Chapter 16
I walked onto the Delta, hoping to make myself a man,
Cocky as shit, with my guitar in my hand.
Walked past the Crossroads, paid the Devil no mind.
He didn’t reach for me, saying I was already his kind.
—Delta Spawn Blues
ALL in all, it wasn’t a bad plan, Miki thought as he looked around the room and calculated what he could move around to block the door to prevent the hordes from descending on him. The studio bungalow attached to the back of the Morgans’ two-car garage could be defended fairly easily. He could wedge something into the rails of the sliding glass door leading to the enclosed backyard, and the door connecting the studio to the main house was his only problem. He imagined the Morgans would have a key, so locking the door was out of the question. The armoire possessed great potential. It was heavy and solid wood, a pretty, swirled grain Miki would have admired if he wasn’t plotting to use it to prevent the next Morgan siege. Moving it would be a bitch, but he was willing to give it a try.
As soon as Dude was finished romping around in the backyard, where he was occasionally woofing his fool head off.
He wasn’t even certain what exactly had happened. One moment he was putting away leftovers, and the next thing he knew, Brigid Morgan descended from whatever mountain mad Irishwomen came from and bullied him into a car, plopping Dude on his lap before screeching off into the night. Another Morgan followed her in, his soulful green gaze an odd change from Kane’s brilliant blue eyes. He carried a duffel bag large enough to smuggle a child in, and Brigid shoved most of Miki’s clean clothes into it, zipping it up like a woman possessed.
The cops outside were no help. They greeted her by name and waved good-bye, starting up their patrol car despite Miki’s protests. The smaller Kane clone with the wrong-colored eyes held the door open for him, giving Miki the illusion that he had a say in the matter, but they both glanced at Brigid climbing into the passenger’s seat of the baby monster truck and exchanged a sigh. There was no choice, and Miki got in, grabbing Dude when he gleefully jumped into the backseat.
When they pulled up to the Morgan house, Miki balked at the driveway. The large, rambling Edwardian-style home facing the park was daunting, spreading out from a corner lot with a cheery yellow paint job and window boxes filled with flowers so bright they shone crimson under the soft glow of the street lights lining the walkways. Over the short drive, he’d been introduced to the Kane knock-off, Quinn, who grinned apologetically at Miki when their eyes met in the rearview mirror.
A whirl of people swarmed from the house, and he yelped, actually making a squeaking noise before slamming back into Quinn’s immovable body. Kane’s younger brother merely put his hands on Miki’s upper arms and held him steady as he was shuffled up the drive and into the house, surrounded by a nest of flaming red hair, freckled skin, and the resigned sighs from the men when they saw Miki’s stunned face.
He couldn’t keep track of names. There were too many of them with nicknames Miki had to remember as well. Quinn introduced him to Kiera, a stunning redhead with a serious demeanor, then called her Kiki when he went in to get some iced tea. Braeden, a brawny Morgan who looked a lot like Quinn, waded in and pulled Miki from the fray, separating him from the youngest, a college freshman named Ryan who was enough like her mother that Miki wondered if Brigid hadn’t just cut off a piece of her flesh to grow her in a Petri dish.
More food was shoved at him and enough iced tea to float his kidneys down to his bladder. Dude discovered Brigid’s three cats and fawned over them, much to one of the older felines’ disgust. A warning shot across the dog’s nose left a wide scratch and a spurt of blood on the kitchen floor, but Brigid took it in stride, edging the cat out with her foot while swiping at Dude’s nose with a wet paper towel.
Miki was horrified, but Brae shrugged it off with a grin and said, “That’s probably the smallest amount of blood that’s ever been shed in this house. Don’t worry about it.”
It seemed like hours before they ended the debate on where to stash Miki, finally settling on the bungalow attachment since it was easier on his knee than climbing up the stairs. All Miki could think about when he saw the apartment was that he could somehow sneak out the door, through the connecting family room, and be out the back door to the garage before anyone was the wiser.
Then Brigid triple-locked the front door after Quinn left, closing the garage behind him, and Miki knew he was doomed, encased in a wooden tomb painted a sunny yellow and filled with a maniacal horde of people who sounded like they’d rip his head off if he tried eating their marshmallow-bit-laden cereal.
At way past midnight, his dog was running around a pool wreathed in chaise lounges and topped off with a waterfall made out of boulders, and Miki still had no idea how he was going to escape.
“Why’d you get in the car?” he scolded himself. “What the hell were you thinking?”
He knew what he was thinking. He’d been caught by the worry trap laid down by Brigid’s wide green eyes and trembling mouth when he told her in no uncertain terms he wasn’t going to stay at the Morgans’ hatching crèche while Kane figured out who was leaving pieces of people at his house.
