Read Escaping Reality Page 15

Too much. Not enough when I want more, and I have no business

  wanting anything at all.

  We enter the bedroom and a light glows dimly, though I am not

  aware of how or when

  Liam turned it on, and to my surprise, he bypasses the bed that sits in

  the center of the main wall of the room. Instead, he sets me on my feet in

  front of a massive bathroom I barely glimpse, before he shuts the door. And

  that intense edginess I’m coming to know as Liam has cranked up several

  notches. He is mad or…wounded? Over me? That can’t be. He is confident

  and experienced and I am…whatever I am, but I am less, if I have hurt this

  man who has already proven he is so much more than his Wiki page.

  “Liam—”

  “No more talking.” His hands come down on my waist, a possessive

  branding, and his voice is hard, a tight band I have the impression might

  break with his mood at any moment. He walks me backwards several steps

  until my heels hit the door and I lean against the hard surface.

  His legs shackle mine, holding me as captive as the burn in his eyes.

  “You want me to fuck you, Amy, I’ll fuck you.”

  I think he is angry and suddenly, the word “fuck” feels like a slap

  when I am the one who all but shouted it at him. “Yes. Yes, I do, but—”

  His mouth comes down hard on mine, hot with demand, with anger. I

  do not want him to be angry and I lean into him, hoping it will fade, hoping

  to get lost in him, but it doesn’t work. I taste the bite of his mood, the

  roughness of his tongue, and I shove at his chest and tear my mouth from

  his. “Wait. Not like this.”

  “You want to fuck or you don’t. I am not a yo-yo any more than you

  are one of my mathematical equations.”

  “Don’t say it like that.”

  “Don’t challenge me to fuck you and then run away.”

  Run away. I am always running away and sick of that being my life.

  “You’re just”—I make myself look at him—“you’re you, Liam, like you said

  I’m…me. And you, Liam Stone, are like a bull when you want something.

  You charge.”

  “What I want is you.”

  Even though I know this, hearing it stirs a sweet spot in my belly and

  all I want to do is savor the sensation and the man who created it. “Then

  please. Just be with me. Just be with me, Liam.”

  He wraps his fingers around my neck and pulls me to him. “I get

  wanting to block things out. Been there, done that, baby, but I won’t let

  you do it to me. We’re going to talk tomorrow, but tonight, we’ll forget.”

  He brushes his lips over mine and I feel myself tremble from the simple, but

  powerful touch. “Now. Turn around.” He doesn’t give me time to respond,

  rotating me to face the door, my hands on the hard surface, and I am

  beginning to think he likes me like this. I think I might like me like this. He

  leans into me, his body deliciously heavy and hard, his breath a warm

  seduction against my neck as he declares, “No more barriers,” and tugs my

  zipper down, though I do not think he is talking about clothes.

  I was kidding myself to challenge him to “fuck” me, to think sex is my

  sanctuary from words with Liam when I am headed deeper into this web of

  intimacy with him, a place where he will want, and even deserve, answers

  to all of his questions. But as his hands glide my dress down my shoulders,

  leaving goose bumps in their wake, I find it hard to care. He promised to

  take me away and I believe he can. Already, I am sinking into the sweet

  oblivion of pleasure that only Liam has ever helped me find. He is my

  sanctuary from everything else. He alone is my escape.

  “Step,” he commands, and I lift my feet one after another and let him

  kick my dress away. Then I squeeze my eyes shut when he unhooks my bra,

  and I shrug out of it, and just like that, I am, as I was only one night before,

  naked before this man, my breasts swollen and heavy, my nipples tight

  balls of aching need. His hands flatten on the wall by my head but he does

  not touch me. He likes this, I think. To trap me. To be in control. And I like

  it. I like him being in control instead of the world outside. I like that when I

  hand control to him there is pleasure, not pain.

  “Turn back around,” he commands, and I like that, too. The

  roughness of his voice, the absoluteness of him being in charge. I do not

  hesitate to comply. I face him, and his gaze does a hot up-and-down

  inspection of my naked body, that sizzles every nerve ending I own.

  “Take off the shoes.”

  I kick them off.

  “Now the panties and the thigh-highs. I want nothing between us.”

  But he is fully clothed. “Are you…?”

  “When you ask questions, I ask questions.”

  I swallow hard at the pointed remark and the clear message he

  intends. He knows that’s what I do. He knows I play dodgeball, and with

  anyone else it would work. With him, I’ve already run out of rope. I shove

  aside the worry this creates inside me and focus on just what I told him.

  Tonight. An escape. With him.

  I roll down my thigh-highs and toss them away, and waste no time

  with my panties. I am naked before this man but I am so much more. I am

  exposed, vulnerable, and somehow I feel protected and safe.

  “On your knees,” he orders softly.

  “My knees?”

  “No questions, baby. You do what I say.”

  I inhale and hold in the air. I trust Liam. I trust Liam. When was the

  last time I said that about anyone? I lower myself to my knees, the soft

  carpeting padding my bare skin. Liam squats in front of me. “Hands over

  your head and on the door handle.”

