Amy Bensen 01 Escaping Reality (23 page)

He winks. “I can be persuasive.”

“You have to stop spending money on me.”

“Stop thinking of everything like it’s money spent. I know that’s hard.

I had to adjust at one point. This is who I am, Amy. You have to get used to

it.”

Get used to it.
I want the chance to get used to him, not the money.

“I say,” Liam continues, “we order room service, watch movies, and

get naked so I can be barbaric in approved territory. Actually I think I’ll call

that side of me ‘the beast’. Let’s go set him free.”

“The beast?” I laugh, and I like that he is confident enough to laugh

at himself, and try to find boundaries that work for us both. “The beast?”

“That’s right, baby. Let’s go get your things from your apartment.”

My fear of being attached to him and then losing him comes back

with a force. Once I move to his hotel indefinitely, I’ll never want to leave. I

stop dead in my tracks and turn to him.

“Liam.” We stand there in the middle of the sidewalk, forcing several

people to walk around us.

“I like that side of you. I like you.”

He pulls me hard against him. “I’m insane for you, Amy. ‘Like’ lasted

all of ten minutes.”

“I’ve been alone a long time,” I admit, and I embrace being honest. I

let myself be vulnerable now for fear of being destroyed later. “I’m afraid of

forgetting how to be without you.” I laugh nervously. “I can’t believe I’m

telling you this in the middle of a busy sidewalk.”

He pulls me out of the crowd, settling my back against a brick wall,

his big body shielding me from the outside. “How long, Amy?”

“Six years.” It’s out before I ever even process my documented story.

He curses and scrubs his face. “Since you were eighteen.”

I nod. “Yes.”

“Without anyone else to depend on?”

“Right.”

“Did you date?”

“I tried in college. My dorm mate’s legs ended up around my

boyfriend's neck and I was done with the dating thing.”

“No wonder you have nightmares and cluster headaches.”

“They aren’t headaches.” I don’t mean to blurt it out, but it feels

good to tell him. To feel safe enough to let him into a small part of what the

battle I’m fighting. “That’s a lie I tell so people won’t think I’m some sort of

crazy person. They’re blackouts and flashbacks.”

He kisses me. “That’s not a lie, baby. It’s survival.”

He’s right. Surviving is all I’ve lived for. Until now. Until him.

“How?”

I don’t have to ask what he means. I’ve implied I lost my family all at

once. I’ve promised myself I will lie to protect him. To ensure he survives,

but not now. “I can’t talk about it without crumbling.” My eyes prickle, the

pain of the past biting a path through my body, into my heart, deep into my

soul. “I…I can’t.”

He wraps his arm around my neck and lowers his forehead to mine,

and if I felt sheltered before, I feel completely protected now, like nothing

exists but Liam. “I’ve had my share of dark days,” he confesses. “I get it. You

don’t have to do or say anything you don’t want to.”

I surprise me—and probably him—by laughing, and he leans back to

look at me. “I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to except,” I amend,

“change my locks, go to the doctor, and let you spend money on me I don’t

want you to spend.”

He smiles, and it is a devastatingly sexy smile. “Exactly. Except those

things.” He motions me forward. “Let’s go get your things and go lock

ourselves in the hotel room.”

Chapter Sixteen

I wake the next morning to the sound of a cell phone ringing, and I

am naked, on my stomach, and Liam’s heavy leg is draped over mine. Liam

groans and opens his eyes. “If I ignore it, it will end.”

I laugh. “But it will ring again, and don’t you have meetings?”

“The alarm hasn’t gone off. I’m not leaving this bed with you one

second before I have to.” The cell stops ringing and the alarm goes off. He

groans again. “I think I’ll call in sick.” The cell starts ringing again. “Oh, well

hell.” He rolls over and answers the call. “What do you mean he’s not

here?” He moves to lean on the headboard and I lift up on my elbows, my

gaze riveted by the tattoo. That sexy, wonderful tattoo I could happily wake

up to every morning.

