Читать книгу The 45% Hangover [A Logan and Steel novella] - Stuart MacBride - Страница 6

‘GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!’ The scream cut through the world like a rusty chainsaw.

It reverberated back from the walls, jerking Logan fully awake. Then making him wish he wasn’t. Something large and spiky was loose inside his head, scrabbling at the back of his eyes with long dirty claws. He screwed his eyes shut and lay there, till the echoes faded.

‘WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO?’

He gritted his teeth and opened one eye. Then the other one. Wide. Then his mouth.

Oh dear Jesus, no …

They were lying in bed. No idea whose bed, but it was definitely a bed – metal framed, with a brass headboard. Floral-print duvet.

Him and Detective Chief Inspector Steel. In bed. Together.

Her hair was flat on one side, poking out in all directions on the other, her lined face pulled into a shape of utter disgust. Worse yet, it didn’t look as if she was wearing a top.

No, no, no, no …

One arm wouldn’t move, but he used the other one to grab the duvet and pull it up to his chin. ‘Why are we—’

‘IF YOU SO MUCH AS—’

‘STOP BLOODY SHOUTING!’ He screwed his eyes shut, teeth gritted. Every heartbeat made the spiky thing in his skull throb. ‘Please.’

‘I’ll shout if I want to! You try waking up naked, in bed, with a sodding man and see how you like it.’

‘Naked?’ Oh no, not this … He raised the edge of the duvet an inch.

‘If you so much as peek, I swear to God, Laz, I’ll rip your bits off and give them back to you as a suppository!’ She hit him. ‘Get out.’

‘Arm’s gone to sleep.’

She kicked him under the duvet.

‘Ow!’

‘Get out!’

‘I can’t.’ His right leg wouldn’t move either. He jerked it to the side, but it barely moved, something was keeping it where it was. Something solid. ‘Oh no.’

She glared at him. ‘You bloody men are all the same aren’t you? Sex, sex, sex. Well let me tell you something, you randy wee shite, if you ever breathe a word of this to anyone, I’m going to …’ The glare turned into a frown. ‘Why can’t I move my arm?’

Then her head turned. She reached up with her other hand and pulled the pillow to one side.

Logan’s left hand, and her right, poked between the bars of the headboard, fixed there by a set of police-issue handcuffs.

When he shifted his other foot, the duvet rode up just enough to show the handcuff holding his right ankle to the bars at the other end.

Steel slumped back against her pillow. ‘Oh God … Because naked wasn’t bad enough, it had to be kinky!’ She covered her mouth with a hand. ‘I’m going to be sick.’

‘Thank you very much. How do you think I feel?’ He ran a hand across his forehead, then squeezed at the temples. Maybe, if he squeezed hard enough, the headache would vanish? Or his head would explode. Right now either was preferable to this.

‘How much did I drink last night?’

Good question.