Escaping Reality

yes you won’t kiss me again, right?”
    “I’ll do a whole lot more than kiss you when I get you alone.” His
    promise is somehow both soft velvet and rough sandpaper, and the air
    around us shifts, thickens, the sexual tension transforming into something I
    cannot name, far deeper than simple lust. Far harder to walk away from. He
    strokes a tender hand down my hair and I lean into the touch like a cat
    claiming her territory when he is not mine. He will never be mine.
    “Hungry?” he asks.
    “Is that a trick question?”
    His lips curve. “I’ll take that as a ‘yes’.” He brushes his lips over mine.
    “Me too, baby.
    Me too.” He releases me and leans back in his seat and I am instantly
    cold where I was hot seconds before. He puts the car in drive and cuts me a
    steamy blue-eyed look. “Buckle up and we’ll be at your place in no time.”
    I don’t argue, eager for anything that makes me feel grounded,
    certain this man will take me on a wild ride before this night is over if I let
    him. And I can’t let him. I squeeze my eyes shut, telling myself I will not do
    anything but get out of this car. I will make small talk and ease the sexual
    tension and get back where I need to be to do what I have to do.
    “There’s a great Italian place next to the hotel, if you like Italian?”
    My lashes lift at his question and settles on the logo on the
    dashboard. “I’m a pasta addict.” I’m about to add “mostly Ramen noodles,”
    but my gaze narrows on the logo on the dash and I decide he probably
    doesn’t even know what Ramen is. “You rented a Bentley?”
    He shrugs. “They didn’t have anything else.”
    “They had nothing but a Bentley?” I don’t hide my disbelief. I’ve
    never even seen a
    Bentley and I figure that’s because they run in the six-figure range
    and I don’t know people that pay that kind of money for a car. Really, I
    don’t know many people who can even afford to park a car in New York, let
    alone pay for the vehicle.
    “It’s the only car I thought was good enough to drive you around in.”
    “Me?” I balk, pursing my lips. “You, Liam Stone, are rich and spoiled. I
    am not.”
    “I’ll spoil you if you let me.” His voice is a soft, silky promise.
    My chest burns with something I do not want to feel. “No.” It comes
    out almost a hiss I cannot retract. “I don’t want your money.” I just want a
    life.
    If he notices my tone, he doesn’t show it. “Spoken like someone who
    has never had money.”
    Avoidance is always my friend. His questions are not. “Very few
    people have your kind of money.”
    “Which shows my point.” he assures me.
    “Which is what?”
    “I have the money to spoil you and I plan to.” He doesn’t give me
    time to argue, shifting the subject like he’s stamped the topic done,
    approved, fact. “Do you have anything that will spoil or can we go straight
    to the restaurant?”
    I don’t want food. I want to lick that tattoo of his before I say
    goodbye to him. That would keep him from asking questions. Until it’s over,
    I remind myself. “I need to drop by my place and change.”
    His hot gaze flickers down my bare legs, and up again. “I like you like
    this.”
    My cheeks heat and my sex clenches. “You’re in a suit.”
    “I’ll change. You stay the way you are.”
    I open my mouth and snap it shut before I tell him I like him just as
    he is. That isn’t going to help my goodbye campaign, but then neither did
    kissing him. I try again. “Either way, I want to freshen up.”
    Liam pulls the car in front of his hotel and a doorman is instantly
    helping me out of the car. By the time I’m standing, Liam is in front of me,
    reaching for my bags, and he has them before I can stop him. “I’ve got
    them,” I say, reaching out to take them, and darn it, our hands collide,
    sending a tingling sensation up my arm.
    My eyes dart to his, and I see the awareness in his stare. He too has
    felt the connection.
    Maybe this is only sex to him, or some need to protect me I can’t
    understand, but it’s real. It exists and it is powerful.
    “I’ll meet you at the hotel bar in thirty minutes,” I choke out from my
    suddenly dry throat.
    “You said you didn’t want to go to the hotel with me.”
    “To your room. Hotel bars are open to the public.”
    His eyes narrow, suspicion etched in their depths. “I’ll help you with
    your bags.”
    “They’re paper light. Let me hurry. I’ll meet you in twenty