~1:00 am, Thursday, January 5, 2017 ~

Reaching blindly across her pillows to get another tissue from her bedside table, Sigyn turned the page in her newest book purchase. This was it—the last page of Starboy.  In the next twenty seconds, the thrill of the first readthrough would be over. Sitting cross-legged here on her bed at one in the morning when she should be sleeping, she would finish Loki’s first novel, and it would absolutely crush her.

“Ugh, I’m not ready,” she whined, grabbing the whole box because one measly tissue would not suffice. She yanked it angrily through the thin plastic opening, frowning down at the now empty container.

Apparently, after shelling out fifty bucks of hard-earned cash for the gorgeous hardcover copy in the village yesterday, she should have swung by the CVS on Mulberry Street to buy another Kleenex box. Swiping the back of her hand across her wet cheeks, Sigyn tossed the useless empty thing haphazardly over her shoulder, then returned her eyes to the legitimately tear-stained page. Voice shaking, she read the written words aloud.

“I learned to lower my expectations to null quite some time ago, and now I don’t risk disappointment,” she paused, rubbing her watery eyes to clear her blurry vision, then took a deep breath. “It’s the best thing I ever did.  I still do it.  It’s called being present.  And presently, I want to find that girl.” Sniffle, wipe nose, deep breaths, get it together. “She may be right under my nose,” she continued, imagining Loki’s voice speaking the words, “or she might be on the other side of this train. Maybe her stop is Canal Street, just like mine.”  She paused again, her face crumpling.

Could one cry in little hearts instead of tears?  She felt like a damn cartoon character— an animated parody of a girl gone stupid for a boy.  Each word born from this unreal man was another piece of lead blasting through her chest, turning her heart and lungs into a bloody mess for him.

Wiping her eyes again, Sigyn continued reading, “Never doubt the beauty of smoke.  It hides a myriad of ugly flaws…”

She trailed off and put her face in her hands, her voice too hoarse from crying to read aloud anymore. Loki had used this “smoke” metaphor throughout the book. She was convinced this meant that the lead character’s existence was all smoke and mirrors, an apt illustration for this man who, 310 pages later, Loki still hadn’t given a name. He seemed almost like…a specter. A ghost of himself. A nameless starboy. A dying star.

Talk about a haunting theme; she wouldn’t even get the closure of knowing what name would go on the headstone. Lifting her head again, she ran both hands through her hair, tempted to pull it out from the extreme frustration. She just wanted to hear this guy say that his name was Loki, for hell’s sake.

Chest heaving, she sighed heavily.  When she had the pleasure of seeing Loki again eons from now on Saturday night, she would ask him what the guy’s name was.  Otherwise, she would continue literally reading into this starboy fellow, and seeing him as this smoky, vaporous shadow-self of the author. Setting her elbows on her knees, she leaned her weight on them, then picked the book up and flipped it over.

“Fuck, I love the way he writes,” she said, gazing at his picture on the back cover, unaware that she was biting her lip. This book had made her massive crush on him so much more unbearable.

Shaking her head, she flipped it over again, and silently read the last two paragraphs— 

Foot on the gas, sixth gear, 0 to 60, heart rate through that moonroof, I don’t know where the hell we’re going, but… Feel like burning rubber with me, gorgeous girl?  I caught you biting your lip when I pulled up to your building in these blacked out, ultra-expensive, custom-made wheels.  I’m a mess, but I swear you’ll love me.  I’ll take you on the ride of your life.  You’re too smart and far too well-read for me to teach you much of anything, but if you will just get in this goddamn car, I’ll show you how to live fast and die right.

“Oh, my word, Loki Odinson, you did not end it like that!” Sigyn shouted at her bedroom walls, slamming the book shut and bending forward to bury her face in her pillow. She needed moooore. How dare he ask her to get in the car, and just…just…leave the rest to her imagination?! “Oh, fuck no, boy.”

Growling like an extra deranged 28-year-old gremlin, she grabbed her phone and pulled up her previous messages with him.  She furiously tapped out a quick text and sent it without hesitation.

Sigyn:  Listen up, hotshot, this is an emergency situation. Starboy just gave me SERIOUS lady blue balls. Loki Odinson, you are literally the devil.

