by Lili Valente
Table of Contents
Title Page
All Rights Reserved
Dedication
ABOUT THE BOOK
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Acknowledgements
About the Author
CLAIMING HER HEART
COMMANDING HER TRUST
Under His Command: Book Two
By Lili Valente
All Rights Reserved
Copyright Commanding Her Trust © 2015 Lili Valente
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. This erotic romance is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners. This ebook is licensed for your personal use only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with, especially if you enjoy hot, sexy, emotional novels featuring Dominant alpha males. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work. This book was previously published as Skin Deep by Anna J. Evans in 2009. It has been extensively revised and reworked before being re-released in serial romance format. Cover design by Violet Duke. Editorial services provided by Leone Editorial.
Dedicated to my early readers.
Thank you for your time, enthusiasm, and all around awesomeness.
All my love!
ABOUT THE BOOK
COMMANDING HER TRUST
Under His Command Book Two
*Warning: This book features a Dominant alpha man who will push your boundaries until you beg for more. Read at your own risk.*
Blake Roberts is falling hard for his old flame and won’t stop until Erin is his. He doesn’t simply want her body; he wants her submission, her abandon, and the wounded heart she’s trying so hard to hide.
He wants all of her and he’s pulling out all the stops—in the bedroom and out—until she surrenders.
For Erin, what started as a charade has become all too real. She’s never experienced anything like the savage bliss she’s discovered in Blake’s arms. He tests her, dominates her, and if she doesn’t gain her freedom, soon he’ll own her—body and soul.
She has to escape even if running from Blake feels like running from the only home she’s ever known.
Cliffhanger Alert: This steamy read ends in a cliffhanger. If you don't like being teased, steer clear. The entire UNDER HIS COMMAND series, Erin and Blake's complete love story, will publish in February and March of 2015.
CHAPTER ONE
Blake
Blake watched the ancient pickup pull off onto the gravel at the road’s edge and ran faster, determined to catch Erin before she got inside.
Before she took her life in her hands trying to get away from him.
It could be anyone in that truck. Some mountain man who hadn’t seen a naked woman in years, a couple of drunk teenagers who would take turns raping the woman they’d picked up on the side of the road before dropping her off on the streets of San Bernardino. Or there could be a bona fide psychopath driving the vehicle: a man who would have his fun with Erin and then kill her, dumping her body in the surrounding wilderness where it might never be found.
Or maybe the driver is a nice grandmotherly type who will buy Erin some clothes before taking her to the police station to file a report against the man who kidnapped her.
Ahead of him, Erin ground to a stop, heels skidding across the asphalt.
“Help me, please, I…” She trailed off as an obese man in tattered overalls leveraged his considerable bulk out of the driver’s side of the vehicle.
“You need help, darlin’?” He lurched forward, weaving his way toward the front of the truck, pursuing Erin as she backed away. “Happy to help a pretty thing like you.”
Despite the chances of being convicted of a felony, a part of Blake wished it had been a sweet granny in the truck. Now he was probably going to come to blows with a man, who looked like an extra from Deliverance, to keep Erin safe. And he had a witness who might report what he’d seen to the authorities.
Not that it really mattered. If Erin decided she wanted to press charges, he wouldn’t try to stop her. Despite what the voices in his head had been telling him lately, he wasn’t a psychopath.
At least not yet. If this drunk did anything to Erin, however, he was going to lose what was left of his sanity in a memorable fashion.
“No one needs help.” Blake’s teeth ground together and something in his jaw popped as he watched one of the man’s meaty hands reach toward Erin’s chest. “Get back in your truck.”
“I wasn’t talking to you, asshole,” the man said, still leering at Erin. “Come here, sugar and let me keep you warm.”
“Get back in your truck,” Blake repeated as his fingers closed around Erin’s elbow. He pulled her behind him, shielding her nakedness with his body.
“Fuck off,” Overalls said, beady eyes narrowing on Blake’s face. “The lady asked for my help.”
Blake cursed himself. Why had he told Erin to take off her shirt before getting out of the car? She was irresistible enough clothed.
Of course, he hadn’t thought anyone else would see her. It was the middle of the night, for God’s sake, and most people knew better than to try to navigate the treacherous mountain roads after dark, especially after hitting the bottle. But he could smell the whiskey on this character from three feet away.
Which gave him an idea…
“All right, don’t get back in your truck,” he said with a shrug. “I can smell the alcohol on your breath from here. And I doubt this will be your first DUI. Put your hands on the hood.”
Blake heard Erin suck in a breath behind him as she caught on to what he was doing.
