Tangled Hearts (Passion in Paradise) (11 page)

Cal grinned as Melody
returned ten minutes later in a pair of yoga pants that made his mouth water
and his dick hard and an oversized tee shirt that hung off her small frame.  He
assumed it was her brothers because if he even thought about it being her ex’s,
he’d tear it off her body without a single thought to the repercussions. 
Spotting the unopened bag of jellybeans she held clutched in her left hand, he
smirked.  “You got bags of those things hidden in every room of the house,
babe?”  He knew she’d been inhaling those little candies like TicTacs and she
seemed to indulge in them more when she got stressed.

Melody shrugged her
slim shoulders.  “I like my jellybellies.  Sue me.  I don’t comment on your
coffee consumption rate,” she replied with a frown, her cheeks turning a pretty
shade of cherry red. 

Cal chuckled because it
was true.  He did have a small addiction to caffeine.  And she hadn’t said a
word about it.  In fact, she went out of her way to keep a pot of coffee
brewing when they were home.  He’d noted that she rarely had more than a cup or
two in the mornings so he knew she was doing it for him.  It felt good, having
her looking after him.  Nobody had ever bothered to even try to learn, much
less support his habits.  Melody, however, took care of him like it was second
nature.  He just wondered if she realized it.

“Okay,” she said,
dropping back to her spot on the floor in front of her couch.  “Are you ready
to get down and dirty?” she asked, dropping her candy to the table and rubbing
her hands together.

Leaning across the
coffee table toward her, Cal gave her a slow, sensual smile.  “Sweetheart,
something to know about me.  Down and dirty is the only way I know how to
roll.”  The words rolled easily off his tongue and had the desired effect.  He
watched with a bone deep satisfaction as Melody’s teeth sank into her plump
lower lip and she shifted under his heavy lidded gaze.  Her blush deepened as
her breathing sped up.  That’s how he finally knew, without a doubt, she was
feeling this white hot attraction every bit as deeply as he was.

“I was talking about
our game of twenty questions!” She blurted, shaking her head in agitation. 
“Are you gonna make everything I say into a sexual suggestion?” she asked testily,
flashing him a dark look.

“I’m sure as fuck gonna
try,” he stated truthfully, his smile unapologetic as he leaned his back
against the seat of one of the club chairs facing the table and pulled his
half-filled glass of whiskey toward him.

“Of course you are,”
Melody mumbled, taking a sip from her own glass before lifting her eyes to
him.  “You wanna go first or should…”

“Ladies go first with
me, darlin’.  Always.  In bed and out,” he said firmly, his sea blue eyes
gleaming mirthfully at her.  God, he loved riling her up.  Those coffee-colored
eyes of hers got darker every single time he poked fun or made a sexual
remark.  Pretty soon, he figured they’d be black with desire.  Now, he wasn’t
sure that desire would be to kiss him or kill him.  All he was certain of is
that he couldn’t wait to find out.

“Fine, jackass,” she
retorted.  “I’ll be happy to go first.  And like you said, I’ll start easy. 
You said you were an orphan and that you’d never met your mother.  So, who
named you?  Callum is kinda an unusual name and Valentine…. Well, how do they
decide on a last name for orphans?  Do you know?” she asked before taking a sip
of her whiskey.

“Hey, you only get to
drink
after
you answer a question,” Cal chided, frowning at the glass in
her hand.  He wanted her uninhibited by the booze, not unconscious.  At the
rate his favorite girl was gulping, she’d be trashed in a half hour.  And then
he might never get his answers.

Melody rolled her
eyes.  “Fine,” she remarked, dropping her glass to the table and pushing it
slightly away.  “I’ll behave and even skip my next scheduled sip in the
interest of fairness
if
you’ll answer.”

“I’ll answer.  When I
was about three days old according to my medical records, I was left in an
infant carrier on a park bench across from a Catholic church in Philly.  One of
the nuns heard me crying from the rectory office and came to investigate. 
She’s the one that named me.  She was Irish.  My full name is actually Callum
Rowen Valentine.  She chose Valentine because she found me on Valentine’s Day.”

