“That was…wow,” Ryo managed, when he could form words again.
He had sort of been counting on their encounter lasting more than seven minutes. What now? Was he supposed to pull up his pants and say good night?
Tashiro was still trembling on his hands and knees, flame-colored hair tumbled over his skinny shoulders.
“Not that I didn’t enjoy that,” Ryo said, “but I was hoping for a drink first.”
Tashiro’s face jerked his way. He stared at Ryo. Ryo shrugged. “You know, get to know each other a little.”
It could have gone either way. Clearly Tashiro had a hair-trigger temper. Ryo watched him deciding whether he was offended or not. Then Tashiro laughed, a startled snap of sound, and jumped to his feet in a quick, lithe movement. “What do you want to drink?”
He seemed unconcerned with his nakedness. But then he was beautiful, so where was the ground for concern?
Ryo resisted the urge to reach for his own clothes. He was in great shape. There was no need for self-consciousness, right? “Martini?”
“Get out of here. Do I look like a bartender?”
“You look gorgeous,” Ryo admitted.
Tashiro stared at him in disbelief.
“Anything with vodka,” Ryo prompted, finally.
Tashiro’s eyes widened then he smiled a quirky, pointed grin. Ryo liked that, liked that Tashiro had a sense of humor, a sense of the ridiculous. Because this was ridiculous.
But ridiculous or not, he had every intention of spending the night with Kai Tashiro. He wanted to see for himself whether there was some way Torres could have duped Tashiro into covering for him. It wasn’t very likely, and the fact that one quick fuck had him trying to see Tashiro as an innocent bystander was bad news, but…Ryo liked to think of himself as a guy who dotted his i’s and crossed his t’s. So it was kind of his job to stay and see if he could punch holes in Torres’ alibi.
“Anything with vodka,” Tashiro repeated. “Doable.”
He disappeared into the kitchen and Ryo took a quick look around the condo. There were three bedrooms, one of which had been turned into an art studio. There was only a single long and very high window, and clearly no one had climbed out that way. It was a serious work space: oversized drafting table, meticulously organized shelves, compartments for art supplies, and carefully-planned lighting. Framed posters of luscious manga-style artwork lined the walls. Something Red Something read the kanji. At least, Ryo thought so. He was more familiar with hiragana.
The guest bedroom also offered no egress, but the master suite had double doors leading out onto a small balcony. Ryo checked out the balcony, but unless Torres had set up a trampoline in the pool courtyard or had sprouted wings like the gargoyle he was, he wouldn’t have had any way down from this fourth-story apartment. Let alone a way up again.
Ryo spared a quick look at the rest of the room and raised his brows at the sight of a black, wood, canopy bed sitting on a framed platform in the middle of the room. Technically, Tashiro’s bed was on a stage. Swathes of white gauze draped tastefully over the raised framework. The remaining pieces of furniture were equally stylish and impractical. Off the bedroom was a sumptuous bathroom complete with a black marble sunken tub. A large walk-in closet was mostly empty. A few pairs of skinny jeans, boots, and hoodies. Ryo had more suits than this guy had entire wardrobe pieces.
The living areas offered pale wood floors, stark black walls, crisp white crown moldings and discreet recessed lights. The furniture was oversized sectionals, chairs and couch, upholstered in a smooth, gray fabric that looked like silk. There was a white fireplace that looked unused and a giant mural of girls in kimonos gettin’ jiggy with it. Not the peel and stick kind of mural you bought for two hundred bucks. This thing looked hand-painted, old, and extremely valuable.
Possibly even more valuable was the massive aquarium built into the wall opposite the bank of picture windows. Several pale blue koi, taki asagi, swam languidly in their giant tank. A fortune in fish. Maybe that’s what Tashiro spent his wardrobe money on. How the hell would you clean such a tank?
That reminded Ryo. He looked over at the front door, but the polished floor was immaculate once more. His clothes had been retrieved and draped over a low stool next to a flower arrangement that seemed to consist of green sticks in a white vase.
Tashiro appeared at that point, drinks in hand, and Ryo went to meet him. He took his drink in one hand, wrapped his fist around the ponytail of Tashiro’s hair and dragged Tashiro’s face to his for a kiss. Tashiro’s lashes went down submissively and he opened his mouth to Ryo’s kiss—then nipped him.
“Ow!” Ryo let go and drew back, touching his lip. He checked his fingers for blood. “What was that for?”
“If I wanted to be pawed, I’d get a dog.”
“Jeez, dude!”
Tashiro was smirking at him, untroubled, unworried. He had put his jeans back on, which seemed unfair to Ryo, who wasn’t exactly sure how to rectify the situation without looking like he felt at a disadvantage—which he naturally did. Tashiro held out his drink and Ryo automatically touched his glass to it. The rims rang with crystal cheer. “Kanpai.”
“Mazel tov.” Ryo sipped. Vodka soda. Unimaginative but reliable, and it was a good vodka. Kai was drinking pale green liquid from a martini glass.
“What’s that? Absinthe?”
Tashiro’s brows rose. “I guess you’ve never seen absinthe before.”
“Nah. I’m not an absinthe kinda guy.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Meaning you are?”
“Er …no.” Tashiro gave him that quirky, three-cornered smile again.
“So what are you drinking?”
“Shochu and Midori.”
“What’s shochu?”
Tashiro offered his glass to Ryo. “I thought you were Japanese.”
“Is that a turn on for you?”
Tashiro shrugged. “Depends who’s wearing it.”
“I’m American,” Ryo said, a little testily. But he sipped the cocktail. Mostly he tasted the sweet melon flavor of the Midori. He shook his head. “Doesn’t do it for me.”
“I don’t know why not. They call it the Japanese vodka.”
“Too sweet for me.”
Tashiro laughed. It was a mocking little laugh. Ryo liked his sense of humor less that time.
“So what’s the point of all this?” He gestured at the geisha mural, the bowls of smooth black stones and spartan orchid arrangements. “You have some kind of Asian fetish?”
Tashiro flung himself down on one of the low couches. “What’s wrong with embracing your heritage?”
“What heritage are you supposed to be?” Ryo tugged on a long red strand of hair.
Tashiro gave him a level look. “I’m fifth generation. Gosei.”
Ryo grunted. He was third generation. Sansei. Not that his family paid attention to that kind of thing. The Millers were as American as apple pie and baseball. Okay, apple pie. “Did you grow up in L.A.?”
“Is this part two of the interrogation?”
“No.”
“I was born in Montana. My parents died when I was eleven and I moved back here to live with my great-great grandfather.”
“What happened to your parents?”
Ryo was standing behind the sofa so he couldn’t really see Tashiro’s expression, just the angle of his mutinous mouth and lowered lashes. “They died in a house fire. Before you ask, no. I wasn’t there. I was spending the night at a friend’s.”
That was horrifying. Ryo didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry.”
Tashiro shrugged.
Part of being a cop, was you got hardened to other people’s tragedies. You tried, anyway, because it was the only way to survive the job. Even so…being orphaned at eleven… Still, if Kai Tashiro wasn’t crying over it, it sure wasn’t Ryo’s place. He twined a silky strand of Tashiro’s hair around his finger. “So you grew up around here? Where did you go to school?”
Tashiro shook his head briefly, impatiently, freeing his hair.
“Did you go to hoshu ko?” Hoshu ko were supplemental classes, typically weekend or after school courses, to teach Sansei kids to read, write, and speak Japanese.
Tashiro looked up, his expression sardonic. “Try Nihonjin gakko.”
“You’re kidding.” Nihonjin gakko was the kind of schooling the children of wealthy Japanese nationals received while they were living in the States. To send an American-born kid like Tashiro to Nihonjin gakko was, in Ryo’s opinion, bizarre.
“You have no clue. I trained in everything from kendo to chaji.”
“Tea ceremony!”
“Hey, if it was good enough for the samurai…”
Samurai? Tashiro was offering that funny, mocking smile again. It dawned on Ryo that maybe the person Tashiro was really mocking was himself. He said boldly, “Yeah? Well, I learned ikebana.”
Tashiro blinked. “Flower arranging?”
Ryo grinned sheepishly. “It was my mom’s idea. I was the only kid, well, the only boy, in the entire class. It was mostly all these older ladies.”
“No shit!” Tashiro chuckled and all at once, unexpectedly, they were laughing together, in something like harmony.
Never in his entire life had Ryo expected to share that bit of personal history with another dude. Of course, in his case Japanese school had only amounted to Saturday classes at the cultural center and as soon as he’d been old enough to make his feelings properly known, they’d been replaced with Little League practice.
“So your grandfather was pretty traditional?”
