Nobody's Perfect (23 page)

"You want to do a play?"

He grinned. "Not
do
a play—just play. Hear me out."

She placed her cool fingers on his lips and shook her head. "I'm sorry, Damián. I can't trust anyone enough to let them restrain me. Even having someone touch me sends me…"

He fought the urge to suck her fingers into his mouth and moved her fingers off his lips, trying to regain his self-control. "I'm talking about a role-play scene." His heart tripped over a couple beats. It was now or never. "I know of a club where you would be safe to explore this scene with me. There would be other people there whose job it is to protect you from harm—not that you'd need them. If you use your safeword, I'd stop immediately and we'd talk about what you were feeling."

"Safeword?"

He forgot not everyone knew the lingo of his kinky community. "It's a word or phrase you could speak during a scene when you needed the action to stop—like when a director says 'cut' in a movie." He winced. Okay, cut wasn't the right word. "Remember in the bedroom when I told you I'd stop if you said 'hot tamale'? Well, tamale could be your safeword. Of course, if you said 'hot tamale,' I might think you were referring to me." He grinned, hoping to lighten the mood.

She didn't relax even a tiny bit, but he continued, anyway. He'd come too far now. "You would use your safeword to signal me that you needed to stop what we were doing. To take a break. Regroup. Even stop the scene for good."

"I understand what you're saying, but it's still not going to happen. No one will ever restrain me again."

How could he explain this without sounding like the Marquis de Sade? "I'm told it's different when it's consensual restraint. There's a sense of freedom you find when you give up control willingly."

"How can being tied up make someone feel free?"

"I'd have to show you in order for you to understand."

She shook her head again. "So not happening."

Damián steeled himself. He had to tell her eventually, but hadn't planned to do it so soon. But he needed to be honest with her, if he expected the same from her. "What if we went to my club? There would be monitors present to put an end to the scene if I didn't stop when you used our safeword." He decided that referring to these people as dungeon monitors might not be what she needed to hear right now.

"What are you talking about? What kind of club did you join?"

Slow down,
Chico
.
You're moving too fast for her
. Someday he'd tell her what he'd become, but right now, he'd just talk about the club. "I'm not just a member. I co-own the club." She raised her eyebrows. "After our active service ended, Adam, Marc, and I started a kink club here in Denver."

Her eyes opened wider. "Kink? As in bondage, whips, and stuff like that?"

"Yeah."

"Whoa. I don't think I can picture you in such a place."

He wondered what she thought such a club was supposed to be like. "To be honest, I'm not sure how I got roped into it." He grinned and she groaned at the pun. At least she didn't seem as freaked out. He needed for her to understand what the place was all about. "We run a nice, safe club. Everyone there signs a contract and agrees to follow the rules. We're all consenting adults just looking for a safe place to play. Our club provides equipment most people can't install into their homes and a place to explore their power exchange more deeply, maybe even learn some new techniques or improve a skill. Some just stop by to hang out with like-minded people who understand this part of their nature."

People who won't think of us as freaks, even if we may call ourselves that.

"Power exchange?"

He took it as a positive sign she hadn't jumped off his lap and hightailed it back to Solana Beach. Yet. "Yeah, couples negotiate rules within their relationship. One or more partners relinquish control to one or more others."

"I'm not into group sex. Hell, I'm not into sex. Period."

"I said it doesn't have to be about sex. It's mainly about control—the giving and receiving of control. Of course, that power exchange turns some people on and we provide private rooms for those wanting a more intimate experience with each other, but the main gathering room is pretty tame. Even scenes in the theme rooms often don't involve sex."

Well, that was true enough—up to a point. He had no clue what happened in most of the theme rooms. He spent most of his time in the great room or the dungeon.

"Theme rooms?"

"Those rooms are set up mostly for fulfilling fantasies. Medical, harem, office, and the like."

