Hellion

by Rhys Ford

  When he plucked the rain-drowned kitten off of the Golden Gate Bridge three years ago, Ruan was more worried about the damned thing surviving than anything else. Nearly at the end of his shift, he’d seen the moving fur bundle on the left-side walk, tumbling about with each passing car. At first his brain refused to believe it was anything other than a piece of cloth, but his gut told him otherwise and he circled back around, flipping on his lights to warn the traffic behind him to pull away from the curb. There was no way the grubby kitten he found walked there on his own accord. His leg was broken and there were long gouges of road rash through his matted fur—both signs he’d probably been tossed from a car.

  An emergency vet near his apartment confirmed Ruan’s suspicions. The kitten also came with malnutrition, ticks, and a variety of worms requiring a round of medications nearly the price of Ruan’s rent. There was a brief one-sided discussion about putting the kitten down. An eight-hour shift and a two-second delay in Ruan’s brain made him wonder why the vet wanted him to put the cat on the floor, and then the discussion turned, riding the wave of Ruan’s anger.

  The animal hospital got him another vet, and the next day, Ruan took home a weak but grumpy orange-spotted peach kitten, who in the course of a few years, grew to the size of a bobcat and now ate Ruan out of house and home.

  “Maine coon my ass,” Ruan grumbled while opening a large can of wet cat food. “You’re a damned saber-tooth tiger. And get your claws out of my leg. I’m doing this as fast as I can.”

  Leading Spot to his seafood medley, Ruan opened his refrigerator, hoping the food fairies had filled it since the last time he’d cracked the door. Sadly, the bag of limp carrots and its companion, a half-consumed six-pack of local beer, were still the only occupants other than the bristle of condiments on the door shelves. The freezer held much more promise if he counted a pint of mint chocolate chip and a frosted-over box of taquitos as food.

  “I think I ate the last can of soup in the pantry,” he muttered to himself as he shuffled over to the hall closet he’d converted to food storage. There were the usual suspects—opened boxes of cereal, pork and beans, and for some reason, a couple of cans of sardines in spicy tomato sauce he’d grabbed during a frenzied grocery run. “I open up that fish and you’re going to eat off my face, Spot. I don’t even have any rice to put it on. Guess it’s time to order a pizza.”

  The second-story apartment was a blessing of sorts. Ruan had the whole floor to himself. It’d probably once been bedrooms, but with a few walls knocked down, it became a very livable space. A serviceable enough kitchen faced the asphalt yard he and Cranson used to park their cars, and the long flight of stairs and midway landing attached to the outside wall were covered by a wide overhang, protecting it from San Francisco’s inclement weather and led to the apartment’s entrance at the front side of the building. The great room retained its old sash window frames, double paned now to hold out the cold, but the brick fireplace had been converted to gas, keeping the space warm enough during the nippy winter months. A short hall led to a small bedroom Ruan used as a library slash office, an enormous bathroom with an old porcelain tub, with the master bedroom taking up the other side of the floor.

  His place was close to everything, but most of all, it was the first place he felt comfortable in. Furniture was oversized and heavily padded, strong enough to put up with Spot’s frequent gymnastics but large enough to cradle his often worn-out lanky frame. Collapsing onto the dark gray sectional dominating the room, Ruan began to tug off his cowboy boots, perusing the menus he’d left on the old coffee table he’d found at a thrift store. A few seconds later, Spot joined him, huffing into Ruan’s face with his rank fishy breath.

  “Pizza or Chinese?” Ruan asked the cat, holding up a paper menu with distinct puncture marks along its edges. “I’m guessing Chinese, because that’s the one you like to chew on the most. Let’s see if they’re up for delivery. It’s kind of late, and sometimes twenty-four-hour delivery doesn’t really mean twenty-four-hour delivery.”

  Reaching for the cell phone he’d left on the table, Ruan was startled to hear it ring. Sighing, he rubbed at his face, then answered the call, suspecting his dinner was going to be something from a drive-through on his way to a scene.

  Instead he got a silky, masculine voice asking him, “Tell me you don’t have a wife and seven kids.”