  This time I gulp. I cannot believe I am doing this, but I do. I curl my

  fingers around the knob above my head, and now I am truly exposed, my

  breasts thrust high, my body stretched out for his viewing. But he does not

  look at my body. He watches my face, searching my eyes, an intense,

  inscrutable look etched in the hard lines of his handsome face.

  He loosens his tie, then pulls it from his neck. Adrenaline surges

  through me with the certainty that his shirt and pants are next, but he does

  not undress. He reaches over me to my wrists, and I gasp at the realization

  that Liam is using his tie to bind my arms over my head.

  I am more than naked and vulnerable. I am at his mercy.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Willingly tied to the door and at his mercy, I am remarkably without

  fear, and there is a burn in my belly. Cool air conditioning teases my

  nipples, a striking contrast to the heat in Liam’s gaze as it rakes over my

  body. The tie is snug silk on my wrists, a promise I cannot escape whatever

  Liam intends for me. I do not want to escape what he intends for me.

  Anticipation is liquid fire between my thighs. I am aroused, wet, and

  aching with an emptiness only he can fill. It is beyond erotic to allow him

  this control, and for someone who often feels I do not know myself, I am

  suddenly aware of why his control pleases me. When I am with him like

  this, I don’t have to calculate what comes next. He will do that. He is doing

  that. I trust him to the degree of allo
wing myself to be tied up with my

  hands over my head, when I do not trust anyone.

  Finally, Liam begins to undress, and I am spellbound by this powerful,

  sexy man, downright hungry to see him completely naked, stripped down in

  all his masculine glory, a pleasure I didn’t have the night before. There was

  just us ripping whatever clothes off we could to come together. This time is

  slower, more luxurious.

  He toes off his shoes and slides his jacket down his shoulders. Almost

  impatiently, it seems, he unbuttons his shirt. Or maybe it is simply me who

  is impatient. Adrenaline pours through me as dark, springy hair peeks from

  the fine material and finally, his shirt is gone. My mouth goes dry at the

  sight of taut skin over flexing muscle and when his hand goes to his pants, I

  suck in a breath and I do not breathe again until he is without clothes,

  standing before me, his thick erection pulsing thickly in front of him.

  I take in the sight of him, tall and finely carved, and he is truly a work

  of art, the definition of masculine beauty but I hone in on my obsession,

  one that I am sure many women have shared. The tattoo. My gaze tracks

  the path of the equation that trails down, down, down, and I swallow hard

  at where it ends and he is, ah, well, hard. Liam has singlehandedly made

  math sexy for a girl who has despised every number she’s ever met.

  Liam turns away and my heart thunders in my chest as he opens a

  dresser drawer and I anticipate what he might produce, but I am

  remarkably unafraid for a woman tied to a door. I am quite sure I should

  be, though. What if it’s a whip or chains, or…what do people do when they

  tie up a lover? He pulls out a box and a pinch begins in my chest as I digest

  the packaged condom he’s removed from inside. I am suddenly

  excruciatingly insecure, aware that there have been many before me, few

  before him.

  He tears open the package, and I drop my head between my

  shoulders, hiding the emotions expanding where the pinch had been. I am

  not sure why this is affecting me this way but it is. I am over my head. Way,

  way over my head. I’m probably not even his first bathroom-door affair.

  Maybe this very tie has been around another woman’s wrists. I do not

  know what to do or say or how to be. I do not even know my own name

  half the time. I am not—

  Liam squats in front of me, and the sight of his strong thighs and

  thick erection cuts off my rambling thoughts, and I struggle to gain my

  composure and recreate some version of Amy that is worthy of this man

  even if I, myself, am not.

  His finger slides under my chin, and he levels my gaze with his. “I

  bought the condoms today for us, if that’s what you’re wondering. For us,

  Amy. I don’t stockpile and have women in my hotel room ever night. I don’t

  have women to my room, or let them inside my life, at all.

  Never. Just you.”

  He reads me like an open book I thought I’d shut years before. “Me,”

  I whisper, reminded of his declaration that we are raw and honest or we

  are nothing.

  “You,” he agrees. “And us.”

  Us. I have never truly been a part of an “us”, but the idea strokes a

  raw nerve ending, then caresses it with possibilities. I wet my suddenly dry

  lips and Liam leans in and brushes his mouth over mine before he murmurs,

  “And we need to get you to a doctor and on the pill.”

  “That takes weeks,” I whisper, and the words vibrate with the same

  wistful quality I’d had earlier on the sidewalk, a wistfulness that I cannot

  seem to control any more than my feelings or reactions to Liam.

  He cups my face and kisses me again, a soft brush of his mouth

  against mine, and I can feel myself sigh inside. This is what gets to me with

  Liam, the way he is so tender, and yet so dominating. It works for me. He

  works for me. So does the way he’s trailing kisses over my jaw, teasing my

  neck, then my ear. “Until then,” he voices, all velvet and seduction, “I’ll be

  fantasizing about the moment the only thing wrapped around me is you.”

