Cutter's Hope (34 page)

“I want to, now shut up and let me,” she said.

I let her go and she resituated herself so she lay on her stomach while I still knelt by the hammock, I walked forward on my knees and made it easy for her, she undid and peeled back my shorts and my cock started to get back with the program. It was a damn fucking shame it was sometimes gonna be hard for her to cop a blowjob. I was pretty amazed she hadn’t had much practice at it, that she was a fucking natural. Her mouth on me, Jesus, you would never know such a hard-assed, kickass woman was doing it. She was slow and gentle this time, reverent with how she worked me and it was really nice.

She didn’t blow me like back in the hotel, she didn’t blow me this time like she liked to fuck. She liked to fuck hard and fast until I wore her down into something more sedate and loving. Except right now, she was as gentle as a lamb and made love to me with her mouth from the get-go. I gazed down the length of my body. Watching this was half the thrill, after all, but her hair was in the way. I gently touched her head and she flinched but I could fix that easily enough.

“Oh yeah,” I groaned, “Your mouth is so fucking perfect, I wanna see, Sweetheart, so I’m going to touch you, I’m gonna gather up all this long, satin soft hair, and I’m going to watch you make love to me with your mouth, because that’s what you’re doing, isn’t it?”

“Mm,” she moaned around my shaft and the vibration of it had my balls tightening. I was going to blow way too soon. This was something. Watching this wild woman do something so sweet, so submissive, without me having to make her…

“Hope, I’m going to come, lover, I’m going to…” I grunted and came and she rolled those dark eyes up my body as I did and that vision is forever burned into my brain. Holy god almighty. She was so fucking perfect. She drew off me and got up, went to the side and spit and I was cool with that, if it was what she needed this time, that was cool.

I knelt and breathed out and she came back to me, standing in front of me. I wrapped my arms around her legs and placed a reverent kiss next to her navel, turning my head and cuddling into her. She raked her nails gently through my hair, against my scalp and I shivered.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“For what?” I asked. Was she for real?

“I’ve never been able to make a man come from that, not since… and now I’ve done it twice.”

“Mm, Sweetheart, I don’t know how anyone could resist or hold off,” I told her truthfully.

“Anyways,” she said, my words making her uncomfortable, “Thank you.”

“Thank
you
, now I’m gonna need you to lie back because I need inside you. I really do…”

Chapter 39

Hope

I opened my eyes. It was still deepest night, so late as to probably be early, the air just had that smell to it, you know? I was warm enough, the night sultry and warm and I was snuggled up close to Cutter’s warmth, my head on his shoulder, leg draped over his. So why was I awake? I blinked and held very still beneath the single flat sheet draped over us and waited. Water lapped against the hull, there was an odd creak from the wood or one of the ropes but nothing seemed amiss or out of place.

So why was I awake?

Cutter sighed out into the night, his arms tightening around me, and I looked up, his eyes were closed but a small smile played on his lips. He was sound asleep so I wondered what it was he dreamed. I settled, laying back down, closing my eyes to listen to the waves lap in counterpoint to the cadence of his heart. I liked it here, in his arms. I liked it here, in this town and I realized I was sick of having no place to put down any roots. I was tired of having no life, and as much as I loved my sisters, my heart wrenched when I realized I would always love them, I would always be here for them, but the apron strings had been cut. They were standing on their own now.

I mean, Charity, the youngest, she’d been standing on her own for quite a while. She was on the very verge of graduating, of finding a career, of finding a man and starting a family… Faith, the middle child had always been shiftless as the sands along the beach out there. Never settling but always travelling in the direction I’d pushed her. God, I felt so
guilty
. I’d always pushed and pulled her in directions she didn’t want to or
wasn’t meant
to go. She’d always been the free and artistic one… but I’d pushed and pushed and pushed and finally she’d given in and gone to that damned school when if I’d just
helped her
financially she could have lived on campus but no, I had to be stubborn. I had to teach her to stand on her own and look what I’d done.

I’d made her an ever loving target for that carrion eater and my baby sister had suffered the ultimate price. My bright eyed and innocent Bubbles had –

“It’s not your fault, Sweetheart, no one blames you…” Cutter’s voice was at once soothing and sympathetic.

