by Lili Valente
“Yes, sir.” Erin smiled and made a show of leaping out of the bed and scrambling into her jeans, making Blake laugh before he headed down the stairs.
As soon as he was gone, however, she felt her spirits deflate and sank back down onto the bed.
The fact that he’d so easily understood what had been a huge point of contention early in her marriage to Scott only made her more anxious. Blake really was the man she’d been dreaming about, the type of Dom who understood that being in control of a submissive didn’t mean taking charge of every aspect of her life. She knew he’d never try to make her sign the kind of contract Scott had, the one that gave the Dominant partner control over his submissive’s finances as well as everything else.
Men like Blake didn’t need that kind of stranglehold on another person to feel powerful.
“Right, and how stupid is he going to think you are for signing something like that in the first place?” Erin dropped her face into her hands.
When had this weekend become so complicated? She certainly had a gift for getting herself into impossible situations.
This isn’t impossible, just impractical and crazy and doomed from the start.
Damned inner voice. No sense in sitting around listening to it prophesy certain disaster.
Erin stood and shrugged on the long-sleeved tee and sweater—which was one hundred percent angora from Neiman Marcus, so her expensive vibes had been right on the money—and headed into the bathroom to try to do something with her hair. She worked a little of Blake’s gel through the still damp curls and then dug through her purse for lipstick and mascara. She wanted to look pretty for Blake, to relax and enjoy the rest of their time at the cabin together, but she knew she had to come clean sooner or later.
There was no point in stressing out about what he would think of her stupider decisions, or foretelling the end of their relationship before they’d even gotten started on their second chance. She needed to talk to him, tell him everything, and let him make his own decisions about what he could or couldn’t deal with in a woman he was dating.
Dating.
It was a strange word to think of in conjunction with her and Blake. They weren’t dating kind of people. Their relationship was already too intense for such a casual term. After only a day, she couldn’t breathe as easily when he wasn’t in the room. Blake could quickly become a person she depended on, someone she needed as much as she needed anything in the world.
Dangerous, scary thoughts there, Erin.
“Well, life can be scary. And not everything worth having is easy,” she said to her reflection as she coated her lashes with dark brown mascara.
That’s what you said about Scott. Look how that turned out.
“Oh, shut up. Just shut up.” Erin threw her mascara back into her purse.
Great, now she was yelling at the voices in her head. She had to nip this in the bud.
Before she could talk herself out of it, Erin turned toward the stairs. She would go down to the kitchen and tell Blake everything. Right now. Before they ate tortellini, before she fell any more head over heels for him than she was already. Even if telling the truth meant she would lose him, at least she would know how this was going to end.
She couldn’t handle any more suspense. Suspense was one of her least favorite things, unless it was of the sexual variety.
She was nearly to the bottom of the stairs when she heard Blake talking and froze. For a moment, she thought someone else must have arrived at the cabin, but after a few seconds it became clear he was on the phone. She hadn’t seen a landline in any of the rooms, so it must be his cell. Which made her wonder if her own cell was getting reception.
Some smarty-pants she was. And here she’d thought that stellar grade on her GED and As in the classes she’d taken at the community college had meant something. But if she’d really been focused on getting out of here and away from her captor, checking her cell reception should have been the first thing she did the moment she was alone.
Of course, that was the problem. She hadn’t wanted to get away, not really. Not even when she’d run from Blake on the side of the road. Even as she’d run for the headlights coming around the corner, she’d wanted him to catch her.
“Yeah, I need a complete background check. I want to see what she’s been up to,” Blake said to the person at the other end of the line.
Background check? On her? Dear God, what did he think she’d been doing for the past eight years that required a background check? He was the one who had turned into a kidnapper.
“See if there’s any criminal record, and if so, what she was charged with.”
Oh. My. God.
Erin sagged against the stair railing.
Blake thought she was a criminal, and was making sure she wasn’t dangerous before he took things any further in their relationship. The lack of trust implied by the background check he’d just ordered was…staggering. She’d trusted him not to hurt her and submitted to him without question, even after he’d told her he intended to mark her body without her permission. And yet he was the one who felt the need to do a background check.
It didn’t just hurt her feelings; it made her angry.
Really angry. With Blake, but more importantly, with herself.
She should have known better. After years in a horrible Dom-sub relationship, she’d been ready to jump right back into another one in less than a day. It didn’t matter that Blake wasn’t a stranger and the first boy she’d ever loved, he was still a person she’d had no contact with for the past eight years. She should have insisted on moving forward slowly if they were going to move forward at all. Going to bed with your kidnapper hours after getting into his car and professing your love for him twenty-four hours later was insane. She obviously needed some kind of intensive therapy.
Which she was going to make sure she signed up for, as soon as she got the hell away from Blake Roberts.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Blake
Blake went ahead and chopped the tomatoes, garlic, and fresh basil himself. Erin was taking forever upstairs, but he didn’t want to rush her. She’d said something about wanting to fix her hair and makeup before dinner and he knew how long those girlish things could take. And even though he thought she was just as beautiful without makeup and with her hair in crazy curls, knowing she wanted to dress up just for him made him smile.