“You could say that.” Tashiro’s tone was dry. He said, “My turn. What made you become a cop?”
“Instead of a math professor?” It was Ryo’s turn to be dry.
“No. I’m not a math professor.”
“My mom is. My old man was a cop.”
Tashiro snorted. “Let me guess. He was killed in the line of duty.”
“Dude, you have a nasty tongue. No. As a matter of fact, he put his back out golfing and took early retirement. He lives in Florida now with his second wife.”
Tashiro laughed and finished his drink. “What’s your first name?”
“Randall. Randy. Ryo to my family and friends.”
“Well, I’m neither, Randall, but if you want to put that drink down, I’ll show you just how nasty my tongue can be.”
One thing about Kai Tashiro. He was a man of his word.
Ryo’d had plenty of blow jobs in his life but they seemed like dull exercises in spit and sucking compared to the wet hot miracle of Kai’s beautiful mouth wrapped around his cock. Kai gave head with consummate skill. Such discipline and delicacy. Ryo found himself wondering if he’d had training in that, too. How the hell did a guy learn to do that? Ryo had always thought tying knots in maraschino cherry stems was pretty cool. He’d have to rethink his party tricks.
And then, just as he was dangling there on the razor’s edge of orgasm, Kai spat him out, sat up and said, “Now fuck me.”
Ryo’s eyes flew open as a foil packet landed on his groin. He fumbled the condom on, rolled onto his knees, reaching for the proffered bottle of oil. His hand was shaking, whether from the immediate disappointment or the anticipation of what was promised, he wasn’t sure.
“Massage into lather, rinse, repeat as necessary,” Kai remarked.
Smart-ass. But the sarcasm somehow added to his appeal, or at least to the desire to fuck him into mewling submission. Ryo wanted nothing more than to bury himself to his balls in that long, lithe body. He slicked his stiff cock with a couple of quick swipes of oiled hand, and leaned over Kai. Kai bent his knee and shoved his ass up. Not the most dignified position in the world and yet somehow he did it with grace and efficiency. He reached behind himself with one black-tipped hand and spread himself for Ryo’s viewing pleasure.
Ryo’s throat moved in a sound that was close to a gulp. Probably inaudible given the boom of his heart in the ō-daiko drum of his chest.
“You’re…” Beautiful? Strange? Unique? Words failed him. English or Japanese.
“You talk too much.” Kai’s voice came out squeezed and breathless.
And talking made it personal? Okay. Maybe Kai was right. Maybe personal wasn’t a good idea.
Ryo guided himself toward that sweet little target, the pink bull’s-eye, and Kai shoved back to meet him. Ryo’s stiff cock penetrated the ring of muscle and slid home like a foot shoving into winged sandals. Contact. He was already taking flight.
Kai gave a long, lush moan—an X-rated sound if there ever was one—and made a sinuous kind of wriggle so that Ryo was indeed buried to his balls.
“Oh, yeah,” Kai breathed. “Oh, that’s it. That’s so good. Oh, yeah. Move like that.”
Ryo obliged, feeling gratified when Kai sucked in a sharp breath. “Oh. Oh, yeah. Again.”
Ryo gave a couple of tentative thrusts.
Kai made a keening sound. “You’re so big, Ryo. So big, so hard, so hot…” And then another of those gasps.
Ryo was on top but was he in control? Kind of doubtful.
Did it matter? Even more doubtful.
“Oh.”
God. Was there ever such a fucking hot little word? Was it even a word? Or was it just the craziest, fuckingest, hottest, littlest sound ever yanked out of a pair of laboring lungs?
Ryo jerked his hips spasmodically, losing restraint, losing his rhythm, and with each thrust Kai made that broken oh sound.
“Oh. Oh. Oh. RyOh…”
It excited Ryo beyond control. He began to shove and strain, ramming into Kai over and over, without style, without skill, just wanting to possess, to own, to be part of this sleek, beautiful, weirdo.
And all the while in a dim shadowy recesses of his brain, was the knowledge that Kai had done this before, done it many times, done it with Mickey Torres.
Good thing Ryo wasn’t a guy who believed in happy ever afters.
Ryo opened his eyes.
Something white and filmy was floating above him. A ghost? Probably not. Although if Captain Louden found out what Detective Miller had been up to this night, he’d probably kill him.
Did that make sense?
Probably not.
How drunk was he?
Drunk enough, obviously.
