Cellmates

18

For so long he had imagined this – her touch in a true and unadulterated form. Without fear. Without panic. Without a pane of glass between them. In all that time, it had been enough to cocoon her in his illusions, to find her embrace only for a moment before his end, to know her kiss only through a void of non-existence. It was enough. Until her arms looped around his neck. Until her touch set his every nerve on fire. Until he felt the subtle press, soft but insistent, of her lips to his.

Nothing could have prepared him for it. And nothing would ever compare.

He wanted this – with all of his heart. To have her. To keep her. To love her. But in so short a time he'd seen her suffer and starve and nearly die because of him. He'd seen her injured and violated when he should have protected her. He had seen her cry for him; mourning and grief he didn't deserve after he'd knowingly abandoned her. I promised you so much, darling. Promises he'd failed to keep. Why would you have me, after all of this? "After everything I've put you through," he began quietly. "Everything you've suffered at my expense-"

"After everything that's happened – we deserve tonight. For us."

His mind, in a second, compiled an enormity of implications. Us? In ordinary context, only some mundane method of cohesion. But it established an entity. Lives bound together by something much stronger than words. Us? Surely she hadn't meant it that way. "For us?" Her kiss left him breathless once more, drawing a long sigh from his chest – barely conscious relief.

"For us."

He stared at her, unblinking for longer that it should have been possible. She took him by the wrist, her lithe fingers gliding over flesh only recently healed as she drew him closer. Surely he was only dreaming? Surely I will wake up and find that I'm still alone in a cell. "Are you sure?" he asked breathlessly, searching her eyes for the panic that had forced his restraint for so long.

"Yes." She pressed his hand into the crook of her neck, sighing, shivering where his cool palm met the warm skin of her throat. Still aided by her hold, his fingers followed the curve of her collarbone, trailing slowly across the part of her chest that her shirt had always exposed. But then he moved further, her grip still insistent and urging when his hand met the towel still clinging to her curves. His thumb traced the edge, the soft fibers folding under his fingertip, though he stilled when he came to the small tuck in the fabric, the point where it folded into itself and ultimately protected her naked form. Naomi's hand was still clamped around his wrist, her knuckles whitening, her eyes pleading the longer she watched him. Waited for him.

Surely I'm only dreaming.

His finger slid between the fabric and her skin, pulling just slightly until the towel finally unfurled and pooled on the floor around her feet. She shivered, her breath catching somewhere in her chest when the cool air met her bare skin. But she didn't shy away. She pressed closer and her cheek met his in an almost-kiss to the root of his jaw. Loki felt her sigh, felt her relish that simple contact, while his mind was still too far drowned. It almost escaped his notice when her hands slipped under his shirt. "Can I see you?"

Her voice was barely there, whispered against his cheek, a query dotted with kisses across his temple. He parted with her only a moment to lift the tunic over his head, but her hands wasted little time in their return. He'd always been long and lean with a build neither Asgardian nor Jotun. But she admired him all the same. Her fingertips ghosted over the subtle tone. And she smiled in her not so subtle perusal.

Her hair, still slightly damp, tickled his stomach while her lips trailed across his chest, warming the skin everywhere she touched. She found tiny scars, little reminders he had long forgotten about, while she worked her way up again. She briefly lingered against his collarbone before nipping at his jaw. Then her hands suddenly dragged him to where she could capture his lips again. And she tugged desperately, entangling her tongue with his and pulling the very breath from his lungs. He was bracing her hips, feeling almost dizzy, lost in the way she clung to him.