A Dutiful Disaster (Part One)
Pairing: Loki x Reader
Chapter Warnings: Arranged Marriage, Enemies to Lovers, Royalty, Smut, Toxic Relationship, Pre-Thor (2011), Holy arguments Batman!, Loki is a moody POS, 18+
Snippet:
“I do not wish to be kissed. It’s too great an intimacy for our,” you pause to consider the word, tapping your finger to your chin, “unique situation, wouldn’t you say? We are the furthest thing from lovers.” “Oh?” Loki sounds amused by your answer – and then he drops his feet back to the floor with purpose, taking advantage of your startled jump to pull you further into his lap where you can feel the hardening length of him against your clothed core. “If not lovers, then what are we?” “Married,” you gasp, arms clutching around his neck for fear of being dropped – or so you tell yourself.
The door closes behind you with a quiet click.
After an extremely long, extremely tiring day of festivities, you’re finally alone with the one person you absolutely cannot stand.
Loki. Prince of Asgard. Son of Odin.
Your new husband.
The plush velvet chairs and gilded furniture draw your attention first – such fine craftsmanship, the likes of which you’ve never seen. Even your mother’s high nobility had never provided access to such beautiful things, no matter how overbearing her propensity for status.
Then you see the floor-to-ceiling shelves, an entire wall of them, overflowing with what you assume must be every book on Asgard. A personal library of sorts, one curated to Loki’s mercurial interests – it’s not surprising in the least, though until today you’d never considered exactly how varied they might be.
Theoretical Applications of Ancient Healing Magicks. Battle Strategies for the Advanced Tactician: A Field Analysis of Jotun Warfare. Medicinal Botany for the Modern Cleric. An Ethical Guide to Poisons, Part I.
Your fingers trace over the worn, faded lettering on the spine of a particularly thick tome—
The Forgotten Texts of Svartalfheim, Volumes 1-3.
How pretentious.
He’s intelligent. You know this. Loki has always been so incredibly smart in the great many years you’ve known him; insufferably so, in fact. But standing here in his private chambers without a true invitation – seeing his personal effects on display, the books he enjoys, even the small trinkets on his coffee table – it feels like an intrusion, and you’re quite certain he feels the same if the look on his face is any indication.
Displeasure.
He’s been watching you, it seems – watching the tactless way you’ve allowed your fingers to wander upon his belongings. His lips are pressed together in a firm line, an expression you’ve seen on him too many times to count, but the wariness is new.
Your hand lowers to your side. Why, you aren’t sure. You don’t particularly care if he’s displeased. You don’t particularly care about him at all.
Still, your eyes trail up, up, up the walls, to the green and gold tapestries draped upon them, where the sheer arrogance to display his own colours has your nose wrinkling. The intricately painted mural on the ceiling proves to be a welcome distraction. If not for your nerves, you’d probably spare some time to admire it, but right now you’re more focused on what lies beyond the sitting room.
“Let’s get this over with, shall we?” you ask, turning your attention to the gilded archway on the far wall which harbours a glorious set of double doors. Behind them, you can only imagine his bed awaits. Your fingers fumble to unlace the white silk ties of your bodice for one moment, then two.
You pause.
He hasn’t followed.
Casting a sidelong glance in his direction, you find Loki standing there, unmoving, hands clasped behind his back — ever the calm, collected royal you most certainly are not. The jacket he’d worn to the wedding hangs open, now, likely unbuttoned when the two of you had finally stepped away from public scrutiny. In the warm candlelight of his chambers shine the numerous regalia befitting his title, pins and patches and cording twined with gold, all dangling as carelessly as your forgotten lacing.
The ceremonial attire suits him, though you’d never say it aloud. Especially not with him bearing witness as you make an ass of yourself.
“Well?” you prompt in annoyance.
His raven dark hair is ever-so-slightly mussed from the earlier celebration, though it still perfectly emphasises the greenest eyes you’ve ever seen. When he disregards your question to take a leisurely seat upon the sofa, you frown.
“Despite whatever baseless assumption your mind seems to have conjured, I will not take what isn’t freely given.”
You’re not sure whether to be flattered or insulted, so you choose neither and glower at him instead. “We have a duty to fulfil, husband.”
A bitter hint of vitriol escapes on the word.
“What might you call this, then?” Loki raises his left hand and waggles his fingers in the most infuriating display of his new wedding ring. “You can’t honestly expect me to believe that you’re happy about this arrangement, wife.”
It’s less venomous from him — mocking, rather. Condescending.
You aren’t happy about it at all, and considering your history, neither is he. You’ve never gotten along, not even as children. Rather, your mutual dislike for each other has only aged like a fine wine.
Your spiteful laughter follows as you come to stand in front of him with your hands on your hips. “And what could have given you that impression, I wonder?”
Of course, you’d be a fool not to appreciate the privilege of such an arrangement. No, you could have done much worse for yourself. Aside from your new title, which will definitely be an adjustment, you don’t think that Loki is… unattractive, per se. Cheekbones so sharp they could cut glass, paired with long, dark hair and porcelain skin – no, he isn’t unattractive at all. Physically.
His personality, however—
“Your shaking hands, perhaps,” he begins, gaze trailing down your body, and you notice, then, how beautifully long his eyelashes are. When he reaches out for one of your dangling laces, you shift your weight to ever-so-slightly increase the distance between the two of you and his fingers immediately still, eyes snapping up to yours again. “Or am I to assume that you’re trembling from excitement at the prospect of a passionate wedding night?”
Straight, blunt, to-the-point. Sarcastic. Biting.
Infuriating.
“We have a duty,” you repeat, irritation seeping into your voice.
“Do we?” Loki responds dryly, leaning back against the sofa once again. His arms come to rest on the backrest as he kicks his feet up onto the coffee table in an obvious rejection of your offer.
“You know what your father expects. What Asgard expects.”
It’s a provocation, mentioning Odin, and you do so love to push Loki’s buttons.
Predictably, his jaw sets as he stares up at you with an intensity that makes your heart race. “Then what do you propose? For me to take you, unwilling? To use you for my pleasure?” He scoffs. “Hardly.”
Something about the casual way Loki speaks of such carnal things gets under your skin. Damn him and his ever-changing morals. Without them, this would have been easier. Without them, you wouldn’t need to swallow your pride, for you had truthfully expected him to take it from you by force.
Alas.
You swallow the lump in your throat and slowly, hesitantly bring a knee on either side of him to straddle his lap. He’s warm – much warmer than you’d expected him to be, though when his hands warily come to rest on your hips it’s your face that burns.
“You know what needs to be done,” you tell him, though this time your voice wavers along with your resolve.
His lips part, presumably to deny you once again, but he doesn’t speak – rather, you can almost see the cogs turning in his brain until determination settles upon his features instead. “Are you sure?”
It could be worse.
It could be better, too, but at least you know him. You can’t stand him, mind, but you know who he is – know what to expect, what to despise, what to request, what to deny.
“Yes,” you answer with more confidence than you feel, “but I would ask one thing.”
Loki raises his brows expectantly.
“I do not wish to be kissed. It’s too great an intimacy for our,” you pause to consider the word, tapping your finger to your chin, “unique situation, wouldn’t you say? We are the furthest thing from lovers.”
“Oh?” Loki sounds amused by your answer – and then he drops his feet back to the floor with purpose, taking advantage of your startled jump to pull you further into his lap where you can feel the hardening length of him against your clothed core. “If not lovers, then what are we?”
“Married,” you gasp, arms clutching around his neck for fear of being dropped – or so you tell yourself.
“Mm, quite right you are.” His nose brushes against your ear, before he whispers, “Perhaps we’ll have a passionate wedding night after all? You’d like that, wouldn’t you, sweet?”
Your body tenses at his teasing.
Smug, arrogant bastard—
“Ah, ah,” Loki chides, smoothing gentle circles into your hips with his thumbs. “Relax.”
It’s difficult, if not impossible to get out of your own head, but his reminder makes it easier. You relax further as his lips trail soft kisses from your ear to the crook between your neck and shoulder, and then he bites – not hard, just enough to pull a whine from your throat.
Large, warm hands slide up your thighs, hiking up the silken material of your gown and leaving goosebumps in their wake. You feel something clench deep within you when he sucks a bruise on your throat – a mark that you’re his.
You shouldn’t enjoy it as much as you do.
No, you shouldn’t enjoy this at all. Not with him. It's a means to an end, a duty to your realm, a hazing for the new Princess of Asgard to endure—
His fingers snap one of your garters harshly against your thigh, drawing you back.
“Ow,” you hiss, shoving him back against the sofa. You know that Loki would have let you; he’s much stronger than you, though only here has he ever allowed you that little bit of power. It feels strange, if not surreal for him to offer you a concession.
His soft laughter is much more familiar.
“I quite like this,” he admits, using his grip on your hips to pull you flush against him once again. He's harder, now, and you bite your lip at the sensation. “Though I wonder if you might prefer to take your pleasure from me?”
Your face heats up at his taunts – at the idea of using him in the way he’s suggested. It’s not so bad an idea, all things considered, but your stubbornness prevails. “No.”
“No?”
