Melody Unchained Page 2

  “Why?”

  Good question. “Because I was upset. Billy, my grandfather, was very dear to me. I was devastated by his loss.” She sniffled, but Stella Jackson wasn’t buying it so she stopped. “Please, I’m upset and tired and hungry. I would like to go home. I need to make arrangements for my grandfather Billy.”

  “When we’re done here.”

  “You cannot hold me.”

  Stella Jackson pursed her lips. “You will not be released until we are certain you aren’t a danger to yourself or others.”

  “I am not a danger to anyone.” Melody sighed, hoping that made her look a little more pathetic. “I loved my grandfather. I moved in with him a few–” Years ago? Months ago? Days ago? Billy had been sick for a long time, but how much or little time would they believe, considering her state? “Months ago to care for him in his old age.”

  “From where?”

  From where? “Las Vegas.” Billy had loved CSI. She could lie convincingly about that city. According to Burn Notice the trick to lying effectively was to sell it with confidence.

  Stella made a note. “What did you do in Las Vegas?”

  “Do?”

  “For a living.”

  So many questions. There were never this many questions on the television shows. “I was a stripper.”

  Stella sighed. Melody didn’t think she meant to reveal it but a flicker of irritation showed in the woman’s eyes. According to Billy, strippers earned a lot of untraceable income and if television was correct, untraceable income meant the police wouldn’t be surprised when they couldn’t find any records of her. She’d have rather said nurse, but that required licenses and records. Maybe now that she was free Jerry could help her become a nurse.

  “So you were a stripper in Las Vegas until a few months ago when you moved here to take care of your grandfather.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you were in that closet because…”

  She was in that closet because after she came to, Billy was dead and she hadn’t known what to do so she’d fallen back on experience. Climb into a small space and wait until someone came to get her. Stella Jackson wasn’t going to accept that answer. Or rather she would, as she was signing Melody’s papers for the loony bin. What would be a good reason for hiding in a closet for four days? On that episode of CSI where all those girls got killed in the house, the one hid under the bed before she died completely in Sara Sidle’s arms. But Billy died of being old so she couldn’t have been hiding from a murderer. She had to have a better reason. “I wasn’t home the whole time.”

  “You weren’t?”

  “No. I went out. I was gone for a couple of days.” Oooh, this was good. It explained why there wasn’t anywhere made up for her to sleep. “I went out partying.”

  “Partying?”

  “Yes, and while I was gone Billy died. I felt terrible and in my grief I did what I used to do as a child when I was upset. I hid in the closet and cried.”

  “After taking off your clothes and putting on a men’s dress shirt.”

  They were lucky she’d been wearing the shirt. Most of the time she walked around naked. Most of her masters preferred it that way. She was lucky too. Naked would have been much harder to explain. “I had already gotten ready for bed before I found Billy. I wasn’t paying attention to him the way I should have been. I’m a terrible person.” Melody bit her lip. She was also a terrible actress. Billy made fun of people on television who delivered lines that way.

  Stella Jackson let out a gusty breath. “Fine. I’ve had a real bad night so I’m going to take that answer. Do you need grief counseling or anything?”

  “No. I just need a ride back to Billy’s house.”

  “Fine. I’ll send someone in.” Stella Jackson grabbed her file and walked out.

  Melody folded her hands on the table. Now she could find Jerry Howland, her new master.

  Chapter 2

  Jerry stumbled down the stairs toward the door. He was kinda glad the doorbell woke him because the kind of dreams he was having about Melody, daughter of Sallah were guaranteeing him a place in the special hell. He yanked his robe closed over his hard-on. In his dreams she was hot and soft and wet. She whispered and moaned with a voice like the wind across the desert. Her lips were an oasis of the sweetest water he could never tire of drinking.

  Standing on his porch was the very image he’d been dreaming of, wearing low-rise bell-bottom jeans with rose vines climbing up from the hems. Pink and orange beads decorated the slit neckline of her red top, which exposed the swell of her breasts.

