Nobody's Perfect (27 page)

But, more likely, it was Adam's eyes that had instilled that level of trust.

She took a deep breath. "My father is an abusive, controlling man."

"We can't choose our parents. Lord knows I'd have chosen a different father if I'd been given the chance."

Savi relaxed a bit. Perhaps he understood. "I escaped from his house when I was nineteen, soon after I met Damián. But how do I put him behind me and move on?" She thought she'd done that, but all of the flashbacks and memories that had come flooding back recently told her she'd only hidden that pain away. She hadn't dealt with it, not at all.

"I'm not the best example of someone putting bad memories behind them, hon. I basically blocked out my own past, until recently. Now I'm trying to come to terms with where I came from."

"I can relate to blocking things out. The memories keep bubbling up when I least expect them. I don't know how to process them."

"As I'm sure you know in your line of work, our brain is a pretty amazing thing. When it senses we're ready to deal with things, it gives us the flash of memory or reveals some part of our life we couldn't handle mentally or emotionally before. In my case, I think my subconscious knew I had Karla there to help me deal with the past. Maybe your mind is trying to tell you Damián can be there for you, making it safe to reveal those things to you now."

The flashbacks
had
started after she'd returned to Damián. Did he have that kind of effect on her? Did her subconscious mind trust him, even though her body and conscious mind still couldn't?

"But more important than the past is where you go in your life from here, the choices you
do
make about your present and future.

Savi's eyes burned at his words, but she blinked away the discomfort. "I've made lots of mistakes…"

"We all do, especially when we aren't taught any better or we're fighting for survival. If we have sins to atone for, and I've certainly had my share, then we do that. We try to make life better than the way we found it for those we love and those who need us. From what I can tell, you've done that in spades. You've raised a daughter who is smart, respectful, and who loves you, and now her daddy, very much." He smiled. "Seeing them together does this beat-up old heart a lot of good. Don't you apologize about what you've done. You're a survivor and you've raised a strong daughter who will be even better equipped than you were to face whatever life throws her way."

Savi squirmed in her seat, not comfortable with his words of praise. "I had lots of help in those early days from a friend and the priest at a local church. Otherwise, I'd have been clueless and would have messed up every…"

He leaned forward. "You were smart enough to seek help. That's not the easiest thing for a lot of us survivors to do. We sometimes think we have to do it all ourselves, all the time. Believe me, I know." He sat back in his chair.

Why did he keep trying to convince her she was so good? That she'd done the right things? Why didn't he see what she really was? She cast her gaze into her lap.
I'm not good enough for your son
.

"Define good enough."

Oh dear lord
. Savi looked up at him again. Had she spoken the words out loud? Her face grew hot. She'd rather that the floor would open up and swallow her than to have to respond to Adam's directive. She looked down at her hands and saw blood pooling at the base of her middle fingernail. She'd picked the skin until it bled. Embarrassed, wanting to hide the evidence of her distress before he noticed, she fisted her hand.

"Let's just say I'm not the wholesome person you and Damián think I am."

"Somehow I doubt you're as bad as all that. But Damián's no saint, either. This doesn't mean you can't commit to a relationship with each other that'll bring out the best in both of you."

Savi shook her head. "There can never be anything more. I'd only hurt him."

"Maybe if the two of you would stop hurting yourselves," he glanced at her hands then back at her, "you'd see you're perfect for each other."

Savi squeezed her hands even tighter, embarrassed that he'd noticed she was mutilating herself. But what was he saying about Damián hurting himself, too? She'd seen no evidence of that.

"Would you trust Damián enough to let him help you redirect some of the negative messages that are messing with your head?"

Savi shook her head. "No. I don't think I could trust anyone that much. I'm sorry."

