Nobody's Perfect (38 page)

He had to admit there was a brief time in the hotel restaurant when he'd assumed she was getting paid for her services, a willing participant. The thought was ludicrous, he discovered, once he'd found her being tortured in the penthouse suite when he'd made the rounds to collect room service trays. By the time he'd untied her and realized how much control Lyle had over her, he knew there was nothing consensual about that scene. Now he knew her father controlled both Savi and Lyle—but Lyle could have said no. Savi couldn't. Big difference.

"That was against your will, not a choice."

"But sometimes I even enjoyed it."

"Define enjoyed."

She paused so long, he didn't think she'd respond. After a few minutes, when he wondered if she'd fallen asleep or zoned out, she said in a small voice, "I got…excited. I…even came sometimes. The sadists you ran from my room probably would have made me come, as well, if you hadn't intervened. Other clients called me the best pain slut they'd ever had. I got off on the pain."

Damn all those fucking bastards to hell for what they'd done to her. Her father and Lyle were the biggest shitheads. If not for them, she wouldn't have been put through any of this. He looked forward to the day he came into contact with them again, so he could rip their fucking heads off and shit down their necks. He wasn't going to wait for them to come to him. He wanted to exact revenge—no, justice—for Savi.

Savi tensed and would have pulled away, but he held her tighter. He needed to reassure her.

"Savita, they controlled your body and forced you to respond sexually. Hell, anyone can force an orgasm on someone. Big fucking, macho deal. Coming doesn't mean you asked for it, or even wanted it. It's a physical response. A natural release. Nothing more. Coming doesn't make you a whore,
bebé
."

"But I
am
a pain slut. I never came without severe pain being inflicted first."

"Just how many times have you tried to come since then?"

She shook her head, whether to evade the question or to give her answer, he wasn't sure.

"Savi, in my community, it's considered a good thing to be someone's slut."

She sat up and pulled away, letting the blanket slip down off her shoulders. She stared at him as if he'd just arrived from Mars. "You've got to be kidding. How could any woman want to be called a slut?"

"It's a term of endearment—and a pain slut is just another term we use for masochist." He grinned. "Sounds a lot sexier and less psycho-babble." He remembered he was talking to a shrink, when she glared at him for the dig at her profession. "Nothing wrong with needing pain to get off. You'll make some sadist very happy someday." He tapped her nose, but regretted that she could never be his pain slut.

Damián knew he wasn't the right man for her. He wasn't a natural-born sadist. He might be able to deliver what she needed, but he didn't get off sexually watching her in pain. At one point during the scene with the clothespins, his body had shut down sexually. He never got turned-on during a scene with Patti or any of the other bottoms at the club. Oh, he'd had sex with some of them, but that had more to do with an attraction to their bodies. A physical release.

But he had to admit to getting a hard-on at one point in the scene. Not because of the pain he was delivering, as far as he knew. Hell, it was pretty mild compared to what he could dish out, but she wasn't ready to take anything harder yet. Besides, what man wouldn't get turned-on seeing such a beautiful woman naked and restrained for him to touch? Hell, even without the restraints—

"Sluts are dirty."

She pulled him from where his thoughts had strayed.
Focus, man
.

"I'll never be anyone's slut ever again. Not even yours, Damián."

"No, not mine,
bebé
. On that we can agree." She deserved someone much better.

Before this conversation took a turn in a direction he wasn't prepared to go, he thought it might be best to continue to explore her negative connotation of the word slut. "Were there consequences if you disobeyed the men?"

"God, yes. I would be severely beaten, at the very least." She drew a ragged breath, but her tears seemed to have stopped.

Suddenly, he needed to know something he'd wondered about ever since he'd learned what her father did to her. "What happened that night I left you at you house in Rancho Santa Fe?"

He waited, but she didn't speak. Her stillness worried him.

"Breathe, Savi."

She did, then grew still again.

