“What the fuck?” Odin said.
Jack grinned and hit a few other keys and up came a website advertising his services. A Google keyword search was a hundred bucks. Site consult was two-hundred.
“Jesus,” Zeus said.
“When somebody loses big or consistently, I farm out a simple site to my guy in Romania. They actually get a domain and a site. Keeps things on the up and up.”
“This site is sad!” Odin said. “You have flashing shit all over it. Who’s gonna fucking believe you’re a website designer with a site like this?”
Jack snorted. “You should see their sites.”
We got out of there, passing Len on the way out. I could feel the tension rise between my guys, and not about the mystery.
“It’s not going to happen,” Zeus said out in the parking lot.
“It happens if Ice wants it to happen,” Odin said.
“I don’t want it to happen,” I said.
“You just don’t want us to fight,” Odin said. “But you would enjoy being fucked in front of a stern, somber man full of gravity. We’ve established this.”
“Is Len your type?” Thor asked.
“No,” I said.
“But more than Nico.”
Zeus swung into the driver’s side and slammed the door. I took the passenger seat this time, just to separate Odin and Zeus. I could see Zeus visibly trying to cool off….and failing. He took a centering breath as he shoved the keys into the ignition. I put my hand on his thigh, feeling shitty for him and the picket fence he’d never get.
He turned to me. “Would you really like that, Isis?”
I wanted to wrap my arms around Zeus, around all my guys. “What I like is all of us happy and in love,” I said.
Thor spoke up just then. “Did he seem too compliant? Like he laid his hands on that a little too fast?”
“Yeah,” Zeus said. “But Nico did call him. And why would he cover for Nico? Nico has no pull with him. And Jack is good with the Galvanos. Everyone knows that.” He started up the car.
“Well,” I said, “you have to rule out the dead ends to find the live ones.”
A ding sounded, and Odin pulled out his phone. “A text from Diego. Shit.”
“What?” I asked.
“Galvano just bought Maria her plane tickets. She leaves the day after tomorrow.” Odin looked up. “Two days.”
“Fuck,” Zeus said.
“Don Galvano doesn’t want us to solve this,” I said.
“He’s got a chance to have a nice white boy for a son-in-law instead of Diego. Maybe even a nice Italian boy.”
“Fuck that,” I said. “We should run down the wig places around here.”
Odin put away his phone. “Where are we?”
“Twenty-seven-hundred block.”
“Hmm.”
“What?”
“Tophatter’s is on this side of downtown, and they were held up recently. Wigs and cash. Unsolved. I found it when I was researching. It’s worth a shot. Head north and right at the light, Zeus.”
Zeus pulled out and headed north. The four of us rode in silence, in an unspoken agreement to pretend to focus on the mystery, but we were doing no such thing. The watching thing hung heavy in the air.
I needed to talk to Odin and get him to stop baiting Zeus, even though Zeus had no business making new rules. There was a certain code to how the gang operated, and it didn’t include Zeus making up new rules. But Odin needed to stop pushing the watching thing.
I felt scared, like we were on the edge of a whirlpool that had the power to sweep us away.
Chapter Five
Tophatter’s was a massive showroom-style building between a bail bond place and a falafel shop.
We parked and walked in. The place had a musty smell and really ancient signs everywhere that said things like BEST QUALITY ON THE PLANET! in shouty caps. One clerk read the newspaper. A newspaper! Even the way the clerks blew off their job was old-fashioned.
It was billed as a costume store with an acre of glamour, according to the sign above the door. They were very sparse acres in terms of customers, though. They seemed to specialize in cowboy outfits, dance and chorus line outfits, and wigs and accessories.
All in all, I got the feeling they’d be out of business soon. Maybe they already were and they were just a front. Life with my guys had taught me how deceiving appearances could be.
A few of the clerks had witnessed the robbery, including a seventy-something woman with unfeasibly tall hair and an aggressively fun attitude. Zeus started asking his questions, and she immediately wanted to know our interest in it, not fooled one second by Zeus’s coplike demeanor.
