All Chapters of Solid Steel (Unseen Enemy 6): Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

Luke woke up seven hours later, with a start of shock at not being in his own bed. Then he saw Selena still sleeping next to him, and he relaxed. He lay back again, moving slowly and quietly so as not to disturb her.He studied her face in the early-evening autumn gloom. She looked better, he was happy to see, but she was clearly exhausted. He supposed that she’d be awake soon, probably because of the pain in her chest. Stab wounds burned like a son-of-a-bitch, Griff had told him once.Griff. Luke sat up now, swung his feet over the side of the bed. He’d go and call Dallas again, cook something, wait for Selena to wake up. He padded out of her bedroom, shut the door halfway, pulled on his jeans. He retrieved his cell phone from the kitchen counter and switched it on again.When he saw that she’d called again – fucking eight more times, Jesus Christ! – he scowled. What the hell did he have to do to get the woman to back off? Did he have to tattoo the message on her forehead that he wa

"That you’d…” She faltered, sucked up her courage. “You’d find me ugly. Unsexy. Unfeminine.”“Because of your mastectomies?”“Yes.” She dared to look at him now. “Breasts are… well. They’re a big part of a woman’s sex appeal to men, and without them, I just feel…” “What?” Luke asked gently. “Talk to me. Tell me everything.”“I feel like I’m not a whole woman,” she whispered at last, tears stinging her eyes. “Like I’m half a woman, at most and at best.”God, it felt so good to finally say this out loud, and she lifted her chin to look at Luke. It was out there now, her biggest, darkest, deepest fear. No taking it back, and no pretending that it didn’t matter to her. It did matter; it mattered a hell of a lot.He was gazing at her, that rough, hard face so incredibly tender. He smiled, shook his head.“Oh, beautiful.” Affection dripped off every syllable. “You’re not half of anything, I promise you. You’ve got it all, Selena, got it in spades: brains and beauty, strength and sass. You

She couldn’t believe that this man who’d been a virtual stranger until that morning was now the only man on the planet that she’d let see her like this. Selena had heard about having an instant connection with someone, but it had never happened to her. Not until here and now. Not until Luke.Luke drew back a bit, caressed her hair. She opened her eyes and he saw her silent assent.Slowly, he ran his fingers down the center of her body, his touch light. When he got to her scar, he traced its length, followed it under her arm. She giggled a bit.“Tickles?” he asked.“Yeah.”He moved his hand to her bandage now. “How sore are you?”“Not bad.”“Hey.” His curt tone surprised her. “No lying to me. If it hurts, you tell me so.”“It – it hurts.”“Then let’s get those pyjama bottoms off and get you into bed.”“OK,” she said, aiming for ‘calm and casual’ and achieving ‘totally freaking out’.He knelt down in front of her, his hand moving down her stomach, stopping at the elastic waistband. He g

“And have the women and kids met Francine?” Dallas said. He knew how much they loved Emma and how suspicious they were of outsiders, and no wonder. The safe house was, in reality, a secret shelter for battered women and their kids, and Olivia had founded and financed it totally on her own. The shelter and its inhabitants were a standing, living, breathing tribute to Olivia’s own mother, Grace, who had suffered years of abuse at the hands of Olivia’s father before finally gathering up the courage to take her daughter and run. Dallas was absolutely certain that Olivia was the strong, compassionate woman that she was today – despite having been a successful and highly-paid model – because of that rough childhood. She and her Mom had had nothing at all after they’d run, and Olivia knew all too well the reality of women leaving abusive domestic situations. She knew the fear and the poverty, and sleeping in bus stations, and going without food for days at a time. The shelter was her small

“I want – I want to go back to where it all happened,” she said, her voice stronger than he’d heard it in a long while. “Back to Foxburg Falls. I want to go soon. I think…” She hesitated. “I think I’ll be ready within a couple of weeks.”Jim froze up. Of any one of the millions of things that he'd thought Beth could or would have said, going back to the scene of all that hell wasn’t one of them. Foxburg Falls was where she’d been terrorized and assaulted and raped, where her baby had been beaten right out of her. In Jim’s mind, it was nothing less than the most horrifying, frightening place on earth – at least for the woman that he loved.“You really want to go back there?” he asked, staying calm. “Go back home?”“Home?” She sounded stunned. “That’s not home. Not anymore and not for a long, long time.”“No?”“No way.” She set her small hands on his chest. “This is home… here with you. Home is anyplace that you are, babe. Don’t you know that?”He sucked in air, her words able to move a