A lot.
Smiling and humming beneath his breath, he put the tortellini on to boil and fetched the pine nuts, fresh mozzarella, and baby green beans from the fridge.
Everything was working out amazingly well. This weekend was turning out to be one of the best of his entire life. He felt so comfortable with Erin. Spending time with her was like going home, to a real home. To that place of warmth and love and happiness neither one of them had ever known.
And the sex was…indescribable. He hadn’t realized he could come so hard, so often. She made him wild with a single look, the slightest touch. He could fuck her every day for the rest of his life and never get tired of feeling her body pressed against him. She was everything he’d ever dreamed of and everything he’d ever need. He knew he was crazy, but he was already thinking forever and wondering how long he’d have to wait before he asked her to move in with him.
Blake’s phone buzzed in his pocket. It was Rafe calling him back. It hadn’t been more than fifteen minutes since they hung up the first time, but his partner had some excellent sources. Rafe’s ability to get the dirt on just about anyone sometimes made Blake a little suspicious.
Rafe used to be a police officer before he quit to do the tattoo artist thing full-time, but sometimes it seemed too easy for him to find out the personal details of other people’s lives. Even police officers had to work to get access to things like juvenile arrests and medical records.
Especially medical records.
But when Rafe had discovered a girl Blake was casually dating was HIV-positive and hiding it from her lovers in order to convince t
hem to indulge her passion for blood play, Blake hadn’t asked questions. He hadn’t cared how Rafe had gotten the information; he’d just been glad to learn the truth before he’d put himself at risk.
The same was true now. Before he got in any deeper with Erin, he had to know what she was hiding and whether he could help her out of whatever trouble she was in. If not, he didn’t know if he could handle getting any closer to the woman upstairs. If she’d gotten herself into a bad situation beyond his control to remedy, it would drive him insane. He couldn’t deal with seeing her suffer and not being able to keep her safe.
“What did you find out?” Blake asked, keeping his voice low in case Erin made an appearance. Surely she was nearly ready by now and would be headed down the stairs any second.
“Nothing much. It’s like the woman dropped out of her life a few years ago,” Rafe said. “I found a couple of pictures from her wedding to this Scott Sack of Potatoes guy, but—”
“What?”
“Sakapatatis.” Rafe snorted. “No wonder Erin didn’t change her name. That has to be one of the least sexy last names I’ve ever heard. It would have been lingerie model suicide.”
Blake sighed and rolled his eyes. “So that’s it? Her ex has a lame last name? That’s all you found out?”
“No, that’s not all I found out. This is me you’re talking to.” Rafe sniffed, clearly offended. “She has a clean criminal record. Never even had an unpaid parking ticket, which probably wasn’t too hard considering she didn’t have a driver’s license until about two months ago.”
Blake frowned. “No driver’s license?”
“Not in California, and the Nevada license expired years ago.”
“That’s strange,” he muttered. Erin had always loved to drive his car and had been at the DMV the morning of her sixteenth birthday ready to test for her license.
“And it gets stranger, my friend,” Rafe said. “According to her and Sack of Potatoes’ tax records, she reported no income from the time she quit modeling until she started working at the bar. Absolutely nothing.”
Blake sighed. “Maybe he didn’t want her to work. From what I’ve heard, he sounds like the type.”
“Maybe. But he didn’t want her to spend, either.” Rafe paused and Blake heard the sound of computer keys clicking in the background. “Her name wasn’t on any of his four bank accounts and she didn’t have an account of her own. She didn’t even have a credit card. There’s no credit history on the chick for the past few years.”
Blake grunted, putting the pieces together before Rafe spoke again.
“Which probably means she’s flat-ass broke, brother. Unless she’s been stashing cash under her mattress or something.”
“What about the money she earned modeling?” Blake asked, turning down the heat on the tortellini. “What happened to that? She must have had an account before she was married.”
“She did,” Rafe said, irritation creeping into his tone. “But she closed it out before she hooked up with her husband. She’s broke, man. Like, two bad calls away from being on the street broke.”
“So what?” Blake snapped.
“So nothing! Don’t shoot the messenger, brother. If you want to sign on to be her sugar daddy, that’s your business.” He paused for a moment, but Blake could tell there was something still left unsaid.
“What aren’t you telling me?” Blake asked, trying to keep the frustration out of his voice as he poured the tortellini into the colander to drain. “I don’t have a lot of time right now, Rafe.”
His friend sighed. “Fine. She’s got a kid, okay. A baby.”
“What?” Blake dropped the pot into the sink with a clatter.
If Erin had a baby, who was taking care of him or her while she was up here with him? The thought of an infant, left with some babysitter, wondering where his or her mother was made his stomach bottom out.
“She’s eleven months old,” Rafe said. “Abigail Diana Sakapatatis. From what I can find, it seems like she’s living with Erin’s husband.”
“But he was abusive to Erin, I’m almost certain of it.”