Brigid’s hint of tears broke him, Miki was sure of it, because the next thing he remembered, he was telling Quinn where to find Dude’s wet dog food cans and wondering if he needed a pair of boots he hadn’t worn since before the accident, just in case they went someplace he couldn’t wear sneakers.
“It’s like she’s a witch,” he muttered. “I swear to fucking God, she’s a witch. She even looks like that witch Dorothy met, but without the squeaky voice. Fuck, she’s good.”
He was singing to himself when the knock on the door startled him, catching him in the middle of an old Lead Belly tune. Glancing out at the backyard, Miki wondered if there was someplace he could hide in the trees. As he contemplated how long he could survive on pool water, a familiar voice called out to him.
“Miki, I know you’re in there,” Kane said. “Open up.”
“How do I know it’s you?” Miki eased himself up onto his feet. His knee gave a twinge, but held. “You could be any one of the clones.”
“Because none of the others want to fuck you into a wall,” Kane growled. “Now open the damned door.”
He stepped aside to let Kane in, but his cop dropped the duffel bag he carried and grabbed Miki by the waist to pull him into a hug. After squirming for a moment, Miki gave in to the embrace, hooking his fingers into the loops of Kane’s jeans. Expecting a kiss, Miki frowned when Kane buried his face into the curve of his throat and inhaled the scent of Miki’s skin.
“God, you are enough to make a man weep,” Kane murmured. “You doing okay?”
“No, your family’s fucking crazy.” Miki playfully shoved him away with a light push. “Did you eat something? Your mom told me to ask you.”
“Trust me, babe, after what I’ve seen tonight, food’s the last thing on my mind.” Kane flopped down on the king-sized bed in the middle of the room. He patted the mattress, then raised his eyebrows when Miki shook his head. “What? I showered before I came over. I had to stop at my place to grab some clothes.”
“Your mom—” Miki started to say, but Kane cut him off.
“I didn’t have anything to do with it.” He slid across the bed and grabbed Miki’s waistband, pulling him down onto the bed. “But honestly, I like knowing you’re here where you’re safe.”
Kane was careful with him, easing a hand behind Miki’s knee when he dragged him over the duvet. It felt good to be taken care of, and Miki’s eyes stung a bit as he cuddled into Kane’s side, turning over onto his back so he could stare up at the ceiling. The cop waited until Miki got settled, then hooked his arm around Miki’s shoulders to let his hand lie on his stomach. Kane tangled their fingers together and kissed the top of Miki’s head.
“Dog?” Kane asked softly.
“Outside,” he huffed. “Fucker abandoned me to chase squirrels or something. After your mom fed him some leftover steak. I hope he pukes in your shoes.”
Kane wiggled his bare toes, lifting his feet for Miki to see. “Can’t. Left them outside.”
“I hope one of your mom’s cats fucks your shoes into submission and leaves his spunk in the toes.” Miki cursed Kane, nestling into the crook of the man’s arm. “And your shoe will like it and cry for more.”
“Remind me not to piss you off.” Kane laughed, a deep, rolling sound Miki could hear rise up from his belly.
They lay against one another, listening to the occasional bark coming from the backyard and the sounds of the city as San Francisco slumbered. Miki sighed, and he let the locked-in spiral of his muscles ease away. He played with Kane’s fingers, remembering the feel of them deep inside of him. His face burned, and the memory woke his cock up, its skin tightening around the shaft.
“Was it Carl?” Miki asked softly. “The call you got? Was it about him?”
He hated that he was curious, but despite shoving Carl as far back into the recesses of his mind as he could, the man loomed large in the shadows, poisoning every kiss he ever had. Then Kane showed up and shattered the darkness like it was nothing.
“Yeah, it was him,” Kane said. “He’s dead, Miki.”
And just like that, he was gone. They were both… gone. His cop continued talking, murmuring about fingerprints and technicians, but Miki didn’t hear a word Kane said. All he could think about was that Carl and Shing were dead. Really dead. Forever taken off of the same dirt he walked on and no longer sharing the same air. He knew it was stupid. They’d never been near him over the passing years, but still he could feel the sickness and poison of their breath when he inhaled. Finally, he was free of that.
It was over.
The first breath he took after the realization of their deaths tasted so sweet in his lungs, he had to take another.
Then his eyes stung, and he let the tears gathering on his lashes fall, listening to Kane talk in his low, Irish-whiskey rumbling growl. There was some mention about a man in a beanie, but Miki couldn’t focus on anything other than the warmth of the man next to him and the silence of the world around him.
He was finally… irrevocably free.
“Baby? What’s wrong?” Kane reached over to smear away Miki’s tears with his thumb.
The salt turned his skin slick, and Miki laughed. “Nothing. I just feel… okay, you know? I’m kind of… okay. Especially now. Here. With you.”
