14. Confessions


"Marry me," Loki whispered again and again. As they made love and approached their shared climax, he withdrew from her and lifted her to sit astride him.

"I will," Natasha said, riding his deliciously smooth member. "I'll marry you, Loki."

His face grimaced with the oncoming orgasm, and he slipped out of her again. Roughly he pulled her up to face the bed pillars and took her from behind. "Marry me," he said again, kissing her neck, winding his fingers in her curls.

"Yes, yes. I want to marry you, to be your wife." Natasha heard him pant, felt his stroke increase and with a cry of something like pain, she felt him slip out of her again.

"Here, against the wall." Loki lifted her to sit astride his slender hips as he took her standing up, repeating his demand by her ear while he pressed her against the wood panels. "My darling, my love – marry me."

"I will marry you, Loki," she promised. "I want nothing else, you've made me complete, I need to be by your side for the rest of my life."

With an effort he withdrew again, and drew her to the balcony. Her legs trembled so she could barely stand. Naked they stood side by side, looking out over the little garden. "Will you come out there and make love with me ere longer?" he whispered.

"But someone will see!" she cried. Too late - he had already picked her up, vaulted the rail around the balcony, and landed in the grass with a lithe flourish.

"Isn't this nice, to feel the night wind on our skins?" he whispered with a wicked grin. "And just have a look at how much I want you, darling. So desperate, hard as a boulder… see there, my prick wants nothing more than to be inside your warmth again."

"What if a passing guest should spy us from a window?" Natasha trembled under his bold caresses; truth be told, it was damnably exciting to stand naked with him under the night sky.

"This garden is hidden, but if someone dares to watch, that curious fool shall receive a lesson in how to pleasure a woman until at last she weeps for joy." Quickly he created a welter of pillows and drew her down to sit on his thobbing erection. As she flung her head back in ecstasy, Loki caressed her breasts and lavished them with his tongue. "Is there anything better than this?" he gasped. "To have me inside you, moving so slowly so we can feel every jolt, each twitch?"

"There's nothing better. I love this, I love the way you make love to me. But she's so close, Loki – I can't control it this time…"

His nostrils flared as he slipped out again, laid her down on her back, paused above her. "Tell me," he said. "Tell me you are mine."

"I am yours." She could hardly breathe, let alone speak.

"Tell me you will be mine forever." His tip hovered at her entrance, and she shivered at his touch.

"Forever," she gasped.

"And you will marry me? As soon as we can? You will be my wife?" Agonizingly slow in his movements, he entered her.

Her climax shimmered before her, inescapable, building layer upon subtle layer. "My husband," she moaned, and at that she felt him jerk his hips, slide up to meet her entrance, shoot wave after wave of his seed inside her, as she melted and crashed around him. Her entire being expanded and contracted; she pulsed like the beats of a huge clock. It was almost as though she and Loki flew above the couple in the grass, looking down from the air as they writhed together among the cushions.

"Oh! Oh! Oh!" he groaned into her neck. "It shoots so, it spurts…"

Unbidden, her body was slammed again in another wave of release. She panted into his neck, and they shook together as though they burned with fever.

A moment or an hour passed; she had no idea of time any longer. When she could speak she whispered, "Okay, that was intense."

Sharply he turned to face her. "What does you mean by this word - intense?"

"I just meant I never felt anything like that, ever. You might be used to it after many centuries of sexing it up in Asgard, but…"

"No." Loki seized her hand to pull her closer. "I never experienced anything like that either. It seemed my soul was transported up there with you to float among the stars."

He pointed to the moons winking in the sky, and she pressed a kiss on his shoulder. "I know. I – I felt the same way."

A tear trickled down her cheek, and gently he touched the sparkling drop with one finger. "I told you I could make you cry with pleasure." He laughed when she hid her head in his chest. "Marry me," he said again, his lips by her ear. "And we will make it very soon – I refuse to wait much longer to have you as my wife."


