The Hostage Bargain Read online

  The kill you made a little twang in my chest. Zeus didn’t say a lot, but his words had serious heft. This wasn’t a man to make empty threats.

  It came to me then that he wasn’t a man to have empty sex, either.

  “How long until our heist?”

  Odin snorted. “Heist.”

  “It’ll happen when it happens,” Zeus snapped. “You have to be cool with not knowing the future. That is what this life is.”

  It sounded like the voice of experience. “And then you eject me?”

  Zeus watched the road again, not deigning to answer.

  “It’s better for everyone that way,” Thor explained. “The longer you’re with us, the less plausible it will be that you don’t know anything and didn’t see our faces.”

  “Right,” I said, feeling suddenly upset at the prospect of being ejected—I’d only just become Isis! And, sure, I worried about my sisters, but I’d been dying on that farm. “It’s just that, as long as I’m away, they won’t take the farm.”

  “Don’t you care about people who might be worried about you?” Zeus glared at me in the rearview mirror, which somehow seemed to amplify his disapproval of me.

  “Of course I care,” I said.

  “Danger, subversion, and Hedonistic pleasures, it’s fun for a while, but at some point you’d hit a low where you feel homesick. You don’t want it to be too late to go back when that happens,” he said. “We’re doing you a favor by dumping you. In the meantime, don’t even think about getting a message to your people. You have to come to us with that sort of thing, and we’ll decide what’s smart for all of us. You think you’ve given the finger to every rule you’ve ever had to follow? You think you’ve seized a week of freedom for yourself as Isis? No. You’ve traded in one set of rules for another. You’ve given up your freedom to the good of the group. We all have. That is how we stay strong. This is our power. It is a power beyond what you can imagine. Do not fuck with that power.”

  The silence in the van seemed almost thunderous after he finished this little speech. This was more than a gang. More than bank robbers, I thought.

  Also, what was up with the danger, subversion, and Hedonistic pleasures bit? Who said that? Who were these guys?

  Thor’s cheekbones looked slightly pink, possibly from the sun, and he had blond scruff on his cheeks. He looked more like a tennis player than a soccer player, I decided. He said, “As far as you’re concerned, we started our life of crime five hours ago when we hit your bank. We don’t have a past or a future, okay?”

  Odin looked back at me. “We’re the fucking hive mind of crime,” he said.

  “Like the Borg?”

  Thor gave me a heated look. “More like one for all and all for one.”

  My breath caught in my throat. “I never thought of that as dirty before.”

  He sat back. “This is an ideal time to start.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  I rested my head against the back of the seat as the scenery zoomed by, drowsily wondering what my sisters were doing. Probably entertaining police at the farm. Did they think I’d be ransomed? Maybe I could get a message to them. Zeus hadn’t said I couldn’t. You have to come to us with that sort of thing, he’d said.

  More scenery zoomed by. I closed my eyes. The next thing I knew, I was face down on the seat with my cheek glued to the vinyl, with a hand gently shaking my shoulder.

  We’d arrived.

  I pulled myself together and we walked as a group across a parking lot and into the lavishly gold-gilded and palm-treed entrance of the Regal Hotel.

  A lot of the money they’d stolen, I presumed, would be spent at the Regal Hotel—I’d never set foot in a place so fancy. Thor and Odin and I lingered in a stand of marble pillars and potted tropical plants in a corner of the lobby while Zeus went to the desk.

  Thor and Odin had even put their ties back on. I supposed we looked like a group of business people. Aside from my rip-hemmed mini skirt. They were the businesspeople and I was the businesspauper.

  “They don’t need our IDs?”

  Thor shrugged. “Nah. We’re special.”

  “Gods?”

  Odin sat in a posh velvet chair. “That’s right, baby.”

  “So we lie low for a while?” I asked. “Is that the idea?”

  Thor got a devilish look in his eyes. “That’s one way of putting it.”

  My cheeks heated, and I didn’t have to look under my jacket to know my nipples were hardening like two eager bullets.

  “I love when you blush,” Thor whispered. “I haven’t even told you what we’ll do up there, and you’re already blushing. This is very good already.” He closed the distance between us, touched my jacket, then my neck.

