Commanding Her Trust

by Lili Valente

  The first time had been a mistake. A loss of control that couldn’t happen again.

  “But I don’t think that would be healthy for either one of us,” he continued. “We’ve got a lot of history, Erin. You should have a Dom who can provide for your unique needs and I’ve got too many of my own.”

  “Like the driving desire to modify my tattoo,” she said, sadness in her eyes.

  “Like that.” He swallowed the bitter taste that rose in his throat. “And the fact that I’ve never had a full-time sub and don’t plan on getting into something like that any time soon. Especially not with a woman who doesn’t seem committed to being a submissive.”

  She blinked. “Doesn’t seem committed? I lived it. For years.”

  He shrugged. “From what I’ve seen, you’re a pushy bottom.”

  “What?” A ragged laugh burst from her lips.

  “From the second we started this, you’ve been trying to take control. You’ve questioned and resisted a lot, even for a woman with a new partner,” he said, trying to make it clear he wasn’t criticizing her, just sharing his opinion. “You try to top from the bottom, and in a real scene, I wouldn’t tolerate that. If the woman I’m with wants to be dominated, then that’s what I’m going to do. That’s who I am. I can’t turn it on and off and I wouldn’t want to.”

  She pressed her lips together, a frown tightening the skin around her eyes before she relaxed with a sigh and weary shake of her head. “You know what? Maybe you’re right.”

  His brows crept up his forehead. “Three words a man doesn’t hear very often from a woman.”

  “Even a Dominant man? I’d think you’d get that all the time.” She wrapped her arms around herself, shivering as a gust of cold wind blew in the open car door. “But you are. Right, I mean. I’m not sure I’m ready to sub right now. I don’t think I’m prepared to make that kind of commitment, even one of the ‘fun for a weekend’ variety. Especially with a man who cares so little about me that he won’t take no for an answer.”

  “Ouch,” he whispered, flinching at the pain in her voice.

  So he’d upset her? So what? She’d done her share to upset him in the past. He shouldn’t let her emotions affect him so deeply. But they did—he couldn’t seem to help himself.

  “Let me try to explain again,” he said, hoping she’d be able to understand if he opened up and gave her the real reason he needed to banish their matching ink from her skin. “I’ll be honest, I was pretty fucked up when you left.”

  He took a deep breath, wishing it didn’t turn him inside out to talk to her this way. But it did. He’d just have to suck it up and get it out as quickly as possible, show he was a true Dom—one as in touch with his own feelings as those of his submissive.

  “And I’ve stayed a little fucked up,” he confessed “I loved you like I’d never loved anyone. It hurt to lose you, and looking at this tattoo every day hasn’t gotten any easier, especially not when you’ve used yours as a hook to get modeling work.”

  “Believe me, Blake, I get it. And I’m sorry this is painful for you.” Erin took his hand, her grip strong, though her hand looked almost child-sized compared to his own. “If I didn’t really believe I needed this tattoo to get work, I would do what you’re asking me to do. But I do believe it, and there are other people depending on me and…I just can’t risk it. Not now.”

  “What other people?” he asked, his free hand balling into a fist at his side, itching to defend her before he even knew the facts of her situation. “A boyfriend? Your ex-husband? Is he after you for money?”

  “People I don’t want to talk about right now,” she said, making it clear that was the end of it. “So are you going to take me home or are we going up to this cabin?”

  His jaw clenched. “We’re going to the cabin.”

  “Fine,” she said, the tightness in her voice making it clear she understood he meant to continue as he’d planned. That he’d modify her tat whether she liked it or not. Still, she took his decision like more of a true submissive than he’d given her credit for.

  “Then let’s get going, I’m cold.” She released his hand and half stood up, climbing into the passenger seat as he opened the driver’s door.

  Neither of them said a word as he started the car and moved it back onto the road, but Blake made a promise to himself as he drove. He was going to treat Erin with the utmost respect and care, making sure she had nothing to complain about until Sunday afternoon.

  Maybe, if he showed her that not all men were pigs and not all Doms bastards who couldn’t control their own cock, let alone another’s life or pleasure, she would change her mind. Maybe they could get through this together without either of them being hurt.

  Of course, that would be more easily accomplished if he kept his dick in his pants.

  Good luck with that, buddy.

  Blake gritted his teeth, determined to get control and retain control for the rest of the weekend. He was a man who prided himself on the ability to restrain himself and command others. Surely he could resist giving into temptation.

  Especially if he suspected that temptation would get him in even hotter water than he was in already.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Erin

  Erin watched Blake turn onto the narrow road leading up to his cabin with a strange mix of anticipation and dread.

  The anticipation, of course, was pretty easy to understand. No matter what Blake had said about a continued sexual relationship being a bad idea, she had no doubt she’d be able to change his mind. He wanted her—badly. It was clear in every heated glance he shot her way, in the tense lines of his body as he guided the car along the twisting mountain roads.

  A quickie against the side of his car wasn’t going to be enough.

