Sinner's Gin (23 page)

“Fucking Connor. You were supposed to tell her I was missing dinner, not send her here!” His brother had to have told her where Miki lived, and it was no use pretending he wasn’t there. His SUV was parked only a few feet from Miki’s front door, and he’d turned on the living room lights so he could see his way to the door without tripping on one of Dude’s tennis balls. “Okay, come on. You’re an adult. Take the food and turn her back around.”

Kane knew he was lying to himself before he even turned the knob, especially when the garlic and cabbage aroma bloomed in his face when he opened the door and his mother shoved her shoulder through. A second later she was inside, tottering in on a pair of flame-red leather pumps she usually wore only to church or to visit people she wanted to impress.

Obviously, Brigid Morgan had also decided they were appropriate footwear for kicking her son’s ass to the lower circles of Hell where she thought he belonged.

“Since you couldn’t seem to find yer way home, I had Connor tell me where you’ve been hiding. Where’s the kitchen, Kane Aodh Morgan? Never mind, I can see it plain as day from here.”

A heavy dram of Ireland lived in his mother’s words, a strong reminder of the home she’d left behind to chase Donal Morgan’s dreams. When she spoke, her rolling words shouted green hills and a douse of Emerald Isle rain, but Kane could hear the promise of a peat bog in his future if she didn’t get an answer to why he’d not shown up at the family gathering for over a month.

His mother stalked past him, her heels clomping on the wood floor, leaving Kane by the front door. She came to a screeching halt at the open archway and stood there, gaping.

Kane knew what she was staring at. He’d just left a naked Miki still asleep on his stomach and lying on a web of tangled sheets, bared to God and kissed to submission. The memory of the man’s green-tea-and-sex-scented skin was burned into his brain so deep he was surprised he could smell his mother’s cooking through it.

In that moment, he was fourteen again, and his mother had walked in on him jerking off in the bathroom. It’d been the perfect vantage point, overlooking their backyard where his brother Connor and his friends were playing chicken fight in the pool. Their toned, wet bodies had been too much for him to take, and he fled to the relative safety of the old-fashioned bathtub’s wide rim to satisfy himself.

If only he’d locked the door.

If only Miki
had
a door.

“Yer telling me that in this big, expensive place, you couldn’t be finding that poor boy a door for his bedroom?” Brigid gave her second son a withering glance. “And you call yerself a woodworker. I’ll be heating things up in the kitchen. Yer going to wake up that young man so he can get some food in him. Yer a sorry excuse for a son if yer letting him starve himself to bones.”

Kane wondered if he could get Miki dressed and bundled up in his car before his mother noticed they’d fled, but Dude was a complication. The dog would probably sniff out the food and go investigating. He’d notice Kane squirreling Miki away, especially if it included a car ride.

The skitter of nails on the wood floor confirmed Kane’s thoughts on the terrier, and Dude barely spared him a glance as he trotted quickly by him, his twitching nose leading him to the kitchen.

“Fucking mutt.” Kane padded into Miki’s bedroom and stood at the end of the mattress. He was reluctant to wake the man. The shadows under Miki’s eyes were only just starting to fade, but arguing with his mother was useless. As far as she was concerned, if there was food on the table, everyone in the house showed up to eat. Even if it wasn’t her house and there wasn’t technically a table.

Miki’s foot twitched, and Kane grabbed his big toe, tugging lightly. The singer mumbled and kicked Kane’s hand away, burying his face into the pillows. Kane was tempted to let him sleep, but when Miki squirmed on his belly into the rumpled sheets, Kane got a good view of the man’s naked, firm ass.

“Damn. You hate me, don’t you?” Kane threw a glance up at the heavens. Unless he wanted his mother to learn firsthand about how two men had sex, he didn’t dare touch Miki’s bare skin, but short of tossing a bucket of ice water on him, Kane didn’t have much choice. “Aw, screw it.”

Stretching out across the enormous mattress, Kane lay perpendicular to Miki’s lean body. Tucking his elbows under him, Kane supported himself on his forearms and blew a fierce puff of air into Miki’s left nostril.

“What the fucking hell?” Miki shot up, scrambling to rub at his face. Rubbing hard at his nose, he slapped frantically at the sheets for a moment with his other hand. His hazel eyes focused on Kane, and he glared. “Fucking asshole. Face is okay, but never the nose.”

“It was either that or kiss you.” He gave Miki a cocky smile. “It was safer for my dick’s sanity not to kiss you.”

