Escaping Reality

flight,” he points out. “Sleepy isn’t a bad thing.”
    Sleepy. This gorgeous, incredibly masculine man has just said
    “sleepy” and it seems so out of the realm of what I expect from him, that
    he has managed the impossible considering my life right now. I smile an
    honest smile and accept the glass. “I suppose it’s not.” I sip the sweet,
    bubbly beverage.
    A glint of satisfaction flickers in his eyes, as if he’s pleased I’ve done
    as he wishes, before he takes my glass from me and sets both our drinks in
    the cup holders between us. The easy way he assumes control of my tiniest
    actions, and seems to enjoy doing so, should bother me. For reasons I don’t
    have time to analyze, it only makes him more tantalizingly male.
    He extends his hand. “Liam Stone.”
    My pulse jumps at both his ridiculously alluring name and the idea of
    touching him. I start to lift my hand and hesitate with the oddest sense of
    this moment changing my life in some way. Pushing past the crazy thought,
    I press my palm to his. “Nice to meet you, Liam. I’m Amy.”
    His fingers close around mine and a slow, warm, tingling sensation
    slides up my arm.
    “Tell me what I did to make you smile so I can do it again.” His voice
    is low, gravelly. As sexy as the man who owns it. I expect him to let go of
    me, but his fingers seem to flex around my hand, tightening as if he doesn’t
    want to let go. I am shocked at how much I, someone who avoids people I
    do not know well, do not want him to.
    “Sleepy,” I manage, and my voice sounds as affected as I suddenly, or
    maybe not so suddenly, feel.
    His brows furrow. “Sleepy?”
    “That’s what you said that made me smile. You don’t seem like a man
    who’d say ‘sleepy’.”
    He arches a brow and he’s still holding my hand. I should object. I
    should pull away.
    Because he has the experience and depth I’ve long avoided and
    craved in a man. All I succeed in doing is melting into my chair, like I know I
    could easily melt for him . “Is that so?” he challenges.
    “Yes. That’s so.”
    He looks amused, and—reluctantly, it seems—he releases my hand.
    Or maybe not reluctantly. Maybe he wasn’t holding it as long as it felt like
    he was holding it. I fear I have no real concept of what is real or not
    anymore.
    Liam leans closer, so close it’s like he plans to share a secret, and still
    I want him closer.
    “Just what kind of man do you think I am, Amy?”
    The kind that flirts with lost little girls who don’t even know their
    own names and then darts off to see the world with a supermodel, I think,
    but I say, “Not the kind who says ‘sleepy’.”
    Laughter rumbles from his chest, a deep, masculine sound that
    spreads warmth through my body. Impossibly, it is both fire in my veins and
    balm for my nerves, calming me in an unexplainable way, when I know he is
    too good looking, too inquisitive, and absolutely too controlling to play
    with. Not that I would even know how to play with a man like this, or really,
    any man for that matter. Men, like friends, have been risky propositions.
    “Why are you headed to Denver, Amy?” he asks, and the soothing
    balm becomes shards of glass splintering through me.
    “Excuse me,” the flight attendant thankfully interrupts, saving me an
    answer that is still in a file I haven’t read. “Can I take your dinner orders?”
    “Chicken,” I say.
    Liam glances at me. “How do you know they have chicken?”
    “It’s the go-to food for hotels, parties, and airlines.” And there was a
    time in my youth when all those things had been in my life. I glance at the
    flight attendant for confirmation, and she nods. “Chicken it is.”
    “Make that two orders of chicken,” Liam says with another rumbling
    of that deeply addictive laughter of his, and while I like his easygoing
    nature, I can almost feel the band of control he pulls around him. A muffled
    ringing sound fills the air.
    “Whoever is ringing,” the flight attendant warns, “you have about
    one minute until electronic devices are off.”
    She rushes away, and since the sound is obviously coming from
    Liam’s bag, I cautiously adjust my skirt and bend over to grab it, dislodging
    my folder in the process. My heart lurches as it tumbles to the ground and
    spills open, the contents flying everywhere. I grab for the contents, shoving
    papers inside the folder again as quickly as I can.
    “Your résumé, I believe,” Liam says, and I freeze at his