“We’re private investigators with a potentially related case.”
That didn’t speak to her. Zeus seemed about to get argumentative; quickly I grabbed onto his arm and explained the human angle—the couple in love. Somebody framing our friend with the crashed car. The girl leaving for school doubting him.
Right then and there, she decided she’d help. In fact, she was a lot of help. She recalled five guys—three white, one black and the other she couldn’t tell. She remembered their shoes, their voices. My guys questioned her on where the different guys stood, like their formation.
“The cops certainly didn’t ask me about that.” She painted the picture and answered questions about who seemed like the leader and what the guns looked like. She called a co-worker to consult and they started going through it all again.
Thor and I wandered around. “Odin needs to stop fucking with Zeus,” I said.
“I know. Can you feel it escalating?”
“Yeah.” I picked out an orange afro for Thor.
“If Zeus would stop making rules, Odin would stop pushing back,” Thor said. “They both need to stop, and they won’t, and it’s just getting worse.” He picked out a wig with long pink hair and bangs for me that was actually quite beautiful.
I put it on, and we looked in the mirror together. “You look like a clown, I’m afraid,” I said.
He smiled. “You look fucking amazing.”
I grinned. We wore a lot of wigs for robbing banks, but never pink ones. The idea was always to look natural and not stand out.
“Turn around, let them see,” Thor said.
I turned to face Zeus and Odin at the counter across the showroom floor. Odin’s back was to us, and Zeus was listening intently to the clerks with what I liked to call his charmingly inquisitive expression.
“Too absorbed in the case,” I said to Thor.
“No, Zeus sees you. Zeus always sees you.” Thor pulled me flush to his body, my back against his chest, and he arranged the hair over my shoulder. I saw Zeus’s thick lips quirk, and then, when the clerks were focused on Odin, he fixed me with a dark, sexy gaze that went right to my belly.
“Stay there where he can see you,” Thor said. He went around grabbing clothes. The first was a cowboy jacket with fringes. He put it in front of me and waited.
“What are you doing?”
Finally Zeus looked over. He shook his head no—a minute movement, but Thor and I both saw it.
Next, Thor put a long movie star dress in front of me.
Again Zeus shook his head no.
“What the fuck?”
“He needs me to dress you.”
Of course, their weird bandit communication. This was how they robbed banks, too—they spoke to each other without talking.
“He’s picking out clothes he needs you to wear for him while he fucks you,” Thor said. “You’ll have to dress exactly how he wants you.”
I bit my lip. It was all a little fucked up, like I was a giant doll for them to play with. Like they would just dress me however they wanted and fuck me however they wanted. Like I was a helpless slave without a will of my own. Like my body was a thing for them to use for their pleasure.
Needless to say, it was all deliciously demeaning. My heart pounded, and I wanted Thor to say it out loud like that. Sometimes my
guys said things like that to me, and it majorly turned me on.
But instead he was doing bandit communication with Zeus.
Zeus flicked his gaze to the opposite wall.
“Oh,” Thor said. He went over and came back to me with a trench coat.
Zeus nodded.
“A trench coat. What am I? Colombo?”
“Oh, goddess,” Thor said in his regretful, we-might-have-to-punish-you-now voice. My belly tightened, and I waited.
He brought his lips close to my ear. In a deep, testosterone-laden voice he said, “Your body is ours to use. You know that.”
My heart began to pound.
“He needs you perfectly prepared so that he can fuck you in that alley out there. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I breathed.
“Fucking you will make him calmer and more centered so that he can solve this mystery.” Thor turned me around to face him and drew me in for a kiss, but he didn’t kiss me; he stopped with his lips an inch away from mine. I felt the tickle of his nearness, the warmth of his body. He said, “Now go to the changing room in the back of the store, take everything off except your bra and panties, and then you’ll put on that coat and come back up here.”
“But this is a costume shop. There are sequined things, silk things.”