  He was going to start jonesing for more than a friendly chat over a few beers and, when that happened, she would be ready to take advantage of the situation. She hadn’t had sex in almost two years and she’d never experienced anything close to the pleasure Blake had given her. But that wasn’t why she had to risk the emotional fallout that could result from getting too close to this man who still had the ability to affect her like no other. She had to get close to Blake for one reason and one reason only—to gain her freedom.

  The man still cared about her. His hurt and longing had been painfully obvious when he’d explained why he needed to modify her tattoo. That care was going to be her ticket out of this cabin with her angel looking exactly the way it had since she was sixteen years old. A little sex, a little submission, and a little conversation between two old friends and Blake would be convinced he had to let her go. He wouldn’t be able to force her to do anything if he was falling in love with her again.

  And that was where the dread came in.

  She’d already hurt him once. What would he do when he found out she had been faking some lovey-dovey act to gain her freedom?

  Nothing. Because you’ll tell him you’ll go to the police.

  “We’ll be there in a few minutes. You’ll want to put your shoes on,” Blake said softly, as if he were loathe to break the comfortable silence that had fallen between them.

  Erin leaned over and began strapping herself into her heels, ignoring the little thrill obeying even his smallest request gave her.

  Blake was wrong. She wasn’t a pushy bottom. She lived for the freedom of giving herself to a man who could handle her, and had never had any urge to dominate. She wasn’t a switch, she was a sub, through and through. But now wasn’t the time or the place and Blake certainly wasn’t the man.

  It wasn’t just her history with Scott that made it hard to let go. Knowing what Blake had in mind for this weekend didn’t help matters any. She couldn’t afford to abandon herself to him completely, not when the one thing he most wanted to demand of her was something she couldn’t give.

  The tattoo had to stay looking exactly as it always had if she wanted to get back into modeling for Damned Naughty Lingerie. And she had to get back into mod
eling. Tending bar at The Elbow Room was never going to make her enough money to fight Scott in court, let alone provide for the future. Being a single mother was hard enough, but being a single mother in a city like L.A. was even harder. Everything cost more than it had when she was growing up in a small town, and she was going to need a sizeable income to make sure her daughter Abby never wanted for anything.

  Erin didn’t want to be dependent on Scott for a dime. She wanted sole custody of their daughter and preferably a restraining order keeping Scott at least ten miles away from them both at all times. Her ex had never hit her or the baby, but he was an emotionally abusive sociopath and the last man who should be entrusted with the care of a child. Especially an infant.

  It was enough to make her physically ill every time she thought about Abby going to sleep in the same house as that bastard. She had to get her daughter back, even if it meant fighting the man who had made the past two years of her life a living hell. Even if it meant risking Scott following through with his threats that he would do something awful to Abby before letting her be raised by “a whore like you, Erin.”

  Erin closed her eyes and swallowed hard, forcing away the memory of her ex’s voice screaming those words as he’d taken Abby away.

  She still didn’t know how he’d found them. She’d paid the rent for her new apartment in cash, and even given the landlord fake names. But still, Scott had somehow tracked her and their eleven-month-old down and made it very clear the lengths he would go to in order to maintain control over at least one of the girls in his life.

  “This is it,” Blake said as they turned the last corner and a small cabin came into view. “It’s not big, but it’s well insulated so we won’t freeze our asses off.”

  He was right, it wasn’t big, but even with nothing more than headlights and the porch light to view it by, Erin could see it was gorgeous. Beautiful redwood planks were accented with white trim, making the cabin look like something out of a fairy tale.

  “I don’t know about that. My ass is already half frozen,” Erin said, affecting a light tone. She had to focus, to stop thinking about Scott and Abby and focus on the immediate problem of getting away from Blake with her tattoo intact. “It would have been nice to know ahead of time I’d be visiting a winter climate. I could have brought my flannel pajamas.”

  “Hmmm, flannel pajamas. Sounds sexy.”

  “You have no idea,” Erin said, amazed at the tingle of awareness that swept over her skin simply from hearing Blake say the word “sexy.” A weekend spent seducing this man certainly wasn’t going to be a hardship. “They’re bright red with pirates and buried treasure on them. I think they’re technically supposed to be for little boys, but as soon as I saw them, I knew they had to be mine.”

  “I didn’t have the creativity to think of something that fasci-smashing,” he said, “but I did bring a few things for you to wear.”

  “Fasci-smashing?” She laughed, a real laugh that surprised her more than it should have. Blake had always been funny in his own, rather dry, way.

  “I think it’s a cross between fascinating and smashing.” He laughed, too, a little self-consciously. “It’s something my office manager says all the time. It was added to my vocabulary against my will.”

  “I don’t know what’s more disturbing, hearing you say a word like ‘fasci-smashing’ or learning you brought me clothes.” Erin watched Blake closely as he parked the car. “You thought this kidnapping thing through, didn’t you?”

  He was silent, but Erin deliberately refused to take the hint.

  “How long have you been planning to do this?” she pressed.

  “A few weeks,” he said, all humor vanishing from his tone.

  He was embarrassed, she could tell. He knew what he was doing was crazy.

  Hopefully that meant getting him to give up on this plan would be relatively easy.

