Crime and Punishment 4: Burning Submission

by Trista Ann Michaels

  Josh grinned wickedly as he brought the bottle to his lips. “Chicken,” he murmured.

  The water quickly heated hotter than usual, burning her fingers. Had her growing desire for him done that? She jerked her hands out and turned off the faucet. She really needed to get herself under control before she did something stupid, like burn the damn house down. Was this what could be called a burning desire?

  “My guess is,” she said as she dried off her hands, “that it’s best for a woman to have all her wits about her when you’re around.”

  Josh chuckled. “I would never take advantage of a tipsy woman.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  He grinned. “I swear.”

  Jennifer shook her head and pulled two plates from the cabinet, while Josh grabbed the bread and condiments from the fridge. “Do you want ham, turkey, or chicken?” he asked.

  “Surprise me,” she said as she sat down.

  Josh tossed the ham on the table. Jennifer jumped at the sound the plastic made as it landed against the wood. “Really? You’re just going to throw it?”

  He gave one shoulder a shrug as he sat down. “I’m a guy. Surely you didn’t expect perfect manners.”

  Jennifer could tell by the gleam in his eyes that he was teasing her. The slight twitch of his lips made the dimple in his cheek appear and then just as quickly disappear, only giving her a glimpse. The blue of his shirt set off the blue in his eyes. They reminded her of a beautiful fall sky, bright and…

  Stop it, stop it, stop it.

  God, her whole body hurt, she wanted him so bad. She really needed to get a grip.

  IT WAS ALL Josh could do to keep from reaching across the table and touching her. All morning he’d caught her watching him with a hunger in her eyes that matched his own. The more time he spent with her, the more he wanted her.

  He was also curious about these abilities of hers. He’d worked with some pretty talented people at the agency, but none with skills like hers. He couldn’t wait to see what she could do with them, but he wanted her to trust him, so he wouldn’t rush or push.

  She was beautiful and sweet, and he loved her teasing side that peeked out occasionally. He noticed the more comfortable she became with him, the more she teased. How could any man turn her over to people who would hurt her?

  After lunch, they’d head outside and play with her powers. Although truthfully, he’d rather be playing with her. He’d love to bend her over this table, ram his cock inside her, and make her scream. He couldn’t remember when he’d ever been so damn hot for a woman.

  It had to be the proximity and the sense that she was off-limits. Even though she’d stared at him like a hungry lioness, he doubted she would appreciate his sexual advances. The last thing he wanted to do was scare her.

  But he could. Oh, he definitely could. He loved to see a little spark of fear in a woman’s eyes as he tied her to a bed. He would never hurt a woman, but he loved to keep them on their toes, making them wonder what wicked scenario he had up his sleeve. And he could spend hours sexually torturing this woman, bringing her to the edge of release but not letting her come, over and over, so when she finally did, she would explode into a thousand pieces. Preferably with his cock buried balls-deep inside her.

  Damn, he wanted her so bad. He really needed to get a grip.

  Chapter Eleven

  Jennifer followed Josh to the backyard, wondering just what he wanted her to do. Had she made a mistake by telling him about her powers? He might not hand her over to the group that had her before, but he might to his own agency. Would they lock her away as well? Force her to do things she didn’t want to?

  Josh handed her a small glass half-full of water. “Okay. Let’s see what you can do. Freeze this.”

  She stared at the glass. “The water?”

  She looked up and found Josh watching her with an amused expression and one eyebrow raised. “No, me,” he drawled in that deep, sexual timbre of his that never failed to make goose bumps appear along her skin.

  Curling her lip, she replied, “Very funny.”

  He grinned. “I’m here all week.” He waved his hand toward the glass. “Give it a shot.”

  Sighing, she lifted the glass and stared at the water.

  JOSH WATCHED AS she placed one hand over the top of the glass. Veins of ice began to move through the water before it froze completely. He’d never seen anything like that.

  “Can you do it without touching it?” he asked.

