Kobe, Bad Blood (Blood Roses Book 1)

by Danielle Norman

  Dante smirked as the sound of Kobe’s boots drew closer. “Allie,” I said.

  She froze as all eyes at the table were on her. She looked anxious, her dark eyes wide for a moment before she bent over to lower the glasses to the table, giving me a thrilling view of what lay just beneath her thin tank top.

  “Yes?” She slipped me my drink, her eyes locked onto mine.

  I quickly rose from my seat and held her gaze, hoping to communicate my desperation and the need for her to go along with whatever I said or did next. Those dark eyes peered into mine as she rose on her tiptoes to give me a quick peck before she lowered the tray to the table, and I knew that she got it.

  I stood in front of her and silently wrapped my arms around her, yanking her body against mine and fisted my fingers in her hair, pulling her head back.

  She gasped, and her eyes widened in surprise as we stood for a moment, staring at each other. The loud music died away as I leaned down and pressed my lips against hers. It was like someone set off fireworks within me, Kobe, her name filled my mouth and the realization that she was in my arms had my soul burning. She was food to this starving man.

  Her body melted against mine as her hands roamed over my shoulders, grabbing the collar of my shirt, pulling her even closer to me. Someone in the bar whistled, but it seemed a distant echo next to the roaring of my blood pounding in my ears.

  My words were raspy. “Sorry, I know you wanted her, but she—”

  She cut me off. “I’ve been waiting for that all day,” she purred, and I released her but still gazed into her dark brown colored eyes.

  “I missed you too,” I breathed, my voice slow and sincere.

  “Well, I guess that solves that then,” Dante said as he clapped his hand on the table. “Oh well, her loss.” His eyes lingered on the hem of her shorts.

  His eyes were on her, but they were burning me as I let my hand rest on Kobe’s ass in a possessive way that told everyone in the bar that she was mine.

  “Don’t forget”—I squeezed hard, grinding our hips together—“I’m picking you up after your shift.”

  “How could I forget?” she said, her eyes bright, and my pulse quickened as she rose on her toes and planted one final kiss on my lips before she grabbed the tray and sauntered away.

  “Well damn,” Dante said with a nod of approval, “I had a feeling that she’d be a spitfire.” A shiver ran through his body, and I tried not to think of what he was imagining.

  “As I said, sorry, but she is off limits.” I swallowed hard as she continued bringing drinks to other members.

  “Hey, when you’re done with her, she belongs to the gang, got me?” Dante asked, and I just nodded. His words bothered me on so many levels, not just the thought of him touching her but the fact that he said it like Kobe had no choice. Last I looked, she was a free woman with her own mind and body, she could decide who the fuck she wanted to be with. I said the last part, but I had to admit that I didn’t totally agree with it. No, Kobe couldn’t say because she was mine, she had always been mine, I just needed to prove to her that I was who she wanted.

  “Well, I’m gonna get out of here with these girls,’’ he said, clapping his hand back on the thigh of the woman beside him. He downed his drink and then stood. “All of that shit between you and your woman has me wanting to head home.” He took a cigarette from his chest pocket and slid it between his teeth. The woman pulled out a lighter and ignited the end.

  Spider, his loyal puppy, got up and followed after Dante.

  As soon as the door swung shut behind them, the atmosphere of the room changed. People sat a little more relaxed, breathed a little easier—all except for one. Kobe’s eyes followed Dante, and she watched him through the window until he had walked off. I continued to watch her throughout the remainder of her shift, cringing at the way men treated her, but I had to smile with pride at her quick comebacks.

  When it was nearing the end of her shift, I ran back to Dante’s and grabbed my bike so I could take her home. Leaving Sasha’s took another layer of stress off me, just as much as it did when Dante left the establishment.

  “You ready?” I asked as I leaned against the closed front door.

  “Yes,” she said with a sigh, and I glanced over her shoulder at Sasha, who was arguing with a man about his pathetic excuse for a tip.

