Change state of an object over time?

Hi, I'm new to Storyline 2 and the E-Learning Heroes community. I have searched the forums extensively for an answer to this question but I don't see one.

I'm using a demo version of Storyline 2 and am creating a presentation to show some of the features of the software so that I can make a case that my employer should buy it.

One thing I'm trying to do is rotate an object through four positions (let's call it 0,1,2,3) as time progresses, and stop and start it with a button. I have created a variable to track and change the position of the object and am trying to figure out how to rotate it over time. I don't see a way to use the timeline counting as a variable unless I define a specific value for the timeline to trigger a state change.

The basic idea: I want the object to start at 0, change to position 1 after a few seconds, then move to position 2, then position 3, and then go back to 0 again until the user clicks the button (I have a variable to track the state of the button), then start rotating again as soon as the user clicks the button again.

The only thing I seem to be missing is a way to count the time continuously, rather than set a position for the object for every point on the timeline.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Jen