“You little bitch,” he shouted.
But, I couldn’t enjoy his pain because a sharp kick landed on my ribs, making my vision blur. Dante’s angry hands grasped my throat, and I fell backward, my head bouncing off the concrete, sending stars circling above my head.
I saw it, the large fist coming toward me. My years of training kicked in and despite the pain, I rolled to my side and felt a small amount of satisfaction when I heard Spider’s fist connect with the black asphalt.
I didn’t have time to react before another fist landed against me, this one hitting me in the soft tissue above my kidneys. Pain ricocheted around me. Another hit landed on the back of my head and forced my head to skid along the pavement and my teeth digging into my tongue.
“No,” Easton yelled, his voice distant as another blow landed, and then the world was still. Crow was there, holding the gun toward me. I stared up into the barrel as my mouth filled with the bitter taste of my own blood.
I couldn’t fight anymore, my last slow breaths wheezed in and out of my battered body. I closed my eyes and a single tear trickled down my cheek. I’d failed, but at least Getty would have enough surveillance for a murder charge.
The sound gunshots filled the air, and I sucked in my last breath, braced for pain. My eyes flew open as Dante’s body collapsed on top of mine, crushing me under the dead weight. Another shot fired and fluid sprayed all over me at Crow’s head exploded and bits of sinewy brain matter splattered around the once all black pavement.
“Kobe,” Easton choked out as he grasped the back of Dante’s black hoodie and lifted him off me. Dante’s eyes were wide, vacant. “Kobe, babe, are you okay?” Easton tossed Dante’s body to side and scooped me into his arms.
I glanced down to the gun Easton still held as the sound of feet running got louder.
“Is she okay?” Ridley asked. Her arms were pulled behind her as Captain Getty moved in to stand next to me.
“Ridley? I spat a mouthful of blood onto the ground beside me. “What are you doing here?”
“You didn’t think I’d let you run off alone and have all the fun?” she scoffed and came to my side. “I knew you would probably be okay, but I wasn’t going to let that asshole hurt you or kill a cop.” She nodded at Easton.
“How did you know?”
“Come on, seriously? The guy screams goody two shoes. I can spot that crap from a mile away.” She rolled her eyes at me.
“Shit, Spider? Where is he?”
“Don’t worry, he’s been apprehended,” Captain Getty assured me.
“Who shot who?” I asked looking between the three of them.
“I saw Ridley, and she signaled for me to take out Dante and she would get Crow.”
“If only you would have waited five more seconds then I could avoid the extra ten pages of paperwork that I already have to fill out,” Captain Getty stated. He must have seen the look of confusion on my face because he explained. “Easton’s kill was in the line of duty but your friend here, she shot someone. There’s still a homicide.”
My heart sank at his words. Was Ridley going to be charged with murder.
He continued talking, “Calm down, she’s not under arrest, the shooting was justified but I still need to take your gun.” Captain Getty pulled a plastic bag out of his pocket. “It’s only for a limited time, you’ll get it back.”
“I totally trust you, sir,” Ridley spoke with such confidence. “I’m Harley Scott’s cousin. She’s still fairly new.”
Flashing lights and sirens raced across the parking lot and their loud blaring noise silenced us.
I tried to stay focused but was having a hard time, my head was getting fuzzy. Paramedics were here, yeah. It was all okay. I closed my eyes.
Easton
I loved the way her body felt against mine, especially while we snuggled on the couch and the vibrant sound of her laughter filled the room. Her face was still bruised, but the first shades of bright red and purple were fading to a more putrid greenish yellow.
“You know, Kobe, I don’t think I’ve seen you this happy in a long time,” I said as she rested her head on my shoulder and the scent of lavender shampoo filled my lungs.
