Sinner's Gin (17 page)

“I like him too,” Edie replied. “You’re a detective. Do you know what’s going on there?”

Kane closed his eyes and tried to rub away the sleep creeping over him. He listened as she repeated Kel pretty much word for word with the exception of the swearing. “How much more is there to know, Edie? I haven’t checked the news or anything.”

“We’ve gotten the site to pull the photos and the story, but other places have picked it up.” A small dog barked in the distance on the line, and Edie shushed it with a tsk. “Of course, we’re going to sue. What does he think?”

“He doesn’t know yet,” Kane said. “My partner just told me. I’ll tell him when he gets up.”

“I can try to be up there in the morning,” Edie promised. “They’re going to be after him… those damned vultures. He’ll need to find some place else to stay.”

“You’ve met him, right?” He quirked his mouth, laughing at what he imagined Miki’s response would be to Edie’s high-handed order. “I found a murdered child molester in his garage, then probably the same asshole threw a dead dog through his window. And let’s not forget the bag of fingers and cow parts on his front porch, but that didn’t convince him not to come back here. Believe me, he’s not going to go anywhere, ma’am.”

“In the words of another woman, ‘ma’am’ is just another way to say ‘bitch’.” Edie let loose a smoky chuckle. “I don’t want to leave him alone….”

“He’s not alone,” Kane said softly. “He has me.”

The silence on the other end of the phone would have been deafening if not for Dude’s snores coming from the other room. Kane glanced over his shoulder, taking another look at the man sprawled out on the mattress. Miki’s foot was exposed, and from what Kane could see of it, his pinky toe seemed to curl under his other toe. A black nose poked out of the sheets, the linens ruffling as the dog breathed heavily outward.

“You’ll have to excuse me, Detective Morgan, but I don’t know you. How can I trust you with him?”

“Yeah, I don’t know you either,” Kane shot back. “But of the two of us, who the hell’s sitting in his living room at fucking three o’clock in the morning?”

Another length of silence passed, shorter than the last. Then Edie said, “Point taken, but to be fair, Detective Morgan, he’s not let me into his living room… at any time of the morning.”

“Do you need to be down there?” he asked. “To deal with the shit that’s going to hit? Or can you come to hover over him and do what you have to do up here?”

“It would be better for me to stay down here. It’s harder to break heads long distance,” she admitted slowly. “But I don’t want to leave him alone.”

“I’ve already told you.” His reply was gentle but firm. “He’s
not
alone, and if there are any heads to be broken up here, I’ll deal with them.”

“Does he know that?” Edie asked. “About you… willing to break heads open for him?”

“Yeah, pretty sure he does.” He cut her off. “And if he doesn’t, he will soon. Look, he feels safe here. From what I can see, there aren’t too many places he feels safe at. I’m not going to let some asshole take this one from him.”

“Let me give you my number. I’ll take yours.” She rattled off her information and made Kane repeat his twice. “If anything happens… anything at all, I want you to call me.”

“You think he’s going to like me running to you every time he stubs his toe?” Kane laughed. “I’ll let you know if something hardcore is up.”

“Will you make sure he eats, at least?” It wasn’t hard to hear the worry in her voice, and Kane smiled, almost hearing his mother in Edie’s words. “And something other than ramen.”

“I promise. He had steak tonight. And vegetables.”

“Now I know the world’s going to end,” she muttered. “I’ll call you both when I know more. Thanks for taking care of him, Detective. I owe you one.”

“I’m not doing this for you, ma’am,” Kane replied. “I’m doing this for him.”

H
IS
beer went warm before Kane could finish it. After dumping the rest in the sink, he prowled through the lower level of the warehouse looking for linens to put on the couch. Not surprisingly, he came up empty. Glancing up at the staircase winding up to the second floor, Kane was debating searching there when he heard Miki murmur his name.

He shed his sneakers an hour or so ago, so Kane’s bare feet made little noise as he padded over the wood floors to Miki’s bedroom. The light from the lamp he left on in the living room barely reached the bedroom’s interior, but it was bright enough to catch the gold specks in Miki’s hooded eyes. Kane spotted Dude, snoring and buried in a stolen pillow on the floor. The singer lay on his side, facing the archway, and he watched Kane intently.

