Sinner's Gin (34 page)

“He kicked me.” Miki shrugged. The touch of Kane’s fingers on the joint nearly made him crawl out of his skin. “Kind of pissed me off. Beanie Boy?”

“It’s what we’ve been calling him. He’s the guy I chased down the alley.” Kane stood and pressed a hand on Miki’s shoulder, preventing him from getting up. “You stay right there, Slugger. I’m calling for a couple of ambulances. One for each of you. Talk to me, love. How’d you get here? Did he bring you here?”

“Russian guy brought me.” Miki waved Kane off when the cop frowned with worry. “Cab driver. I asked him to bring me here. Guess Andrew either followed me here or I walked into his spiderweb.”

“You know him?” Sanchez carefully rolled Miki’s assailant over onto his side to cuff his hands. Kane walked through the weeds, hunting for Andrew’s gun.

“His name’s Andrew Coons.” Miki shifted the weight off of his hip and tried to get his leg underneath him. “He used to be one of Carl’s… boys.” Kane turned, fixing a steely blue eye onto his lover. Miki gave him a light shrug. “He’s a bit off in the head, Kane. He
liked
what Carl… did. Or at least the attention. I don’t know. I don’t speak that kind of crazy.”

“Why’d he kill them, then?” Sanchez frowned, pointing Kane over to a clump of weeds. “Over there, man.”

It happened too quickly for Miki to see. One moment Kane was reaching for the discarded gun then Andrew Coons was up on his feet, wrestling with Sanchez for control of his weapon. The handcuffs jangled from one of Andrew’s wrists, and Kel began shouting at Kane to draw his gun.

Despite the pain eating through him, Miki got to his feet when Kane pulled his Glock free from his holster and drew down on Andrew and Kel. Taking a step toward the cops and Andrew was a big mistake, probably one Miki would regret for the rest of his life.

He took that single step. Then an ear-splitting boom fractured the neighborhood’s eerie silence, and Miki’s world went black.

Chapter 21

I like that riff, D.

Yeah? Wrote it yesterday when you were in the shower.

Was that when you flushed the toilet?

Yeah. Sorry about that. I was just thinking about the chord progression.

Next time, think about the singer in the shower, dude.

Song came out kick ass though. Isn’t that worth a little burnt skin?

—Studio 5, Take 17

Three months later

T
HE
dog was underfoot. Again.

No matter where Kane was—even in Miki’s warehouse—the damned dog seemed to always be underfoot.

Kane nudged Dude aside and reached for his drill, checking its screwdriver bit. One last screw and the two doors he’d dragged over from his workshop to Miki’s place would be hung from the newly installed hinges. At the very least, they’d be able to close off Miki’s bedroom from his mother’s prying eyes when she came over to visit.

Fixing the final piece into place, he stepped back to admire the job and test the swing of one of the doors. Inspired by the warehouse’s elaborate metal-and-wood front door, he’d replicated the design for the bedroom doors, using thick frosted glass for the interior panes so more light could pass through the room.

“Not like he closes the doors,” Kane told the dog panting near his feet. “But with my mother sniffing around, doors aren’t a bad thing.”

The warehouse gleamed, smelling of spices and lemon oil. In the days following Coon’s suicide-by-cop, Kane and Kel put their administrative leave to good use, moving the furniture down from the second floor to fill up the emptiness. Miki grudgingly agreed to have his mattress put on the iron four-poster bed the designer originally purchased for him, and he grunted at Kane when Kane pointed out the mission-style furniture looked nice against the former dining room’s pale walls. The sectional wasn’t negotiable, and they’d come to a compromise to have it re-covered. Miki chose a soft brown bomber-jacket-style fabric and sulked for the few days it took the upholsterer to do the work.

He spent the time filling the cherrywood barrister cabinets with the seemingly millions of CDs Kane discovered in stacks of boxes in one of the upstairs bedrooms. With the furniture finally in place and the sectional returned to a glory it’d never known, the warehouse was an eclectic blend of old and new pieces.