  I shut my eyes—it was like his fingers were magic wands, but instead of fairy dust, he seemed to be sprinkling me with shivers of apprehension. Good shivers. Crazy good shivers.

  “Did you have something specific in mind?” I asked.

  “Well, it’s safe to say that first, you’ll take off all your clothes,” Thor said.

  “Slowly,” Odin grumbled from the chair, gaze cool on me. “Slow and one thing at a time.”

  “Is that so?” I said it a little bored, but oh, I loved their dirty attention on me.

  “Yes, Isis,” Thor said. “It is so.” He drew closer and kissed me, right there in the lobby, pressing me up against the marble pillar. Every nerve in my body lit up, especially where Thor’s hard cock pressed between my legs. It was strange exhilaration, this sudden, intense contact, and I wound my arms around his neck, enjoying the hardness of his body against mine, glad for the potted plants in the vicinity. Also, I enjoyed the idea that Odin was right there watching.

  Thor pulled away. “You know you want to.”

  I took a deep breath. I wanted to feel more of this exhilaration. I wanted to feel more of his hard athletic body. As he kissed and nibbled at my neck I made a mental note to ask him if he played soccer or tennis, but then the mental note ripped itself to shreds and drifted away and I just closed my eyes, wonderfully lost.

  He whispered in his rough and silky voice, “Say you want to.”

  “I want to,” I said. “What was the question again?”

  He snickered softly. “Does it matter?”

  “No.” I gripped his necktie and looked into his eyes, face heating, pulse racing.

  “But to recap,” Thor said, “we’ll tell you when you can take off all your clothes, and you’ll do it. Slowly, or Odin will be extremely wrathful.”

  Odin glowered from his chair.

  “You’ll bare yourself to us completely, Isis, and you must not try to cover yourself, even if you want to. When we’re ready, you’ll come to us. You will let us touch you everywhere we please. And don’t think we weren’t paying attention to your shameless display in the van. We’ll spread your legs open wide just like that. Wider, maybe, and touch you just as you touched yourself, but more. Far more. Because we have extra hands to use on you, don’t we?”

  He paused, seeming to want an answer. “Right,” I said, wondering how many hands. I had the feeling it was just the three of us under discussion here, or would Zeus join in? I very much wanted him to. Or would he watch, a silent mountain of a man with blazing eyes?

  “Can you think of how extra hands could be an advantage?”

  “Yes.” I breathed.

  “And what else do we have?”

  Cocks, I thought. Did he really want me to say it?

  “Oh, I know what you’re thinking. You have such a degenerate imagination,” Thor whispered. “What will we impart? What did we discuss in the van? I know that your mind was completely in the gutter, even then.”

  I smiled. “Skills.”

  “Skills you can’t imagine. You would be shocked. And I have to warn you, we are relentless with our skills. Gods have no shame.”

  “Thor has no shame,” Odin grumbled from his chair.

  He didn’t have any shame. I sort of loved him, right the
n. Him and his dirty talk.

  “And this necktie you’re clutching so hard?” Thor continued. “Can you think of what we might do with that? We each have one, you know. Ties are very strong material. Have you ever been in a position to find out exactly how strong a tie is?”

  My mouth went dry. “No.”

  “Well, let’s hope that you won’t have to find out,” Thor said.

  Odin simply smiled his evil smile. Thor could get a certain mischievous grin, but Odin had an evil, glittering-eyed smile that made you feel like he was gazing right into your deepest, darkest secrets—and lewdly violating each and every one of them.

  I realized here that I was still gripping Thor’s tie, knuckles quite white.

  I let go.

  “Why, thank you.” Thor smoothed it against his chest without taking his blue eyes from mine. Even the way he smoothed the tie was suggestive. Then he brushed a chunk of hair from my forehead and placed a hand on the pillar next to my head. His gaze made me feel naked, and I had the impulse to look away, to stop looking at both of them, like that would cover me, make me less exposed. Yet…I enjoyed it, too. So kept my eyes on Thor, I let myself be pinned by his gaze. Let him know he was pinning me with his gaze—that he had me.

