Nobody's Perfect (43 page)

She watched him turn a knob; the buzzing grew louder. Her body shriveled up inside.
Escape! Become invisible.

The wand drew closer to her thigh. Sweat popped out at her temples.

Crackle!

The sensation of the violet wand touching her inner thigh tingled. It didn't hurt but wasn't enjoyable either.

Crackle!

The globe sent a charge through her thigh. She shook her head. "Stop! I mean, guacamole!"

Damián turned off the wand and soon filled her vision as he stood over her. He brushed the beads of sweat off her skin and into her hair. "Shhh. Deep breaths." He gently stroked her hair.

"Tell me where you are, Savi."

She shook her head. Too confusing. The past scene in the penthouse faded as a flash of memory bombarded her. Desk. Pressure. Pain. Crackling sounds.

Her heart beat faster. The crackling of electricity filled the air. Had Damián turned it on again?

"Savi. Answer me."

No. He was standing over her. He'd turned it off.

Desk. Face down on the desk.

"I can't let go of the memories. It hurts. The buzzing sound…hurts my ears." She detested that thing. She needed to put that memory behind her.

He frowned. "Has anyone else used a wand on you?"

She'd never seen one before the clients in the penthouse pulled it out. She didn't even know what it was called until…
the sound! no!

She remembered where she'd heard the sound before.

Father's weight crushed her breasts against the desk. Whatever Lyle used sent a searing, white-hot pain through her labia…

"Fire!"
Oh, dear lord
, she was being burned!

Zap!

The wand touched her hand, and a jolt of electricity went through her mons and into her pussy hole. She tried to pull her hand away, tried to bolt out of her restraints, but could go nowhere. She was totally and completely at Damián's mercy.

She trusted him to take care of her; she couldn't give in to these memories. Stay in the moment. Focus.

Father's office. Face down on the desk, arms and legs restrained. Unbearable weight on her back. No escape. The buzzing noise filled the air. What was that sound? She'd never heard it before.

Searing pain. Burning. Her flesh was burning.

"Nooooooooo!"

Damián ignored her. Had she screamed out only in her head? Wait. "No" wasn't her safeword, or even her slow-down word. She tried to squirm away from his touch, but there was no escaping him or his wand.

Her mind. She could escape into her mind. Into her cave.

Savi ran over the sand toward the arch to the cave, but the cave never got any closer. Gasping for breath, she finally stopped and fell to her knees. The crackling. She looked up.

Father.

She froze. He'd found her safe place.

The buzzing sound stopped.

"Where are you, Savi?"

In hell. My own living hell.

Fear clawed at her again. Savi fought against the restraints, thrashing her head side to side. "Please, Damián. Let me go!"

He placed his hands on her cheeks to hold her head still. She begged him silently to release her from this hell, but he ignored her. "Look at me, Savi. Tell me where you are."

Savi shook her head. She couldn't voice her thoughts. She just needed him to stop.

Dirty, filthy slut…you deserved it
.

"What was that thought?"

Savi opened her eyes and looked into Damián's eyes, just mere inches away. A flush of warmth spread up her neck and into her cheeks. She shook her head. Never would she tell him. Her secret shame.

"Savi." His stern tone of voice made her stomach muscles turn to jelly. "What were you thinking?"

"I'm dirty."

"Bullshit. You just had a shower, if you did as I instructed before coming downstairs to the club."

She nodded. She'd obeyed, part of her learning discipline. She wanted to be able to have control of herself again. That was the whole point of this exercise.

"Then tell me what else you were you thinking."

Anger boiled up quickly; she couldn't stop it. "Do I have to tell you every fucking thing I think now?"

He grinned. "You do if you want me to be your Top. You do if you want to continue this scene."

"What if I don't want that anymore?"

He squinted his eyes and the grin faded. She'd hurt him. "Then you use your safeword, and it's over."

Why couldn't she let go of her fear and trust him? Damián had never done anything but care for her, to try to help her put the past behind her and move on. She owed him more than to keep running in the opposite direction.

"Safeword or continue, Savi? But, if we continue, you
will
answer my questions."

She took a deep breath. "Continue." God help her, she wanted to continue.

"Thank you,
bebé
. Now tell me why you think you're dirty."

"I can't." She could never tell him about the brand.

Damián pulled away as if she'd slapped him in the face. "Maybe you need more time to think about what it is you
do
want, Savita. If not me, there are other Doms and Tops I could suggest who'd work with you here at the club. Or maybe you just don't want to have anything more to do with dealing with your past in this way."

Damián unfastened the chains that bound her left arm and went to the foot of the table to release her other arm. He pulled the extension out at the end of the table and released the chains holding her right thigh, lowering her leg to the table. He methodically unchained her other leg, massaging both to relieve the ache from her muscles. Next he released the thigh and wrist cuffs.

Was he also releasing her from their Top/bottom agreement? Tears stung her eyes.

He held out one hand, then wrapped another behind her shoulders to help her sit up.

"Sit a minute and let your head and legs get steady again."

He placed the cuffs in the duffel bag and began putting away the other equipment. He was ending the scene. Could he do that? Well, if she wasn't cooperating with him, what choice did he have?

"Wait!"

Don't leave me!

Savi wasn't sure where that thought had come from. All she knew was that she didn't want Damián to give up on her. She didn't want to spend the rest of her life paralyzed by fear.

She blinked rapidly to fight off the tears and whispered, "It's hard for me to say the words."

He sighed and turned to face her, still standing a few feet away. "You know you can say anything to me. I'm not going to judge you. Those things happened to you against your will."

Why wouldn't he listen to what she was trying to tell him? Why couldn't she find the words to make him understand? "I'm not what you think I am."

"You shouldn't presume to know what your Top thinks. So, tell me what are you, then?"

