The Deeper Game (Taken Hostage by Hunky Bank Robbers Book 3) (14 page)

I stepped through the open doors, past the doormen, and out into the sunshine, feeling suddenly hopeful. My guys were so fixated on vengeance, but maybe pulling off a robbery of the Prime would quench it, like a big glass of bank robber lemonade hitting a parched throat. The Prime was the ultimate prize, after all. Unless you counted something like Fort Knox.

Needless to say, I quickly banished that thought.

The rest of the stakeout went like clockwork. And Lupe, our expectant mother and criminal sister in Santa Rosa was feeling good. The midwives hadn’t turned the baby, but she was doing well otherwise. Everything was looking up. Odin was even talking about playing chess later, which made me think that maybe he’d abandoned his plans to complete our non-life-positive tattoos.

Wishful thinking, as it turned out.

That evening, Thor and Zeus took off to grab takeout and champagne for our two-nights-before-a job-celebration, and a few minutes later, Odin strolled into the kitchen where I was flipping through a fashion magazine. One of the great things about being in a bank robbing gang is that you can afford the outfits in the fashion magazines. The real ones, not the knockoffs.

“Tattoo time,” he said.

“You’re finishing it
now
?” I asked.

He smiled his beautiful and dangerous smile. “You have a problem with that?” He came and spun me around on my stool, standing between my legs.

I had a problem all right—with a tattoo like a curse. But at the end of the day, if my guys were getting it, I wanted it. Showing that I was a true part of the gang was more important than the specifics of some tattoo.

He kissed my neck. “Are you ready?”

“Sure am,” I whispered, reaching down and pressing my hand to his cock, hoping to bypass his mind by communicating directly with his libido. I wrapped my fingers almost all the way around it in a way that I hoped was saying,
Can’t you think of something better to do?

He removed my hand. “Go sit on the couch, goddess.”

Sigh.

I cast around for a delaying idea, but without sex, my bag of tricks was pretty empty.

And, after long hours of getting the angel holding the scrolls, I was used to sitting still for the painful little needles without being tied down, and I didn’t need erotic distraction. “Timing seems a bit much.”

He spoke close to my face. “I want us to have them complete for the Prime.”

“You mean to finish them all tonight?”

“And tomorrow. As much as I can.” He pulled me gently to him, kissing me. My heartbeat kicked into double-time as he pushed his tongue into my mouth, body hard and good up against mine, and the swivel stool was just the right height.

“I’m ready to start the lettering,” he said as I wrapped my legs around his waist. Maybe this was just an elaborate game of chicken. Maybe he really did want to fuck.

“It’s a dark wish of somebody else’s,” I whispered.

He slid his hands under my butt cheeks and pulled me off the stool then, putting me on the floor in front of him. “Stop trying to control the group.”

I snorted. As if I was controlling the group.

“Go into the living room and wait for me.”

I stood there. Did he really mean to complete the tattoo then and there?

“Is that a Mississippi?” he asked.

I turned and walked into the living room and sat on the tattoo chair in my tank top and yoga pants.

Five minutes later, he was walking in with his box of tattoo gear. He brought over the other chair he always used, setting it next to where I sat, facing away. He had me hang my arm over the back of the chair, which he straddled.

When we were all set up, he began to clean my arm with an alcohol-soaked cotton ball, all cool and bitey. I tipped my head back, staring at the ceiling. He did the tattoos by stages. We all had the angry lightning clouds on our ankles from before, of course. Now we all had angels on our arms. The angels were beautiful—very gothic with curly scrolls. It seemed like such a shame to inscribe that message.

“This will be so glorious,” he said, running his hand over my upper arm. “You must stop trying to control the group,” he said again.

“Why?” I looked over, straight into his eyes. “Because that’s
your
job? To control the group?”

He looked at me from under dusky lashes. Just that look and I knew I was right. “Are you ready or not?”

“Not that I’m saying I don’t want whatever tattoo everybody else gets, but haven’t you ever heard of the power of positive thinking? What about that?”

He caressed my arm, admiring his work some more. “How about I take the
fucking-g
power of positive thinking and crush it into a little ball with my vengeance?”