The man turned slightly, pressing his chest down on Miki’s shoulder to fit their bodies into each other. Kane’s thick, heavy cock and long legs on him made Miki’s skin burn with want, and when Kane’s hand stroked up Miki’s bare arm, he shivered with the tingling, erotic whispers his mind leaked into his consciousness.
“How much with me were you thinking about?” Another stroke of Kane’s hand, this time on the inside of Miki’s thighs, set him on fire.
“A lot,” Miki murmured. “A fuck of a lot, actually.”
In the middle of all the craziness, he could always find Kane, his solid and sardonic touchstone. He’d been there through the pain and confusion, pushing forward and asking questions Miki didn’t want to answer. Even in the anger they first shared, Miki had known Kane wouldn’t hurt him. Not in the ways he’d been hurt before. No, the pain Kane would give him would be like nothing he’d ever known.
“I can see you. Do you know that?” Kane whispered as he kissed the corner of Miki’s mouth. “When you are about to open up to me, then something inside of you pulls in. It’s like watching a flower die right in front of me, Miki love. And it kills me every time. Talk to me, Miki. Tell me what’s going on inside that pretty head of yours so I don’t have to watch you die in front of me.”
It was about trust. He knew that with Kane, and it scared the hell out of him to fall and expect the man to catch him. He’d tumbled to the hard ground too many times, breaking everything inside of him. If he’d been smart, he’d have walked away after Kane hugged him in the police station, but as soon as the man’s arms wrapped around him, Miki felt safe. Safe in a world where Carl still breathed, and in that moment, Miki knew he couldn’t walk away from the cop. His cop.
“You.” Miki swallowed, trying to keep the sour down in his stomach. “What happens when you don’t need to be here anymore?”
“Need?” Kane’s deep laugh broke free from him in full force, and his wicked, gleaming smile tugged at Miki’s heart. “Oh, Miki love, I more than need you. You’re my temptation. My sin. I’ve got no intentions of being anywhere but next to you. We Irish? We like bathing in our sin.”
“Suppose it doesn’t work?” Miki gestured between them, and suddenly the ceiling disappeared as Kane covered him, straddling his hips. Balancing his weight on his shins and forearms, Kane brought his face in close to Miki’s, so close that he could taste the sweet coffee Kane had on his breath. “Suppose….”
“Sometimes, Miki, you’ve got to stop building sand castles just to watch the ocean take them away,” Kane murmured against his cheek. “Sometimes, you just need to find someone to sit on the beach with you.”
“I hate the beach,” Miki whispered back. “Sand gets up my ass. I hate that.”
“How about me? Getting up your….” It was a leer. That was the only word for the look on Kane’s face, and Miki rolled his eyes.
“What’s with you and the cheesy shit? That crap actually work out for you at some point?”
“You know, Mick m’love,” Kane growled. “I think I’ve got better things for that smart mouth of yours to do besides talk.”
It was a kiss Miki would always keep inside of him. Small things resonated with him. From the feel of the smooth duvet cover, slippery beneath their bodies, to the honeysuckle-perfumed evening air coming through the sliding glass door he’d left partially open for Dude to slip in and out of. Kane’s hands were familiar now, broad and inquisitive, delving into the dips of his body as if exploring him for the first time.
Their clothes became a barrier, and Miki peeled himself free of his prison until he finally had Kane’s soap-and-musk-scented skin against his body. Suddenly, there didn’t seem enough time left in his life to taste the man lingering over his shoulders. The press of Kane’s lips on his collarbone was followed by a teasing nip, and Miki’s cock strained to fill itself.
Pushing up on his cop’s chest, Miki murmured, “Get on your back. Please. I want….”
He couldn’t say exactly what he wanted. Not unless he wanted Kane to think he was crazy. How was he supposed to tell the man he wanted to slide his hands under Kane’s skin until there was enough space for Miki to slide under and burrow? The need to have Kane inside of him consumed him, driving all reason from his mind until the only thing Miki could think of was the heft of Kane’s sex stretching him open until his soul poured out of him.
The other man’s eyes were dark, the blue gone nearly black with want, and for a second, Miki wondered if Kane even heard him, but then the man shifted his hip and turned over to lie on the back.
Sitting on his haunches, Miki studied the man willing to stretch out for him. Kane’s eyes unnervingly followed his every movement, but Miki ignored the man’s face, not wanting to fall into the honeyed trap of Kane’s lips. The light fur on Kane’s legs was soft under his fingertips, and he traced through the hair, liking the springy feel of it on his palm. As his fingers trailed over the inside of Kane’s powerful thighs, the man parted his legs, giving Miki free access to the heavy, wrinkled sac and hardening cock nestled in a nest of silken black strands.
