The arm that was around her slid down a little until he could wrap his hand around her hip. When he'd first seen her in the City, he hadn't been able to touch her like this - like she was his - but now, he found every excuse to do it. His thumb rubbed gently back and forth over her hipbone as the sky faded into shades of hot pink and deep purple.
"I already had it," he answered quietly, for her ears only.
To think: he wouldn't have been able to hold her like this in public, and probably even wouldn't have gone out with her in public, had he still been wearing the black cowl, which was now stored carefully in the foundations of his family home. He owed Zoe quite a lot for her acceptance of the responsibilities of the Batman. That duty had brought him a thick isolation, one that he could break now and again if he was careful -- but only when Gotham didn't know who the Batman was. The City, however... It always seemed to have known that Bruce Wayne and the Batman were the same. He'd been finished before he began here.
And there was so much freedom in that. He tightened his arm around Selina briefly and kissed her hair. After living a life alone - save for Alfred, who counted in most everything except in the affairs of love - Bruce recognized that he was starved for the affection that Selina casually handed to him. Only his iron discipline kept him from gorging himself (he didn't, for example, haul her off to that shadowed outcropping of rock 30 feet away and spread her out over the sand) - but the temptation was always there.
"Will you be staying with me tonight?" he asked her. She still had her own place. He never took for granted any of the nights she chose to stay with him. But he wanted to hear her tell him that she'd be staying.