She doubted he would respond any time soon.  It was absurdly late, and presumably he was smart enough to silence his phone before bed.  However, if he had left the sound on for some highly irrational reason, then he deserved to be woken up from his precious slumber because he’d done this to her.

Angrily switching her lamp off, she flopped back onto the bed and groaned, too amped up to sleep. Certainly, scrolling through Instagram would just stimulate her brain further, but if her thoughts were already running 90 miles an hour to a certain writer’s apartment, then why not just moon over him on his @Lokiswriting account? There were several pics from inside his place, so even though she hadn’t been there in real life, she had a pretty good idea of the floorplan; it thrilled her architect brain to no end. His place was almost as gorgeous as him. Almost. 

After a few minutes of starry-eyed gawking, she checked her text screen again because she couldn’t help herself. She scowled at the screen. The message had been delivered, but unsurprisingly, he hadn’t read it.

Rolling her eyes, she sighed, annoyed with herself for letting even a sliver of hope wiggle its way into her head. She set her thumb on the power button to shut the whole thing down because it had let her down, but then something positively glorious appeared beneath her text.

Read 1:22 AM

Instantly, her lungs forgot how to breathe. Her jaw dropped, gaping at the screen like a dehydrated desert-traveler who’d just spotted running water for the first time in two days. Curling into a ball, she shoved her face into the pillow to stifle a dramatic whine.

So, he’d read her text—not exactly a star-aligning event. He’d only checked his messages because he’d forgotten to silence his phone, and thought someone had a legit emergency, only to discover it was just some crazy girl being weird as hell. Face still in her pillow, she whined again, this time from sheer embarrassment. Guaranteed, she would be left on read for several hours, which was so much worse. Despite herself, Sigyn lifted her head to look at the screen again…just in case.

Loki:  ...

“EEEEK!” she shrieked, her eyes nearly popping out of their sockets.  She shot upright and jumped off her bed, launching into a preemptive victory dance. 

“Calm down, calm down, calm down,” she hissed at herself, bouncing on her toes.

She threw her free hand over her mouth.  Her neighbors probably hated her for being so bloody loud tonight, what with all the whining and extremely vocal book commentary.  Never had a simple ellipsis sent her serotonin through the roof.  They’d gone out twice—Twice! —yet here he was, reading her dumbass text at an ungodly hour and not even making her wait three minutes for a reply?!  How he was able to pull this off without coming across as overeager, she would never know. Guys did not behave like this unless sex was a guaranteed outcome. She looked sideways then.

Wait a second, what if he thought my text was just the longer version of DTF?

Her lips pursing, she raised an eyebrow. She hadn’t meant it that way, but…sure, that too. She checked the screen again.

Loki:  …

Gritting her teeth, she growled under her breath, “For the love of everything, stop teasing me!”

Her patience idled at paper thin levels even at the best of times; this waiting game might genuinely break her brain.  His reply appeared in the conversation window that second, sparing her from a spontaneous accidental lobotomy, and her mouth fell into an open smile as she read through his long response, complete with full sentences, correct spelling, and everything. 

Loki:  Well hell. Look who it is. Sigyn Elena Frey. I was overjoyed to see your name on my phone. Emphasis on the word WAS. Listen, I will not stand for these unjust accusations. I do not recall FORCING you to read my book. Were you unaware of the associated risks? Critics suggested the FDA should’ve slapped a black box warning on the cover due to the overwhelmingly high rate of lethal blows that Starboy… ahem… thrusted…upon readers’ reproductive systems. All things considered, I’m glad you read it, and thank you for the impassioned review. Oh, and one more thing- did you intend to say that I am literally a *handsome* devil? Surely, you simply forgot to type that extremely relevant qualifying adjective? Oh, gorgeous girl, were you too flustered by your emergency situation to express yourself properly?

“If he calls me gorgeous girl one more time, he’s paying for my funeral,” Sigyn sighed, shivers shooting down her spine as her mind rocketed to heights far above a neon-lit concrete jungle.  Hands shaking as though she’d downed five espresso shots in one minute, she barely managed to type a reply.

Sigyn:  I didn’t expect you to be awake.

Loki:  I wasn’t. You woke me up, ma’am.

“Ma’am?” she snorted, oddly hearing his voice say that in an American southern accent.

Sigyn:  You could have put your phone on silent, SIR.