  Ruan checked the number on the screen. It was unfamiliar but definitely within the 415 area code, so a local call, possibly from somebody looking for a hookup and dialed wrong. “I think you’ve got the wrong number.”

  “I don’t know. Some cop left me his card and told me to give him a call. So here I am, giving him a call,” the man on the other end purred much deeper than Spot ever could. “I know it’s late, but I figured I’d take a chance since I’m up and closing down the shop tonight because one of our guys was a no-show. I thought maybe a cop would have the same kind of hours as a tattoo artist—way too long and not enough sleep. So before I ask if you want to grab something to eat, I have to make sure you don’t have a wife and seven kids. Assuming, of course, you’re the kind of guy who wants to grab something to eat with another guy. If not, no harm, no foul.”

  “Ivo Rogers.” Ruan grinned into his phone, gently pushing Spot away when the cat began to chew on his fingers. “I just got home and was debating ordering in. I’ve got to be honest with you, I am as hungry as hell, but the thought of pulling on my boots again makes my feet hurt.”

  “I don’t normally beg for company, but if you want, I can grab something and we could eat there. Of course, it depends upon where there is.” Ivo’s voice darkened slightly. “Mind you, I know it’s rude as fuck to invite myself over to a guy’s house, but I haven’t eaten anything all day and I’ve been at the shop since this morning. I’ve worked way past manners and into ravenous, so I figured I would top off my day by calling some guy who owns a gun and asking him if he wants to eat with me.”

  “I’m the police. I think that makes me pretty safe.”

  “Babe, you are far from safe, and being a cop sure as hell doesn’t help,” Ivo replied softly. “So, what’s it going to be? Do I head over to your place with a bunch of dim sum or do I go home and eat ice cream?”

  Cranson’s words echoed in Ruan’s mind. Looking around the room, he saw a blank canvas of a life. It was an empty white space, populated by gray and brown furniture with the most colorful thing in the apartment being a peach-and-tangerine monster of a cat. The mantelpiece held the folded flag from his grandmother’s funeral and last year’s Christmas card sent by his father’s newest wife, a woman young enough to be Ruan’s baby sister. His father hadn’t even signed it, or at least that’s what it looked like. For all Ruan knew, his father’s handwriting now included smiley faces and little hearts over the Is.

  Even the Christmas card was a bleached-out blue landscape of sparkly snowflakes and gray calligraphy wishing him a happy holidays.

  It was time to take a chance. Even if it was just a meal, Ruan suspected Ivo would bring a wash of color into his space, bright enough to blind him. The younger man was beautiful and trouble, much like Spot.

  “Did I lose you, Nicholls?” Ivo asked. “Or are you asking your wife?”

  “I’m here. And yeah, how about if I order food from a place near your shop and you grab it on your way? That’ll give me enough time to change my clothes and try to get cat hair off of the couch. You allergic to seafood?” Ruan flipped open the chewed-on menu, debating their options. “I’ll pay if you bring it over.”

  “How do you know where the shop is?” A healthy dose of suspicion crept into Ivo’s voice. “Sounds kind of stalkery.”

  “One, I was the lead investigator in Mace’s father’s homicide. The tattoo shop was one of three places listed as somewhere Mace could be found. Two, I don’t live that far from the piers, and on the rare occasions I’m able to get a morning run in, I go by the shop on my way to the malasada bakery on the corner. Donuts are a great motivator t
o get me to jog,” Ruan drawled, chuckling at Ivo’s low laughter. “So, are you allergic to anything?”

  “My brothers would say responsibility, but they’re full of shit. I’m open to everything but chicken’s feet and that’s only because I don’t think you can eat those as takeout. It’s got to be freshly cooked and hot.” Something metal rattled the phone and Ivo’s voice was lost for a moment. “Text me your address and don’t worry about the cat hair. You should see the mountains of fur I pick up from Earl every day. There’s no way in hell a cat could even compete.”

  “You haven’t met Spot,” Ruan warned. “I’ll see you in a little bit. There’s an alleyway on the left. Go down it and park in the back. Anywhere you want. When you get here, go up the stairs on the side of the house and just knock. The doorbell is broken and I haven’t gotten around to fixing it.”