“Didn’t mean to wake you up.” Kane sat on the edge of the bed. “I was looking for sheets I could use on the couch.”

Miki blinked, sleep dragging down his eyelids. Nestling his chin into the pillow he clutched to his chest, he mumbled. “Bed’s big enough. Just sleep here.”

“Mick, even as dead tired as I am right now, I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Kane eyed the enormous bed. “I was thinking of crashing on the couch.”

“It’s just to sleep. Get in bed. You’re making too much noise stomping around for me to crash.” Miki grumbled. “And the couch isn’t long enough for your ginormous body.”

Compared to the too-short couch, the comfort of the feather-topped bed was tempting, but not half as tempting as the young man already lying in it.

“Turn off the goddamned light,” Miki grumbled. “And go to sleep.”

“God, this is a bad idea,” he muttered. “Big fucking bad idea.”

After a quick trip to the living room to flick off the lamp, Kane stripped off his jeans and climbed onto the bed. Pulling at the edge of a sheet, he covered himself and reached for one of the stray pillows. Miki slid back to give him room, edging nearly to the wall he’d placed the bed against. Kane let his eyes adjust to the darkness and was surprised to find Miki still awake and staring at him.

“What?” Kane growled.

The singer yawned and squeaked a little kittenish noise. “Thanks for… everything. For being here. Shit, for making me dinner. It was a good dinner.”

Neither one of them mentioned their interrupted kiss, but the memory of Miki’s tongue lapping at his mouth simmered in Kane’s brain.

“You’re welcome.” He reached up to tangle his fingers into Miki’s thick hair, drawing the strands away from the man’s sharp cheekbones. “You’re supposed to be asleep, remember?”

“It’s kind of weird. You being in bed. I’ve never slept with anyone,” Miki rasped. “Well, Damie when we were first touring, but that doesn’t count. We didn’t have money for separate rooms, so we’d rent one with two queen beds. Johnny kicks in his sleep. Dave lost the rock-paper-scissors, so he got stuck with him.”

Kane sighed and edged forward, wishing he could somehow take away the bruises in Miki’s heart. The man sighed and laid his hand over Kane’s, shuffling his body away from the wall and closer to Kane’s heat. It wasn’t the time to tell Miki about the fallout from the leaked photos, not when he was wrapped up and sleepy. Kane stroked Miki’s face with his thumb and the singer practically purred under his touch. The kitten noises coming from Miki’s parted lips made Kane’s cock stand up and take notice and when Miki’s knee edged against Kane’s thigh, he had to close his eyes briefly and take a deep breath to calm his dick down.

“I’m not sure I won anything. D talked in his sleep.” Miki grimaced. “He mumbled some nasty things I didn’t think anyone could do in bed.”

“It was always you and Damien then?” Losing Damien probably drove Miki to the edge of his sanity, and Kane still wasn’t sure the singer hadn’t fallen off that particular cliff.

“Yeah, always me and D.” Miki laughed. “Dave called us the Prince and the Pauper. I didn’t know it was a book until he said something. I always thought it was a Mickey Mouse cartoon.”

“Mark Twain wrote it.” Kane chuckled. “You guys didn’t look anything alike.”

“Never said we were the sharpest spoons in the drawer. It’s ’cause he was rich and, well, I was shit Chinatown ghetto,” he replied. “Damie was the smart one between the four of us. I never graduated high school. He went to college when he was like fourteen and got some degree in music.”

“But you wrote a lot of Sinner’s Gin’s songs.”

“He liked what I had to say.” Miki’s shrug was barely discernible in the faint light. “D used to say I wrote good music because I didn’t know what the rules were when I started. What’s the saying? Put a thousand monkeys in front of typewriters and eventually one of them writes Shakespeare? That’s what I told him.”

“Did he tell you to shut up?”

“Yeah. Kind of. Mostly it was, ‘suck my dick, Sinjun, and fucking take the compliment.’” A grumbling, soft woof came from the floor near the foot of the bed. “He let me get stoned out on music. I’d want to listen to things and pick them apart. Damie was good like that. He’d let me talk everything out until I was too tired to go anymore.”

