Game On: Tempting Twenty-Eight (Stephanie Plum #28)(16)

“Okay, what the heck. Throw in a bottle of wine.”

I got off the phone, grabbed a bottle of red wine from my cupboard, wrote Lula’s address on a scrap of paper, and handed it to Diesel. “Drop Melvin and the wine off at Lula’s place. She’s going to take him.”

“Who’s Lula?” Melvin asked.

“She works at the bail bonds office with me,” I said. “You’ll be safe with her… more or less.”

Diesel and Melvin left and twenty minutes later Morelli arrived with Bob and the chocolate cake.

Bob snuffled me and bounded around the apartment, making sure nothing had changed and there were no cats in residence. Morelli gave me a quick kiss and took the cake into the kitchen.

“Anything new to report?” I asked Morelli. “Was the cause of death determined?”

“His throat was cut. No weapon was found.”

“Horrible.”

“Yeah.” He got a bottle of beer from the fridge and chugged half of it. “Do you want cake?”

“Of course, I want cake.”

I took the cake out of the cooler and set it on the counter. We each took a fork and dug in.

“Did you talk to Melvin Schwartz?” Morelli asked.

“Yes. He’s rattled. He’s worried that he’s next.”

“He thinks Oswald killed Clark Stupin?”

“Yes.”

“What do you think?”

“I think it’s possible. I get the impression from Diesel that Oswald is a bad guy.”

Morelli stepped back from the counter. “We did some serious damage to this cake.” He pulled me to him and kissed me. “I think we should move on to other activities.”

“Television?” I asked.

“Not what I had in mind.”

“I thought you might be out of the mood after dinner interruptus. That was a gruesome crime scene.”

“It was and I don’t want to fall asleep thinking about it. I want to fall asleep thinking about you.”

I wrapped my arms around him. “So, I serve a purpose.”

“You serve many purposes. Almost all of them are good. If you could learn to bake a chocolate cake, I might consider marriage.”

“Seriously?”

“It crosses my mind from time to time.”

“And it all hinges on chocolate cake?”

“Pretty much. You already excel at everything else that matters to me.”

“Housekeeping?” I asked.

“No,” Morelli said.

“Cooking in general?”

“No.”

“Brilliant conversation?”

“No. Although you can hold your own when it comes to Rangers hockey and Giants football.” His hand moved under my shirt and found my breast.

“I think I know where this is going,” I said.

Some women might find it offensive to be reduced to chocolate cake and sex. I wasn’t one of those women. Besides, I knew Morelli was being playful. It would take more than chocolate cake to get him to the altar. He ate in front of the television or in his kitchen because he had a billiard table in his dining room. This was not an indicator of a man ready for marriage.

“I have some unfortunate news,” Morelli said.

My first thought was that in his current breast exploration he had discovered a lump.

“Oh crap,” I said.

“I know this isn’t a good way to start down the path to your bedroom, but I need to get it out there so we can move on.”

“Tell me.”

“It’s my uncle Sergio’s eightieth birthday Sunday and we have to go to his party.”

“That’s it? That’s the unfortunate news?”

“Yeah.”

Huge relief. No lump. On the downside, I had to endure a Morelli family party.

“Do I know Uncle Sergio?” I asked.

“Grandma Bella’s brother.”

“Is this the one who looks like a bald eagle? White hair, crazy beady eyes, hook nose, and walks hunched over?”

“Yep, that’s him.”

“He stares at my breasts.”

“He can’t help it,” Morelli said. “He’s only five feet four and the vertebrae in his neck are fused together. Anyway, if you’ve got to be stuck staring at something, your breasts are a good place to start.”

“Any other bad news?”

“Isn’t that enough?”

“Is there good news?”

“Give me ten minutes and I’ll make you forget all about the bad news.”

“Ten minutes might not be enough time,” I said.

“How about twenty minutes?”

“You’ve got it. You’re on the clock.”

“It would help if you got naked,” Morelli said.

It took me fifteen seconds to completely strip down in the kitchen. “Okay,” I said. “I’m ready.”

“Me, too,” Morelli said.

That was stating the obvious. Morelli was way ahead of me.

A half hour later we had our clothes back on and we were watching baseball. I love going to the ballpark to see the Mets play, but watching it on television is like watching grass grow. Fortunately, Morelli had kept his promise and we were now feeling relaxed and mellow and didn’t really care that the Mets had changed pitchers twice in the last ten minutes.