My heart stopped. Actually stopped, just for a moment, that sensation like missing a step on stairs. Then it slammed back into motion, racing, my pulse loud in my ears.
This didn't happen to me. I didn't have immediate physical reactions to anything. I'd trained myself out of that response by the time I was sixteen. Control was survival. Emotional responses were vulnerabilities I couldn't afford.
But every system in my body was firing like I'd touched a live wire.
She was small. Maybe five-three in the flat black shoes they'd given her. The grey dress was simple, expensive, chosen to make her look like a blank canvas. It fit well—not tight, not loose, just skimming her body in a way that suggested curves without emphasizing them.
Her hair fell past her shoulders. Dark blonde, honey-colored under the stage lights. It looked soft. I wanted to touch it.
That thought alone should have terrified me.
She was beautiful. Delicate features, heart-shaped face, the kind of beauty that made men want to protect her. But it wasn't just beauty. There was something else. Something in the way she held herself.
Dancer's posture. Spine straight, shoulders back, chin up. She was trying to look bigger than she was. Trying to look strong, intimidating, capable. Her small frame couldn't pull it off but she tried anyway.
Her eyes swept the crowd. Blue-green, striking even from three rows back. But it was the way she looked that destroyed something in my chest. Systematic. Methodical. Cataloging.
A trapped animal assessing the cage.
I knew that look. Saw it in the mirror every morning. The need to understand the space, to calculate odds, to find safety through information.
She was scared. Trying not to show it. Failing.
My hands gripped the armrests of my chair. I forced them to relax. Counted to four. It didn't work.
The auctioneer smiled at the crowd. "As you can see, Lot 37 is in excellent physical condition. Former professional dancer with American Ballet Theatre until an injury ended her career three years ago. Maintained her physical conditioning despite the setback."
He said it like a car salesman describing a vehicle with minor cosmetic damage.
On stage, Sophie's jaw clenched. Her hands fisted at her sides.
That's when I saw it. The detail that changed everything.
Her hands.
They were clenched into fists so tight her knuckles were white. But her thumbs—her thumbs were tapping against her fingers in a rhythmic pattern. One-two-three-four. One-two-three-four.
Self-soothing. A grounding technique. The kind of thing people did when they were fighting panic attacks or managing overwhelming anxiety.
The kind of thing Littles did when they were trying not to regress.
My breath caught.
I'd been in the DDlg community for eight years. Always as a Daddy Dom, never with a permanent Little because the vulnerability terrified me. Letting someone see that soft, young,dependent part of themselves meant trusting them completely. Trusting that you'd protect them, care for them, keep them safe.
I'd never found someone I trusted myself to care for. Never found a Little who could handle my level of control and structure. