Page 75 of Crazy Spooky Love
He sighs and pulls out his phone, tapping away on the screen as I chew my lip. I’d love to be able to solve this on my own, but I’m all out of ideas and if I’m painfully honest, very glad he’s here. After a minute his phone pings and he turns the screen to showme.
Relief washes through me; Mick has agreed to come out to mend Babs at five in the morning then drive her back and leave her outside Blithe Spirits. The suggestion that leaving her unlocked with the keys tucked behind the sun visor is safe in this case is mildlyinsulting, as is Fletch’s laughing emoji reply, but I let them have that one, given everything.
“He owed me a favor,” Fletch says, offhand.
“And now I’m in the unfortunate position of owing you one,” I say. “Thank you. I mean it, I would have been in a mess.”
“Now, that I’d like to see. Could it involve chocolate and handcuffs and being naked?”
And there he is again. I swallow, because the thought of chocolate, handcuffs, and naked Fletcher Gunn sets off an involuntary spasm in one of my eyes. He probably thinks I’m winking at him.
I scowl to cover it, then pace around a little bit with my bag of Haribos. “I’ll call myself an Uber,” I say. “You can go now, I’ll be fine here.” I stash my phone away, closing Babs up with a silent promise to see her again soon.
“I’ll give you a free ride,” Fletch says.
“There’s no such thing as a free ride. My mother taught me that much.”
“Your mother also taught you to speak to thin air for money. I wouldn’t take her advice as gospel,” he says. “Get in my car, Melody.”
His simple, direct approach has a surprisingly odd effect on me. I go all dry-throated and hot. I’ve read about women who like to role-play being kidnapped and manhandled, I think I might be developing that kink.
He holds the passenger door open and looks at me moodily, and I sigh and slide into the dark leather interior of his car. It isn’t new and flash, but it’s well put together and knowingly masculine. Not a discarded sweets wrapper in sight, and I seriously doubt he needs to karate kick the glove box to openit.
“They say dogs look like their owners,” I say. “I think the same thing applies to cars.”
“You don’t look like your car,” he says. “Thank God.”
“Does your car have a name?”
I know the answer even as he shoots me a look. The darkness hasturned his rock-pool green eyes lethal. “No, Melody,” he says, gunning the engine.
I wish he’d stop saying my name, it’s giving me micro-thrills, like a volley of tiny orgasms.
“Do you want to go straight home?” he asks.
“Where else would we go? I’m in my pj’s and you’re…you.”
He pauses. “We could go and look at the moon from Breakers Hill.”
Breakers Hill is a local viewpoint, high and quiet. Everyone knows it’s a local spot for stargazing and steaming up your windows.
“I do like the moon,” I croak, and then turn and look out of my window, as if I expect to find an audience there to mouth, “What am Idoing?!” at, and they will clamp their hands over their eyes with horror and shout “Don’t look at the moon, Melody! It’s a sex-trap!”
Fletch doesn’t speak, just slides the car out of the car park and turns away from town.
I can’t deny it. I’m hot for this whole scenario. I’ve been wrestling lately with the weight of work, the case, and proving myself, but right now all I can think about is the late-night linger of Fletch’s aftershave and the capable way his hands move on the steering wheel.
We fall into a heavy silence until he takes the side road up toward Breakers Hill, my insides flipping over.
“I only left home for Haribos,” I say, when he turns the engine off and looks atme.
A lazy half smile tilts his mouth. “Is this role-play? Are you about to call medaddy?”
I shake my head. “Is everything a joke to you?”
He looks at the view, the low-slung moon, the scattered gleam of distant town lights.
“Not everything,” he says. “Not you.”