“Wow,” Melody
whispered.  “You were named by a nun.  How many nuns can say they’ve done that,
I wonder?”

“Probably more than
you’d want to know about, Melody,” Cal asserted gently.  “The world can be a
pretty ugly place.  I just don’t think you’ve had to see that part of it,
babe.  I pray you never do.”

“Your mother left you
on a bench in the cold February air?  What the hell kind of parent does
something like that?” Melody asked, shaking her head in horror as the facts
around Cal’s birth began to sink in.  “That bitch couldn’t have at least taken
you inside?  She left you out there to freeze?” she asked, growing angrier. 
Lips tightening, Melody reached for her whiskey.

Slapping her hand, Cal
shook his head.  “Nuh uh. 
My
sip, remember?” 

“Oops,” Melody winced,
her eyes tearful as she met his steady gaze.  “Sorry.  After that story, you
definitely deserve your sip.”

Cal smiled faintly as
he lifted his glass to his lips.  “To answer your earlier question, the kind of
parent that could do something like that is the kind of parent I was better off
not knowing.  Don’t you cry for me, Sweetness.  I did alright for myself.  That
nun made it a habit to watch over me over the years no matter what orphanage or
foster home I was staying at and Sister Bridget never let me forget that I
mattered.  That old nun could be hell on wheels when I tested her patience.  I
got the back of my head smacked more than once by her for some of the foolish
crap I pulled as a kid.  Hell, when she caught me and Tommy Springer drinking
in an empty confessional, she made us mop the entire church and recite the
Lord’s Prayer the entire time we worked.  Do you know how
big
the
Catholic churches in Philly are?  We were at it all afternoon.  I prayed myself
into a case of laryngitis, no lie!  Couldn’t talk above a whisper and it felt
like I swallowed razor blades when I swallowed for almost a week thanks to her
creative form of punishment.   She said it was the Lord’s way of telling me
that thirteen year old boys shouldn’t be drinking.  She must have been onto
something there, too, because I didn’t take another sip of alcohol until I
turned 21. The good Sister kept up with me until she died a few years ago. 
Besides my army family, she’s the only person I ever claimed as kin,” he explained,
grinning as he heard Melody’s watery chuckle.

“That’s beautiful,”
Melody admitted softly, plucking a tissue from the box on the end table and
wiping her nose. 

“No, babe,
you’re
beautiful. 
The story is just a page from my past.  It’s my turn now,” he reminded her,
more than a little ready to move her along to a much more interesting subject –
namely her.

Sniffling, Melody
nodded.  “Okay, hit me.  Well, not literally,” she amended.  “Because that
would hurt.  Like a
lot.
Because you’re… you know,
huge
,” she
rambled as she crawled toward the end of her sofa to toss her used tissue into
the trash can she kept under the end table.

Cam adjusted his dick
in his pants as he watched her ass sway in the air as she moved across the
carpet.  Damn, he could hardly wait to get his hands on those firm cheeks of
hers, he thought silently.  “First off, another thing you need to know about me
is that I don’t put my hands on a woman in anger
ever
.  You never need
fear that from me, Melody.  A man that’ll lay hands on a woman isn’t a man at
all.  He’s just a coward that’s too chicken shit to go looking for somebody
that can fight him back.  Second, I’m pleased to know that you think I’m
huge
. 
I can report that several sources have found me to be quite well hung as well.”

Turning her head to
glare at him, she hissed, “I was
not
talking about your dick, Callum
Valentine!”

“Maybe not, but I was,”
he drawled, winking at her as she settled herself on her ass again.

He watched as Melody
closed her eyes and took a deep breath.  “You’re silently counting to ten,
aren’t you?”

Cracking one eyelid,
she nodded.  “How’d you know?”

“Sister Bridget used to
do the very same thing,” he laughed.  “Anyway, it’s my turn now.  You ready?”
he asked eagerly.  He couldn’t wait to see the look on her face when he asked
his question.

