“I hate being sad. I remind myself that if I miss more than one or two days, I’ll start getting sad again. I’d take feeling sleepy over feeling sad any day.”
Tommy tilted his head. “You would?”
“Oh, definitely. I have a calendar and every day I take my medication, I cross off the date. You should try it. It’s fun to draw a line across a square for every day that I do it right. Maybe we can get you a calendar. And stickers for you to put on it.”
Popping off his seat, he said, “Stickers are for kids. I like to use markers.”
Opening the carton of sugar, she poured some into her spoon and swirled it into her coffee mug. “Do you draw or color?” she asked.
“Yep. I went to an arts day program for years. Painting, watercolors, collages…things like that.”
Cutter quirked an eyebrow. News to me. Sure, Tommy went to a day program, but I had no idea what he did there.
“I bet you’re pretty good,” Greta commented.
Tommy puffed up his chest. “I won an award once. My sister, Ellen, sent it in to a competition.”
Again, news to me.
“Cutter and I can go and get you art supplies. We could make a calendar together.” Bending down to rub Snapper’s head, she suggested, “What about a calendar with dogs?”
“Sure!”
Catching Cutter’s eye, she said, “We passed a drugstore in the last town.”
Facing Tommy, he asked, “You think a calendar would help?”
“Greta says it works for her. It’ll work for me because she’s like me in that way.”
“I have another idea,” she interjected. “If you take your medication every day, then you should get a reward. How about if you paint Snapper for the following month and show it off to Cutter on his next visit.”
“Will you come, too?”
Tommy’s and Greta’s heads swiveled in Cutter’s direction at the same time. He wasn’t convinced it was for the best, but she’d already met Tommy and didn’t seem put off. Fidgeting with excitement, Tommy demanded, “Yes, yes! Cutter, invite her!”
She did seem to have a way with him. Humbled him a bit, ’cause she seemed to enjoy herself despite the fact that she was sitting on a shaky chair, slurping coffee out of a chipped mug, made with water pumped from the backyard and milk from a tin can.
“If Greta comes, we won’t be able to stay the night.”
“Yes, we could.”
Cutter raised his palm to silence her. No way in hell was she camping out in a one-room cabin with no central heating or running water. Monitoring Tommy’s reaction, he declared, “Not up for discussion.”
Tommy beamed at Cutter. “I don’t mind!”
Cutter stood up and dragged a toolbox from the floor onto the table. “Alright, it’s settled. We’ll fix this door and then Greta and I will go buy you supplies to make a calendar. How’s that?”
Tommy stood up with his empty mug and dropped it into a bucket of soapy water by the entrance. While his uncle’s back was turned to them, he leaned over the table and murmured in Greta’s ear, “You’re a smart girl. I haven’t forgotten you, little one. You’ll get your own reward.”
A pretty blush reddened her face, and he gave her a lingering kiss.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Greta lounged among the overstuffed cushions of the couch, appreciating Hoodie’s paintings, in Cutter’s apartment. She’d won the fight over the material and color of the couch, but she’d lost over the size. The thing was humongous. As if it wasn’t enough that it was a sectional sofa, there was a fold-out sleeper unit. For the brothers. Heaven forbid they had to drag their butts out of the house after imbibing too much liquor.
Earlier in the day, Cutter had texted her, giving her exactly thirty minutes to wrap up her work at the office and meet him at his place. Sage’s giggles still rang in her ears, upon hearing that Cutter got his own house. Although she remained poker-faced at Sage’s gleeful display of hilarity, she was secretly giddy herself. They had come a long way.
Greta heard him ride up, shut down his motor, and thump up the stairs of the stoop. At the rattling of his keys, she dropped the pretense of reading her book. By the time her gorgeous man prowled toward her, her pussy clenched and thrummed in anticipation. She gobbled up the vision of him, windswept blond hair, cerulean-blue eyes, and strapping chest muscles encased in a leather cut. A smug smile played on his lips, and her eyes narrowed in response.
Cutter the trickster is out and about, ready to play.
Lifting two bulging shopping bags from his fingers, he dropped them by the couch. Shrugging off his cut, he threw it down beside her and commanded, “Change.”