“That’s because I haven’t been,” she said as she ran her hand up and down my thigh, sending ripples of desire through me. “My life had been so dark. Every day, I woke up, obsessed with the DT Coyotes. It was all I could think about, and when I went to bed at night, it was what I dreamed of. I have wanted this day for so long that it doesn’t feel real. It’s like I am in some kind of dream, and part of me worries that I’m going to wake up and be back in my shitty apartment, running late for my shift at Sasha’s.”
“You’re not dreaming,” I said as I took her warm hand in mine. “And I’m glad I’ll never see you in another bar like Sasha’s.”
Captain Getty had everything organized, while he came to where Kobe and I had been with Dante, he had sent other deputies to seize Sasha’s and Dante’s house. In one smooth night all of the DT Coyotes including their hang-arounds like Missy were arrested and taken into custody.
“I hated the way they stared at your ass all day. It was only a matter of time before I lost my cool and put a fist through Spider or one of them.”
A laugh bubbled from Kobe’s healing lips. “Who said I was done with bars? Maybe I’ll get a job at a biker bar this time, I’ve been thinking of buying a motorcycle. Ridley and I have been talking about finding some other ladies who ride and go out together.
“You owning a motorcycle?” I liked the vision of her sailing down the highway, wind in her hair. Something about a strong woman riding a powerful motor turned me on.
“Yep, and you’ll come with me. We can ride together.” Kobe rose from the sofa, wine glass in one hand. She moved slowly, her steps lazy as she crossed to the stereo system and changed the song to something slower and more romantic. The song “Pray for You” by Jhené Aiko carried across the room.
“Other than buying a motorcycle, what else will you do?” I asked and drank from the bottle of beer in my hand.
“I’m going to be a tattoo artist,” she said, and swayed to the pulsing music.
“You told me that, anything else?”
“Nope, not right now. I’ve been practicing my art skills.”
I raised a brow hoping that she would tell me more.
“Yep.” Kobe stepped across the pale pine floors to sit in front of me. “In fact, that’s one of my pieces over there.” She gestured to a watercolor of red roses in a white vase.
“That’s beautiful,” I said as my eyes scanned the other paintings. “Did you do the others too?”
“No, Ridley painted them. She’s really into flowers and birds.” Kobe nodded toward the wall of orchids in varying sizes.
“She’s talented. Will you go to a tattoo school or is she going to apprentice you?” I tried to remember if I had ever even heard of a program that taught tattoo artistry.
“It isn’t something you go to school for, you just need someone to mentor you. I can go to school for an art degree but that doesn’t make sense to me since the only media I want to work on is skin. I do have to take a blood-borne pathogen class though. Then I can get my license. Where she works, it’s a pretty cool setup.”
“Huh, sounds like it,” I said and watched her toes slide up the leg of the coffee table and rest on top. “So, you’re going to work where she is?”
Kobe shook her head. “Nope.” She finished off her glass of wine. “We are definitely going to open a shop. We got the name picked out and already have the website domain.”
“Are you going to tell me?”
Kobe bit her lower lip and gave me a crooked smile. “Kinky, we are going to capitalize the letters I-N-K in the middle of the word to emphasize we do ink.”
“Sounds like you,” I mused.
She grinned as her fingers traced along my knuckles.
“Kinky? That’s an interesting choice.” I paused, searching for the words.
“You’ll definitely attract an interesting clientele.”
“I’m counting on it,” she said, beaming up at me before she closed her eyes and reclined between my splayed legs. “Will you be my first client?” she asked, her voice hopeful.
“Of course, you can do anything you want to me.”
“Okay, enough talking about me, what about you? What are you going to do?”
I had been waiting for this to come up. My job was going undercover. Sure, I had been given some time off after the last case closed but any day now, I would be alerted to my new job.
I took her hand in mine, pressing a kiss against the soft skin of her wrist. “I’ll go back to doing what I do.”
“Pretending to be part of a gang to take down a murdering drug lord?” Kobe smirked.
“More or less,” I agreed. “I will get another case though. Then I’ll go undercover.”
“That sounds exciting to me. It’s like being a spy in a James Bond movie.”
