Escaping Reality (The Secret Life of Amy Bensen #1)(11)

“What’s your plan from here?”

“Plan?”

“Do you have a ride to wherever you’re going?”

“A friend is picking me up,” I croak out, and the lie is like wet cotton in my throat. He wants this…this whatever we started to continue and so do I, but I can’t know his real motivation any more than I can risk his safety by being seen with him.

“Male or female?”

I blink, snapping back to the present. “What? Male or female?”

“Your friend picking you up. Male or female?”

I know the safe answer is “male”. I know that if his motivation for the question is simple male interest, it will discourage him, and still I hear myself say, “Female.”

His eyes darken, heat, and I think he’s pleased with my answer. “I’ll help you with your bags.”

“No, I—”

“I’m helping you with your bags, Amy.”

There is command in his voice, and I am instantly, unbelievably aroused, and pleased at his insistence, when I should be running for the hills. I will run for the hills when the doors open.

“Thank you,” I murmur and turn away from him, afraid he will read my intentions to flee.

Quickly, I make sure my folder and bag are intact, sliding the leather strap over my shoulder, and I am ready for action.

The plane parks at the gate, and Liam stretches his long, perfect body to retrieve my bag from the overhead compartment. Once he hands it to me, I lift the handle and tell myself to make my escape, but for a moment I am frozen in regret over leaving him. Too soon, he jerks his bag free, and I am out of time. A man moves between myself and Liam and I take the opportunity to dart for the exit. I don’t look back. I want to look back.

A few minutes later, I am outside in a cab line that stretches a good fifteen cab lengths long, with no actual cars in sight. Thanks to several conventions and some Hollywood event, it appears I have plenty of time to savor my regret over leaving Liam behind. And I do. I savor it like I would water in a desert.

I’m busying contemplating how good he might have tasted when a black Town Car stops directly beside me. The door opens and to my shock Liam steps out and grabs my bag. “Come with me,” he orders, and he doesn’t give me time to argue.

I haven’t moved yet and he’s already at the trunk where the driver lifts my bag to deposit it inside. I consider leaving it behind and running. I should leave it and run. I charge toward him and meet him at the back door.

My chin lifts and he is taller than I realized, and his sleek goatee is impossibly sexy, nearly distracting me from my anger. “You can’t just take my bag and demand I come with you.”

“And yet that’s exactly what I did. Get in the car, Amy.”

I bristle at the command. “I don’t know you.”

His piercing blue eyes darken. “I have every intention of remedying that.”

A thrill shoots through me at the obvious promise that he will be my lover, and there is no denying that I am seduced by this man, drawn to his confidence and dark good looks. To the gentle lion I believe will take control of everything around him, including me. The man who will demand much of me, and perhaps take more than I should give. And yet, beyond all reason, I want to experience those things. I want to experience him. It almost feels…necessary.

A cab honks at our driver and I have nothing to go on but instinct that tells me I can trust him, but it has never failed me. Not even when I took the job at the museum that I knew was a mistake. The horn blasts again and I go with my gut. I get in the car. Liam follows me inside and shuts the door.

“Where are we going?” the driver calls over his shoulder, pulling away from the curb.

I quickly slide my bag from my lap to the seat in between Liam and me, and I’m suddenly too nervous to look at him. He’s experienced in ways I can’t even pretend to be, in ways the few men I have dared to date have not been. Worldly in ways I once thought I’d be.

And with the folder I’ve been given by my handler opened, I read out my new address, trusting him at a time when trust is the last thing I should be dishing out.

“I approve,” Liam says as I seal the zipper up again.

“Approve?” I ask, daring to look at him, aware of him on every level.

His size. His spicy scent. The burn of his anger in the depth of his stare over my leaving him behind that hasn’t quite faded.

“The location your new boss picked for you. It’s a safe area.”

I seize the opportunity to know more about this man I am risking so much, perhaps too much, for. “You know Denver that well?”

“Yes. I know Denver quite well.”

“Did you design another building here?”

“The tallest one downtown.”

“I thought you weren’t into the whole ‘bigger is better’ thing?”

“It was a notch on the proverbial bedpost of a young architect.”

I can’t help but wonder if I’m setting myself up to be a notch on his proverbial bedpost as well. “You’re still young.”

“I started young, so I seem younger than one would think a seasoned architect might be.”

“When you say started young that means what?”

“I was an apprentice to a very famous architect from the time I was thirteen until he died four years ago.”