My hair, he claimed, inspired him to enjoy me in new ways. He went on to describe some of those ways in simple detail, lowering his voice to a grumbly whisper when anybody came near. I gave him warning glances and even smiled as though amused, but he kept on quite seriously.
I found myself shifting in my seat as he described how they might position my legs. How they might restrain my arms. What my breasts would look like when my arms were totally bound together at my back.
I felt as though his words were winding invisible tendrils around my thighs and my arms, pinning me to my seat, touching me under my clothes.
Desire pooled in my gut.
The man was a little bit wild, but he understood his own power. And so did I. And I reveled in it.
He said, “I won’t, however, tell you some other things we might do, because with certain activities you just have to be there, don’t you think? Some activities that seem unpleasant in the telling can be quite enjoyable in the doing. Wasn’t that your experience?”
“I suppose.”
“You suppose,” Thor grated out.
Three men entered the sunny porch dining area and sat down two tables away. He positioned his mirrored glasses back over his eyes, concealing his gaze, all the better to monitor them.
“I know how you enjoy being told things ahead of time,” he added, “but some things are best without warning.”
Gulp.
He went back onto the subject of my hair. Which would be so mussed.
Well, I didn’t love the idea of getting it mussed; the stylist had gotten it to look so wonderfully Meg Ryan. But honestly, I couldn’t wait.
Back at the haute bath and bedroom store we paid the woman in hundreds. I acted excited about my new comforter. “Is there a way to send a message along with my order?” I asked. I assume it’s custom made.” I’d discussed this move with the guys. I’d assured them that my sister Vanessa handled the orders, and that she was a bright, devious twenty-three year old woman who would understand the message and not take it to the cops. And even if she did, we’d be long gone from the store.
“They don’t take special requests,” she said.
“I just want to say something fun to them. To the artisans who make it.” I happened to know there was a space where you could write a message, considering I’d built the site myself. “Can’t you pass along a message? I buy many fine things from artisans, and I feel that if they know you are human and appreciative of their craft, they do an extra good job. Surely for twenty-two thousand—”
She held up a hand. “Of course. I don’t see why I can’t include a message with the order. What do you want to say?” She snapped the cash drawer shut.
“The customer ordering this wants you to know she’s excited for her organic comforter, and—”
“Hold on, hold on,” the woman said. She turned the monitor and started typing.
I repeated, “The customer ordering this wants you to know she’s excited for her organic comforter, and maybe someday Paris Hilton will buy one for each room in her house, plus one for her dog, but in the meantime, it’s going to a good home. A very happy home.”
The woman gave me a too-long stare when I was done. “Well, that’s a sweet message.” She took down my number and gave me her card.
I went out of there feeling lighter. Happier. My sister would know it was me.
We waited at the appointed corner.
Zeus and Odin pulled up in a mini van, rocking out—in terms of music and clothes, all black boots and plaid shirts, looking altogether less respectable than Thor and me. We got into the back seat.
Odin turned, watched me levelly. He liked the sundress and my hair, I could tell. The sundress was blood red, and laced up the front in a crisscross way, like tall boots. With that and my new bright crown of platinum, I felt as though I’d fully transformed into Isis. Zeus, of course, had merely flicked his eyes at me as I’d gotten in, then fixed his frowning attention back on the road as he pulled out, all stern and bullish.
“Gods driving a mini van,” I said. “What has the world come to?”
“Are you mocking the gods of bank robbery?” Odin asked me. “Could it be that I am hearing you mocking us?”
I tipped my head, the slightest indication of a shrug. Yes, I was mocking them.
Odin shook his head sadly. “Oh, dear.”
Desire heated in my belly at those two little words.
“How’d it go?” Zeus asked.
“As planned.” Thor ran through the details of our day, the things he’d seen around the beauty salon and the restaurant. It shocked me, just how closely he’d been monitoring our surroundings the entire time. Odin informed Thor the diamonds were a no-go, whatever that meant.