  “Oh shit.” Jerry pressed his hand over his robe to hide his now throbbing erection. The special hell. Definitely. “What are you doing here?”

  She picked up a suitcase and a big brass thing with a long skinny neck and walked past him into the living room. “You’re my new master. I picked you.”

  “I’m what?”

  “My new master.” Melody set her suitcase and that brass thing in the middle of his living room and turned toward him. “I can’t give you any wishes, but I’m a very good cook and I’m very good at sex too.”

  Jerry bit back a groan. She would be amazing at sex. The way she walked...the way she talked... The fact that he couldn’t have her. “Look, you can’t be here. Did you talk to Stella?”

  “Yes. I told her I did not want counseling.”

  “Why?” Jerry ran his free hand through his hair.

  “I don’t need counseling. I need you.”

  “Lady–”

  “Melody.”

  “Yeah, Melody. You can’t stay here. I don’t know what kind of relationship you had with Billy Welsh, but you really need to get some help.”

  “I don’t need help. I need a new master. You.”

  Jerry coughed. Master. She wasn’t going to let him get out of this thing with any dignity. “I am not your new master.”

  Her lower lip pooched out. “Don’t you think I’m attractive?”

  The lie was right there. Waiting to pop out. All he had to do was lie. He knew how to lie. You’re a dog. A beast. I couldn’t do you unless both of us had bags over our heads and I was wearing boxing gloves. She’d cry. Probably heave that brass thing at his head. Then she’d storm out and he could get on with his life. Or at least stay in this nice comfortable rut he’d created. “Melody.”

  She grinned, and Jerry saw his life flash before his eyes until he was sitting in the waiting room outside the special hell for people who took advantage of the innocent and talked in the theater. Oh, but what a life. Might be worth it.

  She sauntered across the room and started playing with the sash of his ratty robe. “I knew you thought I was attractive. I turned you on at the police station. I’m turning you on now.”

  “And it’s totally inappropriate.” Jerry put his hands on her shoulders and eased her back a step. It was nice touching her, though. So close, he could smell her skin. Spice and heat, making every part of him throb. It had been so long since he’d been with a woman. She was here, in his place, of her own accord, asking–and crazy as a bedbug. “Melody, you’ve just been through something very traumatic. You’re not thinking straight.”

  “This happens to me all the time.” She shrugged. “One master dies or runs out of wishes and I get another master.”

  “I’m not your master. You don’t have a master.”

  “Well no, not like before because Billy wished me free. Now I get to pick my own master and I picked you.”

  Stella cleared this chick? He needed to have a chat with her. “Listen Melody, you had a really rough night. Why don’t you go home and get some sleep? You look tired.”

  “I do?” She touched her face.

  Finally, a chink in her crazy. Thank God for feminine vanity. “Yes, you do. You should get some sleep at home. Your home.”

  “And then I’ll come back.”

  This girl was a huge can of wacko. Giant economy size. “You must have some friends you spend time with.”
>
  “No, just you and Stella and the creepy super. Stella doesn’t like me and Mr. Zubrowski likes me the wrong way. You like me just right.”

  Thank you, Goldilocks. “It’s against policy for me to fraternize with victims.”

  “But everyone in the city could be a victim. You wouldn’t be allowed to fraternize with anyone.”

  Crazy, but very logical. Great combination. Especially for him since he had proven himself to be oh so sane while wearing his heart on his sleeve. He needed to be professional about this. Get some distance from her. Enough distance and she would figure out that he cared, but he wasn’t going to be her caretaker. The universe must have very high hopes for him if it thought he was going to be able to do that in a bathrobe in the middle of his sleep cycle. “True, but you were just involved in a case I was part of, and if my superiors learn I’ve been seeing you outside of work, I will get in a lot of trouble.”

  “I don’t want to just see you. I want to have sex with you and take care of you. You’re my master.”

