Page 5 of The Wrong Idea (The Kinky Bank Robbers #2)

Chapter Four

“Eep!” I cried.

Zeus tightened his grip on my calf and gave me one of his green-eyed glowers that always made my insides melt. “Don’t be a baby,” he growled in a way that was probably supposed to sound stern but was mostly sexy.

We were in a new hotel—the five-star Hotel Casa Del Sol—that had gorgeous ocean views out of huge arched windows. We’d spent the morning feasting, and then we’d walked the beach in glam disguises, discussing a bank my guys wanted to rob: the First West.

Now we were back in the room, and I was getting the gang tattoo.

I was sitting on the couch next to Thor with my leg up on the coffee table; it was Zeus’s job to hold it still while Odin worked on my ankle tattoo.

I’d never gotten a tattoo before. I didn’t know it was needles!

“If you would stop squirming, it would be over sooner,” Zeus added.

I plopped my head back on the couch cushion and stared at the posh ceiling. I distracted myself with thoughts of how grand hotels think of everything—posh ceilings, mints, guys in top hats to open doors.

I liked top hats, but my guys refused to wear them when I asked last week. No amount of sexy enticing would change that. I really wanted to have my guys in top hats, but not as badly as I wanted to have them in kilts.

Have them in kilts, meaning in the fashion sense and the carnal sense.

Thor looked at me sadly. “It is one of the most sensitive parts of the body,” he said. “But if we knocked you out, it wouldn’t mean as much.”

“Eep!” I said, as the sting of the tattoo needle intensified.

I squeezed my eyes shut. Should I say Mississippi ? My safe word?

Zeus snorted. “If you say eep one more time, I swear, Odin is going to start all over again. On the other ankle.”

I stared at the chandelier as Odin’s implement vibrated its painful little path along the tender inside of my ankle. More needling. And more.

“Eep!” I whispered under my breath.

The needling stopped.

Odin stood and scowled at me through his black wavy hair. “I’m gonna screw it up if you don’t behave. Do you want your gang tattoo to look like it was done by a third grader?”

“No,” I said. “I guess.”

Odin shook his head. His glasses and the bruising around his eye from a recent scuffle almost cancelled out his pretty boy looks— almost . “You usually like a little pain, Isis.”

True. But not this kind!

I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I felt proud to be getting the tattoo of our bank-robbing gang—an angry cloud with four fierce lightning bolts. Before I joined up, the design featured only three lightning bolts. The last bolt would represent me.

Odin sat back down and dabbed at my ankle.

“Here’s the thing,” I said. “What if the cops caught me and recognized the tattoo, and I cracked and led them to you?” I was joking a little, but a little bit not.

Zeus gazed at me with extra smoldering intensity. His nut-brown hair was still wet from a recent shower. I wanted to touch it. I wanted to touch him , just run my hands over his stubbly cheek. “The cops’ll catch us when we’re dead,” he growled.

My mouth went dry; I so loved when he talked tough like that. Still, I worried. “What if I’m the weak link?”

“The tattoo isn’t about that. It’s about family,” Zeus said. “It says we belong together.”

“Seriously, though, what if I screw it up for all of us?” What I was really asking was, what if I’m not worthy?

Zeus stood and came around the coffee table.

He sat down next to me on the arm of the couch.

“Listen to me, Isis.” He set his hands gently on the sides of my neck, fingers lightly touching my ears.

“We’re a family now. You know what family means?

We get to mess things up and be messed up, and we still belong together.

You won’t be rid of us, even if you act like the biggest screw-up in the world. And vice versa.”

“So sweet.” I was acting all cool to cover my strong emotions, but in truth, I felt my eyes misting up. These guys meant everything to me.

“I know you can never go home again,” he continued, “and part of that is our fault.”

I started to protest—I’d made my own choices.

He waved it off. “I know you miss your sisters. But we’re family now, Ice. We’re here for you. But if you don’t want the tattoo, you don’t have to get it.”

“It’s not that I don’t want the tattoo. I want it. And you know I’m a hundred percent into this.”

