Page 23 of Devil to Pay: Cutter

“How old were you?”

“I don’t know. My earliest memory of that is when I was four. I remember hearing my mama grunting and crying, or I thought she was crying, so I thought this man was hurting her and I ran out of my room shouting at him to leave my mama alone. She berated me, called me all sorts of filthy names. She said that she’d give me to one of the men if I didn’t shut up and go away.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” This time I do pluck up the courage to look at him, only instead of disgust, he has his hands pressed to his forehead and he’s taking in harsh breaths through is flared nostrils as if trying to calm himself down. I don’t understand. This feels like he’s angryforme, notatme. How? How is that possible?

“No,” I continue needing to get the rest of this out. “The whole time she yelled at me, they never stopped fucking. He had her bent over the sofa. From that day on, whenever my mama’s date arrived, I’d sneak off to that tree. When the moon was full like tonight, I’d talk to it like it was a friend watching over me. Stupid, right?”

“It’s not stupid, Aja.”

“It is. I know it. Especially since the moon never did a damn thing to protect me.” I take in a deep breath. “When I was about twelve, one of the men who frequented my mama decided he’d rather have a piece of me. Of course, I didn’t know it until it was too late. He showed at the trailer before my mama got home from the store. He had me pinned to the floor when she walked in. I fought him something fierce. Here, I thought having my mama home meant he was in for it. I mean, even if she’d never stood up for me before, surely she’d have to when she saw this. But instead of yelling at him, she yelled atme, calling me a ‘cunt.’ She told me to get out of her house and never come back.”

“Fuck, baby—you were twelve?” He shoots up from the table, head down, shaking it slowly, with his hands to his hips he begins pacing, wearing a short trail in the dirt and stones where the grass had already worn away.

I let the ‘baby’ slide, nodding. “I was homeless for about a year and a half. That’s when I started stealing to survive. When I was fourteen I met a man—he was a perv, but he gave me a home and food. All I had to do was let him fuck me. And he wanted us to be able to have conversations so he made me take online homeschooling classes while he worked. I’d made my way to New Orleans by then. He even taught me to drive and got me my first fake license so I could go grocery shopping during the day. Thenhedidn’t have to. Sometimes, he got violent when I didn’t clean as well as he liked or I accidentally burned the food, but for the most part, as long as I toed the line, he treated me okay.”

Cutter says nothing. He won’t even look at me, choosing to stare down at his boots. He drops back down on the tabletop leaning his arms on his knees. I should shut up. I should. But Vlad threatened my life today because I stole from Cutter. I need him to know why I did it. For some stupid reason, I need him to know I’m more than that person.

“When I turned sixteen, he brought another girl into the house and kicked me out. I used my fake ID to get a job topless dancing at a club. I never stole a thing when I worked there. I made enough tips to pay my half of the rent. I’d gotten the job, that’s where I’d met Renee. She worked at the club and needed a roommate. After about six months, they had me doing lap dances. Before my seventeenth birthday, they had me in the private rooms. One of my regulars wanted me to move in with him. I was happy where I was, but Renee got knocked up and needed the room, so she kicked me out. It was move in with him or go back onto the streets. I wasn’t with Clint very long. He got real mean. A total personality one-eighty. One night, he hit me so hard, I blacked out. He was going to kill me. While he was sleeping, I got up to use the bathroom, but I took his money, his credit cards and his bank card. I’d watched. I knew his pin. Then I stole one of his cars and ended up in Knoxville before I ditched it.”

“And you were only seventeen? How did so many people fail you?”

“It’s life, Cutter. When I could get a job dancing, that was the best. But I’ve had to do a lot of things I’m not happy about or proud of to survive. I just… I just needed you to know I’m not that woman. Not unless I’m forced to be. What I did to you was wrong and I’m sorry, but I was in a real tight situation and didn’t see any other way out. You offered me one night of fucking, but hot sex wasn’t going to get me safe.”

There. I gave it to him. Gave it all. Well, almost all. Still, I couldn’t sit there next to him any longer feeling his judgment, so I stood and started walking away from him and the clubhouse. I should’ve known he’d come after me and the man moves fast. His arms wrap around me from behind and as humiliating as it is, a sob rips from my soul.

“Aja,” he whispers in my hair, kissing me there. “Who were you running from?”

“Leave it alone, Cut. Just let me go.”

“Who were you running from?”

I go silent. He wants that information, he’ll have to beat it out of me. I’ve given him as much of myself as I’m ever going to give. It’s time to turn back on Aja Protection Mode.

8

CUTTER

Ifeel it, the moment she hardens her heart to me again, and I hate it. I like her talking to me. I like her being real. It’s refreshing. More than that, it’s comforting. I didn’t have the best home growing up, either, but at least Ihada home.

“Come on, baby.”Fuck.There I go again, calling her baby. I can’t help it. Not with her. She doesn’t struggle when I lead her back inside the clubhouse. Now I know she’s been conditioned not to.

Vlad and I had words this afternoon. He told me that he doesn’t trust Aja enough to have her own room. She’s going to lose her shit, but he’s my president and I can’t go against his word. She’s just going to have to sleep in my room until I convince him he’s wrong about her.

We move past the party going full swing, or by the looks of it, I should say full swingers, at least for the brothers not Vlad, Sarge, Dark, or Reaper. I’ve never seen such devoted men before. It’s still unnerving to see these once-wild men each whipped by a singular pussy turning them into one woman men. But then, it’s hard to imagine sliding my dick into pussy other than Aja’s. She knows what a man wants and gives it good. Although not tonight. She reopened some nasty, old wounds back there. What she needs is for someone to take care of her for once. As I lead her back to my room, I’m resolved to be that someone.

“Get ready for bed,” I order her softly. She doesn’t argue as she walks quietly over to her bags from today and squats down to rummage through them until she finds what she wants. It’s a nightie, but it looks like a ribbed razorback tank that goes down to her mid-thigh. She picked out this girly, soft pink she seems almost too tough to pull off. Aja doesn’t even bother with changing in the bathroom. Why bother? We’ve fucked enough to have seen every inch of each other’s bodies.

While she changes, I grab us a couple of beers from my mini fridge, setting one on each of our nightstands, then kick off my boots and drop my jeans. I pull my wallet and change from the pocket before tossing the jeans over into the hamper in the corner of the room by the bathroom and start to climb onto the bed, but last minute, I decide to shed the shirt too.

Aja looks at me cautiously like she thinks I’m going to try something with her. She should know me better than that. After what she told me outside, she needs a night to just chill.

When she takes her spot on the bed next to me, I do something unlike myself and toss her the remote. “Dealer’s choice.”

“Really?”

“Go for it.”

She’s about ready to make me regret that decision when she just keeps scrolling through movie after movie, and show after show, until she lands onInk Masterand cues up the first episode of the newest season. Aja looks to me, eyebrow raised in question.

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