Alrighty, then. Joker out, Dominant in. Normally, he’d take off his cut, hang it over the back of the chair placed by the door, and then grab her. Melt her with a hot kiss or two. Draw her over his lap for a cuddle. But, fuck if her heart rate didn’t accelerate at his bossy tone. Which was exactly why she wouldn’t do what he demanded of her. Lounging back, she slid her feet to the ground and lazily let her thighs drop open. Sliding her skirt up, she exposed her thong, the gossamer white fabric barely hiding her arousal. His gaze didn’t stray below her chin, so… In for a penny, in for a pound.
She cocked an eyebrow and drawled, “Excuse me? Did you leave your manners at the door?”
The muscle of his jaw began a rapid-fire ticking. Oh, he did not like that one bit. Bending down, Cutter thrust the cushions away from her, lifted her up by her butt and then dropped her. Her heart skipped another beat at his display of strength. Sitting upright, she dubiously eyed the bags by her feet. In one fluid movement, she raised her crocheted sweater over her head, and threw it away.
She paused for confirmation.
Standing, legs braced apart, he swirled his finger for her to continue. She wiggled out of her skirt, letting it drop to her feet. Then, she caught the ends of her shirt and seductively rolled it off, slowly exposing her lace-clad breasts. Under his heavy-lidded gaze, she unhooked her bra and let it drop halfway down her arms. Hugging her elbows, she stopped, brazenly facing him.
His expression was impenetrable, but the bags sprawled open, spilling out clothes, and she became concerned.
“Down,” he directed.
The lines of her forehead puckered.
“Hands down,” he elucidated. Dropping her arms, the bra slipped off. Rubbing the back of his nape, a smirk touched his lips. “What do you think comes off next?”
Oh, she knew. She knew, but she hesitated anyway. It wasn’t to disobey him, exactly. Rather, a sudden wave of shyness swooped over her, swathing her from head to toe.
“A woman has the right to some privacy,” she quipped.
Teasing the band of her panties lower, he replied matter-of-factly, “Not when it comes to me.”
Soft shivers rippled down her limbs. Hooking the thin scrap of cloth in the crook of his forefingers, he shimmied it down her legs. Her face flashed in a hot, cold, hot, cold pattern. It was one thing to lie down in the bedroom with the lights low, and a quite different thing to stand in the living room with bright light showing all her imperfections.
“I should have shaved myself bare,” she whispered. Cutter zeroed in on her pussy with a forbidding expression.
“Fuck no. I didn’t order you to shave. I want something to tug on when you’re being bad. Like right about now.”
His praise cooled her urge to bolt. Nevertheless, she almost swallowed her tongue when he commanded her to turn around. Balking, she crossed her arms tightly around her chest.
One of his eyes squinted. “Wipe that stubborn look off your face.” He released a breath of frustration, but his tone softened a touch. “Woman, you’re fuckin’ hot. I’m an exacting man, as you damn well know, and I expect perfect from you.”
She hesitated for one more moment but ultimately held out her arms and bared herself to his gaze.
“Better. Now present your ass to me.”
Greta’s nostrils flared, but she
complied. Bracing her hands on the seat of the couch, she spread her legs and stuck her ass out. He muttered more nonsense about her being perfect, but she felt like her hair was going up in flames. The bastard could see each dimple of her jiggly ass. She shuddered as she continued to suffer under his unyielding gaze.
“Back around.”
Relief whooshed out from her constricted lungs. Facing forward once again, she shied away, and her gaze dropped to a spot on the refurbished floor.
“Greta, I’m done with you hiding. I want you showin’ off those sexy legs of yours.” The side of his lips twisted up. “And, goes without sayin’, those bouncy tits and that thick ass.”
Her head snapped up, and she clutched her shoulders to cover herself.
“Bring your fuckin’ hands down before I tie them behind your back,” he growled low.
Thorns of humiliation prickled against her skin while, God help her, her pussy wept helplessly. She quickly dropped her arms. The deep lines bracketing his tightened mouth smoothed out and he clarified, “I demand easy access to your tits, pussy, and ass.”
