Curse Of Blood: Gods & Monsters

Chapter XII - Aila

"Loki..." She worried at her lower lip, placing her palm to his face, but he caught it, ere she could touch him where she sought to, and held her wrist away.

"Do not pity me," he smirked. "I not only wear the villain's mantle quite easily, I embrace it completely. It is, after all, in my nature to be dissolute and callous."

"But not to me!" she countered fiercely.

"No," he murmured, his eyes roving over her as though to memorize each detail of her face, "not to you." He brushed his thumb across her lips. "I would protect you even from Odin himself."

Aila tilted her head up towards the stars blinking behind the shadows of the giant conifers superimposed against the festooned and inky sky. She wondered if the Allfather was, even now, perched atop his throne, Hlidskjalf, as he scanned his single, omnipotent eye across every realm beneath Yggdrasil's branches.

"Is he watching us now?" She didn't care much for being scrutinized at present. Would he disapprove of her actions thus far?

Loki shrugged his shoulders. "I doubt it."

However, his words did not completely allay her misgivings. She searched the caliginous boughs carefully, wondering if Huginn or Muninn, Odin's watchful ravens, might be lurking from some shadowy point of espial.

"What are you waiting for?" His voice held both amusement and impatience, so she lowered her gaze from the heavens and brought her widened eyes back to his enigmatic regard. Loki was staring at her lips with keen hunger, his lids half-lowered seductively. "You are protracting the inevitable."

The rich, enticing timbre of his words flowed athwart her puckered skin, beguiling her with their sweetness so efficaciously that she ignored the redolence of presentiment contained within them. However, he remained motionless, unwilling to make the first move except to lean back on his elbows and, thereby, allow her to have the benefit of height over him. He had already done enough, she supposed, by repositioning her on is lap.

The whisper of an ariel fluttering within her belly urged Aila's attention swiftly back to where the heat of his thighs burned through the layers of linen and wool that separated his flesh from her hers. He was right, she had been procrastinating. And for what? She yearned for more than merely the chaste kiss they'd shared heretofore.

Having finally reconciled herself to the fact that she would never forgive herself if she left him now, Aila placed her hands at his chest and leaned forward, touching her lips to his gently. At the contact, she felt Loki's lips relax into a wolfish smile as she was left to her sedulous exploration of his warm, sensuous mouth. Her attentions were at first hesitant and diffident, but erelong she became more sure of herself, allowing her hunger to vent itself through impatient fingers and deeper kisses.

When she made to nip at his lower lip, he growled his contentment and swiftly flipped her onto her back, effectively switching their positions so that she was pinned to the ground as he took his turn venerating her mouth as she had done to his. But where her lips had been almost timid, his were eager and insistent. His tongue delved confidently twixt her teeth, urging hers to follow suit as he released the straps of her apron-skirt from the silver brooches above each breasts.

That done, he stood and removed his long, black, shaggy cloak as she watched him, her chest heaving erratically. He lay it over the leafy bed beside Aila and then reached for her hands to pull her up from the ground. Once she stood on teetering legs, he removed her outer gown as the clink of the brooches knocking together disturbed the silence still pervading the darkness. The long under-gown soon followed so that she finally stood bared to him, yet still adorned by her arm bands and rings, whilst he glutted himself on her young body with hungry, lambent eyes.