Thor smoothed a bit of hair from my forehead. Even my hair was different in this life—short and platinum blonde instead of long and red. “Good, because we’re a hundred percent into you. Actually, we’re three hundred percent into you.”

I grinned. “I don’t know that we’ve gotten quite that far yet in our relationship.”

Thor smiled devilishly and crossed his lanky legs. “The night’s still young, baby.”

Shivers ran over my skin.

“And, also, I think you’re three hundred percent into our gang rules,” Thor said.

My belly tightened. Yes, I liked the dirty rules.

Thor said, “Actually, I think you joined entirely for the rules. And correct me if I’m wrong, but I do believe the rules state that we can use your body in whatever way we see fit to satisfy our each and every carnal desire. Which would include tattooing you however and wherever we please.”

“Correction,” I said. “I didn’t join for the rules that let you use my body to satisfy your carnal desires. I joined as a hostage. I stayed for the dirty rules.”

Odin fixed me with a hard look. “Why ever you’re here and why ever you stay, this tattoo says we’ll never leave you behind, no matter what.”

“And you’ll never leave us behind,” Thor added softly.

There it was.

“I would never,” I said quickly. Never leave you the way she did —that was the subtext.

“We know,” Thor said.

Did they, though? My roguish criminals were a little bit vulnerable. They’d committed to Venus, and the three of them were hurt and grief-stricken when she killed herself.

Letting me join was a risky act for them—as risky as the most daring bank takeover. You could say they didn’t have a choice in the matter, but it was still risky. I wanted to rise to the occasion, to be worthy of their belief in me.

“Let’s do this,” I said. “Together forever.”

Zeus came to me, then. He grabbed my hair and pressed a kiss to my forehead.

I closed my eyes, loving it.

I said it again. “Let’s do it.”

“Good,” Odin said. “Because God Pack membership is not the stuff of a fucking-g pinky shake.”

I looked over Odin’s shoulder at the vase of tulips on the side table—flowers Zeus would’ve ripped up not too long ago, but in the few weeks since we’d almost died in that railcar, he hadn’t done it once. It was as if he’d worked out something that needed working out.

I felt this surge of affection for my bandits.

We’d come through a lot in a short time.

And we had a code. Sure, our code was all about being a gang of criminals living dissipated, sex-crazed lives in luxury hotels, but it was our code.

We were our own goddamn family. I felt so proud. And I wanted the tattoo.

“Naturally, it’s the most intricate tattoo known to humankind,” I said. “I think this thing has a higher level of detail than a dollar bill. You guys only got one angry lightning bolt added today. I have to get the whole outrageous thing.”

“The lightning bolt is not angry, it’s wrathful,” Odin corrected. “Wrath is more constructive than anger.”

“And cooler,” Thor added. “Wrath is cooler than anger.”

“Do it.” I shoved my foot back across the coffee table at Odin.

He watched me, all hot and scowly, toying with the tattoo implement.

He’d once told me he’d gotten his looks from ancestors in the Berber tribe of North Africa.

He was proud of his heritage, but he hated being so gorgeous—it detracted from his image as a dangerous criminal.

The things he did to counteract his looks—the two-day beard, the messy hair, the dorky outfits—it just intensified his handsomeness. I didn’t have the heart to tell him.

He turned the thing back on.

I winced.

He turned it off. “I haven’t even touched you yet. I cannot work like this.” Odin set the thing down, removed his glasses, and stood, stretching his fingers. “Isis, I recall you becoming quite wantonly aroused by certain kinds of pain. I recall a certain afternoon—”

“That’s different,” I interrupted.

Odin smiled his gorgeous smile. “Our innocent sheep farmer, writhing in ecstasy under a man’s firm hand coming down over her soft, fleshy buttocks. I recall a certain sheep farmer begging for more—”

“Stop…” I felt my face heat.

I looked over at Thor, who suppressed a grin, but I saw it in his blue eyes. His gaze traveled down to my neck, my chest. My chest would be pink under my shirt. He loved to tease me that I was a sex maniac. Maybe I was.

“Excuse me if it’s different when it’s, you know, exciting and sexy instead of just…abject torture.”

