“Is fine,” he said smoothly. “It always was.”
She stared up at him. “It – what? It never hurt?”
“Nope.” He grinned down at her. “I’m good.”
Selena was trying to keep up. “You… you faked it? The fall and everything?”
“Yep.” He ran one finger down her cheek, down her throat. “I wanted to kiss you but I couldn’t catch you. This seemed to be the best solution.”
“Wait. Did you plan this all along?” she asked, disbelieving. “Did you make me that deal all to fake an injury and get me down here in the dirt with you?”
“Hell, yeah, babe.” His eyes were smoky. “You’re a damn marathon runner and a sprinter… you think I can beat you on any track anywhere on the planet?”
“I don’t believe this.” Angry now, she pushed up against him. “Get the hell off me.”
“Hold up,” he said. “Look, what I did wasn’t exactly honest, OK, but what just happened here was.”
“What?”
“That kissing, babe. You meant it, I meant it, no bullshit. So I resorted to underhanded tactics and I’m sorry… but I wanted you to see what’s between us is real and honest. It’s there and I want to see what we have. Don’t you?”
She froze under him, her mind whirring as what he said hit her like a damn ton of bricks. Yeah, what had happened between them had been honest. It had been feeling and need and instinct; she’d just fallen in to his body, in to his kisses, like she’d fall in to a warm, blue ocean. No pretending any more, no more lying. She wanted him.
But I can’t have him.
She took a deep breath and assessed her situation. She was pinned under two-hundred-plus pounds of solid, strong man. Oh, sure, she could still get herself out from under if she really wanted to, probably with a well-placed forehead smash. But the truth was that she liked where she was just fine and anyway, she didn’t really want to hurt the guy. She just wanted to stop feeling so torn and confused. And for that to happen, she had to get away from him.
Luke peered down at her, trying to read her expression. “Selena?”
She took another deep breath, aiming for calm. “What?”
“You have anything to say?”
“About?”
“About us.”
She shut her eyes now, horrified that the sting of tears was back. “Yes. I do.”
“OK.” He shifted a bit, dropped a gentle kiss on her forehead. “Tell me, yeah?”
“I – I can’t. I can’t do this with you. Not any of it.”
“You can’t?”
“No. I… I just can’t.”
Her beautiful eyes opened now and Luke realized that she was inches away from tears. That shocked him and he lowered his gruff voice even more.
“But you want to?” he asked. “With me?”
Her head ducked down and away, and Luke gently turned her back to face him, his large palm cupping her cheek.
“Babe? You want to?”
“I – yes.” She finally just gave up pretending otherwise, and she went soft and shy with her confession. “I want to, Luke. You know I do. You can feel it. But I can’t.”
Her voice was small and defeated now, and Luke looked at her closely, totally stunned at this turn of events. God, Selena looked afraid and amazingly vulnerable and suddenly, they were having a completely different conversation than the one he thought they’d be having.
Luke’s plan had simply been to show her that she was in to him too; to get her to admit that she was running and hiding. From all that he’d heard about Selena from Griff, Luke had just figured that she was holding herself back to make him prove himself. He had no problem with that, at all. Selena was worth jumping through hoops for. Hell, she was worth tying himself up in knots for.
The truth was that Luke had been in to Selena for ages… for almost two years. No, he’d never met the woman, never even laid eyes on her before a few days before at Curves – but Griff had talked about her. He’d held back lots of details, of course, because of client confidentiality, but Luke had still been able to piece together a picture of Selena. And it was a damn beautiful picture, one that simultaneously dazzled and interested him.
He knew she was as smart as hell, and tough, and kind. He knew that she had a wicked sense of humor, and that she had a weakness for coffee cake. She’d been shipped overseas to Iraq and Afghanistan and had held her own in those testosterone-fueled and -dominated worlds, no problems. She was gentle and patient with clients, and was nothing but hardcore kick-ass with the people who were out to hurt her clients. She was fiercely loyal to Griff and the rest of Dallas Foreman’s team, and they thought of her as family. She was bright and athletic and sweet.