“
I
blame me.
I do,
okay?”

“Shhh,” he held me as my bitterness poured out and it was just what I needed to do. To purge, to get it out and take some deep cleansing breaths and to try to find my center again. I was horribly off kilter and bound to self-destruct if I didn’t, and all grown up or not, my sisters still needed me to be the strong one.

Cutter kissed my forehead, his lips warm and soft and my eyes drifted shut unbidden. It had been a cathartic cry, and I felt steady despite the gentle rocking of the boat, as he held me close and let me borrow his strength.

“I can’t do anything for her and it
kills
me, but she can’t know I’m crying about it like a little bitch either. I don’t fall apart in front of them, I never fall apart in front of them,” he hushed me, hand cradling my head, thumb against my lips and I stilled.

“You do what you gotta do, Sweetheart, but when you’re with me, you do you. I got you. You ain’t gotta hide from me, or pretend that it’s okay when it’s just you and me because it’s not. I get that, and there’s no judgment here. We make a good team, good partners and I like that, Babe. I like it and I want to keep it, and I want you to find some happy and if that means you gotta be unhappy then we’ll do that. You get me? I’m not going anywhere and I damn sure don’t think less of you. I’m amazed you’ve held it together this long.”

He soothed me, with gentle touches and his deep rich voice, like no one ever had before, or could. I found strength in him, I found calm when I needed it and fuel for my ire when I needed it instead. I cuddled into him and let him soothe some of my misery away and as we drifted, tethered only by the boat’s anchor, I stared across the strong planes and angles of his chest, over the water at the lightening sky behind the houses and sighed.

“Promise me you won’t give up on me,” I said suddenly, well aware of what a squirrely mess I was right now, unaware of how long it might last.

Cutter chuckled, “You’re stuck with me as long as you can tolerate me.”

A long, feminine wail drifted out to us from below decks and the both of us laughed, stifling our giggles behind our hands, snorting and just generally trying to keep ourselves from being heard.

“I wondered what woke me up,” I said dryly.

“They been at it more ‘n an hour,” he chuckled.

“Sounds like us,” I said softly.

“Hmm, yeah, you know what? It sounds like a good idea,” he drew my leg higher on his body and turned, a few awkward thrusts of his hips and he found me, sinking in slowly, working himself back and forth until just by virtue of starting in on me, I became wet enough to ease his way.

“Not going anywhere, Sweetheart. I promise, you’d have to fight me to make me let you go anyhow.”

“We all know how that turned out last time,” I whispered.

“Damn right… god you feel so fuckin’
tight
.”

I kissed him, the angle we had was awkward but working, and I let him make love to me as the sun rose slowly in the sky. It was beautiful.

Chapter 40

Cutter

“What is the big, god damn, emergency?” I demanded. Hope had been
pissed
when I told her to relax and chill back at the Mysteria Avenge and had vaulted the side and swam for shore, dry clothes sealed in Ziploc bags along with my other essentials, trailing in a dive bag.

Reaver didn’t help, laughing his head off at the expression on her face as I’d gone over the side. She couldn’t follow with the cast on her arm.

“I’m kicking you in the balls when you get back!” she’d shouted at me. Only got pissed off even more when I’d shouted back that no she wouldn’t, she’d need them that night. Hayden had given her a sympathetic look and Reaver had fallen on his ass he was laughing so hard. I hoped like hell that my girl didn’t kick
him
in the balls. I’d come back to find a hole in her.

I hadn’t had time to worry about it. I was making way to The Plank to answer my secretary’s nine-one-one text to get my ass to shore. Now I was glowering at my whole assembled crew minus my VP and I had a sinking feeling…

“Easy, Captain.” Pyro said affably and it was the fact my best friend and first mate aboard our salvage boat was at ease that put my raised hackles down.

“We wanted to talk to you,” Atlas said.

“Yeah, we put it to a vote,” Nothing said grimly, but that was Nothing for you, he was always a grim bastard.

“You vote me out as your Pres.?” I asked, half expecting the worse. My girls gloom and doom was wearing off on me a little I guessed. The boys all busted up laughing.