“Yeah, it was thrilling when I first started,” I said as I moved my arms away from her and reached for my beer. “I felt like a total badass. I shook hands with some scary people, I’ve worked with a cartel and was part of a multiagency operation that worked to take down a company that had mafia connections. They smuggled in seventy-two kilograms of narcotics on a weekly basis. We arrested sixty-five of the seventy men who were involved.”
“Is seventy-two a lot?”
I smiled at her innocence. “It’s more than you weigh, and it was all being brought into a small Georgia town so yes, that was a lot.”
“Jesus, I had no idea.” Her lips parted in surprise and all I wanted to do was kiss her. “What happened to the other men, the five from that seventy who got away?”
“Two were found dead, and the other three fled. We have reason to believe they went to family in Cuba and won’t be coming back here for a while.” I finished my beer and lowered the bottle to the table.
“I wish you would have told me that you were an agent and that I didn’t have to find out the way I did.”
“I know, and I wanted to tell you, but I couldn’t. If I’d said anything, it would have compromised the entire operation and put you at risk.”
“I suppose that’s true,” she said and rested her chin on my knees. “It sounds like you’ve been doing this for a while. You must have all kinds of stories—you should tell me more.”
“Some day.” I looked into her big bright eyes. “And as fun as this lifestyle is, I’m not excited for the next case.”
“Why not?” A frown line creased between her sculpted brows.
“Because, it means that I’ll be seeing less of you,” I explained, my heart heavy in my chest. “I was undercover with the Coyotes for almost four years. The interagency operation had me undercover for a year before that. I don’t know how long the next one will be or how often I would be able to call you.” I exhaled sharply, fighting the pain in my chest. “Our dates would be few and far between.”
“How long have you been doing this?”
“Six years. My first year was as a plain clothes agent. I came in once the cover was blown. Now though, I’ve been undercover for what feels like forever.”
Kobe turned on her knees and then knelt back resting on her legs. “We can get through anything. Look, it’s been seven years and I still have a crush on you.”
“You’ll see me less.”
“That’s okay.”
I quirked a brow. I wasn’t sure whether to be offended or pleased by her words.
Kobe laughed. “No, that’s not what I meant. Of course, I would love to see you more, but I’m also okay with taking it slow. I’ll wait for you as long as it takes.” Kobe reached forward and rubbed her fingers down my thighs. “I have had a lot of drastic changes recently, and I’m going to need time to figure out who I am when I’m not driven by revenge. That could take some time for me. So, if you can be patient with me then I can be patient with you.”
“I guess that’s true.” I leaned forward and inhaled the sweet scent of Moscato on her breath.
“What I’m trying to tell you is that I’m okay with taking things one day at a time and enjoying the moment until we can find our footing again. We can go slow,” Kobe said and took my face in her hands, pressing a gentle kiss to my nose.
“Really slow?” I asked as I searched her face for signs of truth.
“Even if I go three months without a date, we can make it work.” She lowered her hands to my chest. “Besides, the DEA must have some way for the agents to keep in contact with their families—it’s not like you’re in the witness protection program.”
“They do,” I said, touched by her acceptance. “We might be able to have Skype dates or something.”
“And phone sex.” She licked her lips. “They probably give you special phones for personal calls.”
“I’ve never bothered to ask, but I will. Though, I don’t know how good I’ll be at dirty talk.” My heart skipped a beat at the mere thought of Kobe masturbating on the phone with me. “I promise, I’ll ask tomorrow. Top priority.” I crossed my heart with an index finger.
“Do that, but in the meantime, there is one area of our lives that we don’t have to go as slow with.” She gave me a wicked grin and slid her hand along my inner thigh, her nails grazing against the denim.
“Oh?” I asked, breathless as she slowly stroked, trailing ever closer to my crotch. “What about Ridley?” I nodded toward the front door.
“Sorry, I have a strict no three-way policy, especially with my best friend.” Kobe laughed as she ran her fingers over the outline of my hard cock.
