Escaping Reality (The Secret Life of Amy Bensen #1)(12)

“Thirteen? You started your career at thirteen?”

“I started my training at thirteen.” He lowers his voice. “You do know I couldn’t let you run, don’t you?”

“I wasn’t—”

“You were.”

“If you think that, then why’d you come after me?”

“Because you didn’t want to run. You just thought you had to.”

“That’s a little arrogant.”

“It’s honest. I like honesty.”

I like it too, but I can’t give it to him. This ride was a mistake.

“Liam—”

He closes the distance between us, moving my bag out of the way, his powerful leg pressed to mine, his fingers sliding into my hair. I am shocked. I am excited and scared, frozen and burning up at the same time.

“Do you know how much I like it when you say my name?” he asks, his voice a soft, seductive purr.

Nerves and heat collide like fire in my belly. He likes when I say his name? This man who is overwhelmingly male, a powerful force like none I have ever experienced? “I don’t know what to say to that.” And it is as honest an answer as I’ve given anyone in years.

“You don’t have to know, Amy. It’s okay not to know.”

For the second time today, he has spoken words straight to my soul.

Relief that reaches so far beyond this moment in time, and my possible response to his statement, flows through me.

This is why I’m in this car, why I am drawn to this man. He makes me feel I don’t have to hold the world up on my own. And as crazy as it is, from the moment my eyes met his in the terminal, he has had a way of making me feel I am not alone.

His thumb runs over my bottom lip and a shiver trickles down my spine. I think he will kiss me. I want him to kiss me. But he doesn’t. “Soon,”

he promises, as if responding to my silent plea, as if he knows how much I crave his mouth on mine. His cell phone rings, but for a moment he ignores it to add, “And not soon enough.”

He moves away from me and I want to pull him back. I want to feel his hands on my body again, his leg pressed to mine. But he is already answering his call, and too easily dismissing what I cannot. “Yes,” he says to his caller. “I’m here.”

My fingers curl, nails digging into my palm. I have no one to call and ask if I’m here. I have only me and no matter how drawn I am to Liam, if today has proven anything to me it’s that there can always be only me. But as I glance at Liam’s strong profile, I pretend he is truly with me. And that I am truly with him. It is a small dream in the middle of a nightmare.

***

Thirty minutes after we leave the airport, the Town Car pulls to a stop at a destination.

Liam grabs my bag and exits street side while the driver opens my door. I step outside, enjoying a cool evening breeze that drives home the fact that I am no longer in New York. Scanning my surroundings, I appear to be standing in the center of high-end restaurants and stores where, despite the late hour of nearly midnight Mountain Time, people are casually strolling the sidewalks and the city is far from dead.

With my apartment key in my hand, I glance behind me to find more stores and a hotel, and then forward again where apartment balconies seem to sit above the retail stores.

“Hang onto my bags,” I hear Liam tell the driver, before he joins me, my joke of a suitcase and my bag in tow. “What apartment number?”

“222, but I don’t see an entrance.”

“The driver said there’s an elevator entrance beside the kitchen store.”

Spotting the “Sur Le Table” sign he must be talking about, I turn to Liam and reach for my suitcase. “Thanks for the ride.”

He holds on to both of my bags. “You’re alone in a new city. I’m not letting you go inside an apartment you’ve never seen before by yourself.”

“The driver—”

“Has been tipped well.” He motions me forward and starts walking, effectively giving me no room to argue.

Staring after him, I am on unsteady ground, inexperienced with a man as dominant and stubborn as this one. I didn’t think this part of the evening through when I accepted the ride. I have no idea what awaits me at the apartment. What if there is something I can’t let Liam see?

Double-stepping in my high heels and not all that gracefully, I catch up to him. “You really don’t have to—”

He cuts me a sideways look. “Right. I don’t have to. You don’t have to. But we are, baby, and we both know it.”

My heart sputters at the obviously naughty sexual reference. “I was talking about walking me to the door. You don’t have to walk me to the door.”

He shoots me an evil smile. “I wasn’t.”

“Liam—”

“Amy.” We stop at an elevator and he punches the button, amusement dancing in his eyes. “When do you start work?”

The elevator dings and opens. “I don’t know.” I dart inside the car, trying to think of an answer that isn’t a lie.

He steps in beside me and punches the button. “You don’t know?”

“I’m supposed to get settled first.”

He scowls, and even his scowl is handsome. “How well do you know your new employer?”