“No,” he growled.
“Please,” she said, “I’ll do anything to stay out of prison.”
“I’m not going to let you put yourself in danger.”
“It’s my choice, Cutter. Not yours. Don’t take what little hope I have left away from me.”
“Mattie,” he snapped. “I’ve seen his file. The Jaguar has a classic sociopath profile. He doesn’t hurt people because he has to. He does it because he enjoys it.”
She thought of the horrendous scars on his back, and tears burned her eyes. “Don’t you see? That’s all the more reason to stop him.”
“Listen to me, Mattie. I’ll do everything in my power to clear your name. But I have to take you back first. I know it’s hard, but you’re going to have to trust me on this.”
She hadn’t realized her tears had spilled over until he raised his hand and wiped a tear from her cheek with his thumb. She raised her gaze to his. She knew he was going to kiss her. She should stop him; she knew he would ultimately hurt her. But she simply wasn’t strong enough.
The kiss devastated her. A sob caught in her throat, but he smothered it with a second kiss so powerful it took her breath. She could feel her body responding to his. The hurt and pleasure mingling into a bittersweet pool around her heart.
When he untied the robe and tugged it open, she shuddered. “Aw, man, you’re beautiful,” he whispered.
She started to say something, but he brushed his fingertips against her sensitized nipples. The sensation stole her voice, made her knees weak, her head spin. She sank onto the bed. He came down on top of her. Capturing her mouth with his, he gently worked the robe from her body. His skin seemed to sizzle against hers. She could feel the hard length of his shaft against her belly. She heard his quickened breaths. She felt the urgency of his touch. Felt that same urgency zinging through her blood.
She opened to him. A groan rumbled up from his chest when he slid into her and went deep. Every muscle in his body went taut. He whispered her name. Once. Twice. When he began to move, she moved with him, taking him deep and then rising up to meet him. Pleasure warred with the pain of knowing this might be their one and only time together. And even as the ecstasy rose to a fever pitch, her heart shattered into a thousand pieces.
Chapter Twelve
Cutter was not an impulsive man. He liked to think a situation or problem through before acting. He always erred on the side of caution. When it came to women he was wary. He could count the number of women he’d been intimate with on one hand. Sleeping with a prisoner he’d been hired to apprehend and transport was the most irresponsible, reckless thing he’d ever done. Not only with regard to his career, but on a personal level, as well.
How are you going to turn her over to the Department of Corrections now, hotshot?
The question taunted him as he lay in the darkness and listened to her steady breathing. The memory of their lovemaking still resonated through his body, through his heart. Cutter was not a sentimental man, but somehow Mattie Logan to managed to touch him in a place he guarded well.
“Even in the darkness I can see that you’re troubled.”
He glanced over at her. She’d propped herself up on one elbow. Even though she held the sheet at her breast to cover herself, the sight of her took his breath away. It was going to kill him to take her back.
Leaning back in the pillows, he patted the area next to him and beckoned her to snuggle. “I wish there was another way to do this.”
She curled beside him, like a cat taking a sunbath. Her skin was warm and silky against his. Cutter closed his eyes against the quick swipe of pleasure, the hard tug of lust.
“There is,” she said. “We could go on the offensive.”
“Don’t go there.”
Cutter stared at the ceiling and brooded. He was starting to think she’d fallen asleep when she spoke.
“What happened between you and The Jaguar?”
He didn’t want to talk about it. The memory was a dark place he never ventured. But he knew if he was going to succeed in deterring her, it was something he was going to have to share. “It’s ugly,” he said.
“I know,” she said simply. “I’ve seen the scars.”
Cutter pondered where to start. So much had happened on that mission.
“I was an operative with the CIA for twelve years,” he began. “I worked deep undercover. First in South America during the drug war. After 9/11, I focused on infiltrating terrorist cells. I was good at it.”
“What happened?”
“A little over two years ago I was sent to Paris to infiltrate a cell. The CIA had created a new identity for me. We knew this cell was planning something big. We knew it was run by a man known only as The Jaguar. I was to report back to the CIA what they were planning.”