“And they still don’t know anything about the bank,” Zeus said. “The cops held a press conference. Your sisters were there.”
“How did they seem?”
“How do you think they seemed? Pretty fucking upset,” Zeus said. I caught his accusing gaze in the mirror. “You’re their sister. You were taken as a hostage. You left.”
“I had to.”
“In the moment we took you, sure you had to. But don’t act like you can’t be back there now. This extra job with us is your game plan. You could say the word and call it off and be back there tonight.”
“They’ll have the message and the money now,” I said. “They’ll know I’m okay.”
“A message and money,” Zeus said—practically spat— “can never make up for a person.”
His words were like a punch in the gut. “I had to leave,” I said.
“There are other ways to leave.”
“But this is how events happened,” I snapped. I didn’t know how to make him understand that if I hadn’t left as I had, been broken out of their atmosphere as a hostage, I’d still be there. That they’d helped me.
“How events happened.” Even through the rearview mirror, Zeus’s eyes pierced into me. “Like you have no responsibility for it.” Zeus looked away with disdain. “How convenient.” His disdain felt sharp as a knife; Zeus seemed uniquely able to affect me like that.
“Maybe it is convenient,” I snapped. “Maybe I’m a horrible person.”
“Well now,” Odin said. “I do believe Isis has taken responsibility for not taking responsibility, so maybe we can tone it down.”
“It’s in your power to put it all back together again, that’s my point,” Zeus said. “You should watch the press conference. When we get to Omaha, you can watch it for yourself.”
“That’ll be constructive,” Thor said.
“She needs to see,” Zeus said.
“I want to see.” I crossed my arms over my chest. It would rip me apart a little bit, but it was only right.
“She rode an opportunity.” Thor crossed his long, lanky legs. “She’s exploiting an opportunity. You want to act like we don’t do that every fucking day of the week?”
Zeus’s eyes burned into mine through the rearview mirror, but hell if I’d look away. And soon enough, with an extra beam of disgust, he did, because of course, he was driving.
Even with him looking away, though, something was growing between us, and that something was dark and angular now. And strangely alive.
“Well, you’ll be back soon,” Zeus grumbled. “I was thinking we might be able to get away with just a day of surveillance. Just rip in and ride that bank.”
“One day?” Odin barked. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“We rip in, just clean out the front,” Zeus said. “It’ll still be a robbery. We have the diamonds, there’s no reason to go deep on this one.”
“If we’re gonna do it, let’s do it right.” Thor said.
“That is doing it right,” Zeus growled. “Best to shake up our pattern. This one’s in an urban area, too. Getting out’ll be a cakewalk.”
“Why’d you pick my bank?” I asked. “If it’s easier to escape in an urban area?”
“We heard it was lax,”
Zeus said. “Somebody else would’ve knocked it over if we hadn’t.”
“One day. You’re crazy,” Odin said.
“Who’s the expert here?” Zeus demanded. “It’s my realm. Is it not my realm?”
“Let’s survey and see,” Odin said.
“No, let’s do,” Zeus growled.
Odin said, “Let’s take this offline.”
Meaning, fight about it not in front of me. I thought about my conversation with Thor. Zeus, itching to get me gone. I wondered, here, if I ought to go. For the good of the group. Was my presence forcing a rash robbery?
But the bottom line was, I couldn’t go back. I needed all this as badly as they did.
CHAPTER FOUR
We spent a number of hours in the van listening to the audiobook Odin had picked out for the road—evidently my badass Peter Pans favored sci fi tales. The fun space adventure story evened out the harsh edges.
We stopped at another lonely gas station where we picked out candy.
I grabbed a Kit Kat and took it up to the counter.
A voice from behind me: “Hey.”
Zeus.
My heart skipped a beat. I turned to find him scowling at me, standing a bit too near, using his intimidating bulk—unfairly, I thought. “What?”