“I’m taking this one in for attempted prostitution,” he added, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder. “It won’t be any trouble to haul you into the station at the same time. I’ll get her cuffed in the backseat and come back with some cuffs for you, Mr.…”
“Uh um…Beam. Walter Beam,” the man said, backing toward the door to the battered pickup. “But I haven’t been drinking, officer. I swear.”
“Great. You can prove it when I get back with the Breathalyzer.” Blake turned around, urging Erin in front of him, whispering as he went, “Get in the backseat.”
“Prostitution?” she hissed, though she seemed relieved to have escaped “Mr. Beam’s” attentions.
Mr. Beam. It didn’t take much imagination to guess Beam was the brand of whiskey he’d been drinking, not the name on his license.
“Do I look like a prostitute?”
<
br /> “I don’t know. What does a prostitute look like?” Blake asked, not surprised to hear the pickup roar to life behind him and tires squeal as “Mr. Beam” took off down the mountain like a bat out of hell.
“I don’t know, you’re the one who lives in Vegas,” she said, shivering as he opened the Expedition’s door and urged her inside. “That was a sad cop act, by the way. I thought you had your own television show. I expected better than ‘haul you into the station.’ ”
“It was a reality show. I just had to be myself, not act like anyone else.” Blake reached into the front for Erin’s bra and shirt and tossed them into her lap. “Put those on and don’t run away from me again. You could have been seriously hurt.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” The car’s overhead light illuminated Erin’s face, revealing the flush that heated her cheeks. “I could have been hurt?”
“What do you think Walter would have done to you?”
“I don’t know,” she said, with a frustrated huff. “Taken me back to town?”
Blake tipped his head. “Maybe, but not before he took advantage.”
“Took advantage?” She laughed as she finished up with her bra, but her hands were shaking as she reached for her shirt. “He might have copped a feel. At most.”
“He might have raped you,” Blake said, anger making his voice even deeper.
“He might have tried,” she said, returning his glare, making it clear she wasn’t scared of his angry voice. “But I can take care of myself, Blake. In case you don’t remember.”
“Then why didn’t you get in the truck with him?” he challenged. “If you were so sure he was a safe bet?”
“I guess I didn’t want to see what you’d do to the poor guy if I did,” she said, her eyes glittering in the dim light. “I mean, you’re the person who’s kidnapping a woman so he can make permanent alterations to her body. And you used to love me. Who knows what you might have done to some man you don’t even know?”
The bravado in her tone made him sure she was simply reaching for the words that would hurt him the most, but they still cut deep. The way she’d known they would. She wasn’t stupid, his Erin. Volatile, emotional, and often too impulsive for her own good, but never stupid.
“I did love you. Enough to believe everything you said to me the night before you ran away,” Blake said, careful to keep the emotion out of his voice. “And I don’t hate you now. I hope you know that. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Tattooing someone against their will is bound to hurt,” she said, her voice still hard, though he’d seen the flash of guilt on her face when he’d mentioned the night she’d fled Carson City. “Literally hurt, and probably do a pretty decent job of destroying any trust you’ve built with the woman you fucked against the hood of your car.”
“Trust,” he echoed, letting the word linger between them. “Is that what this is about? You regret letting me dominate you?”
Erin’s eyes dropped to her fingers and she suddenly seemed very interested in the workings of the buttons on her shirt.
“Answer me,” he insisted. “Do you regret what we did?”
She sucked in a deep breath and let it out on a sigh. “No,” she mumbled, still not looking him in the eye.
“Then why did you run after we finished?” he asked, certain he was on to something. This wasn’t about her trying to get away from him because she was afraid or didn’t want her tat modified. It was about the power games they’d begun to play, the amount of trust she’d given him so readily.
The trust that had floored him, aroused him, and come closer to softening the walls he’d built around his heart than anything had. Anything or anyone, even Erin herself eight years ago. If he were a smart man, he’d turn the car around and take her back to Los Angeles right now.
No amount of ink modification was going to give him peace if he let Erin get under his skin again.
Too bad he was an idiot where this woman was concerned.
“Finished,” she said, hurt clear in her tone. “That’s a nice way to put it.”
“I’m sorry. What do you want me to say?” Blake asked, ignoring the tightness that gripped his throat. “After we had sex?”
“Fucked would be fine. That’s all it was, right?” She looked up, her face carefully blank. “A little fucking between friends?”
She was hurting, that was obvious—he wasn’t fooled by her controlled expression. But how much of that pain had to do with what he’d done and how much was the result of her obviously troubled past, he couldn’t say. But he could apologize, and try to make things as right between them as he could before they were holed up alone together for forty-eight hours.
