Page 19 of The Deeper Game (The Kinky Bank Robbers #3)

When we were all set up, he began to clean my arm with an alcohol-soaked cotton ball, all cool and bitey.

I tipped my head back, staring at the ceiling.

He did the tattoos by stages. We all had the angry lightning clouds on our ankles from before, of course.

Now we all had angels on our arms. The angels were beautiful—very gothic with curly scrolls.

It seemed like such a shame to inscribe that message.

“This will be so glorious,” he said, running his hand over my upper arm. “You must stop trying to control the group,” he said again.

“Why?” I looked over, straight into his eyes. “Because that’s your job? To control the group?”

He looked at me from under dusky lashes. Just that look and I knew I was right. “Are you ready or not?”

“Not that I’m saying I don’t want whatever tattoo everybody else gets, but haven’t you ever heard of the power of positive thinking? What about that?”

He caressed my arm, admiring his work some more. “How about I take the fucking-g power of positive thinking and crush it into a little ball with my vengeance?”

“There you go, that’s the spirit.”

He got suddenly serious. “This is important to me, Isis.”

“A tattoo is forever,” I said.

“Precisely,” he said softly. “Precisely.” There was something about the wistful way he said it that put my intuition on red alert. Something more was going on here—what, exactly, I didn’t know. Was he still worried about my quitting?

“Of course I’m with you,” I said. “But just because I’m dedicated one hundred percent to you doesn’t mean I’ve lost my ability to form my own opinions on things like tattoos.”

He whipped out a scarf and tied my arm to the slats of the chair back it hung over.

“What are you doing?”

He stood and walked around to the back of the chair I sat on and tapped the top of my head. “Other arm.”

I looked up. What was he up to? He waited. “Fine,” I said. I put out my non-tattoo arm and he took it and tied it to the back of the chair. “I already said yes on the tattoo. What more do you want?”

He said nothing more, but he wanted something more. What?

He came around to the front of me and straddled my lap, squishing my legs onto the hard, wooden chair. His dark hair brushed his brows. Odin was devilishly handsome, especially when he was being devilish. He toyed with my tank top strap, just a little bit dangerous, a little bit off the rails.

“You don’t have to tie me up for a tattoo. How can you even work on my arm like this?”

“Maybe I like you like this, goddess,” he said softly, letting his fingers drop to my hardened nipples. “Helpless.”

Wellllll…maybe I liked it, too.

He rolled a nipple gently between his fingers, sending ripples of pleasure through me.

I watched his beautiful eyes, attempting to maintain my calm even as warmth intensified in my core.

I was sure something was up, and I needed to know what it was and not be distracted by sex.

What was he not saying about the tattoo?

“High emotions always make you so much more sensitive,” he whispered. “As does immobility.”

I really was immobile with him heavy on me like that. He flicked the nipple, and it was all I could do to not gasp with pleasure. He said, “I’m going to give you this tattoo of hate and vengeance, and then maybe I’ll fuck you.”

“Every girl’s dream date,” I said.

He kissed down my neck to my collarbone.

“My question is, where does it end?” I added.

He fingered the underside of one breast, lifting it and suckling it through the fabric of my tank top, creating an exciting roughness on my nipple. “Where do you think it ends?”

My voice went husky, but I would not be swayed.

“Nowhere, that’s where. The three of you were screwed by your own people, I get it.

But an agency can’t suddenly be horrified at its own mistakes and cry and beg for mercy, right?

You can never feel satisfaction of vengeance from an organization . It’s stupid to try.”

He pulled away and traced my lips with his fingers. “Stupid and smart has nothing to do with it. I wish you could hear that. I wish you could be with us in that.”

He invaded my mouth with a kiss, just because he could. Letting me know he’d take me how he wanted.

It was a mad turn-on.

“You think anybody is really operating on stupid versus smart?” he asked between kisses. “You think you are?”

“Of course.”

“You do?” He kissed me long and strong, tongue like a rough snake.

My breath sped as he smoothed his hands down my neck, down to my breasts. He closed his fingers around my nipples and squeezed, sending bolts of feeling through to my pussy.

