All Chapters of Solid Steel (Unseen Enemy 6): Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

“Again,” he said, fighting to not panic. “You’ll see that all the communication has been one-way… I’ve never responded in kind. Never.”“But you met Ms. Conrad at your place of work? At Dangerous Curves?”“I didn’t meet her at Curves. She showed up there once, uninvited.”“But you spoke to her when she showed up?”“Yeah, of course. To tell her to leave.”“And to tell her to meet you elsewhere later?”Luke met her stare head-on. “And to tell her to never meet me anywhere, ever again. It’s over between us, Detective Yates, and it has been for a long time.”“But you agreed to meet her last night.”“…Yes.”“Why?”“Because she blackmailed me into it, and I decided to take the opportunity to tell her to just leave me alone once and for all.”“So you met her to tell her to go away?”“Yes.”“And did she? Go away?”“I guess so. I mean, I walked her to her car and then I left.”“You left first?”“Yes.”“Did you see her again after you left?”“No.”“Are you sure?”“Yes. I’m sure.”“So you have n

The knock at Selena’s door wasn’t a surprise. Yeah, she’d asked Detective Yates to tell Luke to stay the hell away – but she knew the man. Or, at least, she’d thought that she knew him. Right this second, she wasn’t sure at all just who he was.She opened the door and stared up at him. He looked awful: panicked and worried. She narrowed her eyes, determined to not care how he was feeling. He could just go right on ahead and feel bad because God knows, she wasn’t feeling particularly awesome herself.“Selena.” That rough voice caressed her name and she stiffened her resolve. “You OK?”“I passed on a message for you to stay away from me.” Thank Christ her tone was cold and distant. “Should I have sent up smoke signals, too? Tapped it out in Morse Code, maybe? Attempted telepathy?”He ignored her jibe and the sarcasm, ploughed on ahead to the important shit.“I know you did,” he said urgently. “She told me what you said, but that’s not the right thing to do here, Selena. We need to talk.

By the time Dallas arrived at Curves, Luke was teetering on the edge of depression. God, how had it all gone so wrong? Natalie murdered, Luke the prime suspect, Selena dumping him, Luke’s friends and employer and Selena’s employer getting dragged in for questioning, and everyone being told about his deception. Talk about a clusterfuck of epic proportions.He was sitting in Jax’s office with Jax and Griff, silent and unmoving. When Dallas appeared clutching a beer, Luke leapt to his feet.“I’m sorry you got caught up in this,” Luke said. He’d already apologized a hundred times, but it looked like there was no end in sight to his being sorry. “Selena had nothing to do with any of this, Dallas, I promise you.”“Well, of course she didn’t.” The other man was totally relaxed, and that confused Luke. “And neither did you.”“I know that.” Luke blinked. “But how do you know that?”“I called in a favor.” Dallas took a sip of his beer. “Got my hands on the coroner’s report.”The other men stare

“So. Look at it from Selena’s perspective. We were together and I told her that I loved her body… but she was struggling a bit sometimes. She just didn’t see herself the way that I did, and I’d catch her looking at other women when we were out. She’d just stare at their chests and get this look on her face – this weird and heartbreaking combination of envy and sadness. She’d get quiet and I’d try to reassure her that she was gorgeous and sexy, but she’d take some convincing. I mean, she was seriously thinking about working through it all with a therapist, but she wasn’t ready to commit to therapy. Not yet.”“Aw, shit,” Griff muttered. “I had no idea.”“So how would she react to Natalie throwing herself at me, in her crotch-high skirts and nipple-grazing shirts? Selena would have compared herself to Nat, and she’d have found herself lacking in every way. She’d have been fucking wrong, of course, ‘cause Nat didn’t have one one-thousandth of Selena’s appeal for me… but she’d have been hu

Selena handed him her suitcase, and he hefted it up and over his broad shoulder easily. Her stomach clenched as she remembered the raw power and strength of his body – how it had felt to be held against it. She looked away, trying not to think about how damn good it had felt to be close to Luke.They walked out of the airport to Luke’s truck. Selena climbed in, did up her seatbelt, stared out the window at the snow. OK, so, here they were. Trapped in a moving vehicle for at least forty minutes… so the time had come to talk to the man.She shot him a quick glance as he pulled out on the highway. God, the weirdness between them was so weird. Even at the beginning, back when they’d been sniping and snarking and sparring, there had still been an easy flow between them. Now it was gone; it was all dammed up. She wondered what it would take to unblock it, to set it free again.OK. Time to reach out.“Luke?”“Yeah?”“Can we talk?”He looked at her. “Yeah. Coffee?”She nodded. “But takeout, O