“Emergency my ass,” Liam continues. “This is a power play of some

sort. Oh, come on.

You know it is. And no, I’m not coming in until he’s back. That’s the

intention. Get me committed to the project and I’ll do it his way. I won’t.

Meeting with anyone else before he and I come to terms is a waste of

everyone’s time.”

I can’t help myself. I inch over to Liam and begin kissing his stomach.

Liam glances down at me, his eyes simmering with heat and the sheet

begins to lift. I laugh and lick the 3.14 numbers above the “pi” sign.

“I’m staying and not because of him,” Liam tells Derek, or I assume

it’s Derek. “Call me when he gets back. We’ll go from there.” He ends the

call, tosses the phone, and drags me up his body before rolling me to my

back.

“Oh, the things I can do to you with a full day in bed.” It’s a wicked

warning and a promise of punishment in the most pleasurable of ways. He

proved this to me last night. He’ll torment me. He’ll take me to the edge

and make me wait. He’ll make me ask for things I never thought I could ask

for. But he will make me forget everything but him. And right now, I need

that more than answers. I need him.

***

Mid-afternoon finds Liam and me downtown at a high-rise building

on the top floor, snuggled into the cozy chairs of a coffee shop that

overlooks the site where the new shopping complex is supposed to be

located. I’m dressed in a pair of black shorts and a pink tank Liam has

forced me to buy by dragging me in a store, slapping down a card, and

telling me to spend a ridiculous figure or he’d spend it for me. I still can’t

believe he did it—or that I ultimately let him.

I study him now, removing things from a sleek leather briefcase,

dressed in a casual pair of dark blue jeans and a snug blue pullover that

makes his eyes inhumanly blue. He begins to pull his drafting pad out of a

slim case, and in an act I’m finding familiar, he runs his fingers over his

goatee. My gaze falls on a watch he’s wearing that I have not seen until

today. It has a thick silver band and a brand that probably means it costs as

much as some people’s houses.

He glances up to catch me watching him, leaning in to give me a

quick, hot brush of his lips against mine. He then offers me my computer

from inside his bag. “Thank you,” I say, accepting it, wishing I didn’t have to

think about the reason I have it.

“What exactly are you working on?”

“Property listings. Boring stuff.”

“And what did you do in New York?”

“Research and admin work. Boring.”

“What kind of research?”

I hate this. I hate it so much. I just want to tell him everything. “It

really depended on what my boss had going on. Nothing as exciting as

pyramids. I wish.”

“You like history.”

“History that is a mystery.”

“Like the pyramids.”

This is a connection to my past. I should change the subject. I don’t.

“Yes. Like the pyramids.”

“Why a history teacher and not an archeologist?”

“I did what felt right at the time.”

“After you lost your family.”

“Yes. I went on to college, but…I just went through the motions. By

the time I woke up it felt like I just needed my degree and a higher income.”

I shake off what could turn into a flashback and more information than I

should tell him. “Tell me about your plans for the building. What are you

drafting today?”

“I’m going to do the underground tunnels from the pyramid to the

various other buildings.”

“Like the real ones.”

“Exactly. And glass blocks will create the actual pyramid.” He flips his

design around for me to see. “I was thinking about a-hole’s argument that

pyramids have been done, and he’s right.

They have. But I have this idea to design two pyramids on top of the

main structure. It’s never been done.”

“I can’t picture it.”

He quickly sketches a small drawing, simple, but enough for me to

understand. “Like you’re stacking the pyramids. Can that actually work? It

seems unstable.”

“They won’t be stacked. They’ll be structures within structures.”

“I’m intrigued. I can’t wait to see it. I hope you build it.”

“If that doesn’t win over a-hole, then I’ll take it somewhere else and

build it. Then you can see it. Maybe we can go see the real pyramids

together.”

