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The brightening of her face is everything and I already know that as long as she wants me around, I will never leave her side.
5
Melody
I’m being selfish. I can tell by the looks Harvey is giving Callan that this isbad. A detective is not supposed to stay the night and I’m not supposed to have asked. But suddenly it’s as if I don’t care. I can’t be here all on my own and what scares me even more is that I can’t be without Callan.
I can’t explain it with words or logic because it has nothing to do with logic. It goes deeper than that, maybe because he was my first glimpse of safety and all I know is that when I’m in his presence, I don’t tremble and I don’t feel scared.
In his presence I feel totally safe because he’s the kind of man that takes care of the bad guys. And now he’s taking care of me.
When all three of us squeeze into my house, Callan stops in the hallway, turning to Harvey like he doesn’t want him here. Frowning he rasps, “Go check the area, the back of the house, the neighborhood...call me if something is out of the ordinary.”
Harvey’s brows curve and he looks like he wants to bark something. His eyes move from Callan to me and I flush at the look in them. He probably thinks I’m acting like a little brat who’s afraid of monsters under her bed but truth is, I am afraid of monsters now. I know what they’re like, I’ve felt them, smelt them, looked at them and I’m no longer as brave as I used to be.
Which is why I need Callan here.
Callan clears his throat and Harvey mutters, “Roger.”
He leaves, leaving the front door open and Callan closes it gently, turning to me and I hitch a breath because now it’s just the two of us. And I feel clumsy and awkward and above all tired.
“Are you hungry?” Callan asks but I shake my head. “Sleepy?”
“Yes,” I whisper. “But I don’t think I need this anymore,” I add, handing him his coat and he clasps it, his eyes going to my scantily clad body but he doesn’t look away. Instead he frowns and there is a gentle hunger in his eyes that caresses me until it feels like my skin is prickling with little sparks of desire.
But his hunger turns bigger, greater until the spot between my legs starts stinging and I blush, putting my arms over my chest. “I should make sure everything is okay,” I murmur and I walk through the house with Callan as a very protective shadow behind me.
“What are you doing, Melody?” Callan asks gently when I press my face up against a window, looking out on the street.
“Need to know that it’s safe.” My breath mists up the glass and I can make out Callan’s reflection. His features are controlled but there is a silent fury evaporating from him like smoke and I have a feeling his fists are clenched behind his back.
He hates what happened to me and I soften when I realize that maybe he even hates it more than I do. It makes my chest hurt and for some unexplainable reason it makes me want to weep. How can this rough and gruff Irishman care so much for a stranger he just met?
Not that I don’t want him to care. I want him to because nobody in my family ever cared about me, other than my sister but the fact that Callan is so concerned about me, makes me feel dangerously connected to him.
Walking over to me, Callan puts his hands on my shoulder and turns me away from the windows. “There is nobody out there. I’m in here and detective Racket is outside.” His thumbs rub my shoulders. “I don’t want you to be afraid.” He straightens, “You’re barely standing, you need to get in bed.”
“The bedroom is that way,” I murmur and his body stiffens but he nods. When I turn on the light, my eyes flare at the unmade bed and I realize that the policemen didn’t touch it and the book that I had been reading before I got kidnapped, a story about the evolution of animal species is laying on my bedside table.
I’m tempted to change the sheets but my muscles are too lethargic and I mope when I remember something. “I need to call my boss, I got work tomorrow but I don’t think I can come...”
I work at a diner and my boss is not exactly a cupcake.
“He’s been informed,” Callan says. Then a cautious flicker lights up his eyes. “And I took the liberty to tell him that you’ll be taking the whole week off.”
My eyes flare, mouth dropping. “Did he agree?”
Raising his brows, Callan pulls his suit to the side, revealing his badge and a snigger sneaks out of my mouth. It feels good to laugh and Callan’s eyes warm and he looks almost handsome like this, despite the blue lights from the street that shine on his scars.
When my lids flutter, Callan clears his throat in reprimand and I crawl into bed, pulling the thick covers over me and it’s not until now that I realize how unusual this situation is. I’m in bed while Callan is standing by the door and I don’t know what to do.
Do I offer him to sleep on the couch? Sleep in my bed? And I flush, wishing I could bury my face in my pillows. If he exits the room with a professional good night, I’m not going to blame him but to my relief he doesn’t.
I can barely breathe when his overgrown frame moves to the window and he sits down on the sill and he’s so big, he must be uncomfortable. But he doesn’t complain or fidgets or lets out scratchy grunts. Instead he just sits there, a silent, protective menace that my heart and body seems to crave and my head starts to spin.
Maybe from fatigue. Or maybe it’s just because of his sheer existence and that faint clover scent of his, unpretentious and clear as a whistle and I want to bathe in it. Bathe in it, until it washes away all the bad memories.
“Callan...” I whisper, looking at his face and I can only see the half of it, since the rest is covered in darkness and I wonder like always who gave him those scars.