So yeah, the whole truth was that Luke had liked her plenty before he’d even seen her – and the fact that she was a world-class babe was just a bonus. A damn nice one, to be sure, but still, just a bonus. Luke had already been intrigued by the amazing, bewitching creature that was Selena Perez and he’d wanted to date her sight unseen.
When she’d clearly been attracted to him too, he’d thought this was all going to be straight-forward. Get her down and dirty in the dirt, have her admit that she wanted to get to know him, and off they’d go. Dinner, drinks, conversation, then who knows? Luke’s imagination had taken him to the bedroom, of course, but he was willing to wait for that to happen. The bedroom wasn’t the point; Selena was the point. Selena was everything.
But now here she was, openly admitting that she was in to him too, that she liked being close to him, being in his arms. She wasn’t saying that she didn’t want to be with him, or that she wasn’t interested in being with him… she was saying that she couldn’t. That meant that she was being prevented from acting on how she felt – something was stopping her. But what?
“OK, let’s back up for a second, yeah?” he said, fighting to stay cool. “Why can’t you?”
“I just – I’m not what you want, Luke. Trust me on this, OK?”
“What are you even talking about?” he said roughly. “You’re every single fucking thing that I want.”
“I’m not,” she said quietly. “You don’t know that –” She fell silent.
“What? What were you going to say?”
She shook her head.
“Look, Selena.” He took a deep breath. “This isn’t just about getting in to your pants, so if you’re worried about that, you can stop. I mean, yeah, you’re as hot as hell and I’m not gonna pretend that I’m in this just for the chatting over coffee… but I do want to do this right. I want to date you, babe, get to know you. You’re way more than just a pretty face and a great ass, OK? I know that there’s way, way more to you than meets the eye.”
She gave a bitter laugh. “Oh, I can assure you that there’s actually far less to me than meets the eye.”
Puzzled, both at her words and her odd laugh, Luke furrowed his brow at her. “What?”
“Nothing. Forget it.”
She started to pull back a bit, but he tightened his grip on her, determined to get an answer.
“Selena? Talk to me, OK? I’m not going to force anything on you, I swear. Hell, you’d take me down in about two seconds if I tried to make you do anything you didn’t want to do.”
She managed a small grin at that. “Yeah. That’s for sure.”
“I just want to know why you can’t.” He smoothed her hair back off her flushed cheeks. “That’s all. Just tell me why. You got a man already?”
She paused, thinking about the string of bad dates she’d been on for the past two years. “No.”
“OK. You interested in someone else?”
She shook her head.
He asked the next question carefully. “Did you get hurt, babe? Did someone do something to scare you off men?”
Startled again, she met his intense gaze. “No. Lu
ke, no. Where did you get that idea?”
“Griff. He said that you’ve been acting off since coming back from your six-week unexplained leave from work.” Luke hesitated. “He – he’s worried that something happened.”
Right away, he knew that he’d made a huge mistake. She was enraged now and she shoved against him, hard. He moved away this time, not wanting her to feel trapped. He sat up and offered her his hand.
Selena slapped it away, sat up on her own and glared at him. “You’re talking about me behind my back?” Her voice was almost a hiss. “Gossiping and speculating and talking shit about my personal fucking business?”
“Hey, no. We weren’t –”
“You were.”
“Griff’s worried about you,” he said, trying to not sound patronizing. “He cares about you, and –”
“This is why I didn’t say anything!” she burst out suddenly, catching him by surprise. “This is exactly why I didn’t want anyone to know…” She broke off again.
He waited. “Know what?”
“Nothing.” She got to her feet now, moved farther away from him. She watched as he stood up, too, her face considering. “You know, Luke, Griff’s talked a bit about you, too. Not much, but he’s said one thing.”