  And he knew. It was a total rush.

  “A tie has several uses for a squirmy goddess, you know,” he continued huskily.

  My breath sped at the tone of his voice; it seemed that it was a rush for him, too, the knowledge of his control. And the idea that in this mad, mad universe of bank robbers and god names, we fit together sexually. I had the sense that he fit with Odin in some way, like Odin was the sexual overlord of him somehow. Even now, Odin was sprawled in a most princely way upon the lobby chair with Thor doing all the talking. How Zeus fit, I had no idea. I imagined him as the silent overlord of everything.

  He continued, “A tie is very useful on a squirmy goddess whose body we are using for our complete and utter satisfaction.”

  Naturally he managed to infuse the phrase complete and utter satisfaction with darkly dirty significance. I stood there, pinned like a helpless butterfly to a cool marble pillar in the center of that posh hotel lobby, pinned by his deep blue eyes and his dirty talk.

  “Do not forget about the hot tub,” Odin said. “Hot tubbing has its many aspects.”

  “Oh, yes,” Thor continued. “Many aspects. Have you spent much time in hot tubs?”

  I shook my head.

  “You’re in for quite a surprise. But we’ll see what the layout is like. Things sometimes have to flow organically from the layout. We let the layout speak to us. I’m sorry, but there’s not always a lot we can do about it.”

  Flow organically from the layout? Let the layout speak? I stifled a grin. “Are we going to fuck or do feng shui up there?”

  “Oh, dear,” Odin said. “Sounds like Isis is getting a bit out of line already.”

  My blood raced. I swallowed and glanced toward the front desk just in time to catch Zeus striding across the lobby, briefcase in hand. And my impulse to grin fled.

  Zeus moved his brutish bulk casually, even gracefully in his fancy bank-robbing business suit. To the patrons clustered here and there I’m sure he appeared every inch the cosmopolitan traveler but it was my gaze he held—he held it because he could, I thought. The press of his silent dominance grew ever weightier as he closed in. But there was something else as well—a cold light in his gaze that felt like accusation. Did he really not want me there? Or was I imagining it? He looked away only when he reached us. “Come on, party people,” he said.

  I followed the three of them to the elevators, knees weak.

  Zeus punched the button for the top floor and we rode the elevator to our room, like normal business travelers and not three bandits and their hostage about to engage in a wild menage. Or maybe this was how bandits about to engage in a wild menage rode an elevator, all stern and silent before the event. How would I know? I was a raised on a sheep farm.

  Odin caught my eye and smiled knowingly. I looked away from him, just stared ahead at the button panel with what I knew to be a dorky expression, trapped in this state of suspended erotic animation. None of us were fucking or even touching, but I was so aware of these men, wound so tight with horniness, even the elevator bell tweaked my nerves.

  Then the doors slid open.

  Thor set a hand on the small of my back and guided me out the elevator and down the hall to our room.

  Zeus shoved the key card in and out of the slot and yanked the door open.

  My pulse raced as we walked into our room—Zeus, Odin, and me, followed by Thor.

  Or make that, walked into our rooms. A mammoth suite really, with two wings of rooms— bedrooms, presumably—and in the center, a posh and rambling living area with velvet and marble furnishings, velvet curtains, and a massive hot tub.

  Zeus went immediately into one of the side rooms and slammed the door.

  I stared after him. “Is he okay?”

  “You have to leave him to himself. He needs to work out and be in his cave a while.” Thor dropped his bags and came to me. “Zeus has his own timetable.” He slid his hands over my shoulders.

  “Okay,” I said, unsure what he meant.

  A knock at the door. Thor broke away from our kiss. A room service waiter entered and pushed a cart laden with booze, glasses, snacks, flowers, and linens up to a round marble table. “Would you like me to set you up?”

  “No, just park the cart. Leave the table clear. Just in case.” The waiter parked the cart and Odin took off his glasses and gave me an amused look that had 99% pure devil in it. “Don’t you think?” he asked me.

  “What?”

  “That we should leave the table clear?”

  “I guess,” I said.

  WTF.

