Cutter's Hope Read Online Free PDF Page A

the white noise of the surf but that didn’t bother us any. I turned us gently to walk along the water back towards the marina where my boat was moored.
    “Okay, Darlin’. Go ahead and ask,” I urged.
    “I’m thinking!” She looked like she was doing it pretty hard too, it also looked like she was enjoying our little get to know you game. I know I was.
    “You a love ‘em and leave ‘em kind of guy, Cutter? A real heartbreaker?” she asked.
    “Why, you interested in a good time?”
    “Answer my question first and maybe I’ll answer yours,” she tilted her face in my direction, into the sun and shaded her eyes with her hand. She unhooked her arm from mine to do it and I have to say, I didn’t much like that. She finished off her coffee drink and I sucked down the rest of mine, making her wait for it.
    “No, I make sure the terms are set before anything happens,” I said. “Never been a cheater and never found the girl of my dreams neither,” which wasn’t exactly a lie. Hayden was never mine to begin with. It was only my damn fool ass to blame for any heartache on my part where Li’l Bit was concerned. My fault and no one else’s. I’d come to terms with that a while ago and she and Reave would never know just how deep those feelings ran, which was as it should be.
    Hope’s expression became somber, then calculating before finally becoming a mixture of regret and defeat in equal measure. She looked up at me, face hard as stone.
    “Only thing I’m interested in is finding that girl,” she stated flatly but it was too late. I’d seen the cracks in her armor. Tough as she was there was some vulnerability in there. Fuck that was hot.
    “Well, you know, doesn’t mean you can’t have a little bit of fun while you’re doing it, now does it?” I asked and put on my most charming smile. No dice. She was having none of it.
    “That’s exactly what that means. Good talk, Cutter. Small town and all, I’m sure I’ll see you around.” She spun as if to go and I caught her elbow, firmly but gently and she froze. I waited for her to swing on me. I knew she was trained and capable but she didn’t so much as twitch a single muscle. Interesting. She was stiff, in a holding pattern of readiness, her body almost thrummed with barely contained violence and my respect and desire for her started a steady climb.
    “Hey look, I’m just horsing around, I didn’t mean to make light of whatever it is you’ve got going on. For real.”
    She looked like she was thinking that over hard, finally she shook her head, rounded her arm, and slipped out of my grasp with a classic evasion move. I let her do it and she turned, striding across the sugar fine sand, back towards town. I stood and watched her go, admittedly enjoying the view of that fine, toned ass of hers in its short skirt as she walked away from me. I waited to see if she would stop, or turn back, and just when I thought it was time to give it up, that there was really no interest there, she finally did it. She turned and looked back over her shoulder at me. I couldn’t see her eyes for the distance but it was something.
    Gave me hope that Hope and I would be seeing each other again. Truthfully, I already knew I would. It hadn’t been hard to engineer my ‘accidental’ run in with her at Soul Fuel on the boulevard for this little chat. Lily had done what I asked and had texted me the second she’d seen her. The whole town knew I’d marked Hope Andrews. She shouldn’t have any problems while she was here, at least not from the locals. She wouldn’t be getting any cooperation from them either though. Not until I knew exactly what she was after. What she wanted with the Suicide King’s girl from the lake.
    I would definitely be seeing Hope again, all roads to the answers she sought ended with me. I just had to make sure whatever answers she got kept me, and my club, in the clear.

 
    Chapter 5
    Hope
     
    I take it back. Cutter wasn’t confident, he was