Damián appreciated that she still seemed to be considering his words without freaking out like most people would have if they'd been in this conversation. It gave him hope. He brushed a lock of hair off her forehead. "What do you fantasize about, Savita?"

Her gaze focused on him, shooting daggers at him. "Nothing."

"Everyone has fantasies. It's normal. Healthy."

* * *

Savi's chest grew tight; a stab of pain radiated outward from her heart. She might as well confess her inadequacies to him now, to avoid embarrassment and disappointment later. If there would be a later.

"I'm not normal or healthy when it comes to sex. You're wasting your time, Damián." She moved to get up off his lap, but he wrapped his arms tightly around her. Tendrils of panic snaked through her.

She looked into his warm brown eyes and calmed a bit. "What's in it for you?"

"Savi, I'm a Dom."

A what?
She cocked her head.

"Sorry—a Dominant. I like to be on the end accepting control from a submissive. But what I really enjoy is being able to give a sub what she needs. What no other man can give her."

She shivered. What was Damián trying to tell her? He liked to tie women up and beat them—because they needed it? "What she needs. What does that mean?"

He placed his hand over her arm just above her elbow and she grew warmer at his touch. His thumb made lazy sweeps over that tiny patch of skin, short-circuiting her ability to follow the conversation for a moment.
Focus.

"A submissive has an innate need to surrender to a Dominant. It's only then that she feels a sense of fulfillment and completion. There also are male submissives, but we'll focus on female ones—because that's my favorite kind." He grinned. She couldn't believe he was telling her these things. Damián was into bondage and sadomasochism? "There's also a lot of pride a submissive feels in pleasing her Dom."

"I won't be a submissive plaything for any man." Never again.

"In a healthy Dom/sub relationship, it's symbiotic. You will receive as much as you give, maybe even more. It could help free up your mind and body from the things that are holding you back. Not that I can vouch for that feeling of freedom from my own experiences at being restrained." He grinned.

Great
. She couldn't get out of her head the visual of Damián chained to a bed.

"Why would you let someone restrain you?"

"Part of my training. It's important for me as a Dom to experience what I'm going to do to a submissive, mainly so I can keep her safe when she's in my care and know what to look for if something goes wrong. I've experienced everything I've done to a sub."

"You've had a lot of submissives?" As much as she hated to admit it, the image of Damián dominating other women bothered her.

"As one of the club's owners, I have to be available to unattached subs wanting to experience various…techniques I'm good at. We also do demonstrations with models we've practiced with before. Sometimes I provide a needed service to a Dom's sub when he is unable or unwilling to provide what's needed—with permission, of course. It's always consensual. Again, I'm not talking about sex—just bondage, impact play, and the like."

He made it sound as if they were talking about Damián offering personal training services at a gym or something. Savi couldn't believe she was having a conversation about bondage, S&M, and submission with a self-proclaimed Dom. She didn't want to think about participating in anything of the sort, but was inexplicably fascinated by it. To make herself that vulnerable to a man again would be unthinkable.

And sadomasochism? Not long before she'd come to Denver, she'd accidentally tuned into an episode of a popular network crime show where a sadomasochism ring kidnapped women, broke them down in every degrading way possible, and sold them against their will as sexual slaves to the highest bidder—to rich men like her father who had more money than morals. She'd turned the television off as soon as she'd realized what was happening to the women, but had had nightmares for days.

She'd been enslaved like that much of her early life. To return to that kind of existence was unfathomable. She'd never put herself at risk of that happening again.

How could someone as gentle as Damián want to be involved in degrading and overpowering women like that?

"I can see you're trying to sort this out in that pretty little head, but don't assume you know what we do just because of a label."

He was only teasing her. She was too boyish to be pretty. She'd fought hard to keep her body as thin as she could; even her breasts had shrunk to almost non-existent after she'd stopped breastfeeding. Having men look at her sexually always creeped her out, but she'd found most didn't notice her if she kept her body as thin as a young boy's.