"Hon, you don't have anything to apologize for. But if you're still worried Damián might do something to hurt you, well, you can put those thoughts to rest. He's one of the most controlled Doms here at the club. He never takes a sub further than she's ready and willing to go. He never scenes in anger. I've gotten no complaints from anyone, and the Dungeon Monitors have never—"

Savi looked up. "
Dungeon
Monitors? Damián told me there were monitors, but he didn't say anything about a dungeon."

Adam grinned. "You don't have to worry about the dungeon, little one. Most members never venture down there, and those who do go with full knowledge of what they'll be doing and seeing. There's actually a waiting list for that area of the club most nights. But Damián wouldn't take you there unless you were ready—and, believe me, you aren't. In the broader kink community, some people refer to entire clubs as a dungeon, though. Dungeon Monitors is just the term the community came up with for those members who have been trained to monitor scenes at clubs to make sure everything is safe, sane, and consensual."

Savi grinned. "This world needs a glossary or cheat sheet for newbies to be able to make sense of it all."

Adam laughed out loud. "I have some books in my room, if you're interested in exploring it further. But you'll learn more by just going to the club tonight, talking with others, and observing what goes on in some of the play scenes and interactions."

"Will Damián be there?"

"Might be."

Oh, lord
. Could she face him again after what had happened last week in his apartment?

Adam leaned forward. "If it helps, Damián also knows I'll kick his ass if he ever did anything to hurt you or anyone else. I have a responsibility, especially to the subs in this club."

Subs? But she wasn't a sub.

"Hon, you have my word that no harm will come to you here."

Savi glanced at the contract she'd just signed. She had no idea what tonight would bring, but curiosity got the better of her. Adam and Damián weren't monsters. They didn't seem to let their emotions and…male appetites…rule them. There were also Dungeon Monitors to keep an eye on things. What did she have to worry about?

Chapter Ten

Damián thanked Grant and carried the drinks back to the table where Savi waited for him. He had no clue what Adam had said to get her in here, but he wasn't about to complain. He knew from his experience with some of the other abused subs in the club that parts of this lifestyle could help her deal with some of her past trauma and abuse, but he didn't want to be the one to inflict that pain on her. Yet, there wasn't anyone here who could give her what she'd probably respond best to. The thought of watching any other Dom work with her just twisted his gut.

Get a grip,
man
. Savi wasn't here to experience sadomasochism tonight. More than likely, she just wanted to satisfy her curiosity about the lifestyle he'd told her about—see how it differed from what she'd experienced in the past.

Dios
, he'd missed them. Damián had been floundering like a ship bobbing in a hurricane since Savi and Marisol moved out last week. He couldn't believe how quickly they'd become his rudder. He'd barely been able to sleep, even though he'd finally returned to his own bed for the first time in months. The scent of Savi's hair on his pillow kept him awake—and hard—every night.

"Here you go."

He placed the tall "Sex on the Beach" in front of her. Figuring out why this drink was the first thing that popped into his head wasn't hard. But he was, just remembering that time with Savi.

Her eyes grew large when she looked at the drink. "That's huge! I'm not much of a drinker."

"You asked for fruity. I told Grant to go easy on the vodka. No worries."

Savi picked up the curvy-shaped glass and took a sip. "Mmmm. That is good. What is it?"

Damián squirmed a minute trying to figure out how to answer without showing her where his mind was. "Peach Schnapps, O.J., cranberry juice, and a little vodka."

She took another draw. "If she'd gone heavier on the vodka, these could be dangerous. Tastes too good."

"You don't have to worry about getting drunk. We limit people to one or two drinks for the most part—someone with your tiny frame only gets one. Just enough to be social. Drinking and BDSM don't mix."

Savi's gaze became fixated on some of the implements hanging on the wall. Most were just for show; Dominants all had their own toy bags filled with their favorite playthings. Judging by the queasy look on her face, though, Savi expected someone to grab something off the wall and beat her with it at any moment. He needed to focus her mind on safer ground.

"What did Marisol do in school today?"

Fuck
. Here he was sitting in the club with Savi and all he could think to talk about was Marisol's school day. But, as he listened to her response about school, he realized how much he'd missed hearing about his daughter's escapades.
Dios
, he'd missed them both so much.