  She glanced up at him and frowned. “What do you mean?”

  He grabbed the pitcher he’d set on the ground and poured another half glass of water. He held it up, but when she reached for it, he backed away. “Try it while I hold it.”

  She shook her head. “That’s not a good idea.”

  “Try it.”

  “Josh—”

  “Try it,” he said, this time more forcibly.

  Jennifer rolled her eyes in frustration. “Are you always this bossy?”

  “Yes.”

  With a grin, he held it up. Her eyes narrowed in anger, but she didn’t reach for the glass. Instead, she focused her stare on the water. Cold wrapped around his fingers and his palm. Condensation built on the glass as a tingling moved through his lower arm and hand. He ignored it and tightened his fingers against the glass.

  A burn singed his fingertips, like someone flash freezing part of his skin. He hissed and dropped the glass onto the ground, where it landed in a thick patch of grass.

  “I told you,” Jennifer admonished. “If you’re touching whatever I’m manipulating, it will affect you too.”

  Josh sighed and put his hands on his hips. Staring down at the glass, he wondered if maybe she was right, or could she focus more and only freeze the water?

  He bent down and picked up the glass. “Let’s try it again.”

  Jennifer slapped her thigh in frustration. “Oh, for the love… Josh! What if I hurt you?”

  “Then you have my permission to kiss it and make it all better.”

  “That’s not funny,” she snarled. “I killed those people. Don’t you get that?”

  “Yes, I get it,” Josh snapped. “You killed them because you don’t yet know what you can do. It’s time you found out. The more you know about your abilities, the better you can control them.”

  “What if I can’t?”

  Josh set the glass on the ground and walked over to Jennifer. She looked scared to death, her eyes wide, her lips trembling. She was afraid of what she might do, maybe even of what she could do. But she needed to know.

  He put his hands on her shoulders and rubbed gently up and down her arms. She sniffed back tears and looked at the ground. “Please don’t make me do this.”

  “You have to do this, Jenn.” He cupped her cheeks and forced her face up so he could see her eyes. They were such a beautiful color, so deep and honest, and right now, so expressive. “It’s going to be okay, I promise.”

  Why couldn’t he stand this close to her and not want to kiss her? It was just like last night. The pull was so hard to resist. In her gaze he saw desire, hunger, but also uncertainty. He wanted to rid her of that first. He wanted her to know she could trust him. She would have to trust him, especially if they had sex. The kind of sex he liked required trust.

  Swallowing his growing lust, he forced himself to step away. He watched as she drew in a shaky breath and then gave a slight nod. “Fine.”

  “Good.” He bent and picked up the glass. The water was still partially frozen, so he brought it up to her eye level and said, “Thaw it.”

  She held up her hand, palm facing the glass. She bit her lip nervously, and Josh had a wicked desire to replace her teeth with his. “Concentrate on just the water, sweetheart.”

  She scrunched her nose adorably. “It’s kind of hard to concentrate on anything when you call me sweetheart.”

  His lips twitched. “Good to know.”

  Jennifer suddenly dropped her hand. Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “What
do you mean, ‘good to know’?”

  He lifted an eyebrow. “What did you mean when you said it’s hard to concentrate on anything when I call you sweetheart?”

  Her cheeks turned a very telling shade of pink. “Never mind.”

  She lifted her hand back up and concentrated on the water. Josh fought a grin and tried not to just throw the glass aside, grab her by the arms, haul her against him, and kiss that sassy mouth till he had her mewling like a kitten.

  Bracing himself against the possibility of an onslaught of heat she couldn’t control, Josh watched as the water melted, but the glass never heated up. “Very good,” he said. “I didn’t feel a thing.” He brought his gaze back to hers. “Now try to freeze it again.”

  She curled her lip but turned her attention back to the glass. It took a few seconds longer, and Josh felt the coolness in the glass, but she was able to do it. As he stared at the glass, he wondered if she could freeze moving water. They would have to try that later. That would be a more advanced session.

