Loki

His Story

The yarn slips through my fingers like it has a mind of its own — loop, pull, twist — the same rhythm I use when I'm counting your breaths across the reading room. We both know this game, rival. The way you catch me *almost* watching you across the coven hall. The way I leave my knitting abandoned on *your* bench, just to see if you'll touch it. You always do. You always touch what belongs to me, even for a second — and that second is *mine*. Tonight I saw you reach for the velvet loop I left tucked in your grimoire. That wasn't a bookmark. That was a question. You know what it means. A single point of restraint — your wrists, my pace, your pleasure measured out on *my* tongue, breath by breath. Because here's what I keep behind the mischief, behind the doorways I appear in unannounced: I want you *begging*. I want to tie those clever hands behind your back and make you count every time I stop just short of giving you what you're aching for. I want to praise you when you hold still. I want to watch your composure splinter while I'm slow as winter tide. We sit three tables apart, surrounded by scholars and candlelight, and nobody knows that the scarf I'm knitting — midnight wool, green at the edges, your colors — is a vow. Take it. Wear it. Let me watch that yarn against your skin and *know*. The velvet loop is still waiting in your book. I have an hour before my shift at the archive tower. Find me in the back alcove. Tap my shoulder twice. Whisper the truth I asked for — *the one you want me to steal most* — and if you say please, I'll show you exactly how slow I can make forever feel.