  “Good, let’s get out of here.” When she neared, I wrapped a long arm around her shoulders and led her out of the bar toward my motorcycle. The golden light of the setting sun played off the bronze flecks in her brown eyes. “Here,” I said as I pulled the helmet from my handlebars and tossed it to her.

  She caught it with one hand and pulled the full face helmet over her head, and I grinned. “What?” she asked as she threw her leg over the back of my bike, and her shorts hiked up even higher over her thighs. She really shouldn’t be here, this was no place for her. She was so innocent, so beautiful. “What?” she asked again.

  “Nothing,” I replied then climbed on in front of her, hit the start, and rolled the throttle as the engine roared to life beneath us. “You ready?” Her answer was to wrap her arms tight around my waist and shift closer to me. My stomach tightened at the proximity.

  “Let’s go,” she said and pressed her thighs firmly around my hips.

  She gave me directions as we went, but I was silent, steaming about her being the mysterious Allie the guys had been talking about and about the fact that she would put herself in the path of the Coyotes.

  I needed to get her home safely, but all I could think about was that heat that was radiating from between her splayed legs. I sped down the busy streets, and the city flashed by us in a blur that I barely noticed. She drew closer, probably trying to use my body to block with wind whipping all around us.

  I didn’t want her to let go, and that surprised me—I knew that I was always protective of this girl, God, no that wasn’t right, she was a woman now, all woman, but something stronger was building inside of me.

  As we neared a red light, Kobe released her grip on me, and the night seemed to grow even colder. I willed the light to turn so she would lean into me again.

  “Thank you,” she said as I pulled in front of her apartment and took the nearest available spot. She slid off my bike, freeing her long dark hair from her helmet.

  I waited until she looked at me. “You’re welcome. But we got to talk.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked nonplussed. I dismounted and then wrapped an arm around Kobe’s waist in a possessive move. I walked next to her as she led me upstairs to her second floor apartment.

  “I know what you’re doing,” I informed her.

  Kobe slid her key into the door and walked into the dark living room. “And exactly, what do you think I’m doing?”

  “You...this whole trying to get close to the DT Coyotes because of Jared,” I said as she pulled off her tank and stood in front of me in a flimsy lace bralette. She tossed the shirt onto the overstuffed sofa. “It’s suicide. You need to stop, quit.” I shoved my hands into my pockets as I turned away from her and flicked on another light, my attention drawn to the far wall covered in photographs of her, Jared, and me. There was a photo of Jared and me getting our tattoos. There was another one of Kobe sitting on our shoulders, she had a leg on Jared’s shoulder and her other leg on my shoulder. She had a hand on each of our faces covering our eyes. I sighed at the memories. I would never forget that day. God, that photo had only been taken a few weeks before Jared died.

  “It’s not stupid,” she said. “It’s been years, and no one has found a goddamn thing. I know in my heart is was the Coyotes, Easton, which is why I can’t understand you being a member. Were you a member this whole time?”

  “No, of course not. But maybe you should leave things be and know that they will be brought to justice, I promise you that.”

  “Really? It’s been four years and the police have done nothing.”

  “Taking down organizations even as shoddily ran as Coyotes
takes time, years in fact. There is a lot of behind the scenes shit that needs to be done,” I said as she shoved past me to deadbolt her front door. “Starting with the fact that they need proof. They have to catch the gang members in action.”

  “Whatever,” she muttered, and turned to face me, her back against the door.

  “You should quit your job,” I said going back to my original topic of conversation.

  “Quit my job? Are you fucking crazy?” she shot back and tossed her long hair over her shoulder.

  “You’re crazy if you think hanging around Sasha’s is even a remotely good idea,” I said, and grit my teeth as she side stepped around me. I blocked her in the entryway.

  “Get out of my way,” she cautioned and stepped to the right. I blocked her again.