Like Kane’s face, Miki blatantly avoided touching Kane’s sex, concentrating instead on the hard planes of muscles on the man’s stomach. He discovered a tiny white scar on his lover’s hip, a leftover remembrance from a childhood spent with brothers. Miki bent over and kissed it, marveling at the smoothness of it. Kane’s growl gave him a happy thrill, and he spent the next minute laving the man’s hipbones, using his tongue to caress the dark line of hair trailing down from Kane’s belly button.
Near his cheek, Kane’s sex stood hot and ready, its slit already filled with precome. Drawn by the salty pearl poised at the tip of the man’s cock, Miki smeared his thumb through it. He wanted desperately to slide Kane’s seed into his mouth, to savor the spread of the man’s salt on his tongue, but Kane’s eyes narrowed as if he was reading Miki’s mind.
“Don’t,” he ordered, his voice Irish-bright and rough. “You don’t know. Hell, I don’t know. I held a man’s guts in my bare hands today, babe, and I can’t risk you.”
Kane sat up and cupped Miki’s face, stealing his breath with a savage kiss. They fought for air, stealing it back and forth from each other’s mouths until there was nothing left to sustain them and they broke apart, panting hard for another taste.
“I’m not going to let you go, Miki love.” Kane shuddered when Miki’s hand dipped down between his legs to stroke up his thigh until the back of his hand brushed against Kane’s sac.
“I don’t want to let you go either,” Miki whispered. “Just don’t walk away from me, Kane. Please. Just… don’t. Don’t make me want this… want you… make me think this is something real I can actually have then take it away from me. That’s what will kill me, Kane.”
“The last thing in the world that I want, babe….” Kane chuckled as he eased Miki on his back into the pillows. A stretch of Kane’s long arm snagged his bag from where he dropped it, and he grinned wickedly when he came up with a small bottle of lube and a string of condoms. “Is to kill you. Fuck you senseless until you wake up sore and wanting more? Now that is a definite possibility.”
The click of the bottle being opened made Miki’s ass clench, and he shivered violently at the touch of cold lube when Kane’s fingers played at his entrance. Pursing his mouth, he huffed his breath out and pushed back on Kane’s hands, but his fingers slid away before Miki could envelop them.
“Spread your legs, babe.” Kane cupped the back of Miki’s right thigh. “Can you do it this way?”
“Yeah, just… fuck me,” Miki grumbled. “Why the hell do you talk so much?”
“So impatient.” His lover tsked. “We’re going to have to slow this down sometime so I can show you how good it is when we take our time.”
“Less talking,” he growled, hooking his fingers into Kane’s hair and tugging the man’s face down so he could suckle on Kane’s mouth. “More fucking.”
Kane’s fingers stabbed up into him, and Miki hissed, pushing himself to take the rough skin sliding into his core. He mewled, shoving further down until he seated himself on Kane’s hand, snarling when his cop tried to pull free to tease him. He knew Kane’s tricks and was in no mood for them. Not now. Not when he’d make love to the first man he actually wanted deep inside of him.
Not when he could finally breathe freely without the taint of his past chasing his every waking thought.
It still went too slow for Miki’s liking. Kane liked slow. The gentle intrusion of Miki’s entrance was a torture, especially when his fingers hooked inward and slid over the sizzling core of Miki’s body.
When he screamed, Kane caught it, closing his lips over Miki’s gasping mouth. Another stroke brought Miki’s ass up off the bed, straining his angled legs, but he threw the pain away as it crept closer in on his pleasure. Stuffed full, he squirmed, scrambling to grab hold of Kane… of anything to steady the world as it shifted and tilted on him. Fisting his hands into the duvet, Miki rode out the thundering shudders being pulled up out of him, quaking when Kane’s fingers withdrew.
Shivering from the cold emptiness he was left with, Miki barely felt Kane when the man lifted him up by his hips, then carefully slid a pillow under him. Another slosh of iced oil on his entrance broke Miki from the tumbling pleasures wrapping around him. Lifting his head up from the mattress, Miki watched Kane fit a latex sheath over his thick, bulbous head and roll the condom down over his shaft until it snugged in tight on the root.
Carefully, Kane positioned himself between Miki’s parted legs and hooked his large hands under the singer’s thighs. The desire in Kane’s eyes was for him, something Miki still had trouble accepting, but the sight of the powerful man kneeling in front of him made his cock writhe for attention.
Kane gripped his heft, circling the head with his fingers, and pressed it against Miki’s slick entrance. With his head bowed, the man’s black hair fell forward, brushing his lashes, but Miki could still see the sweet, liquid heat in Kane’s startlingly blue eyes.
“Do you want this, Miki love?” Kane whispered, casually dragging the head of his cock over Miki’s pout.
He couldn’t speak. His tongue seemed glued to the roof of his mouth, and any moisture he had left inside of him seemed to pool down to his cock as it dripped in anticipation of Kane’s incursion. With his hands firmly on Kane’s muscled forearms, Miki gripped Kane and lifted himself up to meet his lover’s thrust.