"Tell me, Savi. This scene with me isn't going to be over until you tell me that."

She sighed. "They chained me to the desk and beat me."

She said the words as if recounting something mundane, ordinary. Damián felt as if his gut had just been ripped from his body. The thought of her being tortured and beaten after he'd delivered her into the hands of the bastards made him sick.

"I'm so sorry, Savita. If I'd known..."

She pulled away and looked him in the eyes. "None of what they did was your fault. You didn't know. I couldn't tell you. If I'd ever told anyone, they'd sell me to a street pimp."

Fucking bastards.

She buried her face in his chest, and he continued to stroke her hair. "Shhhh,
bebé
. They can't hurt you anymore."

"I used to think being a street whore was so much worse than being a penthouse one, but it really didn't make any difference. A whore is a whore."

"Most of those street whores are controlled by their pimps and circumstances beyond their control, just as you were by your father and Lyle. Add drug addiction to the mix, too. I doubt very many would choose that lifestyle willingly, if they had any other options."

"But I did."

"Why do you say that?"

She drew in a sharp breath, clearly hit with another incoming memory. He continued to hold her and stroke her silky hair, giving her a minute to process it, before demanding that she tell him. He wanted to give her a chance to volunteer the information.

Finally, in a whisper, she said, "When I turned eighteen…" she paused and took a deep breath. "…Father promised to stop having sex with me provided I would submit to his clients' fetishes in scenes like the one you interrupted in the hotel. He didn't allow them to have sex with me, but they had full use of my body otherwise. I chose to surrender to them because I didn't want my father to do that to me ever again."

Fucking asshole.

"It's weird, Sir. Until just now, I thought he'd stopped having sex with me because he didn't want me for…that, anymore. But he actually gave me the choice to make"

Some fucking choice. The pedophile probably didn't get off on having sex with someone of legal age. He'd have probably stopped having sex with her soon anyway. Instead, he needed to further degrade her by making her a cooperative sex slave.

"Savita, what if you'd chosen neither of those options?"

"That wasn't an option. Him or them. That was it."

"Exactly. You were coerced. You knew the consequence of refusing would be being turned over to a street pimp. You also didn't want your father raping you again." She stiffened at the mention of rape. "You
had
no choice." He brushed a strand of hair over her ear, and she shivered. "The bastard was fucking with your head,
bebé
. Trying to make you think you willingly chose to be either his whore or a pain…a masochist for his clients." He wouldn't sully the word slut to describe what they had done to her.

"I didn't have a choice." It wasn't a question. Good for her.

"Hell, no, you didn't."

This time she did pull away and the defiance in her expression was a welcome sign.
That's right, Savi. Fight back
.

"I didn't choose to be a sex slave. My life wasn't anything like Patti being Victor's willing service slave."

"Far from it. There was no loving, nurturing relationship with those men in your past. Nothing like what Patti and Victor share consensually. You were a brutalized victim."

The flash of anger in her eyes took him by surprise. "Don't call me a victim. I'm a survivor."

Score two.

He grinned. "That you are, Savita. You're the strongest person I've ever known. To go through what you did, find a way out, and then protect your daughter and make a life for both of you—I agree you most definitely are a survivor."

Savi smiled and he felt for the first time since she'd come back to his life there was going to be healing for her—at last.

* * *

The expression on Damián's face was priceless—surprise first, and then pride. He was proud of her.

Savi didn't want this moment to end, and she laid her cheek against his chest again, wanting to prolong this time together. She loved aftercare. Watching Victor and Patti together, she'd found herself jealous of that special bond that they'd formed after such a painful, cathartic experience.

Something melted inside her heart when he pulled her closer against him. Safe. She hadn't felt treasured and protected like this for such a long time—almost forever. Maman used to hold her this way when she'd been sick or upset about school or something that scared her at night. That had been a very long time ago.

"I could get used to this."

"So could I,
bebé
."