Loki: …

The ellipses disappeared, then reappeared, then disappeared again. She chewed her lip, the back and forth screwing with her head.  Maybe her tone had been too sarcastic.  Maybe she should call him instead.  Or facetime? 

Loki:  Okay, you can’t just throw that word around.

Head tilting, she pursed her lips, slightly confused.

Sigyn:  Which word?

Loki:  Please avoid calling me “sir” outside of extremely specific contexts.

A slow smirk spread across her face. “Ohhhhh, kink plot twist,” she cooed, more than a little interested to get the details concerning his specific contexts.  

Sigyn:  please elaborate

“You have the right to remain silent, sir,” she said, still smirking, “because everything you disclose from this point forward can and will be used against you in a bedroom, sir.”  

Loki:  And give you the upper hand? I think bloody not.

“Dammit,” she sighed, clucking her tongue, “plan foiled.”

Sigyn:  smart boy

Loki:  Obviously.

Sigyn:  With one exception...you don’t silence your phone at night.

Loki:  Of course, I silence my phone, woman. I still get alerts from favorite contacts.

Her eyes widened for a split second before becoming unbelievably heavy.  She blinked slowly, glowing from the inside out, floating above her body in a drug-like haze.

Sigyn:  You added me to your favorites list? I feel so special.

Loki:  Maybe I lied. Maybe I’m not even awake. Maybe I’m just sleep-texting. 

Squinting at the words, she raised an eyebrow. “Do what?” She read it again, then laughed out loud.

Sigyn:  My dyslexic brain read that as leep sexting.

Loki:  Sexting? After only two dates? That would indeed be quite a leap.

“For the love, stop being so cute,” she whispered, smiling at her phone.

Sigyn:  Nice pun. Perhaps “leep” sexting is an actual thing.

Loki:  I believe that’s called Tinder, gorgeous girl.

“There he goes again,” she sighed, the warm glow in her stomach getting warmer, turning her insides to liquid sunshine. “Shit, I am literally getting high off of this man.” 

Sigyn:  Okay I REALLY need you to stop calling me that 😍

Loki:  Hell no, woman. This is clearly a winning strategy.

Closing her eyes, she grinned, unsure which type of high best described her present reality. Drunk? Doped up? Rolling? Tripping? Post-climax oxytocin rush? All five at once? No matter what, the FDA should slap a black box warning on Loki himself— 

WARNING: ADDICTION.

Sigyn:  you can stop because you already won. Congratulations

Loki:  Is that so? Does it then follow that I’ll receive an award?

She bit into a smile, practically feeling the horns sprouting from the top of her head.

Sigyn:  Depends. What do you want? A hug?

Loki:  You must be joking. Call me greedy, but I would prefer that you offer more than the ONLY thing we’ve already done, Sig.

Seeing him shorten her name like that, she let out a quiet little whine, imagining his voice saying it right now. No one else had ever called her Sig. It had slipped from his mouth at Fanelli’s, and it sounded so…right. Given that he had not switched back to her full name since then, he must have sensed that she really liked it. Climbing back onto her bed, she sat on her ankles, and stared out her window, thinking of the way Sig rolled off his tongue.

Unsurprisingly, she couldn’t help but fixate on that “rolled off his tongue” phrase. It was downright criminal that his tongue still hadn’t rolled against hers. Her ego was trapped in cope mode, pointing out that he grabbed her hand at each turn, and that his hugs were basically foreplay, for god’s sake, forcing her to arch her spine and mold herself against him for at least ten seconds. He’d even slid his hand up into her hair when he hugged her last night after their dinner date, and if that move wasn’t erotic, she didn’t know what was.  Her phone buzzed in her palm, and she dropped her eyes to the new message in their conversation.

Loki:  Fair warning- what I want necessarily requires extremely close physical contact.

Mouth falling open, Sigyn’s heart took off faster than a formula-one car. She stared at the screen, waiting for the details. However, ten seconds passed and still nothing, not even an ellipsis. Making a face, she flung up her hands. That was it? Really? She bent forward, banging her forehead softly into the bedcover.

“Evil man,” she growled through her teeth, then sat up and gathered her hair in one hand to pull it up off her neck. Someone must have cranked the radiator to the eternal-lake-of-fire setting.  She should expect nothing less while texting with a self-proclaimed handsome devil.

Sigyn:  Well what is it?

