Page 53 of The Deeper Game
I stepped through the open doors, past the doormen, and out into the sunshine, feeling suddenly hopeful. My guys were intensely fixated on vengeance, but maybe pulling off a robbery of the Prime would quench it, like a big glass of bank robber lemonade hitting a parched throat. The Prime was the ultimate prize, after all. Unless you counted something like Fort Knox.
Needless to say, I wouldn’t be mentioningthatto my guys!
The rest of the stakeout went like clockwork. And Lupe, our expectant mother and criminal sister in Santa Rosa, was feeling good. The midwives hadn’t turned the baby, but she was doing well otherwise. Everything was looking up. Odin was even talking about playing chess later, which made me think that maybe he’d abandoned his plans to complete our non-life-positive tattoos.
Wishful thinking, as it turned out.
That evening, Thor and Zeus took off to grab takeout and champagne for our two-nights-before-a job celebration.
A few minutes later, Odin strolled into the kitchen where I was clicking through the Farfetch site.
One of the great things about being in a bank robbing gang is that you can afford designer outfits—the real ones, not the knockoffs.
“Tattoo time,” he said.
“You’re finishing itnow?” I asked.
He smiled his beautiful and dangerous smile. “You have a problem with that?” He came and spun me around on my stool, standing between my legs.
I had a problem all right—with a tattoo like a curse. But at the end of the day, if my guys were getting it, I wanted it. Showing that I was a true part of the gang was more important than the specifics of some tattoo.
He kissed my neck. “Are you ready?”
“Sure am,” I whispered, reaching down and pressing my hand to his cock, hoping to bypass his mind by communicating directly with his libido. I wrapped my fingers almost all the way around it in a way that I hoped was saying,Can’t you think of something better to do?
He removed my hand. “Go sit on the couch, goddess.”
Sigh.
I cast around for a delaying idea, but without sex, my bag of tricks was pretty empty.
And, after long hours of getting the angel holding the scrolls, I was used to sitting still for the painful little needles without being tied down, so I didn’t need erotic distraction. “Timing seems a bit much.”
He spoke close to my face. “I want us to have them complete for the Prime.”
“You mean to finish them all tonight?”
“And tomorrow. As much as I can.” He pulled me gently to him, kissing me. My heartbeat kicked into double-time as he pushed his tongue into my mouth, body hard and good up against mine, and the swivel stool was just the right height.
“I’m ready to start the lettering,” he said as I wrapped my legs around his waist. Maybe this was just an elaborate game of chicken. Maybe he really did want to bang.
“It’s a dark wish of somebody else’s,” I whispered.
He slid his hands under my butt cheeks and pulled me off the stool then, putting me on the floor in front of him. “Stop trying to control the group.”
I snorted. As if I was controlling the group.
“Go into the living room and wait for me.”
I stood there. Did he really mean to complete the tattoo then and there?
“Is that a Mississippi?” he asked.
I turned and walked into the living room and sat on the tattoo chair in my tank top and yoga pants.
Five minutes later, he was walking in with his box of tattoo gear. He brought over the other chair he always used, setting it next to where I sat, facing away. He had me hang my arm over the back of the chair, which he straddled.
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.
