Page 7 of Devil to Pay: Cutter

“No, no—a hundred. I’ll do it.”

“Price just went up because you insulted me. It’s one-fifty now.”

“That’s highway robbery.”

If he only knew…

I sigh. “Going once. Twice—”

“Okay. One-fifty, but that’s it.”

“Fine. It’s a pleasure doing business with you. Now follow me around back so we have a little privacy.”

He backs up while I toss the rest of my meal in the trash. He and I walk behind the building together. There’s a large, green trash receptacle with a flattened piece of cardboard to the other side of it, a spent condom sitting on the edge of the cardboard. Classy.

No wonder he thought he could approach me. Apparently, I found a prostitution hot spot.

And he’s not playing around, beginning to unbuckle his belt. I stop him right there. “Payment upfront.”

“I don’t think—”

Yeah, I don’t doubt that. “Then I don’t do.”

He must really want me to suck him off because although he sighs while doing it, he reaches into his pocket for his wallet.

While he’s distracted, I look for something I can use to get me out of this situation, and I find the exact thing in a broken wooden pallet sitting near the dumpster. Bingo.

“Here.”

Him thrusting his hand at my face gets me to turn my attention back to him in time to scowl his way. I take the cash, counting it while he pulls his hobbit-sized dick from his pants.

Money tucked safely in my pocket, I drop to my knees and begin to stroke him with my hand to get him to relax. This will only work if he relaxes. I know I’ve got him when he closes his eyes and moans. That’s when I use the hand not stroking him to grab the broken end of the pallet and swing with everything I’ve got, catching him upside the head.

His eyes open, going wide with fear and pain for just a moment before they close again and he drops to the cardboard along with me.

Because I’m me and I feel bad for assaulting him, I check to make sure he’s still breathing before I take off. Since he’d emptied his wallet to pay me and I have no desire to stealhiscard, once breath from his nose hits my hand as I’m checking for a pulse, I get the hell out of there, leaving his bare ass exposed next to that spent condom.

I’m hoping I hit him hard enough to forget what actually happened there. But when he wakes up to that scene, he’s going to be very confused. Either way, I don’t think he’ll go snitching to the police.

Serves him right. I’ll reiterate: What kind of asshole approaches a woman eating her lunch for sex?

I suppose it’s not that different from what Cutter offered—feed me then fuck me—but in a way, it is.

Cutter never made me feel like he thought I was a prostitute. We talked. We laughed. We ate. In an odd way, it felt like a date, a real date, that ended in really hot sex.

Enough about Cutter. He’s gone, and now I am too, tearing out of the Speedway on my bike, merging back onto the highway at seventy miles per hour. The road is smooth, but the ride gets bumpy. I keep pushing her, though, right up until the engine clanks loudly, black smoke billows out from several spots, and then the bike just stops. On the highway. With cars zipping around me at seventy miles per hour or faster. Thank God I had the presence of mind to ride in the right lane to get onto the shoulder without losing my life. But now I’m stuck on the side of the highway in Tennessee with a pocket full of stolen money and a broken-down stolen motorcycle.

What am I going to do?

I don’t know what to do.

A trucker stops behind the bike. He gets out to offer me a ride, but I don’t want the ride I’m pretty certain he has in mind. Shaggy blonde hair tucked behind his ears to help support the faded red baseball cap sitting low enough on his head for the brim to conceal all of his eyes and like half his face. Nondescript T-shirt and faded jeans hanging loose but nottooloosely over his dad bod. Plain white sneakers. No one could give a good description of this guy. And that’s by design. You can’t have lived my life and not rely on your instincts. This guy gives me seriously scary vibes of the ‘I just got out of prison for raping and murdering several young women’ variety.

I politely pass.

He insists.

I turn him down a little more forcefully.

---