Temptation

As always, make of Loki's motives what you will.

Sigyn was a project.

She knew she was a project. One would think this fact would make resisting Loki easier. Occasionally, Sigyn wondered if it did, and Loki would simply be impossible to resist if she believed, for one moment, that he actually wanted her.

Loki's hands were gentle on her skin.

The point was irrelevant. She was a project; she knew she was a project. There was no fathomable universe in which Loki showed any interest and either fact was false.

Those clever kisses were soft and warm, or at least warmed her.

Loki would toss Sigyn aside as soon as he grew bored. Any glimmer of a smile she saw in his eyes was solely amusement at the fact that she was resisting him, that she'd found his game.

He was fire; he was ice. He was Loki.

The kisses she could ignore. Teasing touches were more difficult, but possible. But the words echoed in her ears, impossible to dismiss on an emotional level even if she knew every syllable was a lie.

Loki's pull was subtle, ever-present: Thor was magnetic; Loki was gravitational.

Kisses he must have given to others; Sigyn had seen kisses traded in brief moments of pleasure, not even linked to the other person, just to a warm body. Caresses were transient things, and the part of her that insisted she wasn't a game to him could still believe they meant something just as transient.

The words followed her; words finally brought her to him.

Loki had whispered, too gently, "I love you, Sigyn." No other would lie that way. Even as Sigyn knew this was Loki Lie-Smith, even as she knew he could make even an insult drip enough honey to sound like the most splendid compliment, even as she knew that if she gave in his attention would fall away, she followed him. Just once.

"Steadfast Sigyn," he murmured, warm in her ear. He might have said, 'Mine.'

She woke before he did, in the half-light of false dawn. The same part of Sigyn that had insisted everything was a lie asked if one night had been worth it. Worth knowing she had lost their game, that she was no longer Loki's focus.

She watched him sleep, tucked a stray lock of hair behind his ear.

"Clever Loki."

She might have said, 'Love.'