The Hostage Bargain (13 page)

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.

Suddenly Zeus was back again. He took off his boots, rolled up his jeans, grabbed the scotch bottle, and set it on the edge of the tub, right across from us. Then he sat down and swished his feet in the hot water, like it was all quite normal. Just another day in the tub with his pals.

I pressed my legs together, dislodging Thor’s hand. Zeus likely couldn’t see much below the surface of the water, but still!

“What is happening here?” Thor intoned warningly.

I shot him a look.

Thor watched me with a mischievous expression. Not looking away, he said, “The water’s quite fine, Zeus. You should get in.” Then he slowly but firmly pulled my left leg toward him.

Excitement shot through my veins as Thor hooked his leg over mine, fixing it in place. He trailed a finger back up the inner line of my thigh.

Odin slid a hand over my shoulder, and placed his other hand firmly on my right thigh, pulling it the other way, spreading my legs, giving Thor greater access.

I gasped softly and looked over at Zeus. I don’t know if Zeus heard the gasp, but he glanced at me then, holding me with his beautiful eyes, lips pillowing into one another. A random dot of water from the spray had landed on his cheekbone and it glistened as brightly as the crystals on the chandelier above. He regarded me with a kind of hungry disdain, and briefly I wondered what it would be like to see affection in his eyes.

Thor’s very naughty fingers reached my yearning pussy. Slowly he slid one in, then out, then in. Then two fingers, filling me. I was tempted to melt into the deliciousness of it, right in front of Zeus, but I didn’t let myself. It was the hungry disdain that stopped me.

Could Zeus see how Thor was touching me? If Zeus didn’t see, he certainly knew. It seemed a bit excessive, what the three of us were doing, like shoving a pizza under the nose of a prisoner on a hunger strike.

My breath caught in my throat as Thor drew his fingers out of my vagina and up through my hypersensitive folds. My belly quivered and still Zeus held my eyes. It was becoming strangely hot, his watching, even with that hungry disdain.

Thor pushed his fingers back into me, pressing and massaging my clit with his palm as he fingered me. I pressed my pelvis into his hand as the pleasure built. I was approaching the point of no return, right in front of Zeus. My pulse raced with the craziness of it all.
Hold off
, I told myself.

Odin dug his fingers into my thigh, spreading my legs wider for Thor, who slid his fingers back into me, curling them just so. I exhaled softly, overcome with a rush of feeling.

Thor put his mouth to my ear. “Give it up,” he whispered.

He knew
, I realized—knew I was holding out.

We were locked into a very strange game, the four of us.

Again Thor put his mouth to my ear. “You know you want to,” he whispered so that only I could hear, “and really, Isis, you have no choice. You know we will touch you and invade you and fuck you until you are completely given over.”

“Is that so?” I asked coolly, as though he’d merely informed me of the temperature outside.

He got a playful look in his eyes. “We’ll make it so,” he said, moving his fingers in a new and exciting way, making the pleasure twist higher. Oh, it was good.

Again I met Zeus’s eyes. No way could he see anything but flesh-colored blobs under the surface.

Yet I’d never felt quite so exposed.

He was watching something more intimate than fingers on flesh; he was watching me get taken over, watching me lose the fight.

My breath shallowed in the grip of that gaze. My panting seemed to match the pulse of Thor’s devilish fingers.

The room went hazy.

I felt Odin’s teeth on my earlobe, a sting that had me close my eyes and almost lose it—
almost
.

I pulled myself back to Zeus’s eyes once more, feeling as if I were falling more deeply into them. He knew the pleasure was building, and that I was losing. Was he trying to turn me on with that gaze? Or destroy me?

Maybe both.

“You know, yesterday was Ice’s first time,” Odin said, ever ready to embarrass me.

And with that the intensity broke.

“Not my first time…
you
know.” My face heated.

“First time with a trio,” Odin said. “What did you think, Ice?”

Zeus swished his feet in the water, watching me. We’d all stepped back for the moment.

I swallowed as Thor’s fingers circled lazily around my clit. “You know what I thought,” I said, as casually as possible.

Thor slowed his clever fingers. “Give Zeus the report.”

“Do I look like a porn magazine?” I said.

Odin said, “You looked like a porn magazine when you were masturbating in front of all of us yesterday. It was quite shameless.”

“Wait, was that disobedience?” Thor stilled his fingers. “Refusing to give Zeus the report? Give Zeus the report or Odin will be wrathful.”

I looked at Zeus across the pool, expecting more of that hungry disdain, but instead I was hit with something else: loneliness. Zeus looked lonely.

“It was lovely,” I said. “And very fun.”

“That’s not how I’d describe it,” Odin said. “Isis, let me ask you, was it better than you imagined?”

Thor was toying with my nub again—he knew everything to do, and I was falling back into it. My orgasm was alive under the surface, waiting there for him to release it. I said, “You think I sit around imagining that sort of thing all day?” My voice sounded too high.

“Was that an answer?” Odin growled.