Sinner's Gin Read Free Page A

trust himself to open it up again. Bed seemed like a good place to crawl back into, but instead he hobbled through the room and opened the door to the garage.
    And stopped to take a breath.
    He could face the garage. The steel and glass pink elephant in the space was covered by a drop cloth that obscured most of its shape, but the car’s lines were still visible. Averting his eyes, Miki stumbled through the space, using what little light came from the terrier-height gap at the bottom of the garage door
    Most of what the dog brought in from outdoors was small, such as a cast-off plastic toy or a sun-bleached bone he found in another dog’s yard. Braving the garage every week or so, Miki tossed away nearly all of it, saving only the occasional tennis ball to bring into the house for the mutt to chase after. All of the canine’s dubious treasures were piled up in a far corner, and there on the top of a torn, stained towel sat a milk-carton sized piece of wood, its rough bark still moist from the dog’s mouth.
    Bending over, he nearly lost his balance when he picked up the wood. “Fuck, Dude. How the hell did you carry this? It’s a damned brick.”
    It was heavier than Miki expected, and he grimaced at the twisting pain in his knee when he stood back up. Cradling the wood against his side, he shook his head in both disgust and amazement at the dog’s tenacity. The warehouse’s open space gave the man a clear view of when Miki came back into the house, and he looked as if he were going to cross the threshold but stopped when Miki’s glare dared him to take a step.
    “Do you need…,” the man started to say.
    “I don’t need anything,” Miki grunted as he slowly walked toward him. The dog was gone, and by the time Miki got to the front door, he had a light sheen of sweat on his face. Holding out the chunk of wood, he said, “Here’s your cone.”
    “Koa,” the man corrected. The hardness seeped from his blue eyes, and he reached to take the wood from Miki’s hands. “Sorry about the… you know. It’s been a really rough day and… damn it, you’re turning blue. You should—”
    “Yeah, whatever.” Miki shivered and his body prickled with goose bumps. The heavy door swung smoothly shut on its balanced hinges, and the world slowly closed behind him. “Take your fucking wood and go.”
     
     
    T HE cold never left his bones, or at least that’s what Miki felt like. Long, thick curtains and double-paned windows took the chill off of the San Francisco air, but the fire he finally coaxed to life in the narrow fireplace barely seemed to generate enough heat to warm its own hearth, much less the enormous open living space. Even with the central heating turned up to a comfortable seventy-two, the shuddering roils of cold rocked him with every other breath.
    His knee throbbed with the fire of a thousand suns, but the memory of the infuriated man on his doorstep a couple of days ago burned Miki more. A tingle resonated in his cock when he thought about the man’s deep blue eyes, and the reaction startled him. His dick hadn’t shown an interest in anything or anyone since the accident. He wasn’t hard, not by a long shot, but the awareness was definitely there.
    “Great, now I’m getting a kink for someone who wants to beat me,” he muttered, his voice rough with disgust. There’d been no lingering appraisal in the man’s eyes, only fury and then a dash of pity. Pity was the last thing Miki wanted or needed. “Like I can’t do that to myself. Fuck him.”
    Curled up on the couch he’d brought from the apartment he’d shared with Damien, Miki drew a thick quilt around his shoulders, tucking the ends in under him. The flames lulled him, and he stared into the flickering heat, his mind drifting from the too-chilled warehouse and the echoes of his thoughts. He didn’t feel like gaming, even though he’d turned on the large-screen TV and the game systems. Food was out. His stomach rebelled at the mere