“Guess this is what it means to sweat like a sinner in church,” she complained, hurrying to her window to crack it. When she set her chin on the sill, reveling in the heaven-sent cold air, his answer appeared.

Loki:  I’ll tell you on Saturday, gorgeous girl.

“WHAT?!” she scoffed at the screen, angrily typing a reply as the excited butterflies in her stomach turned into a swarm of unbearably thirsty, buzzing bees.

Sigyn:  WRITERS AND THEIR GODDAMN CLIFFHANGERS

Dragging both hands down her face, she groaned.

Loki:  Sweet dreams, Sig. x

Rolling her eyes, she turned her phone off and threw it on her bed.  She would not dignify his devious little teasing game with a response.

---

~ 9:27 am, Saturday, January 7, 2017 ~

One hand on the strap of his gym bag that he’d slung over his shoulder, Loki breezed through the glass doors of Falcon Fitness on the corner of Grand and Thompson.  The young woman behind the post-workout juice bar on his right looked up from her phone and flashed a bright smile as he walked past her.

“Killin it with the wayfarers as always, Prince Lo,” she half-mumbled, teeth still biting the straw in her green drink. “Sam and Bucky started without you ten minutes ago, just so you know.”

Spinning on his heel, Loki pulled his sunglasses down just enough to look at her over the bridge and walked backwards toward the weight racks where his friends—more like one friend and one trainer—were alternating bench presses.

“For the thousandth time, Chloe,” he sighed, shooting a playful glare at her, “I have a first name.” He pushed his glasses back up, then turned around and called to her over his shoulder, “Use it.”

“My bad, LO,” she said, waving a flippant hand at him before slurping loudly through the straw and focusing on her phone once more.

Loki rolled his eyes, walking toward the locker room door just beyond his gym mates.

“Nice work, JB,” he said, giving a thumbs up to Bucky who appeared to be dying on the bench while attempting to press an extremely heavy bar up off his chest.

“Hey…Lo…” Bucky grunted in response, barely managing to get the bar back onto the rack. He sat up, red-faced and breathing hard. “Sam’s ready to murder you.”

“Twenty. Seven. Damn. Minutes. Late.” Sam pointed out, grabbing a towel to wipe the sweat off the bench. He gestured for Bucky to get up so he could take his place. “This starboy right here-” he pointed to Loki “-is my only client who gets to pull this shit with me. Everyone else gets the boot.”

Pausing by the locker room entrance, Loki pushed his sunglasses up on top of his head. “I wonder if your generosity of spirit has anything to do with my uniquely generous financial support.” He shrugged one shoulder. “Probably unrelated. Be out in two.”

Laughing quietly, he disappeared into the locker room to put away his bag and jacket. He set his sunglasses on the top shelf in his locker, peeled his hooded sweatshirt over his head, and sank down on the teak bench between the rows of lockers, his back bowing as he set his elbows on his knees. His heels couldn’t stop bouncing for two bloody seconds, but sitting still was an impossible pipe dream this morning.  He was just far too amped up about seeing Sig tonight, every muscle and nerve ending twitching like he’d OD’ed on RedBull.

He could not get the specific image of his head between her legs out of his mind. If he closed his eyes, he could practically feel her fingers threading through his hair.

“Fuck,” he said through his teeth, putting his face in his hands.

His joggers were in no shape to handle those highly graphic images in public right now, and yet here he was, stupidly putting them in this unnecessary situation.  He’d almost called the gym to say that he wouldn’t make it today, and he highly regretted vetoing that decision just to appease the voice in his head telling him that missing a gym session “because anxiety” was objectively weak.

He hadn’t seen Sig since Tuesday because his sister Hela had come down from Boston for a few days. Fine fine fine. Four days between dates wasn’t anything to cry about.  Except of course for the near-nauseating building tension in his texts and short phone calls with this incredible new woman. To say that he ached to get his hands on her again, would literally be accurate.

He had not been mentally prepared to handle the days-long break from Sig. Hela had given him a 3-week heads up that she would be in town and staying with their folks down in Tribeca. Great! No problem! Sig would be at work anyway, so he could simply go to his parents’ place to hang out with his sister during the day, maybe grab lunch, or visit MOMA or something. Then he could still go out with gorgeous girl in the evening. Or if Hela wanted to get dinner, then he could possibly see Sig during her lunch break. It would have worked out just fine. However, his sister called him Tuesday night and begged to camp out at his place instead.