  “What do you think you’re going to get from being around the Coyotes? Are you expecting them to just randomly talk about the night they shot him? Because I’ve been hanging around them for years and not once has a single one of those guys so much as mentioned a shooting.”

  “That’s not my plan, but thanks for asking,” she fired back sarcastically. She rolled her eyes and brushed her hair away from her face.

  “Then what is your plan?” I used finger quotes when I said the word plan. Clearly, I had worked her up, and I saw her as her old teenage self, throwing a fit when her mom wouldn’t let her do something Jared and I were doing. I wanted to reach out and hug her or smile, but I knew she wouldn’t appreciate it.

  “I don’t think it matters so much as to who exactly pulled the trigger, they all work on Dante’s orders. I’ve only been at Sasha’s a short time and I know that.”

  “So, you’re going to take down Dante?” I asked. I wanted to reach forward and shake some sense into her, but she just shrugged her shoulders.

  I’m not the naive little girl I once was. I don’t need your protection or anyone else’s. I have a mission, and you’re not going to stop me from seeing it through.”

  “A mission?” I mocked. “Are we five?”

  “I’m going to take down the Coyotes, and if I have to take you down with them, then I’ll do it.”

  “Your mission, if anything, should be to stay alive. And messing with Dante isn’t the way to do that.” My voice was lower now.

  “Stop trying to tell me what to do!” she shouted.

  Kobe

  We stood nose-to-nose in my small living room. I was irritated with him, but at the same time, my lips were telling me they had muscle memory and remembered his lips on mine. I exhaled slowly as I attempted to regather my thoughts.

  “This is ridiculous,” I said, no longer trying to bypass him. It felt undignified to try to squeeze passed when every step I took he blocked. Part of me seriously wanted to show him my skill as an MMA fighter and try out my new move that I had been perfecting with Ridley, though something told me he could counter those just as well.

  “It’s not ridiculous. I’m trying to protect you.” His dark eyes blazed with frustration, and he moved closer to me, his leather boots falling heavy on the fake wood floors. “You don’t get it. I know these people better than you ever will. I know what they’re capable of.”

  “I don’t need you to protect me. I’ve been looking out for myself for the last four years,” I said as emotion welled up inside me. It was strange that it had been four years since I’d lost my brother and since my brother’s best friend had been accused of his murder. “Besides, you don’t have any right to tell me to stay away from them. Especially, when you’re over there playing buddy-buddy with the leader of the fucking Coyotes,” I shouted as anger surged within me.

  “I’m not playing buddy-buddy with anyone.” He glared, and I took a step forward, challenging him and closing the distance between us. The smell of smoke that was woven into the fibers of his hoodie filled my lungs.

  Under other circumstances, I might have appreciated the closeness off his body, and how it reminded me of that kiss in Sasha’s, the kiss I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about my entire shift. I narrowed my eyes at the flashback. “And what the hell was that?”

  “What the hell was what?” he asked somewhat taken aback by my sudden shift in topics.

  “That kiss,” I said and looked deliberately at his mouth, the taste of him still on my tongue, his name still lingering on my lips.

  “That was to protect you too,” he said, and I laughed.

  “Really?” I demanded and pressed a finger to his hard chest.

  “Yes, really,” he said. “If you knew what they have been saying you might show a little more appreciation.”

  My stomach leapt. “What were they saying?”

  “What the hell does it matter? The point is that I knew where it was headed, and I had to do something to protect you,” he said defensively.

  “Kissing me was your defense?” I asked, first filled with humiliation since the kiss was just a ploy to him. But now I felt frustration, since part of me had hoped that he’d done it because he actually liked me and now, I’m once again faced with the fact that to Easton, I was just a kid.

  “Yes, action,” he repeated, and I gripped his shirt hard and tugged his face inches down to send a message.

  “I don’t need anyone to protect me, or to take action,” I said pushing him back from me. His heart pounded, and I found myself pressing my hands even harder against his chest. There was this security in feeling Easton’s life in the palm of my hands. Unlike my brother, this man was alive, he was my last connection to Jared. “Please, Easton, what are you doing with the Coyotes?”

