She didn’t respond or acknowledge his presence in any way but kept looking at the wax. He glanced at the splatters of white against the pink and black, too, but didn’t see any patterns or anything that might trigger her.
He definitely needed to do a safety check on her. Damián hurried behind her to ditch the extinguished candles then knelt beside her.
She blinked but didn’t meet his gaze. “Please, stop.” Her plaintive voice ripped his heart out. She kept staring down at the wax on her ankles and feet. Mierda. What the fuck was wrong?
Once again, he turned toward her feet and ankles. And then he saw what she must see. Aw, fuck. Cum.
Madre de Dios.
He grabbed a towel and tossed it over her legs and ankles before caging her chin and turning her to face him. “Savannah, eyes.”
She resisted his hand for a moment then blinked and looked at him. Her eyes seemed glazed and unseeing. She tried to look back at her feet, revulsion in her eyes.
“Tamale!” she screamed, pulling her feet toward her as she tented her knees. She’d never used her safeword to stop before, so this trigger must be a bad one.
“Savannah, tell me where you are.” She didn’t respond. “You’re safe here with me. No one can hurt you. Tell me what happened.” He turned her face toward his.
She blinked again, her eyes seeming to focus on his. “I don’t know,” she whispered, her voice trembling. At least she was speaking to him. A shudder rippled through her.
“You’re safe now, bebé. Let’s get you out of this chair.” He stood, grabbed the medical scissors, and cut the ropes binding her to the chair. He then took her by the hand, helping her to her feet. Megan handed him one of the aftercare blankets from the basket nearby, and he wrapped it around her. Savannah winced when she tried to take a step. Damián couldn’t carry her to the aftercare loveseat with any assurance he wouldn’t drop her. He turned to Ryder, hating that he couldn’t carry his own girl when she needed him, but her safety was more important than his pride. “Ryder, can you carry her over there for me?” He pointed toward the loveseat near the stage.
“Sure thing.”
Damián turned Savannah’s face to his. “Savita, Ryder’s going to bring you to me. Then we’ll have our aftercare time and talk about what just happened.”
Savannah nodded numbly but didn’t let go of Damián’s hand even after Ryder lifted her. She kept her gaze on Damián’s face as Ryder carried her, staring up at him with those big blue eyes that were no longer as happy and expressive as they had been a few minutes ago. Seeing such pain in them nearly gutted him.
Damián sat down to receive the precious bundle. With Savannah resting on his lap, Damián centered his attention on her. He pulled the blanket tighter around her and pressed her cheek to his shoulder, saying comforting things he hoped would ease her stress level so they could discuss what had happened. While rubbing the back of her head, he played the scene over in his head but found no answers.
Remembering Savannah wanted photos of the pink and black ankle cuffs—and hoping they could help bring back the sense of enjoyment she’d had to that point in the scene—Damián turned to Megan and whispered, “I need you to peel off the white wax, Megan.” Megan nodded.
The massage oil he’d applied before should make it easier to remove the first layers of wax that were attached directly to her skin, but he wasn’t sure how tightly the white wax would adhere to the colored splatters.
Ryder stepped forward and placed a folded aftercare blanket on the floor near Savannah’s feet for Megan to kneel on, ever attentive to his own wife’s needs. Megan went to work on her task, gently peeling the wax away. Thank God the two of them were here.
After several minutes, when Savannah’s breathing seemed to be steadier, Damián smoothed the hair away from her face before saying, “I’m so proud of you, savita.”
Her body stiffened. Didn’t she believe his words? He’d never lied to her. “What was that thought, querida?”
She nibbled on her lower lip before responding. “I stopped your scene. I’m sorry, Sir.”
“It was our scene, and you only stopped because you were triggered or had a major problem with what I was doing. That’s how this is supposed to work. You use your safeword when you’re having a problem with a scene. As your Dom, I wouldn’t want to continue a scene that was doing more harm than good.”