“Yeah?” He was a bit taken aback by the sudden shift in topic, but he rolled with it. “What’s he said?”
“That you’re a man of your word.” She narrowed her eyes.”Are you?”
“Yeah.” He felt hope kick up in his chest that she was going to confide in him. “Of course I am.”
“OK, well. We had a deal and you lost.”
His heart sank as he realized what she was getting at. “Selena…”
“Nuh-uh. We had a deal and if you’re a man of your word, you’ll honor it. You’re going to leave me alone now, right?”
He was silent, thinking. Yeah, they’d had a deal and yeah, he’d lost. He’d given this his best damn shot and it had been one hell of a gamble – and he’d lost that too, from the looks of things. She wasn’t going to talk to him about her concerns and she wasn’t going to kiss him again. He’d played his last card and it hadn’t been the winning one… his chips were gone and he had nothing left. Time to fold, to call it a day. Time to go.
“I’ll leave you alone,” he said quietly. “A promise is a promise.”
“Good. I’ll hold you to that.”
She turned away from him, just turned and walked away. He watched her head in to the change rooms, watched that incredible woman move farther and farther away from him. His chest felt tight and his hand was clenched in to a fist.
Way to go, Rhodes. You just fucking completely blew that.
Selena stumbled in to the changing area, sat down in one of the private cubicles. Her whole body was shaking and she dropped her head in to her hands, trying to regain control.
God, that amazing kissing. His hard, heavy body pressed against hers. That feeling of safety and danger, all at the same time. His voice murmuring, low and husky. His eyes, his touch, his muscles. She wanted it, she wanted all of it. She wanted him.
But she wasn’t what he thought she was, not even close. So she was going to let him go.
Fuck. It hurt like hell.
Chapter Five
Two weeks later
Selena looked at Diana Keeler and sighed. Good God Almighty, now the woman was getting loaded by eight o’clock at night. Briefly, Selena considered just knocking her out for her own safety, but apparently she had some event to get to. Assuming that Selena and Griff could even get her ass there.
She glanced at Griff and met his gaze; simultaneously, they rolled their eyes and then bit back their grins. It was nice, actually, a little moment of comaraderie, after more than two weeks of Siberian-level chilliness.
Selena had been furious with Griff for talking to Luke about her, and she’d let him know it in no uncertain terms. He’d been apologetic almost to the point of groveling, but she’d had exactly none of it. They’d worked together, of course, but she’d been even more reserved and silent than she had been before.
Griff had tried everything he could think of to get her to talk to him, to warm up to him, but she’d ignored his advances. He told Luke that he’d really fucked it up this time, and the other man had advised him to wait it out.
So this shared eye roll and tiny grin from Selena were the first signs for him that maybe he was on the road to being forgiven. Maybe even trusted again. Yeah, he’d broken her confidence and he knew that – but Griff also now knew for sure that something was wrong. She’d as much as said so to Luke that day at the track, and all Griff wanted was for her to let him in again so he could help her.
“Boomer and Mark weren’t kidding, huh?” Griff said now in a low voice. “She’s plastered.”
“Yeah,” Selena whispered back. “I wondered why they peeled the hell out of here at the end of their shift like the devil himself was chasing them. Now I know. I mean, they said she was leglessly drunk, but not that she was half-naked.”
“Ummm-hmmmm.” Griff stared across the room at their client, who was dancing by herself whilst wearing a sheer teddy, spilling her martini all over the floor. “Should we call Dallas?”
“And say what, exactly? That Diana’s drunk again?” Selena shrugged. “We’ve guarded smashed clients before, Griff. Yeah, they’re a pain in the ass and they usually end up puking on our shoes when we hustle them to the bathroom, but Diana’s got to get to this thing tonight.”
“Yeah, I know.” Griff sighed. “OK, let’s roll. Get her to the bedroom and get her ass dressed.”
“Man,” she groaned. “This is going to be a long, long twelve hours.”