You shoot him a look, and then push his jacket off of his shoulders with much steadier hands than before. “For fairness.”
“Ah, yes,” he agrees, clearly playing along for his own amusement. “Fairness. Of course.”
You yank at the closure of his shirt a little harder than necessary, and buttons fly. “Enough of that.”
“Enough of what?”
The teasing lilt in his voice sends you up a wall.
“That,” you snap, grinding your hips down onto his in warning, to which Loki sucks in a sharp breath. “Your taunts.”
He does like this, doesn’t he?
A rush of feminine power surges through you at the idea that you’re having an effect on him. On Loki. Your lifelong irritation.
“Oh, but maybe I shall take my pleasure from you?” you question, trailing your fingers down his bare chest. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
You watch his adam’s apple bob at the mockery of his own taunts turned against him.
“Perhaps you want me to use you,” you drawl, nails slowly dragging up his bare chest, now, to leave red marks behind. “Ride you ‘til I’m sated, and only then allow you recompense… if I feel you’ve earned it.”
That’s when he snatches up your wrists, suddenly incensed. “You would ask me to submit to your whims?”
The precise control he uses with such a powerful grip sends a pleasant shiver through you. It doesn’t hurt, no, the way he holds your delicate wrists with one large hand isn’t painful at all, but the struggle for control is delicious and you can feel your underclothes dampen all the more.
“I wouldn’t ask,” you respond, batting your eyelashes at him. “I’d demand.”
Despite his objections, his cock twitches against your inner thigh. “How bold of you to assume that I would listen.”
“To me, you would,” you tell him, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. “Your wife.”
Another grind of your hips, and his grip loosens just slightly – and then you find yourself staring up at the intricate swirls of paint upon the ceiling. Soft velvet caresses your bare back, and so too does the chill in the air before you realise your gown has been spirited away.
Your jaw drops, perhaps to voice your shock, but the way he looks down at you with – admiration? – has the words catching in your throat.
“My wife,” Loki repeats, slowly, as if savouring the word on his tongue, “is quite lovely beneath her clever defences, isn’t she?” His eyes follow the path he creates with the backs of his fingers against your sensitive skin, from the tip of your shoulder down to the centre of your breasts. Goosebumps raise under his touch. “Though her audacity leads me to believe she already knows.”
Your tongue wets your lips, but your throat is dry.
“I do,” is all you can manage, not nearly as haughtily as you’d hoped. Putting aside the fact that you’re one step away from nude, his compliments bring on a feeling of uneasiness — because they’re from him.
Even when you’re well-aware of Loki’s honeyed lies, you still find yourself wanting to take his word as gospel.
“May I touch you?” he asks softly, fingers lingering at your navel. The distinct note of reverence in his voice puts you on the defence.
It’s too much.
“One might argue that you’re already doing so,” comes your quick-witted answer, a joke to diffuse the tension, the unfamiliarity, the intimacy – but the breathiness in your voice betrays you.
You want this. You want him. Why?
The corners of his lips turn up in amusement. “I need to hear you say it, darling.”
Darling.
He’s not being smug now, nor arrogant – but candid, sincere, and your defences start to crumble.
“Touch me.” The words leave your mouth before you can stop them. “Please.”
His thumb traces your cheekbone for the briefest of moments, and you find yourself leaning into his touch. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
A rhetorical question, you realise, when one of his hands palms your breast, tweaking a nipple through the thin silk of your brassiere. His lips trace the burning path of his exploration — down, down, down, until he reaches the lacy hem of your underclothes. When his breath fans over the dampened material between your legs, your fingers instinctively tangle in his hair in an unspoken request for more.
“Is this alright?” Loki asks, fingertips just slightly dipping underneath the hem at the junction of your thigh, ever closer to where you want him most. You suspect he already knows the answer.
“Yes,” you breathe.
He tugs the fabric aside, and you whimper.
“Stunning,” he whispers, pressing a gentle kiss upon your inner thigh. “Not to mention thoroughly soaked. Considering our, ah… unique situation, imagine my surprise.”
Your face heats up with embarrassment. “I didn’t ask for a commentary.”
“No, but you certainly seem to enjoy one, don’t you?”
You want to argue, you do, but he doesn’t give you the opportunity. Instead of the biting words you expect to come out of your mouth, a colourful swear escapes as Loki licks a broad stripe upon you from slit to clit.
“L-Loki—“
You may wish to take his lies as gospel, but he’s the one praying at your altar. His thumbs spread you open as his silver tongue makes promises you desperately hope he keeps; upon your clit and through your folds, no part of you is left unexplored as you all but grind your slick heat into his waiting mouth.
