It was the wry humor in her voice that had him facing her fully. Had him lifting a hand to where he sensed her face would be and tracing her features. Soft, warm skin greeted him. And her hair, tied back from her face…Straight. Silken—thick.
Luke ran a hand from her hair down the column of her neck. Could have sworn her breathing became uneven. He brushed a finger over the line where her skin met her suit.
“Why did you bother saving me tonight?”
Metal and leather hissed as she removed her gloves. Slender hands found his hand resting on his thigh. Turned his hand over and brushed over the calluses on his palm. “Because we’re two sides of the same coin.”
“Really? You and I have a lot in common?” He couldn’t stop tracing the line of her neck. His thumb found the hollow of her collarbone and settled, letting her pounding pulse hammer into his skin. “You’re trying to destabilize my city. I’m trying to save it.”
Through the barrier of his suit, he could barely feel her hands making a path up his leg, up his stomach, his chest. “Is there that much worth saving?”
“You said there are good people here, that I should protect them.”
“What about the corruption, the broken systems? Are they worth saving?”
“They are a part of this city—and people like that always benefit from chaos.”
“Not permanent chaos,” she said. “Just…temporary.”
“Just long enough for you to sell whatever you stole from Nyssa to the highest bidder?”
Again, he heard that smile in her voice. “Perhaps.”
He opened his mouth, but she asked, “Don’t you ever get bored of fighting for the good side?”
“No. It was a part of who I am long before I ever put on this suit.”
Her hands explored down his chest, to the scar down his torso. Luke shuddered as her fingertips whispered over the thick scar tissue. “Such a noble hero.”
She dragged a finger over that scar again.
“Why are you here?” Not in Gotham City—but in this room. With him.
Her fingers paused. And as her breath fanned over his mouth, he realized how close they’d drifted. Felt every inch of her thigh pressed against his, the warmth seeping from her. Not the coldblooded creature of shadows that she appeared, but someone alive and burning. “I can not be here, if you want.”
She started to rise, and Luke’s body barked in protest as he lunged for her, grabbing her arm and dragging her back to the bed. The suit beneath his hands was flexible, yet hard, some material he couldn’t place. But the shape of her body beneath it—“Don’t,” he said.
“Don’t what?” she purred.
“Don’t leave me in the dark,” he said quietly.
She knew he didn’t mean the request as simply what it was: Don’t leave me alone in the darkness. This place where we both exist, yet serve different callings.
Her fingers ghosted over his face. His nose, his mouth.
As she made to pull her hand away, Luke gripped her fingers in his, interlacing their hands, and kissed her.
* * *
—
The kiss was soft, yet left no room for questions.
And Selina realized she might very well have lost her mind as she leaned into it. Answering his kiss with her own.
Warm—he was so warm.
She could not remember the last time someone had held her.
When she’d seen him on the roof, when he’d swayed and she’d spotted the blood leaking from his side, it had been blind instinct to save him. Just as it was now blind instinct to slide her arms around his neck and press close.
Here in the dark, in the silence, she let him. Breathed him in.
His tongue traced the seam of her lips in quiet request, and a small noise came out of Selina as he tasted her. Gently—then deeply.
His scar, that brutal scar slicing down his chest…
She wanted to tell him. That she knew.
And that she also knew that they were as unlikely a pair as—
He nipped at her bottom lip.
Every thought eddied from her head.
She didn’t care. Didn’t care about any of it, anything beyond this room and this man before her, and—
No. That wasn’t true. Would never be true.
He sensed the shift in her, and pulled back, his lips hovering over hers. “You okay?”
His breathing was a jagged, uneven rasp.
Not yet. She couldn’t afford to make mistakes yet.
Selina leaned forward to kiss him. Once. Twice.
His hands buried themselves in her hair, his body shuddering as he seemed to yield to that kiss, to her.