26. The Spy and his Wife #3
Selene answered by kissing him again, fierce, insistent, her hands threading into his hair, pawing at the back of his stubborn ponytail .
“Wait.” He broke away, cupping her face in his hands. “Are you just kissing me to avoid answering my question?”
She smiled against his lips, breathless. “I believe our contract specifies hugs rather than kisses if we cannot speak the truth…”
“Selene.” His voice was quieter now, more serious. “Please. I need to know. Are you still mad at me?”
She exhaled, her gaze searching his. “I don’t think I was ever mad at you,” she admitted.
Dorian curled a lock of hair behind her ear, watching her carefully. “No?”
“No,” she said again, softer this time. “I was mad at myself, I think, for not seeing things I should have seen. And mad at the world, too. I don’t like—I don’t like being kept in the dark.”
Guilt twisted in his chest. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I won’t do it again.”
She caught his hand, squeezing it tight. “Promise me. Promise me you won’t keep any more secrets, especially when I can help. I want to help you, Dorian. No more doing everything by yourself, do you hear?”
He grinned despite himself. “Yes, mistress.” He pressed a kiss to her neck, murmuring against her skin, “Whatever you demand.”
“Kiss me,” she commanded. “Kiss me like there is no tomorrow.”
Dorian kissed her like he had before, in another life, when he was never sure when he’d next see her. He kissed her like she was Luna, brought back to life. Because she was. She was every bit as sweet and smart and wonderful as she had always been.
She was every bit his.
His lips traced the curve of her throat, her shoulders, her collarbones, his hands mapping the shape of her, committing her to memory all over again. It had been so long. His body trembled for her. He barely recognised his own voice when he whispered, hoarse, “Selene… Gods, how I want you.”
She shivered under his touch. “Have me,” she whispered. “I’m yours.”
Her words sent something wild through him.
He kissed her harder, deeper, his hands roaming the shape of her, feeling the way she arched against him.
Fire was too violent a word for this. He couldn’t name it.
She was molten gold beneath his hands, and her touch—her touch felt like starlight, setting whole universes ablaze.
She pushed his shirt from his shoulders, satin pooling at their feet. Then she turned her back to him, offering herself up to his hands, to his mouth, to the quick work he made of her laces.
Her dress slipped to the floor.
Dorian’s fingers trailed up the curve of her waist. He found the laces of her stays, his hands trembling slightly. “I’m not sure I can be gentle,” he admitted, his voice thick with hunger.
“I don’t want you to be gentle,” she told him.
The words sent something dark and desperate spiralling through him.
“If we do this,” he said, “there’s no having an annulment—”
“What if I don’t want an annulment?” she interrupted.
His breath caught. “You won’t be able to marry someone else—”
“What if I don’t want someone else?” she asked. “What if I just want you?”
Dorian closed his eyes, resting his forehead against hers. His whole body ached with it, ached with the wanting, the longing, the sheer impossibility of her.
“Say that again,” he rasped.
Selene held his gaze, unwavering. “I just want you,” she whispered. “Just you, Dorian. Only ever you.”
A sound tore from his throat—a groan, a moan, a prayer. Then his lips were on hers again, and this time, he wasn’t stopping. He guided her toward the bed, his body pressing into hers, claiming every inch of her as his own.
His hands went towards her stays. “I’m going to rip this.”
“But—”
Her protestations left her mouth. Dorian tore the fabric in two, discarding the garment on the ground.
“I didn’t know you could—”
His hands were already around her breasts. His mouth moved down her chest, making her gasp and moan .
“Sweet gods,” she murmured, all other words surrendered.
His mouth smirked down the rest of her body. He spread her legs. Her back arched—
“I’m going to kiss you now,” he told her.
“Dorian,” she cried.
He kissed between her thighs until she turned to putty on the bed.
“Dorian,” she said again. “Please.”
“Are you sure?” he asked her, just once more.