“There you go, that’s the spirit.”

He got suddenly serious. “This is important to me, Isis.”

“A tattoo is forever,” I said.

“Precisely,” he said softly. “Precisely.” There was something about the wistful way he said it that put my intuition on red alert. Something more was going on here—what exactly, I didn’t know. Was he still worried about my quitting?

“Of course I’m with you,” I said. “But just because I’m dedicated one hundred percent to you doesn’t mean I’ve lost my ability to form my own opinions on things like tattoos.”

He whipped out a scarf and tied my arm to the slats of the chair back it hung over.

“What are you doing?”

He stood and walked around to the back of the chair I sat on and tapped the top of my head. “Other arm.”

I looked up. What was he up to? He waited. “Fine,” I said. I put out my non-tattoo arm and he took it and tied it to the back of the chair. “I already said
yes
on the tattoo. What more do you want?”

He said nothing more, but he wanted something more. What?

He came around to the front of me and straddled my lap, squishing my legs onto the hard, wooden chair. His dark hair brushed his brows. Odin was devilishly handsome, especially when he was being devilish. He toyed with my tank top strap, just a little bit dangerous, a little bit off the rails.

“You don’t have to tie me up for a tattoo. How can you even work on my arm like this?”

“Maybe I like you like this, goddess,” he said softly, letting his fingers drop to my hardened nipples. “Helpless.”

Maybe I liked it, too.

He rolled a nipple gently between his fingers, sending ripples of pleasure through me. I watched his beautiful eyes, attempting to maintain my calm even as warmth intensified in my core. I was sure something was up, and I needed to know what it was and not be distracted by sex. What was he not saying about the tattoo?

“High emotions always make you so much more sensitive,” he whispered. “As does immobility.”

I really was immobile with him heavy on me like that. He flicked the nipple, and it was all I could do to not gasp with pleasure. He said, “I’m going to give you this tattoo of hate and vengeance, and then maybe I’ll fuck you.”

“Every girl’s dream,” I said.

He kissed down my neck to my collarbone.

“My question is, where does it end?”

He fingered the underside of one breast, lifting it and suckling it through the fabric of my tank top, creating an exciting roughness on my nipple. “Where do you think it ends?”

My voice went husky, but I would not be swayed. “Nowhere, that’s where. The three of you were screwed by your own people, I get it. But an agency can’t suddenly be horrified at its own mistakes and cry and beg for mercy, right? You can never feel satisfaction of vengeance from an
organization
. It’s stupid to try.”

He pulled away and traced my lips with his fingers. “Stupid and smart has nothing to do with it. I wish you could hear that. I wish you could be with us in that.” He invaded my mouth with a kiss, just because he could. Letting me know he’d take me how he wanted. It was a mad turn-on. “You think anybody is really operating on stupid versus smart?” he asked between kisses. “You think you are?”

“Of course.”

“You do?” He kissed me long and strong, tongue like a rough snake.

My breath sped as he smoothed his hands down my neck, down to my breasts. He closed his fingers around my nipples and squeezed, sending bolts of feeling through to my pussy. I shut my eyes, teetering on the knife-edge of the unknown. “Odin—”

“Look where you are right now,” he whispered. “Look at your life—you’re a fugitive. You let three outlaws have sex with you whenever they please.”

“I like it like that,” I said.

He trailed his fingers down my belly, down into my yoga pants and to my drenched panties. He shifted and pushed the fabric aside, touching me with just one finger, sliding it gently in between my folds, amber eyes fixed on mine. I drew up at the feeling of his finger, which he slid back and forth. “Most people would think it’s stupid, how you’re living.”

“I don’t care,” I gasped as he circled his finger around on my sensitive nub now, like the nub was his to do what he wanted with. Which, okay, it was.

I sat there under his control as he stroked gently. I fought the feeling, but I was losing my train of thought a little. There was something I was trying to find out!

He added a finger, lengthening his strokes. “So you would say that it is objectively smart, Isis, to become what you have become?” He pushed two fingers fully inside me now.

“Probably,” I gasped as he curled and moved them in a diabolically delicious way. “Oh, God,” I said.

