“Not to a Puerto Rican brother,” Brown Gigi said. “No way. Who says that?”
Black Gigi shrugged. “The grapevine.”
I noticed that Zeus had taken out the list of names Diego had made. He slid it across the table to Black Gigi. “Anything pop out here for you?”
“These are your suspects?” she asked.
“A subset of them.”
“Subset, huh.” She set a silver-painted fingernail on Nico Piazolla. “Not Nico. He’s all over Sophia Viga. He’s whipped on her.”
“You believe it?” Odin asked.
They both said yes, convincingly.
“Sophia Viga’s a married woman. Doesn’t her husband have a problem with all this?” Thor asked.
“They say she’s moving out. I don’t know, though,” Brown Gigi said. “Sophia’s so heavy into her Guccis and Pradas, I don’t see her leaving her husband for Nico Piazolla. I mean, Nico does well for himself, but he’s a bad bet, what with the gambling.”
“He’s clean of that,” Black Gigi said. “Everyone knows. Even Handsome Jack says.”
Brown Gigi sniffed. “Handsome Jack should be the last person to call somebody clean of gambling. Handsome Jack has built his life on people’s inability to quit.”
Black Gigi hit another name with her silver claw—the James brothers. “Kenny James would do it. Kenny fucking hates Diego.”
Odin and Zeus exchanged glances.
“Did you talk to him yet?” Black Gigi asked.
“We were over there, but Kenny wasn’t there,” Thor said. “Were you all at their party for New Year’s?”
The two Gigis exchanged mischievous glances. I smiled, wishing I knew what they were thinking, and remembering what those bonds were like. Wishing I had girlfriends. Missing my sisters. I never missed my sisters so much as when the Gigis were around, because that’s how my sisters and I had been. Tight like that.
“Fuck,” Brown Gigi said finally, positively sparkling at Black Gigi.
“You see anyone go up onto the second floor?” Zeus asked. “Or were you up there?”
Brown Gigi twirled her straw in her drink. “One level of that party was fucked up enough for me.”
It was right then that Nico Piazolla himself appeared at the table, as if out of nowhere. He glanced down at the list before Zeus got a chance to take it away. “Making any headway?” Nico asked.
“Oh yeah,” Zeus said mysteriously.
Brown Gigi turned to Nico. “You were engaged to Maria. Were you promised any kind of wedding gift? Like a piece of the Galvano action?”
“What is this? 1920s Sicily?” Nico snorted and sat. “No. Not that I know of.” There was this silence where he looked around the table, curious. “So really, who do you have? Who are you looking at?”
“You think you can help?” Odin’s fake casual tone didn’t fool me.
Nico nodded at the sheet. “Did I see the word James on there?”
There was a strained silence. My guys apparently didn’t like that he’d peeked.
“What if you did see it?” Odin said.
“Well, I’m just saying, it would add up,” Nico said. “Diego and the James brothers are on the outs. Especially Kenny James. Kenny and Diego…”
“Too true,” said Brown Gigi.
“What about Kenny and Diego?” Zeus asked.
“Some shit between Diego’s sister and Kenny,” Black Gigi said. “Kenny blames him for wrecking their relationship. Wasn’t Diego’s fault, but that’s Kenny. Man’s had a fixation on Diego ever since.”
“Serious fixation,” Nico said.
“Huh,” Zeus said, like this was all news to him. Right then I knew it wasn’t, and that Zeus was working a few steps ahead.
The bunch of us gossiped about Kenny James for a while, then the talk turned to people I didn’t know. They left when our food came.
“Interesting,” Zeus said simply.
Odin passed the spicy ginger. “Very interesting. Nico’s…a little chatty. And where the fuck is Kenny? I think we need to talk to Kenny.”
Zeus scanned the room like a rangy bear. “Right.”
We traded sushi around until we all had only our favorites. There was so much, I could barely finish mine. I ordered another drink and turned sideways, leaning back on Odin. He snaked a hand around my waist and kissed me.
Zeus got up. “I’m going to call Diego and ask him about Kenny.”
