"What?" he blurts out, then shakes his head. "Sorry, I'm sorry, Synne, I just ... I needed to see you." He drops down to tbe edge of the bed.
My face doesn't change. "You couldn't wait until I had risen decently?"
"I haven't seen you in some days, so I rather thought you would be happy to have me here," he responds, his own tone growing cool. "Am I unwelcome? I had heard a rumour you had a new confidante, but surely ... "
"Oh, a rumour, was it? Is that all, to send you rushing here to check on me before I'm even properly dressed?"
"As if that could matter between us!" Loki scoffs. "But then, you've been sharing that favour around, so I hear. Someone new to Asgard, in the orchards, is how I heard it."
I retort, "Then someone is buying you with your own coin, liesmith. Do you mistrust me so?"
"Who would have reason?" He is stiff and affronted, and so am I. I hate quarrelling.
But I will play this out; he can't keep this up forever. "Many and many, my prince. After all, you are Loki, Prince of Asgard, and I am merely an unworthy Vanr girl." I smile bitterly.
His voice rises to a shout. "Don't say that!"
"It's truth."
"It is not. I will not have you repeat such lies."
I sit up. "Then do me the same kindness."
He blinks at me for a long moment, then his shoulders sag slightly. "How did you know it was me?" he asks, very quiet.
I clasp my hands around my knees. "I would always know you, I think. But," I shrug, "in truth you changed very little. If you wish to use that as a disguise, you'll have to do more than simply change your gender, my prince."
"Stop calling me that," Loki snaps, raking a hand through his hair.
"Will you tell me why you wished me to think you mistrusted me?" I lay my cheek against my upthrust knees, watching him.
He opens his mouth, looks at me, looks away. Silence.
"Ah," I say softly. "You do mistrust me. Despite that I give you no reason. Is that why you came to me in the orchard, my prince, in silence and without introduction, so you could make of it a reason?" I want to cry, but I dare not. I will not show how he has hurt me.
"Do you think me so cruel?" He still does not look at me.
"I didn't, until now," I reply. "Gods above and below, can you not leave off testing me and simply love me as I do you?" I don't quite mean to cry those words, but once started I cannot stop.
"How can I?" he cries back. "A woman like you can't possibly truly love me! Look, only look at all the other folk around! Fandral, Eyvindr, Freyr, Baldr, Hrothr," he hesitates, "Thor. Any one of them more deserving than I."
"I will no more hear you say those words, those lies, than you would hear them from me," I whisper. "You do not choose how I feel. Trust me, please just trust me as I trust you." I close my eyes, feeling a tear slide down my nose. "After all, you have never once said you loved me, yet I did not doubt it until today."
I hear fabric rustle in response to my words, but I keep my eyes closed; I do not want to see him leave.
"Please don't cry, Synne," he says falteringly. "I do love you. Please, please, come here, look at me, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you like this."
I can hear him shifting on the bed, his weight dipping closer to me. He forbears to touch me, though, but keeps pleading.
"Please, I'll do anything, only look at me, let me prove I love you."
I open my eyes to his face, worried and desperately anguished. With one hand I smear at the tear-streaks across my face.
"Synne, please, I'm so sorry. Please believe me."
I raise my hand to touch his cheek, and Loki clasps it in both his, raising it to his lips and kissing it fervently. "Don't ever lie like that to me again," I whisper. Another tear slips down my face.
"I won't, I swear I won't," he promises. "Please, can I ... can I hold you, can I kiss you?"
I hold my arms out to him and draw him in. I shouldn't, but I know I've already forgiven him. We rest our foreheads against each other and just look, for a long time. At last I say, with reluctance, "I expect you can't stay. They're probably missing you in your rooms already."
"Let them," Loki replies. "I'm staying here, with you." He fits both hands about my head, tangling his fingers in my hair, and kisses me slowly. The tip of his tongue caresses my lips, and I open to him. He tastes of spices, and pride. I could sit here for hours, just trading kisses: one for his eyebrow, that always arches with his sarcasm; one for the line of his hair, dark as obsidian and softly curling around his neck; one for his cheekbone, sharp enough to cut myself on. Slow kisses to either side of his mouth, quick to smile and hard in anger.
