"You've done your research," she said, tracing a finger over a paragraph about aftercare requirements. "This is thorough."
"Research is easy," I said, frustration bleeding through. "Application is harder. She's not—she doesn't trust easily. Doesn't submit naturally. She fights everything, tests every boundary, breaks rules just to see if I'll enforce them."
"A brat," Alexei said, and there was something knowing in his tone. "Like Clara was."
"I was never a brat," Clara protested, but her smile said otherwise.
"You threw plates at me," Alexei reminded her. "Multiple times."
"That was different. That was—" She stopped, color rising in her cheeks. "Okay, maybe a little bratty."
Their casual intimacy, their ability to joke about what had clearly been a difficult beginning, gave me hope. If they could build this from kidnapping and coercion, maybe Eva and I could build something from witness protection and want.
"Tell us what you want," Clara said, serious now. "Not what you think you should want, not what the forums say you should want. What do you actually want with her?"
The question unlocked something I'd been holding back, words tumbling out before I could censor them.
"I want to wake up and make her coffee exactly how she likes it. I want to brush her teeth because she forgets, gets distracted, needs someone to make her take care of herself. I want to read her bedtime stories in Russian, the ones my grandmother read to me, watch her fight sleep because she doesn't want to miss anything."
I was standing now, pacing, the journal forgotten in the chair.
"I want to punish her when she's reckless, when she endangers herself, when she forgets she matters. But I also want to hold her after, explain why the rules exist, make her understand that consequences come from care, not control. I want to teach her to fight properly, to protect herself, but also teach her she doesn't have to fight alone anymore."
The words kept coming, months of suppressed want spilling into Alexei's study.
"I want to buy her clothes that fit, that make her feel beautiful instead of functional. I want to take her to that bakery on Third that makes those cookies that I know she’d love. I want to give her bubble baths with too many bubbles, wash her hair, wrap her in towels warmed on the radiator."
Clara had tears in her eyes. Alexei's expression had shifted from skeptical to something softer, something that might have been recognition.
"You're not describing a submissive," Alexei said quietly. "You're describing someone you love."
The word hit like a physical blow. Love. Was that what this was? This desperate need to protect, to provide, to structure her chaos into something sustainable?
"I've known her two weeks," I said, but the protest sounded weak even to me.
"I knew Clara was mine the moment she stood in that elevator, terrified but defiant," Alexei said. "Time is irrelevant when you recognize your match."
"Your Little," Clara corrected softly. "When you recognize your Little."
The truth of it settled into my bones with certainty that should have been terrifying.
Eva was my Little.
"She's mine," I said, the admission feeling like coming home. "Has been from the moment we first met."
Alexei and Clara exchanged a look—the kind of silent communication that came from established dynamic, from trust built through trial and error and absolute commitment.
"Then let's make sure you do this right," Alexei said, moving to his desk drawer. "Let's build her a framework that protects you both."
"She might not sign it," I warned, thinking of Eva on my couch, defiant in ruined punishment clothes, coming during corner time just to prove she could. "She might run."
"She might," Clara agreed, pulling out what looked like a template from Alexei's drawer. "But if she's really yours, if she's really your Little, she'll sign it. Because Littles need their Daddies as much as Daddies need their Littles."
The template was pages long, professionally formatted but somehow warm, like Clara had taken legal framework and infused it with care. At the top, in elegant script: "Domestic Discipline and Caregiving Agreement."
Not a contract. An agreement. A promise written in ink.
WegatheredaroundAlexei'smassive oak desk like generals planning a campaign, except our battlefield was trust and our weapons were words. Clara spread the template across the mahogany surface, smoothing pages with the same care she probably brought to everything—deliberate, thoughtful, precise.
