Nobody's Perfect (37 page)

Damián caged her chin as he forced her to look at him. Her eyesight was blurry from her tears—the first ones she'd let fall in so many years.

She tried to turn away, to hide them, but he wouldn't allow her to move. Confused, she blinked them away and focused on his warm, chocolate-brown eyes.

He smiled. "You were so strong for me. So brave."

A sob caught in her throat. She needed to stop crying. She didn't want to make him angry. Father beat her harder if she cried.

He wrapped his arms around her. "Let it out, bebé. Don't cage your tears. I think it's beautiful that you've let out some of those emotions this way."

He really wanted her to cry? Unable to contain the sobs as he released her ankles from the cuffs, she continued to sob as he removed them from her arms, as well. Damián swept her into his arms and carried her to the leather loveseat in the corner of the room. He returned her to her feet and quickly wrapped her in a soft blanket, and then he sat down and looked up at her.

Damián held his hand up to her. "Come. Sit on my lap,
mi sueño
."

Memories bubbled up of being forced to sit in her father's lap and endure his hands in places she didn't like being touched. She needed to get out of here.

No. This is Damián. He won't hurt me.

Chapter Fourteen

Damián saw the hesitation. He had hoped they'd progressed past her fear of him a bit, but apparently not.

He reached up and pulled her hand until she plopped into his lap, then wrapped his arms around her, holding her tightly against him. He heard her sniffle—sweetest sound he'd heard in a long time. They'd made some progress there, at least Long way to go, though. He'd worked with a lot of subs with abuse issues, but never one as disconnected from her body as Savi.

Savannah.

Would she ever be able to reclaim Savannah? He hoped so. He'd never been able to forget that sweet girl. He didn't get the impression she had a split personality, just that she wanted to keep the painful Savannah memories buried and to try and make a life for her and Marisol that wasn't touched by the horrors of the past.

A sob tore from her and he held her even tighter. "Shhh. I'm here,
bebé
. Just let it out. You're safe."

She hiccupped and released more tears. He'd done that for her. A feeling of accomplishment swept over him, like the rush he got hitting his target as a sniper or completing a long, hard mission in which he'd had to struggle. She'd kept so many things pent up inside for years, maybe even decades. He was pissed that any one of the memories she'd released to him had happened to her, much less all of them. Maybe they could make more progress today in releasing some of the emotional blocks shutting her down.

Time to work through more healing. He handed her a bottle of water. "Drink this—slowly." He waited about ten minutes, until she'd finished the bottle, and set it on the seat beside him.

"Now, what are you feeling, Savi?"

"Fine, Sir."

Maybe he needed to work on her listening skills. "I didn't ask
how
, but
what
. Let's start by you describing what you're feeling—and if you say fine again, I'll turn you over my knee until you stop feeling fine."

Her hand touched his Harley vest. "Okay, um, maybe fine isn't quite the right word, Sir."

When she didn't elaborate, he prompted, "What
is
the right word, Savi?"

She paused a long time, and then in a near whisper gave him what he was looking for. "Exposed. Vulnerable."

"Ah, two words, actually—and just what I would expect you to be feeling right now."

She shivered and he stroked her arm through the blanket.

"Damián, I don't know how to stop the memories or the tears now that they've started."

"You kept the lid on that bottle for a long time. A lot of pressure built up over the years. No way can you put the lid back on, especially not while it's exploding and spewing out those memories."

His words unleashed more tears. "That's my girl. Don't hold anything back." She sobbed against his chest and he tightened his hold on her. After the tears had slowed again, she sat up and pulled a couple tissues from the box next to them. She wiped her eyes, and then blew her nose. No sooner had she rested her head against his chest again than the tears began again.

"Oh, God, Sir. Why won't they stop bombarding me like this?" She hiccoughed between her next words. "I feel like…the tears…the flood of memories…will never end."

