Chapter 10: The Rooftop Surrender
The rain had stopped, leaving the rooftops slick and gleaming under a bruised sky. The city’s neon heartbeat pulsed against the low clouds, staining the wet concrete pink and green. Selina moved across the ledges with a silence that was second nature, a shadow among shadows. Five nights. Five nights of jobs she didn’t need, of leads she didn’t follow, of circling the Kane penthouse like a moth afraid of the flame.
It was pathetic. She hated it.
She landed on the roof of the old Gotham Exchange, a gargoyle’s perch overlooking the financial district. She needed the cold stone under her palms, the vertigo, the reminder that she belonged to the high, lonely places. Not to warm sheets and vulnerable eyes.
“You’ve been avoiding me.”
The voice came from behind, not from the air. From the solid shadow beside the ventilation shaft. Selina didn’t jump. Her body tensed, every muscle coiling, but she didn’t turn. She recognized the cadence, the weight of it.
“I’ve been working,” Selina said, her gaze fixed on the distant Bat-Signal, dark and dormant on the clouds.
“Bullshit.” Boots crunched on gravel. Kate stepped into the periphery of her vision, a silhouette in her combat gear, the red of her hair dulled to black in the poor light. “You hit the Kovac gem exhibit. Clean. No trace. That’s a Tuesday for you. The other four nights were you running.”
Selina finally looked at her. Kate’s face was all hard lines and deep shadow, her mouth a grim cut. “Maybe I just don’t like repeats.”
Kate was in front of her in three swift strides. “Liar.” The word was a physical thing, hot in the space between them. She didn’t touch her, not yet. “You’ve been in my head for days. That morning. You left, and you took all the air with you.”
“That’s not my problem.”
“It became my problem the second you came back for that drive.” Kate’s hand came up, not to strike, but to slide into Selina’s short hair, fingers tightening at the base of her skull. “The second you let me taste you. You don’t get to ghost me, Selina. Not after that.”
Selina’s pulse hammered in her throat. She could break the grip, could drop and sweep Kate’s legs. She did nothing. “What do you want, Kane? A souvenir?”
“I want the truth.” Kate pulled her in, their foreheads almost touching. “Just once. Tell me you didn’t think about it. Tell me you didn’t get wet thinking about my mouth on you while you were casing some fucking museum.”
Selina’s breath hitched. The lie died on her tongue. She’d thought of little else. The memory of Kate’s tongue, the command in her voice, had been a constant, humiliating ache.
Her silence was all the answer Kate needed.
The kiss wasn’t gentle. It was conquest. Kate’s mouth crashed onto hers, all teeth and demand, her tongue forcing its way in. Selina groaned into it, her hands coming up to claw at the stiff armor of Kate’s chest. Kate pushed her backward until Selina’s spine hit the cold stone ledge, the city’s drop a yawning void at her heels. The safety barrier was a single, low bar of iron pressing into the small of her back.
Kate’s leg shoved between hers, pressing up hard against Selina’s core through the thin, yielding material of her catsuit. The pressure was immediate, blinding. Selina’s head tipped back over the abyss, a gasp torn from her lips.
“See?” Kate growled against her throat, biting down on the tendon. “You’re shaking.”
One gauntleted hand slid down Selina’s front, over the curve of her breast, her stomach, until it cupped her between the legs. Selina jerked, a sharp cry lost to the wind. Kate palmed her, a rough, grinding motion. The suit was designed for stealth, for flexibility. Not for this. It transmitted every ounce of pressure, every textured scrape of the glove’s surface.
“Jesus, you’re soaked,” Kate muttered, her voice thick with a vicious satisfaction. “Drenched for me. Through your suit. Fucking hell, Selina.”
Her fingers found the sealed seam at the suit’s apex. With a sharp, precise pull, reinforced by the armor’s subtle strength, she tore it. The sound was obscenely loud—a long, yielding rip. The cold night air hit Selina’s exposed skin, followed an instant later by the brutal heat of Kate’s bare hand. She’d removed the glove.
Two fingers pushed into her without preamble, sinking deep into the slick, clutching heat. Selina screamed, her hands flying to grip Kate’s armored shoulders, her nails scraping for purchase.
“That’s it,” Kate breathed into her ear, her fingers curling, pistoning in and out with a military rhythm that was utterly devastating. “No lying up here. Just this. Just how fucked out you are for me.”
Selina could only hold on, her hips meeting each thrust, the iron bar grinding into her spine. The world narrowed to the slap of skin, the filthy, wet sound of Kate’s fingers fucking her, the dizzying drop behind her. Kate’s thumb found her clit, pressing hard, circling with a ruthless precision.
“I can feel you clenching,” Kate said, her breath hot. “You’re gonna come. You’re gonna come on my fingers while Gotham sleeps right under your ass. Do it.”
The command unraveled her. Selina’s orgasm seized her, a violent, rending shock that ripped through her center and radiated out to her fingertips, her toes. She convulsed, back arching dangerously over the ledge, a raw, continuous cry ripped from her throat as she pulsed around Kate’s driving hand.
Kate held her through it, fucking her through the tremors, until Selina went boneless, sagging against her, held from the fall only by Kate’s body and the arm hooked around her waist.
Slowly, Kate withdrew her fingers. They gleamed wet in the neon light. She brought them to her mouth, her eyes locked on Selina’s glazed, shattered ones, and sucked them clean, slowly, deliberately. The obscenity of the act, performed in the open air on a rooftop, sent a fresh, weak shudder through Selina.
“I’m not done with you yet,” Kate said, her voice low and final.
From the darkness above, a sound cut through the city’s hum—a familiar, sharp snap of a cape catching the wind. Both women froze.
A darker shadow detached itself from a higher gargoyle, plummeting down to land on the ledge twenty feet away with a impact that echoed in Selina’s bones. The figure straightened, a silhouette of horned cowl and broad shoulders, backlit by the city’s glow.
Batman said nothing. He just stood there, a monument of silent judgment.