“I don’t know what happened. I loved the wax play at first.” As if feeling Megan’s hands for the first time, she sat up and looked down. “Don’t take it all off. I want pictures.” She met Damián’s gaze. “If that’s okay, Sir.”
He was happy to hear he’d done the right thing there at least. He nodded. “I asked Megan to remove only the white wax. Then we’ll get you some photos.” He pulled her toward his body again, needing contact with her as much as he possibly could. “Now, close your eyes while Megan takes care of that for us.”
“Sir?”
“Yes, querida?”
“I don’t know what happened,” Savannah whispered.
Join the club.
“I loved the pink and black wax. The cuffs were freaking awesome. But the white…it took me back to a scene when I was younger, but I didn’t recognize it or anyone there.”
So she hadn’t seen Lyle or her father? Who else had abused her? Too many men to count, thanks to those cabrones. His heart rate kicked up before he forced himself to regain control of his emotions. ‘If you can’t control yourself, you can’t control others,” Gunnar Larson, his whipmaster mentor, had told him countless times during his training.
“Can you remember anything yet?”
She stopped breathing a moment then whispered, “I was wearing the most beautiful dress. Formal. Princess-like.”
“Like a prom dress?”
“Yeah, but I never went to a prom or fancy dance.”
“Some other special occasion? Maybe a wedding?”
“Never. Ours was the first I remember attending.”
“Anything else stand out?” He wanted to get her to talk about it before the memory faded into her subconscious again.
“It’s just flashes of scenes in a kaleidoscope. There were half a dozen men standing around me in a semi-circle.” She swallowed, and her hand began to tremble.
“What were they doing?”
“Jacking off onto…onto my feet and my dress.”
Jesús. No wonder she triggered. He rubbed her arm through the blanket to try and bring some warmth back into her body and to give himself time to figure out what to say or do to make it better.
“I don’t recall any time when I was with that many men at once.”
“Recognize any of them?”
“No. I didn’t see any faces. Only penises and…semen.”
Not unlike when witnesses in armed robberies report seeing nothing but the handgun pointed at them.
“I was on the ground or a bed or somehow below them.” She shuddered.
“Only in a physical sense, bebé. You were never beneath them in any other way. Those men were scum.” He reined in his anger before projecting it to her.
“I thought I’d dredged up all the bad things that had ever happened to me in all the work you and I have done and with my therapist. Where did this come from?”
“Triggers can come out of nowhere. You saw the white wax, it looked like cum dropping onto you, and your mind flashed back to that time.”
“But why can’t I remember the circumstances of the event?”
“If it’s something you need to remember, you will. Maybe your mind isn’t ready to deal yet with whatever happened back then.”
Megan sat back on her heels slowly as if to give them privacy. Ryder had knelt beside her, rubbing her back in the uncomfortable position. Damián glanced down at Savannah’s feet; he saw that she’d managed to remove all of the white wax.
“Megan did a fantastic job, Savannah, if you want to look.” He hoped this was the right thing to do so soon.
Savannah
seemed cautious at first, then sat up, and held out both her feet. The wax cuffs remained intact, pink and black. He held his breath, waiting to see what her reaction would be.
“Would you mind taking a few pictures, Megan?” she asked.
“I’d love to.” Ryder helped his wife to her feet, and she went to where she’d been sitting earlier to get her phone or camera. Savannah seemed to perk up as she sat up and looked down at her feet again. No sign of the past trauma, she smiled. “I have to say I love playing with wax, Sir. Just not with white candles.”
“Trust me. I plan to get rid of the rest of the white ones for whenever we do wax play again.”
She extended her feet again for the photos, and Megan said she’d text the images to them both and delete them from her phone. Megan and Ryder excused themselves to go to the bar and talk to Grant. Savannah relaxed into Damián’s arms again. Everything was under control again, thanks to some help from their friends. He hoped the episode with Savannah wouldn’t scare them away from the lifestyle.