When Dad had come over this afternoon to talk with him, Damián was more anxious to hear about Marisol's playing in the snow. News of his daughter's happy, relatively normal day helped calm Damián's nerves and lift him out of the downer he usually felt after a post-traumatic stress episode. Still, he wished he wanted to be the one playing with her in the snow.

Damián realized Savi had stopped talking. He took a long swig of his beer. More silence ensued. Why was he so fucking nervous around her? He felt like a teenager on a date. Only he didn't know of any teens who took their dates to a kink club.

"So, what do you think of the place so far?"

Savi looked around again. Damián was glad that the only members present, so far, were dressed casually, probably having stopped by right after work. Some would venture to the theme rooms or dungeon later. Adam had announced earlier and posted signs on the door leading upstairs and to the kitchen that the bedrooms were off-limits while his granddaughter was here. Damián grinned. The man would become a grandfather and a father in the same year. He seemed to be embracing both new roles.

But Damián appreciated his doing that, and he knew it helped put some of Savi's worries to rest, too. He and Karla continued to look for a place to move to before the baby arrived, but hadn't found anything yet. The baby probably would be here in four months.

"Other than the…décor," again her gaze went to the whips and chains on the wall, "it's not much different than a bar. Maybe even a little quieter, nicer." 

Her compliment made him smile. He wasn't sure what people expected in clubs like this—and maybe there were some that were a lot wilder. "Most of the people who come in here just want to get away from the rat race and hang out with people who share a common interest."

"Whips and chains?"

He grinned. "Some do. But those are just play implements. That's not what this is about."

She leaned forward. "Tell me what you get out of all this, Damián. You seemed very…turned off by those sadists back at the hotel all those years ago."

His mind returned in a flash to that penthouse in the hotel where he worked as a bus-boy. When he'd found Savannah in that bed, bound, splayed open, he'd wanted to string those men up by their balls. In retrospect, he'd probably inflicted much worse pain on women since then—but the difference was they'd always consented. Most of the bottoms he worked with needed that level of pain in order to reconnect and feel something, or to get past some emotional block.

Nineteen-year-old Savannah had been begging the two men to stop, had probably screamed her safeword, and they'd ignored her. When he's entered the room, they were using a violet wand. From what he'd learned about wands later at the club, the mushroom head they'd been using on her shouldn't have caused such an extreme pain response from her. A red demon's tongue or smaller head would have been much more intense. Yet, she'd been terrified of it.

Damián had no idea what they'd done to elicit that much fear in her. Maybe it was an accumulation of things. They'd beaten the soles of her feet bastinado style until she could barely walk on them. The insides of her thighs had been bloodied with a quirt.

Damián remembered how he'd panicked at first, wanting to get her out of the fucking ropes, but not having a knife handy to cut her loose. When he'd finally freed her, she'd escaped across the bed, terrified of him, as well. And then she'd fallen into an exhausted sleep, mentally escaping from it all. He'd watched over her, careful not to touch or disturb her. Damián had been nineteen, too. He'd had no fucking clue what to do with her, just knew he couldn't leave her there alone, even if it did cost him his job. What if one of those bastards had come back to hurt her again?

"What they were doing to you in that penthouse wasn't consensual, Savi. Your handler coerced you into that scene. Those men were torturing you. When I heard you screaming—and I knew it wasn't because you liked it either—and saw what they'd done to you, I had to interfere."

"How did you go from that sensitive, gentle man to owning a club where people beat on each other like this?"

Damián took another draw on the bottle, as he formulated his response. How much did he want to reveal about where he'd come from to get here? He took a deep breath and released it. "When I left the Marines, I was fucked up. Being in this scene has helped me regain some control over my life."

The puzzled look on her face told him she didn't understand at all, but he found himself wanting to assure her she didn't need to be afraid of him ever hurting her.