He took over the stroking with his thumb and fucked me with his fingers, taking me in a lewd, hot way. “Would all of this seem smart to an outside observer?” he whispered into my ear, and then he pulled his face away and watched my eyes as he continued to pleasure me, blotting out my thoughts with his clever fingers.

It was a little unfair, him carrying on this conversation with me while he was getting me off.

“What do you say, Isis? Do you prefer to operate on stupid and smart, or something else entirely?”

“You’re not being fair,” I gasped.

“You love a good power imbalance,” he whispered.

He loved it, too. He loved when I was melty and helpless. And this new twist now, simultaneously asking me hard questions while destroying my train of thought. It was the intellectual version of being bound and helpless and fucked by a fully clothed man.

“Would even this seem stupid to an outside observer?”

“I don’t care,” I gasped, belly lit up with feeling.

“Because you just want it,” he added.

“Yes,” I gasped.

“You just fucking want it.”

“Yes,” I repeated.

“Precisely,” he whispered. And he finger fucked me in a new way, thumb playing on my sensitive clit, owning me, controlling me.

I tried to focus, knowing I’d just conceded some sort of point, but my entire being was too busy melting under his clever fingers, and finally I broke apart in a thousand-star orgasm, and all I could do was ride it, panting, shattering, as I came.

When I focused my eyes, I saw him standing over me, cock visibly hard in his jeans. “Sometimes you just want what you want, even if it doesn’t seem smart. We want vengeance. The Prime.” He went back to the empty chair and used another scarf to bind my wrist even more firmly to the slats.

So all of that had just been to drive a point home? “That’s one technique they never taught us in debate class,” I said.

He didn’t think that was funny. He kept tying me up. He wanted me all roped up. He still had that hard-on going, and I guessed he was on some sort of jag.

“You and your ski jumps and things,” he continued. “Do you see us infantilizing you by telling you what you should and shouldn’t want?”

He really wanted me to understand, but how could I? It was dangerous. Shouldn’t there be a line drawn at danger? I watched him sadly. “Come and fuck me,” I said. “I know you want to fuck me.”

“I need to get these on before the Prime.” He continued to bind my wrist.

“Why the hurry?” I whispered. “I’m so wet right now. It would feel so good to have you inside me.” The truth.

“Stop it. You’re getting your tattoo.”

“You don’t have to tie me,” I bit out. “It’s insulting.”

“Is that a Mississippi?” He tightened the scarf and then took up the tool, question in his eyes.

“Then do it,” I bit out. “If the group is getting the tattoo, I’m getting the tattoo.”

“Good.” He started up the implement.

“Put it on there,” I said, lying back. “You
wish
we were dead, Motherfuckers. Just tattoo that dark wish right on me.”

“So I will.” And he started. I could feel the little needle prick and bite my skin. It hurt, but not as much as the sense that this was some kind of horrible turning point toward darkness and crashing and burning instead of a viable future.

But whatever happened, I was with my guys. I loved them. “Put the whole goddamn thing on there. I want to die a fiery death with the same tattoo as you guys.”

“Okay, goddess.”

Needless to say, that wasn’t really the answer I was fishing for. I was more hoping for something along the lines of
we’re not going to die, Isis!

I closed my eyes, feeling uncomfortably in touch with all the immutable laws of the universe, particularly the one about beautiful, brilliant things needing to die, like comets burning out from their crazy-bright fire.

Odin had given me his
walk away
lecture quite strongly recently—just the other day when we were out sitting on the bank. He’d pointed out a few alleys that would be good to head down if things went bad.
You walk away if you can,
he’d instructed. It was usually a dance when my guys said stuff like that, because I’d always insist that it wouldn’t come to a firefight, and they’d be like,
but if it does.
Like when somebody elderly makes statements about dying, and you say that’s a long way off, but you both know it really might not be.

I could feel the hole in my heart already, like they were already dead. A sob escaped my throat.

“I’m not hurting you.”

A horrible idea seized me. “Why are you so eager to get these tattoos on before the Prime? Why does it have to be before?”

The buzzing stopped, and he looked at me. “Pull yourself together.”