Neither of them spoke about the storage boxes with Damien’s name scribbled on with black markers. Instead, Kane designated the smallest upstairs bedroom as a storage area and stacked the unopened boxes carefully against the wall. Dusty guitar cases, laden with memories and loose-stringed instruments, joined the boxes. Kane was about to close the room up when Miki stopped and walked to the middle of the room, breathing in the dusty memories of his dearest friend. After grabbing one of the guitar cases from its place against the wall, Miki headed downstairs without a word, leaving Kane to shut the door behind him.

The acoustic guitar was as battered as the sectional had been. It showed its age by its wood and the stickers from various diners and dives across the country covering its back. Resurrected from its tomb, the guitar now spent half of its time in Miki’s ink-stained hands, a soft, murmuring refrain of music coming from its strings while Kane cooked in the kitchen or lounged on the couch next to Miki’s feet.

Most of the time, Miki played songs Kane knew from the Sinner’s Gin CDs he’d scavenged from the piles of extras in the studio next to the garage, but sometimes there were others, unfamiliar and faltering. Miki alternated stroking the chords from the acoustic and scribbling in one of his notebooks, the cheap ballpoint pens he favored smearing globs while he wrote. There were a few tentative ventures of love songs, but mostly Miki wrote of a bit of pain he couldn’t shake. Kane grinned when Miki sang to him of wickedly sinful nights, and kissed him soundly during the times he mourned his best friend.

Dude was often Miki’s audience, especially when Kane groaned at Miki’s mocking rhymes.

With the door checked out, Kane had just reached for a hand towel when Dude’s ears perked up at the sound of a car’s tires pulling up in front of the warehouse. The terrier was pawing at the jamb before Kane could put down the drill. Barking in a high pitched yip, Dude shuffled back quickly as the front door swung open.

Seeing Miki never failed to take Kane’s breath away.

“God, I fucking hate learning how to drive,” Miki growled at his dog, bending over slightly to pet the undulating terrier. “At least this guy hasn’t quit on me yet.”

And as usual, right after his breath was taken away by the singer’s pretty face and lithe body, Miki’s off-kilter brain and loose mouth brought a laugh to Kane’s lips.

“How was it?” Kane brushed a few curls of wood from his jeans and crooked his finger at his lover.

“I didn’t run into anything this time,” Miki grumbled under his breath. “And I can’t be blamed if someone walks into the car, right? It’s kind of like he hit me.”

“Were you moving at the time?” Kane shook his head. Miki was on his third driving instructor, and not for the first time since the singer took it into his head to get his license, he was glad they decided Kane wouldn’t teach him how to drive.

“I was starting to,” Miki confessed. “He
walked
into the side of the car. By the passenger door.
Totally
not on me.”

Chuckling as Miki approached him, Kane caught the man by the waist and pulled him in to cup Miki’s ass in his palms. He loved the feel of his lover’s ass. The round, muscular curves fit perfectly in his hands, and Kane kneaded Miki’s jeans as he took Miki’s mouth. Their kiss began as a tender exploration, their tongues teasing one another until Kane felt Miki’s hands slide under his T-shirt. The man’s fingers should be declared lethal weapons, because the delicate brush of his fingertips on Kane’s ribcage was enough to drive him wild. When Miki sucked on the tip of Kane’s invading tongue, Kane decided it was time to take even more.

Kane turned him around, introduced Miki’s back to the newly installed doors, and hoisted the slender man up as an invitation for Miki to wrap his legs around Kane’s hips. When Miki’s legs were secure around him, he pressed in and took as much of Miki’s kiss as he could, slanting his mouth to savor his lover’s taste.

There was nothing more sensual for Kane than the slide of Miki’s velvety tongue along the roof of his mouth. The nip of the man’s teeth along his lower lip was a close second. With a satisfied smirk, he leaned in, supporting Miki’s weight with one hand on the man’s pert ass while he wrapped his other hand into the silken chestnut hair at the base of Miki’s neck.