  My sex clenches with his words, slickness gathering on my bare

  thighs, and I decide right then that no woman knows what she has been

  missing until she has a man like Liam say such wicked things to her while he

  is naked in all his male perfection.

  He leans back to study me, his blue stare probing, intimate. “Have

  you ever been bound before?”

  I laugh and the sound is nervousness personified.

  He doesn’t laugh. His hands frame my face. “And you let me tie you

  up.” It is a statement, not a question, and there is a husky rasp to his voice

  that tells me he is affected by this realization.

  “Yes,” I confirm, knowing somehow this is what he desires of me.

  His hand reaches behind me, cupping my backside, and he pulls me

  to him. His shaft settles between my thighs, and I soften instantly against

  him. “And I’m just barbaric enough to like the idea of being the first of

  many things.”

  He’s said something to this effect before. It’s just as arousing now as

  it was then. “You do seem to have a bit of a liking for the word ‘teacher’.”

  He caresses up my back and closes his hand on the back of my head,

  pulling me to him, his cheek finding mine, his voice low, raspy, as he

  murmurs, “I haven’t even begun to start teaching you, Amy. We have not

  even begun to go where I plan to take you.” He drags his lips over my jaw

  and his mouth lingers a breath from mine. “You trusted me with your body

  by letting me bind you. I’m going to make sure you don’t regret it. That’s

  step one, baby.”

  I do not know what he means by “step one”, but his seductive purr

  on the word “baby”

  does funny things to my chest and his lips begin to trail over my jaw,

  teasing me with the promise of a kiss that I hope soon will follow. And it

  does. His mouth finds mine, a feather-light touch, a lick of his tongue, and I

  moan with the barely there, teasing taste of him.

  “I do like those little sounds you make,” he murmurs, rewarding me

  with another brush of his tongue against mine. I moan again, unable to hold

  it back, ultra-sensitive to all this man does to me. I’m relieved when he

  deepens the kiss, when he takes me to that sweet spot where only he

  exists. This is what I want. To be lost in him, and I arch into him, needing

  him closer, craving that connection. Seeming to answer my plea, Liam

  inches forward, leaning me against the door and cradling me more fully on

  his lap, and his hands are all over me, teasing me, driving me wild. The need

  to touch him spirals through me, and I tug at my hands, but there is no

  escape.

  There is only the growing ache of need inside me.

  His lips leave mine, and I reach for his mouth, only to be denied.

  “Untie me. I need to touch you.”

  He frames my face with his hands and I need them to be other

  places. Lots of other places. “You’re not ready to be untied.”

  I laugh without humor. “Yes. Yes, I am.”

  “What are you thinking about right now?”

  “I…I d
on’t know.”

  “The first thing that comes into your head. Don’t censor, just speak.

  Say it. Now. What are you thinking of now?”

  “Your tattoo.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Touching you.”

  “And?”

  “Ripping the tie off my arms.”

  He lowers his forehead to mine and his hands brush my breasts,

  tease my nipples. “And now?”

  “How much I don’t want you to stop.”

  “That’s the idea. Escape, baby. The lack of control i s control. When

  you’re hanging on each moment, anticipating what comes next, it leaves

  room for nothing else. That’s what I want to do for you.”

  I think of his comment about sharks and the certainty there is more

  to his story than I know. “And who helps you escape, Liam?”

  “We’re going to the same place, Amy. I’m not standing outside

  watching.” He dips his head low and his lips find my neck and then my ear.

  “I’m right here with you.”

  I squeeze my eyes shut, lavishing in the deep stroke of his hand down

  my back and the seductive reply of his words in my mind. Right here with

  you. That phrase shimmers down my spine and settles deep inside me. Liam

  is with me. In a tiny window of time, he has slipped past every wall I’ve

  erected.

  “Look at me, Amy.”

  I pry my lashes open at his soft command and I feel a punch in my

  chest when my eyes meet his. I am going to fall hard for this man. I already

  have.

  He leans in and kisses me, pressing my breasts together before

  dragging to tease my

  nipples, then dragging his mouth down my chin, to my neck and

  chest until his tongue laves one of my nipples, fulfilling a wish I so desired. I

  suck in a breath at the rough, wet heat suckling me, moving from one

  swollen tip to the next, mercilessly licking, nipping, teasing, and I can take

  no more.

  “Liam, enough. Please. I need—”

  “What I say you need,” he finishes, his hands cupping my backside,

  lifting my belly to his mouth, dipping his tongue in my belly button, and

  then licking all the way to my hipbone.

  Nipping the sensitive flesh, licking again.

  “Liam, damn it,” I pant, and I never curse, but then I am never this

  undone. “You are making me insane.”

  He smiles against my belly. “That’s the idea.”

  My quaking body disagrees. “No. No, it’s not. Pleasure is the idea.”