Odin (Billionaire Titans Book 2)

by Alison Ryan

  “He has a daughter?” Raven asked.

  “Apparently,” Atlas answered. “She was with Nolan Weston. They left a body behind in a hotel room. Remember Nicholas?”

  Nathaniel nodded grimly.

  “He was found in a hotel room. KIA. Weston and Hunt’s daughter apparently one step ahead of local law enforcement. They’ve disappeared now, as well. Hopefully somewhere safe. Somebody tried to blow up Annalise Rubidoux in Athens.”

  Raven interjected. “Annalise Rubi-whoa.”

  Atlas and Nathaniel glared at her.

  “What? We spent a few days together in London last year. Are you telling me she’s not gorgeous?”

  Annalise had been part of Joint Task Force 2, Canada’s most elite special ops team. She was from a remote corner of Quebec, a covert operative who I’d met only once; Atlas had worked with her several times. Together they’d trained in Sytsema in Russia, a brutal martial art that teaches practitioners to ignore pain and inflict maximum damage. She was a chameleon, a master of disguise. Atlas in a dress, if Atlas was 5’10 and could double as a model. If she’d been gotten to, nobody was safe.

  Atlas continued. “Settle down, Raven. She’s in a hospital bed in Athens. They’ve been pulling shrapnel out of her for a few days now. Expected to survive, but who knows? The point is, there’s a hunt happening and its time we, and I mean collectively, our family, our extended family,” nods to Raven and Nathaniel, “and our team went on the offensive.”

  I blinked and left my eyes closed a few seconds so my agreement wouldn’t go unnoticed.

  Nathaniel spoke up. “I have a good contact in Ottawa, a Mountie. I have him looking into Achilles. If anything emerges, we’ll know about it.”

  Atlas nodded. “You work that angle. And double check everything we have here. It’s been too quiet. Raven, see if you can locate Tony Perrino, he’s the guy who shot Odin. Coordinate with Nathaniel. Reach out, safely, to QB. We need intel. I’m tired of waiting for the other shoe to drop. Or our next friend to be killed.”

  17

  Clara

  Piper was fine, although the baby she was carrying was just about ready to make her debut.

  Raven told me Odin seemed eager to try his new toys, so I went back down to his room, to find it once again quiet and empty. His warm eyes immediately met mine when I stepped in front of him, and I feared I might be blushing. I had no idea so much could be communicated with eyes alone.

  I picked up the devices Raven had brought and I held them up. Odin blinked once.

  I sat down in the chair next to him and took his hand in both of mine, gently massaging it from the center out to the fingertips. When I finished, I instructed him to squeeze as hard as he could.

  He surprised me with his strength.

  “Wow, I think you’re definitely ready to try this,” I propped his arm up on pillows so he’d be able to see the keypad as he typed. I held the iPad-sized gizmo up for him and he began to tap the keys slowly.

  After several minutes, the robotic voice rang out and I nearly fell out of my chair.

  “I have been awake the whole time.”

  The look I gave him must have hidden none of my bewilderment.

  “You have? What do you mean?” I asked.

  After a few more agonizing minutes, he pressed the “sentence” button and the broadcast commenced.

  “My mind only slept when I slept I could hear everything I was awake just could not move.”

  I was stunned. Coma patients were nowhere near my area of expertise, but I had done some light reading on the subject.

  I recalled a story about a man who’d been beaten while a college student and that during his time in a coma how his mind had gone on as if nothing had happened. In his brain, he graduated school, started a career, met the girl of his dreams, got married, and had kids. That life was as real as anything that had happened to him in the physical world. Over a decade of that life transpired while he was in his coma. Then one day he woke up.

  I wrestled with that story for several sleepless nights. His entire life, the only life he knew, was a fiction. Gone in the literal blink of an eye. A wife and children who never existed, who he could never ever visit again, hear, touch, or see. He was suicidal. He’d have given anything to be back in that coma. He’d never been happier. But it was all just a puff of smoke.

