Chapter 2

You know I love you, yeah, Mick?

Yeah, why?

Because your damned dog is stealing all of my socks.

Nah, that’s me. My feet get cold sometimes.

Don’t you have your own socks?

Yeah, but it makes me feel like you’re rubbing my feet.

Then I probably don’t want to know what’s happened to my underwear.

—Doing Laundry with Kane

CONNOR DIDN’T know why he was here. It wasn’t for coffee. God knew there were enough java places in San Francisco to pretty much support Columbia’s bean trade—if Columbia was still in the coffee business. From the looks of things on the street and the raids he’d been in on, it seemed Juan Valdez and his donkey had moved on from picking beans to processing coca leaves.

But there he sat with the engine off in his Hummer and staring at Marshall’s Amp coffee shop.

The long rectangular two-story building held the coffee shop and the studio next door, two apparently legacy places according to some of the other cops in his division. Marshall’s Amp was relatively new—for San Francisco, anyway—with only a little more than a decade under its belt, but the Sound—apparently that place had seen some legends come through its doors.

Tucked into the wide end of Chinatown, the two-story brick building seemed a bit out of place amid the surrounding shops. The street ran to family-run jewelry stores with constant sales and smaller discreet holes-in-the-wall catering to generations of local Asians. A few restaurants—mostly noodle houses—served up traditional foods, their kitchens spicing the fog-damp air with a blend of savory aromas.

The neighborhood was a great place to people watch—even at seven in the morning.

He’d even brought a travel mug of Major Dickason’s he’d brewed at home with him. To a coffee shop.

A florist shop opened up early, setting out long tubs of fragrant blooms, splashing color against the dreary gray rainy morning. Connor could smell the sweet powder of carnations above the more delicate fragrances, a soft undertone of roses catching on the wind. An awning protected the flowers from the inclement weather, and from under the shadows, the store owner, an old charm bracelet of a Cantonese woman, bobbed about as she arranged her displays, her tiny face bright with a smile for anyone passing by.

Gentrification moved in on the fringes of the area, blending a bit of urban with traditional Chinese and the remains of San Francisco’s hippie days. A pair of young blonde women jogged past Connor in matching vivid green yoga pants, their sports tanks wicked with sweat. Both were pushing running strollers, and they expertly maneuvered through the sparse morning sidewalk traffic, keeping in pace with one another while carrying on a lively conversation.

He should have been locked onto their asses, following the flow of a gently rounded curve jiggling in time with each stride. They both seemed to have miles of lightly tanned skin, definitely a product of a salon, considering San Francisco’s meager sunlight allotment over the past six months. Connor should have had a smile ready when the blonde closest to him smiled flirtatiously as she went by.

Instead, he felt nothing. Nothing at all. Not even a telltale crinkle of desire along his cock or a tightness at the back of his throat when lust rose up from his belly. No, Connor just watched them go by, his attention drifting back to the staircase going up the side of the studio’s outer wall to a doorway on the second floor.

There was no question about it; he’d lost his mind.

It also was a pity he couldn’t stop staring at the parking lot where an old man’d lost his life, and Connor’d found himself holding the man’s son, unable to let go of the blond even after his sobs turned to shuddering hiccups. Something happened to him that night. He still wasn’t sure what it was, but every second of that dark, stormy night replayed in his mind whenever was most inconvenient.

Like in the middle of the night when he was lying naked in bed and listening to the rain hit his newly shingled roof.

If only he could get the idea of holding Forest Ackerman out of his head—because there was no damned good reason that man should be in his head.

“What the fecking hell am I doing here?” Connor muttered and reached for the keys still dangling in the Hummer’s ignition.

He’d run Forest Ackerman’s record—as illegal as that was—but what he’d found didn’t surprise him. A sealed juvenile record he’d left alone, and other than a few disorderlies for participating at slam-fests in the parking lot behind the Sound, Forest appeared to live a clean and stable life. Franklin Marshall, on the other hand, had a long list of petty priors—mostly centered around protests and pot, with a curious addition of assault on a man who’d been arrested for trying to pull an unidentified juvenile male into his car.

It didn’t strain Connor’s brain to figure out who the kid in the guy’s car had been.

