I set down my fork and knew my shrimp fettuccini was finished. The topic of my past mixed with food is a definite no-go. “Something bad.”

“I can tell. I saw your face when you woke up from your nightmare.” He looked at my plate of food now pushed away and back up at me. “I’m sorry about that night. I didn’t listen to you.” He reached out for my hand and rubbed his thumb over the top of it. “I guess I just want you to know that you can trust me. I hope you know that you can. I want to be with you, Brynne.”

“You want a relationship don’t you?” I stared down at his thumb rubbing over my knuckles. “You told Dr. Roswell you were my boyfriend.”

“I did, yes. And I want you, Brynne. I do want a relationship.” His voice got firmer. “Look at me.”

I looked up immediately, his beauty so stark against the sea of white linens on the tables behind him. “Even with me the way I am, Ethan?”

“The way you are is perfect to me.”

I removed my hand from his grasp. I had to tug a little to get him to let go. So very Ethan of him, wanting his way in all things, but he did allow me to turn his hand palm up and hold it. I traced over his life line and then his heart line and wondered if either of my lines was salvageable.

“I’m not, Ethan. Perfect and me don’t belong in the same sentence.” I spoke down to his hand.

“The proper phrasing should be perfect and I,” he said knowingly. “And I totally disagree with you, my American beauty with the sexy twang.”

I looked up at him again. “You are so controlling but you do it in a way that makes me feel strangely…safe.”

“I know that too. And it makes me f**king wild for you. And that’s why you should trust me and let me take care of you. I know what you need, Brynne, and I can give it to you. I just want to know—I have to know that you want it. That you want to be with me.”

The waiter arrived at the table. “Are you finished, ma’am?” he asked. Ethan looked annoyed when I told the server to take my plate and ordered a coffee.

“You hardly ate anything tonight.” I could tell he wasn’t pleased.

“I had enough. I’m not very hungry.” I took a sip of wine. “So you want me to be your girlfriend, and give up control to you, and trust that you will not hurt me. Is that really what you want, Ethan?”

“Yes, Brynne, that’s exactly what I want.”

“But there’s so much about me that you don’t know. Things I don’t know about you.”

“When you’re ready you’ll share with me and I’ll be right there to listen. I want to know everything about you and if you want to know about me, you can ask.”

“What if I don’t want to give up control to you on some things, Ethan, or I am unable to?”

“Then you tell me. We are negotiating and both of us have to respect limits.”

“All right.”

He tilted his head and spoke softly. “I want to be with you so badly right now. I want to take you home with me, and put you in my bed and have hours and hours with your body wrapped up in mine to do with as I wish. I want to have you there in the morning so when we wake up I can make you come, saying my name. I want to drive you to work and pick you up when it’s time to leave. I want to go to the shops with you and buy food we can cook for dinner. I want to watch some crap TV show and have you fall asleep against me on the couch so I can watch you and hear you breathing.”

“Oh, Ethan—”

My coffee arrived and I wanted to slap the server for interrupting that beautiful speech. I busied myself with doctoring it with sugar and cream. I took a sip and tried to find my words. To be honest I was caught up in him already. Hook, line and sinker. I wanted all those things with Ethan, I just wasn’t sure I would survive him.

“Too much? Am I scaring you off?”

I shook my head. “No. It sounds very nice actually. And you should know it’s something I’ve never had before. I’ve never had a relationship like that, Ethan.”

He grinned. “That works for me, baby. I want to be your first.” He raised an eyebrow in a look that dripped of sexual innuendo and made me want to go home with him tonight to start the arrangement. “But I want you to think about it tonight and then tell me what you decide. And you need to know that I am very possessive of what belongs to me.”

“Really, Ethan?” The sarcasm rolling out of me. “Never would have guessed that from last night in my flat.”

“I could totally spank your gorgeous ass right now for the lip you’re giving me.” He winked at me. “I can’t help it. That’s just how I feel about you, Brynne. In my head, you’re mine, and that’s how it’s been since I first met you.” He sighed across the table at me. “So I’m going to be restrained this time and take you home to sleep at your flat, and kiss you goodnight at the door, and wait for you to tell me otherwise.” He signaled the server for the bill. “You ready to go?”

I giggled at the image that popped into my head.

“Are you laughing at me, Miss Bennett? Please do share.”

“I am picturing you wanting to spank me, Mr. Blackstone, yet playing the restrained gentleman that merely kisses me goodnight at my door.”

He groaned and shifted his legs in the chair, no doubt rearranging a furious hard-on I am sure. “You’ll have witnessed a miracle tonight if my car actually manages to make it to your street.”

Ethan kept his word. He did say goodnight at my door. Granted he’d taken a few liberties with his hands and I’d gotten a very good impression of what he sported behind his fly, but he’d left me like he had promised after some very thorough kisses.

I got ready for bed after a hot shower and pulled on my softest sleeping tee. It had Jimi Hendrix on the front, the picture where he is in a garden at a table set for tea; considered the last photograph of him ever taken. I loved stuff like that, and I loved Jimi so it got a lot of use.

Deciding it was time to do a little recon on my boyfriend, I fired up my laptop right in the middle of my bed and Googled the name I’d read on his driver’s license when he’d showed it to me: Ethan James Blackstone.

Not a ton really came up for him. He had a Wikipedia page and some links for Blackstone Security’s website. Wikipedia was a surprise though. Ethan was known mostly for his celebrity as a poker player for high limit games. He’d won a world tournament in Las Vegas about six years back at the impressive age of only twenty-six. A lot of money. Enough money to start a business. And with his military background in the Special Forces he must have found his niche. So that made him about thirty-two now. I did the math. Almost eight years older than me.