Page 17 of A Touch Wicked
He’d needed to be inside her.
It was that simple.
How did he stop this? How did he lose the illusion of her? How did he treat her as if she were real? Someone he could leave when the time came and never think of her again?
He would get to know her better. Give this intimacy time to grow stale. Once the allure of anonymity wore off — when she was a dream made flesh — it would be easier to find control again. Where they went from there didn’t matter, as long as his mind was his own once more. As long as he was able to sleep and no longer dream of her.
Selene stirred and moved to rise from the bed. “Thank you,” she told him. “Again.”
James reached for her. “Stay. Stay with me.”
Her expression was unreadable through the mask. “For how long?”
Until morning. Longer.
James shook those dangerous thoughts from his head. “Until you’re forced to leave.”
She stared at him so long that he thought she would say no. Then, slowly, Selene slid beneath the sheets again, and pressed her naked body to his side.
“All right.”
James exhaled, hoping she didn’t notice his relief. His fingertips stroked her shoulder and she seemed to curl into him, seeking his touch.
“When you were describing your dream,” he said, “you mentioned reading a mythology book. Is that where you chose your name?”
“Yes.”
A part of him wished she’d given her real name, just as he had. Instead, as if she reached into his mind and read his thoughts, she had given him the name of a goddess. In any other instance, that would have been off-putting. Had she called herselfAphrodite, he might have laughed at such a outlandish reference.
But she didn’t choose a deity known for beauty or lust; she chose Selene.
“Why the moon goddess?” he asked.
She was tracing her fingertips across his skin, drawing lines with her touch. “She fell in love with Endymion from afar. But he was mortal, and he chose to sleep for eternity rather than die. So even when Selene had Endymion forever, there was a part of him that was always lost to her. I understood that — wanting something I could never have.”
“Something?” James hated that sudden tight feeling in his chest. “Or someone?”
“Someone,” she said quietly, and that word struck him like an arrow.
She’s not yours. She doesn’t belong to you, and she never did. You both came here for the same reason, and she offered no illusions to the contrary.
“Is that why you came to the Masquerade?” He had to know. “To find a distraction from your someone?”
If she heard the tightness in his voice, she didn’t let on. “No.” She sighed. “I came to indulge in my worst quality in the hope that, one day, it will fade and spare me a great deal of heartache.”
“What quality is that?”
Selene looked up at him then, a small smile playing on her lips. “Someonewas a product of a defect I’ve had for a very long time, James. My problem is that I want too much.”
James loved the sound of his name on her tongue. When she had screamed it during climax, that had been what took him over the edge. Now, when she said it as if it were the most natural thing in the world, it made him smile back.
He rolled on top of her and braced himself on his elbows. She smelled of lavender and rain, and James knew he would always associate those things with her now.
“What if I like that you want too much?” he whispered, dipping his head to press his lips to her throat.
“Men always love an insatiable woman until they can’t keep up. Then they claim she’sdemanding.”
James laughed. “Ah, there you have it wrong. A demanding woman takes more than she gives.”
