His jaw clenched, even as something rose in his light. He found himself turning over what Vikram said about her bullying him and what Gina herself said, implying the same. He couldn’t avoid the obvious truth of their words, now that it stared him in the face. He also couldn’t help realizing just how much he’d let Dante manipulate his guilt over the past weeks.
Gina was right. He had been played.
He realized something else. Dante had taken advantage of his insecurity about Gina’s feelings for him. He’d feared Gina would cease to like him if her daughter did not.
“Come,” he said, motioning more sternly with his head. “Or I will call your mother and she can escort you. Of course, that will necessitate a number of explanations.”
He saw a flicker of surprise in her eyes, visible before she could suppress it.
She went back to glaring at him seconds later, but Loki could see that his words had reached her. Clearly, Dante wasn’t happy about the idea of her mother learning what she’d just done.
He waited for her to weigh possible responses to his demand. He watched as she pursed her lips in that pause, staring at the floor, her left hand growing redder as the seconds ticked by and probably hurting her more, too.
Finally, her shoulders abruptly unclenched in a teenager’s dramatic sigh.
“Fine,” she snapped. “Let’s go.”
Without another word, she stomped past him towards the stairs.
Loki felt himself relax. Even so, he let her get a pace or two ahead of him before he followed cautiously behind.
After all, she still had one good hand.
5
EXCUSES
GINA OPENED THE door, a smile on her face and in her eyes, hopefully because he’d announced himself. Once she saw his face, however, she gripped the edge of the wooden door until her knuckles whitened.
Loki simply stood there as she looked him up and down, her hazel eyes wide.
“What the hell happened to you?” she said. “Were you in the ring again?”
Loki sighed. “Not exactly.”
“Someone punched you, though. Clearly. Who? That Sword guy?”
Clicking softly, Loki shook his head.
“Then who?” she said.
He rolled his eyes a little, but smiled. “Can I come in?”
“Not until you tell me who hit you!”
Loki glanced down the carpeted corridor, feeling his face warm. “Do you promise not to be angry?” he said.
“No,” she said at once.
Sighing, Loki folded his hands at the base of his spine, then straightened, meeting her gaze.
“Would you believe that a sixteen-year-old human girl hit me?” he said. “That she caught me completely without defenses?” He smiled, trying to lighten the storm he could see brewing behind her dark hazel eyes. “It was quite humbling.”
Gina’s face flushed bright red, but not in embarrassment.
Loki watched as that concern he’d seen in her just now, what had been a near-fear in her eyes, turn to unbridled anger.
“That little shit––” she exploded.
Loki held up a hand, trying to head her off. “It is all right.”
“It’s not all right!” Gina snapped. “I’m going to kill that kid.”
“I’m quite okay. She hurt herself more than she hurt me.”
“So what?” Gina said, glaring up at him. “Would you let your child just go around punching people because they didn’t like what you’d done?”
“We haven’t done very much yet,” Loki reminded her, again trying to lighten the mood.
Gina’s frown only deepened into a scowl.
“Whose fault is that?” she snapped.
There was a silence.
She continued to grip the edge of the door, but she wasn’t looking at him now. Instead, she stared off to the side, her face contorted in an expression caught somewhere between anger, frustration and what might have been embarrassment. She bit her lip while he watched, and Loki felt a surge of pain hit his chest, catching him off-guard.
It brought back the more heated flavor to his light, reminding him of how he’d felt when he’d left the area of the security station after talking to the Bridge.
“Can I come in?” He cleared his throat, flushing when he realized he could hear the pain in his voice. “…Please, Gina?”
She looked up at him, starting, as if she’d just realized she’d left him standing in the corridor. Stepping back and to the side, she took the door with her, leaving him plenty of room to pass. He continued to watch her face as he walked inside, his feet sinking into deep blue carpet that filled the sitting room of the two bedroom apartment.
He continued to watch her face once he’d turned around, cautious when he felt flickers of anger on her light, along with guilt and frustration about what to do with Dante.
He knew she’d been frustrated with how little time her daughter had given her since she’d gotten here. He’d felt the same frustration on Dante earlier, after he’d taken her up to the infirmary to have the medical techs bind her hand.
Remembering that, he clicked again, that time, in regret.
“She broke her hand,” he told Gina.
Gina turned, staring at him. “Dani?”
He nodded, once, indicating his own face. “Apparently her hand is less hard than my face. And the bones in it less strong than her arm.”
Gina scowled again.
Loki felt some alarm when he saw her eyes brighten.
She broke into a quiet sob while he stood there. Feeling strangely helpless, he continued to stand there, giving her space as she brought herself back under control.
“Damned kid,” she muttered, wiping her cheek with her knuckles. “It’s been like this forever with her. Since she was a little girl. She just has to fight everything… all the time. The whole world is a war zone to her. You give her a rule and she just wants to break it. You give her an authority figure, and she just wants to take them down.”
Loki walked towards her, feeling a rush of protectiveness.