“Oh, goddess,” he said. “Zeus needs to fuck you hard and cruel while you’re in that trench coat. It’s the kind of fuck he needs.” He touched a finger to my neck. Just that sent zings to my pelvis.
He slid his finger down to the base of my throat, monitoring the thundering of my heart. I desperately wanted him to talk dirty some more. Like I was a thing to be used. He looked into my eyes, and I knew then that he knew. “He’s going to need to take you into the alley and use you like a whore, Isis,” he rumbled. “He will need to fuck you and use you carelessly, and for his own pleasure.”
“Okay,” I whispered.
With a stern gaze he reached around and yanked the tag off the coat. He led me over to the counter where they were talking and slapped the tag onto it. “She’s getting the wig, too.” He led me back through the maze of racks and dusty displays, past more shouty signs.
He escorted me back to a musty little hallway with a row of changing rooms. “You can keep the boots on. That’s all.”
I went in and pulled off my pants and blouse and put them in the nylon pop-out shopping bag I kept in my purse. I put the coat over my underwear like he’d instructed. The cool, silky lining felt nice on my skin. I went out and handed the bag to Thor. “Now I’m prepared. Happy?”
“Not really.” Thor lowered his voice. “That attitude says you’re not prepared.”
My blood raced. “What’s wrong with my attitude?”
Thor looked around. Nobody inhabited this part of the store. “Get back in there.” He pushed me, and I walked back into the dressing room where I’d changed. He went in with me and closed the door. He turned to me and said, in a low and gravelly voice, “Show me.”
With trembling fingers I undid the belt and unbuttoned the coat, revealing my underwear. “You’re right, it is wrong.” He raised his blue eyes to meet mine. “Take it all off. Slowly.”
Heart pounding, I let the coat fall to the floor. I reached behind me and unclasped my bra and bared my breasts. Then I removed my panties. I stood there naked and shivering in nothing but boots.
Thor took my underwear, and before I could stop him, he’d produced a switchblade from his satchel and had begun to cut them, altering them. He cut the crotch right out of the panties and then proceeded to saw a large, ragged hole at the center of each bra cup.
“That was my favorite bra!” I protested.
“Now it’s my favorite bra. Put it back on.”
“There’s holes in the most important parts. There’s barely any use for underwear like this.”
“Oh, there’s a use,” he said in his rumbly, silky way. “It gives us easy access to what’s ours.”
My heart stuttered at the dirtiness of it all.
I put the stuff back on.
There’s something about wearing underwear that doesn’t cover you properly that feels exciting in a totally lewd way. I had a bra on, yet my nipples were framed by the fabric, exposed to the cool air. Same with my pussy.
He moved near to me then, touching and squeezing my exposed nipples as he kissed me deeply. I sucked in a breath as he went a little bit hard, roughly rolling them into points as I sucked his tongue, wavering on the knife-edge of pleasure and pain.
“You look so badass like this it blows my mind,” he said.
I was thinking I could start getting used to the cut-up underwear when I heard the zing of a tiny chain. I pulled away and saw that he had the alligator nipple clips in his hands.
“Jesus, Thor!” I pushed him away. “Not here!”
He looked at me darkly. “Are you safewording?”
“No,” I whispered. “I’m more….”
He gave me a stern look.
“Thor.”
“You understand you’ll be punished for that.”
I closed my eyes. “I just wasn’t expecting it,” I panted.
“Is that an excuse?” he asked, drawing the belt from the belt loops of the coat.
“Kind of.”
“The good thing about a trench coat is the built-in blindfold. So convenient.”
“Why do you need a blindfold?” I asked.
“I think you can figure that out.” Slowly he tied it around my head. “When you can’t see what I’m about to do to you, every nerve ending is more alert. The sensations are more excruciating. Excruciatingly pleasurable.”
“What if somebody comes in?”
“You’ll have to be quiet,” he said. I gasped as I felt the bite of the clamp over my right nipple, then my left. “Good girl.” He handed me the coat. “Put it on.”
