Page 30 of Cutter's Hope

“I’m not a bad dude, Baby. Maybe I wanna prove that to you,” he murmured. I scoffed a little.

“You don’t give a fuck what people think,” I stated judiciously.

“Maybe not, Darlin’ but for some reason, I care about whatyouthink,” he winked at me and slipped from my grasp taking a step back. His buddies looks of mistrust were burning me up where I stood and I felt a little bad about that, but not bad enough to really care all that much. After all, one or some of these assholes killed my only lead, even though from what the Dani girl had said, she wasn’t someone really to be mourned over which was its own particular kind of awful and sad when you thought about it.

“Just do whatever you have to do and get your ass back here,” I grumbled.

Cutter laughed, “Yes ma’am!” he shot me a smart salute and got back on his bike. I watched them leave and went into the house.

It was cool inside, the air conditioning running strong and a welcome respite from the oppressive heat and humidity outside. I set myself to exploring, mostly in an effort to track down my belongings. I found them in the master suite upstairs. They’d just shoved everything in a giant ass cardboard box and put it on the bed. It was all here though. Clean, dirty, didn’t matter, it was just in one giant jumble, my few paper files and tablet on the bottom under my emptied backpack and riding boots.

I sighed and spent the next thirty minutes sorting everything out. Once everything was in neat little OCD piles, I put all my dirty clothes back into the box a la laundry basket, and started a hunt for a washer and dryer. Might as well get something accomplished if I was going to be waiting for hours.

I stripped out of the god awful, oversized dress meant for someone with actual tits and dropped it in with the rest of my shit. I had two loads to do, both small but one was reserved for my delicate clothing of which I had plenty. Delicate material took up a whole lot less room in a pack and when you lived off the back of a bike like I had been doing, the more delicate the material, the more of a wardrobe you could carry.

I had a storage unit in Cali that had my cold weather gear and furniture and such in it, but it had been a minute since I’d needed any of it. One of the joys of working for yourself was choosing where to go when. I hated the cold. I worshiped the day star passionately, and stuck to warm, sunny climates as much as I could.

I returned to the master suite bare assed and didn’t even care. I mean I was here alone, so fuck it, right? I sat down heavily on the bed and powered up my phone and tablet and went through them. I had to hand it to The Kraken, for being a bunch of seemingly low-brow Neanderthal biker thugs, they were thorough. They’d been through all my shit backwards and forwards. Surprisingly I didn’t care about that so much. All they found was what I’d been telling Cutter this entire time.

I was looking for Tonya Anon in hopes that she would lead me to my sister. I really could give two fucks about what these happy bastards were into. They didn’t need to know that I knew about a few of their extracurricular activities. I mean seriously, who gave a shit about Cuban cigars and bootlegging moonshine? I’m sure they were in to more than just that, they were playing their cards too close to the vest, but from everything I could tell? They didn’t do guns, they didn’t do sex workers, and they didn’t do hardcore drugs. Compared to most other motorcycle gangs, these guys were pious little angels. I had to smile on the inside, because compared to most women, I was better trained and smarter than carrying the information I had on them anywhere other than in my brain.

I finished taking stock of everything and was pretty surprised to find that everything, including my fully loaded Ruger, was accounted for. Only thing missing was a wayward eyeliner pencil which upon further digging, I found in the bottom of my purse.

“What is your guys’ deal?” I muttered under my breath. The short answer? They didn’t see me as a threat, and they were right, I wasn’t. Everything about their behavior up to this point screamed that they were trying to cover their ass and protect their own and I could appreciate that. Wasn’t that exactly what I was doing when it came to Faith and Charity?

Charity… it’d been a few days since I last checked in. I picked up my phone which had three percent battery and plugged it in. I rooted around for my toiletries and decided on a proper shower. I’d wanted to catch them off guard earlier so I’d just done a quick rinse.

I spent a long while under the spray of the bigger house shower and let the massaging showerhead beat my sore muscles into submission. I let my mind drift and sighed out when it invariably ended up on the more intimate moments of the night before. Cutter was quite possibly the most amazing lover I had ever been with and I would be a fucking liar if I said I didn’t want more. I lightly banged my forehead against the shower wall.

I fucking hated this shit. Feeling all over the map and out of control was so not my usual thing. I needed to get my shit together and fast. I shut off the tap and dried off, wrapping a towel around me. I looked around and jackpot, found a hair dryer. Most hotels and B&B’s had them. Score that this place had one too. I dried my hair, found some clean clothes, grateful that I was washing. I was seriously scraping the bottom of the barrel when it came to wearable outfits.

I switched the laundry and got the second load going and by the time I got back to the master suite my phone had enough of a charge to call my littlest sister. It rang, and rang, and rang and rang before kicking over to voicemail. I groaned just before it beeped.

“Blossom! It’s Buttercup, call me back,” I sighed loudly, “I’m still in Florida and I’m on to a different lead, I’ll fill you in later. Love you, bye.” I hung up and tossed the phone, charging cable still solid, onto the nightstand. I scrubbed my makeup free face with my hands and spent my time whiling away the next few hours finishing up my laundry and scouring my files for any mention of an ‘Ivan’ anywhere and going over everything New Orleans related.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!” I exclaimed and flopped back onto the bed when I came up empty on both fronts.

“Thought you had enough but I’m certainly willing to oblige.”

Cutter crossed the carpet, and flopped down on the bed beside me, propping his head on his arms. I turned my head and looked at him huffing out a loud exaggerated breath.

“You look like you’ve had a hell of a day,” I said dryly. He shrugged laconically and reached an arm across my middle.

“Could have been worse. House is clean, we took out the trash, doesn’t get the dirt out of our souls though,” I searched his face and nodded slowly.

“I’m sorry,” I said and I was, whatever he’d been out doing had obviously taken a toll on him and his.

“How about you?” he asked.

“Been over everything, twice. Nothing. Not a God damned thing points to anybody named Ivan,” I scrubbed my face with my hands again and Cutter slipped his hand beneath the hem of my tee, giving us skin on skin contact. His hand was warm in the air conditioned coolness of the house and I couldn’t tell him how much I relished the skin on skin contact.

“Where do we go from here?” I asked.

“Depends, Darlin’. What context? You talkin’ about you and me or you talking about the search for your girl?” he asked.

“Both, really…”

“Well, I think both of us need to eat some food, take a deep breath, and figure it out a moment at a time. I want to help you. I promised you I would help you and I meant it. I like you, Hope. You’re sassy and give me a run for my money. I think I’ve needed that,” he gave me that panty scorching grin of his and I felt an answering throb in my cunt. Damn it. Wasn’t fair how fucking sexy he was.

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