As mouths went, Miki’s was a sublime experience, full and kissable with a hint of a wicked smile ghosting its corners. Kane took his time exploring every millimeter of it until Miki was left gasping. Clinging to Kane’s shoulders, he panted heavily, straining to get some air into his lungs. Taking advantage of his lover’s distraction, Kane slid his hand down from Miki’s hair to tuck his fingers into the loose waistband of his jeans.

The skin there was soft under Kane’s fingertips, and he raked at the delicate span of flesh with his fingernails, making Miki hot enough to grind his hips against Kane’s waist.

“Shouldn’t be doing this,” Miki gasped when Kane’s fingers slid down further and teased at the top of the cleft parting his ass cheeks. “Edie….”

A crisp, feminine voice finished Miki’s sentence for him. “Edie is standing at the front door wondering if she shouldn’t get a hotel room. Hello, boys. Good to see you… fully recovered from your traumas.”

The tall woman was a sharp arrangement of angles and planes. Dressed in a dark red power suit, she removed a matching pillbox hat from atop her short black bob and perched it on the handle of her rolling suitcase. Slender nearly to the point of being too thin, she looked down her long nose at Kane and arched one eyebrow at the couple.

“It’s good to see you are back on your feet, Miki.” The eyebrow remained in place, and Kane felt a flush start to creep up his neck. “Well, feet being a relative term.”

“Shit.” Kane carefully lowered Miki to the floor, waiting for the man to have his legs in place under him before letting go. “Um….”

“Why don’t you wash your hands first before I shake hello?” Edie crossed the room, her heels clicking on the polished floor. “You appear to have… an oily substance of some kind on them.”

“Grease from the hinges,” Kane admitted. “Very innocent. I promise.”

“Hey, Edie.” The hug Miki gave the brittle-faced woman thawed her to putty, and her smile was enough to brighten the room. “I’m glad you could come up to visit.”

“I’m glad you finally let me. Now, let me look at you,” she said, leaning back only far enough to study his face. “Are you sure you’re okay? No more bullet wounds?”

“I didn’t have any to begin with,” Miki snorted. “My
knee
gave out. The guy kicked me right in the broken spot.”

“He fainted,” Kane interjected. “Well, passed out from the pain, really. Not a single extra hole in him to be found.”

“Okay, so long as you’re fine.” She sniffed and let Miki tighten his grip on her before lightly pushing him away. “Squeeze me too hard, and I’ll make a mess on your lovely floor.” After kissing his cheek, Edie looked around the warehouse. “This certainly looks much better than the webcam chats I’ve had with you. Is the bathroom in the same place? I need to freshen up. The flight wasn’t long, but the person sitting next to me… well, he was a nervous flyer. Very nervous.”

“Uh, yeah,” Miki mumbled, scratching the back of his head. “Through that door over there. It’s the room with the funny seat.”

Kane waited for the woman to disappear into the depths of the warehouse’s hallway before wrapping his arms around Miki’s waist from behind. Resting his chin on the man’s shoulder, he nibbled on Miki’s earlobe and whispered. “You webcammed with her in the bathroom?”

“I had to go pee, and I took the tablet with me.” Miki went hot over his cheeks. “I didn’t even think about it. Shit, she’s seen everything already. She toured with us.”

“I don’t think I’m too happy knowing a woman’s seen all your goods there, babe,” Kane teased in his deep, whiskey-laden lilt. “I might have to inspect you for damage.”

Miki eyed Kane suspiciously. “Put your hands on me and we’re going to forget about Edie again. I don’t think I need her to see that much of me.”

“Hmmm, probably not the impression I want to give,” Kane agreed.

“I think she’s already got that impression,” Miki scoffed. Fending Kane off with one hand, he dug into his pocket. “Hold up. I got something for you.”

“You made the driving instructor do a pit stop?”

“No, I asked the taxi driver to.” Miki drew out a pair of keys strung on an iCat pull-apart. “Here, I want you to take these.”

“Mick love, I’ve already got a key to your place,” Kane reminded his lover gently. “Shit, I practically live here.”

“These aren’t for the house,” Miki said. “They’re for the GTO. I want you to drive it. You know, because I… can’t.”

“Babe, Damien—”