Amy Bensen 01 Escaping Reality Read Online Free PDF

Godzilla at bay for
    you.”
    He couldn’t have said anything more perfect and I know right then
    what it is about Liam that makes him so irresistible. Men have been scarce
    in my life, namely because of my fear of getting close to anyone. The few
    times I’ve broken that rule have not turned out well, and I admit that in a
    few lonely, weak moments, I’ve indulged in my share of Cinderella fantasies
    where my Prince Charming swoops in and makes life better. Liam is good
    looking, confident—he radiates control in a way my fantasy Prince
    Charming would. But more so, I believe Liam would fight Godzilla if he had
    to. Maybe not for me, but for someone he cares about.
    “I’ll hold you to that,” I finally say, unable to find even a thread of jest
    to lace the words.
    I watch his eyes flicker, the color diluting to a soft blue then
    darkening again, and I am not sure how to read the meaning when he is
    otherwise guarded, as much a mystery as who I am running from. “Good,”
    he replies simply before he leans back fully into his seat.
    I let my head drop to the cushion, and for a few minutes I indulge in a
    fantasy about Liam to keep the monsters of my past at bay. But as the hum
    of the engine starts working me over again, flickering images of the past
    begin to slip inside my head, and I start to unravel. I’m not going to be able
    to sit here without getting lost in my own head and going crazy. A flash of
    flames has me jerking to a sitting position and my hands go to my face, my
    elbows to my knees.
    I can feel the heaviness of Liam’s attention. He’s looking at me but I
    don’t want to look at him. If I do, I will talk to him. I will ask him questions.
    He will ask me questions.
    “Amy?”
    His voice slides through me, and somehow it manages to be
    soothing, warm comfort and sensual fire at the same time. Not for the first
    time, I’m baffled by the way a man I barely know manages to be silk on my
    raw nerves, but I’m not going to overanalyze it. I have to hold myself
    together until I’m someplace safe enough to cave to a little temporary
    weakness, and he feels like the answer. He’s what will get me through this
    flight. I sit back to look at him, and though I’m perfectly aware that he is a
    heavy dose of delicious man, my heart still races as I blink his dark good
    looks and his piercing blue eyes into view.
    He sets his pencil down on his tray and abandons his work for me,
    giving me a concerned assessment. “Everything okay?” he asks, and I think
    of him as a gentle lion in that moment, only it is me who is purring under
    his powerful male attention.
    “Fine,” I reply, because “fine” is nothing but a word. There is no
    agreement on my end, no lie. I tilt my head back. Liam closes his tray and
    does the same, sticking his pad beside his seat.
    With both our heads on our cushions, for several seconds we stare at
    each other and for moments I am lost in the deep blue pools of his eyes.
    “You do know,” he says slowly, “that as a man I’ve been taught that a
    woman never means ‘fine’ when she says ‘fine’, right?”
    I might have smiled another day, but not this one. “I guess we all
    have our own ways of defining fine.”
    He studies me a moment, then another, and I have the impression
    he’s trying to understand me. I want to tell him “good luck”. I don’t even
    understand me. “You don’t want to sleep.”
    Somehow I don’t openly react to the surprising change of subject and
    too accurate of an observation. Dodge and weave , I tell myself. Dodge and
    weave. “I don’t like to sleep in public places.”
    “Talk to me, Amy,” he murmurs softly.
    “Talk to you?” I ask. I want to talk to him. That’s the problem.
    “You need to fill the empty space in your head, and right now, talking
    is your only method of doing that.”
    I try to joke away his suggestion. “And you’d rather talk to a stranger
    than have her fall asleep and get you in trouble with the