Page 52 of Cutter’s Lady

“Were you in love with her?” Leslie gripped her bowl tightly, certain of the answer yet afraid to hear it. In the past, Leslie had thought if you were crazy about someone, you’d gush about them constantly—it was what most of her friends did when they were dating someone seriously. And Leslie had first noticed her feelings for Michael when little stories or sayings of his started creeping into her conversations with other people. But Michael had barely mentioned his ex to her and it wasn’t until after Leslie had gotten divorced that she’d learned he’d been trying to win his ex back the whole time they were friends. Maybe not talking about someone was the way some men dealt with being in love.

“Yeah. I loved her.” Cutter’s voice was carefully blank. “We were engaged.”

“Engaged?” Leslie was astonished. Cutter didn’t seem the type to marry.

“Until she was killed by a mortar shell.”

“Oh, my God.”

“She wasn’t an active guerrilla, but she was always on the fringes. She worked with a supply group in La Luz. I tried and tried to convince her to get out of it. I wanted to leave and take her back to the States with me, but she wouldn’t go.” His hand clenched into a hard knot as his gaze turned inward, remembering. “She was so damn stubborn. One day she ran a load of supplies to a village where the rebels were hiding, and the army attacked while she was there. She was killed instantly.”

Leslie’s heart squeezed in her chest. She wished she hadn’t asked. “I’m so sorry.”

“It was a long time ago.” Cutter rose, dismissing the subject. “Let’s wash these dishes in the stream.”

Leslie helped him wash their utensils and dry them. Cutter repacked them into the bundle of supplies. “Time to turn in,” he said, and gestured toward the tent. “No late nights in the jungle.”

Leslie glanced toward the tent, then back to Cutter. “You’re putting up only one tent?”

He met her gaze. “Yeah.”

They stared at each other steadily. Leslie gnawed at the inside of her cheek. She couldn’t ask him to go to the trouble of setting up another tent when this one was ample for two people. But she didn’t like the thought of sleeping that close to Cutter.

Finally Cutter broke their deadlocked gaze and turned away. “Don’t worry. I’ll try to restrain my animalistic nature.” His mouth quirked into a half-smile. “And I haven’t had a violent night terror in weeks, at least.” He winked.

Leslie made a face. He pulled two bedrolls from one of the packs and placed them in the tent. “Uh, if you’d like some privacy, you can walk downstream a little. I won’t be able to see you.”

Leslie blushed to the roots of her hair and gave him a jerky nod of thanks. She walked away stiffly, in the direction he’d indicated. When she returned Cutter had laid out the bedrolls in the tent and was waiting for her so that he could put out the fire. He covered it with dirt, and the area was completely dark. They crawled inside the tent, and Cutter zipped it up.

“There. Now, hopefully, we won’t have any friends visiting us tonight.” Cutter pulled off his boots and slid into his bedroll.

Leslie did the same, grateful that the dark made it impossible to see anything but vague outlines inside the tent. She didn’t want to have to look at Cutter lying so close to her. She didn’t want to see his eyes or mouth…or hands.

Restlessly Leslie turned onto her side. The ground was unbelievably hard. She reminded herself that she’d slept on harder stuff on the deck of the boat, but the thought didn’t make her more comfortable. On the boat she hadn’t been alone inside a tent with Cutter. Then she hadn’t been cozy and snug and private. There had been no possibility of Cutter’s kissing her, letting his hands roam over her body, working their delicious magic.

Not that there was any possibility now, either, Leslie told herself. After all, Cutter had assured her he wouldn’t touch her. Leslie wondered what would happen if she turned over and said his name. She clamped her lips together tightly. She wouldn’t. She simply would not. That would be foolish, crazy. Impossible. There could be nothing between her and Cutter except a brief moment of physical desire. He was an adventurer, the kind who never stayed any place long, who was always searching for new danger, new excitement. He wouldn’t want to be stuck with one woman. Or, at least, not unless she was someone like Teresa, who loved danger and adventure as much as he. Cutter certainly wouldn’t want Leslie. Most of the time he thoroughly disliked her. As she did him, she told herself hastily.

Leslie squeezed her eyes shut, willing herself to sleep. It didn’t work. She kept thinking about his kisses yesterday, the callused touch of his fingertips on her sensitive skin. She wondered what his touch would be like without any clothes to impede them. How would it feel to have his long, hard body stretched out beside her…on top of her? Leslie wet her lips nervously and laced her fingers together. Why was she thinking like this? No doubt Cutter had long ago fallen asleep, without even a thought of sleeping with her.

She was wrong. Cutter lay on his side of the tent, as fully awake as Leslie. He could see nothing of her except a dark lump against the far wall of the tent, but his imagination supplied a far better view of her. He saw her in the soft bare-backed sun dress she had worn last night at supper. He saw her in her tight-fitting jeans. In the sweater dress that outlined her every curve. He pictured her hair down and flowing across her shoulders, swaying with her movements, dark and thick and rich. It was like satin. He loved the way it felt in his hands. He remembered their all too brief moment the day before in his room at the mission, recalling every tormenting second, each glide of silken skin and sweet clinging of her lips, each twining of her tongue around his. For a few minutes she had been hot and hungry, just as he was for her—just as she had been that disastrous night in Chempua.

Sweat popped out on Cutter’s forehead. He clenched his hands into fists and wrapped his arms against his chest, curling up into himself. Why was he doing this? He had told her he wouldn’t touch her tonight. Yesterday he had sworn to himself that he wouldn’t touch her ever again unless she made the first move. Every time he did, she was undeniably into it, then unceremoniously rejected him. Yesterday he’d worked himself up into a good fury over that, but tonight the relieving anger wouldn’t come.

Instead, he reminded himself that both times he had been the one to stop first and that Leslie’s angry rejection had come only after that. His mind kept going back to her initial response. The melting of her body into his, that hot surge of passion in her lips—that was Leslie’s natural response. If he went to her, this time with a long night alone together stretching out in front of them… the thought of what might happen sent fire through his veins.

“Leslie…” Cutter pushed aside the upper half of his bedroll and started to crawl out.

On the other side of the tent, Leslie sat up and whirled around to face him, as if her name on his lips had been a needle plunging into her. “No!” Her voice was high and breathless. “Stay right where you are. You promised you wouldn’t try anything.”

“I know.” He paused, watching her shadowy form. “But is seems like a terrible waste. I want you. You want me.”

“That’s not the issue.” Leslie tried to remember all the reasons she shouldn’t let him near her but his low, husky voice was making it incredibly hard.

“I want to kiss you, to touch you. And I think you want the same. How is that an issue?”

“I’m—I’m not the type.”

He chuckled, and the warm sound sent shivers of desire through her. “You could have fooled me. You didn’t have any problem yesterday.”