Page 41 of The Girl Who Fell Through Time (To Fall Through Time #1)

Dorian sweeps her up into the next dance. “What are you doing?” he asks her.

“Patience, dear husband…”

“I can be patient,” he says, leaning towards her ear. “You’ve no idea how patient I can be…”

Selene keeps an eye on Dashridge’s glass throughout the evening, topping it up with her own when he’s not looking.

The Duke used to have her do this when he wanted to loosen up certain guests of his, and she’s become very adept at it.

He’d send her to flatter them up, too, like feeding pigs bound for slaughter.

She never liked being asked, but she likes it now.

I am good at this.

Towards the end of the night—when Dashridge is very drunk and half of the guests have left—she very carefully and politely asks him once more if he has any investment opportunities that her husband might consider.

“ Any investments,” she emphasises. “No matter how risky. My husband is not as mild-mannered as he appears.”

“One or two,” he says, voice slurring. There’s no pause, neither does the answer come too quickly, like one rehearsed.

“I’ve a merchant thinking of expanding his business into a ship broker, another looking at opening a new trade route with Montelune.

Have him come by my office tomorrow if he’s looking to invest.”

Selene makes her promises, and then her excuses.

She slips away to Dorian’s side, where they dance together as she divulges all the secrets.

“I don’t think he’s involved,” she tells him.

“He answered quickly. He didn’t appear to be keeping anything back or looking for something safe to say.

And, if he was in league with the Duke, I don’t think he would know not to include you.

He would have given me an answer akin to the one the Duke first sent your father, or looked towards him for an answer. ”

Dorian is stunned. “How can you be sure that he won’t report to the Duke if he is in league with him?”

“After that much drink, because of an innocent question asked by simple, sweet Selene?”

“There is nothing about you that is simple,” Dorian insists. “Although there is much about you that is sweet.”

“Do you think so?”

“I do.”

“Give me one moment,” Selene asks, intrigued by this picture he has of her. “One moment when I’ve been sweet. ”

Dorian goes quiet for a moment. There’s much in that pause. It’s not like he’s searching for something to say, like it’s hard for him to find a moment—it’s more like he’s searching for the right words.

“The day of my father’s funeral,” he admits.

Selene has no idea what he means.

“Very few came,” he explains. “And those that did—at least in the capital—they didn’t know my father. They came through obligation. But you—you came, and you gave him wildflowers, because you knew he preferred those.”

Selene smiles. “My secret talent,” she admits. “I’ve always found myself good at remembering what people like.”

“You… you gave me a handkerchief. You distracted the congregation,” Dorian continues. “You drew attention away from me.”

Selene looks down at her feet. “Sometimes, I feel bad about that,” she confesses. “Of course you should be sad. Why did I feel the need to distract people?”

“I’m glad you did,” Dorian admits. “It was—thoughtful.”

“Have I ever told you how I knew? How I knew your father didn’t like flowers from the hothouse?”

Dorian shakes his head.

“There was a ball,” she explains. “A ball at Roselune Abbey. I was maybe ten or twelve at the time. Old enough to be aware, not old enough to be included. I snuck down in the night to see what all the fuss was about. Your father caught me snooping through the windows. I can hardly remember what he said, but he was so kind and good to me. I remember he made a little bouquet for me out of the flowers growing in the hedges. Told me all the names of them. Spoke about you, too, actually. I can’t name the feeling he left me with, but I remember him.

The nice man who made a young girl feel special. ”

Dorian is quiet for a long time afterwards, his eyes shining. “He would have liked you,” is Dorian’s eventual reply.

“I am sure that I would have liked him.”

Dorian twirls Selene under his arm.

“In a very different way from how I like you,” she tells him.

Dorian misses a step, but quickly recovers. Selene seizes her moment as soon as the song ends. “Dorian,” she whispers. “Come away with me.”

“Where?”

“You know where.”