She didn't realized she'd spoken out loud, and wondered if she should even think about getting used to this kind of thing. But she wasn't going to worry about the future. She was just going to enjoy the moment. With Damián.

But soon the doubts assailed her once more. Nothing could ever come of a relationship with Damián, or any man, for that matter. He'd eventually want a sexual relationship with her, and that was out of the question. She could never let any man touch her that way again.

Adam had said BDSM wasn't about sex, but control. Maybe Damián would be willing to be her Top—and her friend. She'd like that. They would always share the raising of—

Mari!
"Oh, my God! What time is it?"

"About 1430. Er, two-thirty. Why?"

She pushed herself upright and tried to get off his lap. She'd never forgotten her daughter before. What kind of mother was she? "I need to go pick up Mari at school."

"No, you don't. Karla and Dad are picking her up today." With their schedules lately, him working at the shop and Savi in classes to prepare for whenever she'd be able to take the social-work licensing exam, Savi had agreed to add Karla and Adam to the emergency card at school, so they could fill in when Savi or Damián weren't available.

"So, stop worrying. Marisol's wanted to ride in the Hummer forever. She thinks it'll be like what I rode in while in the Marines." He grinned. "Close enough for a civilian, anyway."

Savi blinked a couple of times. "When you plan a scene, you think of everything, don't you? Even childcare."

He grinned. "I'll admit to not doing most of the planning for this one. Other bottoms I've worked with have found this scene useful in the beginning, so I could just fall back on past history. Dad planned the childcare detail. He told me before he left us for lunch not to worry about it. He and Karla would get her."

The panic receded some, but not the guilt. She'd never gone this many hours before without a thought about fulfilling her daughter's needs. Damián had totally taken over her mind, as well as her body. How could she have allowed that to happen?

He leaned over to the coffee table and picked up another bottled water and handed it to her. She knew the drill. Stay hydrated. He'd been pushing water at her to help her adjust to the altitude since December, but had told her BDSM scenes also led to dehydration. Double whammy. She drank it slowly, trying to think back over the scene and how he's managed it.

"What are you thinking about,
bebé
?"

"Nothing."

"Savi." The warning tone in his voice told her she wasn't going to get away with evading the question.

"How did you do it?"

"Do what? Arrange for a babysitter? I do have some parenting skills, you know." He grinned. The man loved to tease.

"No, silly. How did you take over my mind like that? You pushed everything out of my head, including the person most precious to me in all the world."

"Ah, that." He chuckled. "I didn't hypnotize or brainwash you or anything like that, if that's what you're thinking. I just made you focus; made you think more about connecting to your body and the memories than to thoughts about other things. It's part of the discipline a sub learns. You have incredible focus, by the way. You'd make a great submissive."

She shook her head. "I can't submit to anyone—well, not long-term, anyway." Clearly, she'd submitted to him, though, much more of herself than she'd intended.

"Well, it's good practice for being a bottom, too. We'll keep working on it."

"No. I think I've had enough."

He grasped her upper arms and pushed her away from him. She looked down and realized the blanket had nearly fallen to her waist. When she reached to pull it up again, he took her chin and forced her to look into his eyes.

His mood changed quickly. Not angry, just very determined, serious. "Savi, we aren't finished yet. There is much more you need to deal with, if you'd only let down some of those barriers that keep you so closed off."

"Those barriers, as you call them, are my main line of defense. They've kept me from emotional turmoil for a very long time."

"How's that working for you?"

Ouch
. He was right. She realized she'd even kept some of those barriers up in relation to Mari. Closing herself off wasn't what she wanted in her life. Besides, the emotions and memories kept bubbling up and it was getting harder and harder to tamp them back down into her box of secrets.

Today, Damián had forced her to face some memories that hadn't even attempted to come to the surface in a very long time, but what if she accidentally let something slip about her deepest shame? What if he…?

"I would never take advantage of you. You know that."