“I was afraid I’d disappointed you.” Savannah sounded fragile again, and he lowered her head from his shoulder into the crook of his arm until she stared up at him. “The only way you could disappoint me, querida, would be by letting me do something that you couldn’t handle without telling me to stop. I had no idea the problem was so big until you said tamale.” While he was beginning to see she was in distress, he hadn’t acted quickly enough. “The important thing is that you used your safeword to protect yourself when you needed to. That gives me enormous relief and confidence that you will do so again if you need to.”
She smiled. “Thanks for taking such good care of me, Sir. I never doubted you’d listen to me, if I ever used it, but your quick response kept me from sinking any further into that awful nightmare.”
A sob tore from her, and Damián pulled her back up against him, resting his head on the top of her head as he held her tighter. “I have you, bebé. You’re safe. No one can hurt you ever again.”
“You make me believe that,” she said with a sniffle.
Dios, he hoped he could always protect her from harm. There was so much evil in the world. She’d suffered through enough of it by the time she’d turned eight. And yet tonight he’d been the one to cause her harm, even if unintentionally.
Damián would have to pay better attention to her from now on. They still had a trial by fire to get through in a month or so. He vowed he wouldn’t leave her side or let her down for a minute.
* * *
Savannah wished she had a clue what was going on the night after that phenomenal visit to the Masters at Arms Club. All day long, she felt as if an enormous weight had been lifted off her shoulders. When Damián called from the shop this morning to tell her he had a special night planned—just the two of them—she’d been anticipating this evening ever since.
Karla and Adam agreed to keep Marisol, although Savannah had spent a few hours with her after school since she’d been away from home last night, too. Intuition told her this would be no ordinary night. Judging by the lengths he went to with his attire, she was certain.
Sitting across from him at dinner, she admired how well Damián wore the black linen shirt with piping on both front panels. On the left side over his heart, she’d had two tiny iridescent blue butterflies hand-embroidered, one larger than the other, to signify them and their emergence into a new phase in their lives as a married couple. She’d chosen it for him for Father’s Day and had cried when he’d told her he and Rosa had given their dad one on his last Father’s Day. Knowing Damián’s taste, Savannah hadn’t gone with the more elaborate ones. But he seemed happy with the gift just the same, even though this was the first time he’d worn the long-sleeved shirt, because his body tended to run more hot than cold.
But on this snowy November night, he looked incredibly handsome—no, sexy as hell—in it. She’d known he would, with the tight cuffs and button-up collar, but had no idea what the overall effect would be on her libido.
As if she’d needed any visual stimulation after last night. She’d been horny all day, because he had insisted they go to bed and sleep last night after her meltdown.
But she’d bounced back incredibly fast, feeling a sense of empowerment that using her safeword had taken her from the trigger scene and into Damián’s arms and safety so quickly.
She nearly giggled. Dear Lord, it felt good to be feeling amorous again.
Wet and breathless, she finished her second virgin margarita and smiled across the table at him as he settled the bill. He didn’t seem to notice the signals she thought she’d been sending him. Couldn’t he tell how much she wanted to make love tonight?
In fact, he seemed nervous and preoccupied, blowing out puffs of air periodically and adjusting his collar as if it choked him. Halfway through the meal, he undid the top button. He seemed even more nervous than on their wedding day. She believed him when he said he wasn’t upset with her for calling a halt to their scene last night. So what was it?
“Is everything okay at the shop?”
“Yeah. Great, actually. Two old bikes came in for custom restorations. One’s a ’60s classic. I told the guys I’d be working on that one myself the next few months. Between those and regular maintenance customers like to do during the winter when they can’t ride as much, we’ll be busy through spring.”