Serious family drama starring dad, as usual.  

He’d been at The Dutch up on Sullivan, jokingly arguing with Sig about paying for dinner again when suddenly Hela had just sprung this on him—calling him from the entrance of his building, crying over the phone and asking to come up to his apartment. Of course, he’d said a quick goodnight to his stunning date and hurried back to his place because that’s what any good brother would do.

Not that he didn’t love his sister, but she’d swept in to occupy his space when he’d planned to ask Sigyn to come back to his place. He wouldn’t have slept with Sig because that would have been a massive leap from point A to point Z, but good god, he wanted to kiss the hell out of her, and he couldn’t exactly do that inside the restaurant. The most he could have done was a peck on the lips.  Maintain decorum, closed mouths, three seconds max, absolutely no hip-touching.

“Not my style,” Loki mumbled to himself, lifting his head from his hands.

The locker room door swung open behind him then, its squeaky hinges pulling him from the edgy confines of his mind, and he turned to see Bucky walking in.

“Sam had to take a call,” Bucky said, gesturing at the door behind him, “and you passed your ‘be out in two’ time limit.  Everythin’ okay, man?”

Sucking in his cheeks, Loki looked away. “You know how you felt back in November when you first hooked up with Lewis?”

“Hooked up?” Bucky repeated, walking over to sit down on the opposite bench. “Darcy’s my girlfriend, not some fuck buddy.”

Loki gave him a withering look. “Thus, my use of the qualifying adverb first,” he droned.

Rolling his eyes, Bucky yanked his backwards ball cap off his head and whacked Loki’s knee with it. “Your qualifyin’ adverbs can go to hell,” he laughed, then put his hat on again. “You seein’ someone?”

Loki grinned slightly. “It’s still really early, but the connection is unreal.”

“You must be hallucinatin’ again.”

“If I am, then this is the best psychotic break of my life,” Loki answered, smiling when his friend snorted. “Honest to god dream girl.”

“Dream girl? Man, keep your crazy head on your shoulders,” Bucky said, then held his hands up. “Sorry. No offense about the crazy thing,” he added when Loki gave him an unimpressed look.

“I don’t recall asking for advice,” Loki said, the crease between his eyebrows reaching Mariana Trench depths.

“Not givin’ advice,” Bucky replied, shaking his head. “Wanna hear my personal dating philosophy?”

“No.”

“Great! I’m tellin’ it to you anyway,” Bucky said, not missing a beat. “I remind myself that everyone is only human. It’s the only thing that grounds me when I start to put someone on a pedestal ‘cause they’re doin’ all the right things to make me feel good about myself.  Eventually they’ll do or say something that makes me feel like shit, and it all starts to go to hell real quick.”

Sucking in his cheeks, Loki squinted at the man, slightly distracted by that ridiculous backwards ball cap. “You expect the worst to avoid disappointment.”

“Yup.”

“Hmm.” Loki scratched the back of his neck, eyeing Bucky from under his brow. “Really need to put on my thinking cap for that deeply profound take right there,” he said, tapping his head, “otherwise, I might mistake your personal philosophy for what the kids these days refer to as basic pessimism.”

Bucky lifted his chin, responding in a mock British accent. “Oh, go ahead, and call me a pessimist, not to be confused with NIHILIST-” he made air quotes “-if you want.  That’s fine.  I learned to lower my expectations to null quite some time ago, and now I don’t risk disappointment.  It’s the best-”

“-best thing I ever did,” Loki finished the sentence for him, his eyes rolling. “You are literally just repeating a paragraph from my book now, and I don’t know if I should feel insulted or proud. Shit impression of my voice by the way.”

“I still do it,” Bucky continued the quote, smiling broadly. “It’s called being present, and presently, I want to-”

“-to find that girl,” Loki said the last few words in unison with him. “Yes, yes, I know. Piss off, JB.”

The conversation with his friend calmed Loki’s nerves just enough to deal with the next two hours of anaerobic metabolic hell that Sam had planned for them.  Admittedly, there was that one set of shoulder presses when Loki almost thrust the 90-pound barbell at his trainer, but aside from that near-fatal burst of testosterone-fueled anger, it had been a decent gym session.  Sliding his sunglasses on, Loki waved goodbye to Chloe at the front desk around 11:30, anxious to get home and get out of his sweat-soaked clothes.  His tired muscles had earned a long hot shower.  Especially since he intended to put them through another workout tonight.

