Nobody's Perfect (39 page)

She nodded and pulled the blanket up to wrap herself in it again. "I…trust you."

"What are you hiding from me, Savi? What is it you're most afraid I will discover about you?"

Involuntarily, she clamped her legs tighter together, and his gaze went to her lap.

"Ah, the hardest limit of them all. Don't touch your pussy."

Her face grew flushed as he continued to stare at her down there. She squirmed on his lap and tried to get away, but he placed his hand at the back of her neck and held her still.

"Define pussy."

"My vagina."

"Anything else?"

She grew uncomfortable, but answered. "The labia." Most definitely the inside of her labia, where her father's brand had scarred her for life.

"How do you feel about my touching your mons, your clit?"

If he was expecting to elicit some kind of sexual response from her, he'd be disappointed.

"No, I don't want you to touch me there, either."

He grinned, which puzzled her. She'd just told him the whole area was off-limits.

"Now, tell me what it is you're afraid will happen if I touch your pussy."

She couldn't speak, but shook her head. The blood pounding in her ears made it difficult to hear his next words.

"I asked if you would trust me enough to remove that boulder from your path to healing."

"I trust you, Sir…but not that far."

He chuckled again. She thought he'd be angry at her for telling him no.

"You're a stubborn one. Whatever the secret is, it must be deep-seated. We'll work on it later."

His confidence that she would eventually let him touch her there made her all the more resolute that he wouldn't.

"Thank you for sharing some of your secrets with me today. I can wait for another session to explore the depths of this one."

She should have known he wouldn't take no for an answer, even though she was confident he wouldn't force her to go beyond her limits against her will. She still had control of her hard limit.

But he had a way of turning her mind to mush. What if he broke down the barriers and got her to remove this hard limit from her list?

Savi shuddered.

No, she'd never be able to reveal her deepest shame to Damián. Never.

Chapter Fifteen

A week later, on a busy Friday night at the club, Damián led her into a new theme room—the medical room. She despised her annual gynecological checkups and didn't expect this exam or test or whatever he had in mind to be any more comfortable for her.

Breathe.

She'd begun to coach herself now when the panic started to claw at her throat.

"That's my girl." He stroked her bare back, and she relaxed even more. Damián seemed so completely tuned in to her every breath, her every mood, and many of her thoughts, whether they were in a formal scene or simply sitting together.

Savi couldn't take her gaze away from the sterile-looking exam table, complete with its paper covering. There was a cabinet and stand nearby displaying latex glove dispensers with three sizes of gloves, a container of cotton swabs, a new tube of lubricant, and a sink. The Doms at Masters at Arms had certainly made the room look authentic. But she was relieved to see neither stirrups on the gyno table nor a speculum on the cabinet. She didn't want to be splayed open for Damián to see her shame.

Earlier, in the great room, Damián had told her to remove her blouse, but she still wore her jeans. She remembered the stares of several other Doms as she'd complied. Damián clearly was testing her level of trust, obedience, and discipline, all things he'd worked on in her training this past week. Apparently, she'd passed, with very little hesitation.

Showing her boobs didn't bother her. She'd breast-fed her daughter in public, not that she had totally revealed them then, but probably flashed people a few times. No big deal with their insignificant size; no one would get excited looking at them.

But Damián's hot gaze had zeroed in on her bare chest with a look of appreciation—and lust. Her nipples grew erect again remembering the intensity of his gaze. He'd seen her body's response to his interest, but he hadn't commented on it or touched her, for which she was grateful.

Too late, she'd remembered the cuts on her arm and looked around hoping no one had noticed. Adam had seen them; his look of pity had mortified her. She didn't want anyone to feel sorry for her.

"Do you trust me, Savita?"

Her focus returned to Damián and the medical room. She did trust him, more and more each day. He hadn't taken her beyond her hard limits, although he'd certainly discovered things that probably would have been high on her limit list if she'd known they existed.

