes, as though recalling just when the last time had been.
"I'm...sorry," Jack said, and he looked it, but he didn't move away from Cindy's touch.