“Okay, enough time wasted, Morgan.” His fingers brushed the cold metal keys again, and then Connor froze, catching sight of a long-legged blond man coming down the set of stairs from the building’s second floor.

He’d wanted to drive away. It was his damned day off, for God’s sake. There were things that needed doing on the old house he’d bought—important things like laying down a floor everywhere or even painting, because the painting never ended. He was living in two rooms at the moment, the kitchen and a side bedroom, both of which were in midrenovation themselves, but Connor couldn’t force himself to start the Hummer’s engine.

Not with the flash of gold hair, pretty face, and lean body coming down the stairs.

Nothing made sense anymore. His world—his organized and orderly world—lay in bits and chunks around him, and Connor was left with the feeling he spent more time trying to gather up its scattered remains than trying to make sense of the life he’d been living. He’d been building a puzzle using all of the wrong pieces, because it was coming out so very different from the picture on its box.

Somehow, Forest Ackerman was a part of that puzzle, and for the life of him, Connor couldn’t figure out how or why.

Whatever was going on, it obviously dulled his senses, because Connor didn’t hear the black-and-white pull up next to him and nearly had a heart attack when the patrol cop inside of it honked his horn to get Connor’s attention.

“You okay there, Lieutenant?” The man had to crane his neck a bit to see up into the Hummer. “Spotted you on the drive-by, so I wanted to make sure, you know? Waiting for someone?”

“Yeah, I’m good,” Connor responded with a tight smile, then held up his cell phone. “Pulled over to the side to talk to my da. Done now. Thanks.”

“Yeah, wish more people would pull over before getting on those things. See you later, sir.” The uniform smiled, waved, then drove off, leaving Connor holding his phone up like an idiot.

Sighing, he banged his forehead on the steering wheel, muttering darkly, “This is what it’s come to? Lying about talking to my father? Jesus H. Christ.

“Just turn the key, Con,” he urged himself. “Go home. Finish demoing the wall in the kitchen. Fucking do some laundry, if you have to. Just turn the bloody key.”

The Amp’s windows were shrouded from steam, condensation forming from the interior’s warmer air hitting the cold glass. While Connor spoke to the uniform, Forest’d disappeared, probably into the coffee shop to get something to drink before he started doing whatever the hell it was he did in the Sound besides drumming for stray bands.

“Aw, fuck it,” Connor muttered as he dumped his coffee out onto the street and tossed the travel mug into the back seat. “I’d rather have a latte anyway.”

“YOUR COP is back.”

Forest looked up toward the counter, nearly scalding himself on the espresso machine. Jules, the Amp’s coffee shop manager, smirked at him and winked, her curly brown hair bobbing about her face as she jerked her chin at the buff, tall man taking up most of the air in the shop’s dining area.

It was bad enough he was gay in an industry where gay wasn’t a bad thing, but dating other musicians was like playing Russian roulette with a fully loaded gun. The last thing Forest wanted to complicate his life was lusting after a thoroughly straight chunk of muscle with a badge. He didn’t need a massive cop whose thick black hair seemed to grow wildly out of control before he hacked it back with a ruthlessly short cut—an orderly cut lasting only three days. Sure, he was grateful for Morgan’s support following Frank’s murder, but Forest wanted nothing else to do with Lt. Connor Morgan. Or everything to do with him. Either way, it would lead to nothing but madness, and Forest had enough insanity in his life as it was.

He’d just recently been able to go a full day without crying about Frank’s murder, and only now began to fully hate all the paperwork, lawyers, and stupidity that followed close on the heels of discovering his adopted father left him a bunch of money, a few properties, and a shit fuckton of headaches. Connor Morgan did not need to be added to his pile of shit to worry about.

“He’s not my cop,” Forest replied, keeping his voice as steady as he could, but he couldn’t help watching Lt. Connor Morgan eat up the space around him.

And Forest hated what the man did to him—because he found himself looking for Morgan every morning when he came down for coffee, and the little chirrup of glee in his chest was getting a little bit too loud to ignore every time he spotted the lieutenant coming through the Amp’s front door.

Connor Morgan showed up at the most inconvenient times, usually when Forest just stumbled downstairs after an all-night session running beats over his kit for other musicians. Since Frank’s death, he’d thrown himself into his work, keeping the studio’s time booked tight and working the drums when needed.

