He smoothed back my hair some more. “I understand,” he said. Then, finally, “I’m sorry.”
I sniffled. “Are you saying that to Venus or Isis?” I asked.
“Both,” he said after a long silence. “I guess both. Are you okay with that?”
“Of course I am,” I said. “Are you?”
He pulled away. I knew he was looking at me there in the dark, felt his eyes, imagined their intensity. “You would’ve really said that to them? To your sisters?”
“Yeah. Blaming themselves for a thing I did? It’s just not right. On any level.”
“But they pushed you. They made you stay, took too much from you. You said so once.”
“They did that, but there are other responses than leaving and taking up with robbers. That was my thing, not their thing. Or jumping off a cliff. That was Venus’s thing.”
In the intense silence that followed, I wondered if I’d hurt or angered him.
“It helps me that you say that,” he said.
“It helps me that you understand.”
He let out this breath, this labored exhale, as though he’d been holding it forever. We sat there in silence that droned on. Machinery sounded outside in the distance, then faded.
“Thanks,” he said after a while.
“Back atcha.” I felt strangely connected to him. And a little bit better, even. It was as though our guilty souls had been washed together.
I felt him sit up. He smoothed back my hair again. Drips of sweat rolled off my forehead, rolling along my hairline.
“We have to get the fuck out of here,” he said.
“Where you were last, I’m pretty sure that was the door.” I found his hand and pressed it to the floor, moving it in the direction of the door. “That way.”
He crawled to the door side of our box. I heard him feeling around and banging at the metal. “I wish they hadn’t taken my shoes.”
“No, here!” I fumbled around until I found his shoes.
He put them on and banged at the door, presumably with his feet, trying to get it open. I didn’t hear him peel off his shirt, but I heard the soft clop when he threw it. I put on my shoes, too, and fumbled my way over to him. We sat on our asses together in the darkness, ramming the door with our feet in unison until I thought my heel bones were cracked.
“No go,” he said finally.
We collapsed back, side by side.
I wished I could see him. I thought back to that day at the bank, the way his eyes looked behind that mask, the connect I felt. I flashed on his gaze that day in the hot tub—all that hunger and disdain in his eyes, but still the intensity was there. The connection.
“I never meant to erase her tracks. I never wanted that.”
“I know,” he said.
We didn’t talk about the air. I still wanted to believe there was a pinhole letting some in.
“I’m sorry to have pulled you into this,” he said.
“This again? This apology shit?”
He snickered softly. I felt him go up on his side next to me. I closed my eyes as a finger slid across my wet forehead. “That sorry was for you,” he said. “Not her.”
“Well…you get the same response. I chose it. So you can just respect that.”
“Thank you.”
“Anytime,” I said.
Another breathy little laugh in the darkness. He moved closer. In spite of the heat, I liked to be touching him. I needed it. I snuggled closer, enjoying his calm—that calm of a large animal that he had.
And his maleness.
He slid a hand down my arm, and I felt the tickle of drops run ahead of where he stroked, like he was pushing rivulets of sweat down to my wrist, wiping them right off me. Slick, everything slick. He shifted, then, and I sensed his face nearing mine in the darkness. Lightly, he kissed me on the cheek Then he found my lips.
This wild swell of desire came over me as we kissed. I needed him like I’d never needed anybody.
“You are so beautiful,” he whispered into the kiss.
I wiped the stinging sweat out of my eyes. “You probably say that to all the girls in a pitch-black deathtrap from which there’s no hope of escape.”
During the ensuing silence, he passed up the opportunity to give me hope. He didn’t think we’d get out, either.
“I don’t say it to all the girls in a pitch-black death trap.” He sounded serious now. “I say it to you. I always thought it. I thought it that first moment at the bank. Like you were beautiful. Different.”
I touched his soaked chest. I supposed we would run out of sweat at some point, but for now were like slick fish in a strange pond.
