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“I know I do.” He pulled my chin toward his mouth with a fingertip and kissed me again. This time he nibbled my bottom lip and teased it. “That’s why we’re taking it slow. I don’t ever want to scare you.” His eyes moved quickly back and forth as he tried to read me, his lips so close but not touching. “Do you realize this is our first time together where I didn’t have to coerce you to come out with me? I have some hope, you see?” He gave me one last kiss before he pulled back to put the keys in the ignition. “And that, Miss Bennett, must be why I am smiley.” His blue eyes danced now.
“Fair enough, Mr. Blackstone, I can live with that.” He helped me click my seat belt and drove out of the parking lot. I settled back into the soft leather and breathed in his scent, allowing him to take me off to somewhere, and for the moment trusting that everything would be okay.
~*~
“Dr. Roswell seems very capable,” Ethan said casually as he refilled my wine, “how long have you been her patient?”
I met his eyes and braced myself. Here it comes, now how will you deal with it? I told myself to breathe. “Nearly four years. Since I moved here.”
“Did you go to see her today because of what’s been happening with me?”
“If you mean going home with a complete stranger and letting him fuck me whenever we meet? Yeah, that’s part of it.” I took another gulp of wine.
His jaw ticked but his expression did not change for the next question. “And leaving me in the middle of the night—is that part of it too?”
My head went down and I nodded. It was the best I could do.
“What hurt you, Brynne?” He asked the question so gently I actually considered telling him for a second, but I was nowhere near ready.
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 fucking 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.”