In the three months since Frank’s murder, Lt. Morgan of the SFPD’s SWAT division appeared to have gotten very fond of the Amp’s lattes. He also really liked Jules’s double-chocolate cake donuts, because he always bought four at a time with his coffee and ate two of them as he waited for his drink to be made. The way he ate sugar should have been a crime—and also made him fat—but no, Connor Morgan merely stood at the end of the pickup counter and mouth-fucked pastries as Forest tried to ignore the Irish cop’s broad shoulders, flat stomach, and tight ass.

Not that Forest watched the man lick chocolate ganache from his fingers and from the corners of his lips.

But he had. And the disappearing chocolate frosting entranced him because it took him a few seconds for an alarming beep to penetrate his brain before he realized he’d scalded his soy milk beyond recognition.

“Fuck.” Juggling the milk pitcher, Forest found someplace amid the staff mugs to put it down and searched for a cold rag to wrap around his steamed fingers. “Ow. Ow. Shit.”

He couldn’t find a towel, and what made things worse, the shop was full of customers—paying customers—so he couldn’t really yell across the floor for Jules to come help him.

“I so don’t need this.” Forest threw his gaze up to the ceiling and wished God would quit fucking with him. “Really, Dude?”

“Here, give me your hand. Let me see to you.” As if the Irish roll of the man’s voice wasn’t enough to send shivers through Forest’s nipples, the damned erotic masculine smell of Connor Morgan did him in with one whiff. Whoever thought green tea in a cologne was a good idea should be flayed and left out for the seagulls to eat their eyeballs.

And Forest would do the flaying too—as soon as he licked every inch of the man’s muscular body.

“You’re not supposed to be back here,” Forest muttered, trying to sound more like the owner of two thriving business and less like a tongue-tied loser. “Customers—”

“Most customers don’t have EMT training.” The rolling burr hit again, raking its delicious claws up Forest’s back. “Now let me take a look at that.”

He’d look stupid fighting the man off, especially since Morgan was a cop and probably used to carrying babies out of burning buildings. Forest immediately regretted thinking about a burning anything as his mind seized up on the memory of smoke and melted plastic. Frank should have been there to scold him about scalding his fingers, because he’d have to keep time with a speed metal band in the afternoon, and drumming was hard enough at that rate without adding first-degree burns to the mix.

Connor either didn’t see the tears in Forest’s eyes or did the manly thing and ignored them, concentrating mostly on scooping some ice into a plastic bag. After wrapping the bag up in a bar towel, Connor balanced the makeshift pack on the back of Forest’s hand, keeping it steady with the press of his palm.

“I could have done that,” Forest snarked. “Where’d you get your EMT certificate? With a piece of bubble gum?”

“If I had the gum, I’d give it to you so you had something to keep that smart mouth of yours busy.” Connor chuckled.

“I’d need more than gum to do that.”

Forest winced, hearing the innuendo in his words, especially when Connor’s deep blue eyes narrowed and his sharp focus shifted from Forest’s hands to his face. It was a glare sharpened on life’s whetstone, giving Forest an idea of what the man might look like as he came through a door behind a black battering ram.

Or even on his knees between Forest’s legs and working up a sweat tearing apart his ass with a thick, long Irish cock.

“Are you warm?” One of Connor’s ice-chilled hands drifted up to test Forest’s forehead. “You’re turning red. Do you have a fever? Getting chills, maybe?”

“Maybe it’s the ice,” Forest lied. “I’m okay. Really. Jules will have your ass for being back here.”

“Really? Because she’s the one who told me to come check on you when we saw you foaming up your hand with milk.” Connor’s fingers were warm on Forest’s wrist, and Forest wondered if the man knew he was stroking at Forest’s pulse point. “Can I trust you to hold the ice pack there while I go see if there’s burn ointment in that first-aid kit on the wall?”

The man was way too close. He filled every inch of Forest’s awareness, stretching out to touch even the darkest corners of his soul. Connor was too much—too vibrant—too fucking male for Forest to wrap his mind around. The only thing he wanted to do was fall into the sweet promise of Connor’s brogue and forget everything pressing in on him. He needed the cop to be away from him—anywhere away—away from lingering over his skin or so near Forest could feel Connor’s breath on his face. It was just too much and made Forest feel guilty for forgetting about Frank’s death—even if it was only for a moment.

