Chapter Thirty-three

"I have a sore throat," Jane said and then bit her lip hard when Loki flicked his tongue on her clit.

"You do sound rather hoarse," Dr. Banner said. "Rest up over the weekend. See you next week."

"Will do, thanks Bruce," Jane said and hung up. She cried out and practically threw her phone across Loki's bedroom as she came.

She was not even down from her orgasmic bliss before he was over her and inside her. She gasped as she clutched at his sides. "Loki."

"You do sound rather hoarse, love," he said as he thrust methodically inside her. He smirked. "I think you need to spend the day in bed."

"That's the plan, right?" she asked breathlessly.

"Yes."

Jane kept her eyes on him; she loved watching how intense he got when he made love to her even though inevitably she had to look away because she felt as though she was being pulled into an undertow.

He leaned over her and kissed her and Jane wrapped her legs around his waist as he began to pound inside her. "Oh God," she panted. "Loki…"

And then he pulled out of her and she cried out. "What are you doing?!"

He grinned as he detangled himself from her and then kissed her again. "On your knees."

Jane beamed at him and eagerly rolled over and got up on her knees. She had never been a prude when it came to sex, but she had never been particularly adventurous either. He who shall not be named had probably saved any and all kink for his little tramp. Doggy was something Jane had only done a couple times in the past and normally something like this would have made her a little nervous, but not with Loki.

"My sexy vixen willing to try anything," Loki purred as he ran a hand down her back. "Love, why don't you put your hands on the headboard?"

Jane swallowed hard, excitement thrumming through her entire body. She lifted up on her knees and grabbed the headboard, curling her hands around the wood. When she felt Loki's cock at her core she shivered with excitement.

"I want you to ease back on me, Jane," he whispered.

Jane bit her lip and moved back, taking him inside her. She moaned. "Loki…"

"Fuck me, sweetheart," he whispered.

Her movements felt off, a bit jerky at first and then she caught the right rhythm and started to move back and forth on him, again and again.

"That's my girl," Loki muttered, his breathing getting heavier and faster. He started to meet her thrusts and Jane gripped the headboard tightly, tightening the muscles in her arms to keep herself steady. Having sex with Loki probably meant she didn't have to worry about doing cardio for a while…

He wrapped his arm around her stomach and pulled her up against him. He used short hard thrusts and placed his talented fingers on her clit. Jane gasped and turned her head so she could kiss him. Loki happily obliged her. She broke the kiss and she let her head fall back onto his shoulder, her mouth opened in a silent "O" as she came.

Loki followed closely behind, roaring his release as he held himself inside her. Keeping himself inside her, he brought her face to his and kissed her deeply. He smiled against her mouth and nuzzled the side of her face. "Good morning, darling."

"Mmm…morning," she murmured. "We might need a snack tray for sustenance at this rate. How many times now?"

"Fourth? Fifth? I don't know anymore." He bit her shoulder gently. "Should we have some breakfast?"

She nodded and they split apart with a moan. They both climbed off the bed and while Loki pulled on his lounge pants, Jane put on his t-shirt. With a smile he held out his hand to her, she took it eagerly and they made their way down the stairs.

Over breakfast of eggs, French toast and sausage (to which Jane had joked she'd had a lot of sausage lately, causing Loki to roll his eyes), Loki watched her closely. She was somewhere else, thinking about something hard.

"Where are you?" he asked. She looked at him a little guiltily and something inside him clenched. Had she been thinking of Thor? Please do not let that be it, he thought.

"I was thinking of Frederick Page."

"Who the bloody hell is Frederick Page?" he demanded.

She arched a brow and pointed up. "The fake passport you have?"

He sighed and sat back. "Oh." Then his brow furrowed. "Why are you thinking of that? Is this some role play you want to try?"

"No, I—" she frowned thoughtfully. "Well, maybe now that you mention it, but no." She cleared her throat and shook her head. "No, I was thinking about this mess with Luthor."

Loki sighed. "Jane…"

"I know, I know, you don't want to think about that right now but we have to. My head is on the chopping block. Literally."

"No, it's not. They won't get near you, Jane."

"Then they'll just have one less step to get to you, and I am not going to listen to you tell me that you'll do anything to keep me safe and out of this. I'm part of it. I'm in it. Now we work together to get us both out of it. Partners, remember?" He sighed again and Jane looked at him challengingly. "And don't you dare do that thing where we talk about this and come up with a plan where you're really just you humoring me the whole time, while planning to go off and do whatever you want."

"Jane, I don't plan to involve Erik any further."

She looked at him in surprise. "What?"

"I don't plan for Erik to be involved any longer. At first I thought it would be in my best interests to do so, but I don't want to do that."

"Do you not trust him?"

