Adam continued to avoid looking at her. He didn’t eat much either, not even the casserole she’d made for him. Another rejection. More tears.
Grandma began sharing stories about her latest cruise and Karla zoned out until she heard Adam’s name.
“Adam, have you ever been to Mexico?” Grandma asked.
“Yes, ma’am. My wife and I went to Cabo San Lucas on a second honeymoon about ten years ago.” He cleared his throat. “Beautiful place.”
Well, even if he wasn’t happily married, he wouldn’t wait for you to grow up, Kitty. No, he was so handsome, he could have any woman he wanted. Besides, he didn’t even know she existed. Karla felt the lump growing in her throat and put her useless fork down. She hoped this nightmare dinner would end soon so she could escape to her room and have a good cry.
Why had she so embarrassed herself on the porch? She needed to make conversation before her Mom hauled her into the kitchen for having such bad manners. Karla looked up at Adam. “I’ll bet you miss her a lot.”
His eyes got sad again and he looked down at his plate. “More than you’ll ever know.”
Yeah, he loved her. She was a very lucky lady. As if to keep from having to say more, he took a small bite of her casserole. She smiled.
Mom said, “Karla, your broccoli casserole gets better every year.”
Adam looked up at her as he chewed, smiling across the table. “Best I’ve ever had.”
Karla’s tummy squeezed tight and she smiled back.
After the dinner plates had been cleared, mom pulled out the Quiddler cards and dictionaries and everyone at the table played. Adam was pretty good at it, but Karla beat him in the last round with the word “domination.” That was the best word she’d ever gotten in the stupid game!
The next day went by in a blur, but Karla could never get Adam alone to apologize for her stupid scene. By the time she stood in the airport terminal saying goodbye, tears spilled down her cheeks. Her father already had said goodbye and thanked him, then had to go to his office at the other end of the terminal to check on some emergency.
Saying goodbye wasn’t easy. “Adam, please forget what I said on the porch. I was just being a stupid teenager. But I’ll never forget you. Thanks for rescuing me.”
He shuffled his feet, then seemed to decide something and met her gaze. “Karla, I know you aren’t going to understand this, but you’re the one who saved my life. I’d lost sight of what I needed…what was important to me since…well….”
She thought she saw a glint of tears in his eyes, but none fell. He looked down at the floor again. After a moment, he continued. His voice sounded like he’d swallowed sandpaper. When he looked into her eyes again, those freaky butterflies returned to her stomach.
“If you hadn’t shown up in that bus station two nights ago, Karla, I don’t know what…. I was heading back to the war without the fire in my belly. It’s my job to make sure my units survive their next missions and I….” He rubbed the back of his neck.
She wished she could give him a neck rub to calm him. He seemed so upset. Then his words registered. Oh, no! He was going to Afghanistan or Iraq. She was sure of it. That’s all she heard in the news now. Ian might be going to one of those places, too. They both might get killed!
Tears spilled down her cheeks again. Good thing she didn’t wear mascara. She’d known she was going to cry when she said goodbye, just not how much. Suddenly, it was important that she not lose track of Adam. His wife and family would write to him, but Karla needed to know he was okay, too. He’d become such an important part of her life in the last two days.
“Can I—?” She cleared the frog from her throat. “Can I write to you, Adam?”
His gaze met hers and she thought he was going to say no, then he smiled—another really sad one. She bet he didn’t think she’d actually follow through, because she’d acted like such a selfish teenager ever since he’d met her. But she would. Every day.
Well, at least once a week.
“I’d like that.”
Before he changed his mind, she reached into her purse and pulled out a treble-clef-shaped writing pad. She wrote his name—well, he had to spell his last name for her—and then his APO address. Ian had an APO, too.
Well, duh, Kitty. All soldiers have those.
She vowed to herself she would also bake goodies to send them both. “Do you like brownies?”
He got that look where she knew he wasn’t thinking about her anymore. Then he smiled. “Yeah. With peanut butter.”