Rafe made a considering sound. “Yeah, well, maybe she had to get out, you know, but couldn’t take the kid with her. If she has no money, she wouldn’t be equipped to—”
“No way.” Blake’s free hand balled into a fist. “She would never leave her child with someone like that. She just wouldn’t.”
“Listen, don’t freak out on me. I’m just telling you what I learned.” Rafe sighed, and Blake could tell he wasn’t going to like the next words out of his partner’s mouth. “And I’ll tell you something else, I think you’re crazy. You don’t know this woman anymore. She is not the same sweet little girl you fell in love with.”
“You don’t know anything about her.”
“No, but I do know a thing or two about you,” Rafe countered. “And I know that, beneath that big bad act, you’re a softie, man. You’re a prime target for a woman like her.”
“Choose your next words very carefully,” Blake warned.
“I’m not saying anything bad about your precious Erin,” the other man said, his eye roll audible in his tone. “I’m just saying she’s a woman who is clearly in trouble. Financial trouble and probably more, if this soon-to-be ex is as bad as you think.”
“Again, so what?”
Rafe drew in a calming breath, and when he spoke again, his voice was softer. “So help her if you want to help her, but don’t let yourself think you two are headed for couples-ville. She’s clearly in no place to start a relationship.”
“I’m going to hang up now.” Blake could barely force the words out through his clenched jaw. Rafe didn’t know what he was talking about. He’d never dated the same woman for more than a month at a time, what did he know about relationships?
“Fine,” Rafe said, tightly. “But when she uses you and leaves your ass a second time, don’t say I didn’t warn—”
Blake snapped the phone closed and threw it across the room to land on the couch. He shouldn’t have brought the damned thing. He hadn’t wanted any distractions when he came to the mountains. That’s why he hadn’t had a landline installed in the first place.
The last thing he’d needed was a dose of reality via Rafe, the biggest cynic in his personal acquaintance. Blake was the one whose mother had dumped him on his dad’s porch before he could even walk and never come back. Then his dad, the only adult who had ever made Blake feel safe and cared for, had died when he was ten and he’d been shuffled from shitty foster home to shittier foster home until he was eighteen.
Still, Rafe was the one who acted like life had betrayed him. Blake had never met the other man’s family, but they must be some pieces of work to make Rafe distrust people even more than he did.
“Erin? Are you about ready?” Blake shouted to be heard upstairs as he fished the wok out from the cupboard and dumped the tortellini and vegetables inside. “We’re about two minutes from pasta arrival.”
Silence. Not so much as the sound of footsteps crossing the floor or water running in the bathroom.
“Erin?” he called again.
Still nothing, the kind of nothing that made the hairs stand up on his arms and his throat grow tight. Blake set the wok on the stove but didn’t turn on the burner. Instead, he headed for the stairs, wiping his damp hands on his jeans as he went.
There had to be a logical explanation. Maybe she had found the iPod in his suitcase and was checking out his playlists. Erin had always loved to play her music loud and he doubted becoming a mom had changed that.
A mom. Erin was a mom.
A mom who had left her little girl with a potentially dangerous man. The knowledge all but killed the spark of pleasure the idea of meeting Erin’s daughter had inspired.
What could have driven her to make that kind of decision? Was she so traumatized by her marriage that she wanted out any way she could, even if that meant leaving her daughter behind? Maybe she’d wanted to take her baby wi
th her, but hadn’t had the money, as Rafe had suggested.
Or maybe she just hadn’t taken to being a parent the way he’d always thought she would.
They’d never really talked about kids in-depth, but even as a teenager Erin had seemed like the kind of woman who would grow up to be a great mother. The way she’d taken care of the younger foster kids in Phil’s house had always impressed him. She hadn’t just made sure they had something to eat or helped them with homework, she’d done her best to make them smile, to lessen the negative impact of living with Phil in her own small way.
Could she have changed so much in eight years?
Blake had to find out. She’d probably be pissed that he’d snooped around behind her back, but he intended to talk this through. Tonight.
He turned the corner, and his stomach dropped
“Erin?” He said her name one last time, even though the open window next to Erin’s bed assured him she wouldn’t be answering his call.
She was gone.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Erin
Erin burst out of the woods just as the sun was setting, painting the woods in soft rose light with dark blue shadows gathering beneath the trees.
Despite the cold mountain air, sweat dripped down the valley of her spine. Her face was scratched from fighting her way through the low-hanging limbs and her jeans were soaked through to the knee from wading through the snowdrifts. But at least she’d made it to the edge of the little town where she’d glimpsed lights shining the night before.
She hadn’t dared take the road. It would have taken too much time and Blake would have found her for sure. Even now, he might still find a way to stop her. He had to have realized she was gone and put two and two together to guess where she’d go now that she had her freedom. The town at the bottom of the ravine was the only sign of civilization, and the only place where she might find someone to help her.
“Or a bus station, if I’m lucky.” Erin took a deep breath and exhaled a puff of white. The temperature was falling fast.
