Escaping Reality

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 allowing 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