Blood Moon || Loki [2]

[50] The Greatest Thing You'll Ever Learn

22 DECEMBER, 2013

LOKI

Evidently, he decided to stay.

Loki had promised Astrid one night. That was over a month ago. It certainly did not help that every second with her was like a tonic to the slow, dull ache of responsibility pressing on his chest. He knew he would have to return soon. He simply wanted to hold off on actually going back for as long as possible.

He yearned for her company so often that he was beginning to wonder if he was pathetic. Loki had spent so long in pain and fire that he had forgotten true warmth. The kind that spread over his bones and melted the raging ice in his blood. But when he awoke next to Astrid Louvelle, he remembered what it felt like not to hate the world so deeply. In fact, he had begun to enjoy existing again.

Loki had forgotten love, but now there was Astrid.

The sun was rare in the wintertime here, and usually he was perfectly fine with that. This morning, though, he was happy to watch it spill golden light over Astrid's skin. Loki didn't need to sleep nearly as often as she, but it came easily when she curled against him the way she did, her leg and arm tossed over his middle, her little, stealthy breaths hot across his collarbones. The light shimmered along her necklace with every beat of her heart. It was the only time he could see her at peace, when the troubles of her poisoned world floated into the space above her head and he could ease her dreams into serenity.

"Anyone ever tell you that you have a staring problem?"

Her eyes were narrow slits as she began to stir, and her beauty struck him like a blow to his chest. He wasn't fond of Midgardian clothing, but Astrid liked to wear his shirts to bed, and that thought alone had every inch of him alight with pride. And a small ache of desire. "I'm thinking of all the ways I'll have you pinned down," he told her, "when I get my revenge on you."

Not true. All right-partially true. He did want to pin her down. Astrid lifted her arms over her head and stretched out her limbs, and Loki had to look sharply away to avoid catching his gaze on her thighs when his shirt rode up her legs. "Sweet of you," she said, brushing through her hair with her fingers. She was beautiful dishevelled when she looked at him through her hazy eyes, sitting up on her mattress. "You'll just have to wait until I get home from work."

Loki snapped his fingers, and the uniform on the chest at the end of her bed disappeared. "Work?" he said with a frown.

She huffed, sinking back down against her pillows. Gods above, what he would sacrifice to abandon all self-control and do what he wanted with her in this bed. Her furrowed brow, her pout, her soft hair like a bird's nest upon her head. Loki should have cursed himself with impotence for the thoughts that struck his mind when she pouted. Damn this woman.

"I have to go," she grumbled, crawling on top of him. Loki's blood hummed with the thrill of her bare thighs squeezing his hips. She was beautiful and wicked and he wanted to worship her like he was the mortal and she the goddess.

"It doesn't look like you're going," he said, stretching out his own arms by wrapping them around her waist. He liked looking up at her and seeing those shadowy golden eyes, obscured by the darkness of her lashes. "It looks like you're staying."

Astrid smiled crookedly, her hair falling perfectly around her face. "Give me back my uniform."

"No."

"Loki."

She was sitting on his hips now, and he had to think of anything but her in order to keep her from feeling just how terribly she'd drawn him in. "No," he said plainly.