  “Should I be freaked out? I mean, have you turned homicidal maniac on me in the past eight years?” she asked, a part of her thrilled to see Blake’s expression grow stormy.

  He was wrong about the pushy bottom thing. She didn’t want to have control, but she did like to test the man who thought he could top her. When she and Scott had first gotten together, it had been one of the things that he’d loved about her, that she didn’t make it easy for him and would only be a good little sub if he was in top form. Though honestly, that wasn’t often. Scott hadn’t had what it took to master her unless she dialed back the defiance. Still, he’d seemed to treasure their relationship, once upon a time.

  But oh, how quickly he’d stopped finding anything lovable about her once she’d gotten pregnant. She’d gone from an object of fascination to a thing of revulsion in less than a few weeks. Long before she’d begun to show, Scott confessed how revolting he found pregnant women, and that he doubted he’d ever be attracted to Erin again.

  It was ironic in the extreme, as Erin herself had never felt sexier than when she first found out she was going to have a baby. She’d spent those first few months both unbearably aroused and horribly hurt as she realized her husband no longer wanted anything to do with her—in the bedroom or out of it.

  “If you want to press charges against me when we leave,” Blake said, his deep voice rumbling through the car’s cabin. “I won’t do anything to stop you. If that’s what you’re wondering.”

  “So you won’t kill me and bury my body in the woods?” Erin tried to laugh, but she suddenly wasn’t finding the situation funny.

  No matter how well she had once known Blake, she didn’t know shit about him now. After all, she’d once believed Scott was her Dom in shining black leather, the man she’d be with for the rest of her life. When they’d first married, she couldn’t have imagined how quickly her devoted husband would become a monster she despised.

  Even if she were right and Blake did still love her, who was to say he didn’t have the same capacity for cruelty?

  If so, it would certainly prove that she should never date again. Her taste in men was decidedly lethal.

  “Look at me,” Blake said, waiting patiently until she did so. “I would never hurt you. Do you believe I’m telling the truth?”

  Erin looked deep into his dark brown eyes, the eyes of the first boy she had ever loved, of the best friend she’d regretted losing for eight years. And for a moment, she was fourteen again—lost and afraid after the foster mom she’d loved so much had died and she’d been placed with a monster. The only way she had survived was by putting on her best tough-girl act and pretending she didn’t feel like she was about to shatter into a million pieces. Blake’s eyes, and the kind, loving boy they belonged to, were the only things that had gotten her through the day.

  No matter what madness had made him formulate this plan to alter her tattoo, deep down, Blake was still that boy. He would still die before he hurt her, still risk the fists of their foster father or worse to keep her safe. She truly believed that.

  “I believe you,” Erin whispered, willing the tears she felt pricking at the backs of her eyes not to fall. She wasn’t going to cry over old memories. The past was the past. She had to concentrate on the future and her little girl. Nothing else mattered.

  “Good.” Blake held her gaze, looking near to tears himself, but then a smile spread across his face, making her think she had imagined that moment of vulnerability. “Then let’s get inside and I’ll find something to cover that frozen ass of yours.”

  As he exited the vehicle, Erin did her best to pull herself together and figure out the first step in her plan. She believed that Blake didn’t want to harm her, but he was still dead set on accomplishing the mission he’d set for himself. And Blake was nothing if not stubborn. It was going to take some intensive persuasive efforts to convince him to change his mind, and she didn’t have a lot of time. It was already nearly Saturday morning and she only had until Sunday afternoon.

  She was going to have to launch operation Sex Blake Into Forgetting He Owns a Tattoo Gun as soon as
possible.

  Guess there was no time like the present…

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Erin

  Erin watched Blake walk around the car and grab a large suitcase from the back before she opened her own door and stepped out into the cold night.

  “Shit!” She squealed and ran as fast as her high-heeled feet could carry her to the door of the cabin.

  It was freezing up on the mountaintop. The wind cut through what few clothes she was wearing, making her feel like she was naked in a snowstorm.

  As soon as Blake opened the door to the cabin, she dashed inside, grateful that the heat was already running. If it had been this cold when she and Blake had pulled over for their quickie, even nearly two years without sex wouldn’t have been enough to convince her to bang out in the elements.

  But it was for the best that they’d broken the ice. He’d already let his guard down and done something he’d freely admitted he hadn’t intended to do.

  Now it would only take a little push to get them back in bed together.

  If the cabin had a bed…

  “This is gorgeous,” Erin said, covertly scanning the small space as Blake went around turning on lights and cranking up the heat.

  Just inside the entrance, there was a small kitchen that opened out into a living area. A comfy-looking sectional filled nearly every inch of the carpet, angled so that it faced both the fireplace in the corner and the floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out across a valley and the dark face of another mountain. It seemed the cabin was built right on the side of a cliff, which would usually have been enough to give her a case of the shakes. She wasn’t a big fan of heights, but for some reason she felt safe here.

  It was Blake. He had a way of making her feel safe, apparently even when he was the thing she had to be afraid of.

  “Thanks. I designed it with the help of a friend of mine.” He finished with the lights and came back to fetch the suitcase he’d left by the door. “The bedrooms are upstairs.”