“No goddamn kidding.”
**
Two hours later, Griff pulled up to The Cave, flashed his I.D. at the bouncer. The guy waved him through to the club VIP parking.
Selena was in the back seat with Diana, trying to convince the woman to hand over her phone. She’d been trying to convince her of this for the past ninety minutes.
“Diana, look.” Unbelievably, Selena’s tone was still measured and patient. “You know that when you’re drunk, you lose all judgment about social media. We’ve talked about this, and I know that Dallas has talked to you about it, too.”
“Yeah,” Diana slurred. “He’s sooooooo hot, you know?”
Selena blinked, ignored the assessment of Dallas, who, in actual fact, was scorching hot. He was also very, very married to Olivia Jameson – now Olivia Foreman – an incredible, smart, gorgeous woman.
“Anyway,” Selena carried on. “I think you should give me your phone, OK? I want to be sure that you’re not removing your privacy settings on Facebook again. You know that after a few drinks, you sometimes open up your location information so anyone who follows you can see where you are.”
“God,” Diana huffed. “I’m in a club! At a private event! I’ll be in the VIP section with you and Gorilla Boy up there watching my back. Nobody’s gonna be able to get to me here!”
Griff gave Selena a quick glance in the rearview mirror and they grinned again.
Gorilla Boy? Damn, she’s drunk.
“You don’t know that,” Selena said patiently, ignoring the insult to her huge partner for now. “Besides, they can always wait outside for us to leave.”
Diana scowled. “I just wanna have some fun.”
“And you will,” Selena assured her. “Tonight will be great, OK? Just give me your phone so I can be sure you’re safe.”
“Stupid stalker,” Diana said mutinously. “Ruining my good time.”
Selena barely held back her impatient sigh. “Yeah, stalkers will do that. Now, can I please have your phone?”
“Fine!” Diana shouted now. “Fine, fine, fine! Take it, Mom!” She threw the phone on the seat between them. “But if I want to use it, you give it back
to me.”
Selena nodded, still calm and patient. “Thank you, Diana.”
“Whatever,” the other woman muttered. “Can I go in now?”
“You sure can,” Griff said, thinking that the time had come for him to give Selena a break and take his turn babysitting the brat. “Stay right behind me, yeah?”
“Oooh, yeah.” Diana perked up. “The view of you from behind is awesome.”
Griff started a bit and Selena gave a tiny laugh. And just like that, they were back in sync, back on the same side. They inserted their earpieces, still grinning at each other.
They entered the club without any trouble at all, and Diana immediately took off to the bar. Without a single word, without even a single look, Selena and Griff went in to their well-established and familiar patterns of guarding a principal: Griff never took his eyes off the client, while Selena looked everywhere but at the client. They were both totally alert and they spoke constantly over their headsets. Within minutes, they’d scoped the club, its patrons, the layout. Everything looked normal, even tame, and their spidey-senses and killer instincts relaxed ever so slightly.
So when it all happened and everything went straight to hell, they never saw it coming. And they barely survived it.
**
It was almost two o’clock in the morning when Diana decided that she wanted to go home. Sadly, she’d decided to not go alone. The guy that she’d picked up was the usual idiot: a tall, good-looking, rich idiot, to be sure. But still an idiot.
Selena had already snapped a few pictures of him on her cell and sent it off to Solid Security’s twenty-four-hour IT team. Within ten minutes of getting the picture, they’d e-mailed Selena the idiot’s entire life. Seeing as he was a trust-fund brat with absolutely no real education or solid ambitions at all, it was not impressive reading, but there were no red flags, either.
“So, green light on Casanova?” Griff said in Selena’s ear.
“Yeah, I guess so,” she spoke back softly. “No way he’s our bad guy.”
“OK.” Griff sighed. “So I guess we’re taking them back to her place.”
Solid Steel (Unseen Enemy Book 6) Page 5