He plucked the Kit Kat bar from my fingers and looked at the code on the back of it. “Come here.” He went back to the chocolate area and I followed. He put my candy bar back and picked one from the back of the display and examined the wrapper. “Gas candy can get really old.” He handed it to me. “This one’s fresher. Okay?” He said the okay like I was about to argue.
Was this an apology?
“Got it,” I said softly, nodding slowly, like he was a wild animal and any loud reply or fast movement might spook him. “Thanks.”
“And FYI, I wouldn’t’ve shot you in the head. The idea was to separate you two.”
I tried not to smile.
“What’s so funny?”
“That you just said ‘and FYI, I wouldn’t have shot you in the head.’ Not the kind of thing you hear every day. But it worked,” I said. “The ol’ bullet piercing the skull speech.”
“Yup.”
“I guess it was pretty awesome in hindsight. At the moment however…”
Just the corner of his lip tipped up, a half smile. Then he closed his eyes, a beat longer than a blink, and it was as if that blink washed the smile right off, letting the pain back in. He turned and sauntered to the counter.
Well, at least he didn’t hate me. He just wanted me gone.
Not like I had a choice. After the Omaha job I’d go back to the farm, but I would leave again, as soon as possible. And on my own steam, too. Though when I tried to imagine what sort of life I might make, I couldn’t think of one better than this—being with these lost Peter Pans with their road trips and the hotels. And the sex. And the connection, the sense of being on the edge of the whole world.
And being Isis.
Thor snoozed as soon as we were back on the road, splayed sideways, head on the door, legs on my lap, and I laid my hands on his legs, enjoying the solid feel of him. Our strange familiarity. His pant leg had bunched up just enough so that there was a gap between his cuff and the top of his sock, and I moved one of my hands there, enjoying the feel of his calf covered by pale, whispery-soft hairs.
It was strange to feel this sense of domination over his sleeping body, though in truth, I felt a bit like small prey, enjoying the body of a sleeping lion. One who might wake up and consume me.
Which I certainly wouldn’t mind.
I squeezed my thighs together, thinking about the things he’d said over lunch. The anticipation of more sex with my unpredictable, hot bandits, it was killing me a little.
But not as much as the suspense, the stuff he wouldn’t say. Some things that seem unpleasant in the telling can be quite enjoyable in the doing.
What things?
The audiobook droned on. Outer space politics. I’d long ago stopped keeping the names and alien races straight. How could I concentrate on it when every sign and mile marker we passed put us closer to the next hotel and more kinky sex? Also, Zeus had sort of apologized. Would he join in now? He seemed to be back in his cave up there, the sizzle of his gaze fixed firmly on the road. What did it mean? The anticipation was excruciating.
One time I looked over to find Thor awake, watching me, and I knew we were both thinking about the dirty things he’d said. A road trip had never made me feel quite so horny. Was it the vehicle’s vibrations? The testosterone around me? Or really just Thor’s talk? Thor shifted his legs, rubbing against my pelvis, which I tilted up ever so slightly. I didn’t think he’d notice, but his eyes darkened. He raised his brows. An invitation—to what, lord knows—and he sat up, came to me, kissed me.
“Twenty minutes,” Odin said. We were turning off.
“Patience is a virtue,” Thor said.
I closed my eyes as he kissed my neck. And not twenty minutes later, we were walking into a new fancy suite in a different fancy hotel—the grandly-named Imperium. And as before, our elite top floor suite featured sweeping views, this time of Omaha, plus lots of marble, and a hot tub, which looked very inviting to my cold toes.
Zeus studied the room service menu.
Thor gave me a rather heated look.
Odin took off his glasses, a move that never failed to get me keyed up, and of course he knew this. He stripped off his black shirt, then sat and yanked off his punk-rock looking motorcycle boots.
“You guys have more costume changes than Britney Spears,” I said.
“Did you just compare us to Britney Spears?” Odin asked. “Must we spank and fuck you before we even get into the hot tub?”
My stomach tightened. Yes, please, I thought. But then, my toes were a bit cold. Anyway, I could be spanked and fucked in the hot tub, right?