Karla giggled. She’d never made that kind before, but she’d learn. For her Adam. Maybe she could send him an MP3 recording of her singing. Her music teacher wanted to record demo tapes for her and another student to send to college admissions offices.
“Why don’t you write down your address for me, too?” She looked up. He wanted to write to her? “I probably won’t get around to writing very often, but I’ll write when I can.”
Karla scribbled down her address on the next sheet and tore it off to hand to him. She wished Adam would hug her, but he’d been very careful not to get anywhere near her since she’d made a fool of herself on the porch.
But what if she never saw him again?
Karla wouldn’t risk never getting to feel her arms around him one more time. She closed the space between them and slipped her arms around his narrow waist. His sides felt like steel bands and his heart beat fast against her cheek.
“I’m going to miss you, Adam.”
Just when she was about to let go, thinking he wouldn’t hug her back, she felt his arms surround her and pull her into his heated warmth.
Safe. Protected.
Adam. He’d always be her hero.
Section Two
Prequel to Damián’s Story, Nobody’s Perfect
September 2003, La Jolla, California
“Hey, boy!”
Damián Orlando looked up from bussing one of the isolated booths along the wall of the hotel restaurant to see some rich-looking dude at the booth in the corner waving at him. He did a slow burn at the condescending way the man in the white suit addressed him, but smiled as he’d been trained to do.
In the booth next to the man sat the most gorgeous blonde he’d ever seen. She reminded him of his little sister’s Malibu Barbie doll—the one he’d decapitated accidentally while they were playing dragons and princesses as kids.
Her pale skin looked fragile enough to break, like his grandmother’s china. She pursed her cherry-red lips. He’d enjoy kissing the lipstick off her full, sexy mouth. The thought of those full lips sucking his…
“When you’re finished ogling my…date, would you mind asking our server to bring us the top-shelf wine list?”
The Barbie doll looked up at him and he saw the apology in her sad blue eyes. What did she have to apologize for? Her date was the jerk-off.
He looked at the man and clenched his fists. Fucking jerk-off. Damián smiled. “Yes…sir.”
What was she doing with such an asshole? He shook his head. Understanding crazy rich people wasn’t what he got paid for. He turned away from their table, happy to hide his hard-on.
“You didn’t have to encourage him, slut.” The man’s hate-filled whisper carried across the nearly empty room.
“I didn’t…”
“Just shut up. If you mess up this deal for us…”
Damián felt himself doing a slow burn. What the hell gave the jerk the right to talk to her that way? And why didn’t she tell him to fuck himself up the ass? Hell, Damián had needed no encouragement to stare at her. She was freakin’ perfection. But she’d kept her eyes down the entire time he’d ogled her, until right at the end anyway.
Stay out of it, man. You can’t get into trouble again.
Damián went out to the patio and found their server schmoozing with some exec from a modeling agency. They’d approached Damián to model for them, too, but he wasn’t interested. All the other restaurant staff were looking for a way out of pov
erty. He was just happy to have a steady job with predictable hours—and to be out of juvie.
He glanced out at the ocean and breathed in the salty air. The cool evening breeze felt good against his skin. He’d been cooped up in juvie so long, he’d thought his soul had rotted. Now he spent his days cooped up in the restaurant. He was long overdue for a drive up the coast. Laguna Beach always settled him when he got restless.
After getting the server back inside, Damián followed. The dark wood paneling closed in around him again in an instant. While the white tablecloths, fresh flowers, and glowing hurricane-lamps on each of the tables and booths helped to lighten the room some, he couldn’t figure out why someone would choose to dine inside on such a beautiful Southern California evening. He’d be out on the patio waiting for the sun to set—if he could afford to eat in a place like this.
Damián picked up the dish bin and glanced at the Barbie doll. A tear ran down her jaw as she fiddled with her fork. His gut churned as he turned toward the kitchen. That man had made her cry. His sister Rosa had been verbally humiliated that way by her now ex-husband. Then the man had become violent.