He’s talented, you think through the haze, and of course he is. With so many rumours that he favours any warm body to a cold, empty bed, you aren’t surprised. Any warm body but yours until now — a train of thought quickly derailed as he snaps your garter once again.
This time, you moan.
“Look at me,” Loki instructs. The gentle authority in his tone has you obeying without a second thought, and you blink your eyes open to meet his — always such a brilliant green, but darker now with his pupils so blown.
You shouldn’t be enjoying this as much as you are.
Not with him.
Not like this.
Two of his fingers slide inside you with ease, and you bite back another curse as your grip tightens in his hair, your toes curl, your head lulls back, and—
And he stops.
You squint your eyes open to glare down at him in frustration – when had you even shut them again? – only to find him amusedly gauging your reaction. His thumb gently smoothes over your bundle of nerves: a reward, perhaps, or a reminder.
“I’d prefer my wife to watch as I give her pleasure.”
You feel yourself clench down around his fingers at his choice of words – something he doesn’t fail to notice, judging by the mischief hidden in his gaze.
You nod.
This time, Loki doesn’t ask you to verbalise your answer. Instead, he turns his attention back to your mound, as if he trusts that you’ll listen this time. While the idea of him trusting you to obey him is as infuriating as it is arousing, you do as he asks.
Even when his tongue flattens over your clit.
Even when he curls his fingers so perfectly within you that you see stars.
Even when he moves them inside you slowly at first, then faster, harder, until he’s using the strength you’d so admired earlier to work your body into a harsh, steady rhythm that makes your thighs quiver and shake.
Loki wrenches gasps and pleas and swears of his name from your throat as the crescendo builds, as he brings you more pleasure than you could have ever imagined from him, your lifelong irritation, the one person you absolutely cannot stand—
“I— I’m— It’s too much, Loki—”
And then you break.
A sharp cry of — something, his name, possibly — echoes off the high ceiling, another form of art to accompany the painted masterpiece above. It’s coupled with a very distinct gush that has you squeezing down around his fingers, has your nails digging into his scalp, has every muscle in your body tensing up like a live wire.
Your vision blurs as you fall back against the velvet cushions of his sofa, chest heaving to catch every breath he’s stolen from you.
“You come apart so beautifully for me.” Loki presses another kiss to your inner thigh as he tugs your underclothes back to their original position. “Well done.”
Your face burns. Whether it’s from his praise or the absurdity of the situation, you aren’t sure. All you know is that your body feels hot – sweltering, really, as he sits back against the sofa once again and pulls your legs into his lap.
You look over at him blearily. “What are you doing?”
“Always so defensive,” he muses, thumbs massaging gentle circles into your calves. Your eyelids flutter shut at the pleasant sensation, and you allow yourself to relax just a little, draping an arm over your face in exhaustion. “I’m allowing you some time to recover, sweet. You’ll need it.”
You tense up again at his taunts.
Smug, arrogant bastard—
This time, it’s his laughter that breaks you out of it. “It appears you’ve had quite enough of me for tonight. Or were you hoping for more? Really, darling, I’m flattered, but—”
A grumble of frustration escapes you at his teasing, and with your free hand, you toss one of the velvet pillows in his general direction. His touch quickly disappears as he presumably catches it, and you immediately feel yourself longing for the missing connection.
Why?
The silence that falls over the two of you is probably the most comfortable you’ve ever felt with him – though it’s still not something you’d call ‘comfortable,’ more than a temporary truce as he starts to work his magic into your sore muscles once more. The heels you’d worn all day had done a number on your feet, but the pain slowly starts to alleviate as his hands expertly caress your arches.
The wonderful feeling unfortunately does nothing to ease your anxiety.
“Thank you,” you murmur, “but you know just as well as I do that we aren’t finished yet.”
His hands still as he considers what you’ve said.
“No, not yet,” Loki affirms, before resuming his gentle ministrations, “but tonight is not the time. Not with either of us so exhausted as we are.”
You lift your arm just enough to give him a surprised look.
“Are you so shocked?” Loki says, brows raised. “What a dreadfully tiring day it’s been. All the socialising I’ve done today ought to last me the year. And,” cue a pointed look in your direction, “I haven’t spent the day wearing those.”
When he nods over to your discarded heels next to the coffee table, you snort in the most unladylike fashion. If it weren’t him, you’d be appalled by your own poor manners, but you can't find it in yourself to care.
“Perhaps not, but you did look rather dashing in your princely attire,” you admit, unthinkingly. “Even if I did fear that the sheer heft of your adornments would render you unable to walk.”
The corners of his lips twitch with the hint of a smile. “We all have our parts to play.”