  I lay awake at night wondering if maybe the happiness I had was just someone’s catatonic dream. Medical school, Abner, Callum, all of it. And then, when Callum was murdered, I wished it had been.

  But to be awake and alert, although unable to move or communicate in any way, even for a few weeks? I was blown away. I couldn’t conceive of being trapped in such a prison. I flipped through my time with Odin, hoping I hadn’t said or done anything too embarrassing. I’d read to him. Sung to him. Told him about Callum… suddenly his tears made sense. They were no accident; no coincidence.

  “Oh my God, Odin, I don’t know what to say, I can’t imagine… “

  He began typing furiously.

  “I am so sorry about your husband I know about Mallory I can never say I thank you enough.”

  He had so much to say that he didn’t want to bother with individual sentences. It was gushing out of him.

  I wiped a tear from my cheek. “I should go get your brother, Odin. This is amazing.”

  “No.” He quickly typed. “I want to spend time with just you.”

  I laughed. “Okay. You have my undivided attention.” This was one of the strangest conversations I’d ever had, but I never wanted it to end. “Let me ask you a question, though. Generally speaking how do you feel?”

  “Sore throat,” he typed, not surprising due to his feeding tube. “I feel pretty good very stiff all over.”

  I nodded. “We’ll start physical therapy as soon as you’re ready. Mostly massages at first to stimulate blood flow and get your muscles moving a bit. And hopefully your facial muscles and jaw will start working again and I can remove the feeding tube.”

  Just after giving Odin a shave every few days, giving him sponge baths was something I looked forward to. He was a lean, rippling specimen of a man, and giving him body massages sounded quite pleasant.

  “You saved my life.” The metallic voice spoke for Odin. “Not just at the hospital every day since too.”

  I put the back of my hand on his cheek and smiled. “I’ve just been doing my job. I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to see you pull through.”

  “You are an angel,” Odin typed. I was definitely blushing.

  “I’m no angel. Just a doctor. Your brother, your family, Raven, they all deserve at least as much credit as I do,” I said.

  Odin rolled his eyes. And for the first time, the faintest hint of a smile turned the corners of his mouth.

  “I am so tired is it ok if I sleep?” he asked.

  “Yes, of course, you must be exhausted. I’ll dim the lights and tuck you in.”

  I stayed until he was softly snoring to leave and search out Odin and Raven and tell them what Odin had told me.

  “Shit. I probably said some pretty sappy stuff to him. Can’t wait to see how he holds it over me later,” Atlas answered.

  “Oh no,” Raven faux-gasped and clutched at her imaginary pearly. “You might have even told him you loved him! How will you ever live it down?”

  “He tells me that all the time,” Piper called out from the next room. “The baby, too.”

  Raven laughed. “My, my, my. Atlas Titan, the family man. What’s this world coming to? Next thing you know, Odin will settle down with one girl.”

  While they laughed, I smirked, hopeful. Odin Titan settling down with one girl sounded damn good to me.

  18

  Odin

  I annoyed everyone over the next few days. Everyone except Clara. She always seemed to have time for me.

  But my mind was racing, and I finally had a way to communicate. I had a lot to say.

  Intel was starting to come in, although only in dr
ips and drops. Achilles was still unaccounted for. His bodyguard Mitch’s autopsy said he died of stab wounds. From what I knew of him and how Atlas described him, Mitch wasn’t the type to succumb to a common street thug. It would have taken a pro to kill Mitch that way.

  QB hadn’t responded to anything Raven had sent him, so that appeared to be a dead end. Our father and Canaan were safe. Piper was due any day, and for the first time in my life, Atlas actually seemed nervous.

  Clara had worked closely with me, helping to wake up muscles and joints that had been asleep for weeks. The damn feeding tube had finally come out, and I was able to eat, although only soft things like broth and applesauce. Clara hoped that moving my jaw and swallowing would prompt my voice to return.

  I had use of both hands, although not the strength to keep them raised for long. I could wiggle my toes and move my feet at the ankle.