Over breakfast, Loki eyed Natasha. She drank delicately from a massive flagon, one eye on the book she was studying. "I thought you could have a holiday today so I could take you to a place you would enjoy," he announced. "I have already arranged it with Sif."

She glanced up and frowned. "What about asking me first? You know, seeking my approval would be nice now and then."

His laugh was like a dog slipped off a leash; it would not be tamed. He loved to see her flush with anger. "I would have done so, but we both know you would argue, and I would cajole, and eventually after much tedious argument you would agree with me. This way saves us both a great deal of time."

Her eyes flashed, but he caught the telltale twitch of her lips. "Could you be more annoying?"

"I could, but I do not think you would like it."

She sighed and sat back in her chair in surrender. "Very well, but I insist on having an extra hour with Sif and her warriors tomorrow. And," she added, "I would also like a large room, if I could, to practice my arts later. My own forms of fighting and warfare. It's been too long – I don't want to get soft."

"Of course!" He felt delighted; she never requested anything from him. "I will have it done today." Natasha gave him her secret smile and returned to her book. Loki grinned, but inside he felt something like nerves. Truth be told, he had a few things to say to her neither of them would find pleasant, and he wanted to transport her to the most beautiful place he knew to break them to her.


"How did you find this spot?" Open-mouthed, Natasha gazed around the place surrounding them. A long series of waterfalls ran down a wooded hill, each torrent pouring into a tiny, shadowed pool fringed with Asgardian toadflax and rushes. A slight breeze tumbled her curls; Loki couldn't help reaching for one strand where it lay across her shoulder.

"It is getting very long," he remarked, tugging on the curl of hair.

"Yours too. Is there such a thing as a barber in Asgard?"

He made his face severe. "My hair is a symbol of my freedom and spirit."

"Okay, if you say so. Let me just wind my fingers through a little of that freedom and spirit."

Loki allowed her to caress him, folding her into a soft kiss. When he broke away, her mouth remained bowed for a moment as though she regretted the distance. Each attitude of hers delights me, he thought as he conjured a wooden seat for them lined with feather pillows, as well as a low table laden with wine and fruit. "Will you sit with me a while, Agent Romanova?"

"Agent Romanova no longer. Now I am merely Natasha." She sat next to him and curled under his arm.

"My Natasha." He spoke idly, trying to configure the words he had to say in his mind.

Her body twisted to face him. "You have something you want to say – that much is plain. What is it, Mischief?"

"Yes, I have to tell you a few things, and I am not certain how to begin." Loki handed her a glass of wine, trying not to feel a pang as he watched her slender fingers curl around the stem, her lush lips part to take a sip.

"Well?" Her blue gaze was very direct.

"I suppose I have to start from the beginning. When we announce our betrothal, darling, there will have to be a big party. You will receive all sort of attention – bards will write sonnets in your honour, musicians compose lays about your beauty and wisdom…"

"Sonnets, music. Got it. I can deal."

"And we will have to move to the larger flank of rooms I originally inhabited, before – before the events of the last few years. You and I can stay in our little nest no longer, Natasha."

She nodded. "I expected as much. But I would dearly like it if we could visit there from time to time – I will always remember it as our first home. I know it was a prison for you, but for me it was – will always be – heaven."

"Prison? Yes! It was where you enslaved my heart. Never was there a more willing prisoner than Prince Loki of Asgard." He felt desire surge through his veins, but she evaded his grasp.

"But that is not all, is it? You have more to say. Tell me, and after you may have a kiss." Natasha took another sip of wine and curled her legs under her, settling herself more comfortably.

Loki ran one hand through his hair. She was right – it had grown long. "This is difficult for me to say. I just wanted to warn you about me – exactly what you are facing right now, the creature who sits next you in this sheltered place. No," he added as she tried to protest, "you have seen me as a dark villain and so I am, but you have not yet plumbed the full depths of my bitter temper. When Angrboda betrayed me for the last time so thoroughly it scourged my very bones, I burst in on a banquet at the Palace and demanded mead. And more, and more. And I got thoroughly drunk and lashed all at the table with my tongue, exposing each weakness of every guest there, so much so it became the stuff of legend. Loki and his wonderful table etiquette," he concluded with ironic humour.

