Chapter 10: CONNOR

Fuck she owns me. How the fuck did that happen, and so effortlessly too? Just a look and a smile, and she'd hooked me. Shit was more dangerous than flying mortar. I have to admit that even though I've been in some tight spots before where my life was threatened.

I don't think any of them scared me as much as sitting here at this table looking at everything I always wanted and never knew I did and praying not to fuck it up.

***

After dinner, we cleaned up together and then had coffee. There was something plaguing me as we sat there. Something that I'd never asked another woman in my life. I never cared truth be known, but with her, I needed to know.

"We need to talk, but we're not doing it in here; let's step outside." She followed me out the door to the backyard. Standing in front of her, it hit home just how small she really was compared to me.

Last night when I'd been fucking her, her small stature had been the last thing on my mind. Now looking down at her so tiny and fragile looking, it hit home for the first time what it really meant to have a woman that you wanted for your own. How much more vulnerable she seemed.

How can I protect her always? Did all men have these questions? I'll have to take that out and look at it later. There was no point in asking one of the others because they'd never been here before either; I'm the first to wade into these waters.

"Who had you?"

"What?" She took a step back. I could see that my question had thrown her, but I wasn't about to let up. I needed to know.

"Last night when I took you, you weren't a virgin. Not that I expected it of a twenty-five-year-old woman but I need to know." Just saying that shit fucked with my head. It was completely irrational, but I didn't give half a fuck I needed to know.

"It was um, Robert, my ex-fiancé." I could sense her discomfort, and for the life of me, I couldn't figure out why this shit should matter, but it just did.

"How ex is ex?"

"Um, I broke up with him the day after we first met." That went right through me. That was sweet as fuck and said a lot, but I'll have to come back to that later.

"Why?" I took a step closer to her taking her chin in my hand.

"Why?"

"Yes; why did you break up with him the day after you first met me?"

"You know why." Her face started to blush, but I pushed on.

"Tell me." I held her eyes with mine reading the truth of her words there.

"Um, because I knew I wasn't in love with him and that it wouldn't be fair."

"Good girl."

"Why did we have to come out here to talk?"

"Because I don't want talk of another man in my house, scratch that in our home. You don't have any dealings with him ever again."

"Connor."

"That's dead, not up for discussion he had you. I don't want to ever hear his name pass your lips again; we clear?"

She swallowed hard and stared at me like I'd lost my mind. I very well might have, but that's what's inside of me. The thought of that fucker, whoever he is, even breathing the same air as her fucked with my head. There's no way I'd ever believe that he wouldn't always want her.

The fact that she'd been the one to break things off told me that he probably wasn't completely out of the picture. I wouldn't believe that he wouldn't want her back. Knowing what I do now, how sweet she is, how she feels under me, around me, no fucking way.

I wanted to know everything about their relationship. How long it had lasted, who'd approached who? But I didn't want to freak her out any more than I probably already had with my dominating ways; she'd find out soon enough.

"Were there any others?" The fuck Connor, what's with you? She's a grown woman. She wasn't sitting on a shelf somewhere waiting for your ass to come along. Doesn't matter; I need to know.

"No." She turned bright red and looked at the ground. I wasn't sure if that was worst or not. I took it in and decided to drop it for now. This shit would drive me nuts if I dwelt on it too much tonight. We were too new, still at that learning stage, and I'm sure there were going to be many things from her past that I'd try to erase.

I'm territorial like that, so the fuck what? I know my thinking was off, I wasn't a virgin last night either and I can't remember ever feeling this possessive of a woman before.

But with her, it was as if something inside me, something that had been hidden there, had reared its head. The need to own her, to completely take her over in every way, was strong. I look at her, and all I think is 'mine' all fucking mine. "Let's go on inside; it's getting chilly out here."