Chapter 4: The Scissor Lock
The rain had slowed to a cold, insistent drizzle by the time Selina returned. The ledger was dropped with a fence in Chinatown, the cash a thick, anonymous weight in her belt. She told herself she was just tying up loose ends. That the ghost of Kate’s touch, the raw ache between her legs, was just a persistent irritant. Like a splinter. Something to be dug out.
The warehouse looked the same. A decaying monument to their fucked-up transaction. She landed on a sagging crossbeam silently, peering down into the gloom.
Kate was still there.
She sat on an overturned crate near the ruined filing cabinet, out of the suit. Just military-issue black pants and a tight, sweat-darkened tank top. Her boots were off. In her hands, she turned the torn piece of her own suit’s leggings over and over, the frayed edges catching the faint light. She looked hollowed out. Young.
Selina dropped down, landing ten feet away with a soft thud. Kate’s head snapped up, her blue eyes sharpening, but she didn’t reach for a weapon. The piece of fabric went still in her hands.
“Forget something?” Kate’s voice was rough, unused.
“The taste,” Selina said, walking closer, her hips swinging with a casual grace she didn’t feel. “It’s stuck in my mouth. Cheap hotel soap and self-righteousness. I needed to wash it out with something better.”
A flicker in Kate’s jaw. “There’s nothing here for you.”
“You’re here.” Selina stopped just outside of arm’s reach. “That safety deposit box in Zurich. The bonds. You could have taken them for yourself. A two-million-dollar apology. Why didn’t you?”
Kate looked away, toward a shattered window framing the bruised night sky. “It wasn’t mine.”
“Since when does the Bat-family have scruples about confiscating ill-gotten gains? You could have funded your little crusade for a year.” Selina took another step. The air between them felt charged, thick with the memory of grinding friction and hissed words. “You wanted me to know you looked. You wanted me to know you saw the escape plan. You wanted me to feel chased. Hunted. Admit it.”
Kate stood up abruptly, the crate scraping behind her. “What do you want me to say, Selina? That you’re under my skin? You are. You’re a fucking infection. Is that what you came back for? A confession?”
“I came back,” Selina said, her voice dropping to a purr, “because you didn’t finish the job.”
She closed the distance in a blur. This time, she was the aggressor. Her hands shoved hard against Kate’s shoulders, spinning her and slamming her back against a thick, concrete support pillar. Kate grunted, the impact knocking dust from the old concrete. Before she could retaliate, Selina’s fingers were at the waist of her tank top, grabbing and yanking upwards. The fabric ripped at the seams, baring Kate’s torso to the damp, cold air.
Kate’s breasts were heavy, pale in the gloom, tipped with tight, rosy peaks already pebbling from the chill and the adrenaline. Selina didn’t hesitate. She palmed one roughly, her thumb scraping over the nipple. Kate’s breath hitched.
“You want to play rough, soldier?” Selina breathed against her ear, her other hand clawing at the fastening of Kate’s pants. “Let’s play.”
Kate fought back, but it was a different fight now. Not to subdue, but to match. Her hands flew to Selina’s own suit, finding the freshly-repaired zipper and tearing it down with a brutal, metallic shriek. The material parted, and she shoved it off Selina’s shoulders, down to her waist, baring her small, perfect breasts. Kate’s mouth crashed down on one, teeth scraping, tongue laving, and Selina cried out, her head hitting the pillar behind Kate.
They were a tangle of frantic hands and torn clothing. Kate kicked her own pants and underwear down her powerful thighs. Selina wrenched her own suit the rest of the way off her legs. For a second, they were just skin and heat pressed together in the dark, breathing each other’s air, sweat and rain and salt.
Then Kate slid down the pillar, pulling Selina with her. They landed on the wet, filthy concrete floor in a heap. No finesse. No art. Just need.
Kate hooked a strong leg over Selina’s hip, rolling them. Selina understood the intent, the raw geometry of it. She spread her own thighs, opening herself as Kate shifted, positioning her body. They came together in a hot, slick slide.
Selina’s leg hooked over Kate’s hip, Kate’s thigh pressed tight between Selina’s. They rocked into each other, finding the angle. Their cunts met, swollen lips parting, clits aligning through the wet, coarse curls. It wasn’t penetration. It was confluence.
“Fuck,” Kate gasped, her forehead dropping to Selina’s shoulder.
Then they were moving. A brutal, grinding rhythm. Selina’s hands clamped on Kate’s ass, fingers digging into the solid muscle, pulling her in, demanding more pressure, more friction. Kate braced herself on one elbow, the other hand gripping Selina’s hip hard enough to bruise, her thrusts deep and rolling.
The sounds were obscene. The wet, slapping smear of their bodies joining, the slick squelch of their folds grinding together. The air filled with the musk of them, sharp and animal. Selina’s cries were short, punched-out things. Kate’s were guttural, snarled into Selina’s skin.