“That’s context, nothing more.” Odin flung a hand at me. “Strip her clothes off and tie her to the coffee table.”

My pussy tingled. “Excuse me?” I said. “Tie me up while I’m getting my tattoo?”

“Do it,” Odin said, wiping his tattoo gun. “You need a new context.”

“Good idea.” Thor let loose his grin.

“Sooooo…hold on!” My blood raced with excitement.

“You want her on her back or stomach?” Thor asked.

“Back,” Odin said. “Strip her and strap her. While I still feel inspired.”

The command turned my legs to jelly. This tattoo operation was starting to look up.

Zeus gazed over me, a glint of danger in his green eyes. “Get up, Ice.”

I met his gaze. The day they robbed the bank they wore zombie masks, but even then, his eyes mesmerized me.

“Will you disobey, Isis?” Zeus asked. “Is that what I’m seeing?”

Slowly, I stood, feeling naked already, unsure what they were planning. What could possibly distract me from poking needles? But I loved following their commands…almost as much as I loved resisting them.

Zeus stood almost a foot taller than me, all brutish beauty. In the world of gods, Zeus was an alpha. Within the gang, he was definitely the leader. He touched a finger to the bottom of my chin. “Strip her, Thor.”

Bright shivers cascaded over me as Thor’s arms slipped around me from behind, unbuckling my belt. The way Zeus watched my eyes…you could barely call it watching. It was more like he was using his hypnotic gaze to hold me and interrogate me and fuck me all at once.

So alpha hole.

So sexy.

Thor fumbled with the fly of my shorts more than he had to, which amounted to some slyly sexy scrabbling between my legs, and then he slid his fingers down between my legs, intensifying the heat there.

I closed my eyes, feverish with excitement, as he pressed his body against mine from behind.

Sometimes I still couldn’t believe that these sexy, fabulous bandits who took their names from gods and comic book heroes and wanted me and me alone.

“Keep looking at me,” Zeus grated.

I opened my eyes.

Zeus said, “We will distract you so thoroughly, Isis, that tattoo needle will feel like a summer breeze.”

Thor nuzzled my ear. “You might even get into it.” He pushed my shorts down over my hips as Zeus watched.

Warmth pulsed through my core.

“Isis loves a good distraction, don’t you, Isis?” Odin said.

“So what’s that exactly supposed to mean?” I asked.

“You’ll see,” Zeus growled.

“I think we’ll need to collect all the belts and scarves in this whole place, though,” Thor said.

“I don’t really see how this is going to work—”

My protests dissolved as Zeus grabbed the collar of my tank top and ripped it right down the middle.

I gasped.

“You don’t need to see,” he said. “Probably best you don’t.”

Eep!

I leaned back against Thor, blood racing.

I trusted my bandits—anything could happen with us, and I knew I’d always be cherished.

Safe. At least when we were alone together, inside our hotel rooms, we were safe.

Out there with them robbing banks…that was scary, even with Zeus and Odin being highly trained military operatives.

You’re not immortal. You’re not magic. I’d said that to Zeus recently, and he’d assured me they were close—beyond Navy SEALS, beyond elite, beyond secret.

Zeus caressed the tender flesh of my breasts with his rough fingers. “I love it when you don’t wear a bra,” he said. He took my hand, kissed my fingers. “You’re learning our preferences.”

“Actually, I’m down to one favorite bra. And considering you love ripping my clothes? That bra is officially reserved for restaurants and robberies.”

Thor said, “We’re rich bank robbers. We’ll buy another bra.”

“Actually, we’re running out of money,” Odin said from his stool across the coffee table. “Now hurry the fuck up.”

“Wait, what?” Thor asked.

Odin examined his tattoo instrument. I got the feeling he was hiding something. Was it bad news? Something more than money? “Belts, scarves, ties,” Odin said, looking up with resolve. “First things first.”

I stepped out of my shorts and panties as Thor walked off on his dirty scavenger hunt.

I stood there quivering, naked under Zeus’s hungry-bear gaze.

Zeus made you vulnerable with that gaze.

And oh, how I wanted him.