  He sighed, his breath uneven as his body responded to mine, and his eyes fixed on my mouth. “I need you to trust me, Kobe. For once in your life, do as you’re told.”

  “No.”

  His hands pressed firmly against my hips, and my back collided with the closed front door.

  “Easton—” I gasped, but my words were cut off by the force of his body pressed hard against mine, one hand sliding up my side to grip on to my neck and pull me closer. His lips slid across mine and then he was ravishing me, silencing me.

  My pulse throbbed beneath his fingers as my breath caught in my chest. If there had been any doubt about the kiss before, it was gone. I bit his lip, and he jerked back, wide eyed in shock, and pressed his finger to his lip.

  “Don’t be such a baby,” I whispered and then pushed him backward. I wanted to get him to the couch. He tripped over the coffee table and fell hard to the floor.

  “Kobe,” he exclaimed, and I chuckled as I unfastened the snap on my shorts and slowly pulled the zipper down.

  Whatever he was going to say, whatever protest he’d formed in his mind, died as his eyes followed my hands to my shorts. “You talk too much. You always have.”

  He opened his mouth to argue, and he closed it as I shimmied my shorts down my hips and let them fall to the floor.

  I smirked, enjoying the way his eyes roamed my body as I crouched next to him and then slid one leg over and straddled him. I ignored the sound of my uneven breaths as he ran his tongue along his lower lip and slid his hoodie up and over his head.

  “You’re beautiful, Kobe,” he said and grasped my hips, pulling my body against his growing erection, and then lifted my bra up and off me, tossing it to the floor. He pulled my body forward and fixed his mouth onto my breast.

  I cried out in pleasure at the warmth of his lips on my skin, and my eyes rolled back as the last hold on reality slipped from me. He groaned as I grabbed his hair at the back of his neck and offered more of myself.

  “I want you, Easton,” I said and squeezed my legs tighter at his sides. “I’ve always wanted you.”

  The floor creaked beneath us as Easton lifted me and we collapsed onto the soft sofa. His hands roamed greedily over my body. His tongue teased mine, and I was filled with a flavor that could only be Easton.

  “Let me.” He smiled as he tugged my panties down my hips and dropped to them to the floor.

  I lay naked beneath
him, desperate for his touch, and grasped his shirt, pulling it over his head. My hands roamed over smooth skin and hard muscles. He had more scars than I remembered, and I had enough time to wonder if they were all from gang interactions while he unzipped his jeans and freed himself. Holy fuck, the man went commando.

  I had fantasized about this moment a hundred times since puberty, and my knees trembled with anticipation. His brown eyes watched me as he pressed himself against my opening, and he slid in, shuddering as I closed around him.

  He paused, holding himself up. “Fuck, a condom.” The mere words were torture to him, and I could see the pain at just thinking we needed to stop was causing him. “I don’t have any. I haven’t been with a woman in a long time.”

  For some strange reason, I wanted to know how long. Sure, I should be thinking about how amazing he felt but my mind was in a full nosey-jealousy mode. “How long?”

  “Umm. I mean, I’ve had...well, I’ve, umm.”

  “Just tell me,” I demanded.

  “Years. Four, since just before…” He didn’t have to say the words, I knew what he meant, since before Jared had died.

  I tightened around him, and he groaned. “I’m on the pill.”

  Wrapping an arm underneath me, he tangled his fingers in my hair and arched his chest up and away from me. He glanced down and watched himself as he moved in and out of my body.

  “Faster,” I begged and grasped his hips, urging him on harder. His pace quickened, and the loud smack of skin against skin filled the room.

  I’d been with other men before, but no one had filled me with such desire as Easton. Pulling his body closer to me, I ran my tongue along his throat, and enjoyed the flavors of salt and man.

  “Kobe,” he murmured in my ear as pleasure rippled through my body and his fingers intwined with mine.