“Never ever fucking do that to someone who’s lived around roaches,” the singer grumbled, taking a final swipe at his nose. “I have nightmares about those bastards climbing into places I can’t get them out.”

Kane winced. He’d stupidly complained about the Irishwoman who, at that very moment, was clanging around Miki’s kitchen because she missed him, and Miki’s first thought at being tickled was roaches. He leaned in and kissed the corner of Miki’s frown, murmuring, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

Miki snorted and shrugged it off, rolling his shoulders. The crack of his spine was loud enough to make Kane wince, and the popping from his neck almost echoed in the cavernous room. Stretching his arms up over his head, Miki shifted his legs out and sniffed. “You ordered dinner?”

“Worse, dinner came to us.” Kane grimaced playfully. “My mother’s here. She brought food. Smells like roast beast a la Morgan and cabbage rolls.”

Miki raised his eyebrows. Then his eyes widened, his pupils nearly pinpricks amid the green and gold. “What the fuck? Your mom? How the… oh fucking hell… fuck me.”

“Yeah,” Kane agreed. “I’ll do that later. Hopefully, I can wait until your knee’s better, but I’m not promising anything.”

“Dude, I don’t do parents,” Miki mumbled in a panic. “Fuck, they hate my guts. You’ve got to get rid of her. Why the hell did she come here?”

“You’re cute when you’re nervous.” He laughed and slid off the bed. “Go pull your pants all the way up and go wash up a bit. You’ll be fine. She’s nice. It’s me she’s pissed off at. You, she’ll love. Just be yourself.”

“Are you fucking kidding me? You’ve met me!” he grumbled and searched for his shirt, finding it balled up under the sheets. “God, this is the worst fucking idea.”

“I’ve had worse,” Kane promised. “Remind me to tell you about my baby brother Ian’s adventures of seeing what his dick would fit into when he was sixteen. Having my mother here will seem like a walk in the park.”

“Who the hell walks in the park?” Miki sighed and flung himself back on the bed. Kane nudged him with a poke in the ribs, and he yelped, rubbing at the ticklish spot. “Fine, go keep her company so I can sneak into the bathroom, but I swear to God, if she hates me, it’s all your fault.”

K
ANE
’
S
mother loved Miki.

She’d been thrown by the Spartan warehouse and the seemingly overwhelming supply of packaged ramen in the pantry, but when the gun-shy, wide-eyed, disheveled Miki emerged from the bathroom, Brigid fell in love.

Kane almost bit through his upper lip to stop from laughing when Brigid clasped Miki’s fine-boned cheeks. His deep hazel eyes flew open in surprise, and he stumbled back, caught short by his injured knee. He was nothing like her own sons, with his haunted, startling eyes and pretty face, but that didn’t stop Brigid from clasping him to her not inconsiderable bosom and tsking over his lean body.

“Mom, leave him be.” Kane pulled a shell-shocked Miki out his mother’s grasp. “Mick, grab the plates. We’ll go set up in the living room.”

Miki snatched the plates, forks, and napkins from the counter and limped out faster than Kane thought humanly possible. Dude glanced up at Brigid once, obviously contemplating his options. It was decidedly easy once Brigid began trimming the fat off the roast beef she’d set into the oven to warm and slid the finely slivered trim into Dude’s dish.

The lack of dining room table perplexed Brigid for a moment, but she rallied admirably, ordering Kane to set the pseudo-coffee table once it was cleared of game controllers and a stack of notebooks with worn edges. Miki grabbed them before Kane could get ahold of them, and stashed them in a milk crate set on its side by the couch. A swipe of a damp sponge took off most of the dust, and Kane grinned when Miki hurriedly shoved a couple of DVDs under the couch before Brigid could see them.

Kane left Miki to figure out how he was going to set up the coffee table and ambled back into the kitchen to see if his mother needed help.

“He doesn’t eat healthy,” Brigid said accusingly when Kane joined her. “You call yourself a boyfriend? Look at what he has in his fridge!”

“Mom, he’s not….” Kane stopped himself. “I know what he’s got in the fridge. I put some of it there. I’m not going to tell Miki what to do. He’s a grown man.”

“Where’s his mother? Doesn’t she care about him?” Kane shook his head at her warningly, and she sniffed haughtily, a strong condemnation against Miki’s absent parents. “It looks like I sent a five-year-old to the store. I worry about him.”

“You just met him.” He knew it was useless to point out the obvious, but he tried anyway, reaching over his mother’s head to grab the long platter he’d found above the fridge. “You can’t worry about him yet.”