Savannah bit back her smile. She’d arranged to have his team work on restoring the classic bike he seemed so excited about. It was as close to the one he’d had to sell when she’d gotten him fired from the hotel as she could find. While she could afford to buy him one that had already been restored, she knew half the joy for Damián was to do the work himself. But if she’d told them the bike would be for him, he wouldn’t have allotted the time to work on his own bike while he had customers waiting. So she and his top mechanic had devised this plan. The restored bike would be a birthday surprise for him in February. She’d have had the baby by then, too. Savannah couldn’t wait to ride on that Harley with him.
She still planned to pay for the work he’d be putting in on the classic. The shop was doing well. Damián had little interest in financial matters at home or in his business, so he’d hired an accountant, but she didn’t want Damián to find anything amiss when they went over the year-end books for taxes.
So what else could he be worried about? Her? While she’d let the trial consume too much of her life the past few weeks, with a disastrous effect on their love life, last night had remedied that to a great extent. And tonight would be wonderful, too. She intended to make love with Damián after they got home. If only he could be a little more relaxed and at least pretend he was having fun.
She dabbed the sides of her mouth with her napkin. “I’m having a good time. Thanks for planning this date. Dinner was out of this world.” She reached across the table to cover his hand and met his gaze once more. “I’m looking forward to getting home, not that I want to rush anything.”
“I do. Want to rush things, that is.” He smiled as he put his debit card and receipt in his wallet and stood, coming around the table to help her up from her chair.
Twenty minutes later, they walked into their house. Chiquita and Boots lay curled up together on the sofa. Chiquita lifted her head to make sure everything was okay then resumed her nap without any concerns.
The dog had been alerting on Savannah’s stress for weeks now. Even Chiquita could tell that the crisis was over, at least as far as Savannah’s stress level. She and Damián would continue to prepare her for the trial, setting up daily relaxation exercises for reinforcement along with her twice-a-week appointments with her therapist until the time came to go to California.
Don’t let the trial put a damper on tonight.
“We’ll be spending the next part of our evening in here. I need to set up some things, so wait for me in the bedroom until I come for you.”
What on earth was more important than going to the bedroom together—now? But she didn’t express h
er dismay in the delay. Damián loved surprising her and taking charge—and she loved letting him.
“Would you like me to change into something else?”
His smoldering gaze caressed every curve and valley of her body, inch by inch, before meeting hers again. His smile said it all. “You’re dressed just the way I asked. Fucking perfect, just the way you are.”
He’d had the new dress delivered this morning from a boutique in a trendy part of downtown Denver. No doubt one of the girls had helped him find it, perhaps even Karla, who had given her an enigmatic smile when she’d dropped off Mari earlier this evening. She certainly couldn’t picture Damián going shopping for women’s apparel in a fancy dress shop. Herself, either. Clothing was functional to her. She rarely, if ever, purchased anything pricy for herself but did so for Mari on special occasions.
The dress box had included a note in Damián’s handwriting with instructions on what to wear tonight. And what to leave off, including her bra and panties. She’d worn a garter belt with silk stockings that was decidedly unsexy tucked under her belly, but that’s what he’d asked for. She’d also been told not wear any jewelry other than her wedding band and very little makeup, not that she ever wore much more than eyeshadow and mascara. Tonight, she’d opted for just the eyeshadow. Her toes were still done in a rainbow of colors from two nights ago.
Now that they were home, he seemed less nervous at least. She gave him a peck on the cheek and headed up the stairs.
“Journal about last night while you’re waiting,” he called after her.
She’d already begun a journal entry about it this morning but would take this opportunity to refine and finish it. “Yes, Sir.”
While he could read her journals as her Dom, he’d never done so. Sometimes, he would ask her to share what she’d written, if willing, but he seemed to not want to cross the boundary into invading that personal space. He’d told her, perhaps rightly, that he feared if he read them she’d likely modify her feelings to what she assumed he wanted to hear.
While Savannah tried to be open with him verbally, she’d lapsed confiding her true feelings during the last few weeks. Now she regretted that, because if she’d been open, perhaps they could have worked on her anxiety and fears in a constructive way.
Somebody’s Perfect Page 13