Damián knew what she was going through. When he had finally let the memories of the grenade explosion on the rooftop in Fallujah invade his waking thoughts, he hadn't been able to process the feelings of failure and loss. In a flash, mere seconds, Miller had bled out on top of him. Damián had been dismembered. Marc had been injured trying to save Damián's life. If Dad hadn't found Marc in time, no telling if another life would have been lost. Even Grant, who hadn't been injured physically, had been wounded psychologically by what she'd witnessed up there.

Damián had kept a lid on those memories as long as he could. They'd only seeped out in nightmares, soon dismissed after he awoke. But he'd only put them out of his mind a matter of months before being forced to talk with Dad and the shrinks about them. No slow buildup over years like Savi's repressed memories, but equally painful to deal with when they came out.

How could he help her the way his friends, Marc and Dad, had helped him?

"Savi, sometimes life bites us in the ass. It's not our fault. There's probably nothing either of us could have done to alter what happened in the past." That had been the hardest thing for Damián to face. The helplessness. The lack of control. Something small, but powerful, had changed his life—and the lives of several Marines and their families—forever.

Small, but powerful. Not unlike the woman sitting on his lap right now. She brought out his protective instincts.

"It does my heart good to hold you like this,
bebé
." He rested his chin on the top of her head. "Now, if the memories are still surfacing, tell me about another one you need to release. Or would you rather we talk about some of the ones you just released first?"

"Have I really released them just by saying them out loud? I still can't get them out of my head."

"The goal isn't to erase them from your memory, but you fought long and hard to keep some of those things buried so no one else could see or hear them. When they were secrets, they had a lot more power than they did now that they're out in the open."

Her body grew rigid. She shook her head. "Can you just keep holding me like this? Do we have to talk about it?"

I'll hold you like this forever if you'll let me,
mi sueño
.
He couldn't let her off the hook that easily, though. He might not be as blunt as Dad was, but he knew he couldn't back down now.

"Talking about them is the next step to removing their hold over you. Tell me why you think you're a filthy whore."

She pushed away from him and, if his arms weren't holding her so tightly, she'd probably have escaped from his lap before he could stop her.

"Let me go! I don't want to talk about this anymore." She drew a shaky breath. "It's embarrassing enough already. I can't believe I've admitted those things to someone…to you."

He caged her chin and turned her head to face him. Her tears had stopped, leaving her eyes red rimmed and puffy. He wished he had a cool, wet cloth to sooth them, but wouldn't turn her loose yet. She needed to face this if she would ever be able to let it go. "Savi, I need to understand why you think you're those things so we can work on redirecting those negative messages."

A pained look passed over her eyes, and she whispered, "I'm not who you think I am."

"Tell me who you think you are, Savi."

She pulled away from his hand and avoided his gaze. "The therapist who tried to help wounded children, but got fired. The woman who tried to be a good mother to her daughter, but brought evil into their lives. The woman who normally keeps it all together, but is failing miserably lately." She turned toward him again. "In truth, I never held anything together—I just masked it well, or buried it. I'm a total fake."

He knew all about that fear of being discovered a fake, or less than what people expected him to be, but she was all he'd ever wanted in a partner. She'd always been fucking perfection to him.

"Let's take those self-perceptions one at a time, Savi. First, I've seen you with Teresa. You're a professional and you're good at what you do. You helped Teresa function again after the rape. You may not be her therapist now, through no fault of your own, but I'm grateful you were there when she needed you most."

Tears filled her eyes again. "I abandoned her and the others."

"You had to. Your highest priority had to be to protect Marisol and yourself from danger, which is how I know you're a damned great mother, too. You gave up everything to protect your daughter."

"I didn't do very well at that, either. I just ran to you for help."

"Asking for help doesn't make you weak or some kind of failure." He brushed a tear away from her cheek and pulled her against his chest again. "In the Marines, we learn to depend on every person in our unit. Each one has a skill he—and sometimes she—brings to the unit that can make or break a mission. We fight as a team and we leave no one behind."
Not if we can help it, anyway.