“I’ll worry if I want to. Yer not one to tell me I can’t.” She waved the business end of her wooden spoon at his nose. “Put that there. I’ll use it for the cabbage rolls. Does he like cabbage?”

“I’m guessing he’s never ever had those before,” Kane admitted. “But you never know. He might love cabbage.”

He was saved by his cell phone skittering across the kitchen counter as it sang about a private dick who was a sex machine to all the chicks. Smiling a fake apology at his mother, he grabbed the phone to answer it just as Brigid headed out into the living room to interrogate Miki about green, leafy vegetables and his fondness of them.

Stepping over a food-engrossed Dude, Kane ducked out of the kitchen. “Hey, Lieutenant. What’s up?”

“That rock star of yours got a television?” Casey barked into the phone.

“Yeah,” Kane said, peeking down the hall to watch Miki being quizzed by his mother about cabbages. “Uh, I don’t know if he actually watches anything on it. I think it’s just for video games.”

“Well, if you were so inclined as to turn on the damned thing, you’d see you’re plastered all over the fricking news for punching out some camera guy in front of Miki St. John’s place.” The phone buzzed as Casey’s voice got louder. “Is that what you think it means when I say keep a low profile?”

“Fucking hell.” He leaned against the wall. “Guy stuck his camera into my face. What was I supposed to do? Kiss him?”

“If you’d kissed him, I wouldn’t have gotten a phone call from the damned Chief’s office asking me to explain what you’re up to!”

“Sorry. Next time, I’ll drop to my knees and blow him, sir,” Kane quipped, teasing the man who took him out for his first beer when he graduated from the academy.

“Good thing you remembered that
sir
part, boy, or I would have had your ass for breakfast,” Casey growled.

“Too late, sir,” he replied. “Mom’s here. She’s first in line for breakfasting off of my ass. You can have lunch if there’s any left over.”

“I’ll order a salad, just in case. I don’t think she’s going to leave me much.” The man sighed heavily into the phone. “Do you know what they wanted me to do with you, Kane?”

“Park me behind a desk?”

“Actually, they wanted you parking your ass someplace on a corner wearing a safety vest, waving a flag so the kiddies know when to cross the street.” There was more than a tincture of menace in the man’s voice, and Kane’s stomach dropped down to his knees.

Kane whistled under his breath. “Fuck that. I don’t look good in orange.”

“I don’t like it when people tell me what to do with my cops, especially when he’s been assaulted on private property by some asshole looking for something juicy to report. Then, right after I pulled the Chief’s butt monkey’s head out of his ass, it sounds like St. John’s lawyers went to work on him.” Casey grumbled. “So, Morgan, consider your ass… and badge… saved.”

Kane’s belly unclenched, and he exhaled hard. “Thanks, sir.”

“Don’t thank me yet. I’m going to work you until you bleed,” Casey barked. “Did Sanchez call you about the photos?”

“Yeah. Kel’s pissed off about them getting out. He thinks someone on the inside leaked them.”

“He was right. It looks like an admin clerk found a way to make a quick buck. I’ll be talking to that little asshole tomorrow morning.”

“I’d offer to help you do that, sir,” Kane interjected. “But I don’t think there’ll be much more of him left. I told Miki about them. He’s pretty
whatevers
about the whole thing. Says it’s part of the gig of being in the public eye.”

“Tell St. John to get a gate put up across that street and to have us on speed dial if he even sees a reporter’s nose hair. I want you and Sanchez to put this thing to rest. So, tomorrow morning, you polish that damned inspector badge, show up for work, and do your damned job.”

“Yes, sir.” Kane chuckled. “Thanks.”

“And Morgan,” Casey snapped. “If I see one photo of you outside of a frame on one of your siblings’ desk, I’m going to cut line in front of your mother and wipe that breakfast buffet clean. Do you understand me, Morgan? And tell your rock star to keep his nose clean and his head down. I don’t want the next call I get from the morgue telling me they’ve got him there waiting for you.”

T
HE
woman was a tsunami of chittering stiletto heels and corkscrew red curls.

She also scared the shit out of Miki.

Taking one last look around the room for porn or used tissues, Miki nearly jumped out of his skin when Brigid came out of the kitchen and looked up at him. Nervously peering around her, he spotted Kane talking on his cell phone. The man’s broad back was facing the living room, and Miki tried clearing his throat to catch Kane’s attention, but the cop was too engrossed in his call.