“That’s not what I meant.” My pulse picked up speed at the sound of my zipper sliding down. “What if she comes home and finds us on the couch.”
“She’ll be gone for hours. Her cousin is meeting her at the station because so she can get her gun back and then they’re going out. You know cops, they like to talk about work shit and so I’m assuming she won’t get out of the station for hours.
Kobe slid her hands over the opening of my jeans, tugged, and licked her lips as my hard cock sprang free. She lifted the hem of my shirt, then lowered her mouth, and flicked her tongue along my hard erection.
“I guess that’s true,” I panted as she slid her mouth down and ran her tongue under the head of my cock.
Kobe leaned up, my cock making a soft popping sound as it freed from her mouth. She nodded. Hell, I had no clue what she was nodding at, did I say something? Was she agreeing with me?
But I couldn’t think on that anymore, she lowered her mouth and ran her tongue over the tip, sending pleasure rippling through my body. I groaned, tangling my fingers in her hair as her head bobbed up and down in a frenzied motion that left my knees feeling weak. When her eyes met mine, they were bright with lust, and I gasped at the suction sound her mouth made as it slid down my cock.
“I want you, Easton,” she panted and rose above me, the low light of the lamp casting shadows across her stunning face.
My fingers itched to pull her against me, to bury myself within her as she slid off her shorts and mounted me.
“I’m yours,” I said and leaned back, surrendering as her warm body closed around me.
Kobe
I stood in the soft glow of the kitchen window as warm laughter erupted around me. My girls sat wide eyed and riveted by the story of how my life fell back into place, getting Jared’s killer, connecting and forming a strong friendship with Ridley, and how Easton and I reconnected after so many years.
“You could seriously sell your story to some erotic movie studio. You and Easton were hot,” Sage said.
“We still are,” I argued back.
“At least turn your story into a Lifetime movie or something,” India added.
I laughed. “I mean, that would be cool, and we’ve definitely lived exciting lives, but I think I’ll save it for my biography in forty years.”
Ridley scooted her chair closer to the table
and grabbed one of the apples from the basket. “In all seriousness, though, it was a crazy time. God, I can’t believe that it’s been seven years already.”
I nodded, admiring the way the evening sun crept through the window and filtered through our drinks.
“I think as a group, we have a lot of powerful stories,” I said and rose from my chair to wrap my arms around Ridley’s neck, hugging her close. “You should tell yours next.”
“Maybe,” Ridley said and squeezed my arm.
A soft knock against glass interrupted us.
“What the hell? Who would be knocking on a Wednesday night, everyone knows we are closed.” Ridley stood and moved to the door. She moved the curtains and then smiled. “It’s for you, Kobe.”
“Easton,” I exclaimed. “I didn’t know you were coming.”
“You surprised?”
“Yeah.” I was more than surprised, I was shocked.
He stepped forward and wrapped a strong arm around my waist to pull me against his hard body, fixing his mouth on mine for a needy kiss.
My lips parted as I breathed him in and he pulled us against the wall. I was desperate to have him close.
“Is everything okay?” I asked him, totally forgetting about the other girls just behind us.
“God, you’re so beautiful.” I took a step back and then his eyes scanned me from head to toe. “I’ve missed you.”
Something about his actions, his words, scared me. “I missed you too but you’re worrying me.” He pressed his mouth back to mine. Our bodies melded together as his hand cupped the back of my neck. “I love—” He paused and opened his eyes at the stifled giggles behind me.
“Ignore them,” I said and rose for another kiss. His hand held me back as he looked toward the back door.
“Shit. It’s Wednesday. I forgot. Are you busy?” His eyes were pleading as he met mine.
“No. All done. I’m yours.”
“Yes, you are.” He sighed. Then he leaned back and gave a wave to Ridley and the other girls. “Sorry to interrupt.”
“Go right ahead,” Ridley offered him.
Kobe, Bad Blood (Blood Roses Book 1) Page 12