Loki X Reader || Girl With The Gold Earring

33 | An Adventure

It was Loki who suggested they bathe, the words more tactile than audible, a deep sort of rumbling of letters against Y/N's throat as he held her.

Lazy and sated, Y/N wondered how she would manage to tease the paint from her hair in the washroom sink. Perhaps fill it, and tip her head forwards?

As if reading her thoughts, Loki added: "You'll bathe in the bath with me, of course."

-- ❈ --

Y/N stood on the lip of the bath as she watched a pool grow in the centre of it, crystalline water pouring forth from the heavy taps, distorting the delicate little tiles. She's still unclothed, and felt her skin tighten as spray nipped at it. She didn't care. She wouldn't mind if shards of ice were mingled with the frigid water, so long as she got to enter this glorious lido-like bath.

Loki had carried her to his washroom, and then gone to fetch her dress from the studio and fresh clothes for himself.

A thick cord hung by the door, and he tugged it upon his return.

Somewhere in the distance, Y/N knew a bell had jingled.

She pictured her peers back down in the bowels of the palace scurrying about, sparking fires under swelled boilers, or re-directing the pipes, or how ever it all worked.

Guilt nibbled before she could give the subject any more thought, turning her curiosity an ugly colour.

She quickly tried to think of something else.

It took a few moments for the water to shift from crisp glacial-runoff to seething boiling liquid. It hissed as it met the water already in the tub, mixing to form a comfortable temperature somewhere between that of steaming apple tea and a good meal.

Y/N turned to Loki, who was crouched by the taps, scenting the water with oils as it gushed from the pipes. Steam began to rise, moist and fragrant. "You're making the bath warm," she stated, sort of a question, sort of not.

The hard blades of his shoulders shifted about his back as he took another miniature bottle and tipped the contents into the bath. They were little rocks, like chunks of table salt, but pink as blossom and weighed down by the strong, sultry musk of rose oil. "Of course."

"But won't it hurt you?" Y/N asked worriedly.

Loki stood, and came up behind her, looping his long arms about her middle. He's still half-hard, having never fully settled down to begin with, and becomes more so as his hips meet Y/N's back. He dips his head to mouth at her ear. "I'd walk through flames for you, my love."

Y/N leant back into him, cheeks red from his touch, his sentiment and the humid air. "Well then, I'd brave blizzards for you, my prince."

A laugh rolls through him, and Y/N's lips widen with a grin.

There's something exciting about standing here, naked.

She's not supposed to be naked here. She's not really supposed to be naked anywhere; even when showering in the servant's washroom Y/N scrubs a sponge over herself as quickly as possible, itching to retreat back into some form of clothing.

She would have been nervous about being naked here, now, but Loki is naked too and she liked the crackling sparks their nerves make when they touch. She couldn't feel it before, when she'd kissed him wearing her lovely green dress, or her stiff grey uniform.

And, if Y/N thinks about it, she's not completely naked; not really. Paint still clings to her, cracked and drying, shrouding her like the finest, most delicate wisps of satin.