Melody Unchained (2 page)

Melody sat in the same pose. Maybe her arms weren’t hugging her knees quite as tight. Maybe her face wasn’t as pale. Same pose though, same heart-stopping fear in her eyes. Time to be professional about this. He put the coffee and doughnuts on the table in front of her.

“Sorry, this time of night pickin’s are pretty slim.” He slid one of the cups toward her. “So Melody, do you have any family you’d like me to call? Friends? Anyone who can come get you?”

“I have you.” Her thin hand crept across the table and she picked up one of the glazed and bit into it. “I haven’t eaten a doughnut in years. These are good. Billy had diabetes so we couldn’t have these kinds of things in the house.”

He frowned. “Melody, can you tell me why you were in that closet?”

“I was afraid. Billy wished me free before he died so I didn’t go back in the lamp and I didn’t know what to do. I’ve never been there after my master died before. I always went back in the lamp.”

“Back in the lamp?”

“My lamp.” Melody shoved the last three bites of her doughnut in her mouth and reached for the other one.

“Watch out, you don’t want to–”

Melody opened her mouth like she was trying to puke, but nothing came out.

“Shit.” Jerry leaped around the table, pulled her out of the chair, positioned his fist right under her breastbone and jerked.

Melody hacked a glob of half-chewed doughnut onto the table. Then she sucked in a huge breath and started coughing. Jerry held onto her as she recovered, the shock of the choking episode fading away as something else took its place. He liked the way her body fit against his and was a little creeped out by the fact that it was turning him on. She had some nice curves going on under that shirt. The kind that probably sang desert songs when she walked.

This was wrong. So wrong. So very, very wrong. What kind of a monster was he? She was a victim of some as-yet-undetermined crime who had just nearly bought it, thanks to a doughnut he’d given her, and he was turned on?

“You okay?” Jerry let her go and backed up before his body betrayed him.

Melody spun around and threw her arms around his neck. She smelled like spice and some dense, dark perfume. “You saved me.”

“It’s my job.” Jerry put his hands on her hips, intending to push her away, and liked it too much to do it right away. Her flesh was soft without being sloppy. She fit in his hands like a dream. When he did summon the willpower, he found that she had a stranglehold on him. “Melody, you need to let me go.”

“I don’t want to. Please, I don’t have anywhere to go.” She started sobbing.

Oh crap. Jerry patted her back. “There, there. There, there.” He always felt like a tool when women started crying. She needed a hot meal, a warm bed and a psych evaluation. None of those were things he could provide. “Go ahead and cry. You’ll feel better.” One of them should feel better. He was just going to keep feeling like a heel for thinking about her soft body under that shirt.

* * * *

Melody peered through the glass in the door of the interview room. Jerry had left her alone a long time ago. He’d held her for a quite a while when she’d cried. Then he’d put her back in her chair and left her alone with the coffee and the doughnuts.

He’d been aroused. That pleased her. Even though she wasn’t a genie anymore, she could still make a man want her. Jerry was nice. He was very strong and kind. Young too. He would live a long time. Attractive, even. Tall and lean, the way she liked them. Blond hair and blue eyes. Being in his arms had felt good but being under him would feel better. He would be a good master.

Except she didn’t need to accept whatever master she got. Melody frowned. She wasn’t a genie anymore, and things had changed since she was a human woman last. Even if her mother wasn’t long dead, she wouldn’t be choosing Melody’s next master or husband and neither would Fate by dropping her lamp into someone’s path. Freedom meant she could pick her own master. Billy had freed her just like he always promised. Was it wise to choose the first one who came along?

But she liked Jerry. He was kind and gentle. He brought doughnuts. Her stomach growled.

Doughnuts. The doughnuts and coffee Jerry brought her were tasty, but not very satisfying. Especially after all that time in the closet. She peered out the door again. If Jerry would just come back, he could take her home and she could cook him a nice meal and then satisfy him.

Melody paced around the room, wondering what it would feel like to make love as a mortal. She still hadn’t quite gotten used to her breathing and pulse. Those times with her husband had been so long ago that she barely remembered. Thousands of years serving men gave her an excellent sense of what kind of lover a man would be, and Jerry would be very gentle, even a little anxious about pleasing her.

The door opened behind her. Jerry! Finally he could take her home. Melody spun around.

Not Jerry. A small black woman with a mustard colored blouse and a pissed off expression stood before her. “Good morning, Miss– Melody. My name is Stella Jackson and I’m from Social Services. I understand you’ve had a difficult few days. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”

“Where is Jerry?” Melody frowned as a cold snake coiled in her chest.

Stella Jackson stopped in the process of dropping a file folder on the table. “Jerry?”

“Yes, Jerry. He was here earlier. He needs to take me home with him.”

“He does?”

“Yes.” Melody folded her arms. “Where is Jerry? I don’t want to talk to anybody else.”

“Well, Jerry isn’t here anymore. His shift ended and he went home. I need to ask you some questions.” She finished putting the folder down and sat.

“I don’t want to talk to you. I only want to talk to Jerry.”

“Why?”

“Because he is going to take me home with him.”

Stella Jackson raised one eyebrow. “Did he promise to take you home with him?”

Melody cocked her head. When he left, he’d been flustered and told her to wait, but he hadn’t said he would be back for her. But why wouldn’t he be? He had been aroused. No man had ever walked away from her. He would want her in his bed, and when he tasted her cooking, he would want her in his kitchen too. “No, but I’m sure he will take me home. Men always take me home.”

“Men always take you home?” Stella Jackson repeated.

This was not going right. She needed to get out of this room so she could find Jerry. In his younger days, Billy had been something of a hellion. He had told her stories about his scrapes with the law. In his infirmity, he had liked to watch crime shows, which had given her more information about how the police worked. She’d never realized how handy that could be. “Are you charging me with something?”

“No.”

“Then I demand that you release me. I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“No, but you were found living as a prisoner in the apartment of a dead man.”

“I wasn’t a prisoner.”

“You were locked in a closet and you had been there for some time.” Stella stood and gestured to the chair across from her. “Please, have a seat so we can talk.”

Melody straightened. This being free was a little more complicated than she’d thought. Stella Jackson would not allow her to leave unless she spun the proper story. Melody settled in the chair, trying to remember the hundreds of television shows she had watched with Billy. One of them had to have something useful in it. “I was not locked in the closet. I shut myself in there.”

“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.”