Kane didn’t need Miki to say he missed his best friend. The heartbreaking loss in the man’s voice was evident.

“Johnny and Dave, they were my friends, but Damie, he was my brother. Tonight, when you and Connor were together, I thought ‘that’s what me and D were like.’” Miki smiled. “Except Damie was more of a smartass than Connor. Johnny used to say God gave Damien a big dick to balance out how big of an asshole he was.”

“Well, that theory explains Connor’s dick.” Kane chuckled. “Horses are jealous of him.”

They lay there, simply breathing, and for a moment, Kane thought Miki had fallen back asleep. Then the man looked up and sighed. “I miss D. You’d miss your brothers, wouldn’t you?”

“Hell yeah.” He nodded. “Quinn for sure. He’s younger than me. We’re close. Connor’s always been the big badass in the family, but I’d miss him. He used to kick the shit out of me when I stepped out of line when we were kids. I think Braeden and Ian are scared to death of him.”

“He’s a cop too, right? Connor?”

“Yeah, he’s SWAT, ’cause being a regular cop wasn’t hardcore enough for him.” Kane’s fingers stilled, resting on the curve of Miki’s face. “The twins just made junior inspector now, and Ian’s in the academy. He’ll graduate probably next year. Braeden’s the freak. He’s a fireman. Ryan’s the baby. Mom’s hoping she goes out and gets a real job like Quinn.”

“Way too many kids.” Miki wrinkled his nose.

“Sometimes.” Kane laughed heartily. “Usually when I needed to pee and the bathrooms were all taken. But now, it’s all good. I like most of them. Ian’s an ass, but I think it’s because he’s pissed off Ryan came along and he wasn’t the baby anymore.”

Miki yawned and rubbed at his eye with the heel of his hand. Kane moved his hand when Miki brushed against his wrist, but the singer shook his head and shifted forward until they touched again.

“You should get some sleep,” Kane whispered. “It’s going to be a long day tomorrow.”

“Yeah, I know,” he mumbled under his breath. “I heard you talking to Kel and Edie. I’m guessing she’s pissed off.”

Kane’s face burned a bit under Miki’s scrutiny. “I was going to tell you about that crap when you woke up.”

“It’s okay. I’m kind of used to it. I’m kind of mad about the photos, but those guys have said all kinds of shit about me over the years. At least this time, it’s sort of true.”

“You were never a whore. You were a kid. There’s a big difference there.”

“I was never a kid, Kane,” Miki whispered, his breath hot on Kane’s palm. “He wouldn’t let me go. Neither would Shing. I stayed with Carl because I had no where else to go, and at least he fed me. If that doesn’t make me a whore, then I don’t know what does.”

“You did what you had to in order to survive.” Kane stroked Miki’s mouth once with his fingertips, then leaned in to steal a brief kiss. “That doesn’t make you a whore. It made you a survivor.”

“A kid shouldn’t have to survive his childhood.” Miki lightly bit Kane’s lower lip, then nuzzled in closer. “I don’t mind being called a whore. At least it makes it sound like I had a choice.”

Chapter 11

Butterflies and whiskey, catching fire to the moon.

Death’s calling to me but I tell him it’s too soon.

Songs to sing, places to see.

I don’t want to go but Death sure wants me.

—Death Calling

D
ESPITE
the chill on his skin, Kane’s cock ached from spending the night against Miki’s lithe body. He’d woken up when Miki got up to let the dog out and then again when Dude came back in. The dog’s weight dipped the mattress slightly as he turned around a few times near Kane’s feet, but Dude settled down quickly, falling off into a snoring heap before Miki shed the sweats he’d worn to hold off the morning cold.

Shivering, the young man crawled back under the blankets and shuffled in close to Kane’s body, leeching as much of Kane’s warmth as he could. Miki’s nose was a sharp bite of ice on Kane’s nipple and he bit back a yelp when Miki rested his cheek on his chest, his breath as hot as his face was cold. Kane’s cock, already hard from its morning drowsiness, stirred and thrust up, reaching out in vain to pierce his boxers. Scolding his libido, Kane shifted, working his hand down to adjust his dick, then wrapped his arms around the sleepy man curled into his torso.