“How?”
“By becoming as successful as I can.”
“But what about us?”she cried.When he didn’t answer, she rolled to the opposite side of the bed and sat up.“You don’t really care.You’re caught up in your own life now.Your own power trip.”
“Wait just a minute.What I do, I do for you as much as for me.”
“I don’t want the money.”
“It’s not just the money.It’s the power.The money buys the power, and the power buys our freedom.”
“When?Five years from now?Ten years from now?”She was groping through the tangled sheets for her nightshirt.“We’ll be old then, Cutter.”She pushed her arms into the sleeves and made for the door.
“Where are you going?”
“The bathroom.”She opened the door and looked back to see him staring over his shoulder at her.The pale light from the hall cast eerie shadows on his face, his arms, his back.The shadows didn’t distort his face, which she knew so well, and his arms were fine, as leanly muscled as they had been during his mining days.But there was something strange about his back.Odd marks.
Frowning, she closed the door again.She leaned against it for a minute, her eyes glued to his back.Slowly, she returned to the bed.She reached for the lamp, hesitated, finally clicked it to its lowest setting.Then she sucked in a breath and held it there with the back of her hand.
Cutter’s eyes held hers, angry and defiant for the space of an eternal minute before he kicked his foot free of the sheet and got off the bed.“Turn off the light,” he growled and went to the window.He stood there with a hand high on the jamb and his weight on one hip.His shape was incredibly beautiful, broad shoulders tapering to a lean waist and hips, legs that were long and well formed.His skin was every bit as firm as it had been, and now faintly bronzed.
She used to be able to look at him for hours, feeling nothing but pleasure.Now, unable to take her eyes from the canvas of scars on his back, she was appalled.
“Turn off the light,” he repeated.
She did, but it didn’t obliterate what she’d seen.Crossing to where he stood, she stared at the scars, then reached out a trembling hand.Her fingertips lightly grazed one of the ridges.
He flinched.“Don’t.”
“What happened?”
He was silent, staring out at the building across the alley.
Again she tried to touch him.Again he flinched.“You were whipped.”
“Not whipped.He didn’t use a whip.That would have been too neat.”
Her stomach churned and she started to tremble.“John did this?”She glanced up to see a movement of the muscle at Cutter’s jaw.It was answer enough.Her hand went to her mouth again.For a second, she thought she might vomit.But the second passed, leaving her cold and sick.“When?”she whispered.
“That December.A couple of hours after the last time.”
“Where?”
“My place.”
“Just him?”
“There were two others.”
“Oh God,” she gasped.Eyes riveted to his back, she was imagining the absolute horror of what must have taken place.“How could he?”she whispered.
She reached to touch him again, but barely made contact when Cutter whirled around and caught her hand.“They beat the shit out of me first,” he ground out.“Johnjust watched that.He wouldn’t have touched me himself.Wouldn’t have dirtied his hands.But he must have gotten one hell of a kick out of the way I was ricocheting off rocks and trees.It was snowy that night.You think snow cushions?Think again.It was cold and ungiving, and then when I was bruised enough to be hurting something fierce, he started in with the belt.”
“Belt?”Pam was breathing in shallow bursts.Her wrist ached, he held it so tightly, but she forgot it in a deeper anguish.
“One of his men was a biker.The belt was wide and had rows of metal studs.”
She cried out in alarm and started to shake.