Sure, it was easy for him. Spoken in a businesslike tone, as if he was ordering a fucking birthday cake at a bakery. Gut churning, her fingers curled into tight fists. “You’re out of your fucking mind,” she spat out.
She reached down to grab her clothes, but his boot stomped down on them, forcing her to release her grip.
His eyes had turned from pretty blue to the hue of dead granite. “I’ve put up with your long skirts and hippie shit long enough.”
“Well,” she cocked her hip, “here’s a news flash, Cutter. I’m not an object to be displayed solely for male sexual desire and satisfaction. To ogle and bid on me like a broodmare at a horse auction.”
His knuckle dropped down and dragged along the cleft of her pussy, and she had to bite down to stop from crying out.
“Babe, if we’re getting into horse terminology, I’m the stud and you’re my filly. And a willful one at that. Which is why you require a handler. This is the lesson we return to again and again. Your primary purpose is to please me.” He pressed in deeper, and her thighs began to quiver. His persistence was giving her a serious headache. “I’m the only one who sees you for who you are, who knows how to take care of you. Completely. In ways you don’t yet understand.”
“I’ll be the first to admit that I’m particular, but”—she clasped his wrist and thrust it away from her—“I’m a feminist, and feminists everywhere would have conniption fits if they—” Her thought was interrupted by his knuckle, which had returned to her mound. It slipped down to her pulsing clit and rotated. Her heart stopped, her jaw dropped open on a groan, and she began panting.
“They’re not in our bed or our heads.”
She blew out a puff of air, and the pink fringes on her forehead shuddered. “One thing I learned from Scorpion was pride. Pride in your club, of course. But, before the Dark Horsemen, he had the pride of his Native tribe, the Lenape community he grew up with. See, I have an American Indian grandmother. She died before I met her, but that quarter of honor was enough to fill my entire being.”
“I’m with you so far. Go on.”
“Well, I…” she struggled for words, “I didn’t grow up like he did. As a member of a tribe or extended family. My pride found its rightful place in being a woman, and I have to maintain my self-respect at any price.”
His brows drew together, and his jaw tensed. Two telltale signs of an imminent, good ole-fashioned whupping. “Hold up. You think that you’re disrespecting yourself because you do what I tell you to do. You think that because your my little sex toy,” he raised her chin with this index finger, “my skin-flick star, my fantasy, that you’re less of a woman? Am I gettin’ it right?”
Heat tinged the tips of her ears and her shoulders rose in an itsy-bitsy shrug. Damn, she felt so hot she was about to fan herself. A filmstrip of expressions flickered over his features before they settled into a harsh, chiseled countenance that was for her alone. The kind that had her wanting to roll over on her back and beg him to fuck her.
“Christ.” He swiped his hand down his face. “Women.”
“Well, one woman to be exact,” she reminded him smartly, with a wan smile. His churlish gaze dragged over her and paused at her pussy.
“Don’t remind me. I’m thinking I’m better off sharing myself again.”
Drawing herself up to her full height, her fists slammed on her hips. “Oh, hell no, you won’t.”
“Why not?” he shot back. “You think you’re less of a woman because I have the balls to pry off the choke hold around your throat. Shit, I’m nothin’ compared to the noose you’ve got tied around your neck. Your poor body’s grateful for—fuck that—desperate for my restraints. What you are is a little brat, not less of a woman.”
Humiliation gurgled into a boil, but his reprimand flamed her nipples, raising them to diamond-hard peaks. He moved fast. Her vision spun as he whipped her flat on her back, knocking the wind out of her. Straddling her on the couch, his broad chest encompassed the whole of her world.
“There are no ‘shoulds’ when it comes to desire. People read books or watch bullshit movies and think the magic between us is twisted or abusive. Hell, they can’t begin to wrap their heads around the idea of a male submissive.”
She punched his shoulder and teased, “Are you sure you aren’t one of those? It would sure make my life easier.”
A low growl emanated from him, and she clamped her lips together.