"Savi, you sought out someone you knew had expertise at combat because you thought you might have to fight the bastards off. That's fucking smart, if you ask me. You wound up getting a whole unit when you came to me. I'm glad you did."

Being under round-the-clock protection had helped alleviate her anxiety ever since Damián had told her about it. She wished there was some way she could thank all the people who had taken a shift over the past few months.

She smiled. "I guess I did make the right decision that time." Her smile grew shaky, then faded. "I don't always make such good choices."

"Like when?"

"Cutting myself for one."

"You haven't done that in a long time. You were just trying to stop the pain the only way you knew how." Tears splashed onto the blanket.

"But I came so close last week to reverting to my self-injurious behavior."

"Close, but you didn't injure yourself. You stopped yourself even before I came in and found you, Savi. And you've since taken a big step to allow me to show you some new coping mechanisms to help in the future when you're being bombarded by a lot of confusing emotions."

"Why can't I make you see what I truly am—a screwed-up fraud? No matter how you spin it, I'm bad news for anyone who comes near me. I'm not Mother Teresa or Super Woman, or perfect at anything—except maybe for being a magnet for sadists. "

He chuckled. "
Chica
, I know one sadist who sure is happy you're his magnet."

She slapped his vest playfully and giggled for the first time in forever. Score. "Well, Sir, in your case, I think you were the magnet."

"And you the steel. You're one tough lady." He still needed to have her hear some more truths about herself. Of course, she wasn't going to take his word for them. Maybe over time, she'd come to see herself the way others did. He lowered his arm until she was lying back in its crook staring up at him. With the tip of his finger, he traced an invisible line along her cheek and jaw.

"Marisol and I think you're the perfect
mamá
. Hell, you had to be the daddy, too, for almost her first eight years. There's nothing easy about that. It took a lot of work and sacrifice, but you did it."

"I'm sorry I didn't try harder to find you when she was little. I just couldn't trust anyone around her. Now it seems I'm turning her over to people all the time to watch her."

"Trust takes a long time to build, but you have good instincts. I've known these guys longer than you have, and I'd trust them with my life."

"She seems so happy here. I think maybe I was smothering her."

"You were protecting her the only way you knew how. But you've come a long way toward letting her become more independent since you've been here."

"It's not easy."

"Nobody ever said being a parent would be."

They sat in silence a few moments, letting the words sink in a little bit, he hoped. "I know a lot of people who would disagree with the assessments you've made of yourself. I just want you to stop hiding behind those thoughts and start seeing yourself the way I see you."

"I've hidden my true self from you both."

She'd mentioned Lyle when he'd removed one of the clothespins. "I doubt that. Now, tell me about Lyle."

She drew a shaky breath and snuggled closer to him. He wrapped her tighter in his arms. "He was the man you saw with me in the hotel restaurant. My father's business partner, although I think his main job was to be my handler."

He had to ask. "What did Lyle do to you?"

Her entire body tensed.

"Breathe, Savi."

She took her own sweet time drawing another breath. "He did whatever my father told him to do. He enjoyed hurting me, hearing me scream. I tried not to…but most of the time, he succeeded."

"It's pretty common for someone being abused to fight to keep from giving the abuser what they want. Withholding screams as long as you could gave you a measure of control. Your inability to express tears or to cry are probably remnants of a similar coping mechanism."

He gave her a moment to think about that. "Tell me why you think you're a whore." Her chin quivered against his chest. He pulled her tightly against him again, brushing her hair with his fingers. "Talk to me,
bebé
. Let it out."

"I heard it over and over."

"Why are you letting some
malditos
bastardos
determine who you are?"

Her hand played idly with his leather vest. "Because those fucking bastards were right. I did whatever they wanted me to do, including meeting with clients and letting them use me like a…whore. You saw what I did in the penthouse."