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.
The day was fading and Loki was relieved to see the cave. He had seen it before—venturing out this far as a child had been his favorite way to get in trouble, and to escape retribution when he was caught. Not much seemed to have changed.
He realized he was clutching Summer’s hand, and all at once felt quite embarrassed, even though there was no one to see. He cleared his throat and let go. “There is a small lake of fresh water inside these caves,” he said, remembering teaching himself to swim as a child. “We could stay here for the night.” He looked at her, still unsure, still a bit lost for how to feel with a…what was she? A lover? He swallowed.
When Loki spoke, Summer jumped a little. They’d been quiet for so long, she almost felt she’d forgotten what it was to speak. The — whatever it was — the tingle was still there; they hadn’t found it yet. She decided not to tell him about it. Maybe it would go away.
She lifted the branches aside and looked inside, though there wasn’t much to see, then nodded. “Yeah,” she said, voice slightly rusty from disuse. Stepping inside, she made a little flame and saw that it was a bit low, but dry and fairly flat for the first ten feet or so. Farther back, she could see a few openings, and water glittered in her light from one of them. It looked like there was a hole in the roof of that cave, too.
Dropping the backpack unceremoniously, Summer rolled her shoulders and explored deeper, calling back, “I think I might bathe.” When she stepped into the room with the lake, she could see the darkening sky through a narrow opening in the ceiling of it, and the water looked clear to the pebbled bottom. She left her flame burning on one of the rocks by the pool and knelt to dip a hand in the water, finding it to be a little cool, but not shockingly so.
Logically, she probably should be more careful, she thought, but she was grimy and sweaty from walking all day, and frankly she just wanted out of these clothes and clean. So she stripped off her shirt and pants, considered for half a second, and removed her underclothes too. Naked, she crept into the water, sighing softly at the chill of the water on warm skin.