Read Online Melody Unchained by Christa Maurice - Free Book Online

to. I didn’t have a choice.” She slid her hand up his thigh. “I have a choice now and I chose you, but you won’t choose me.”
    Jerry put his hand over hers. “I have chosen you, Melody, but I can’t do this again.”
    “Do what?”
    “Fall in love with a woman who needs me so much that she can’t function without me. I was with Amanda for eight years, seven married. For five of those years she was sick. Dog sick. She had good days and good stretches, but most of it was holding her hair while she threw up and carrying her from the bed to the couch so she could have a change of scenery. Even before she got sick, she didn’t have much ambition. Her idea of big plans was putting up the Christmas decorations, which were the same every year. She had a lot of blond moments and it made it hard for her to keep a job. She tried about everything, but eventually she’d screw up bad enough to get fired. I can’t do that again, Melody.”
    “You don’t have to. I can be anything you want.”
    He wrapped his fingers around hers, warm and certain. “You’re already everything I want. That’s the problem.”
    “So you’re trying to tell me that you want me to need you, but not too much? How am I supposed to work that out? I can’t figure out how to cash a check without getting arrested.” She tried to smile, but it didn’t want to fit on her face. He was the one she wanted. The only one she’d ever wanted. Her husband had been chosen for her by her mother. All her masters had been chosen by fate. Except Jerry.
    “I don’t know, Melody. We’ll figure it out or we won’t.”
    “No.”
    “No?”
    “I’m not taking that answer.”
    “You’re not?”
    “I’m not.” Melody tangled her fingers though his hair as she straddled his lap. “I need you this one time and then if you still don’t know, you can go be indecisive all you want.”
    “Melody.” He moaned.
    She kissed his jaw and caught his earlobe between her teeth. He stiffened as she flicked her tongue across it. His body, though still, seethed under her touch. He struggled to resist, but she couldn’t let him. Tugging at his buttons, she opened his shirt. “Please, Jerry. Just this once.”
    “This once.” He laid her back on the floor.
    * * * *
    That afternoon, Jerry woke in Billy Welsh’s bed, or rather on the mattress from Billy Welsh’s bed, which was on the floor because the bed had already been dismantled. Melody lay tangled around him, but awake. He could tell by her breathing. Pretty nice, really. Just lying in bed with her. Not a bad way to wake up at all.
    Jerry feathered his fingers through Melody’s hair. “How did you end up with Billy?” He liked the weight of her on him. The way her skin stuck to his and the soft rush of her breath. He stroked her shoulder. It had been a long time since he’d held a woman this way, curled in sweet afterglow.
    “The usual way. He said he found my lamp in a pawnshop and liked it so he bought it. He kept it beside the bed when we had a place to live, but sometimes he had me go back inside because he was going to be on tour and I couldn’t go with him.”
    “So you could go in and out of the lamp whenever you wanted?”
    “No, only when my master told me to.”
    “And that didn’t count as a wish?”
    Melody shook her head. Her hair tickled his flesh as it moved over his skin.
    “What did count?”
    “My master had to say I wish for whatever and believe it. Really believe it. I didn’t think Billy was going to be able to free me because he was a little out of it right there at the end.”
    “And you only give three wishes.”
    “Three wishes.”
    “And you can’t bring back the dead or make anyone love you.”
    “No, I can bring back the dead. Could have. I did a couple of times, but they are still rotting so it’s pretty gross and they’re not usually very happy about being back. Making somebody love you never worked out really well either.” Melody propped herself on her