---

~ 7:32 PM, Sigyn’s apartment, 159 Prince Street #8 ~

Phone in hand, Sigyn pulled her bedroom curtain aside to look out her window, her teeth digging into her bottom lip as she focused on the intersection of Prince and Thompson Street, one block west of her building. The knots in her stomach could not get any tighter. Loki lived on Thompson, and he would round that corner any second now. She’d gotten a text from him ten minutes ago asking if he could just come to her place and order in rather than go out for dinner, and she’d damn near lost her mind on the spot. 

She could have texted “Be my guest, Loki. No, seriously, be my overnight guest. I’ll even give you my bed” but she went with a less horny “sure, just text me when you get here” response instead, forgetting that he didn’t even know her address. Whoops—forgive her for thinking he knew everything about her, including her constant GPS location, since he now lived rent free in her brain.

Squinting her eyes, she looked from person to person walking on the surprisingly crowded, wet pavement three stories below.  She pushed up onto her toes, annoyed with the umbrellas obstructing her view. She didn’t appreciate having to strain her neck to see the street corner better. Sighing, she dropped her heels to the floor again and checked her phone.

7:36 PM. No new texts or missed calls.

She returned her eyes to the pavement below. “Where are you, Loki?”

Chest pounding, she chewed her bottom lip as the umbrellas finally moved aside at the exact second a tall, black-haired figure in a leather jacket, slim dark trousers, and boots came around the corner of Thomspon and Prince. She blinked slowly, admiring his gait, which could only be described as a god-like strut, as he neared her building. She saw him pull his phone from his pocket, presumably texting her, and she took off toward her front door.

“Cool it!” she whisper-shouted to herself, slowing her pace down the stairs.  She eyed the new text on her phone.

Loki: I’m standing outside your building, and oh god, please come down here NOW to let me in, Sig. I left my place sans umbrella (because I am a highly intelligent man), and this rain is causing GREAT harm to my defenseless leather jacket. x

Chuckling at the image of a poor defenseless leather jacket, she grabbed the door handle and yanked hard, the door swinging open and accidentally banging into the wall behind it.

Startled by the sudden clang of metal on brick, Loki jumped, his eyes blowing wide.

“Son of a…” he gasped, blinking rapidly, “I wasn’t ready for a jump scare.”

“Welcome to my haunted house of horrors,” Sigyn joked, sweeping her arm out dramatically, smiling wide and trying not to laugh at his mouth hanging open like a fish out of water.

She stepped back, holding the door open for him. “Let’s get you out of those wet clothes,” she said, her cheeks flushing deep red. Talk about a Freudian slip. “Wet jacket. I meant to say jacket. Sorry.”

“I know what you meant, Sig,” Loki replied, giving her a dark look, the dim light from the juice store window next door casting shadows on the tightening muscles in his jaw.

He stepped into her building, spinning around to face her as she let the door close behind her. She met his gaze again, struggling to keep it together because if looks could kill, she would drop dead at his feet when her vital organs spontaneously combusted from the heat in those intense emerald eyes. If that didn’t do the trick, then the carbon dioxide poisoning from excessive heavy breathing would—he’d stolen all the available oxygen in the hall away from her.

A decent man would share some of that air in his lungs by giving her mouth to mouth.  An exceptionally decent man would do so with his tongue.  Paramedics of course referred to this as French CPR.  Speaking of mouths, he was looking at hers, his teeth digging into his bottom lip, though not in a lascivious manner.  No, if someone asked her to name the expression on his face, she would go with…fiercely pensive.

And I am fiercely into it.

Stunned speechless by the head rush she was experiencing from just looking at him, Sigyn moved away from the door and leaned back against the wall for support. She needed a moment before attempting to climb three flights of stairs. Actually, now would be a great time for Loki to prove that he could carry her up there. She bit her lip, her gaze traveling down his body, unconsciously gauging just how much power those long, lean legs could generate.

Good lord, woman, stop ogling his crotch!