“Look, I’m fine. I’ll do it,” Forest insisted, edging away from Connor and responding with the only thing he knew he could use to drive someone off, his sharp tongue. “You want to help me out? Go find out who put a fucking bullet into Frank’s head.”

The cop jerked his head back, and from the shocked expression on his face, Forest could have punched him straight in the mouth and gotten the same reaction. He wanted to apologize. The words were at the edge of his tongue, but something insane seemed to be nesting in his brain, and instead of I’m sorry for being an asshole, something much meaner came out.

“You guys have been about as useful as tits on a fish, dude.” Forest tried to yank his hand away from Connor’s grip. “Fucking hell. Let go, dude. I can do it myself.”

The man held on. Even through the violence of Forest’s harangue, the cop held him in, keeping his fingers wrapped tight around Forest’s arm. It was a brief, unsuccessful struggle, and short of screaming for help, Forest should have felt trapped.

He hated being trapped. It reminded him of different times. Back before the apartment over the studio, before Frank lured him in and called him son. The clench of Lt. Connor Morgan’s hand around his wrist should have thrown dark memories into his face—of being slammed up against walls, the pain of his empty stomach folding in on itself, or having his jaw ache from being used. That was how trapped usually felt—staked through his body with a metal pin as he fought to get free. Even when he’d known it was useless, he still fought.

This time—this man—didn’t serve all that up on a silver platter to him. Instead, the damned hand around his wrist made him feel—cared for—tended to. It made Forest want more than that simple touch, and he kind of maybe hated Connor Morgan for making him feel that way. Fighting the man off should have been like breathing—something he did automatically—but with Connor, he couldn’t quite make that break.

And throughout it all, Connor Morgan’s deep-ocean gaze never left his face.

Sighing, Forest gave up and wilted against the counter. “Really, man. What the fuck do you want from me? You come in here every other day, and it screws with my brain. I don’t know what to do with you. It’s not like you say anything about… my dad, and the inspector they assigned to the case hasn’t even called me back. I left a fuckton of messages, but nothing. I just want to know what the hell they’re doing—”

“What’s his name?” Connor asked softly, still holding onto Forest’s wrist. “The inspector. What’s his name?”

“Her. Um…. Devorsky? Something like that. I wrote it down from what the uniformed cop told me, but I probably spelled it wrong.”

“I don’t know her.” The cop frowned, his dark eyebrows closing in over his strong nose. Those fingers began anew, stroking away the cold. “But I’ll see what I can find. She should have called you. At least to take your statement. I’m sorry—”

“Look, I’m sorry. I was a dick,” Forest rubbed at his face with his free hand. “I just don’t know—”

The window behind them blew in, an explosion of glass and sound. Forest’s heart pounded once, a scared, fluttering tight beat. Then he found himself on the floor, the blue-eyed cop’s body stretched over him. Connor’s weight pinned him down, and his fight-or-flight response kicked in. Forest squirmed, unable to see what was going on.

A rat-tat of gunfire sprayed the air, and there were screams—so many screams—too blended and horrifying for Forest to pick out individual voices. The panic burbling in his stomach flowed up his throat and hit his face before spreading out to his spine. People were dying out there, lying in their own blood, and he lay safe behind a bank of short refrigerator units with a man he’d just lusted for pressing his crotch into the curve of Forest’s ass.

“Jules!” Forest twisted around under Connor. “I’ve got to find Jules.”

“Lay there,” the cop ordered as he got up into a crouch. Forest wondered numbly where the gun Connor had in his hand came from and when the lazy Irish burr had suddenly hardened into a rough-edged bark of authority. “Don’t move.”

The buzz of bullets seemed to have ended, but the burn of sound continued to echo in Forest’s ears. For a short moment, he debated getting up, but the heat of Connor’s hand on the small of his back remained, a searing reminder of the order he’d been given.

“God, scared shitless and I’m fucking hard,” Forest whimpered, resting his forehead on the floor.

With his head down and close to the floorboards, Forest got a good look at the underside of the Amp’s bakery case. Sniffing, he inhaled a sting of pine-scented cleaner and sent a mental thank-you to his night crew for mopping thoroughly. Then he turned his head, saw the carnage of the Amp’s dining room, and threw up all over a pool of blood.