His hair tickled my cheek and his lips came down on my neck. Everything was new between us. I snaked my hand over his shoulder, feeling so close to him, as though we had been rendered completely porous to each other.
He kissed my neck, moved his lips to the base of my neck, that tender center part. His lips there felt as intimate as fucking. He kissed me on the lips then, cupping my cheeks.
“You know what it’s been like?” he breathed. “Watching you with them?”
I snaked my hands around his chest, skin hot and slippery, feeling so connected to him now, like he was revealing his heart.
“When I saw you on the couch that first day with Thor and Odin, I wanted to tear you three apart,” he said. “I hated them for bringing you in and having you take her place. The thing is, in some ways, it was a relief when Venus died.” He was silent for a while. I could feel how hard it was hard for him to say it. “I always hated myself for feeling that way, but was so bad at the end with her in that downward spiral. No way to help her. I was cruel to her because I wanted her to shape up. Then suddenly she was dead. So it was this grief and guilt and relief, all mixed together. You know? Watching you three together, it made me feel twice as fucked up about her. You three were together and I felt left for dead with my fucked-up feelings. I wanted to be with you, too, but I couldn’t get past how I felt. You came and brought all this life to us, brought the feel of our family back. God, I wanted you so badly, but I hated you for stirring it all up again. But I couldn’t stop wanting to be with you, Ice.”
“I didn’t know.”
“Do you still feel fucked up about it?”
“Yes. But less.”
I touched his cheek, feeling grateful for that.
He slid his hand down my wet shirtfront. There were no words—just his touch.
I reached up to his chest; I wanted to touch him everywhere, to be naked with him. “Be with me now,” I said.
“Ice.”
“Please,” I whispered.
He let out a great, gusty breath and yanked open my soggy shirt. I heard buttons ping nearby.
I barked out a laugh, half surprise, half thrill.
“What the hell,” he whispered, running his hands over my breasts. “We’re rich bank robbers. We can buy all the shirts in the world.”
The blackest humor. Because of course, it didn’t look like we’d be going anywhere.
I wrestled out of my pants—I couldn’t get them off fast enough; I wanted to be under him, to be taken by him. I pushed him to the warm metal floor and pulled his pants off.
Dizziness came over me as I tossed them aside, but I didn’t stop. I stroked his thighs, slippery with sweat, crawling up over him, slicking my hands up, up, up in the darkness until I reached his rock-hard, wet cock. I stroked him, loving touching him, so hot for him.
He groaned and rose, flipped me over, came over me, loomed over me as I stroked him. I had this thought he should stay lying, to conserve his energy.
But…why?
He growled and bit my neck, all wolfish, then licked and kissed and bit his way down to my breast, sucking, tonguing, as I wriggled under him, cock in hand, awash in a maelstrom of sensation. I lost contact with his cock as he moved his lower half out of my range, but there was so much more of him for me to touch and squeeze, and I did it, my hands roving all ove
r his strong arms and shoulders, his chest.
I wanted to cry a little bit from the keenness of my desire for him, and how grateful I felt that he was there with me, with his power and intelligence and big-animal calm.
His confident, heavy hands hydro-planed over my wet skin and my quivering belly, delving to my slick sex, fingers in my cunt, then back up, pushing up over my breasts, and neck and inside my mouth. I sucked in his fingers, keeping them mine. I wanted to consume him inside and out, and for him to consume me.
Then I let his fingers go. “Do it,” I panted.
There was this pause, then I felt him pushing my legs open.
I slid under him a bit, gripping his big shoulders. “Yes!”
He said, “I don’t have—” He panted, “Don’t have—” Don’t have a condom.
I considered my cycle—I was in a pretty safe zone, and then I thought, why am I even worrying?
“Hello, we’re being steamed like oysters,” I said. “Fuck it, Zeus. Be in me. Come inside me. Fuck me!”
“God, yes.” He set to kissing my belly, my breasts, rough last kisses, and then he guided his cock into me and plunged in with a guttural cry.