“It is okay,” he assured her. Feeling her light open, he wrapped his arms around her when she let him. “These qualities will probably serve her well in this world she was given, Gina. And what happened today, maybe it is good, too.”
At Gina’s incredulous look, he shook his head.
“Not her hand. Her and I. It is better now. She was afraid for you. For months, she thought you were dead. Then she sees us together, and it is like I stole you from her again. Moreover, she felt responsible. In her eyes, you were someone she left in harm’s way. This is love, not mindless rebellion. It speaks well of her, not the reverse. And she thought I was leaving you. On this assignment the Bridge and Sword have given me. She was protecting you again.”
Seeing Gina’s eyes brighten more, he held her tighter.
Feeling his pain worsen when he realized she was grieving his leaving that time, he shook it off, focusing on what he’d been saying before.
“It is good,” he repeated. “You and she will have dinner tomorrow night. It is all arranged.”
Gina looked up at him, wiping her face with one hand.
“What about you?” she said, her voice holding a faint accusation. “Are you coming to dinner with us?”
He inclined his head slightly, the same seer’s apology the Bridge had given him.
“I will be unable to join you,” he said, his voice still light.
Her light exuded frustration, and he felt the grief there again, too. Somewhere in that, he also felt a flicker of hope and realized that was about Dante. She was looking forward to sharing a meal with her daughter. The realization both touched him and filled him with relief that his interference had not been unwelcome.
“You’re leaving,” she said, her voice dull. “Aren’t you? That’s the reason you’re not coming?”
The grief worsened in her light, along with a denser pulse of fear. It touched him. Enough that he held her tighter, in spite
of his attempts to be cautious.
“I am in love with you,” he blurted.
At her silence, he cleared his throat.
“…I hope that’s okay,” he said.
Blinking up at him, her eyes stunned, she laughed.
While it wasn’t exactly the reaction he’d been hoping for, Loki found himself relaxing at the warmth he felt in her light, the same warmth he could now see in her eyes. Smiling at her, he curled his arms a little tighter around her back and waist, aware that he now held her with a seer’s overt possessiveness.
“This amuses you?” he said, quirking an eyebrow.
She wiped her eyes, still giggling. Looking up, she gave him a mock frown.
“You won’t sleep with me, but you’re in love with me?” she said. “You’re leaving me tonight, for God knows where, and you’re in love with me?”
His pain worsened and not only because she pressed against him as she said it.
He felt his light snake out, reacting to the vulnerability that whispered off her light, along with the very real question he heard in her words.
She met his gaze directly, unflinching when he continued to look at her.
Her eyes showed a faint embarrassment when he began to caress her face and neck. It took him a few seconds to understand why, then he realized in some surprise, it was because she’d been asking him for sex again, indirectly that time––and he hadn’t answered her.
“You still want me?” he teased, tracing her collarbone with his fingers. “Even though your teenaged daughter just bested me in a fight?”
She let out a snort, shoving at his arms. “Oh, for crying out loud. Is this really going to be your latest excuse not to––”
Before she could finish, he kissed her mouth.
She softened against him at once and Loki felt his light open without warning, wrapping around hers with an insistence that caught him off guard. His breath paused, but he took his time as he kissed her. He kept his movements cautious, too, but only on the physical end.
With his light, for the first time, he didn’t hold back. He bled it steadily into hers, tightening his arms around her until he felt her gasp, her chest struggling to breathe against his.
He felt her desire intensify, even as she wondered what the kiss meant.
“No excuses,” he told her, ending the kiss. “Can we do this? I don’t want to wait any more. I can’t stand the thought of waiting until I return.”
Her eyes widened.
He felt her wonder if he was serious, then realize from his expression he probably was. His pain sharpened when her pupils abruptly dilated. She only paused a second more before sliding her arms around his neck. Smiling at him, she curled her fingers into his hair, touching the back of his neck.
“Are you really asking me that?” she said.
Without letting himself second-guess any of it that time, Loki lifted her in his arms, yanking her off her feet. When she wrapped her legs around his waist, he curled his arm under her and walked her into the apartment’s bedroom, to the king-sized bed that sat in the corner of the well-lit room. He laid her down unceremoniously on the bedspread, then began kissing her again, feeling his pain worsen when her hands slid down his ribs, pausing to massage muscles, then moving to the fasteners holding the cloth together down the front of his chest.
“Can I read you?” he asked, fighting to control his voice when she started undressing him. “Gina… can I read you during?”
He felt a flicker of nerves on her as she thought about his question.
His pain worsened as he realized she might say no.
He wondered if he’d be able to stop himself once he had his body inside of her.
Feeling a kind of panic when he realized he probably wouldn’t be able to, that maybe they would have to wait after all, he started to withdraw from her arms. She stopped him, tightening her legs around him, pulling him closer by gripping his arms and thighs.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes… just…” She hesitated, her eyes flickering up to his. “Just… don’t judge me, okay?”
Feeling his pain grow almost debilitating, he shook his head.
