The Hostage Bargain Read Online Free PDF Page B

will be a point of no return.
    It’s the most indescribable rush.
    That’s how I felt with the bank robbers—like I was standing on the edge of something wonderful. I didn't want to take off my skis and strap them to my back and climb back down.
    “I have a question.” I swallowed. “Why don’t the mysterious rules apply to me? You said I was in. Shouldn’t the rules apply to me as well as you guys?”
    More silence.
    Thor said, “Look, they’re stupid rules we had once when our gang was different.”
    “It’s important to me to play by the rules,” I said, mouth going dry.
    “You don’t understand,” Thor said.
    Odin made a derisive sound and turned around in his seat so that he faced back, staring right into my eyes. I couldn’t begin to guess his background—Middle Eastern, North African. But lord, he was hot. He could slap on all the scars and moles and dead teeth from that box and still be hot.
    “What?” I said, fighting the hypnotic effect of his gaze.
    “Forget the rules,” Zeus said from the driver’s seat. “That’s what. She’s not playing.”
    Odin said, “She took a god name. She wants in. She already guessed what the rules are, or at least their nature.” He paused, letting that sink in. It was unnerving that he was talking about me while looking at me. Telling my secrets.
    But I liked it—the out of control-ness of it. Like I was giving over to something, the way I do on the ski jump.
    Odin said, “I’d say she has a pretty good fucking-g idea what the rules are.”
    “Is that so?” I tried not to smile.
    “Very much so,” Odin said. “And you wouldn’t want it any other way.”
    I swallowed. It was as if he were engaging my body in an erotic conversation. I wouldn’t want it any other way . I crossed my legs, suddenly aware of the tickly energy there.
    Odin raised his dark brows, as though my crossing my legs provided further proof of his rightness. I loved the way he talked, the way he knew things, and I wanted him to say more.
    Coyly, I said, “Well, I’d certainly like to know what the rules are, and to evaluate them for myself.” Even then I was beginning our strange dance, like somewhere deep inside I knew the steps.
    Zeus eyed me in the rearview mirror with his usual stern, bullish power. I felt Thor’s eyes on me, too—I could practically feel him vibrating beside me.
    I became keenly aware of my nipples at this moment, crazily hard and punching out under my flimsy top. I wanted to touch them. I wanted them to touch them.
    “Well?” A twinge deep in my belly. I felt like I might start panting at any second. “It seems customary,” I said in my bank teller voice, “that those who create rules would inform others of them instead of asking them to guess.”
    “Yes that would be customary,” Odin said darkly. “Fine then. The game is that we’re dissolute, depraved, sex-crazed bandits and the rules are, firstly, that you have sex with all of us at different times and in different combinations.” Odin paused.
    My pulse fluttered. “That’s firstly?”
    “Yes, Isis,” Odin said.
    I imagined being pressed between them. I imagined their hands and mouths on me. Oh, he was a little evil to pause like that. This too, I richly enjoyed. “And what might be secondly?” I asked.
    “That we tie you up, etcetera,” he said casually, almost bored, like it was a totally normal thing. “And we give you various commands that you must obey, within reason of course, and utterly pleasure-focused. Or you’ll be punished in various ways. And if you were to refuse your punishment...” He paused here, seeming to consider the punishment. “I’m sorry, but if you were to agree to our rules, and then you refused one of your punishments or you refused any activity that we named”—he exchanged glances with Thor, who looked as rapt as I felt— “you would lose your right to a god name,” he said. “You would lose your right to the name of Isis. Forever.” He said