Her fingers went to his breeches in response, trying to help him out of them. The length of him sprung free, and she touched him like he touched her. He moaned into her neck, gasping, whispering her name, clasping at her waist. He kissed her skin and wanted to drown in it.
She asked him to go inside her. Begged him for it, maneuvered herself into the right position. His hand splayed against her flat stomach—
And remembered when it wasn’t flat, when it was round with child, his child.
Dorian pulled back as though burned, retreating to the edge of the bed before he could stop himself. His breath came hard, ragged.
“I’m sorry,” Selene said, her voice soft. “Did I hurt you—?”
“No, no, it’s fine.”
It wasn’t fine. His pulse was hammering against his ribs, his hands curled into the sheets to keep them from shaking.
When Selene’s palm touched his back, warm and grounding, he flinched before he could stop himself.
The touch softened, stroking small circles between his shoulder blades.
She was trying to comfort him, and that made it worse.
“I don’t want to… I can’t…” He swallowed hard, the words struggling to form. “I don’t want to get you pregnant.”
Selene froze.
Dorian stared at the sheets, unable to face whatever expression had crossed her face. He already hated himself enough .
Silence stretched between them, thick with something fragile and uncertain. He expected her to ask why. To demand an answer. To take offense.
Instead, she asked, “Is this because of your mother? Because of what happened to her?”
He stiffened. Of course that would be the logical conclusion. Of course Selene, ever observant, would piece together his father’s grief and assume he had inherited the same fear. He almost wished that was the truth. It would be easier than the real reason.
He took a breath, but it shuddered on the way out. “I need to tell you something.”
A pause. Then, carefully, “Go on.”
Dorian turned, forcing himself to meet her eyes. He couldn’t tell her the full truth, of course. She’d never believe him. But he could tell her something close to it.
He swallowed past the lump in his throat. “I loved a woman before.”
Selene didn’t react the way he expected. There was no sharp intake of breath, no flicker of jealousy or surprise. Instead, she tilted her head slightly, as though she had already known.
“Luna?”
His stomach dropped. “How… how do you know that name?”
For one awful, glorious moment, Dorian thought that, somehow, she remembered. Perhaps it had come to her in a dream, or another life, or a gift from the goddess.
But then she spoke again. “You murmur it sometimes in your sleep.”
His breath hitched. “I… I see.”
Selene kept her voice gentle. “Who was she?”
Dorian exhaled shakily. He felt himself unraveling, the edges of his carefully held composure fraying with every second.
“She… she died.” The words scraped his throat on the way out, but he forced them past his lips.
He could have left it there. Could have let Selene draw her own conclusions.
But he owed her the truth, or as much of it that made sense .
His jaw clenched as he forced himself to say it. “While she was pregnant with my child.”
Selene sucked in a breath. Her eyes softened, and something in her expression cracked him open. Pity. No, not pity—grief. Not just for Luna, but for him.
“Oh, Dorian.”
He closed his eyes. He didn’t deserve her sympathy. He didn’t deserve any of this. “It was my fault.” The admission barely made a sound, but it cut through the room like a blade. “What happened to her… it was my fault. I caused her death, and I can’t, I can’t lose—”
His voice broke. Shame crawled up his spine, and for a moment, he considered retreating further, turning away before she could see him like this.
But then Selene was there, pulling him into her arms, her warmth seeping into him like sunlight breaking through a storm.
He went rigid, every instinct screaming at him to pull away, to spare her the burden of his grief.
And then, slowly, he exhaled against her neck, and the tension bled from his body.
His arms wound around her, fingers digging into her skin as though anchoring himself to the present, to her.
“We don’t have to talk about it,” she murmured against his temple. “There are other things we can do together. I don’t need… I don’t need that.”
Gods, she was too good. Too patient. He had pulled away from her, denied her something she wanted, and yet here she was, offering him comfort instead of anger.
And he wanted her. More than he had ever wanted anything. But not like this. Not with the past still weighing down on him like chains.
Selene held him tighter, her breath warm against his skin. He didn’t deserve this. Didn’t deserve her. But for tonight, he let himself believe he did.