The white drapes above him swept languorously out and in, like giant moth wings. No, butterfly wings.
Ryo turned his head. Moonlight through the glass doors illuminated the other half of the mattress. He was alone in this big, empty, raft of a bed.
He looked for a clock, but there didn’t seem to be one. He sat up. There was a glass of water on the low table beside Kai’s half of the bed. He picked it up and drained it in a couple of fuzzy-mouthed gulps. That was better. His head was still pounding, but it was a more manageable thump.
Where the hell were his clothes?
Oh yeah. On that stool thing near the kitchen.
There was a bar of light beneath the door. Ryo rose and went to the door, opening it a crack. Every other light in the condo seemed to be on. He winced at the brightness, listening.
Silence.
Was he alone here?
No. There. An impatient mutter and a noise like crumpling paper. Ryo followed the sounds down the hall.
Kai was working in his studio beneath the painted gazes of the sharp featured men in samurai and kabuki costumes. He had donned his jeans again, but he was barefoot and bare-chested. His hair was pulled back in a ponytail and he had a glint of red stubble on his jaw. Lost in his work, he looked older and serious. For a few seconds Ryo watched him thoughtfully in the harsh, white light of the swing-arm lamp. Kai worked on, oblivious, frowning at the drawing, making quick adjustments and then frowning again.
Ryo leaned on the door frame. “It’s late.” He swallowed a yawn.
Kai’s head jerked and he stared blindly past the glaring light. He cleared his throat. “What time is it?”
Ryo peered at his watch. “Three. Thereabouts. What are you doing?”
“Working.”
“Now?”
Kai shrugged. “Why not now?”
“Because now is time for sleep.”
Kai made a derisive noise. “I don’t sleep.”
“You mean you sleep in the day?”
“Sometimes, I guess.”
“You have…what’s it called? Insomnia?”
“I don’t need a lot of sleep.”
In other words, insomnia. Or maybe a guilty conscience.
Ryo sauntered over to Kai’s drafting table, aware that Kai tensed, unhappy with the intrusion, but so what? Kai Tashiro had too many secrets. It wasn’t healthy to have that many secrets.
Ryo stared down at the pencil drawing. It was a cartoon of an androgynous figure dressed in period costume, though what period would be hard to say. The figure had long white hair and long white fangs. The cartoon was done in the manga style. Or at least what Ryo thought of as manga style. He was no expert, though he’d bought enough copies of Vampire Knight for his young nieces. It was also similar in style to the framed paintings on the wall.
“I think I arrested that guy last week.”
Kai snorted. Then he frowned and erased a wayward strand of the figure’s hair.
“Is he supposed to be a vampire?”
Kai sighed then nodded. “Vampire ninja.”
“Ah. How’s that pay?”
“Better than manga-ka.” Kai put a hand to the small of his back and arched, stretching his spine.
“You didn’t mention you were a manga-ka when I asked what you did for a living.”
Kai curled his lip. “I get tired of explaining what manga is to people who don’t know the difference, anyway.”
Ryo hooked a thumb at the framed portraits. “Those are your work?” Now that he had time to examine them, he could see they featured the same two impossibly handsome, sharp-featured characters. Each poster represented the cover of a different volume. There were seven all together. Kai threw a dismissive look at the row of scowling samurai and haughty kabuki actor. “Yeah.”
Ryo squinted at the kanji. “Blood Red…Butterfly?”
Kai nodded curtly.
“What is it, a series? Like Vampire Knight?”
Kai made a strangling sound. “Vampire Knight? Seriously?”
“Hey.” Ryo spread his hands. “So? What is Blood Red Butterfly?”
“What does it look like?”
“Manga.”
Kai sighed long and loudly in the manner of one who was once again going to have to explain himself to people who didn’t know the difference, anyway. “It’s Shōnen-ai. Yaoi. You know what that is?”
“Nope.”
“What they call Boy Love or BL now.”
“Boy Love?”
Kai grimaced. “Don’t worry, Mr. Police Man. They’re not boys, as you can see. Oniji Zenji is a Seventeenth Century actor in the yarō-kabuki. He’s onnagata. I suppose you don’t know what that is either?”
“You lost me at kabuki.”
“I wouldn’t be so proud of it. Anyway, he falls in love with Kato Kiyomori, a famous samurai.”
Ryo eyed the two scowling figures in the nearest poster. Zenji was pointing his fan at Kiyomori who had him at sword point. It didn’t look like it was going to be much of a duel. “And they live happily ever after?”