She needed to tell him. Maybe he's stop picking at this scab afterwards. But deep down, she didn't want him to know what she was. "I can't say it."

He closed the gap and spread her legs until his hips were wedged between them. She wanted to close her legs, but couldn't. Just inches from his crotch, she felt some of the old fear rise up.

"How can I know what to avoid, what your triggers are, or what to work on if you won't talk to me,
querida
?"

Savi nibbled at her lower lip until Damián zeroed in on the motion with a smoldering gaze.

Her stomach churned. "Don’t look at me like that, Sir."

"Like what?"

She paused long and hard, but his intense gaze told her he wouldn't let up. She forced the words past the lump in her throat. "Like I'm your whore."

Damián flinched and pulled away. "Why do you think that's what I think when I'm looking at you?"

She looked down, staring at the tail of the dragon tattoo that slithered down his arm. "How can you help it?"

He sighed. "Savi, we've been over this before. I don't see you that way."

Savi withdrew inside herself. "Please, stop." He didn't understand at all. How could she make him see? "Sometimes I responded, even enjoyed those things."

"Involuntarily. It's natural for your body to respond to that kind of direct stimulus. I could make you come now, whether you wanted to or not."

She turned her head away, unable to meet his gaze, and added in a whisper, "I can't feel anything like that anymore."

"You sure felt it a couple times tonight. You even came once."

"I mean, I can't…with a man. I'll never feel anything when a man touches me there."

Damián chuckled. "You sure know how to throw down a fucking gauntlet,
bebé
."

She pierced him with her glare. How could he joke about something so serious? Why couldn't he see? "I'm not what you think. I'm a filthy whore.
His
whore."

Damián took her chin and tilted her head back, but she refused to meet his gaze.

He frowned. "Whose?"

She closed her eyes.

"Look. At. Me. Do not withdraw your attention from me again, Savi." His stern voice told her he was angry with her. "Whose whore?"

Surely he could guess, but he must want her to speak the words. "Lots of men, including Lyle, but mostly my father's," she mumbled.

Damián had to strain to hear her. "Yes, well, I wouldn't take the word of two
cabrones
who are worse than dog shit on the bottom of my boot. Why are you giving them that much power over you?"

Because they've always had power over me.
They'd continued to control her, even after she'd gotten away. The fear and shame had sunk into her bones and mind, their words replaying over and over in her head. She'd never really escaped them.

"When I look at you, Savi, I see a beautiful, sexy woman. The mother of my daughter, who…"

She tried to turn away, but he kept a firm hand on her chin. "How is it you see something so different that what I see, Sir?"

He brushed his thumb across her cheek. "Because I see the real you. They fucked with your mind to distort how you would see yourself. They wanted you to see what
they
saw, what
they
wanted to make you. But they didn't succeed,
querida
."

She frowned. "They didn't?"

"Savi, you submit to me, but your submission is a cherished gift. You aren't bartering your body for anything. You're just trying to find healing, peace. I meant it when I said your body is sexy, beautiful. When you decide the time and the person are right, you're going to make some man very happy by submitting to him. In the meantime, I'm honored you have entrusted your body and your healing to me for now. I'd die before I would let you down."

She wished she could believe him, but years of seeing herself one way couldn't be erased no matter how much she wanted them to be.

"I'll give you time to process that, and we'll keep working on those negative messages in your head, but you still haven't answered my original question. Who else used the violet wand on you?"

The man was tenacious. She might as well answer him. Maybe this would be the thing that repulsed him to the point he would finally see her as she was.

Before she could get the words past her lips, Savi began shaking. Damián lifted her into his arms and carried her to a cushioned bench in the corner. He placed her on her feet, then he sat down and pulled her onto his lap. He wrapped a soft blanket around her and handed her a bottle of water.

She drank slowly. Maybe she just wanted to postpone the inevitable, but she liked their time together after a scene more than the actual scene—well, most of the scene. Parts of them were nice, like when Damián had coached her to her first orgasm in a very long time.

When she finished the bottle, he took it from her. He leaned against back the wall and pulled her to his chest. He stroked her hair. "What did they do to my precious Savita with the violet wand?"

Precious?
She wished he'd always think that of her, but he wouldn’t after she told him the truth. Okay, maybe this was the part where he would give up on her and leave. Savi had known it would happen eventually; she just hadn't wanted it to happen so soon. But it was inevitable. Nice, honorable men like Damián didn't fall in love with a slut like her.

"You know I would never judge you for anything they did to you. You weren't in control."

"It's not that." Nothing about the branding scene had led to a pleasurable response from her body.

"What did the head on the violet wand they used look like? Maybe if you describe it, I'll know more what they used."

"I don't know. I couldn't see it. I could only hear the sound."

"What did it feel like?"

"Please, Sir. Don't make me think about that anymore." She snuggled against his chest, hoping he would just hold her, comfort her.

He didn't say anything but curled himself to her body, his head in the crook of her neck. "It's okay. We'll talk more about it later."

She wished he'd leave it alone. Why did he want to keep bringing it up if she said she didn't want to talk about it?

Tell him. Get it out. You can trust him.

Wanting to get it over with, she blurted out the words.

"It's what they used to…" Even so, her voice still hitched before she could reveal the truth.

"To what, Savi?"

"…to brand me."

His body stiffened. His hand stilled. His breathing stopped. "They did what?" The barely leashed shock and outrage in his voice frightened her.

She struggled to get out of his embrace, but he applied pressure to her neck to hold her still. Tears welled up in her eyes; her chin shook. "Please, Sir. Don't make me say it again."

Chapter Seventeen

Madre de Dios
.

Damián's guts twisted. Had he heard her correctly? He could easily guess where they'd branded her, given her hard limit.
Puta madre
. If he ever got ahold of those
cabrones
…