But Cutter wasn’t done.His eyes were wide and angry, faraway, cruel.“They stripped me from the waist up.In the freezing cold.Not that I felt the cold for long.When that belt hit, it was like fire.It tore through my skin, raked right across it.”
She stifled another cry.
“Know what blood looks like when it spatters on new-fallen snow?”
She swallowed an answer; none was called for.
“And he was enjoying it!The bastard was enjoying it.The other two held me down while he swung that belt.Again and again and again—” He stopped abruptly, blinked, seemed to refocus.His voice was less brutal, but no less determined.“So now you know why I want it so bad.I was totally helpless that night.Never again.”
She stared up at him, breathing quickly, feeling everything he had that night, including the helplessness.“The police?”she whispered.
“I couldn’t go to the police.I couldn’t do a damn thing.He threatenedyou.”He looked as though he was going to shake her to drive home his point.Instead he dropped her wrist and turned back to the window.
Pam had thought she knew what love was.She had thought it was thinking about a person, wanting to be with him, aching to make love with him.She had spent years loving Cutter that way.But she had a lot to learn.Love involved things like protectiveness and self-sacrifice.Cutter had felt those for her.She was humbled.
She touched his back, then pressed her palm flat when his muscles tightened.Her hand inched its way down one long welt, over a series of small surface knobs, across a jagged ripple.By the time she moved onto another, tears blurred her vision.
Coming forward, she flattened her cheek to his rough skin.Her arms stole around him, palms scaling his ribs until each covered a nipple.“Cutter,”she whispered.She kissed his marred skin, one knotted spot, then another, wishing her mouth could erase them, and if not her mouth, her tears.The scars remained, branded indelibly, still she continued to kiss him.Her mouth moved up one furrow to its end.She stood on tiptoe to kiss his neck and the smooth spot beneath his ear.She leaned sideways to kiss along his shoulder, then the silky patch of hair under his arm.Fingers splayed, her hands slid down his body until they closed around his growing erection.
“I love you,” she whispered and moved against him, feeling her bare breasts on his scars, her belly on his buttocks.She stroked him, arched into him, spread her fingers and touched him everywhere.When he turned andbraced his back against the wall, she worked her way down his body until she was on her knees, making love to him with her mouth.She had done it before because he’d wanted it.This time was for her.She heard his labored breath and increased the pressure of her lips.Her hands slid over his lower abdomen, along his inner thighs, between his legs.She stayed with him when his hips moved, and even when his fingers knotted in her hair, she refused to leave.Only when he’d climaxed did she release him.Seconds later, she was on her back on the floor, and he was still hard, thrusting inside her.
He wasn’t gentle.His large body drove hers over and over into the oak planks, but she didn’t complain.She loved him too much.She understood his need.When he came a second time, she wrapped her arms around him and held him close.
For a long time he lay on top of her.His weight was significant, but she didn’t complain about that, either.After being without him for so long, she would have suffered almost anything to have him near.
At last he roused.He hoisted himself to his knees, hung his head for a minute, then lifted her in his arms and carried her to the bed.After settling her gently on the pillow, he came down on a knee beside her.
“Did I hurt you?”he asked quietly.
“No.No, Cutter.You’re the one who’s been hurt.I wish there were something—some way—”
“Just be here when I need you.”
She’d known it was coming.After all he had said, she’d known he wouldn’t stay.“Will you come often?”
He shook his head.“I won’t risk that.”
“But he can’t hurt you that way again.You’re too well known.”
“He could hurt you to hurt me.I can’t let that happen.”
The dark didn’t hide the sadness on his face.She touched it, tried to smooth it away, but it was in his eyes and soul-deep.“I’m hurt now without you.What more can he do?”
“He can cheat you out of your share of the company.He can refuse to show your work and bribe his rivals not to show it either.He can rape you, and then say you started it.”
She caught her breath, wondering whether he knew how close it had come to that.She’d been sixteen then.She was twenty-two now, but she felt the same revulsion, the same fear.
“He could do something to hurt Patricia,” Cutter went on.“Say ugly things, spread rumors.She’s as vulnerable as a person can be.And Marcy—she’s back in Maine now, and married to a guy at the mine.John could mess them up.And what about Hillary?She’s been a good friend.Agoodfriend.Her career is finally getting off the ground.Can you protect her, if he decides to destroy her?”
Pam thought of all the times Hillary had been there to listen, give news of Cutter, offer support.Incredibly, given her on-again-off-again affair with John, Pam loved her like a sister.“No.”
“Neither can I, but he might do just that if he’s riled.I’ve learned my lesson.I don’t put anything past him.”
She could understand why.More so even than she, he knew firsthand John’s capacity for brutality.
“So I’m being cautious.I’m building a name and a kitty.It’s not that I want money for money’s sake—or power—”
She stopped the words with her fingers.“I know.I was wrong.”