  “See, that’s a shame,” Ivo whispered, a slither of sex and heat wrapping through his words. “I was really looking forward to ringing your bell, but I guess a knock is just going to have to do.”

  “I have a feeling you’re going to be a really huge pain in my ass, Ivo Rogers,” Ruan groaned.

  “Probably,” Ivo replied. “But I think you’re going to give as good as you get. See you in about half an hour. And really, don’t worry about the cat. There’s going to be other things to occupy your mind with. Especially since you never answered me about the wife and seven kids.”

  Five

  “THAT IS the biggest damn cat I have ever seen.” Ivo held out the bags of Chinese food he’d brought up with him, hoping to draw the orange feline’s attention off of him. Apparently it wasn’t the scent of spicy salt shrimp attracting the cat to hook its claws into his jeans and pull himself up to his full height to sniff at Ivo’s chest, because even as Ruan took the food, the monstrous feline remained, investigating every inch of Ivo he could reach. “What the fuck are you feeding him? Brontosaurus?”

  On the sliding scale of all of the bad ideas Ruan had ever had in his life, agreeing to have dinner with Ivo Rogers in the early hours of the morning after a long shift ranked up there with peeing on an electrical fence and slow dancing with Brandon Kipski in the shadows of the gym when he was in the seventh grade. The scene on the electrical wires was an immediate life lesson. The lessons he learned from dancing with Brandon came much later that week in the form of a beatdown from Brandon’s older brother and getting shoved into a locker during PE for about a month afterward.

  He’d never questioned his attraction for men, but Ruan did sometimes challenge the extent of his intelligence, especially when inviting the biggest bundle of trouble into his living room. Spot apparently was as attracted to Ivo as Ruan, rubbing his face on every inch of the man’s body, his husky purr kicking into overdrive when Ivo chuckled and scratched at the cat’s ears.

  It was definitely the first time Ruan had ever been jealous of his cat, and judging by the mutual love fest going on at his front door, it probably wasn’t going to be the last.

  “The vet thinks he came from a kitten mill that bred Maine coons and tossed him out of the car because he was sickly. Found him on the middle of the bridge coming home one night. He was the only one I saw, so I’m hoping maybe they were trying to toss him into the water and didn’t make it.” Ruan put the food down on a coffee table in the middle of the room and returned to Ivo’s side to delicately remove the cat’s claws from Ivo’s thighs. The guy smelled good—a light lime-citrusy scent with a hint of masculine musk. There was a lot of power in his long legs, muscles shifting to accommodate Spot’s weight as the cat fought to hold on to his perch. “He’s actually pretty affectionate. He just doesn’t realize he’s huge. Vet says he might even get to be another ten pounds. I figure I’m going to have to start taking out loans to feed him.”

  “Or you could just let him roam the streets and clear out the pigeon population,” Ivo said, working off his Converses. “Dude, seriously. That is one huge motherfucking cat.”

  Spot was easier to remove than the low, simmering attraction in Ruan’s belly. Ivo Rogers was a complicated macramé of masculine strength and feminine beauty. Even dressed in an old pair of jeans and a black T-shirt from the shop he owned stretched across his muscled chest, the man took Ruan’s breath away. Smudged ebony eyeliner rimmed his stormy blue-gray eyes, bringing out the startling depths of color nearly hidden behind his dark lashes, but the rest of his face was bare, a faint scruff of light brown beard dappling his strong jaw. He wore an insouciance about him, a loose cape of arrogance and casualness draped over his graceful body. There was a confidence in the man Ruan envied, a natural well of something both aggressive and beautiful.

  There was no mistaking he was a man. Ivo Rogers just didn’t care what other people thought about him. The young teenager Ruan found sullenly sitting on a cop car after beating the hell out of a man who’d wanted more than Ivo was willing to give had grown up, secure in his place in the world and seemingly fluid in how he expressed himself.

  As much as it felt wrong to lust after a guy he’d first met when he was a minor, there was no confusing Ivo with the teenager dressed in a naughty schoolgirl outfit anymore. Time burned away any hint of innocence and puberty from his face, leaving it a handsome sculpt of hard planes and lithesome lips. The caginess in his eyes was still there, a wary edge to his natural beauty, and the dirty-blond locks were now buried under a sheath of inky black and bright violet dye, its length chopped up tight against Ivo’s cheekbones and falling down to brush at the tops of his shoulders.