They don’t even make their excuses. One glance is enough before they slip away from the dance floor, fingers brushing, then tangling together as they move faster.

Their footsteps echo through the corridors, breathless laughter spilling between them like a secret.

Selene nearly trips on the hem of her gown; Dorian steadies her with a hand on her waist, but neither of them slows.

The anticipation buzzes, thrumming in their veins as they reach the stairs, taking them two at a time, dizzy with something far more intoxicating than wine.

They reach their room. Selene fumbles with the door—or maybe Dorian does.

It hardly matters now. The moment it’s shoved closed, Dorian is on her, his hands cupping her face, his mouth crashing into hers.

She barely has time to gasp before her back meets the wall, the breath knocked from her in more ways than one.

She grabs his face and pulls it onto hers.

There’s a brief fraction of a second where she hardly knows what’s happening, and then she’s melting into his kiss, more than melting—dissolving.

It’s like she’s never existed until this moment.

Gods, how good can his lips feel? Sensation ripples along her body.

She isn’t used to this. It’s more than heat and pleasure.

It’s deeper than desire, it’s soul given form.

She wants to consume him, to be consumed.

Dorian pulls back, just a fraction .

“Are you still mad at me?” he whispers.

Selene kisses him instead, grabbing his hair, his shoulders—any part of him that keeps him tethered to her.

“Wait.” Dorain pulls back, Selene’s face in his hands. “Are you just kissing me to avoid answering my question?”

“I believe our contract specifies hugs rather than kisses, if we cannot speak the truth…”

“Please, Selene. I need to know. Are you still mad at me?”

“I don’t think I was ever mad at you,” she tells him.

Dorian curls a lock of hair around her ear. “No?”

“No,” she says. “I was mad at myself, I think, for not seeing things I felt I should have seen. And mad a little at the world, too. I don’t like—I don’t like being kept in the dark.”

“I’m sorry,” Dorian murmurs. “I won’t do it again.”

“Promise me,” she demands. “Promise me that you won’t keep any more secrets, especially when I can help. I want to help you. No more doing everything by yourself, do you hear?”

Dorian grins. “Yes, mistress.” He kisses her neck. “Whatever you demand.”

“Kiss me,” she tells him. “Kiss me like there is no tomorrow.”

He kisses her like she’s air, and he’s drowning. His lips move from hers to her neck, her shoulders, her collarbones, her breasts. “Selene,” he whispers, his voice hoarse. “Gods, how I want you.”

“Have me,” she tells him. “I’m yours.”

The kisses trail along her throat. Fire is too violent a word for what they are. She cannot name it. She is burning liquid, gold and bright. Sensation licks through her. His touch feels like starlight. He sets whole universes ablaze.

She pushes off his shirt. Sleeves first, then the rest of it. It falls to the floor, a puddle of satin. She turns her back, letting him make quick work of her laces. Her dress lies discarded on the floor.

There’s layers of petticoats to go through.

Dorian’s hands roam up her waist. He starts at the laces of her stays. “I’m not sure I can be gentle,” he tells her. His pupils are blown. Hunger blazes in his eyes.

“I don’t want you to be gentle,” she informs him. I want to be naked, and yours. I want to be yours so badly.

“If we do this,” Dorian tells her, “there’s no having an annulment—”

“What if I don’t want an annulment?” Selene interrupts.

“You won’t be able to marry someone else—”

“What if I don’t want someone else?” she asks him. “What if I just want you?”

Dorian closes his eyes, leaning his head against hers. “Say that again.”

“I just want you,” Selene repeats, knowing what it is he needs to hear. “Just you, Dorian. Only ever you.”

Dorian makes a sound, a moan, a groan, a cry, and claims her mouth with his. He directs her towards the bed, arching his body above hers. His hands go towards her stays. “I’m going to rip this,” he informs her.

“But—”

Her protestations leave her mouth. Dorian tears the fabric in two, discarding the garment on the ground.

