Commanding Her Trust Read Online Free Page A

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.”
    Erin followed him, finally noticing the circular staircase that was hidden behind the bathroom to their right. Blake had no trouble navigating the narrow stairs, even with his bulk and carrying a large suitcase, but Erin stumbled twice in her heels. She told herself it was just her normal klutziness coming through, but the truth was, she was nervous.
    Touching herself in a dark car or succumbing to maddening lust and leaping out for a quickie on the side of the road was one thing. But starting something from nothing, especially with a man who suddenly seemed all business, was something else entirely.
    “Hope you don’t mind, but I’m going to give you the smaller room,” he said, tossing a friendly smile over his shoulder. “It has a view of the gorge, and you’ll have to come through my room if you decide to make a break for it in the middle of the night,”
    “And I suppose you still sleep light,” she said, finding the situation oddly amusing.
    “I wake up if a pinecone drops outside,” he said, tramping through a masculine master bedroom, into a bathroom, and through another door to a second bedroom decorated in deep pinks and bright greens.
    Those had been her favorite colors in high school, and for a second Erin wondered if Blake had remembered.
    “My interior decorator made all the decisions for the furniture and fabrics.” He sat the suitcase down on the floral bedspread and opened it. “Hope this isn’t too girly for you. I know you’re not a big fan of flowers.”
    “No, it’s beautiful,” she murmured, pushing aside her childish disappointment that Blake hadn’t remembered the preferences of her teenaged self. “It’s much nicer than what I’ve got on the bed at my apartment. Watch out or I might steal the bedspread when we leave.”
    “You can have it,” he said, turning to her with a serious expression. “You can have the entire cabin and the fifteen grand I’ve got in the glove compartment. All I want to do is work on that tat.”
    Erin sighed, tempted for a moment. Fifteen grand would pay for a lot of legal advice and having a rent-free place to live would certainly jump-start her and Abby’s new life. But for some reason she couldn’t bring herself to take Blake up on his offer. She’d meant what she’d said in the car—she believed the tattoo was vital to resuscitating her flagging career—but there was more to her reluctance than that.
    The tattoo meant something to her, always had and always would. It reminded her of a time when she’d felt truly loved, like the most important thing in the world to one boy.
    “Come on, Erin,” Blake urged as if sensing her hesitation. “Don’t make me use force.”
    “But you’re a Dom, right?” she teased. “Don’t you enjoy using force?”
    It was now or never, time to get Blake thinking about her skin in a way that had nothing to do with ink. Holding his dark eyes, she moved her hands to her shirt, slowly working open the buttons, one by one.
    “What