“Is this—ah—is this what you wanted?” Kate panted, driving her hips down. “You fucking come-back-for-more—shit—addict.”
“You wanted me—to remember,” Selina gasped back, arching, seeking more. “So make it—make it fucking unforgettable.”
Kate’s hand slipped between them, fingers finding Selina’s clit, already exposed and throbbing from the grinding pressure. She circled it, rough and fast, her own movements becoming jerky, desperate. Selina saw stars. The dual sensation—the deep, full grind of their pubic bones, the focused, brutal attention on her clit—unraveled her.
“I’m gonna—Kate, I’m—” Her warning dissolved into a raw scream as the orgasm detonated. It was a wave of pure, incandescent sensation, whiting out her vision, clamping her cunt in rhythmic pulses that milked the contact between them.
The feeling of Selina convulsing beneath her, the hot flood of release against her own straining clit, tipped Kate over the edge. She followed with a shattered cry, her body seizing, hips stuttering as her own climax ripped through her. She collapsed forward, her full weight on Selina, their sweat-slick skin sticking together, their shared wetness a hot mess between their trembling thighs.
For long minutes, there was only the sound of their ragged breathing echoing in the vast, hollow space. The distant drip of water. The tide hissing against the pilings below.
Slowly, feeling returned to Selina’s limbs. The concrete was cold and unforgiving beneath her back. Kate’s weight was a solid, heated anchor. She didn’t push her off.
Kate’s breath warmed her neck. When she spoke, the words were muffled, stripped of all armor. “The ticket to Bali. Was it real?”
Selina stared up into the black ribs of the roof. The lie was right there, easy and familiar. Of course it was real. I was gone. She felt the steady, strong beat of Kate’s heart against her own.
“The bonds were real,” Selina whispered, her voice hoarse. “The ticket was a forgery. A good one. But a forgery.”
Kate went very still. Then, a shuddering breath. She pushed herself up on her elbows, looking down at Selina. Her eyes were impossibly dark in the gloom, searching. “Why?”
Selina lifted a hand, touched the line of Kate’s jaw, smeared with dirt and sweat. The gesture was so unlike her it felt like someone else was moving her fingers. “I don’t know,” she said. And for once, it wasn’t a lie.
Somewhere out on the bay, a ship’s horn sounded, low and mournful. The world, with all its complications, its rules and its chaos, waited just beyond the broken walls. But here, on the cold floor, in the mingled scent of sex and decay, there was only this fragile, silent truth hanging between them, more terrifying than any fight.
But here, on the cold floor, in the mingled scent of sex and decay, there was only this fragile, silent truth hanging between them, more terrifying than any fight.
Kate lowered her head until their foreheads touched. Her breath, still uneven, fogged in the narrow space between their mouths. “A forgery,” she repeated, the words not a question but an absorption.
Selina’s thumb still traced her jawline. The muscle there was rigid. “I had every intention of vanishing into a beachside haze. I even packed the sunscreen.” She let out a short, breathy sound that wasn’t a laugh. “Then I stood at the gate. And I thought of you finding the ledger, finding that fake, and just… standing there in this shit-hole. Alone.”
“So this is pity?” Kate’s voice was flat, but her body, still intimately connected to Selina’s, gave her away with a slight, involuntary tremble.
“Don’t be stupid.” Selina’s hand slid into Kate’s short, damp hair, gripping just shy of painful. “It’s fascination. You’re a locked box with ‘Do Not Open’ written all over it. What thief could resist?”
This time, Kate’s sound was closer to a grimace. She shifted, their bodies sliding apart with a wet, intimate sound that made Selina gasp. The sudden absence of contact felt like a loss. Kate rolled onto her back beside her, both of them staring up at the cavernous dark. The cold of the concrete seeped into Selina’s shoulders, her ass.
“You’re a fucking catastrophe, Selina.” Kate’s words echoed softly upwards.
“I know.” Selina turned her head to look at Kate’s profile, sharp against the grey. “But you’re still here.”
Kate turned her head, too. Their eyes met. The charge was different now, a low-voltage hum instead of a lightning strike. It was in the way Kate’s gaze dropped to Selina’s mouth, then back up. It was in the slow, deliberate breath Selina took.
Without a word, Kate moved. It wasn’t a pounce. It was a slow, deliberate claiming. She rose onto an elbow and leaned over Selina, blocking out the dim light. Her kiss wasn’t brutal. It was deep, searching, and unbearably slow. Selina opened for it, a low moan trapped in her throat as Kate’s tongue explored her mouth with a thoroughness that felt more invasive than any touch before.