  Jerry walked away from her. “You really need to stop saying that.” He paced across the room to the mantle. He had half a dozen pictures of Amanda there. Their wedding, her on vacations, her college graduation, Christmases. He picked up the one of her at Virginia Beach. Their last trip before her diagnosis. Such a cliched shot of her, with the wind blowing her blond hair across her face as she tried to hold it back. It annoyed him that the last image of her healthy was so ordinary. “Listen, Melody, you’re a very nice girl.”

  “No, I’m not.” She smirked. “Unless you want me to be.”

  Jerry groaned, either because it was such a bad joke or because of what she offered. At the moment, he wasn’t sure. Maybe after a few years of twice-a-week therapy he’d figure it out. He put the picture on the mantel. “I have to work tonight.”

  “I’m sorry. You go back to sleep and I will make sure to have a hot meal ready for you before you go to work.”

  “I don’t need a hot meal before work.”

  She gave him one of those suggestive smiles, and he decided he didn’t need to hear her proposition him again.

  “I’ll meet you for coffee,” he said before anything crazy or tempting, or both, could come out of her mouth. “Saturday afternoon. I’ll be off then.” They could meet somewhere nice and public. Grand Central Station, if possible. With the public there, a table between them and a cup to keep his hands out of trouble, how bad could it be?

  “How do you want me to dress for you?”

  Now she was dressing for him. Arg. “Sweatshirt, baggy jeans.” Somehow, though, he doubted that would be any less sexy on her.

  She laughed, a light, happy sound that went straight to his gut. “If that will please you. Should I come here to meet you?”

  “No.” Jerry wiped his forehead. “I’ll meet you up in the Square at the coffee shop, Saturday at one.” Not Grand Central, but it would do the trick. There would still be people, a table and a coffee cup.

  “And you’re off that night?”

  Forget Goldilocks, he was starting to understand how Little Red Riding Hood felt when she met the wolf. “It’s only coffee.”

  She sauntered across the room to him. “I’ve never had to court a master before. This could be fun.” She slid her hand around the back of his neck and drew him down into a kiss. He should have been able to resist. She was a small woman with a slender build. And yet…

  Her full lips slanted across his with gentle heat. Everything his dreams had promised. Soft, warm and wet. Her tongue brushed across his lower lip followed by the nip of her teeth. Then she parted his lips and explored his mouth. A small woman with a slender build. Overtaking him. Her fingers teased into his hair and the sensation sent an electric cascade down his back.

  Jerry grasped her hips. They were wide and solid in the most perfect way, fitting his palms like she’d been built to his order. He pulled her against his body, pressing her soft feminine belly to his erection. He wanted to grind against her. Take her upstairs to bed and make love to her until he had to go to work.

  But she was a victim. He was going to go to the special hell for this.

  He pulled himself away from her. Just an inch. “Melody.”

  “You want me, master.” Her eyes were black and hazy and she had a rich, sinful smile on her lips.

  “Please don’t call me master.”

  She just smirked.

  “You really have to go now.”

  “If that is what you wish.”

  It wasn’t but he sure as hell couldn’t have her in his house for another minute if he planned to hold the high ground.

  “I will see you Saturday.” She brushed her temple along his jaw. “At the coffee shop.”

  “You bet,” he croaked.

  She picked up her suitcase, but left the brass thing, and walked out the front door, leaving him dizzy and horny and guilty all at the same time. Damn.

  * * * *

  Melody shut the door of Billy’s apartment and leaned on it. She should have expected this. Now she was free, she couldn’t expect to just be handed from one man to another. This time she would need to learn how to treat him as a human woman. Only then would he be willing to take her into his home and into his bed.

  Into his bed. How exciting that would be. Just having her heart beating and starting to breathe made her faint. Kissing him had been pretty exciting. How would sex feel? Oh baby, Saturday was going to be fun. Too bad today couldn’t be. Well, courting a master would have to be different than being given to one. It couldn’t be as easy as just walking up to one and saying, ‘you win.’ There were those who would take her with only that, but those men she did not want to be with.