“Never, Gina,” he said.
She slid her hand further down his torso. He fought to control his light when that same hand roved down his abdomen, then below it––then pressed hard against his erection, massaging him deliberately with her fingers.
That time, he lost touch with the room briefly.
He’d already shown her his body.
He’d insisted once she told him she’d never seen a seer naked before, although she’d looked at a lot of images on the black market feeds not long after the two of them met. She’d heard stories, too, mostly from other humans.
She told him she hadn’t had the nerve to ask another seer, even Alyson the Bridge, who she’d started to befriend.
From what he could tell of her words, she’d also seen feed images of larger-than-average seer sexual organs and strange deformities that might be part of the fetish industry.
She’d heard whispers of what seers were like sexually.
Half of those stories had been lies, but she’d been curious, which turned him on.
She’d also been enthusiastic when Loki offered to educate her, which turned him on more. She’d been fascinated by him, specifically, but he’d felt her fear, too. He’d lain with her naked, then offered her oral sex when she’d wanted intercourse.
By the end of that, all of her nerves and misgivings seemed to have abated entirely––enough that she’d wanted to return the favor for him.
He’d been nervous about letting her, so he’d refused that time.
He’d masturbated in front of her, instead, so he could show her the hirik, the part of a male seer’s sex organ that extends just prior to ejaculation.
Seeing that had surprised her––a lot, actually.
It also turned her on.
He hadn’t expected the second reaction from her, especially not so soon. It caught him off guard––completely off guard, in fact––so much so that he came almost at once, and pretty much on her, which she deliberately let him do. He’d been unable to stop himself once he felt her arousal in his light, especially after she offered herself under him.
He still blushed remembering that, but Gina found the whole thing funny.
Funny, and, more strangely still, to Loki, at least, she’d found it endearing, too, maybe because he’d lost control with her for the first time, maybe for the vulnerability he’d shown her in those few minutes while he climaxed, when he was pretty sure he’d been calling her name––or maybe for some other reason he’d been too nervous to probe her light to determine specifically.
But she knew his body, at least.
Not well, but she had seen it.
She seemed to feel some portion of his thoughts, even as she continued to unfasten the catches on his shirt.
“Will it hurt?” she murmured, not looking up at him. “That… thing. You know. How you’re built. Is that going to hurt me?”
He fought to control his breathing, shaking his head. “No,” he said. “No, I’ll pull out before. I won’t let it hurt you.”
At that, she did look up.
Loki met her gaze. He watched her brow crinkle as she frowned.
“Really?” she said. “Every time?”
He nodded, frowning back. “It would hurt you a lot if I didn’t. It even hurts female seers until they get used to it.” Seeing the doubt in her eyes, he caressed her face with one hand. “Trust me on this, Gina. You would not like it.”
She nodded, but the frown didn’t dissipate from her eyes or the edges of her lips.
His pain worsened when her thoughts touched his light, without him reaching out that time. He felt her worry that he would lose interest in her if he had to control himself every time, if he couldn’t let go inside of her, if she couldn’t give him what his body wanted. He felt her thinking that it might not bother him at first, not for weeks or even for months
––for years, maybe––but eventually it would be an issue. She feared he wouldn’t be satisfied, that he would eventually look elsewhere for this.
She seemed to think it would only be a matter of time.
He let out a low groan when he felt her fears about losing him.
“Do not worry about this, Gina,” he told her, gasping, feeling his pain worsen. “Seers… we are different about this. We want light. We want the light of the person we love.” Feeling her fear intensify, he gripped her hair in his hands, blowing warmth over her aleimi. “Trust me,” he murmured. “Gods, trust me. Please. It does not matter to me. I swear to you, it doesn’t.”
“It will.”
“No.” He shook his head, once. “No, it won’t. I promise.”
He felt her thinking again, wanting to believe him.
He let out another low gasp when he felt her thinking about giving him oral sex.
She looked up, her cheeks pinkish. She knew he’d heard her from his reaction.
“Well?” she said. “Does that work? At the end, I mean?”
He nodded, feeling his pain grow sharper once they made eye contact. “Yes.” Hesitating, he shrugged with one hand, still holding her gaze. “You have to know how to avoid the hirik there, too, or you can hurt your mouth or tongue. I can show you that, and yes, it can work very well.”
He felt her desire intensify as she turned over his words.
Loki fought back another stab of pain, closing his eyes.
“There are other things, cousin. Things I can show you. Do not worry… please. This is such a small thing, please do not worry. I will be satisfied. More than satisfied, I promise you. I will not look for this elsewhere. I will not.”
He felt her fighting to hear him, to let his words reassure her.
He felt her wanting to believe him, and his desire worsened.
He remembered her thoughts. She had been thinking years with him.
She had already wanted that, to be with him for years.
He had told her he loved her.
He wondered how she understood his words. He sensed with human men, it often had a lot to do with sex. He wondered if it would reassure her or not that he meant it more in relation to her light than to her body.
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