Dirty Kiss (17 page)

“Wanna just move him into your place? He could be your houseboy.” No one could leer like my brother. It was a disgusting trait he shared with my father. I’d hoped that it had skipped me, but some of my former boyfriends assured me that no, I definitely was a McGinnis in that regard.

I was about to answer when I felt a tap on my rear bumper. It was normal, really, considering the uneven flow of traffic on the freeways. Usually someone who’d gotten a new car and hadn’t quite broken into the rhythm of driving it. The Rover could take most hits without even a blink, so I wasn’t all that worried. Besides, I’d dented it often enough on my own, driving through the hills on camping trips.

I was debating pulling over to see if there was any significant damage when there was another jolt, harder this time, and I glanced up, staring into my rearview mirror. Once was nothing to worry about, but twice seemed aggressive. My mirror was filled with the hard-lined front end of a new Econoline, its windows tinted much too dark to be close to legal. Pound for pound, I’d have to give the Ford the upper hand over my battered Rover. The sun glinted off its chrome, burning my eyes. I blinked, and my vision watered, then cleared right as the van surged again, slamming into the back of the Rover.

The hit jerked me forward, snapping my head back. I lost my earpiece when it hit again, a hard shove with its front bumper against the Rover’s back end. My tires squealed as I was shoved across the roadway. Mike’s voice screaming my name was lost under the crunch of the van hitting the Rover with a hard determination. I heard my rear quarter panel give under the impact, then my forehead hit the steering wheel, and all I could see were stars.

My back end slid out to the right, pushed by the van’s momentum. I fought the spin, trying to straighten the Rover out. I gunned the engine, turning into the spiral. Another hit slammed the side of my head into the car door. More stars, and I tasted blood in my mouth.

“Fucking son of a bitch.” I swallowed, gagging on the taste on my tongue. Mike’s yelling got louder, and the panic in my brother’s voice was palpable. I shouted down at the passenger well, hoping he could hear me, “Shut up! You’re not helping!”

My brother has always been a master of cursing. He didn’t fail me now. The words that came out of the headset were very clear. It was as if he were sitting right next to me. Next to his ability to burp the alphabet, it was one of his greatest talents.

“Screw this.” The other driver brushed up against the Rover, and I hit the brakes hard, letting it rush past me. “Let’s see how you like it.”

I kept the van to the right of me, edging the Rover’s formerly pristine front end against its rear. Accelerating, I hit the van’s back end, shoving it forward. The canyons flew past us, purple and grey lines of brush dotted with yellow. The scent of rubber and acrid smoke filled the Rover, and I choked on that more than I did my own blood.

Blinded, I gassed the Rover again, hoping to hit the van hard enough to push it into the median. The Rover’s front end gave, hooking into the Ford. The other driver slammed on his brakes, a flash of red lighting up the van’s rear, then the crinkle of plastic as the Ford’s taillights broke. I couldn’t stop fast enough, tangled into the other car’s backside, so I twisted the wheel, hoping I could at least put the side of the Rover into the van.

My world tilted sideways, then stopped. Sparks of light burst along the edge of my awareness, and then I choked, feeling blood fill my nasal cavities. Something gave way, the sound of metal tearing drowned out the rushing in my ears, and then there was a muted hum of noise that echoed through the Rover. I realized the sound was the running engine, punctuated by the rush of cars passing by. A few cars slowed to avoid the debris we’d left behind.

Mike’s yelling was a tin mosquito in my ear, and I fumbled to reach the headset lying on the carpet. I coughed, spitting mouthfuls of mucus and blood, and the throbbing in my face turned to a roaring pain. Swallowing, I tried to clear the viscous liquids at the back of my throat, trembling as I brought the earpiece up to my cheek.

“Mike, shut up. It’s okay,” I said, blinking to clear away the haze from my vision and waving aside the acrid smoke from the burning tires. A hand reached through the open window, and I jerked away, thinking it was the driver of the van coming to finish off the job.

“You okay, man?” Unless the owner of the Econoline was a dreadlocked woman, I was safe. She cocked her head at me, giving me a wide-eyed once-over. “You need an ambulance?”

“Nah, I’m good.” I must have sounded convincing, because she went back to her car and took off. My face hurt from where I’d hit it on the steering wheel, and my shoulders were wrenched from trying to keep the Rover upright. The Ford was long gone, leaving a trail of smashed plastic and glass in its wake.

“Cole, stay there. I’ll get someone out there to you,” Mike practically shouted into my ear. His voice only served to make the ringing bells in my temple take up another chorus.

“No, really, I’m all right.” I tested my teeth with the tip of my tongue. “Car’s a bit banged up, but I think it’s drivable.”

My brother’s heavy sigh reminded me of my father’s. I’d heard a lot of my father’s sighs in my lifetime. Mike’s was a nearly exact mimic. “What the hell happened? Did you roll the car?”

“No, I think someone’s not happy with me,” I said, hawking out another mouthful. It was more spit-colored this time, splattering on the scrub grass growing against the side of the highway. The Rover pulled forward without any issue, and I sped up on the shoulder, easing back into the flow of traffic. Mike buzzed in my ear, complaining about my stubbornness.

“Get to the doctor,” he scolded. “Or better yet, get over here and I’ll take you.”

“Nope,” I refused, listening to the Rover creak a bit when I switched lanes. The front end made a little noise, but nothing I was too worried about. “I’ve pissed someone off, and I’m going to find out who. I need to make sure that Jae’s okay. Someone’s going through Hyun-Shik’s friends, and sooner or later, they’re going to get to him too.”

