Ramen Assassin

by Rhys Ford

  “Maybe they’re not connected. Could be the guy in the plastic just looked like him.”

  “I’m going to say they looked exactly alike. I’m pretty good with faces. And I recognized him again in the photos.” Trey shook his head, thinking back on the night he’d escaped the two gunmen. “And then there is that man who tried to kill you on Mulholland. How does he fit into it? And where’s the other guy?”

  “Good questions. And ones I want answered.” Kuro put his bowl down on the coffee table, balancing his chopsticks across the rim. “And you’re wrong about not being able to do something. So long as I don’t get in the cops’ way, it’s not going to hurt to start asking around. One thing about Koreatown is no one sees anything unless the right person asks. A lot of people owe me favors. Someone had to know those guys. They have to be connected to somebody local or they wouldn’t have been there that late at night.”

  “I was going to say don’t you think the cops already asked around, but Kimber seemed to think I was making shit up.”

  His stomach was full, but Trey was reluctant to stop eating. It gave his hands something to do, and chasing a grain of rice around the bowl prevented him from getting lost in Kuro’s eyes. It was bad enough he had to watch the man eat, tucking pieces of food past his delectable lips. There was going to have to be another cold shower in his near future and maybe even another run. Anything to get his mind off of his frustration and feeling helpless. Gently placing the nearly empty bowl on the table, he groaned slightly when his stomach ached when he stretched.

  “What’s going through your head right now?” Kuro asked softly.

  Trey never gave much thought to happy endings or a life in suburbia. His life had been chaotic since he dropped from his mother. In the Bishop household, up was down and mothers were people who chased their dreams through him, pushing him onto stages and in front of cameras as soon as he could read a script. Now he was on the back end of a tumultuous twenty-plus years with little to show for it except for a bunch of money held in trust because the courts decided he couldn’t manage things for a bit and a garage full of expensive cars he couldn’t drive.

  And of course, he couldn’t forget the family he’d destroyed.

  “You asked me what I wanted to do with my life. Honestly? I want to get the shit off of me,” Trey was surprised to hear himself say, but once the words left his mouth, he heard the truth in them. Raking his hands through his hair, he leaned back into the corner of the couch and stared at Kuro, who was sitting partially sideways next to him. “I need to do something with my life. And I don’t know if that means going back into acting or doing something else, but I can’t just sit here and exist anymore.

  “I fucked up everything with my family, and everyone who said they were my friend before I hit rock bottom was just using me. Now I’ve got Sera and….” He scraped through his acquaintances, looking for someone he knew he could call in a pinch. “Fuck, I just got Sera.”

  “You’ve got me.” Kuro put a hand on Trey’s knee, the heat of his body warming Trey’s skin. “I’m going to be blunt here and say I really don’t like the way your sister treats you. She might be family—even family who took a couple of hits from you—but I saw you that night. You were scared, and my gut tells me you had no idea what was going on. She should have had your back, even if that’s not my place to say.”

  “That’s because you don’t know me. I put them through a lot, and I don’t blame them for not trusting me,” Trey confessed. “Kimber put her career on the line so many times to save my ass, and I repaid her by continuing to do shitty things.”

  “Wasn’t that a couple of years ago? How long do you have to pay for your mistakes?” Kuro’s thumb moved over his knee, stroking at the fold.

  “What? Don’t you have family?” Trey teased lightly. Between Kuro’s low rumble and the sensation of his long, slow strokes across the rise of Trey’s knee, he was having a hard time concentrating on anything but the swelling lust simmering in him. “It’s what family does. They remember every bad thing that you’ve done from the moment you took your first breath until the day you take your last.”

  “Nope. I don’t have family, but I know what you mean. There’s quite a few people I count as relatives who never let me forget any time I screwed up.” Kuro laughed, his deep, sexy chuckle setting Trey’s blood on fire. “You met Aoki. He’s worse than having three meddling aunties rolled up into one person. So, your sister aside, I’ll dig into it.”