Isis liked to have her cake and eat it, too.
“Well, you said to always tell the truth of how I feel,” I said. “So which look is real?”
Odin pushed down his pants, baring his sculpted body and half-hard cock. “All of them together are real. It’s the whole gestalt.” He went over and stuck a toe into the water. “Coming?”
“She doesn’t want to get her hair mussed,” Thor said to him, pulling off his own shirt.
“Is that so?” Odin stepped in, descended the steps, and sank into the water. “Even better. Come on, Isis.”
I fingered the tie of my sundress bodice.
Zeus studied the menu with a fierce gaze, back on his policy of ignoring me.
A knock at the door. Zeus let in the room service waiter, who rolled in the cart of scotch and snacks they’d ordered at check-in.
This room service waiter, I’m happy to report, wasn’t force-fed drugged champagne until he passed out. He simply parked the cart, took his tip, and turned to leave.
“Wait.” Thor grabbed the vase of flowers from the cart and brought it to the waiter. “No flowers.”
Yeah, buddy, or else Zeus will rip them up! I thought.
The waiter left. Thor bolted the door behind him, then he came back and poured and distributed drinks.
“Does anybody remember how the steaks are here?” Zeus asked. “Anyone else eating?” He picked up the phone to order.
I grabbed a handful of Chex mix. “I’m good for now.”
“Me too. I’ll eat later. Sooner or later,” Thor added, then gazed at me, up and down. “Perhaps sooner and later. What do you think about that, Ice?”
I imagined his mouth on me. And Odin’s hands. My libido went into throbbing overdrive. I wanted to say something witty, but all I could do was stand there trembling as he came up to me and undid the bow at the top of the bodice of my sundress.
Zeus proceeded to order enough food for a horse.
“So you guys aren’t wary of room service now?” I asked.
Little crinkles appeared at the edges of Thor’s blue eyes as he unlaced my dress little
by little. “That won’t be happening here.” His confidence in this bordered on arrogance. “We don’t get surprised twice in the same way.” He unlaced another few inches.
I widened my eyes in the direction of Zeus. “Should we wait? You know…” I liked the idea of Zeus watching, but hated the idea of him not having the choice.
Thor raised his brows. “Is that a no?”
Zeus was on different call now. He’d settled onto the couch across the room, talking with somebody at a repair shop or something—a conversation that sounded like it might go long. Slowly Thor pushed the straps over my shoulders. My dress fell to the floor in a puddle around me.
“No,” I whispered. “It’s not a no, I mean...”
Thor smoothed his hands over my lacy underwear. “Zeus is a big boy,” he whispered, snaking his hands around me to undo my bra. “He goes exactly where he pleases. Does what he pleases. We all do.”
It made a certain amount of sense. Zeus wasn’t the type to let himself be put out.
As soon as I was naked, Thor pointed to the tub. I strolled over, lowered myself in, and waded across to where Odin waited. I moved into his arms, into the mystery and thrill of not knowing what these two would do.
Thor got in and nestled onto the other side of me.
Odin crept a hand over my thigh under the cover of the bubbly surface, reaching the now-insanely sensitive cleft between my legs. Even just a light, deft press of his fingers sent waves of pleasure through me. Then Thor touched my belly, and I found their cocks.
It felt like a wonderful secret, their fingers on me under the water. Mine on them. Like I’d sunk into a warm and erotic cocoon.
Do anything you want to me, I wanted to say. Anything you want.
Zeus hung up the phone and stalked out of the room.
Thor stroked a finger through my tender folds; I could tell, just by the way his finger slid along, that I was slick, even under the water. I inhaled slowly, lifting my shoulders, pulling inward with feeling.
“Now,” Odin said, hand creeping onto my belly, “whatever shall we do with you?” He kissed my cheek, my neck, causing my insides to feel warm and slow, like heated honey. I drew teasing hands up both their legs, giving myself over to the delicious feeling of us mauling each other.
The Hostage Bargain Page 10