It’s said in jest, but you see it for what it is: a politician’s answer, closely guarded, and you can’t help but wonder about the cause. So, hesitantly, you venture, “And how do you feel about yours?”
His gentle massaging stops.
Loki glances over at you again — studies the curiosity on your face, the nervousness in how you bite your lip, and there’s a sudden hard edge to his features that makes you immediately regret asking the question. After all, it’s not like you actually want to know the answer. Or so you tell yourself.
“I think,” he begins sharply, removing your feet from his lap as he stands, “that you must be feeling entirely too comfortable to ask me such an idiotic question.”
He’s tall. You know this. Loki has always been so much taller than you, but the ease with which he now towers over you at his full height — particularly while you lay before him so exposed — makes you extremely uncomfortable. And irate, considering his ignorant assumption to the contrary.
“An idiotic—?“ You immediately bristle at his unprovoked attack and angrily push off the sofa. “You think I’m comfortable here? With you?”
“I do,” comes his response, blasé and patronising, before he crosses his arms for good measure.
Always so defensive.
Hypocrite.
“Is that really what you believe, or are you just too stupid to realise—”
“Realise what, darling?” Loki spits the word like a poison, and you flinch. “That you enjoy our banter more than you let on? That you’re actually rather terrified of a wedding night you never wanted? Or that your witch of a mother pulled the strings to ensure our blasphemous union?”
The adrenaline runs through your veins like hellfire at his spiteful accusations.
“You will never,” you shove him hard on the shoulder to emphasise your point, “ever talk about my mother in such a way, you loathsome wretch!”
“Ah, that didn’t take long, did it?” Loki laughs, and the icy sound of it sends a cold chill through you. “I was wondering when your mind would return after I’d sent it away so easily with my tongue.”
Heat slowly creeps up your neck as the shame sets in. Of course he’d use such an intimate moment against you — because that’s who Loki is, all sweet lies and clever trickery. It’s probably the only reason he’d been intimate with you at all, emotional fodder for his schemes.
Serves you right for trusting him.
“Now, what is it you intend to do – intimidate me?” Loki slides one finger beneath the strap of your brassiere before he snaps it against your skin. Then he tuts. “I hardly think your choice of attire suits such a task.”
You slap his hand away. “Don’t touch me.”
“No? Not even after you so thoroughly enjoyed yourself earlier?”
The heat reddens your cheeks, then, and you glare at him. “And what of you? So loathe are you to consummate our blasphemous union and sire an heir for the sake of Asgard! Is such a pathetic dereliction of duty what our people deserve of their future king?”
“Our people?” Loki roughly grips your chin, forcing you to meet his eyes – such a gorgeous green, even so full of spite and irritation and something else you can’t quite place. “Princess for a day, and it’s already gone to your head—”
The palm of your hand connects with the side of his face in a harsh, sickening slap that echoes off the walls. The sheer power behind it jerks his head to the side, and his grip on you loosens.
“You will not touch me in that way ever again,” you grind out, rubbing your jaw where you can feel the bruises forming, “or you will live to regret it.” A half-arsed, sarcastic curtsey soon follows as you tack on, “Husband.”
You don’t wait around to see how he’ll react. You don’t want to know.
No matter his trickery, no matter your marriage, you’ve just laid hands on a Prince of Asgard. Odinson.
Loki could have you killed for this.
Brisk, angry, fearful strides take you to the gilded archway, where his bedroom undoubtedly awaits. The second you’re over the threshold, you slam the doors shut behind you so harshly that they rattle in their frame.
His bedroom comes as a reprieve – a stark contrast to the grandiose sitting room, dark and calm and understated. The centre of it features a large four-poster bed made of dark, rich wood, something akin to ebony, adorned with sheets and drapery of the finest viridian silk. Both nightstands lay empty, aside from a worn book resting upon the one furthest from the balcony.
With shaky hands and similarly shaky breaths, you secure the lock behind you with a click, though you barely hear it over the sound of your pounding heart. A simple lock wouldn’t be enough to keep Loki out if he so desires, you know, but he doesn’t follow.
The soft, plush carpeting comes as a small comfort to your aching feet as you pad over to the side of the bed closest to the balcony — the side he clearly does not sleep on. It’s there you notice a small selection of potted plants, meticulously positioned for the sunlight.
You want to hate Loki – for the things he's said, for the person he is – but you don’t.
You don’t know why.
He's absolutely infuriating, always has been, but you can’t deny how intelligent he is nor how perceptive. His accusations had been right on the mark, nasty as they were.
Particularly about your mother, ever the puppet-master, and you her unwilling marionette.
Then again, everyone has a part to play.
Part Two
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