  It would be worth it. He was strong and tall and so exciting. She carried her suitcase to the bedroom and opened it. Everything she owned was in it. Billy had liked to take her out sometimes, but over the last few years it had been less and less so as things wore out, she just got rid of them. Fortunately styles kept coming back around. Hopefully hair metal would come back soon because she had a pair of really nice acid-wash jeans. Billy had loved it when she’d teased her hair up. She tucked everything back in the dresser where she’d always kept her clothes. Jerry wanted her to wear a sweatshirt, but she didn’t even own one. Billy didn’t either. She’d have to go buy one.

  Mmm, shopping. She could go shopping now. Billy used to take her on lovely trips, where he indulged her with a new dress or a hat and a lunch in a diner like she was a person and not a three-pull slot machine. She grabbed her purse, ran downstairs, pushed through the front doors and went to the bus stop. The weather was a little cool for what she was wearing, but she wanted to get out to the store. Two other people waited.

  “Where’s the bus?” she asked them.

  They both looked at her funny.

  Was she supposed to know where the bus was? She leaned out and looked down the street. Lots of cars, but no bus. “Is it coming soon?” she asked them.

  “Bus don’t come just because you wish for it,” the older lady said.

  “S’posed to be here in ten minutes,” the man said. “But it’s always late.”

  “Ten minutes.” Melody paced along the edge of the sidewalk. The woman was looking at her like she was doing something strange. All she was doing was walking on the sidewalk, waiting for the bus. What was strange about that? Billy hadn’t liked to go out much for the past ten years. It was difficult for him to get around and when he did go someplace, there was a bus that came for him, but she hadn’t gone with him on those trips. Before that he’d had a car and they’d taken long road trips so Billy could do shows in other cities. Billy had been a very good master in those days. Dressing her up and taking her out like a real person. He’d even told people she was his girlfriend. Sometimes he called her his wife. Would Jerry be willing to call her his girlfriend? His wife? “Has it been ten minutes yet?”

  “Yeah,” the man said. “But the bus is always late.”

  The older
lady rolled her eyes.

  Melody went to stand beside the man. After this, she would go back to the apartment and wait until Saturday. She hugged herself and peered down the street one more time. There it was. With a hiss and a rumble, it pulled up to the curb. The older woman shoved her way on first, but the man gestured for her to go ahead. She climbed on and started for an open seat. The bus smelled like chicken soup.

  “Hey! Hey, miss!” the driver yelled.

  Melody turned back. The man was dropping a bill into a Plexiglas box beside the driver and watching her, frowning like she’d done something odd. He’d been so forgiving before, what had she done now? “Yes?”

  “You got to pay the fare,” the driver said.

  “The fare? Oh, the bus fare.” She should have remembered you had to pay for the bus, but lately nobody on television rode the bus. At least, not on the shows she and Billy had watched.

  “Oh my gawd,” the older woman grumbled. “Just fell off the tortilla truck.” The woman next to her laughed.

  Melody went back to the front of the bus. “How much is it?”

  “Dollar,” the driver said.

  Melody opened her purse. She had some very old makeup, a crumbling program from a play that closed decades ago and a broken garter, but no money. No money for the bus fare meant she had none for the clothes either. Why hadn’t she thought about that? Because Billy always carried the money when they’d gone shopping. “I’m afraid I left all my money upstairs in my apartment.”

  “You got to pay if you want to ride.” The driver shook his head and the young man looked at the floor as he walked past her to take a seat.

  Melody’s face got hot. This being free was extremely difficult. “I’ll have to catch the next bus.” She got off and hurried back into the apartment building. Forget the bus. Jerry would have to be happy with whatever she had to wear. He already liked her, and a sweatshirt was not very flattering anyway.