Page 47 of Cutter's Hope

“Don’t be,” I whispered, “What did you want to ask me?”

“For this…”

“To hold you?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

I chuckled, “Aw, Sweetheart, you ain’t never got to ask me for this, I love holding you.”

“Yeah?” she sniffed and wiped at her eyes and let out a shuddering sigh, relaxing into me.

“Yeah. Can I ask you something?”

“Sure…”

“You got a mind towards what comes next? After we get your sister?” I asked.

She let out a bitter, derisive little laugh and pulled back to look at me, “We don’t even know if wearegoing to get my sister back.”

I cupped her face with my hands and smoothed my thumbs through the moisture and makeup beneath her solid brown eyes. I searched her face and what I found there was twisted and tortured with guilt and so many other things, I sighed softly.

“We’re going to get her back, Sweetheart. I believe it and you should too, but you gotta be ready for what comes next…”

“I guess I haven’t thought that far ahead,” her brow furrowed.

“Yeah, well I have. Come back to Florida with me. Your sister is gonna need time and a place to heal, people to look out for her. Let me give you that place at the very least… take all the time you and your family needs to heal.” She searched my face for a solid minute.

“Why would you do that for me? You barely know me.”

“True enough, but I like what I see and I’m enjoying the hell out of getting to know you. I like you, Hope. I want more of this. I want a lot of things from you.”

“Like what?” she asked.

I smiled, “Like more of this,” I kissed her lips lightly and pushed her jacket off her shoulders; she let it fall to the floor and swooned towards me. I untucked her shirt and smoothed my hands against her skin, “And more of this…” I whispered and she sighed.

Yeah… I wanted more and more of Hope until she had nothing left to give. I wanted all of her, and I wanted to keep all of her to myself. I felt like I’d met my match in Ms. Andrews and I wasn’t about to let any of that go.

“What else do you want?” she asked her voice husky, low and sexy.

“I want you to let down your hair, I want to take all this off a piece at a time and I want to lay you back and kiss every inch of you, starting with your heart… if you’ll let me.”

She closed her eyes and savored my words and I could see that she desperately wanted what I was holding out in front of her. She nodded slowly and reached up, unpinning her hair, pulling the tie that held it tight in its bun.

“I want that,” she whispered, “I really do…” her hair spiraled out and frothed around her face and I buried my hands in it, drawing her face up to mine. I kissed her, lingering, dark and deep and smiled against her mouth.

“Relax, Baby. Let me take care of you for tonight, okay?” I asked.

“Okay,” she murmured so sultry and sweet. I drew her against my body and kissed her soulfully.

Okay.

21

Hope…

Cutter was warm in the air conditioned coolness of the cheap ass motel room. His lips moved carefully against mine and I couldn’t help myself, I surrendered completely. Gave myself over to his care and let myself, my burdens, just everything go. It would all be there in the next hour, or the one after that or just whenever he got through with me, which a part of me hoped that he never would.

There was nothing I could do right now but wait. Wait for the hands on the clock to crawl around the dial, wait for day to break, the sun to crawl across the sky at its snail’s pace, only to set again so that we could head for the titty bar, Objections. To flush out our rat so we could follow it back to its nest. So for now, the best thing I could possibly do, is at least try to unwind. To find a distraction so that the clock would wind down faster and put me that much closer to finding my sister.

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