Like exposing her body in public. Who would have thought he'd ask her to do that? He took great joy, it seemed, in shattering her inhibitions before she'd even had a chance to formulate in her head that they
were
inhibitions. Over the last week, he'd had a session with her every day, some in private and some, like today, a mix of public and private.

At least she hoped this part would be private. She looked toward the door and saw a curtained window. Would he open the curtains and allow club members to watch? She shuddered.

Some of the scenes this past week had been more silly than intense, like when he had restrained her on a St. Andrew's cross and fed her. The man seriously had an obsession about getting her to gain weight. But that scene and all of the others only served to deepen the level of trust growing toward him.

Not to mention that he made her melt a little more after each scene when he'd hold her in his lap, secure within his arms, and just make her feel cherished and safe. Sometimes they talked about the scene, but more often than not, they just cuddled.

She liked aftercare best of all.

"I asked you a direct question. Do you trust me?"

Why did he keep asking? What test did he plan to put her through next?

"Yes, Sir…I trust you more than any man I've known."

He patted her butt, which he did often now, as if claiming his territory, even when they weren't in a scene. "I'll take the qualifier, for now."

She smiled, feeling warmth spread throughout her body as he praised her. She'd discovered an inner source of strength inside herself since she'd been training with Damián. But whenever she told him she was afraid of everything, he always reminded her about her core strength and courage and how it had come to the fore many times over the years as she'd faced so many frightening and daunting situations.

Yes, she realized she'd been building on that strength all her life. She just hadn't acknowledged it or unleashed its maximum potential. But, as Damián continued to stretch her boundaries and encourage her to draw from that source deep within, he made her believe she was strong, that she could face anything.

She looked at the gynecological table again as he bent down and pulled out the step stool from inside the foot of the table. He stood and faced her.

"Give me your right hand."

Surely she hadn't hesitated long enough for his scowl. He could read her like a map. She placed her smaller hand in his strong, warm one. When he squeezed her hand reassuringly, she smiled.

Damián ran two fingers inside each of the wrist cuffs he'd placed on her earlier. He'd already checked the fit. Maybe he was distracted. Or nervous. His being nervous made her a little more so, as well.

She'd become a bundle of nerves when he'd taken command of her in the great room. She'd barely gotten through half of what was becoming her drink—"Sex on the Beach"—with each sip, she'd remembered their special day at the beach playing out in great carnal detail.

Occasionally, in brief snaps of time, she got the feeling she was Savannah, experiencing what Damián had done as he'd made love to her many times that day. She remembered his hands on her body, his tongue on her…

"How does that feel?"

She blinked, eventually realizing he was talking about the cuffs, not her...
Focus, Savi
.

"Still good, Sir."

"Maintain your focus. You will remain in the moment during this scene."

"Yes, Sir."

Damián was so serious. The air sizzled between them, alerting her that he had planned a play scene beyond the baby-step ones they'd done this past week. Until tonight, they'd only played in private, mostly because they'd had to make sure someone could watch Mari. Everyone they knew who could babysit was connected to the club's activities. But Angelina was back in town visiting Karla this weekend—avoiding Marc and the club, of course—so Angelina and Mari had gone over to Damián's apartment to "play in the kitchen," as they put it.

"Now, strip off the jeans."

Savi blinked. Once again, she'd strayed from the scene. So much for great focus. As she unbuttoned and unzipped the jeans, she recalled how Damián had explained discipline to her the other day. He'd drilled her about training her mind to stay in the moment but also wanted to keep her mind on the play scene at hand. Twice in the past few minutes she'd let herself stray from focusing on Damián. She needed to work harder at keeping discipline, keeping focus.

Savi wriggled out of the jeans. She'd noticed lately that her jeans were getting tighter. Damián and Adam both insisted that she eat more. At this rate, she'd need to move up to a bigger size if she wanted to be able to breathe and bend over.