It was glorious to be filled by him, and so intense I thought I might black out. Actually, I may have for a second, but then I was back, and he was driving into me, slowly, sensuously, moaning softly with every thrust. I loved his man-moans, and the way his belly slid against my belly, and how his legs pressed along my legs. I held him, moved with him.
Everything between us was so heated, so on the edge, it seemed unwise, yet I wanted it to last.
He drove into me, and I gasped, feeling like I might pass out again.
Breathe normally! I told myself, but it was all too hot on every level. And it didn’t matter.
He changed his angle and I cried out from the deliciousness of it, my voice echoing inside the box.
He fucked me new yet again, sending stars into my mind, tremors into my body. I was going delirious, like we might be fucking ourselves to death, and it was fine.
The sensation increased, and I grabbed onto his arms, then his back, digging into his skin for dear life as we fucked like wild bears. My hands were slipping all over. More moisture, more slickness. A different kind of slickness.
Had I drawn blood? “I think I gouged you! I’m sorry,” I gasped.
“What do I care? Take everything, Isis. Take it all.” He came down closer, propped himself on his elbows and grabbed my hair as he pumped into me. “Take it all!” He kissed the breath out of me. I swung my legs around him, took him deep, getting pleasure fringed with pain.
I groaned as the orgasm uncoiled in my belly, blooming through my sex, dragging me under until it exploded my mind, my toes. “Zeus!” I cried. “Zeus!”
He didn’t stop—he was building, building, fucking me, breathless. Then he dropped his forehead to my chest and drove into me one last time, coming with a strangled yell as I held him tight to me.
“Yes,” I whispered. “Yes.” I felt him pump into me, cock shaking inside of me.
After a while he relaxed over me and groaned, panting.
“Yes,” I whispered again.
He kissed me then, all over—he kissed my cheek, my closed eyes, my forehead, my hair. “Oh, Ice,” he said, kissing me.
A little later he pulled out of me and collapsed on my side. With an arm he drew me to him. I held onto him and there we lay in the darkness, heating each other and not caring.
We said nothing for a long time. I listened to the distant buzzes and rumbles I’d been listening to for hours.
“Well,” I joked. “What should we do now?”
He groaned and lifted himself up, pulled on my arm. “Come here.” He moved toward the wall and I fumbled after him. He sat himself back against the hot side of the container. I sat next to him and he put his arm around me. “I don’t want to pass out just yet.”
“Pass out?”
“Lying there like that. It seems like we’d pass out sooner. I think—I’m not sure. Where’s Thor when you need him, huh?”
I nestled in closer. “Are you scared?” I asked him.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Being pursued by these guys for so long, it’s been a low-level tension for so long, that being grabbed by them, it’s a little bit of a relief. I just don’t want them to pull us out and torture us. I guess I’m scared of that, but more for you.”
“You think that will happen?”
“Nah. It’s been too many hours. It means they have Odin and Thor too.”
“No,” I said, feeling my eyes sting.
“They would’ve come back by now if they didn’t. They’d want to use my body parts to lure them.” The silence stretched long. “I think it’s over. I’m so sorry.”
“Please don’t,” I said, feeling despondent.
“Hey,” he kissed my cheek. “You’re okay.”
But I so wasn’t. Neither of us was.
“I have a confession,” he said then.
“What?”
“It’s a big one, so get ready.”
“Okay,” I said.
“We didn’t really take our names from gods.”
“Huh?”
“Well, not really. They’re from comic books.”
I closed my eyes, smiling in the darkness as tears streamed from my eyes. “That is so…” Cute, I wanted to say, but it’s not a thing you say to a man at a moment like this. Oh my badass Peter Pans, I thought.
“I’m glad we got one of your comforters bought,” he said. “I hope they don’t lose the farm.”
“Me, too,” I said. “The other comforters were up with a longer lead time. I think they’re getting lots of orders. I hope they’re okay.”