"Hey, I'm not such a bargain either," Natasha began, but he pressed one finger to her lips to silence her.

"You are a queen. I have watched you moving through the royal company like a heroine. Perhaps you do not see how everyone admires you, your bravery and wit, your beauty of course – that goes without saying – and the way you handle me so delicately and surely like a master rider on a nervous steed. I know it, and you know it, and I also must add, Natasha, you deserve a throne, a crown, untold riches, and I…" He suddenly dipped to one knee and gazed up into her face with wide eyes. "I have nothing to offer you but these empty hands."

"Loki." Tears slipped down Natasha's cheeks, and gently she placed her hands in his. "They do not look so empty to me any longer. And, honestly, I don't care one bit about thrones and crowns and all that stuff. You told me last night I brought colour to your life. Well, do you know what? You did the same for me. I spent years under the control of the Red Room and those who ran it, doing only what they wanted me too. And, yes, I was saved by Clint and SHIELD, but I still was a mercenary acting on orders, caring only for guns and vodka." She sank to the ground beside him, uncaring of the rich velvet gown billowing around her. "You make me laugh. You make me smile, every day. Do you know what I thought as we rode together yesterday? I realized for the first time life is for the taking, and I will take every second, but only at your side."

"By all the Valkyries of Valhalla! You …" For once in Loki's life, words failed him. He had no idea how to describe to her the brightness in his heart, the flaming light surrounding her lovely face in the shadowed forest as she knelt facing him. At length he shook his head and allowed his lips, his hands, his body do the telling of it. Gently he kissed her, murmuring her name softly as a child might voice a prayer, as he drew her down beside him among the rushes and toadflax.


Later they moved to one of the smooth, flat rocks by the river to splash in one of the pools. Loki watched as Natasha made a sigh of surrender and slid into the water. When she surfaced, he produced a small box carved from a single knot of wood. "Can you undo it, darling?" he teased. "It is designed as a puzzle."

"What is this?" Mirth trembled in her voice. Carefully she probed the tiny thing with her fingers; after a few minutes she discovered the trick. Two slots folded back so the little box resembled a horned helmet and she was able to open it.

Her laughter died as she saw what was inside. Loki removed the slender silver ring, intricately wound in a spiral to hold a moonstone in its centre. "Will you allow me to put it on you?"

In answer she held out her hand. He slipped it on her little finger and followed it with a kiss. "I had a large emerald diadem set into heavy gold prepared to give you as well," he added, "but this seemed more appropriate. The stone reminds me of your skin under the moonlight."

"It's perfect – just perfect. Besides, I wouldn't have the slightest idea what to do with a diadem." Natasha reached up and drew him into another kiss; as he knelt to touch her lips, she tugged his neck so he fell into the water with a splash.

He reemerged, flung the water out of his hair with one swift motion, and grasped her naked body as she wound her legs around his hips. "Soon-to-be Mrs. Mischief, would you like me to fuck you here and now in this pool of water?"

"Why yes, Mr. Mischief, I would like that very much."


As the stars appeared in the shimmering sky, Loki hesitated at the entrance to the palace. "It was another golden day, darling."

"Yes, it was." Natasha slipped her arm through his and leaned her head on his shoulder.

He took a deep breath and forced her chin up with one finger so she could look at him. "It is time to approach the All-Father and Queen Frigga with our request. Are you ready to change your life forever?"

Natasha nodded, and the blue eyes sparkled with her own brand of mischief. "Bring it," she vowed.


NOTE - Loki's description of the drunken banquet when he talks to Natasha is from the Poetic Edda : the most complete section of the runic verse. He is a thorough villain in that section, accusing all the guests of incest and worse. Yet however evil the Vikings meant him to be, I would imagine no one can deny he is one of the most fascinating figures in mythology.