Rosa had come close to being put in her grave before Damián had forced her to move into his apartment. When Julio had come after her, Damián had punched his teeth out—and earned himself two years in juvie for his effort. But he’d do it again. No woman should ever be disrespected like that.
“Keep a low profile and mind your own business, if you know what’s good for you.” The words of his social worker focused his mind where it belonged. He walked into the kitchen and loaded the dirty dishes into the racks. He sure as hell wasn’t going to interfere for a total stranger. Even if her shithead date deserved to be pummeled for his remarks, he knew the man’s money would get Damián’s ass locked up so fast, his head would spin. At nineteen, the key would be conveniently thrown down a sewer hole this time.
No way could he afford to get fired, either. He still hadn’t made rent money for next month. So, he’d just avoid the jerk-off and his perfect-but-miserable date. He hoped she’d wise up soon and dump him before it was too late. But that wasn’t his concern. Just bus the tables.
Rich people sure were fucked up. Damián had grown up in a tiny ranch-style tenant house with too many mouths to feed and too little money. Growing up, he’d thought being rich would solve all their problems. From what he could tell, though, money just brought on a whole new set of them.
He looked at the clock. Three more hours before he got off work. He decided he needed to ride his Harley up the coast. The beach at Laguna called to him. Away from everyone. Just him. The ocean. And his cave.
* * *
Savannah Gentry tried to swallow past the lump closing up her throat. Despite nearly a year of Master’s pimping out her body to his high-class business clients, she’d tried to learn to dissociate from scenes with clients as fully as she’d been able to do when only having to anticipate her Master’s behavior. But there were too many clients to learn to predict them.
For the majority of her cognizant life, He had owned and controlled her—mind, body, and spirit. As far as she could recall—and large blocks of her life already had been blocked out of her memory—the rape and abuse began soon after her mother left. She was eight. She’d prayed every night for months for her Maman to come back and rescue her, but she never heard from her again.
At first, she’d been more angry at her mother than her father. How could she leave her there with such a monster? Although, Savannah didn’t remember him being a monster until that night….
She shuddered. Escape had never been an option. Becoming self-sufficient was a pipe dream. Her Master had too much power in southern California for her to be able to escape Him. And He’d threatened to sell her to a pimp on the streets if she disobeyed. A shiver of fear coursed down her spine. At least with Him she was being tortured by a higher class of clientele, and, when she wasn’t being pimped out, she was fed, clothed, even schooled in a fashion.
She watched the bus boy clear another table. She felt badly about the way Lyle, her Master’s puppet, had treated him. Of course, she had been intensely aware of the bus boy’s eyes on her. How could she not? He reminded her of the hero in her fantasies, Orlando Bloom. Just yesterday, in her Master’s screening room, she’d seen a preview for Orlando’s upcoming movie, Pirates of the Caribbean. Last night, she’d dreamed he had swung into her bedroom window on a rope tied to who knows what and whisked her away from her private Hell.
Was that why she couldn’t take her eyes off the Orlando look-alike across the room? The bus boy’s shoulder-length hair was pulled into a queue at the nape of his neck. He sported the same goatee and moustache Bloom had had in the movie trailer.
Savannah wondered what his moustache would feel like against her face. Her lips. Her breasts. She was surprised to find she wasn’t fantasizing about Orlando now, but the bus boy. The way he had clenched and unclenched his fists as Lyle tried to humiliate him, he looked as if he were ready to punch Lyle in his asinine mouth for his ridiculous accusations.
Someone willing to defend her honor. Well, that would be a first.
Out of the corner of her eye, Savannah watched as the bus boy lifted the heavy bin of dishes. The muscles in his forearms corded and his biceps bulged under his polo shirt. Judging by the front of his pants, they weren’t the only things bulging.
And there the fantasy ended. Typical man.