But Damián noticed. She squirmed inside her skin. The smoldering looks he gave her when he didn't think she'd catch him, and the way he'd touched her breast a little while ago, stirred feelings she'd kept tamped down for so very long. She wasn't ready to remove the lid on the box where she'd kept those feelings hidden.

"Savita, your experience with BDSM wasn't consensual. What we do at the club is always with the consent of both parties. Tell me, what questions do you have?"

She wondered what special techniques he was referring to.

"Go ahead. Ask me."

He read her like an open book. She captured her lower lip between her teeth until she noticed Damián's gaze zoning in on her mouth, then she turned her lip loose. She didn't want to send him any sexual signals.

Why was she so morbidly fascinated by this subject? She was no doormat. She was a strong-willed, independent woman. Maybe he'd taken her vulnerable state these past couple months as a sign she was submissive, but that was so far from who she was. She'd never succumb to a domineering man again.

"Questions, Savi."

She sighed. "You're co-owner of an S&M club. I can't get past that."

"Not just an SM club. We prefer to call it a kink or BDSM club. There's a whole spectrum of kink that our members and their guests are interested in. Bondage, discipline, dominance, submission, Master, slave, and sadomasochism, fetishes. Only a small number of the membership is into hardcore SM."

"You keep saying SM. I've always heard it called S&M."

"To most in the lifestyle, it's just SM."

Just
SM.
Wow
. "There's a lifestyle?"

He nodded. "For some. Most just role-play in their homes or when they come to clubs, but others live their Dominant and submissive roles twenty-four/seven—not just with sex and role-playing, but within all aspects of their lives."

"That sounds like slavery."

"There are submissives who relinquish total control to a Dom or Master, and they are referred to as slaves in the scene. Most Masters still honor a slave's hard limits. Just depends on their agreement."

Willing slaves? Was he serious?

"But no matter the intensity or duration—lifelong or for an evening—participants negotiate very specific boundaries in their power exchange."

"How long have you been doing…this?"

He thought a moment. "Actively, almost five years, I guess. I trained with a whip master west of here for a couple years prior to opening the club, but much more since we opened."

"Why haven't you been going to the club these last two months?" She pulled away again. "Or have you?"

He shook his head. "I told Dad I was taking a break while you two were here."

She'd kept him away from something he loved. Now, he wanted to coax her to join him there. She didn't want to share that part of his life. "I'm not a submissive."

"What makes you so sure?"

She opened her eyes wider. "I've got a career. I don't bow down to any man."

"You'd be surprised who the submissives are—nurses, housewives, teachers, business executives. You wouldn't recognize most Doms or subs on the street as being in the lifestyle. In our society, they have to keep this part of themselves hidden so they don't lose their jobs, custody of their kids, and such. People outside the scene don't understand this subculture."

No shit, Sherlock.

"Savi, I think submitting to a Dom can give you a sense of control you don't feel right now."

She hadn't been in control since Lyle had broken into her house. No, in reality, she'd only had the illusion of control even before then. She hadn't been in control of her world or her life for a very long time—since she was eight. She tensed, not comfortable thinking about that time in her life.

What was Damián offering her? Should she find out more? Could it help her?

He rubbed some of the rapidly vanishing heat back into her arms. "Look, I know you've had some bad experiences with men who took what they wanted without your consent."

Having him believe and validate her helped some, but didn't make the pain go away.

"What I'm proposing is an experience where you would have total control. You'd consent to give your submission to me before each scene—as a gift, if you will."

Controlled surrender. Sounded like an oxymoron. "I'd have to have a tendency toward submission in order to give you that gift—and I don't."

"Let's try an experiment."

Savi narrowed her eyes. "What kind of experiment? I'm not a guinea pig or some kind of sacrificial lamb."

He grinned. "Not
that
kind of experiment." He indicated that she should get up and helped her to her feet, then he followed to stand in front of her. "Turn around."