  “That’s asking you to stick your neck out for me, and I think I’ve already brought down enough on you,” he replied reluctantly. A part of him was eager to dig out the reasons he was trapped in the middle of one of Kimber’s cases, mostly because it meant he’d be near Kuro, but common sense won out. Endangering an innocent ramen shop owner—no matter how well armed—probably would add more negative points to his already soiled karmic rap sheet. “I mean, I appreciate it because I’m not—”

  “It’s what I used to do for a living. Before this,” Kuro said, nodding toward the mostly empty bowls on the table. “And I’m in the middle of it whether you want me to be there or not. Someone came gunning for me, remember? For better or for worse, you and I are in this together. Might as well see it through, and after that, who knows?”

  A few years ago, he would’ve leaned over and kissed Kuro, consequences be damned. Sitting across of one of the sexiest men he’d ever seen, Trey wondered where his daring personality had gone. He’d always been a risk taker, even when sober, but in washing his body free of toxins, it seemed like he’d also bleached away his courage and confidence.

  “You know what’s funny? The most fucked-up thing the universe can do to you is have you meet the right person at the wrong time,” Trey whispered under his breath. “What if there is never a right time? Do you just say damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead?”

  “There’s going to be times in your life when you’re standing on the edge of the cliff and you need to jump because if you don’t, you’re going to be trampled to death by the herd of horses running through the fields behind you.” Kuro’s thumb stopped and he leaned in, a concerned frown on his face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but if it’s got anything to do with hunting down the people who got us into this mess, then I’m all for it.”

  “What if it’s about me kissing you?” Trey asked softly. “See, the thing is I know you have guns. And I’ve had my face punched in for kissing the wrong guy more than a few times, but I’m wondering if you’re really the wrong guy. And I’m not sure if I’m feeling this way just because you’ve been nice to me and it’s been a fuck of a long time since anyone’s been nice to me. Shit, I’m not even nice to myself, but I really want to kiss you and—”

  “You know, you talk way too much,” Kuro said, then stretched forward, resting his weight on his knee, and cupped Trey’s face, his lips brushing against Trey’s mouth. “One of us has got to jump off this cliff first. Might as well be me.”

  As kisses went, Trey definitely put it in his top ten. Perhaps even higher once the oxygen returned to his brain. He’d been right about how Kuro tasted. Even with the lingering hint of the spicy sauce on his tongue, there was a deeper hot sweetness drawn up between them when their mouths touched. It’d been a long time since he’d touched another man, and when Trey put his hands on Kuro’s powerful shoulders, a delicious thrill ran up his spine.

  Kuro’s fingers along his jaw mimicked the erotic stroke of his tongue against Trey’s lips. It was maddening, the hovering, then the slight dab of pressure against his mouth, and Trey parted his lips, wanting more. Instead, Kuro took his time, nibbling and stroking Trey’s lips and face until his nerve endings felt like they were on fire. Kuro’s right shoulder pressed into Trey’s left, lightly pinning him down, but if anything, Trey felt freer than he had in a long time.

  He tugged at Kuro’s shirt, pulling it up so he could run his hands down the man’s corded back. The touch seemed to inflame Kuro, because after a slight gas
p, Kuro finally deepened their kiss.

  It wasn’t as if Trey had plans to breathe anytime soon. Especially not since the heart-stopping kiss seemed to steal his breath away.

  Kuro lingered, drawing out every second in a sensual crawl. His hands moving along Trey’s ribs were a slow torture. Kuro seemed to find every inch of Trey’s body, a sensitive exploration of skin hidden beneath his clothes. He hadn’t known how erotic being stroked through cotton could be. Or how intimate silence between two men kissing could heighten the experience.

  His sexual encounters had always been loud and frenetic, as if racing toward climax was all that mattered. Kuro dealt with it differently. He seemed satisfied with prolonging their kiss, focusing most of his attention on Trey’s mouth with brief skirting strokes of his hands down Trey’s sides. He was about to burst when Kuro drifted to the seams running down Trey’s thighs, his thumbs a skittish brush across Trey’s lengthening dick.