She placed her hand on the table, crinkling the paper as she pulled one pants leg off, then the other. She hadn't worn panties. Damián had instructed her not to when he'd told her how to dress for this evening. Thank God he hadn't made her strip totally in the great room. But she hadn't noticed anyone else totally naked there, either. A few had worn skimpy fetish…

Focus.

"That's my girl."

He smiled and reached into the small duffel bag where he kept his "toys," as he called them. He pulled out several lengths of chain and two cuffs, longer and more narrow than wrist cuffs. They were too big for her arms. He motioned for her to get up on the table and she did so, turning to face him and sit down. He placed one of her hands in his and wrapped his other around her back, guiding her into the desired position on the table. The paper-covered vinyl was cold against her back, and her nipples puckered even more.

Without hesitation, he took one of the chains, pulled her arms above her head, and restrained her wrists to a point somewhere at that end of the table. She tried to move her hands, but couldn't budge. Walking to the side of the table, he took one of the cuffs, unbuckled it, and wrapped it around her left thigh like a miniature belt. Taking another length of chain, he looped one end through the thigh cuff's D-ring and doubled it. He tugged on the chain until her leg raised into the air, bent at the knee. Her foot dangled free.

The cool air assaulted her privates as he threaded the chain through something metallic on the side of the gyno table. Savi's heart pounded as adrenaline pumped into her system.

Breathe.

Her lungs constricted, making it impossible to follow her own instruction. He walked around the table and strapped the other cuff onto her right thigh, applying a separate chain. When he began to raise her leg in a similar fashion, full-blown panic set in.

"Sir, permission to speak!" The words came out in a rush, without thought.

Damián's hand movements stopped, and he turned toward her face. He leaned closer, his hand firmly stroking her head from her temple to around the curl of her ear. "What is it, Savita? Does something hurt, feel numb?"

She shook her head and cleared her throat. "You remember my hard limit, right?"

"I never forget a bottom's limits. Why do you ask?"

"Well, you're about to open my…open me up, and I wasn't sure if you remembered."

"I remember." He smiled. "Trust me,
querida
. I do not plan to touch your pussy…until you give me permission."

Until? That would never happen. But she didn't want this to happen either.

Savi's heart pounded. If he splayed her open like this, he'd be able to see what she'd hidden—what she wanted to remain hidden.

"Sir, I have a new limit!"

He frowned. "What limit would that be?"

"You can't look."

"I can't look at what?"

"My…" He insisted she call it by its vulgar name, but she was in enough trouble already for interrupting his scene, so she would just say it. "My…pussy."

He smiled. "I see. Well, this might present some challenges to the scene I have planned for you, Savita." He thought a moment, as if solving a math problem, then grinned. "But a Top needs to be resourceful. Very well. I will not look, but that requires that I chain you to the table a little differently. Are you ready to proceed?"

She couldn't form the words and merely nodded.

Without further delay, he moved back to the head of the table and unchained her arms. After he released her right hand and laid it across her abdomen, he rechained the other above her head. Returning to the duffel bag, she heard more chains rattle as he pulled them free of the bag. He also took a bundle of soft-looking rope out and laid it on her chest.

When he didn't do anything further with her thigh, she relaxed a bit. Instead, he went back to the toy bag and pulled out more rope, as thin as macramé cord but softer than the scratchy rope holding up her planters.

"Normally, on this table, I would restrain you with the leather belt across your belly, but I want to minimize the amount of metal coming into contact with your body. I'm going to lace you instead."

"Lace?"

The glare he gave her told her she'd spoken when she wasn't supposed to. Still, what difference could it make if he used rope or something metallic? Unless…

Electricity!

No. Damián wouldn't use that vile wand-like thing on her. He'd have to know how terrifying it would be, even if all he knew about her experience with the implement was the way the sadists had used it in the hotel penthouse. But memories of Lyle using the electric wand to brand her…