“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 f**k you, Amy, I’ll f**k 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 f**k 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 f**k 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, na**d before this man, my br**sts swollen and heavy, my ni**les 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 na**d 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 na**d 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 br**sts 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 na**d 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 ni**les, 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.