“If feminism is about freedom and power, then it includes getting your sweet ass spanked.” The tenor of his voice dropped to a sexy growl. “And loving it.” His fingers cupped her neck in a snug hold. “Your desire to please me runs deep. Ain’t nothin’ about that gonna change.”
She swallowed around the pressure, and he eased up around her throat. “Understand?”
She nodded.
“Now. Back to the business at hand. In the world we create for ourselves, other males do not exist. Your attention must be trained on me. At all times. Me and only me.”
The slivers of his eyes turned as sharp as the steep granite outcrops of the Gorges around Ithaca. Moving off her, Cutter overturned the bags and shook them. Clothing poured out in a pile, and she caught glimpses of leather, of netting, of a Harley logo. She craned her neck to get a better look and poked at them with her toe. Spandex? No fucking way. Greta slumped down into the cushions with crossed arms over her chest. He tutted, and she immediately pushed herself up.
Gesturing grandly, he offered, “Choose what you want.”
She licked her parched lips and gritted out, “Fuck this. I don’t wear biker gear.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
The she-devil said she doesn’t wear biker gear.
Could he have found himself a better bitch to spar with? It was in her nature to struggle against him. His lips spread in a devilish grin. Fine by him. Lifting a pair of skintight leather pants and a slinky shirt, he thrust them toward her. “Wear these.”
Holding them up with a straight arm, she scrutinized them as if they were dirty. The woman would soon be dirty if she didn’t dial back the brattiness. She should be thankful he bought her a shirt with a bra inside. Might be practically see-through, but hell, he didn’t do it for himself. Rather have her go braless in a heartbeat, but he’d relented for her modesty.
Angie, a new hanger-on at the clubhouse, had been enlisted to help him choose Greta’s clothing. She was into kink, and so, didn’t require explanations. Fuck knows, he didn’t focus on what women wore, but rather how fast to strip them. Browsing through the lingerie section, he’d had no idea the number of choices vanilla females dealt with. No wonder, they were confused. They were given too much freedom.
Greta fussed with the clothes. “Where are the panties?”
He sighed and looked up at the ceiling. “Access, Greta, access.”
Inspecting them critically, she said in a shaky, soft timbre, “You know my size
.”
He barked out a laugh. If she had any idea of how much he knew about her, she’d run for the fucking hills. Tearing off the price tag, she shimmied into the leather pants and tugged on a shirt that left little to the imagination. His mouth watered at her tits, plump and firm, begging for him to suck through the stretched material showing off large, firm nipples. Saliva pooled in his mouth. Pleased with the look, he laid back to enjoy the view. That was, until she donned a jacket that concealed her chest behind leather. His saliva dried up. Goddamn, they had just finished talking about this. Although she seemed to accept that her ass, in those tight pants, would be on display for anyone to see, she still felt the need to hide from him. The fact that the material was identical to his favorite crop did not lessen his ire. She yanked at the front of the tight jacket, but it didn’t join over her chest. Realizing the futility, her eyes began to roll around her head, like a panicked horse.
Splaying his feet wide, he pointed to the floor. She collapsed and hid her face in her hands against his thigh, her back racked with silent sobs.
His long fingers sifted through her hair. “Girlie, you can’t hide from me.”
“You want to degrade me,” she mumbled from between her fingers. He grazed her cheek with the back of his hand.
“You’re a warrior princess. A badass bitch. You should be decked out in shiny black leather, wearing thigh-high spiked boots ready to kick some fucker’s ass. Tits hanging out of a harness. Nipples jutting out, bold and proud, for men to drool over.” His grin turned wolfish, but he spoke in an austere tone. “It’s beneath you to demean yourself. It doesn’t do you justice and it’s a damn pain in my goddamn ass.”
Greta swiped a forefinger under her nose and sniffed loudly, “Where do you come up with this stuff? Warrior princess, like Xena.”
“Babe, you gotta rise up. Take your place beside me. The bitches will tear you apart if you dress like a damn librarian.”
Greta growled low in her throat, and he smiled inwardly. She was a competitive, possessive little thing. Time to set her straight about his expectations. Again.
Cutter's Claim: A Bad Boy Biker Romance (The Demon Squad MC Book 2) Page 13