  There was an innate wickedness to everything Ivo did. Even coming through the apartment’s front door, he drew Ruan’s eye, and if there was ever a time when Ruan felt like he’d fallen into an old noir detective flick, it was right now. Ivo was the dangerous leggy siren casting a long shadow across Ruan’s door, and try as he might, there’d be no shoving the man back out into the night. He was there to stay. Even if he turned around and went back down the flight of stairs outside, Ivo Rogers would linger, haunting Ruan’s mind and sliding away, a flickering, silvery shadow he would constantly spot out of the corner of his eye.

  Ruan had no idea what to do with someone like Ivo, and in his gut, he wasn’t sure if he was strong enough to even try.

  It also didn’t help that the smile Ivo gave him was devastatingly sexy, even as they battled to remove Spot from the source of his intense attraction.

  Brash. The man was brash. Brash, arrogant, and challenging—three things Ruan knew better than to tangle with. But instead of showing Ivo the door, he was still working to get his cat loose from the man’s jeans.

  “Don’t blame you, kitten, but have some fucking pride,” Ruan muttered into his cat’s ear, finally dislodging Spot. “And could you not be an asshole?”

  “Do you want to use plates or just eat out of the boxes?” Ivo asked, standing in the space between the front door and the area Ruan laughingly called his living room. “I’m good either way. I don’t have cooties, but I know some people are picky. I’ve got four brothers. Picky isn’t a word allowed in our house.”

  “Less dishes are fine by me,” Ruan replied, giving the cat one last scratch of the forehead. “Do you want a beer? I’ve got some stout picked up from Finnegan’s. Might be too heavy for Chinese, though.”

  “Stout goes perfectly with Chinese. Only thing that doesn’t is milk.” Ivo paced around the living room for a moment, probably taking in its Spartan look. “Did you just move in?”

  “I’d like to say I’m a minimalist, but truth is, I just don’t have time.” Spot was on Ruan’s heels, bumping up against his shins and purring up a storm when Ruan went to investigate the bags to see if he needed to bring utensils from the kitchen. “Do you need a fork or are the chopsticks in here okay?”

  “Chopsticks. No self-respecting San Francisco native should ever use a fork on traditional Chinese food picked up at one o’clock in the morning. It’s like not knowing how to pick through a Dungeness to get all the meat.” Ivo settled down on the secti
onal, taking up a good portion of the left side of the L with a casual sprawl of his long body. In true Spot fashion, the cat slithered up next to him as best he could, an undulating mass of long hair and mewling affection looking for a lap to settle on. Ivo didn’t seem to mind, or maybe it was just habit from owning a dog, because he soon began to absently stroke Spot’s broad head, finding the stretch along his cheek the cat loved getting scratched. “Sure you don’t mind me dropping by?”

  “Well, I need to eat dinner, and you’re someone who can keep the cat distracted so I could eat.” Ruan eased down onto the cushion next to Ivo, handing over one of the two chocolate stouts he’d liberated from his fridge. “Just to warn you, he operates on the philosophy of ‘mi chopstick es su chopstick,’ so you’ll probably want to shove him off the couch before we start eating.”

  “Yeah, my brothers seem to have that same philosophy.” Ivo gently eased the cat to the floor. Spot grumbled, pacing around the table, then gave up, settling down on the giant-sized dog bed Ruan bought for him a month ago. “So does Earl.”

  “Earl?” Ruan frowned, wondering if he’d made a mistake inviting an already complicated Ivo up into his apartment. Last thing he needed in his life was sniffing around a man with someone already in his life. “Boyfriend?”

  “No boyfriend. Earl’s our dog. You’ve seen him. He’s that fuzzball you saw at the house. Looks like a drooling, shambling mound.” Ivo scooted over to the edge of the cushion, peering into the opened bags much like Spot did when Ruan flipped open a pizza box. “How about you tell me what you’ve been up to in the last few years? Saw you lost the uniform. Normally pick up kids you take home after a few years, or am I the only one?”