From the first time her father had raped her, sex had equaled pain, control, torture. Until she’d turned eighteen and He’d lost interest in raping her. But she hadn’t gained her freedom. Instead, He and His junior partner, Lyle, had prostituted her as their pain slut for the past year, using her well-trained masochist’s body to solicit new clients for their firm.
For whatever twisted reason, her father had prohibited clients—or even Lyle, for that matter—from penetrating her. They could torture her as much as they pleased. But no intercourse. Thank God for small favors.
Why anyone would engage willingly in the sex act was beyond her. She preferred her romantic dream lover, Bloom, over the bus boy or any real man. The bus boy was like all the rest, ogling her body and becoming aroused without knowing anything about her other than what she looked like. He didn’t care if she had a brain in her head. No different from all the men she’d ever known.
All were sadists, getting off on a woman’s pain. Ah, and into the restaurant just walked her next two clients. Lyle puffed himself up.
“Here they come.”
Savannah quaked to her core to think how much Lyle reminded her of her father. She wouldn’t be surprised if Lyle was slated to inherit her body after her father died. No, there wouldn’t be a “slave clause” in His public will. But she was certain her father would never release His hold over her, even from beyond the grave.
Her lungs clenched, squeezing out the meager amount of air in them. Some days, she actually welcomed death over continuing to exist this way. Ah, the ultimate betrayal of the obedient slave—to execute the body the Master thought He owned. Her only regret would be that she wouldn’t have the pleasure of seeing the look on her father’s and Lyle’s faces as she reclaimed control over her body.
Razor blades? No, too messy. Pills? She’d read that as few as a dozen Tylenol would shut down a person’s liver. What would a whole bottle do? Would death be fast? Painless? Well, it couldn’t hurt more than what she’d experienced the last eleven years. Yes, when she got home tonight, she would put an end to this miserable existence.
A sense of peace came over her. The time for the ultimate release had come. She smiled, her lips quivering.
“That’s good, baby. Smile. You know, I prepared you for these guys a month ago. They’re going to love finding your secret. They love shit like that.”
When Lyle’s words registered, bile rose in her throat. If she’d eaten today, she’d have vomited. Last month, Lyle had restrained her face down on her father’s desk in the home that should have bee
n her haven. Her legs had been spread open and secured, while her father’s weight held her down so she would remain still enough.
Her stomach clenched into knots as memories of her shrill screams bouncing off the walls in her Master’s office resurfaced in her psyche. No one but her Master and Lyle could have heard her. The waves of pain had come so fast, so intensely, she hadn’t been able to escape to her safe place. When the pain became too unbearable, she’d fainted. Her father revived her by pouring ice water on her face. Gasping, she’d returned to consciousness just as the fire began again on the inside of her labia.
Her heart pounded as she remembered returning to her room that night. The raw pain hadn’t receded. She’d taken a hand mirror and, lying on her back on the bed, discovered her latest degradation.
Branded with her father’s initials.
The branding had healed with much care. But Lyle’s sadistic appetites began to frighten her more than her father’s. Would she survive having her father’s protégé become her Master? Throat suddenly parched, she reached for her water goblet, trying to quell the shaking in her hand.
A heavy weight settled in her stomach as Lyle stood to greet the two Asian men in their matching black-silk suits and starched white shirts—twin-like right down to their black-silk ties. Savannah didn’t attempt to stand, because she’d been strategically placed at the enclosed side of the round table. No escape.
The men bowed in sync to Lyle. He ate up their deference to him with a simpering grin. The three exchanged terse introductions. Then, as one, all three turned their attention toward her, the gazes of the clients creeping slowly over what they could see of her body, lingering too long on her breasts. She swallowed down the rising bile and forced a smile to her face.
Lyle motioned for each man to enter the booth from a different side. The short, wiry men slid along the circular leather seat to besiege her, closing in. Smothering. She tried to fill her compressed lungs with slow, deep breaths, but the men reeked of garlic and body odor. She fought the reflex to gag.
Masters at Arms Page 5
