Facets (43 page)

“What can he do? Couldn’t you and I, between us, counter anything he tried?”

“Not yet.”

“You’ll let him go on directing our lives?”

“No. I’m directing my own life.”

“How?”

“By becoming as successful as I can.”

“But what about us?” she cried. When he didn’t answer, she rolled to the opposite side of the bed and sat up. “You don’t really care. You’re caught up in your own life now. Your own power trip.”

“Wait just a minute. What I do, I do for you as much as for me.”

“I don’t want the money.”

“It’s not just the money. It’s the power. The money buys the power, and the power buys our freedom.”

“When? Five years from now? Ten years from now?” She was groping through the tangled sheets for her nightshirt. “We’ll be old then, Cutter.” She pushed her arms into the sleeves and made for the door.

“Where are you going?”

“The bathroom.” She opened the door and looked back to see him staring over his shoulder at her. The pale light from the hall cast eerie shadows on his face, his arms, his back. The shadows didn’t distort his face, which she knew so well, and his arms were fine, as leanly muscled as they had been during his mining days. But there was something strange about his back. Odd marks.

Frowning, she closed the door again. She leaned against it for a minute, her eyes glued to his back. Slowly, she returned to the bed. She reached for the lamp, hesitated, finally clicked it to its lowest setting. Then she sucked in a breath and held it there with the back of her hand.

Cutter’s eyes held hers, angry and defiant for the space of an eternal minute before he kicked his foot free of the sheet and got off the bed. “Turn off the light,” he growled and went to the window. He stood there with a hand high on the jamb and his weight on one hip. His shape was incredibly beautiful, broad shoulders tapering to a lean waist and hips, legs that were long and well formed. His skin was every bit as firm as it had been, and now faintly bronzed.

She used to be able to look at him for hours, feeling nothing but pleasure. Now, unable to take her eyes from the canvas of scars on his back, she was appalled.

“Turn off the light,” he repeated.

She did, but it didn’t obliterate what she’d seen. Crossing to where he stood, she stared at the scars, then reached out a trembling hand. Her fingertips lightly grazed one of the ridges.

He flinched. “Don’t.”

“What happened?”

He was silent, staring out at the building across the alley.

Again she tried to touch him. Again he flinched. “You were whipped.”

“Not whipped. He didn’t use a whip. That would have been too neat.”

Her stomach churned and she started to tremble. “John did this?” She glanced up to see a movement of the muscle at Cutter’s jaw. It was answer enough. Her hand went to her mouth again. For a second, she thought she might vomit. But the second passed, leaving her cold and sick. “When?” she whispered.

“That December. A couple of hours after the last time.”

“Where?”

“My place.”

“Just him?”

“There were two others.”

“Oh God,” she gasped. Eyes riveted to his back, she was imagining the absolute horror of what must have taken place. “How could he?” she whispered.

She reached to touch him again, but barely made contact when Cutter whirled around and caught her hand. “They beat the shit out of me first,” he ground out. “John just watched that. He wouldn’t have touched me himself. Wouldn’t have dirtied his hands. But he must have gotten one hell of a kick out of the way I was ricocheting off rocks and trees. It was snowy that night. You think snow cushions? Think again. It was cold and ungiving, and then when I was bruised enough to be hurting something fierce, he started in with the belt.”

“Belt?” Pam was breathing in shallow bursts. Her wrist ached, he held it so tightly, but she forgot it in a deeper anguish.

“One of his men was a biker. The belt was wide and had rows of metal studs.”

She cried out in alarm and started to shake.

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 threatened
you
.” 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 and braced 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. A
good
friend. 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.”

“It’s freedom for us.” He took her fingers away and held them. “Do you know how often I’ve thought of killing him? I mean, actually committing murder? Catching him in an alley and beating him to death? Bludgeoning him with a baseball bat? Running him over with my car? I’m not proud of those thoughts, but they come, and I hate him more for making me think them.” He eased his grip. “But I’m gonna do it right, Pam. I’m gonna fight John on his terms. I’m gonna fight him with money and power, because that’s what I’m going to have. You can do it with the jewelry you make. Think about it.”

She didn’t want to. Not just then. She wanted to think about when she’d see Cutter again. “I’m going back to Paris for the summer. Meet me there.”

He shook his head. “I’ll be working the country pushing the fall lines. I won’t be home for more than a weekend until October. That’s one of the reasons 1 had to see you now.”

“Then October.” She came up and put both hands on his chest. His skin was warm, the hair there soft. “I don’t know where I’ll be living—I’m looking for an apartment in the Back Bay—but Hillary will know my address, and my phone will be listed.”

“I don’t know where or when it will be, Pam. But we’re on the right track. I’m not blowing it now by being careless.”

“We’ll be careful.” She clutched his shoulders, fearful that if she didn’t make her case, another four years might go by before she saw him again. “Once I start at
Facets
, I’ll have to visit the New York store sometimes. I’ll make excuses to visit it. I’ll stay at the Park Lane—no, the Hilton; that’s busier, people get lost there. If you’re in town, we could meet. John would never know.”

Cutter gave her a sad look before drawing her close. He wrapped his arms around her, enclosing her in a cocoon of his warmth and his scent. He didn’t speak. As the minutes passed, his arms tightened.

“Sleep with me?” she whispered. “Just for a little while?”

When the silence stretched on, she wondered if he’d heard. She was about to repeat the plea when he took her down to the sheets and tucked her snugly against him. Taking his hand, she brought it to her mouth. She kissed it, curled it around hers, held it there so she knew it was real.

In time she fell asleep. When she woke, as she had known he would be, Cutter was gone.

She cried. It was one way to fight the silence and fill the emptiness. When the tears were finished, she wrapped a love-scented sheet around her and went to the window. Dawn was just breaking, casting a pale glow on the building across the way. She opened the window higher. It was going to be another warm day. She wondered how many warm days would pass before she saw Cutter again.

The more she wondered, the more frustrated she grew. She was twenty-two, graduating from college within days. By fall she’d be a full-fledged member of the workforce, a functioning adult. It wasn’t right that John should still be controlling her life.

Make a name for yourself,
Cutter had said.
Fight him on his terms.

He sounded so sure of himself, but that was easy for him to do. He didn’t have to see John. His income wasn’t dependent on him.

You can do it with the jewelry you make. Think about it.

She did. She thought about it often during those days before graduation, and by the time she stood up to receive her diploma, when the one person she wanted most to be there wasn’t, because there would be trouble if John found him around, she was angry enough to understand.