.
As with everything in Loki's life these days, the situation he found himself in had gotten so far beyond his original intention, he was almost at a loss to explain how he'd ended up there.
Though he was on earth for an entirely different purpose, he'd been unable to resist the temptation of meeting Jane Foster. He wanted to see for himself, to confront the woman that had stolen his brother's heart so thoroughly that Thor would give up everything he'd ever dreamed of just to be with her. Call it curiosity, brotherly duty to inspect his potential future sister-in-law, or just the God of Mischief living up to his name. Whatever the reason, it was only ever meant to be a pit stop on the way to greater things.
Loki had had it all planned out. It was to be a brief visit. He'd appear before the stupid girl, frighten her a little with the help of some of his more interesting deceptions, plant a seed of doubt in her head regarding his brother's proclivities and faithfulness, then leave. A harmless bit of mischief.
What he hadn't intended was to end up with a moaning, writhing mortal woman beneath him, her body responding like liquid fire to his touch and her every movement sending sparks of shockingly intoxicating pleasure coursing through his veins. No, scratch that. Not just any mortal. Thor's woman. His brother's woman.
Fuck, what are you doing Loki?
He fought to ignore the voice in his head, even as he dragged his hands down the girl's form, relishing the softness he found at every turn. At first, he had been stunned at how readily she responded to his advances. The foolish mortal appeared to have little fear, and even less hesitation to his touch, despite claiming to know who he was.
Then, once the initial shock of her response had worn off, it had become a question of seeing how far the God of Mischief could push his luck.
Honestly, Loki hadn't thought it would be very far. He knew Thor must have warned Jane about him, and that if she was half the woman his brother claimed her to be she would see through what he was doing in an instant. Truthfully, he expected nothing more than a hard slap for his troubles, perhaps a threat to tell his brother thrown in for added measure. At the very least a swift kick to the family jewels.
But the stupid woman hadn't reacted that way at all. Instead, she arched into him, making it quite clear she had no aversion to his touch. She'd looked at him with big blue fuck-me eyes and a heaving chest, and suddenly all of Loki's carefully made schemes crumbled into ashes at his feet.
That seemed to be the way of things these days.
So, a new plan. Once he'd established her lack of inhibitions, it was easy enough to seduce her. And how could he deny such an opening? An opportunity like this presented whole new possibilities for mischief that he hadn't previously contemplated. Loki had come to Midgard hoping to plant a seed of chaos in Thor's otherwise perfect life. Instead, Jane Foster offered him his brother's heart on a platter, then gave him the knife with which to carve it open.
All this from the woman Thor had been willing to give up his throne for? Truly, if this was love, it was a sentiment utterly beyond Loki's comprehension. He'd be doing his brother a favour by exposing it for the sham it clearly was.
So, why was he hesitating? Loki growled low in his throat, his lips skimming over the girl's collarbone while his hands trailed over her hips towards the apex of her thighs. She rewarded his touch with a sinful moan that shot straight to his groin, and it was all he could do not to take her between one heartbeat and the next. He knew she was ready for him - he was practically drunk off the scent of her arousal. So why was he hesitating?
He knew why. It was his curse, his burden; hated relic of his despised and misguided upbringing, and yet unshakeable, somehow, even after everything. His weakness.
Your own brother, Loki.
He's not my brother.
He loves her.
He is a fool to call this love.
This will break him.
Then he deserves to be broken.
He's your brother, Loki.
Growling, he threw himself sideways, almost launching off the bed in his desperate haste to put some distance between them. He lay on his back, panting, staring sightlessly at the ceiling, throbbing with unsatisfied need. Fuck, he hadn't bargained for this.
The girl lay still for a moment, the last of the tremors coursing through her body, before she pushed herself up on one elbow. Loki could feel her studying him, could taste her bewilderment and confusion on his tongue. Disgust with himself churned in the pit of his stomach - hardly a new feeling, but even he could admit this was a different flavour than he was accustomed to.
You're a fool if you don't take what she is offering.
Gritting his teeth so hard he thought he heard one of them crack, he ground out, "Tell me, why would my brother waste his love on a woman so patently unworthy of it?"
He heard her shocked intake of breath. Then, quite unexpectedly, she laughed. "Oh shit."
He rolled over to face her and was treated to a delicious frontal view of her lace-covered breasts. Maybe Thor hadn't cared so much about the fidelity part with a body like hers? At this moment Loki couldn't really blame him.