Cheeks burning, her eyes shot back up to his face. He still had that same lethal look in his eyes, and oh god, it was just too much. Sure, a clock might claim only fifteen seconds had passed since the no doubt expensive designer soles of Loki’s boots first met the tile floor under their feet, but time was relative when having an hours-long staring contest with him. Desperate to break the tense silence before that silence broke her brain, she cleared her throat. The harsh, guttural sound reverberated all around them, violently bouncing back and forth off the brick walls, tile floors, wood steps, and doors.  Perhaps she was imagining things, but she would have sworn that the wall behind her back was shaking.

Pushing off the wall, she threw up her hands helplessly. “Where are my manners? Up to number eight on floor three, we go,” she chimed, forcing an airy tone while setting her foot on the first stair and gesturing for him to follow.

Looking up at her from under his brow, Loki watched her start up the steps. The seconds moved forward, keeping time with the heels of Sigyn’s ballet flats ascending the stairs, along with the blood rushing through his ears, and the hiss of his own breaths in and out of his parted lips. 

Tick… TAP… whirr… SWISH…

Tick… TAP… whirr… SWISH…

Tick… TAP… whirr… SWISH… 

Nostrils flaring, he exhaled long and slow through his mouth, pissed that he couldn’t bloody move. Sig was up there, and he was down here, frozen to the tile floor like an ice statue all because the driving staccato beats from spontaneous percussive echos in the stairwell-turned-concert-hall were pressing in on him from all sides and triggering a disastrous claustrophobic brain malfunction. The building door swung open behind him then, and he nearly jumped out of skin.

“Jesus,” he muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose as the person who had just entered the building walked around him. Would there also be a third jump scare coming soon?

“Sorry, dude,” the person said, nodding to Loki then hurrying up the stairs past Sigyn, shouting at her over their shoulder, “Looking good, Sigyn.”

“Thanks, Sterling, you too,” she responded, twisting to look at Loki, her eyebrows raising in question. “Why so jumpy? I promise the house of haunted horrors thing was just a joke.” She beamed at his responding raspy laugh.

“I’m just a bit on edge for reasons unrelated to ghosts,” he admitted, looking her up and down, suddenly highly aware of her marvelously revealing outfit—a short, out of season black, off the shoulder t-shirt sporting a large purple lipstick print across her chest, and possibly illegal short red cutoffs.

Jaw clenching, he lifted his eyes to hers again as an adult content bomb detonated in his head, blasting every conscious thought with explicit scenes starring himself and that legs-for-days woman standing above him. Now the walls weren’t pressing in on him— just the dark denim below his belt. Running both hands through his hair, he walked to the base of the stairs, and crooked his forefinger at her, motioning for her to come back down to him.

 “You texted me several nights ago,” he said, darkly watching her descend the steps achingly slowly, “and I promised to tell you what I want tonight. I want to tell you now, if that’s alright with you.” 

Sigyn nodded, white knuckling the railing like a steering wheel in the hands of a driver getting pulled over by a traffic cop. That “I’ll tell you Saturday” text had occupied far too much space in her head this week. He was probably a sorcerer, and those four words were a sex spell. If not, then she was just weak as hell for him, which was fine, so long as he was just as weak for her. She finally came face to face with him, her stomach somersaulting itself into a dizzy mess, but rather than join him on the floor, she stopped on the bottom step to give herself a bit of height.

I need to keep SOME semblance of power in this…sort of…relationship…thing.

Loki glanced at their feet, then he returned his eyes to her face, giving her a knowing look when she lifted her chin. Such a smart girl—literally not giving him an inch. 

“So,” Sigyn said, clearing her throat, “what do you want?”

“I want to carry you up three flights of stairs to your apartment right now,” he responded firmly and without hesitation, keeping his eyes on hers.

Jaw dropping, her eyes shot wide open.

OH MY GOD, ARE YOU KIDDING ME??

Barely managing to reel her jaw up off the floor, she stammered, “You mean…like the thing I said when we were at-”

“Fanelli, yes,” he cut her off, setting his hands on her hips just below her shirt and slipping his thumbs underneath the fabric, “and I’m not talking about that over-the-threshold nonsense.”

Sigyn blinked lazily, feeling that gravelly timbre rumbling deep in her bones as surely as she felt the scorch marks from his thumbs dragging across her lower stomach. How could a man know her for only one week and have the audacity to already brand his name into her skin? Her mind supplied the answer.

Because you’re letting him, hon.

She opened her mouth to give him a classy “fuck yes” response to his request, but Loki shook his head and put a finger to his lips. 