“Fuck no! We took Marlin’s vote by proxy, man.” Atlas said, wiping tears out of his eyes.

“What the fuck is this about!?” I demanded. I was as lost as a whore on her way to church.

“Have a seat, Cap,” Lightning suggested. I went to my electric chair and dropped into it.

“We need to ask you something,” Pyro said, “You give any thought about making Hope your Ol’ Lady?”

I eyed my friend, “Uh, yeah,” I nodded.

“And?” Atlas prompted.

“Have to ask her, not sure how my rag would go over.”

“Yeah that’s what we voted on,” Radar pulled out a plastic grocery sack from under the table, I raised an eyebrow.

“Dude, I looked, it’s not exactly in our by-laws but it’s not exactly
against them
either…” Atlas said.

“What did you guys fucking vote on? What did you do?” I demanded suspicious.

Radar pulled a cut, a small, trim one out of the bag and laid it out in front of me. I blinked, stupid. The top rocker read ‘property of’ like it should, the bottom rocker ‘Cutter’ like it should but between the two…

“No Ol’ Lady’s ever worn the club’s colors…” I said looking the patch over, the Kraken dragging the ship below the waves.

“Hope ain’t just an Ol’ Lady, Captain,” this coming from Beast.

I looked around the table at all my guys and they all stared back plaintively, “Somebody explain, before I suffer a goddamn stroke.”

“Hope can take it man, she stood side by side with us as good as any brother and if she were a dude, it’d be no contest... She’d be in. We see she makes you happy, you guys are a good match. She can handle it, and we wanted to show not just you but her that she’s got a place here. We want her to stay, too,” My best friend and first mate sniffed and propped his boots on the table, leaning way back in his chair. He raised his eyebrows, and waited for me to finish processing what my boys were telling me.

“Hope is yours, Man; every one of us can see it, but she’s got this club’s respect and fuck what any other club says or thinks… Except for our brothers from another mother up North. They think like us anyhow,” Nothing shrugged, “That’s why we like ‘em.”

I kind of scoffed a little incredulous and picked up my gavel, “So ordered?” I asked and got a rousing round of smiles and agreement, “So entered!” I brought the gavel down on the arm of my chair with a sharp crack, but my eyes were fixed on the property rag in front of me. There was only one thing left to do, really, and that was to convince Hope to wear it. I had no idea how to go about doing that but at the same time, I knew the time wasn’t right. Not right now. She was stressed out enough and add the pissed off to it… nope, it would have to stay here for now.

“I really don’t know what to say, boys, except ‘thank you’, so thank you.” I embraced each of my brothers one at a time until I came to Nothing.

“When you gonna ask her?” he asked.

“I have no idea, definitely not until this shit storm has had a chance to calm down.”

“I was gonna suggest that, she and the sister doing okay?” he asked.

“I don’t know, Man; I really don’t know, Hope seems to be hanging on by a thread and you know Marlin, he’s gonna do everything he can to protect Faith’s privacy and truthfully? That’s why I picked him. That poor girl has been through enough.”

Nothing nodded solemnly, he’d seen quite a bit of shit back when he’d been an EMT or Paramedic or some shit. I knew it was one of the two and that they weren’t exactly the same thing. Didn’t care enough about the distinction.

“Well, you know we’re all here for you and Hope, Captain. Just call.” Atlas said from over Nothing’s shoulder. Nothing turned, nodding back in agreement to what my secretary was saying.

“A man couldn’t ask for a better band of brothers,” I told my men and it was true. I looked down at the table, at the leather bodice-like vest the boys had gotten my woman and I felt a surge of emotion. A lot of things, so many things at once I couldn’t even begin to describe it if I wanted to.

“Get on back to Hope, Captain, we all know you want to, we’ll call you anything else needs attention,” Pyro nodded to me and I looked over all my men in turn one more time.

“You boys see something I don’t?” I asked.

“Yeah, she’s your ‘one’, dude. Now get going!” Lightning winked from the back of the bar and I huffed a laugh.

“Okay, I’m going,” and I went, still marveling at what my boys had done for me and her.