She was still smiling, a little manically. The mad gleam in her eyes sparked something inside him, and he felt himself growing, if possible, even harder. But he still didn't reach out to claim her. Allfather damn him, he was a thrice-cursed fool.
"You do not know what you are doing," he bit out, overriding every single natural instinct he possessed. "So I suggest, silly mortal, that you get up and forget any of this ever - "
He broke off, listening. The front door opened and slammed, followed by the distinct sound of booted footsteps echoing upstairs.
Instantly, he was on his feet. His clothes materialised and he gripped the sceptre in his hand, baring his teeth at the half-naked girl on the bed, who looked suddenly terrified. It's a trap, his mind screamed like a clamouring bell; he tasted bitterness in the back of his throat. The whole thing is a trap. Move!
He was halfway through disappearing when he smelt it. The presence of another female, distinctly ordinary, undeniably human. He paused, maintaining corporeality just long enough to hear a voice call out from downstairs, "Darcy? Darcy are you up there? Hellooo?"
He froze, reappearing at the foot of the bed and startling the girl so much she jumped, letting go of the sheet she had been trying to cover herself with.
His voice was low and deadly, his gaze burning with all the frost of Jotunheim. "Darcy?"
The girl turned crimson. He saw her throat bob as she swallowed, but speech seemed beyond her at that moment. Narrowing his eyes, Loki vanished and re-emerged in the downstairs hallway, where a slender woman was unwrapping a scarf from her neck, features drawn in weary exasperation.
He spoke inches from her right shoulder. "You are Jane Foster?"
She screamed, loud enough to make him wince, and threw herself against the wall. Her hands clawed at her throat and she gaped at him like a strangled fish, her lips moving in an absurd pantomime of speech.
"Y-y-y-" she seemed incapable of words, but her eyes flashed with recognition. She knew him. Or of him, at the very least. Loki sneered.
"Answer me, woman, or I shall make you rue the day you laid eyes on my fool of a brother."
At the mention of Thor, her demeanour changed abruptly. She lurched upright, paling like she'd seen a ghost, and a feverish light came into her eyes that made him want to take a step back. "Th-thor?" she gasped, swivelling around and glancing at the ceiling as if his brother might be hanging there like some overgrown fruit bat. "Thor is here? Where is he? Please tell me!"
Loki's eyes narrowed at her suddenly imperious tone. He raised his sceptre, letting the glow of it transfix her for a moment, then said very softly, "I will not ask again, mortal. Are you Jane Foster?"
She nodded without a moment's hesitation. "Yes, I am. Is Thor - "
He was gone before she could finish the plea. Upstairs, he found the girl - Darcy - staring stupidly into space, as if unable to come to terms with what had just happened. Without speaking, he seized her in a deliberately ungentle grip and transported them both somewhere they would not be disturbed.
The girl - the girl that was not Jane Foster - staggered when he let her go, and fell onto the bed he had conveniently conjured in the centre of the room. She trembled, but this time it was not lust that made her thighs shake. Loki could smell the fear on her like a taint.
He glared down at her, and she blinked back with an eery calmness. "Are you going to kill me?"
"That depends," he replied. "Who are you?"
"Darcy."
"Darcy who?"
She frowned. "Just Darcy."
He gave her a look that would have made a Frost Giant tremble. "Nobody in this realm is just one thing. I require an elaboration."
She gaped at him, apparently taken aback by his persistence. "You really care what my last name is?"
He didn't smile. "I care about knowing who it is I'm involved with, Darcy." He watched the colour return to her cheeks, realising with something dangerously close to smugness that she enjoyed the way he said her name. "I do not make it my habit to bed strangers."
"You were going to bed Jane!"
He swatted away this comment like an irksome fly. "I was not. But that isn't important right now. Answer me."
Her face flushed with annoyance, and she sat up straight, crossing her arms over her chest. "Fine. You want to know all about me? Sure, okay. My name's Darcy Lewis, I'm a pol sci major with a crummy intern job that pays less than awful, my life's a hot mess, I'm hanging out at my best friend's house while she mopes for your brother who fell out of the fucking sky, along with a giant robot that demolished half the town just cause it felt like it. In my spare time I get to watch stories about Norse mythology come true and oh, tonight I nearly banged the God of Mischief, in between him probably plotting to enslave the earth and blow up the universe or something!"
