Read Online Dirty Kiss by Rhys Ford - Free Book Online

man I’d just met.
     
    Tapping at the order pad with his pencil, he tilted his head to look at me. “Something from the bar, hyung?”
     
    The hyung word confused me. To my untrained ears, it was the same word that Jae-Min used for Hyun-Shik.
     
    “I’d love a whiskey.” Whiskey not only sounded good, but there were some bottles I’d seen at the bar that I lusted for and sticking to the no-alcohol rule I’d set up a few hours ago nixed sampling. “Just a diet Coke, please.”
     
    “Is diet Pepsi okay?” His smile was warm, an underlying promise of sex in his voice. “I can add lime if you want.”
     
    “Thanks.” I watched his ass move as he walked away. Whoever did the hiring knew what they were doing.
     
    The room smelled of cigarettes and expensive booze. I knew there were private karaoke rooms off the main room, usually rented by drunken, middle-aged Korean men for God knows what, but apparently singing was involved. Even more private rooms were upstairs, and by all accounts, these were for exclusive members of the club. Just small getaways where they could relax, or so we’d been told.
     
    It was only considerate that these rooms had beds or pillow pits in them.
     
    When I was a junior detective, Dorthi Ki Seu had become a place of interest for a multi-city Vice shakedown. There were other spots that were more lucrative, but Dorthi Ki Seu was a holy grail for one of the senior guys I worked with. That was how I met Scarlet.
     
    The detective eventually arrested Scarlet and a few of the other main floor entertainers, cross-dressing gay men who worked the stage of the club either singing or dancing. She’d been attractive then, and I didn’t expect her to have changed. When I placed the cuffs on her, I apologized when I cinched a wrist too tightly. I loosened it and asked if she preferred to be addressed as a woman or a man. Her smile was brilliant, making her already gorgeous Filipino face heartbreakingly beautiful.
     
    Scarlet spent less than an hour in the holding cell after her phone call. I never knew who she called, but within twenty-four hours of her arrest, all charges were dropped against the Dorthi Ki Seu staff, and the task force’s head detective was reassigned. Last I heard, he was manning an information substation on the pier.
     
    It’d been made clear to us that Scarlet had very powerful friends, friends who would move heaven and earth for her. Or at the very least, make her problems disappear. But I liked her. She was sweet and funny, not to mention in possession of a wicked sense of humor. And I admired the comfort she had in her own skin. I envied that. I’ve still not found it.
     
    I’d given her my card when she was released, asking her to call if she needed anything. She called casually, more to keep in touch and maybe pump me for information about what was going on in the world of vice and cops. Scarlet was always good for a laugh. I’d just not felt like laughing for a while.
     
    The soft music playing over the club’s speakers quieted, and the lights went up on the stage. It was nearly ten o’clock, time for Scarlet’s first show. My heart stopped for a brief second as a smoky tune rolled out of the piano on stage, and she stepped out from behind the stage curtains.
     
    She was as seductively gorgeous as I remembered her.
     
    I’d worked Vice long enough to spot a ladyboy, but Scarlet was a different level altogether. As she approached the box-style mic set at the corner of the stage, a spotlight followed her lithe body, and she smiled at the crowd. Even knowing how old she was, Scarlet was flawless, showing miles of café au lait skin, and her luminous black eyes were expertly rimmed with a dark kohl to emphasize their almond shape.
     
    Red sequins flashed under the lights, her slinky gown slit up past mid-thigh and down to her belly button. Her glossy black hair was up, very Audrey Hepburn, and studded with large diamonds near her right ear. She looked