Amy Bensen 01 Escaping Reality (4 page)

sense that I’ve now glimpsed a little piece of
his
soul. “What makes you

have nightmares, Liam?”

“Nothing.” His answer is short and fast, his tone as unreadable as his

face remains.

“Everyone has something that scares them.”

“I own my fear. It doesn’t own me.”

A sound of disbelief slips from my throat. “You make it sound so easy

to control fear.” I regret the words that admit my fear the instant I speak

them. It’s a mistake I never make, but I’ve made it with him. Liam truly
is

dangerous.

His gaze lowers to my mouth, lingering there and sending a tingling

sensation down my neck and over my breasts, before slowly lifting. “Maybe

you haven’t had the right teacher, Amy.”

What did that even mean, and why did it create an acute throb

between my legs? I’m spiraling out of control and my defenses bristle. “I

didn’t say I needed a teacher.”

“You didn’t say you didn’t, either.”

“Dinner is served,” the flight attendant announces, and neither of us

looks at her.

“I don’t,” I say, and now I’m the one who isn’t sure if I’m trying to

convince him or me.

My heart is racing. Why is my heart racing?

His lips quirk. “If you say so.”

“Dinner is served,” the flight attendant repeats, sounding a little

anxious.

“I do say so,” I assure him, cutting my gaze and lowering my tray to

have my chicken dinner immediately placed on top of it.

The flight attendant leaves us alone and I don’t look at Liam. I have

this sense that if I do, he’ll see more of me than I see myself. As it is, I’m

letting him see things I shouldn’t have. This banter between us has to stop.

It
will
stop. No more. I’m done playing friendly seatmate. There is a reason I

stay away from men like Liam, men with experience and confidence. Men

who make a girl who already can’t remember her name forget her name.

They
do
see too much. And they make everyone else see too little.

I snatch a roll from my plate that I don’t want and tear it apart, then

set it back down.

Teacher.
What does that even mean? And why am I making myself

crazy wondering, anyway? It doesn’t matter. He’ll be out of my life in a few

short, or not so short, hours. And true to that assessment, the next few

minutes feel like an eternity. I tell myself the silence is good. We are

slipping into a typical passenger-to-passenger travel arrangement. We

don’t have to talk. It’s better this way. Talking means giving away facts I

need to suppress. It’s logical. It’s right, and yet, I am so ultra-aware of Liam

beside me that I can barely taste the few bites of food I force down. Any

woman—heck, any human being—would be. There’s nothing more to it.

He’s gorgeously carved, like a fine work of art. That’s all it is. Isn’t it?

“You didn’t tell me why you’re going to Denver.”

The question surprises me and my fork freezes in the rice I’d been

pushing around. In sixty seconds flat, I go from relieved that he has broken

the silence to panicked at the idea of sharing my new lies. I’m not ready. I

don’t ever want to be ready.

I cut him a sideways look and my pulse leaps when I find him

watching me. I’m rattled at how easily he draws a reaction from me, and

I’m almost snappy as I counter with, “Why are
you
headed to Denver?” And

darn it, there is a tiny quaver to my voice I hope he doesn’t hear.

“So that’s how it is, is it?”

My brow furrows and I set my fork down. “What does that mean?”

“You give what you get,” he replies, and there is no mistaking the

challenge etching his words.

No,
I think. That’s not how it is. That’s not ever how it has been. Not

in my world.

“Wouldn’t life be better if that’s how it truly was?” Another quaver

ripples in the depths of my question. I really need to stop talking.

This time
he
sets
his
fork down, turning to face me more fully. “You

do know that for a ‘give what you get’ philosophy to work, that someone

still has to give first, right?” And there is something as intimately

inappropriate to the way he looks at me, and how he says the words, as

there has been when he’s touched me.

“And you want that to be me,” I state, intentionally leaving off the

question mark. I try to leave out the breathless quality of my voice, too, and

I fail. I don’t like that I fail. It’s another sign I have no control over myself.

Worse. I think I might like it if this virtual stranger had control over me,

which tells me how emotionally on edge I really am.

“I’m in discussions to be part of a downtown Denver building

project,” he surprises me by saying. Giving before he “gets”.

“What kind of building project?”

He just looks at me. So much for being done with friendly banter, I

think as I cave to his silent demand I “give” a part of me. “I was laid off and

my old boss got me a new job in Denver.

And before you ask, it’s nothing exciting. It’s administrative.”

He tilts his head slightly. “So you’ll be staying in Denver.”

“For a while,” I say, and the satisfaction I see in his eyes surprises and

pleases me far more than it should. I ask the obvious question, telling

myself it’s simply because it’s expected.

“How long will you be in Denver?”

“It all depends on whether I take on the project.” The flight attendant

proves she has brilliant timing again by picking right then to take away our

plates, leaving me with an incomplete answer I want completely. By the

time we’ve been offered coffee and dessert that we both decline, I have no

idea if he would have said more, or how to get things back on topic without

seeming too interested. And
I am
too interested. He’s a risk. He could be a

mere stranger or he could be an enemy. Worse. I’m too risky for anyone to

befriend. I put them at risk, and with that blistering thought, I know there is

nothing more to ask him. Nothing more to say but “have a nice life”. I

cannot ever be close to anyone. No one. Ever.

I snuggle under a blanket the flight attendant has left me, and

surprising me, Liam reaches into the seat pocket in front of mine and

removes what looks like a sketchpad, which I hadn’t noticed until now. He

pauses halfway between my seat and his own, glancing at me, and he is

close, his mouth within leaning distance. It’s a great mouth, sensual and

full, and I wonder what it would feel like on mine.

