Escaping Reality (The Secret Life of Amy Bensen #1)(7)

“You shouted. It scared the heck out of us.”

Shouted? Oh, good grief. Way to not bring attention to yourself, Amy.

“I took a decongestant,” I say, trying to be truly convincing this time. “They make me sleepy and give me nightmares.”

Her lips purse, but her expression quickly softens. “Well, that makes sense. Yes. I can see how that might happen to someone sensitive to medications, but boy oh boy they must have worked you over. We’ve only been in the air fifteen minutes and you were awake when we took off. You were knocked out hard and fast.”

Which isn’t like me. Not on a normal day. Certainly not on a day I feel threatened. “I’m really sorry I scared you,” I offer, attempting a smile that I’m pretty sure never makes it to my lips. “I promise to stay awake the rest of the flight.”

“You don’t have to promise that,” she says, and grins. “But maybe warn us before you go to sleep. We’ll have dinner served in five minutes.”

She rushes away and Liam doesn’t give me time to savor her departure.

“Decongestants?” Liam asks softly, drawing my gaze back to his.

“My ears pop when I fly.” The lie comes easily. I’m back to the me I hate. “And unless you want to confess to drugging me, that’s my story and I’m sticking with it.”

He studies me a bit too carefully for my own good, and something in his eyes has me warm all over and wishing he’d touch me again. “What are you afraid of, Amy?”

You, I want to say. You scare me because you make me want to trust you. I laugh, and it sounds strained even to my own ears. “Godzilla,” I say, confessing the fictional monster I’d feared in childhood, until life had shown me real monsters existed.

If I’d expected his laughter, he doesn’t give it to me. “Godzilla?” he prods, angling his body to block out anyone passing by us, his back to them, his body almost caging mine. The impact of this man’s full attention is overwhelming. My breath turns shallow, and to my utter disbelief, my nipples are tight and achy. I do not respond to men like this. I just…don’t.

“Everyone has a proverbial monster under the bed,” I manage, and thankfully my voice sounds far more steady than I feel. “Godzilla is mine,” I continue. “And hey—at least there weren’t any hippos crossing the road in this nightmare. I’ve had that one a time or two, as well.

Actually, I don’t think the hippos felt like nightmares. Just strange dreams.” Shut up, Amy. Shut up. Why are you telling him anything more than you have to? You never, ever tell more than you have to.

“I won’t try to analyze what the hippos mean,” he comments, and the slight curve to his lips on the words fades away as he adds, “but your monster under the bed sounds more like a skeleton in the closet to me.”

“Fear and a secret are two different things,” I remind him, pointing out the difference in the two phrases.

“Often they come together. A secret that leads to fear in one way, shape, or form.”

Suddenly, my joke feels like an open window to my soul that I desperately want to slam shut. Tension coils in my muscles and I quickly pull my guard into place, turning the tables.

“Sounds like a man who speaks from experience.”

“Yes, well,” he says, a cynical tinge to his voice, “experience isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, now is it?”

I search his eyes and look for the meaning behind his words, but I find nothing. He is unreadable, as guarded as I am on my best day, and I 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.