She finished her little rant, panting and furious. Loki studied her in fascination. She was intensely alluring when fired up; he experienced a quite irrational desire to keep arguing with her, just to maintain the spectacle. "Who said anything about nearly?" he replied softly, then, before she could properly process his words, "Why did you lie to me?"
A spark of defiance flashed in her eyes. "I didn't," she said, then bit her lip, as if reconsidering. "I just… never got around to correcting you."
Loki thought about this. He ran through every word of their conversation, and couldn't help his lips from curling into a smirk. He was almost impressed. There were few people among the Nine Realms who could trick the God of Trickery himself. He stared with fresh eyes at this Darcy. The still very shirtless Darcy.
"I see."
She peeked at him from underneath her lashes. "You do?"
"Oh yes." He sat himself down on the edge of the bed, and she stiffened. A pity, she had been so pliable before, practically putty in his hands. "You tried to deceive the God of Lies himself. You are either very brave or incredibly foolish."
"It wasn't my fault!" she whined, sitting up on her knees. "I kept trying to tell you, but you were so busy with the interrupting and the threatening and the grrr!" she made a sound that could only be described as an angry lion cub. "And then you were kissing me and I forgot what I was supposed to say and oh god, Jane is going to kill me!" She raked her hands through her hair, giving him another delightful view of her breasts. She seemed to have forgotten she wasn't wearing her shirt. Loki had no plans to remind her anytime soon.
"Jane will kill you?"
"Yes!" She looked up at him abruptly, her gaze fierce. "She'll think I did it on purpose, pretending to be her, and then she'll freak out that Thor will get mad and - and you!" she pointed a finger at his face, and he raised an eyebrow, unsure whether to be amused or angered by her blatant disrespect. "You absolutely cannot tell Thor about any of this! I refuse to be held responsible for your brother getting all jealous and mad and sending lightning bolts of doom to fry us over a simple misunderstanding."
She was nearly panting in her fervour. Loki felt his erection pressing uncomfortably against his clothing, but resisted the urge to render himself naked once again. He didn't want to startle her. "So you didn't do it on purpose?" he asked, surprised to find himself genuinely curious as to her answer. Usually he could read the truth of these things on people's faces, or by dipping into their minds. But she was such a chaotic jumble of emotions he was having trouble making sense of her.
The glare she shot him was poisonous. "No! Okay, maybe it crossed my mind for like one second, but no! I can't help it if you're all sexy and distracting and - " she seemed to come to a sudden awareness, looking down at herself - "Oh my god I'm naked."
Loki stifled a pang of disappointment. "Indeed. Would you like your shirt back?"
"I - " she stared at him, and beneath the apprehension, he caught a spark of something else that made him want to crow. "Well I suppose I should, but…"
"But?" he prompted, running his tongue along his upper lip and watching her eyes flit to his mouth.
"But I… it's just… we were managing pretty well without… clothes... before. Don't you think?" She peeked at him, her cheeks turning a delightful shade of pink. Loki hid the gloating smirk that wanted to break out on his face. A small voice in the back of his head whispered that this wasn't what he came to Midgard for. He had business to attend to, and while toying with his brother's lover had been an appealing diversion, it was very much secondary to his broader ambition; bedding a random mortal, who wasn't even connected to Thor and wouldn't impact him in the slightest, was nowhere near his list of priorities. He didn't have the time to waste on this.
With remarkable ease, Loki silenced the voice. After all, it wasn't every day a beautiful woman took their clothes off - and kept them off - around him, and while Loki could be accused of many things, squandering opportunities was not one of them. A God he may be, capable of feats of power and magic the likes of which the citizens of Midgard had never seen, but he still had a pulse.
"Indeed," he whispered, leaning closer, trapping her between his arms and vanishing his clothes between one blink of the eye and next. Darcy gasped, and he saw her eyes dart lower. When she met his gaze again, he quirked a brow. "Shall we continue?"
"Yes," she replied breathlessly. With an effort, Loki smothered the groan that wanted to slip out at her words. She was so open in her desire, so willing, he almost didn't know what to make of it. The cynical side of him told him it must be a trick, or a trap, or some kind of manipulation, but he couldn't bring himself to believe that fully. He saw no artifice in her gaze. And of all the beings in the Nine Realms, he should be the one to recognise it.