“I guess,” she said
hesitantly, almost cringing as she waited for him to make his query.

“What age did you lose
your virginity?” he inquired, propping his elbow on the table as he dropped his
chin in his hand.  “I’m thinking, twenty-three.  Twenty-four, max.  There’s no
way you went any earlier than that. I’m betting it was that loser you were with
that got to taste your cherry.  Am I right?  I’m right, aren’t I?”

“I think I hate you,”
she informed him through clenched teeth as her cheeks turned bright red.  “And
if you’re just going to answer your own questions, why bother asking?”

“I knew it!” Cal growled. 
“That just makes me hate ol’ Bradley even more.  Why would you give that prick
a precious gift like that?” he asked, not bothering to conceal his
disappointment.  He’d never been good at acting anyway. 

“Because, Callum, I
didn’t
know
he was a prick when I gave it to him!” she bit out angrily. 
“Besides, it was my gift to give to whoever I chose.”

“Yeah, but you waited
long enough to give your virginity away.  Wouldn’t it have been nice if the
fucker had been worthy?” Cal muttered as Melody snatched up the tumbler of
whiskey and took a gulp.

“I wasn’t
that
old. 
What were you? Twelve, thirteen when you lost yours?” she snapped, blowing her
hair out of her face in a huff.

“Fifteen,” Cal answered
blandly, laughing again when Melody’s eyes threatened to bulge out of her head.

“Fifteen!” she echoed
with a yelp.  “You were a baby, Cal!”

“I grew up in the
streets, babe.  By their standards, I actually was a late bloomer.  I was
fifteen.  She was eighteen.  It was a quick exchange of bodily fluids in an
alley in downtown Philly,” Cal returned, lifting a hand to scratch his stubbled
cheek, grinning when her eyes widened at that last bit of information.  God,
she really was an innocent, he thought with a pleased sigh. 

“That’s… that’s….
criminal
. 
Literally!  You were jailbait!!”

“No such thing as
jailbait where I come from, sweets.  You’ll be happy to know, though, that I
did
wear a rubber.  I’ve
always
worn a rubber no matter who I was
banging.”

Melody clapped her hand
over her ears.  “Will you PLEASE stop telling me that stuff?  I
do not
want to know.  These scintillating details about your sex life are…”

“… are things you
will
need to know before we take things to the next level,” Cal supplied
smoothly.

Melody shook her head. 
“Uh, no!  I do not!  Because we will not be taking things to any level.  You
and I” she growled, gesturing between them with a finger, “are NEVER gonna
happen.”

“You and I,” he
replied, mimicking her finger gesture, “are
already
happening,
Princess.  You just haven’t realized it yet.”

“Whatever,” she
declared, shooting him a look of disgust.  “Whose turn is it?”

“It’s your go and my
drink,” he returned easily, reaching out to relieve her of the glass in her
hand.  “What’s your question, Melody?  I’m happy to tell you anything you’d
like to know about
my
prior sex life,” he added to needle her.

“No, thank you,” she
denied him primly as she pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms
around them.  “I know more than I ever wanted to already about that side of
you.  Instead, I want to know why you went into the military and what made you
stay there for over twenty years.”

“Which do you want: the
canned and packaged response that I always gave my soldiers or the truth?” he
asked curiously.

“How about you give
them both to me and I’ll decide which one I like better,” Melody offered,
popping a jellybean in her mouth.

“Well, my PC response
to your question when a soldier would ask it was that I joined the Army because
I wanted to be a part of something bigger than myself.  I wanted to make a
difference and change lives.  And I guess that’s not exactly a lie.  I did want
those things…. later.  But the thing I was looking for the most when I enlisted
was just to find a way out.”

“A way out,” Melody
echoed, her face the picture of confusion.

“See, when you grow up
in the system and on the streets, most times when a kid – especially a boy –
turns eighteen, his options are severely limited.  Back then, most times he was
gonna end up one of two places.  Jail or one of the Armed Services.”

“Why?” Melody blurted,
clearly stunned.