Like I am going to be around no matter where he is, and when he

builds it, and to travel with him. Maybe I should be worried that he is so

invested in me in such a short window of time, but I am not. I feel the

connection between us and I do not believe it is something anyone could

fake. And maybe I should worry that he is so interested in something

connected to my past, but again, I’m just not. Right or wrong, I trust Liam

and I am hungry for every moment I have with him. I want to find a way to

make it last.

I smile. “So you can seduce me in a pyramid?”

He laughs. “That sounds worth the trip, don’t you think?”

My cell phone rings and I stiffen, my playful mood evaporating

instantly.

Liam picks my phone up from the table between us where I’ve set it

and slides it into my hand. “I’m right here, you know,” he says, reminding

me that he remembers all too well how I’d freaked out over a phone call

the night before.

And it‘s comforting. He’s right here. I am not alone. I glance at the

number and feel my shoulders visibly relax. “Meg,” I say. “You met her at

the restaurant.” Liam visibly relaxes as well, settling back in his chair and I

answer the call. “Hi, Meg.”

“Hi, Amy. Did you get the executed lease Luke dropped by?”

My unease is instant. “Yes. I got it. Tell him thank you.”

“And you’re doing fine? He said Mr. Williams wanted to be sure.”

“Yes. I am, but I have some questions. Would you have a number for

Mr. Williams?”

There is a moment of silence. “No. No number.” She lowers her

voice. “Luke is weird with Dermit Williams. Apparently the guy is loaded

and Luke doesn’t trust me enough with his info.”

“Can you ask Luke to call me?”

“Sure. He’s out of town again, though. I swear I am going to go nuts

in this office alone.

How about happy hour?”

I glance at Liam, and find his head buried in his drafting pad, his

brows dipped in deep thought, and I want nothing more than to hang up

the phone and get lost in watching him create his masterpiece. “Not

tonight.” But I know she holds a key to my new boss. “Soon. Maybe

tomorrow. I’ll call you then, if that works?”

“Sure. Call me.”

“And you’ll have Luke call me?”

“When he gets back into town.”

“Which will be when?”

“Next week.”

Next week? “If he calls in can you ask him for Mr. Williams’ number?”

“I’ll see what mood he’s in.”

I sigh. “Okay. Thanks.”

I hang up the call and set my phone down and Liam glances up at me.

“Who are Luke and Mr. Williams?”

“And here I thought you were lost in your work.”

“I can multitask. I think you know that.”

I blush at his reference to the many naughty things he did to me the

night before and this morning. “Luke is the realtor and Mr. Williams is my

boss.”

“Who you can’t reach?”

“He’s out of the country.”

He narrows his gaze on me. “Everything okay, Amy?”

And I know it’s a prod for me to share more with him, but I care too

much for Liam to be any more selfish than I already have. “Yes,” I say, and if

my life wasn’t a big circus and I didn’t have this gnawing sensation that I’m

about to turn his life into one too, it would be.

He takes my hand and pulls me to him. “Make a doctor’s

appointment. I want to be as naked inside you as you make me feel. As I

want you to trust me enough to be with me.”

It is the most erotic, seductive thing anyone has ever said to me. “I

do trust you.”

And I see in his face that he believes this is a lie when it is the truth.

It’s not about trust.

It’s about danger.

***

The real world crashes down on me when I wake up Wednesday

morning and the “a-hole” investor returns and Liam has to go to work.

Having showered and dressed before Liam, at his urging and insistence—he

would not make his meeting if I was still in bed where he wanted to be with

me—I sit at the dining table of the hotel suite, coffee in hand, wishing the

clawing sensation in my gut would go away. Having Liam to myself these

past few days has been an escape, and other than checking my empty email

yesterday, I didn’t let myself think of anything but him. He didn’t give me

time. We’d gone to the movies and I’d had another acupuncture

appointment and we’d even worked out together.

“I guess it’s time to get this over with,” Liam says, walking into the

room, and he is dark good looks personified, absolutely stunning in a light

gray suit, his shirt starched and white, perfect, like he is to me. My eyes