“I bet they keep the farm. Your farm sounds nice. I can’t believe you know how to make cheese and woolen goods and things. Were your folks hippies?”
“Kind of,” I said.
“It would be richly satisfying to make those things.”
“Says the bank robber.”
“It would be. And I wasn’t always one. We weren’t always robbers.”
“What were you?”
“On the nothing chance we survive this, I shouldn’t tell you.” Zeus toyed with my hair.
I waited, hoping he’d say at least something.
“Screw it—I’ll be vague,” he said.
“I’m good with the vague version.”
“We were…we’re supposed to be dead, basically.”
“Were you all in the military?”
“Let’s just say we were in intelligence,” he said. “Odin and I were, not Thor. Thor was a doctor. He was overseas, working for an NGO—that’s a non-governmental organization. Thor saw something he shouldn’t have and he pursued it, cracked open a massive can of worms. I’m not going to say where, but it was very huge, very damaging. Odin was sent to kill him. Odin smelled a rat and didn’t do the job right away, and then I was sent to kill Thor and Odin both.”
“Assassins.”
“It’s one of the things we are. Anyway, when I got there, I could see why Odin had hesitated. A few hours later another guy was sent to kill all three of us.”
“What happened to him?”
“Thor killed him. The guy had Odin and me down, and he didn’t think Thor had it in him. Thor was up against a wall, this nerdy, gangly doctor. Young. This was years ago, Ice. We were all young. And the next thing we knew, Thor came out of nowhere and blew the man’s head off. It fucked Thor up—you could see it in the moment, the horror in his eyes as he looked at the guy, lying there at his feet, half his head gone. And the three of us, we were suddenly dead men together. It was literally us against the world. We went to Paris and got guest worker identities, and then went underground. We spent a few years in Rabat, in Morocco, where Odin’s from. We got by. And we have help. Certain friends in intelligence. But the things we know made it so we always had guys on our trail, looking to rub us out. We got good at knocking off banks as a
ready source of cash. Turns out it takes a lot of cash to live under the radar. Odin’s a very talented techie and psy-ops pro. I’ve got strategy. Thor has nerve. It made sense to come back to the states.”
“You can’t make a bargain? Where your secret goes public on your death? As an insurance policy so they won’t kill you?”
“That stuff only works in the movies. Isis, look around the world. Look at all the shit people refuse to believe or that they know and forget. It’s better for them to have us dead and spin it. And none of us have close family or friends. That’s something that makes us both more vulnerable, but also less vulnerable. But we have each other. That’s our family.”
I rested my head on the metal wall, wondering what that felt like.
“You’ve been calming to Thor,” Zeus added.
“You really don’t think we can get out of this box, do you?”
“There’s always a chance,” Zeus said.
“Are you trying to build my hopes?”
“Yup.”
I smiled in the darkness—that’s how he’d answered the day of the robbery, when I was about to try to bluff the cops.
I said, “It reverses the effect if I know that’s what you’re trying to do.”
“I have an idea.” Zeus drew a finger down the side of my face. “Imagine being under a waterfall right now. You breathe in the sweet cool air, and cool water runs over you. And into your mouth.” He drew two fingers down the side of my hair. “Cool and sweet.”
“Can I have a giant glass of lemonade, too?”
“While you’re under the waterfall?”
“I’d like that very much, Zeus.”
“You always want to have your cake and eat it too, Ice.”
“Well?”
“Yes. A tall, icy, cool glass of lemonade to drink under the waterfall. In the cool air.”
“Oh, that’s nice.” I rested my head on his shoulder. The heat felt oppressive, like it was pulsing in waves.
He tapped my cheek. “No sleeping.”
“I wasn’t sleeping.”
“Yes you were.”
“Why not sleep?” I said. “Won’t it be better?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve never cooked like this. But I want you to stay,” he said.
The Hostage Bargain Page 17