  Trey moaned into Kuro’s mouth, plunging his tongue into the heat he tasted there before. They danced rather than fought, a curious occurrence for Trey. He wasn’t used to the delicious give-and-take going on between them, and he had to admit he liked it. Still, the lust in him grew, and it wasn’t going to be quenched until he felt Kuro deep inside of him.

  He couldn’t get enough of the man. Trey’s hands didn’t seem to be able to find a place they could stop. He needed to touch every inch of skin, even the scars he seemed to find beneath Kuro’s shirt. They were small but inexplicable evidence of a hard life lived fast, or at least that’s what Trey imagined. There was a thicker bundle of scar tissue near Kuro’s shoulder, a tangle of something slick and hard running over toward his arm, and Kuro murmured something through their kiss when Trey’s fingers found it.

  “I’m going to have to do better about keeping you busy.” Kuro laughed gently, lightly biting at Trey’s lower lip. “I can’t seem to get you focused on what’s going on up here.”

  “I just want it all. All of you,” Trey confessed, shifting against the couch. He liked the weight of Kuro’s body against his. It felt comfortable, protective in ways he didn’t understand. He should’ve felt trapped, struggling to breathe or at least needing to get free, but not this time. Not with this man. “I wouldn’t mind getting you naked. And it’s probably too soon to say that, but I thought I’d toss it out there. Just so you know where my head’s at. In case you had any doubts.”

  “I have a lot of doubts, but none of them about you.” Kuro moved, easing the press of his body away from Trey’s. “Mostly I’m wondering if I can keep up with you. You’re a hell of a lot younger with a hell of a lot less mileage.”

  “I’ve got a lot more mileage than you think.” Trey snorted. “Some of it I even remember. But I get it. Slow isn’t bad.”

  “Mostly. It’s just right now, I’m kind of torn between dragging you into the bedroom or making you scream my name but here on the couch,” Kuro whispered, his voice a lick of heat across Trey’s skin. “But it’s been a hell of a long time for me, and empty boasting doesn’t impress anyone. I also don’t have anything with me, and I’m not going to risk you like that.”

  He felt how aroused Kuro was. It was impossible to miss. The length of him was pressed against Trey’s shin, and there was no mistaking his own response, especially since the jeans he’d put on after his shower were old and thin. He wanted to say fuck the consequences and everything else, but he knew better. It was only by the skin of his teeth he hadn’t picked up something in the past, and there was always an underlying worry, no matter how many times he came back with clean blood tests.

  The last time he’d been with somebody had been in rehab, a fumbling excuse for intercourse fueled mostly by his need to be touched rather than any affection for the guy he’d propositioned. There were murky things lurking in his past and he didn’t want them near Kuro, but something told him he wasn’t going to have a choice. There had to be honesty between them. If he was going to go forward with his life and not repeat his mistakes, Trey was going to have to embrace everything he’d been and everything he’d done.

  Even if it amounted to nothing between him and Kuro, it was the only way Trey knew to prevent himself from sliding backward.

  “I know there’s other ways of having sex,” Kuro said, settling back down. “But I’m not sure I trust myself to stop. Or trust you to stop. I think once we go down that path, neither one of us is going to come up for air until we wring each other dry.”

  “I don’t think you’re wrong,” Trey agreed with a sigh. Pulling at his jeans gave him little relief, but it was at least enough to get him some room to adjust for his still-hard cock. “I liked the kiss, though.”

  “Kissing’s fun. I’ve never gotten to do enough of it.” A noise outside caught Kuro’s attention and he stopped, tilting his head. “You expecting anyone?”

  “Could be one of the guests turning around in my driveway. Sometimes that happens,” he replied, tugging at Kuro’s shirt. “What? You think someone’s coming to kill me?”

  “Someone tried to kill me.” Kuro’s reminder splashed a coldness over Trey. “We’ve still got another guy out there who knows what you look like and sure as hell knows about me. That and we don’t know who’s behind the guy left in my dumpster. Or if it’s connected to your dad’s friend. I think it is, but until we know what’s going on, I’m not sure I like leaving you here. This place’s too indefensible. There’s too many people coming in and out of the property, too many strangers, and it butts up against too many of the properties. Easy enough to jump the fence to get you, and you’re far enough away from the main house that nobody would hear you calling for help.”