  “You can heat and cool water, but what else?” he asked.

  “Well, you know I can set fires. They had me do that quite often, but whenever I tried to heat up the object without touching it, whoever was close to it got burned. I’ve also been able to make things wobble slightly without touching them. I was never able to do what I just did with you. The drugs they had me on kept me too mellow to fight back. When they said stop, I stopped. I was like a zombie.”

  “Until the day you thought they were going to kill you,” Josh murmured.

  Jennifer nodded and slid her hands in the back pockets of her jeans. “I think I might’ve been between doses of drugs at that point. I don’t remember feeling quite as mellow. The adrenaline in my system probably burned off whatever was left.”

  “You said something earlier about manipulating electrical current.”

  “Yes,” she replied. “I can make it overload. Apparently, based on what happened when I escaped, I can also manipulate the electrical current around the body and cause a person to have a heart attack.”

  “Do you think that’s what you did to the men who held you captive?” Josh asked.

  “I think so. They jerked and grabbed at their chests as though they were having one. I’m not really even sure how I did it. I believe I was just in panic mode. And Josh, don’t you dare ask me to try it on you.”

  Josh lifted his lips in a half smile. “I wasn’t planning on it.”

  “Good.”

  Josh pointed toward the house and started walking. Jennifer fell into step beside him. “Now that you know you can manipulate without touching, you should practice it. Maybe one day try to freeze the creek behind the house.”

  Josh opened the screen door and stepped aside so she could enter first. Jennifer narrowed her eyes at him and then snorted softly. “Right.”

  She walked into the house. Josh followed and let the screen door shut behind him. “You never know until you try.”

  “Sure, coach. I’ll get right on that,” she drawled as she opened the fridge.

  She reached for a beer, appeared to change her mind before going to a bottled water instead. “Are you afraid to drink, Jennifer?” Josh asked.

  Lifting the bottle to her lips, she studied him warily as she took a long sip. Josh recognized a stall tactic when he saw one.

  She lowered the bottle and replied as she twisted the cap back on the top, “Not for the reasons you’re thinking.”

  Josh took a step toward her. Once he’d homed in on that pull that always seemed to radiate off her, it was hard to resist getting closer. He wanted to touch her, taste her, feel her naked body pressed against his. This sexual attraction could get out of control really fast if they both didn’t keep a handle on it, which probably had everything to do with why she wouldn’t drink.

  Josh took another step, backing Jennifer up against the counter. “And what reasons would those be?”

  Her cheeks flamed pink, and her eyes widened just a little. Had she said something she hadn’t meant to? Or was it his invasion of her space? He inhaled her flowery scent mixed with the woodsy smell of the outdoors. His nostrils flared, and every inch of his body tingled.

  The lights overhead flickered, and they both glanced up. Josh looked back at Jennifer, but she continued to stare at the bulbs warily. Had that been her?

  “Show me how you can manipulate the energy around a person’s body,” he commanded.

  She brought her wide eyes back to his. “No,” Jennifer whispered. “What if it goes too far?”

  “Try it and see.”

  “Why?”

  Her breathing was shallow. He could see her pulse beating in the side of her throat. He struggled with the need to bend down and suck on that beating pulse, really get it going.

  He ignored the desire and brought his gaze back to hers. “Because you need to know what you can do.”

  “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “You didn’t out there. I don’t believe you will now. Here,” he said as he lifted his shirt over his head and tossed it aside. “I’ll make it easier for you.”

  She stared at his chest and harrumphed. “That’s supposed to make it easier for me?”

  Josh pursed his lips and shrugged. “Maybe the clothes inhibit it.”

  “You’re insane.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Jennifer couldn’t stop glancing back at Josh’s chest. God, she loved a good set of pecs, and he had an amazing pair. His bare chest distracted her more than anything else. He was nuts if he thought standing in front of her half-naked and looking like a Greek god would do anything for her concentration.