He walked off.
Odin and Thor watched him move through the crowd; he paused to slap hands with a guy and kept on, disappearing around the bar.
“This proprietary shit cannot stand,” Odin said. “Acting like your fucking husband.”
I sat up. “What do you mean?”
“That’s why he got up and stormed off just now,” Odin said. “Because I’m putting my hands on you while he’s stuck on the other side of Thor, and he thinks I’m going to finger you, which I am, and he’s pissed as hell.”
“Odin!”
“Shhhh,” he said, pulling the side of the skirt part of my dress aside under the table.
Thor patted his thigh. “Put your right leg up here, baby.”
I looked over where Zeus disappeared to.
“He’s a big boy,” Odin said. “He’ll get over it. And I have an agenda.”
“What?”
Thor grabbed my leg and nestled it on his lap.
Energy shot clear through to my core as Odin slid soft fingers over my cotton-clad pussy. “Oh my god,” I whispered.
Odin trailed two fingers up my bare thigh. “So far, we have stern, statuelike, and full of gravity. And tied up. What else?”
“I am not completing this profile. You have to stop this madness with Zeus.”
“Zeus needs to stop the madness,” Odin said. “Zeus can’t stop us from doing something we three want to do.”
“It’s upsetting him.” I sucked in a breath as he slid his fingers under my panties, edging toward my sex.
“You shouldn’t have changed your underwear.”
“Why do you keep pushing him?” I asked. “It threatens the group.”
“You think what I’m doing threatens the group?” Odin growled. “Zeus is the one threatening the group. Open your eyes, Ice. First he doesn’t want a watcher. Now he doesn’t want my hands on you without him involved? Think about that,” he said. “Is that what we do? You want us to change how we are?”
“Fuck, no,” I said. “I like us wild and free, but I want to help Zeus.”
Odin trailed his clever fingers up and down my thigh. “It doesn’t help Zeus if we let him change us,” Odin said. “He needs us to stand tall on this.”
“It’s true,” Thor said, as he took off my shoe and started massaging my toes.
“He’s going through something, I get it.” Odin stroked his thick finger over my swollen, needy nub. “You know what we are, baby?”
“Sex-crazed?”
“Outlaws.” Odin pushed two huge fingers into me then, filling me gloriously. I whimpered, there in the dark booth in the dark corner of an outlaw bar that wasn’t supposed to exist. Slowly he pulled them out, then pushed them back in. “We’re brave and fierce, and we respect no law. Zeus needs to find his way back to that,” he whispered.
“Yes.” I rocked along with his motion, in and out, in and out.
“Outlaws don’t have to follow rules. I’d lay down my life for him, but nobody puts me in a cage with their fucking-g rules.” He continued to fuck me and stroke me.
Odin made a certain amount of sense. And I didn’t want to be in a cage of rules, either. But there was something else…something…I grabbed his wrist. “We have to get back to helping Diego. Whoever did it could be destroying the evidence right now.”
“We want it that way,” Odin said. “You think Zeus let Nico see the list by accident? Nico has the biggest fucking mouth. Whoever did it is going to tell us so.”
His warm palm moved back up the inside of my thigh. “Drink your drink. Act norma
l,” he said.
I took a drink as he pushed his other hand under my dress and took hold of my nipple. “Oh my god,” I said.
“You so love an audience,” he whispered, finding my needy core full-on now, invading my wet sex with magical fingers.
My belly tightened. My eyes drifted shut.
“Stern, statuelike. We need more.”
Thor glided a fingernail up and down the sole of my foot. The wild, delicious contrast of sharp, bright scratches on my foot with the dark, languorous strokes between my legs put my every nerve ending onto high alert.
“You guys,” I breathed, mind melting.
But of course they continued, stoking up my excitement like crazy.
“Look at her face—she’s about to come,” Thor said. “Don’t you dare come, Ice.”
“No coming is a rule,” I gasped.
“It’s different, and you know it, goddess,” Odin said. “And if you come before I tell you that you can, you will be punished.” He lowered his voice. “It will be the kind of punishment where you have to sleep for hours afterward.”