“If you want to sleep,” he says, “I promise to keep Godzilla at bay for

you.”

He couldn’t have said anything more perfect and I know right then

what it is about Liam that makes him so irresistible. Men have been scarce

in my life, namely because of my fear of getting close to anyone. The few

times I’ve broken that rule have not turned out well, and I admit that in a

few lonely, weak moments, I’ve indulged in my share of Cinderella fantasies

where my Prince Charming swoops in and makes life better. Liam is good

looking, confident—he radiates control in a way my fantasy Prince

Charming would. But more so, I believe Liam
would
fight Godzilla if he had

to. Maybe not for me, but for someone he cares about.

“I’ll hold you to that,” I finally say, unable to find even a thread of jest

to lace the words.

I watch his eyes flicker, the color diluting to a soft blue then

darkening again, and I am not sure how to read the meaning when he is

otherwise guarded, as much a mystery as who I am running from. “Good,”

he replies simply before he leans back fully into his seat.

I let my head drop to the cushion, and for a few minutes I indulge in a

fantasy about Liam to keep the monsters of my past at bay. But as the hum

of the engine starts working me over again, flickering images of the past

begin to slip inside my head, and I start to unravel. I’m not going to be able

to sit here without getting lost in my own head and going crazy. A flash of

flames has me jerking to a sitting position and my hands go to my face, my

elbows to my knees.

I can feel the heaviness of Liam’s attention. He’s looking at me but I

don’t want to look at him. If I do, I will talk to him. I will ask him questions.

He will ask me questions.

“Amy?”

His voice slides through me, and somehow it manages to be

soothing, warm comfort and sensual fire at the same time. Not for the first

time, I’m baffled by the way a man I barely know manages to be silk on my

raw nerves, but I’m not going to overanalyze it. I have to hold myself

together until I’m someplace safe enough to cave to a little temporary

weakness, and he feels like the answer. He’s what will get me through this

flight. I sit back to look at him, and though I’m perfectly aware that he is a

heavy dose of delicious man, my heart still races as I blink his dark good

looks and his piercing blue eyes into view.

He sets his pencil down on his tray and abandons his work for me,

giving me a concerned assessment. “Everything okay?” he asks, and I think

of him as a gentle lion in that moment, only it is me who is purring under

his powerful male attention.

“Fine,” I reply, because “fine” is nothing but a word. There is no

agreement on my end, no lie. I tilt my head back. Liam closes his tray and

does the same, sticking his pad beside his seat.

With both our heads on our cushions, for several seconds we stare at

each other and for moments I am lost in the deep blue pools of his eyes.

“You do know,” he says slowly, “that as a man I’ve been taught that a

woman never means ‘fine’ when she says ‘fine’, right?”

I might have smiled another day, but not this one. “I guess we all

have our own ways of defining fine.”

He studies me a moment, then another, and I have the impression

he’s trying to understand me. I want to tell him “good luck”. I don’t even

understand me. “You don’t want to sleep.”

Somehow I don’t openly react to the surprising change of subject and

too accurate of an observation.
Dodge and weave
, I tell myself. Dodge and

weave. “I don’t like to sleep in public places.”

“Talk to me, Amy,” he murmurs softly.

“Talk to you?” I ask. I want to talk to him. That’s the problem.

“You need to fill the empty space in your head, and right now, talking

is your only method of doing that.”

I try to joke away his suggestion. “And you’d rather talk to a stranger

than have her fall asleep and get you in trouble with the flight attendant

again?”

“We aren’t strangers anymore, and I find the idea of occupying your

time increasingly appealing.” His eyes light. “So use me, baby.”

The air crackles between us and there is no denying the growing

attraction I have for this man. “Fine, then. I’d love to hear about the project

you’re traveling to Denver to discuss.”

“There isn’t a lot to tell yet. It’s a typical property development deal.

A group of deep pockets get together and aspire for greatness that equates

to dollar signs in their eyes. In this case, it’s a plan to create the world’s

largest event center, complete with concert facilities, a shopping mall, and

an office complex.”

He sounds blasé when I’m excited just hearing about the project, and

I find I’m more curious about Liam than ever—enough to be nosy. “Are you

one of those deep pockets?”

“There are too many egos fighting in one room for me on this one.

Egos translate to delays and problems.”

He didn’t deny he has deep pockets. I was right. He
is
money, sex,

and power. “So then, what’s your role, if not investor?”

“I’m the architect they want to design the project.”

I sit up straighter at this surprising news. “You’re an architect?”

“Yes.”

“An architect that could create a project of the magnitude you just

described?”

“Yes.”

“Would I know any of your work?”

“I’ve done a few high-profile projects.”

I frown. “Isn’t this where you drop names and impress me?”

“Do I need to impress you?”

My cheeks heat. “No. I…most people…”

“I’m not most people.”

No. No, he most definitely is not most people. “Have you thought

about your design for this project?”

“I’ve drafted my vision, but I already know it’s not likely to please the

financiers.”

“But they requested you. They must like your work.”

“They want me to create the tallest building in the United States.”

I blink. “Could you really create something of that magnitude?”

“‘Can I’ isn’t the question. ‘Will I’ is the question. Height is a short

man’s dream of perfection. It’s also narrow-minded. How high you stand

isn’t as important as how magnificent you are.”

Magnificent
. The word resonates deeply for me. I’d once thought I’d

be a part of something I could describe that way. I’d like in some small way

to be a part of what he describes that way. “Are you allowed to show me

your design?”

“I’m allowed to do whatever the hell I want.” He reaches for his

sketchpad and thumbs through it to open to a particular drawing, and