  Everyone was in other parts of the house and things were quiet, so Clara collected her things and prepared to shave my face. She said I was “starting to look like a mountain man,” although in truth I only had a light coating of stubble.

  She started with a hot washcloth all over my face, and then she gently applied shaving cream, patting it on from my cheekbones down my face and around my throat. Her touch, like this, with her face so close, and her scent so clear, made part of my body awaken that had thus far lain dormant.

  At first, it was just a twitch. It came out of nowhere, when I happened to catch Clara’s eye. We held the contact for just the span of a single heartbeat, but we both smiled. Or what passed for a smile for me. Mine was a bit lopsided. Clara had shown me my face in a mirror the previous afternoon and I’d been appalled. I looked gaunt and pale, and when I went through my range of facial expressions, my smile looked crooked. If I’d hoped Mallory might return, I knew that one look at the new me would send her scurrying for the nearest casino executive or hotshot attorney.

  Not that I had any desire for her to return.

  I’d fallen hard for Clara.

  The picture I’d painted in my mind of her paled next to the genuine article. Her beauty was so clean, so natural that I couldn’t stop staring at her. Of course, when I did it, it wasn’t creepy; it wasn’t like I could look anywhere other than the direction my face was pointed. And if it was toward Clara, all the better.

  The way her hips swayed when she walked, and little things like the way she’d bite her bottom lip or even fix her pony tail were adorable and made my heart jump in my chest every time I saw them. How I longed to be something other than her patient; something besides a pitiful cripple in a hospital bed. As much as I wanted to heal, I feared that getting better too quickly would mean our time together would be over.

  After lathering me, she started slowly dragging the razor down my face. And what had been just a twitch was unmistakable. I was starting to get an erection.

  I was wearing pajama pants, and the sheets were off my bed. I had no way to hide it if it sprang completely to life. Nothing with which to conceal my arousal. And the more I thought about it, and the more I inhaled her fragrance and felt her breath on me, the more impossible it was to fight it.

  My eyes wandered, coming to rest on Clara’s throat. It looked so soft, so inviting, so kissable. Which did nothing to help my predicament. I glanced down to my lap for a moment, and it was obvious. Clara was focused on the task of making me look respectable, but I feared if Nathaniel, or Piper, or Titan were to walk in, the first thing they’d see would be the tent in my pants. I had to do something. I typed on my keypad, something at which I’d become quite proficient.

  “I am really sorry and embarrassed.”

  Clara stopped and rinsed the razor in her bowl, cocking her head inquisitively.

  “Can you cover me up please? I seem to have a problem.”

  Clara glanced down and her eyes widened.

  “Oh. Oh my, yes, of course.”

  She was flustered. And as adorable as a kitten.

  She reached for a blanket, folding it across my legs and then pulling it up past my waist.

  “My first one. Mortified.” I typed.

  “I rather doubt it’s your first one,” Clara laughed, returning to the shave. “But your secret is safe with me.”

  “I feel like a teenager,” my computer voice said for me.

  “I think it’s probably natural,” Clara replied. “Different parts of you are waking up. I just hope it isn’t painful with the catheter in, is it?”

  “Not painful exactly but it feels strange. Pressure more than pain,” I answered.

  She took the towel and cleaned my face, wiping away the remnants of shaving cream.

  “How’s that?” she asked, her fingertips running along my jawline to check her work.

  “Feels great but you touching me is only going to make my other problem worse.”

  Flirting via a robotic proxy was extremely awkward. She laughed it off and cleaned up a spot near my left ear before walking over to the sink to dump the water and clean the razor. Watching the hypnotic way her hips moved as she walked definitely wasn’t helping me get rid of my erection.

  19

  Clara

  Atlas and Nathaniel came down to brief Odin on something shortly after I finished cleaning up, so I retired to my former room for a while since Raven was working out. Before leaving, I glanced down to make sure the blanket I’d placed strategically across his lap was still serving its intended purpose. It was.