“I didn’t know you could—”

His hands are already around her breasts, massaging them in solid, languid stokes. His mouth moves down her chest, making her gasp and moan.

“Sweet gods,” she murmurs, all other words surrendered. She cannot speak. Sensation overrules her now.

His mouth touches her in places she never thought to imagine. It drifts down to her middle. He spreads her legs. Her back arches —

She can feel his breath inside her.

“I’m going to kiss you now,” he tells her.

He is very far away from her mouth, which feels the wrong way round, but she gasps out a response— yes, yes, kiss me there . His lips lower, teasing her with a pressure that feels like pain.

She had no idea you could kiss like that.

“Dorian,” she cries, or maybe she doesn’t. Words are senseless to her now.

He kisses between her thighs like he kisses her mouth. She wants to explode with sensation. She never knew you could kiss like that. Each caress is nebulous. She could drown in him.

“Dorian,” she says again. “Please.”

She hardly knows what she is asking him for. She’s a stark, frantic column of desire. Need digs into her bones. She needs him. Needs him inside her.

“Are you sure?” he asks her again.

She’s sure she’ll die without him. Her fingers go to his breeches, trying to help him out of them. She wishes she could tear them off his body like he tore off her underthings.

The length of him springs free, and she touches him like he touched her. He moans into her neck, gasping, whispering her name, clasping at her waist. His cries ripple inside her. There’s so much pleasure from giving it.

She asks him to go inside her. Begs him for it, maneuvers herself into the right position. His hand splay against her stomach—

Dorian pulls back, leaping to the end of the bed like she’s scalded him.

“I’m sorry,” she’s says, “did I hurt you—”

“No, no, it’s fine.”

His breath comes in hard, ragged pants. Selene places a hand against his back, feeling the heat of his skin, the frantic hammering of his heart next to his spine. He’s trembling .

“I don’t want to… I can’t …”

She strokes small circles between his shoulder blades. “Dorian?”

His fingers tighten where they rest against the sheets. “I don’t want to get you pregnant.”

Selene freezes.

The words shouldn’t cut, but they do—sharp and immediate. Almost all men desire children. Dorian would make an excellent father. Is it her he doesn’t want as a mother?

She swallows the thought down before it can take root. No. This is Dorian. There will be some other reason, some careful, considered logic that only he would think of.

Then it comes to her.

“Is this because of your mother?” she asks softly. “Because of what happened to her?”

Does he fear losing her the way his father lost his mother? It would be a kindness, in its way—a terrible, twisted kindness—but she is willing to take that risk.

Dorian stiffens.

Then, after a moment of unbearable silence, he says, “I need to tell you something.”

A cold fist closes around Selene’s stomach. “Go on.”

He turns, and his face is pale, drawn. His throat bobs as he swallows. “I loved a woman before.”

She had expected this. “Luna?”

His eyes widen. “How… how do you know that name?”

“You murmur it sometimes in your sleep.”

His breath hitches. “I… I see.”

Selene keeps her voice gentle. “Who was she?”

Dorian exhales shakily. “She… she died.” His jaw clenches. Then, with a sickening finality that makes her stomach plummet, he adds, “While she was pregnant with my child.”

Selene’s heart twists. “Oh, Dorian. ”

“It was my fault.” His voice is barely above a whisper, but it cuts 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 catches, and Selene reacts with something deeper than instinct.

She pulls him into her arms, holding him tightly, as if she can anchor him to the present, to her.

He’s rigid at first, but then he exhales against her neck, and the tension bleeds out of him, his arms winding around her, gripping her as though she might disappear.

“We don’t have to talk about it,” she murmurs against his temple. “There are other things we can do together. I don’t need… I don’t need that.”

She wants it—gods, she wants him. She never knew it was possible to want someone like this, like every part of her body was reaching for him, calling for him.

But more than his body, she wants him . Dorian Nightbloom in whatever way he will let her have him.

Tonight, she convinces herself that it’s enough.