When Kate broke the kiss, a thin strand of saliva connected them for a second before snapping. “I want to taste you,” Kate murmured, her voice a dark scrape against Selina’s nerve endings. “Not because we’re fighting. Just to taste you.”
Selina’s heart hammered against her ribs. “Then stop talking about it.”
Kate’s mouth trailed down her neck, over her collarbone, taking its time. She laved a nipple, sucking it into a tight, aching peak before moving to the other. Selina arched off the floor, her fingers twisting in Kate’s hair, not guiding, just holding on. This deliberate pace was its own kind of torture. Kate’s hands mapped her ribs, her stomach, the jut of her hipbones, as if committing her to memory.
Then Kate kissed down her belly, through the coarse dark curls. She hooked Selina’s thighs over her shoulders, her grip firm and unyielding. She didn’t dive in. She blew a soft, hot breath over Selina’s exposed cunt, making her jerk and swear.
“Fuck, Kate—”
Kate’s tongue, broad and flat, licked a single, slow stripe from her perineum up through her soaked folds to her clit. Selina’s head slammed back against the concrete, a broken cry echoing. Kate did it again, and again, establishing a rhythm that was maddeningly steady. She explored every fold, every crease, with a soldier’s thoroughness, her nose buried in Selina’s flesh, breathing her in.
“You taste like come,” Kate muttered, the vibration against Selina’s clit making her legs shake. “Mine and yours. It’s fucking obscene.” She then sealed her mouth over Selina’s clit, sucking hard.
Selina shattered. The orgasm wasn’t a furious peak but a deep, rolling quake that started in her core and radiated outwards, leaving her limbs liquid and her vision blurred at the edges. She chanted Kate’s name, a garbled mantra, as Kate gently fucked her through the pulses with two curled fingers, drinking from her.
When the tremors subsided, Kate crawled back up her body, her face gleaming with Selina’s release. She kissed her, forcing Selina to taste herself on Kate’s tongue—a dark, musky, profoundly intimate violation. Selina kissed her back, hungry and weak.
“My turn,” Selina slurred, pushing at Kate’s shoulder.
She urged Kate onto her back and straddled her thighs, not her face. She wanted something else. She reached between Kate’s legs, her fingers finding her cunt impossibly wet and hot. She pushed two fingers inside, deep, feeling the tight, clutching grip. Kate’s back arched off the ground, a raw shout tearing from her throat.
“Is this what you need?” Selina whispered, curling her fingers, watching Kate’s face unravel. “Just to be fucked? No mission. No ledger. Just this.”
“Yes—” Kate hissed, her hips pumping against Selina’s hand.
Selina fucked her with hard, measured strokes, her thumb pressing circles on Kate’s clit. She watched every flinch, every gasp, every fracture in Kate’s stoic armor. She leaned down, capturing one of Kate’s nipples in her teeth, biting down just as she quickened the pace of her hand.
“Come for me,” Selina demanded against her skin. “Come all over my fucking hand, soldier. Let go.”
Kate’s climax was silent at first, a total, breathless locking of her body. Then it broke in a series of ragged, punched-out groans, her hips stuttering, her cunt pulsing rhythmically around Selina’s fingers. Selina held her there, trapped on her hand, until the last spasm faded.
She slowly withdrew her fingers, bringing them to her own mouth and sucking them clean, holding Kate’s dazed gaze. The taste was stronger now, purely Kate.
They lay there again, sides touching, staring upwards. The ship’s horn sounded once more, closer now.
“They’ll be looking for me,” Kate said finally, her voice raw. “The cave. Alfred. It’s past check-in.”
Selina watched a water droplet trace a path down a rusty beam above. “So go.”
Kate sat up. She began gathering her torn clothing, moving with a sluggish, spent grace. She dressed in silence, the ruined tank top hanging open, the tactical pants zipped but hanging low on her hips. She pulled her boots on.
Selina didn’t move from the floor. The cold was part of her now.
Kate stood, looking down at her, a silhouette against the slightly less-dark doorway. “The bonds are still in Zurich. The box is under the name K. Grayson. The key is taped behind the headboard of room 417 at the Imperial Hotel.” She turned to leave.
“Kate.”
She paused, but didn’t look back.
“If I take them,” Selina said to her back, “what does that make me to you?”
Kate’s shoulders tightened. She glanced over her shoulder, her profile a stark cutout. “It makes you a thief.” A beat of silence hung, heavy as the rafters. “But I already knew that.”
Then she was gone, her footsteps fading into the sigh of the tide.
Selina lay on the concrete, the ghost of Kate’s weight and warmth still on her skin, the taste of her still on her tongue. The key to two million dollars was waiting in a cheap hotel room. The forged ticket to Bali was ash in her burn box. She felt the emptiness of the warehouse close in around her, and for the first time in a long time, the silence felt like a decision she hadn’t yet made.