  When Odin told me about his “problem,” I thought I might faint. It had been years since I’d been that close to an erect penis, at least one that wasn’t chemically-induced. I’d had a handful of middle-aged men in my ER suffering from priapism after overdoing it with little blue pills.

  But this was different. This was a guy I was more than a little attracted to, and pharmaceuticals had nothing to do with his arousal. Part of me wanted to believe that maybe I even had a little something to do with it, but that was silly. This was Odin Titan.

  I’d always assumed I had somehow tricked Callum into falling in love with me. I mean, I never had a shortage of male suitors, but Callum O’Gradys and Odin Titans didn’t fall for Clara Martins. Plain Jane isn’t what attracted men like those. But Plain Jane is definitely what I saw when I looked in the mirror.

  I started a shower, and as I let the water warm up and I removed my clothing, I kept thinking of Odin. Of Odin and that thick bulge that was threatening to spring free from his pajama pants at any moment.

  Steam escaped over and around the shower curtain, signaling me that the water was plenty hot, and I got in, letting it cascade down over my curves, taking the scenic route to the drain.

  I took a loofah in hand and let it glide across my body, spreading soap suds everywhere it went. I put a bent arm against the wall, leaning my forehead against it as my free hand dipped between my legs, finding wetness that came less from the showerhead than from my proximity to an aroused Odin Titan.

  My fingers gently parted my labia, dipping briefly inside and then stroking upward toward my needy clit. I gasped when I touched it, just barely grazing it before moving up a hair more and pressing down, making tight circles just above that throbbing little nuisance that had been demanding so much of my attention as of late.

  I fantasized about Odin pulling back the curtain and sliding in behind me, that marvelous erection bobbing majestically in front of him. He’d step behind me, turning his hands around so that just his knuckles slowly grazed down my back, out on the outsides where the skin is most sensitive, and I’d stiffen under his ministrations.

  When his hands finally reached my hips, he turned them over and let his palms slide back up to my shoulders, where he kneaded them firmly, all my stress instantly dissolving away. He’d lean in to kiss my back, right up between the shoulder blades, while his rampant cock would press between the cheeks of my ass, making me whimper.

  I rubbed myself harder and faster imagining the invasion, that throbbing weapon so close to my most defenseless ope
ning, the soapy lubrication making him slide so deep, so close, without even trying, that I feared he’d just continue and go all the way to the hilt, splitting me open. But did I fear it or crave it?

  My hand was a blur and my moans would have been obvious to anyone in the yard, even over the sound of the shower.

  I pictured him taking the root of his cock in his hand, guiding it lower as he used his knee to nudge my legs apart. In my mind, he entered me like that, squatting down slightly to get just the right angle and then straightening up, letting my body deal with the strain of his cock trying to point to the ceiling right through my body.

  His hands would take hold of my hips, his mouth just behind my ear, breath ragged as he grunted through his exertions. Pinning me to the wall, my breasts mashed against the unforgiving tile, moaning and squealing like a whore.

  And loving every second of it.

  The orgasm swept through me, and I bit down hard on my forearm to keep from crying out.

  As I became too sensitive to keep rubbing, I clawed at my breasts and my thighs, writhing under the scalding hot water as my desire crested again and again.

  In my fantasy, Odin turned me around, kissing me hard as he lifted me off the ground, my legs instinctively wrapping around his waist and my arms behind his neck. And he fucked me, just like that, his sinewy frame standing tall, supporting my weight effortlessly, impaled on his thick erection.

  I staggered out of the shower, thighs trembling with aftershocks.

  Odin was awake and gaining strength every day. I recalled driving home from my attorney’s office that afternoon Atlas first approached me, and thinking how amazing it would be to have him wake up and send me back to my regular life with a pile of money in the bank and endless opportunity ahead of me. Now, however, all I could think about was Odin, and the thought of ever leaving him crushed me. If I had to hand Atlas back the keys to the safe deposit boxes, but it meant I’d stay with Odin once he was back on his feet, I couldn’t say no.