  She understood what he was trying to get her to do. For the most part, she agreed with him. Unfortunately, the last thing she wanted to do at the moment was practice her powers. Sex was what she really wanted, and she wanted it in a bad way—rough and hard, dirty and sweaty. She wanted him to just take her. Now.

  Without thinking, she lifted her hand and let it hover directly over his right pec. The dusty brown nipple called to her, made her want to lick out and suck the hard nub. What would he do if she did?

  She curled her fingers and then straightened them just inches from his warm skin. A tingle moved through her arm and fingertips. Josh’s soft gasp let her know he felt it too, so she brought her gaze up to his face. “Can you feel that?” she whispered.

  “Yeah,” Josh replied. “What are you doing?”

  She stared back at her hand. “I don’t know. I’m just…stimulating the energy around you.”

  Jennifer’s body began to heat, and her nipples ached as they pressed against her bra. The place between her legs throbbed in need. She’d been without way too long. She tried to concentrate on the energy, but all she could see in her mind or feel in her body was Josh fucking her, touching her everywhere, kissing her with those gloriously full lips, and rubbing the stubble on his jaw over every inch of her aching body.

  The air Josh sucked into his lungs made the burning in her fingers register. She gasped and jerked her hand back, stunned at the red spot that had begun to form over Josh’s pec.

  “Oh, God,” she murmured as she reached for a paper towel and wet it. She turned back to Josh and placed the cold towel over his burned flesh. “See? I told you I would hurt you.”

  “You didn’t hurt me,” he said as he put his hand over hers and took the towel.

  He readjusted it over the red mark before turning his gaze back to hers. She didn’t see anger in his eyes, or fear. Instead, she saw barely controlled lust, and she swallowed.

  “What were you thinking about when you did that?”

  She couldn’t hide anything from him. There was something about him, his commanding presence, his authoritative control that had her wanting to spill her guts every damn time he asked her a question.

  “Obviously, something I shouldn’t have been,” she replied sarcastically.

  “Like what?”

  She growled in exasperation as she t
hrew the water bottle in the sink a couple of feet away. “I was thinking about fucking you. Okay? Are you happy now? It’s that damn chest of yours. How can you look so good for a man your age?”

  “Wow. A man my age?”

  Thinking she’d hurt his feelings, she turned to apologize, but the teasing glint in his eyes and flirty grin brought her up short. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Sex is out, so forget it. I don’t have any condoms, and considering you just recently got out of the hospital, I doubt you have any either.”

  Josh looked down at his chest as he removed the towel. The burn had faded to a dull pink, which relieved her somewhat. Unfortunately, his closeness and the track of their conversation only added to her unease. It wasn’t that she was afraid of him. She was afraid of herself and what she might do, especially now that her abilities seemed so uncontrolled.

  “Condoms are an easy fix, sweetheart. Every drugstore has them.”

  She sighed. “That’s not the point. We barely know each other.”

  “That doesn’t stop me from wanting you.”

  Jennifer closed her eyes, fearful that if she looked at him, she’d climb his muscular body like a tree and grind herself against him until she came. Would having an orgasm relieve any of this sexual tension, or would it just make it worse?

  “Besides,” Josh said. “There’re other things we can do besides fuck.”

  Jennifer opened her eyes just as Josh took a step toward her and tossed the towel in the sink by her hip. “Oral never did anything for me,” she whispered, and truthfully, it hadn’t.

  Josh’s lips twitched as he placed his hands at her waist and brought his mouth close to hers. “You haven’t had me eat you yet.”

  She snorted. “You know what they say about—”

  Josh’s mouth covered hers, cutting off what she’d been about to say. His kiss was warm and soft. With a whimper of surrender, Jennifer opened her lips, inviting the wicked invasion of his tongue. She unfolded her arms and snaked them around his neck, pressing her breasts against his chest where she could feel the beat of his heart thumping in time with hers.