I complied. He buttoned the thing up slowly, tugging the front way more than he needed to. He touched the bottom, but he didn’t button down there. Instead he pressed his fingers between my legs, drawing his massive fingers slowly and heavily through my folds, slick with arousal.
I began to move under his touch, needing more. And more. And harder. And up…And up…and every time I moved, the clips sent zings through my body, like little lightning bolts to my brain and pussy both.
“Don’t you dare come,” he said. “You only get to come with Zeus.”
“Okay,” I gasped.
“Problem,” he said, stroking me.
“Yes,” I panted. “I need to come.”
“You can’t. In fact, I don’t think you’re even properly prepared for Zeus. I need to think of something else.”
“No,” I begged. I didn’t want him thinking. I didn’t want either of us thinking. I reached down and palmed his massive erection, which was easy to find, even with a blindfold.
“Are you trying to distract me? Stalling for time? Hoping Zeus will come and take you right here in this dressing room?”
“Sort of.” I unzipped Thor’s pants. He hadn’t come yet that day, which made him highly distractible.
“Shit,” he said as I took out his giant cock. I pictured it in my hand, hard with veins. I ran my thumb over the bulbous head.
“Let go,” he grated.
I let go.
He pushed down the belt blindfold so that it was around my neck. I saw right then he was in a state. Thor in this mood was dangerous. A little unpredictable.
He twisted the sash so that it was a little tighter. “On your knees,” he grated.
I went down on my knees and looked up, waiting there in my lewd underwear.
His gaze was were all over my body. “You look so fucking beautiful and badass in that, Ice. So wrong and so hot.”
I swallowed. I felt wrong and hot. Our whole life together was perfectly wrong and hot.
“Spread your knees. Wide.”
I complied, spreading my knees, exposing my tender, slick folds to the cool air.
Th
or kicked the inside of my knee. “More,” he growled.
I went wider, baring myself to his dark, hungry gaze. My clit throbbed with sensation. I felt like I would explode into instant orgasm if he so much as touched me.
“Good.” He yanked lightly on the leash, like I was this creature for him to control. A thing under his command, down on my knees for his pleasure.
I practically sparkled with excitement.
“Touch yourself while you suck me, but you will not, cannot come.”
Eep.
I leaned forward and wrapped my fingers around his root. Slowly and teasingly, I slid my mouth over his cock, sucking, squeezing, while I fingered myself.
“Don’t stop touching yourself like that,” he gasped. “You need to be primed for Zeus to fuck you.”
He rested his hand on the back of my hair, guiding my head, as if the leash weren’t enough. I kept on touching myself, trying not to let it feel too good. I concentrated on what I was doing to Thor, going hard at his base with my hand while I did a silky soft thing with my mouth on the rest of his cock, something I’d noticed he enjoyed.
He groaned, cock swelling in my mouth, my throat.
It was too much, asking me not to come in this scenario—especially with this new, mean leash thing.
When I felt the pleasure building, I resorted to reciting months in my head. First how many days were in each month, and then what people’s birthdays were in each month. Eventually I had to go to defcon one: presidential birthdays.
“You look so helpless like this. It makes me want to fuck the shit out of you. Hey—” He yanked on my leash. “You with me?” he growled. “Or did you go somewhere?”
I made a sound in the back of my throat.
He hissed out a breath and stroked the back of my hair. “I know this is hard for you, goddess, but I need you to feel everything right now. Feel me fucking your face, baby.” With the toe of his boot, he nudged my knees wider. “Push your finger inside yourself, Ice. Make yourself wet for Zeus.”
I complied, though I honestly didn’t know how I could be wetter.
Thor pushed his cock into my mouth, holding me more firmly now.
“Zeus is upset and emotional. He needs to use you hard, goddess.”
He tightened his grip on my hair. His words were having the opposite effect of presidential birthdays. I was so on the edge, I felt half-crazy.
The Most Wanted (Taken Hostage by Kinky Bank Robbers #4) Page 7