“Oh, hell yeah. They take out a mortgage and adopt three adorable kids and a puppy.”
Ryo laughed. He was thinking. If Kai was habitually sleepless, there went another theory—the theory that Torres had figured out the security code and somehow sneaked out while Kai was in Dreamland—and then sneaked back, in time for breakfast. “Sounds like heaven. Come on back to bed.”
“No point. I don’t like lying there staring at the ceiling, waiting for the sun to come up.”
“We don’t have to lay there.”
Kai gave him a withering look. “It’s going to take me a day or two to get over what we already did.”
Ryo blushed. “I guess I got kinda—”
“I liked it,” Kai cut across coolly. “It hit the spot. In every way. But that’s enough for one night. You should go now.”
It was kind of surprising the way his heart sank at those words—what was he expecting? Kashi cereal at the least. Damn. But Ryo was not a guy who gave up easily. He rested his hand on the back of Kai’s neck and squeezed gently, feeling the network of overstrung nerves and muscles draw tighter still. A lot of tension there.
“Come to bed,” he coaxed. “I’ll help you sleep.”
Kai tossed his pencil down. “I said no—”
“Dude, I’m offering you a backrub, that’s all.”
Kai’s expression changed, irritation giving way to wary curiosity. “A backrub?”
“Cross my heart.” Ryo held his hands out and flexed them for Kai’s inspection. Kai’s strange blue eyes studied him. “Permit the maestro to work his magic.”
Kai shook his head, but it wasn’t refusal, more like he thought Ryo was crazy. Probably true.
They padded back into the bedroom. Kai stepped out of his jeans and flung himself face down on the bed. Ryo sat on the edge of the mattress, gazing down. Kai’s skin was pale and mostly smooth, with the usual amount of nicks and scars. Nothing to indicate a particularly tough life. He was built as lightly as a kid but he wasn’t a kid. There was nothing innocent here.
Ryo rested his hands on Kai’s shoulders and squeezed lightly. Bare, warm, supple skin. Kai was nice to touch. He smelled nice, too, an exotic blend of sex and flowers.
“Go ahead,” Kai said shortly. “Ask your questions.”
“About what?”
“Come on. That’s what this is about, right? Get me relaxed and comfortable and then start in again.”
“No.” Ryo dug his thumbs in, kneaded the tight shoulders. He had kind of been thinking vaguely along those lines, but Kai seemed so vulnerable like this. Such a slight, flimsy body to contain all that energy and tension. Unexpectedly, Ryo found he really did just want to help him wind down, relax.
“Yeah, right.”
“I do have one question.”
Kai sounded bored. “I figured.”
“Are your eyes really blue?”
Kai gave a smothered-sounding laugh. His head moved in negation. “No. I wear contacts.”
“Ah.” Ryo had figured. According to his DMV records, Kai had brown eyes. Ryo continued to squeeze and ply Kai’s shoulders. He couldn’t get too enthusiastic in his ministrations given that there was no meat on Kai’s bones. Even so, Kai had decent musculature for a guy who clearly didn’t take very good care of himself. Maybe he swam. Maybe he jogged. Maybe he still practiced kendo. He stopped himself from asking.
“Next question?”
“This would work better if you’d shut up.”
There was silence and then Kai gave a huffy laugh. Some of the rigidity went out of his shoulders.
Ryo continued to work over him using long, slow, relaxing strokes. He’d dated a masseuse for a few weeks and he’d learned a few tricks along the way. The surprising thing was that it was actually kind of relaxing to give massage. Not as relaxing as getting one, true, but it was pleasant to touch and caress, especially when the body being touched and caressed was as attractive as this one.
Kai’s flanks rose and fell in slow rhythm as he breathed more deeply and evenly.
Ryo was nonplussed to hear himself say aloud, “My obaachan used to give us backrubs when we were little and couldn’t sleep.”
Kai chuckled, sleepily. “That’s sexy. Talking about your grandma.”
“I’m not trying to be sexy. I’m trying to give you a peaceful night.”
Another one of those abrupt silences. Kai lifted and turned his head to stare at Ryo, though it was doubtful he could see much in the gloom.
After a moment, he lowered himself to the mattress again. He did not speak again. In time, Ryo knew Kai was sleeping. He rose, went around to the far side of the bed, and lay down, careful not to disturb the other man.