“If we do this, we’re doing it my way,” he rasped, tightening his grip, “with your legs around my waist and your arms around my shoulders.”  

She nodded, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. “Understood.”

Gritting his teeth behind closed lips, Loki exhaled sharply, and got straight to it. He ran his hands down her hips and around to her backside, watching her carefully, his heart racing out the gate when her eyebrows knitted together. If he didn’t know better, he might think she was in pain, but the little gasp escaping from her parted lips spoke louder. That wasn’t a look of pain. It was a look of impatience.

Me too, Sig.

Growling softly under his breath, he gripped her ass and hoisted her up against his stomach, smirking at the sight of her teeth scraping over her bottom lip. He started up the stairs, one foot after the other, climbing higher and higher with her in his arms. This was the no holds barred physical contact that he’d been aching for—his splayed fingers sliding underneath the back of her shorts that had ridden up when he’d lifted her, dragging the denim aside to expose more of that stunning curve. His hands were so happy, clinging to her as she clung to his neck, her fingers tangling in his hair. He groaned as her grip tightened.

Consider my hair kink triggered.

He was tempted to stop here on the second-floor landing and just make out against the wall, but that wouldn’t be fun with his ego incessantly screaming “ABSOLUTELY not!” at him. Hefting her higher up his body, the front of her shorts pressed directly against the fly of his jeans, and he hissed sharply.

Oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god.

Twelve stairs later, he set his boot on the third floor. “Which one is yours?” he asked, gripping her thighs more tightly when she started to relax them.

“Number 8,” she answered shakily, pointing behind him, and he swiveled toward the door with a gold number 8 on it. “You don’t need to take me all the way into-”

“Key?” He spoke over her, completely breathless.

Dropping one hand from his shoulders, she pulled her key from her back pocket, shoved it in the lock, and twisted the doorknob. Putting her arm around his shoulders again, she clung to him as he walked in and kicked the door closed behind him. Her mouth fell open when it slammed behind her. Was she in a goddamn movie right now? This was officially the hottest moment of her life thus far.

Loki walked straight to her studio couch, then carefully set her down on the back of it.  She relaxed her legs, unlocking her ankles from behind his back and dropping her feet to the floor. Arms still around his shoulders, she pulled him closer, and he grinned down at her.

“Told you I could do it,” he said, angling his face to avoid bumping her nose.

“You said you could do it easily, but you’re panting like you just finished a marathon,” Sigyn teased him, pushing his poor defenseless wet leather jacket over his shoulders and helping him shrug out of the sleeves, “which means you only passed half the test of manhood.”

Eyeing her narrowly, he draped his jacket over the back of the couch next to her. “I’m breathing hard because your legs took advantage of my crotch on those stairs.”

“Oh, you literally asked me to!” she scoffed.

“Sure, just blame the victim.”

“Did I force you to grab my ass?”

“No, gravity forced me. You see, Sig, there’s this technique called leverage-”

“Shut up,” she said on an exhale, trying to get her own heart rate back down from the tachycardic cloud nine high that Loki had given her.

He grinned crookedly. “So…what now? Netflix?”

Biting into a smile, she shrugged and reached for her PS4 controller behind her on the cushions below. “Genre preference?”

Before she got a hold of it, Loki grabbed her hips and flipped her backwards onto the cushions.

“Jesus!” she gasped, landing with a thud, her eyes popping as he literally hurled his body over the back of the couch after her.

Landing on his knees at her feet, he smirked and crawled up her body, his hips settling between her thighs. She reached up to hold his face, her thumbs running along his jaw as her mouth fell open in wonder. He moved fast then, closing his eyes and swooping down to catch her parted lips with his. Sliding her tongue under his on impact, Sigyn moaned into his mouth. Fireworks shot off a dozen at a time inside his chest, the explosions rippling out in all directions up and down his body as she arched up into him. Beneath his chest, he felt her heart pounding faster, catching up to his at breakneck speed.

Heart rate through that moonroof, I don’t know where the hell we’re going, Sig…

Then, Sigyn slid her hands up into his hair, and moved her mouth to his ear. “This is me getting in the goddamn car.”

Eyes slamming shut, Loki pulled her mouth to his for another kiss, even more heated than before.

And this is me putting my foot on the gas, gorgeous girl…