I ended
up in front of Jae’s squat brick apartment. If anything, the early dusk light made the place look even more depressed. I parked the Rover, easing the seat belt off. A sharp pain darted through my belly, and I gasped, swearing at the tightness curling the scar tissue under my shirt. Pressing my hand on the tear, I hissed through the pain in my side.

Around me, people continued their lives, televisions blaring and screaming at children who wouldn’t eat their dinners. It was early enough that the evening news filtered through the noise, a steady droning update on the price of being human. The neighborhood was like one of many in the county, a collection of poor on the edge of desperate.

Before I’d left the force, I’d been working on establishing contacts in a community like this one, spackled together homes bursting with families too large for their walls. It made for a tense living, and despite the glowing stories of success that occasionally surfaced in the news, most of the time, life here was a brutal, hard ride where violence was fed to a child in its breast milk. Death was a common visitor for one reason or another.

I’d worked a more Hispanic neighborhood, but except for the language on the signs here, it looked the same. The bubble-slash Korean on the barricaded storefronts was foreign to me, but I guessed they announced the same types of specials that would draw in someone with a tight fist on their wallet. The air smelled a little different, less oil than the streets I’d been learning on but harder spiced, a lingering anise undercurrent that soon was lost under a rush of coppery stink when I sniffed.

Blood burbled in my nose, and I reluctantly touched the bridge. It was tender, but there was no crackling rice sound that I could hear. I chanced a look at my face and winced. A bit swollen where I’d bashed my cheek against the frame, but the bruises forming under my eye and across my nose gave me pause. They promised to be a brilliant black and purple if given a few minutes. If Jae-Min had ice, then I would profess my undying love. When I almost lost my footing on the curb, I gave up ice for the hope of a strong shot of any kind of root alcohol.

The door was sadly lacking a large doorknocker, so I leaned on the bell, feeling the warmth of the light beneath its rubber surface. The door creaked open, and a flustered Jae-Min appeared, his dark hair ruffled as if he’d spent more than a few minutes running his fingers through it. My body responded first, a stirring of my sex inside my boxers. He looked too damned good, lean and sensual in casual cotton pants tied at his waist and a thin white shirt that turned transparent under the porch light. His mouth was wet, drops of water trembling on his lower lip, and my teeth ached anew, less from the rattle of being broadsided by the van and more from wanting to sink into his full lips.

“Hyung!” The feel of his arm around my waist blotted away the pain in my side. It felt good to be touched. I didn’t realize it until just then, but I’d missed being touched by someone other than family. Stumbling forward, I let him catch me, his hands sliding down over my hips as he shut the door behind us. He was smaller than me, slighter in body, but he certainly was strong enough to hobble me into the apartment.

“Am I old enough to be called that?” I mumbled, the ache in my nose beginning to spread across my face, lodging in my cheekbones. “Don’t I have to be at least twenty years older than you? How’s your head?”

“I’m fine, but you look like shit. What happened?” Jae smelled good, a blend of citrus and sex. I might have been imagining the sex part, but the green tea and grapefruit scent was real. Even through the cloud of blood I was trying to breathe through, I could smell him. Being bashed about apparently made me horny. “Who did you piss off?”

“You’ve known me for, what, three days and you think I pissed someone off?” I tried to sound incredulous, but he rolled his eyes at me and dumped me on his couch. My elbow hit the frame, and it stung up to my shoulder. “Ouch. Fuck.”

“Stay there,” Jae ordered before he disappeared into the bathroom. “I’ll get something to wash off your face.”

His cat took a leap from the counter and landed neatly on the coffee table. She pulled her feet under her sleek body and squatted, staring at me with her orange-yellow eyes. A bit of fang slid from under her lip, the barest hint of a threat in case I moved wrong. I shrugged off my jacket, silently hoping that the show of a gun in my shoulder holster would give her pause, but the fang only got longer. Sighing in defeat, I attempted to make some show of affection toward her.

“Neko, right?” I called out to the man making noises behind me. “The cat? Her name’s Neko, right?”

“What?” Jae came back, spreading out gauze and tape on the table and sitting down next to his cat. She mewed at him, a pleasant, sweet sound that belied the evil I suspected lurked within. He stared at my shoulder, edging slightly back on the table. “You’ve got a gun. Why do you have a gun, and why is it in my house?”

“I thought it would be a good idea, considering someone shot at you yesterday.” I drew the Glock out and tapped the bullet load out of it. Checking the chamber, I was satisfied it was empty before taking off my gear and stowing its ammunition in one of the jacket’s pockets. “There, better?”

“Yeah. Thanks.” He scritched at the cat’s ears before handing me a couple of aspirin. I was about to dry-swallow them when he handed me an open water bottle. “Don’t do that. They’ll stick in your throat.”

“Thanks.” Putting the rim to my mouth, I watched his hands as he opened a package of antiseptic wipes. The bottle tasted as I imagined he would taste, spiced sugar and a hint of candlelight, as well as the flat taste of recycled Los Angeles tap water.

“What did you do?” His touch was light as he dabbed off crusted blood from a cut near my eye. I knew from the quick glance at my face in the Rover’s side mirror, Jae couldn’t be very impressed by the battering I’d taken. The car was in better shape, its solid metal body easily shaking off the brunt of the Ford’s assault. “Hold still. It’s dried too much. This is going to hurt.”

“I went to talk to Victoria. You’re right. She’s a bit of a bitch.” I swallowed the girlie scream that scrabbled along the edge of my tongue. The sting from the salve crept slowly over my skin, and I bit my tongue so Jae wouldn’t hear me make noises I preferred to make in bed with company. “That hurts like a motherfucker, just so you know.”