It was impossible to say if the kiss was unexpected or not. She fell into it, clinging to him more tightly. There was heartbreak ahead, she /knew/ there was heartbreak ahead; this was Loki, god of liars, god of mischief. His entire aspect could change in the blink of an eye. But he wanted, he wanted like fire and the burning of stars, and she wanted too, and anything he asked of her right now she would say yes.
She sought, blindly, to get her hands under his shirt, needing to touch that cool pale skin. It didn’t matter that they were running away, lost in a forest and far from safety; it didn’t matter that not that long ago he’d been the enemy and then an unlikely ally and then gone.
Loki felt himself spin away under the delicate touch of her hands. Thoughts of fear, anger, isolation … all of it could wait. It all fell to the background as he sucked her lip between his teeth and pulled her closer still, leaning hungrily into their kiss.
He remembered the first time his lips had found hers; the fire was still there, after so much time apart. His mind was burning with emotions — hers and his own alike — like he hadn’t felt ever before. He was drawn to that fire like a moth. Helpless.
He crushed her so close her hands were trapped between them, fingertips scrabbling against his chest. She needed to climb inside his clothes, inside his very skin, so close nothing could ever part him from her again. The little voice warned, uselessly; she refused it.
“Please,” she hissed, in between kisses that made it impossible to breathe. “Please, I need you — ” She shoved up on her toes, strained upward, wrapped a leg around his body and tried to climb him like a tree. She burned, and he was ice; blazed, and he was darkness; two stars opposed and drawn into mutual orbit.
Loki chuckled as she wrapped herself around him, as he felt her flames projected all through him, and his chill reflected back as a desperate need to get warm.
But they were too close to the castle, and the areas patrolled by Odin’s men. And he could hear a faint stomping in the distance, like footsteps marching through undergrowth. Maybe he imagined it, or maybe they needed to keep moving.
He stroked her hair from her face, reluctantly lowering her back to the ground, taking care to run his hands over her thighs as he did so. “Later, Summer. We must keep moving.” His voice sounded strained and breathless to his ears, and his face was flushed. “I thought I heard something approaching. Let us find a camp for the afternoon before…we get too…”
She whined as he put her down, but he was right, and she knew it. Well, her mind knew it, even as her body complained of parting from him. She offered him an not-entirely feigned pout, reshouldering the backpack. “You’re right. You can be such a torturer!”
They tramped for several hours under the westering sun, barely speaking except to alter course. An odd harmony settled between them, though, and each one took opportunities to touch the other — holding hands through the shallow valleys, Loki lifting Summer up over tree trunks or large rocks as the ground steepened toward the distant mountains, Summer taking Loki’s elbow to guide him around smaller obstacles.
She spoke even less as the rays of the sun burned golden, then amber, feeling a strange pull. Not quite a guide, but a tingle, something inexplicable and utterly unrelated to the god at her side. Following a stream and the crumbling remains of a natural rock wall, they rounded a bend and came upon a low cave, partly screened by a tree that strongly resembled a weeping willow.