The Hostage Bargain Read Online Free PDF Page A

warm and hard against me, and smelled strongly of sweat. Of course he’d just robbed a bank. It thrilled me to think about that, and now here we were pretending to be a couple.
    Zeus seemed even larger and more solid out of the van. He had wide shoulders, a wide neck, and lush, handsome features, with a faintly tough-guy edge. A scar on his cheekbone, small and jagged, did nothing to detract from the tough effect.
    I wondered if his thuggish air made people underestimate his intelligence. I sure wouldn’t. Not now, anyway. He squinted when he drank his soda. “Hate this stuff,” he said, looking casually around with those intense green eyes. His eyes were what stood out about him. He was like a handsome tough with the eyes of a feral animal.
    His short brown hair twinkled merrily in the sunlight and curled wrong on the ends—it curled outward on one side and inward on the other, like the curl didn’t get the memo that it was supposed to be symmetrical, and he’d never learned to properly manage it in the maybe thirty years he’d walked the earth. This, too, made him seem somehow untamed in a way that very much turned me on. And of course I kept thinking about Thor’s skills comment. And the rules. The well-oiled organization.
    “Does my hair look not too fucked up?” I asked.
    He gazed at me with those green eyes, and it was like a tremor through me. “It looks convincing enough.”
    I swallowed. “If you think you can sway me with flattery, you’re wrong.”
    He looked away. I’d thought we had a certain connection, but he seemed wary of me now. He sipped his soda again and wiped his mouth with his arm. “Look, you’re doing great.”
    “Are you trying to build my confidence?” I asked.
    “Yup.”
    “It reverses the effect if I know that’s what you’re trying to do.”
    He said nothing. Really, just having him close was bolstering. There was a calm and power to Zeus that reminded me of the calm and power of a large animal. And I liked having his possessive arm over me. I hadn’t had a lot of boyfriends in my life, and those I’d had would’ve never thrown their arms around me in such a presumptuous and possessive way, and they certainly wouldn’t have named themselves for gods.
    He said, “Let me do the talking until you think I don’t know the answer, then butt in. Let me see your tooth. Smile.”
    I smiled.
    “Good. Don’t lick it.”
    I looked over my shoulder, into the van window. Thor and Odin were both lounging in the van texting or tweeting or something on their mobiles. Or at least pretending to.
    One of the cops came to talk to the kids in the back of the truck next to us. Another pair of cops strolled up to us, both middle-aged men. One wore wire-rimmed glasses.
    “There an accident up there?” Zeus asked. I watched him, amazed. He’d hunched his body slightly and got this bewildered, frowny look that gave him and oafish, even victimy air. You would never in a million years imagine this Zeus robbing a bank.
    “Bottleneck,” the one with glasses said simply while his partner peered into the window. “Where’re you off to?”
    “Tractor pull,” Zeus said.
    “Who you rooting for?”
    “Big Bessie,” Zeus said. “If we even make it.”
    “You, too?” the officer asked me.
    “Bessie for the win.” I raised my soda, heart pounding. “What happened? We’re going to miss everything.” I frowned. “Do you think they know to hold the main event?”
    One of the officers shrugged, and I frowned harder. Engines were sounding ahead.
    “It’ll loosen. Drive safe,” the one said. The two of them proceeded to the car behind us.
    Zeus and I stood there together for a second. We’d done it, though I felt weird about the act. “I can see what you think about the kind of people who attend tractor pulls,” I said. “With that act you put on. You know, I go to tractor pulls. They’re fun. They’re not just for country bumpkins.”
    “Let’s go,” he said simply,