Gulp.
He wasn’t kidding around about the sleep. Spending a couple of hours wrung out on the knife edge of pain and pleasure could be more tiring than running a marathon, except let’s just say you got something way better at the finish line than a Dixie cup of Gatorade.
Awesome as the prospect was, I resolved not to come. I wanted to be in on the investigation! With a shaking hand I took hold of my drink and took a sip, trying to focus on this simple motor skill operation as a way to block Odin’s clever machinations.
“I can feel you so swollen with pleasure now,” Odin said. “You’re ready to go, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” I breathed. He slowed, and I whimpered—a little bit protest, a little bit gratitude.
“Two more words,” he said. “And you can have your orgasm without punishment.”
I stared out at the crowd, thankful for our dark cover.
Thor sneered. “No, no, no. Look at me while he touches you.” He slid a fingernail harder down my foot. I squirmed.
Odin tightened his arms around me. “Your body is ours. We own you and your pleasure,” he whispered.
Thor watched me with a steady blue gaze. “And no thinking about the months, either. Now let’s have the rest. Stern. Statuelike. What else? Who here would fit the bill?”
I swam in feeling as he drew a wicked nail down my tender sole. “Probably nobody here,” I said.
“Why?” Thor asked. “You haven’t even seen everyone here.”
“Aha,” Odin said. “A noncriminal.”
“No, not exactly,” I protested.
Odin made his stroke hard and flat. I writhed with sensation. “I can feel you feeling my fingers. Each with hundreds of fingerprint ridges, invading your silky pussy. You are going to come, goddess, and the punishment will last for hours. And you will not get to play Sherlock with us.”
Thor scratched a sharp line across the sole of my foot. “Ow!” My eyes flew open and I stared at him. His smile managed to look both evil and innocent. He knew exactly how much pain got me off.
“He’ll do it again.”
“He can’t,” I breathed.
Odin whispered in my ear. “You are going to come, very soon.” He pushed in his fingers again, curling them slightly inside of me. I was panting, gasping. “You are powerless against this level of pleasure. I am going to make you come. And if you do not reveal more about your type for watching, I will take you right home.”
“He’ll just whip it out of you at home.” Thor said sadly. “You don’t get to keep secrets from us.”
I gasped as Odin moved his fingers and pushed on a certain spot…the certain spot. “Okay, okay, okay!”
Thor held my gaze. “You are so ready.” He slid his hands all over my foot, moving up to my calf. “Give it up, baby.”
Odin pressed on my clit with his thumb, rubbing and fucking me. “It is useless to fight this. You are already beginning to milk my fingers. You are already there, goddess. There is still time…”
He was right—my orgasm built like a tidal wave deep inside me. I was going to come, and then it would be too late. “Authoritarian,” I gasped. “Disapproving!” I burst into a zillion shards of pleasure, coming shamelessly in the crowded nightclub.
“Mmmm.” Odin nuzzled my hair, slowing his cruel and masterful touch. “Was that so hard?”
He sounded far away. The world was far away. Reality, normality, all of it. Far, far away.
Thor said, “You are so beautiful when you come. Like weeping turned inside out.”
Odin grabbed a paper napkin and wiped between my legs. “Authoritarian and disapproving.”
“I can’t believe I told you,” I said.
“I can,” Odin said, and his beautiful lips spread in a slow smile.
I reached up and touched his moppy, curly hair. “I agree we don’t want to change, but you guys need to go a little easier on Zeus, okay?” I looked over at Thor. “Okay?”
They scoffed at that and razzed me a bit more about my type; they had quite the profile going at this point, but they shut it down when Zeus returned. My guys spent the rest of the night circulating and chatting people up, sometimes with me along.
Three hours later we were stumbling out of the elevator and heading into the tunnel that led to the parking garage where our car was.
Or at least I was stumbling out of there, having consumed three glasses of champagne, which was one over my limit. The guys had mostly consumed gossip. In the stairwell up, I bemoaned the fact that we hadn’t gotten any valuable leads.