  “So what? I’m supposed to move into a hotel? Come stay with you?” He laughed, imagining his father’s face when he showed up on the doorstep with a suitcase. “Or better yet, I could always go crash with either one of my parents and cramp their style. They’d like that. I wouldn’t have to worry about anyone trying to murder me. They’d kill me themselves.”

  This time, Trey heard the noise too, the soft roll of tires through the gravel outside of the bungalow. He was about to make some comment about it probably being hard to get around Kuro’s Challenger when the noise stopped and the sound of a car door softly being closed followed close on the heels of the silence.

  The relaxed, sexy man next to him slipped away, disappearing into a tight coil of danger and menace. If he didn’t know better, Trey would’ve sworn Kuro became a different person, someone he wouldn’t have recognized if he hadn’t seen him in that alleyway a few nights ago.

  “Any idea who that is?” Kuro hissed. “Did you say Sera was out? Could it be your sister?”

  “No, Kimber wouldn’t be here. Should still be on the scene, probably. And my other sisters have never been here.” There was definitely someone there. Someone who was moving as stealthily as they could across loose gravel. “I don’t know who that could be. Nobody shows up without calling except Sera.”

  “Get behind the couch,” Kuro whispered. It was an order, harsh, cold words meant to be obeyed, but Trey opened his mouth to protest, only to be silenced by the icy look on Kuro’s face. “Now.”

  Trey got behind the couch.

  Peeking around the corner would probably get him yelled at, but it was only a few feet away from the fireplace and its makeshift armory of fire-tending tools. He was fast, honed from a couple of years of running through some really shitty neighborhoods, but Trey knew he wouldn’t be much good in a fight. He’d lived in a choreographed world, where every punch was telegraphed and someone else took the heavy blows.

  “Again, right person, wrong time,” Trey muttered to himself, calculating the distance between himself and the fireplace. “Come on, God, give me a fucking break.”

  Footsteps echoed across the walk, but they weren’t the confident stride of someone coming to knock on the door. They came in fits and starts, the shuffle across the uneven stones near the side of the door. Kuro hunkered down, grabbing at the
jacket he’d left on the wing chair near the peninsula. Glancing back, he scowled at Trey when he spotted him peering around the couch. Motioning furiously with his hand, Kuro silently ordered Trey to get back, his scowl going thunderous when Trey shook his head no.

  “We’ll talk about this later,” Kuro mouthed at him. Pointing to the floor, his lips moved with great exaggeration. “Stay down.”

  The door was unlocked. Trey could see that from his position beside the couch. He never locked the door. Not until it was time to go to bed and he was sure Sera wasn’t going to make a last-minute appearance looking for a cup of hot chocolate or a pint of ice cream buried in his freezer. The knob turned slowly, the door’s hinges creaking slightly as it swung open. Kuro went flat against the back of it, keeping himself out of view, probably hoping the thick wooden door would give him some kind of protection.

  It was dark outside, but there was enough illumination coming off of the dimmed recessed lighting set into the living room’s ceiling for Trey to see the large gun held out in front of whoever stood in the doorway. The light didn’t quite reach past the portal, but there was a hint of a silhouette framed in the space, and then a voice whispered in a staccato Russian accent.

  “Stay back, sir,” the woman whispered. “Let me clear the house.”

  If there was one thing Trey learned over the last few days, it was that gunfights were nothing like they appeared on television, even knowing most scenes were angled for maximum shock and to give the audience a decent view of the show’s actors. Time didn’t slow down, and there didn’t seem to be as many monologues as the film industry led one to expect. But one thing remained true—guns were loud, and scary people were scary.

  Luckily, Trey had one of those scary people on his side for a change, and Kuro came out fighting.

  There was no delicacy in his punch. No hesitation over the fact that the person holding the gun in Trey’s doorway was a woman or that he probably had at least forty pounds of muscle on her, judging by her silhouette. Her grunt as she took the hit was enough to get Trey moving toward the fireplace, his hands stretched out for the hook-looking thing on the far right of the rack.