Loki tries to capture my mouth with his, but I've moved on, to kiss at his throat and in the hollow behind his ear, burying my face in his hair and dropping kisses there. He sighs sweetly, tipping his head back, and so I give him kisses for his collarbones. "Just as well you are not formally clothed," I whisper into his pale skin. "I can never see enough of your throat."
He laughs, low and easy with that flashing smile. "Am I to keep waiting, or will you give me a turn?"
"Oh, bored, is it? Not pleasing enough for you?" I tease, still pressing my face to his breastbone.
"I owe you the pleasure, do I not? In exchange for hurting you?"
I draw back now, to gaze into his eyes, deep green and shimmering. "Is that what you think, that you have to return pleasure for pain to earn my forgiveness?"
He shrugs. "I thought to prove how I love you, is all."
I show him a very small, tender smile. "What will you have of me, my Loki?"
He takes both my hands and kisses them, each in turn, patiently. "I want to worship you in every part." Pulling me to him, he kisses my earlobe and whispers, "I want to claim you in every possible way."
The hiss of his voice against my ear makes me shiver, desire lacing down my spine. "Claim, is it? And do I get to claim you in all these ways as well?" I murmur in reply.
"As I love you, never doubt it." He sets his lips to my shoulder, drawing a path down my arm. A bite at the underside of my wrist makes me squirm, and he flashes me that smile again, tinged with lust. My breath comes hard to me. He draws two fingers across my upturned palm before enclosing my hand in both his and fair jerking me into his lap.
Amid laughter we sprawl across my bed, utterly disarranging the blankets before Loki rolls onto his back and pulls me astride him. His phallus presses firm against me, and I writhe atop him until he stills me. "Slowly, slowly, Synne." His hands begin to wander my body, pressing hard there (my hips), barely skimming there (my sides). He traces patterns onto my skin, draws his blunt nails down my spine. Slowly he works his fingers up my torso, drawing my nightdress up until he reaches my breasts.
He spends quite a long time at my breasts, drawing soft fingertips over my nipples, weighing them in his hands, enclosing them and kneading softly. When he draws himself up to suckle I have to sigh at the pleasure of it. When he leaves off, it is only to tug the nightdress over my head, leaving me in naught but clouts and hair. Picking up a long curl, he slips it through his fingers. "I've always loved your hair, you know," he says, quietly. "My brother says it is fair as the dawn, and I must agree with him. Pale and glorious."
Loki tugs the strand gently, then releases it, reaching out to run his fingers over the lines my bones make against my skin. "But you are so much more than your beauty, Synne. Your mind, ah, the way you think and see the world. You're insightful and kind to so many, and yet still you ply your wit and let none best you without challenge." His hands span my hips. "You make me want to be better."
I want to say something wise and thoughtful, to return or earn this shower of compliments, but desire has unwound my mind and all I can do is listen. "You are so very much more than I deserve," he carries on, pressing and pressing against my body. I tangle my fingers in his drawstrings, but cannot progress from there for his hands tracing at my thighs. He leans and lays a soft kiss to my mouth, coaxing with tongue and lips, then whispers, "I can't explain how or why you mean so much to me."
I find the presence of mind to reply, "Then show me," nipping hungrily at him.
"Oh, indeed," and he puts me from him, rolling off my bed in a cat-like sprawl and stripping with economy. His pupils are huge and black and he never takes his eyes off me before crawling back onto the bed and taking me. He's brought me to such a pitch of desire that the force of it is exactly what I need, so I cry my pleasure in his ear, grappling him close to me. The scrape of my nails across his skin brings a fierce growl from his throat, and he snatches my wrists to pin them to the bed while he drives into me.
I struggle, but his fingers are long and his grip is powerful, and it only wrings more sensation from both of us. "I wish to hear you cry my name, my daylight girl," he growls, "Now." I'm helpless in the grasp of pleasure and desire, and his command bursts in my consciousness like a dying star, sweeping any hope of refusal before it in a wave of flame. My climax racks my body from toes to hairline, driving his name from my mouth in a gasp.
"Louder," he demands, wrapping his arms about me and lifting me up. "Loki, oh Loki," I cry, letting my head fall back and my spine arch. I'm trembling from the bone with aftermath, seeing stars falling behind my closed lids. He clings to me as his release shakes him like a leaf.
All we can do is gasp each other's breath for long moments, holding tightly one to the other.
"Do you believe me now?" Loki gasps, drawing my head down to his shoulder.
I start to laugh. "I've always believed you, Loki."