“Are you kidding? It was a valuable night,” Zeus said.
Thor held the door open for me, and we headed into the cavernous fifth floor of the ramp. It was four in the morning. There were only a few cars scattered around. I spotted our car glinting across the way. I wanted nothing more than to collapse inside it.
I grabbed onto Zeus’s arm and smiled up at him. “If I fall asleep on the way home, will you carry me into my bed?”
He didn’t answer or even smile; something was wrong.
“What?”
“Smell,” he grated.
Odin stiffened.
“What?”
Zeus pulled me around and slammed me up against a concrete pillar; he clapped his hands over my ears and covered me with his body.
I was opening my mouth to protest when an explosion ripped through the place.
I clutched onto his sports jacket as smoke filled the place. Car alarms blared. There was a big crash—part of the ceiling?
“Was that our car?” I asked.
Zeus was running his hands all over my body. “You okay, baby? Anything hurt?”
“I’m fine, but was that our car?” I asked again.
Odin and Thor were behind another concrete pillar, guns drawn. They moved to join us. “Take her back to the club,” Zeus said to Thor.
“Come on,” Thor said.
“B-but—”
Thor pulled me back into the stairwell with uncharacteristic force. We raced down. I could barely walk, my legs were shaking so much. “Was that our car? Was our car supposed to blow up with us in it?”
“Don’t think about it,” Thor said.
“How can I not think about it?”
He squeezed my hand, pulling me down the steps. “You’re okay,” he said. “And we’re okay.”
“Why’d they stay up there?”
“They think that whoever did the car is still around,” he said.
Thor brought me all the way back to the club. We found the Gigis at a table near the giant window. “Thought you left,” White Gigi said.
“Trouble,” Thor said. “Someone did our car.”
Black Gigi’s lips parted. “As in blew it up?”
Thor gave her a dark look.
“But nobody was in it, right?” White Gigi said.
I shook my head. “Zeus smelled it.”
“Y
ou guys sticking around?” Thor said. “We don’t want Ice alone.”
“I’m fine,” I said.
Brown Gigi looped an arm around my shoulder. “We’re sticking around. Maybe I’ll even let her wear my tiara.”
Thor took off.
I put my hand to my chest. “I feel like my heart’s going to pound right out of my chest.”
“How close were you?” Black Gigi asked.
“Across the garage. If Zeus hadn’t smelled it…”
“But he did.”
“Fuck,” White Gigi said. “Somebody doesn’t like your investigation.”
Black Gigi sniffed and crossed her legs all cool, white boots shining. “If I framed one of L.A.’s toughest motherfuckers for crashing the Corvette of another of L.A.’s most dangerous motherfuckers, I’d be blowing up cars, too.”
“You think this is somebody freaking out?”
“Of course,” she said. “To go after you that? With you there? Shit.”
White Gigi pointed at me with a toothpick. “Which means your boy toys have another clue—the culprit is batshit crazy.”
“Which rules out, oh, about fifty percent of the people here,” Brown Gigi said.
A glass of champagne arrived. “Drink up, girlfriend,” White Gigi said.
I took it and swirled the liquid. “We almost died just now.”
“But you didn’t,” Brown Gigi said.
“I hate this,” I said. “They think the person who did it was still out there.”
“Blowing up a car is a coward’s move,” Black Gigi said. “I promise you, the doer ran away when they saw that it didn’t work.”
“One more minute, and we would’ve been in there,” I said.
“You’re okay. Shit happens.”
“Shit happens?”
Black Gigi grinned. “Drink.”
I took a sip and then pushed it away. “All I want right now is to be on the couch with a bowl of popcorn and one of the stupid superhero movies those guys always want to watch. I just want to hide together. I love those guys so much.”
“They’ll be okay,” White Gigi said. “Drink.”
“I probably shouldn’t have any more. I already had three.”
“And how drunk are you?”
“Not at all. I feel sober.”
The Most Wanted (Taken Hostage by Kinky Bank Robbers #4) Page 10