  Odin gave the waiter a couple of fifties. As soon as the door closed, Odin unscrewed the cap from the bottle and poured three shots. He handed one to me and one to Thor. He downed his and loosened his tie, eyeing me lewdly.

  My nerves skittered. Would we just start now? Usually I changed clothes after I traveled. I supposed I would now. Or at least take them off. I gulped down my scotch, which burned warm in my throat, roasting my chest from the inside.

  “A bit of liquid courage?” Odin asked. “Are you frightened?”

  “A bank heist followed by an orgy is not typically on my daily roster,” I said casually. “Frightened might be overstating it.”

  “Oh, one of the best things about you is your pretend confidence,” Odin said.

  “It’s not pretend,” I protested.

  “Thor likes your embarrassment, but I like your pretend confidence.” With a tip of the bottle Odin gestured for me to hold out my glass. I did, and he poured me another shot. “We’ll enjoy stripping them both away.”

  I laughed. “Jesus,” I said, heart beating a million miles an hour.

  Odin didn’t laugh.

  Thor didn’t either. He just watched me with that pinning gaze of his, and my heartbeat fluttered in my throat as he strolled over and took my glass from my hand. “That’s enough of the talk.” He led me over to the main seating arrangement, velvet couches and a couple of giant chairs, then threw himself into a couch. “Begin.”

  Odin sauntered over with his glass, leaned his elbows on the back of the couch, looming behind Thor.

  I felt so stupid standing there in front of the two of them. “Just like that?”

  “It’s typically how such a thing starts,” Odin said.

  I started unbuttoning my jacket, hands trembling, feeling the heat in my face. Would Zeus come out soon? Would he be angry we’d started without him, or did he really just not care?

  “I love this already,” Thor said. “I love how nervous you are.”

  “I’m not nervous,” I said.

  Odin regarded me with a stern expression. “Lie about how you feel again and it’ll be trouble. A punishment, Isis. We let the feng shui bit go, but don’t think we’re easy.”


  I sucked in a breath, trying not to smile, but it was all so crazy and thrilling, I could barely work my fingers on my jacket buttons.

  Odin didn’t smile. He just watched me with that smoldering, ultra-male attitude of his, which somehow made things hotter. Staying with him, with his gaze, I took off my jacket and tossed it.

  His expression didn’t change even a little bit.

  I watched Thor for the next part. I touched my breasts, the way I imagined a stripper would, hoping to suggest I wasn’t the nervous rube from a sheep farm that they took me for. Thor’s wavy hair was a bit subdued, as was his expression. It made things more exciting and scary, how deliciously male they both seemed. I pulled my shirt off and tossed it behind me.

  “Your skirt next,” Thor whispered.

  I pulled my skirt down and stepped out of it, so that I was wearing only a bra and panties and my high-heeled shoes. At this moment, I was aware of everything on my exposed skin—the gazes of the men, the cool air currents from vents unseen. Even the light from a neon sign somewhere out there in the dark night beyond the window had a sensation to it. My every nerve ending screamed out, craving touch.

  “Pull your bra down under your tits,” Thor said.

  I swallowed and complied, pulling the lace down. It made my breasts stick out way more than they normally would. I felt even more weirdly on display, and I knew that was the idea. My cheeks burned, and much to my horror, the flush went all the way down to my prominent and shown-off breasts.

  “Oh, this is good,” Thor said. “Now come here.”

  I went to him with a mixture of relief and apprehension. Thor put down his drink on a side table and reached up and pulled me to him so that I was straddling him, one knee on either side of him. Gently he brushed a hand over my breast, over my nipple, launching twangs of sensation through me. “You’re blushing,” he said, “and it makes me want to devour you.”

  I reveled in his warm touch, knees shamelessly spread over his lap, and he put his lips to my breast. I closed my eyes and gasped as he sucked my nipple quite ferociously, then blew cool air on it. He twirled the other gently between his fingers.

  “Oh my god,” I said. It was as if being made to strip in front of them had heightened all my nerves and senses for this. And they knew it—I was sure of it. These were two very sexually devious bandits. “I think my mind might melt,” I hissed as Thor rubbed the flat of his tongue over my diamond-hard nipple.