He shook his head. "No, I do. It's just that while I know he deals with this sort of thing every day, if something went wrong and he was caught in the crossfire I would never forgive myself for taking away your uncle."

Jane entire being softened. "Loki…"

"I owe him a debt for this much he's done. If something happened to him and it was because of the mess I created I fear the day would come that you would resent me for it. I can't take away what little family you have left, Jane. So this problem? It's my problem to take care of."

"Not just yours. It's mine, too."

"It's really not."

"Loki—"

He held up a hand. "Jane, I know you want to help. I know you want us to be like Bonnie and Clyde and take care of this together, but Jane, this is my mess. I'm the one that decided to do start this endeavor and put my life on the line. I didn't care at the time what I was doing. I had set the course to go against my family and figured—"

"Go big or go home?"

The corner of his mouth turned up and he smiled crookedly. "Yes."

"You couldn't have gotten your rebellious years out of the way when you were a teenager like most people do, huh?"

"Don't forget all the things I'd done to turn my father and brother against me. How I didn't have any hope of you…"

"You self-destructed."

He nodded. "Yes. The accident and subsequent amnesia was not only a second chance, but a wake-up call. I survived it with only the loss of my memories, but the next time I had a brush with death, I might actually die."

Jane winced. She didn't want to think about that.

"I need to clean this up, Jane. I need to make this right for myself."

"Luthor is pissed, Loki. Crane stepped out of bounds and pissed him off and now he's gunning for you. He has eyes everywhere, he probably already knows that my uncle is involved so my uncle is probably already on his shit list—"

"That's why I need to take care of it from here on out."

"How?"

"I don't know yet exactly. All I know so far is that I need to get your uncle out of it and I need to get to Luthor. Right now, with you being watched by Luthor's men? Luthor knows who you are. He knows that you mean something to Erik. He'll use you, Jane. He'll use you to get to me and to get to Erik."

It was something Jane had thought about the night before, but hadn't wanted to dwell on too much. As Erik had said, she was in this now. And it wasn't what he'd wanted for her.

"I mean, it could be just so simple, right? You pay him the money and that's it?"

He looked doubtful, but he said, "Well, it could be. I just have to meet with him and find out."

"Uncle Erik was going to make the call to Luthor. You're going to have to make that call before he does."

Loki heaved a deep sigh and looked away from her. The look on his face gave her a bad feeling, a very very bad feeling. "What did you do?" she asked.

"I wasn't going to tell you until tomorrow—"

Now she was downright terrified. "Loki—"

"I called him this morning while you were sleeping. I see him tomorrow night."

Jane gripped the edge of the table. "WHAT?!"

"I called him—"

"What did you say?! What did he say?!"

"He was expecting me. He knew that your uncle was involved and while he hadn't figured out about you yet, I am hoping that I can fix all this before he does."

"You weren't going to tell me until tomorrow?" she demanded as tears stung her eyes. "Loki, how…how could you not tell me right away what you were planning?"

"Because I knew you'd try to stop me. I knew you'd want to involve yourself. I didn't want you to spend all of today worried. I just wanted to be with you, Jane, and have one day where we didn't worry about what was going on around us. I wanted today to just be about us."

She got up from the table, needing to walk away, to take a breather and think. Her mind was racing. "So you were what, tell me tomorrow when you were walking out the door to see Luthor?"

"Yes."

Jane wiped at the tears that fell from her eyes. "Because you knew I wouldn't be able to do anything about it in that instant." Now she shook not with fear, but with anger. She pointed at him. "You're wrong. You're wrong if you thought I would have just let you go without doing anything. I would have grabbed your gun and gone with you, or followed you close by if I had to, or called Drax help me – I would have done something. I would have found a way. I wouldn't have let you go alone. You're lucky I love you or I would leave right now and tell you to fuck yourself for—"

"Did you just say you love me?" Loki asked, talking over her to be heard.

She blinked. "What?"

He got up from the table slowly. "Did you say you love me?"

She pursed her lips together and nodded. "Yes."

"Did you mean it?" he whispered.

"Yes."

"Can you say it without all the other stuff?" He moved closer to her, slowly, as though he feared this was some alternate reality that would disappear if he moved too fast. When he was standing before her, eyes wide with hope and wonder, Jane looked up at him and said, "I love you, Loki."

She had barely finished saying his name and he was kissing her passionately, then lifting her onto the counter behind her and starting to push the shirt she was wearing up. Jane grabbed his wrists to stop him.

"Jane?" he asked, looking confused amid the lustful daze he was in.

"Not right now," she said. "Not until we talk about this. You just went on at length about making things right, protecting my uncle, protecting me, and not having any sort of plan while all the while you knew that tomorrow night you would be talking to Luthor alone. Do you truly have no plan or do you have one that you're keeping from me?"