I shut my eyes, teetering on the knife-edge of the unknown. “Odin—”

“Look where you are right now,” he whispered. “Look at your life—you’re a fugitive. You let three outlaws have sex with you whenever they please.”

“Your point?”

He trailed his fingers down my belly, down into my yoga pants, and to my drenched panties.

He shifted and pushed the fabric aside, touching me with just one finger, sliding it gently in between my folds, amber eyes fixed on mine.

I drew up at the feeling of his finger, which he slid back and forth.

“Most people would think it’s stupid, how you’re living. ”

“I don’t care,” I gasped as he circled his finger around on my sensitive nub now.

I was utterly under his control, now.

He stroked expertly, toying with me.

I fought the feeling, but I was losing my train of thought a little. There was something I was trying to find out!

He added a finger, lengthening his strokes. “So you would say that it is objectively smart, Isis, to become what you have become?” He pushed two fingers fully inside me now.

“Probably,” I gasped as he curled and moved them in a diabolically delicious way. “Oh, God,” I said.

He took over the stroking with his thumb and fucked me with his fingers, taking me in a lewd, hot way.

“Would all of this seem smart to an outside observer?” he whispered into my ear, and then he pulled his face away and watched my eyes as he continued to pleasure me, blotting out my thoughts with his clever fingers.

It was a little unfair, him carrying on this conversation with me while he was getting me off.

“What do you say, Isis? Do you prefer to operate on stupid and smart, or something else entirely?”

“You’re not being fair,” I gasped.

“You love a good power imbalance,” he whispered.

He loved it, too. He loved when I was melty and helpless. We all did!

And this new twist now, simultaneously asking me hard questions while destroying my train of thought. It was the intellectual version of being bound and helpless and fucked by a fully clothed man.

“Would this seem stupid to an outside observer?”

“I don’t care,” I gasped, belly lit up with feeling.

“Because you just want it,” he added.

“Yes,” I gasped. “I just want it.”

“You just fucking want it.”

“Yes,” I repeated.

“Precisely,” he whispered. And he finger fucked me in a new way, thumb playing on my sensitive clit, owning me, controlling me.

I tried to focus, knowing I’d just conceded some sort of point, but my entire being was too busy melting under his clever fingers, and finally I broke apart in a thousand-star orgasm, and all I could do was ride it, panting, shattering, as I came.

When I focused my eyes, I saw him standing over me, cock visibly hard in his jeans. “Sometimes you just want what you want, even if it doesn’t seem smart. We want vengeance. The Prime.”

He went back to the empty chair and used another scarf to bind my wrist even more firmly to the slats.

So all of that had just been to drive a point home?

“That’s one technique they never taught us in debate class,” I said.

He didn’t think that was funny. He kept tying me up. He wanted me all roped up. He still had that hard-on going, and I guessed he was on some sort of jag.

“You and your ski jumps and things,” he continued. “Bungie jumping. Do you see us infantilizing you by telling you what you should and shouldn’t want?”

He really wanted me to understand, but how could I? It was dangerous. Shouldn’t there be a line drawn at danger?

“Come and fuck me,” I said. “I know you want to fuck me.”

“I need to get these on before the Prime.” He continued to bind my wrist.

“Why the hurry? I’m so wet right now. It would feel so good to have you inside me.”

The truth.

“Stop it. You’re getting your tattoo.”

“You don’t have to tie me. It’s insulting.”

“Is that a Mississippi?” He tightened the scarf and then took up the tool, question in his eyes.

“Then do it,” I bit out. “If the group is getting the tattoo, I’m getting the tattoo.”

“Good.” He started up the implement.

“Put it on there,” I said, lying back. “You wish we were dead, motherfuckers. Just tattoo that dark wish right on me.”

“So I will.” And he started. I could feel the little needle prick and bite my skin. It hurt, but not as much as the sense that this was some kind of horrible turning point toward darkness and crashing and burning instead of a viable future.

But whatever happened, I was with my guys. I loved them.

“Put the whole goddamn thing on there. I want to die a fiery death with the same tattoo as you guys.”

“Okay, goddess.”

Needless to say, that wasn’t the answer I was fishing for.

I was hoping for something along the lines of We’re not going to die, Isis!