“It was more than that. You know it, and so do I,” he said. “I’m sorry if what we shared left you feeling confused, but you can’t tell me you didn’t enjoy it. Or that you didn’t need it.”
“You know nothing about what I need.”
Blake sighed, recognizing her defiance for what it was, a mask for the fear many submissives felt when starting a relationship with someone new. He certainly hadn’t meant to “start” anything or inspire those kinds of feelings in Erin, but now he had no choice but to deal with them.
“Listen, it’s natural to be anxious about giving yourself over to another person, even if that person is someone you used to know very well,” he said, keeping his tone soft and reassuring. He wanted her to know she was safe, that he wouldn’t abuse her trust, and all his cards were on the table. “Especially if you’ve been in a relationship where you’ve been taken advantage of.”
Erin tilted her head back, lifting her face to his, staring deep into his eyes without a trace of fear or deference. At that moment, she was the least submissive woman he’d ever seen. If he hadn’t experienced dominating her himself and seen how she reveled in being controlled, he never would have believed she was the type who enjoyed the lifestyle.
“You don’t know anything about my former relationship, and you don’t know anything about me,” she said, every word clipped and deliberate. “Not anymore. So don’t pretend you do. Just because we had sex, it doesn’t give you the right to psychoanalyze me. I’m not some pathetic sub who needs someone else to tell me how I’m feeling.”
Blake stared into her big brown and gold eyes, seeing so much more than Erin realized. “Is that what he taught you? That to submit is weak and contemptible?”
Without meaning to, he found himself cupping her cheek in his hand, then sliding his fingers into her impossibly soft hair.
God, how many times had he dreamed of feeling that hair falling around his face as he kissed this woman again? And here she was, so close, but still so incredibly far away.
She was everything he craved, but as forbidden as she’d been years ago when they’d both been too young to realize even true love could vanish in the blink of an eye.
CHAPTER TWO
Blake
Erin’s lips parted and her breath came faster, but she didn’t say a word. She only watched him, like he was a circus performer about to do some fascinating trick, while Blake prayed he could live up to the expectation in his woman’s eyes.
His woman.
There was that thought again, that sense of ownership that felt so natural, but would never be anything but wrong.
“In a real Dominant and submissive relationship, the submissive is an incredibly strong person,” he said, hoping she could tell how strong he’d always believed her to be. “Sometimes even stronger than her Dom, depending on how much experience he has.”
“Really?” Doubt and sarcasm warred with the genuine curiosity in her tone.
“Just think about it. What requires more discipline, giving someone orders or giving up control?” He leaned closer to her lips, unable to resist. “Trusting someone else to guide you, exploring the boundaries of your capacity for pleasure and pain, giving the gift of your will, of yourself to another person…that’s pretty amazing stuff. I don’t know that I could do it.”
“Call me crazy, but I don’t think that’s your thing.” She smiled, a tiny, genuine twist of her lips that made him inexplicably happy.
“Are you calling me a big bad Dom again?” He laughed and she joined in, the puff of her breath against his lips reviving the desire that had haunted him since the second he saw her dancing on that bar in Pasadena.
“I call ’em like I see ’em,” she said, tongue slipping out to dampen her lips. “Though I have to admit, I was surprised.”
“You and me both. I never thought… Certainly never expected…” Blake took a deep breath and forced himself to pull away. He couldn’t stay like this, with his hand buried in her hair and his lips inches from hers, and not take this encounter to the next level.
He stepped back, crossing his arms, concentrating on the feel of the cold wind cutting through the fabric of his sweater. “I want you to know I never planned for there to be anything sexual about this. I expected we’d come up here, have a few beers and a few laughs, I’d modify your tat, and we’d part as friends.”
“Or that I would say no to having the tat modified, you’d hold me captive and modify it whether I liked it or not, and we’d part as enemies,” she said, a hint of humor in her tone that made this journey seem even more surreal.
And he hadn’t thought it possible.
“I admit that option crossed my mind,” he said. “But either way, there wasn’t any sex involved. I can promise you that.”
“But there definitely is now. So…” She let her words trail off as she stared at him, an unspoken challenge in her eyes that Blake knew he couldn’t take her up on. Not if he wanted to keep what was left of his head.
“Don’t think I’m not tempted. I’d love to show you what you’ve been missing,” he said, his breath coming faster as he watched her nipples bead tightly beneath her shirt.
Damn, he wanted to get those tits in his mouth and suck them until she writhed beneath him, begging him to take her, fuck her, possess her. But he couldn’t.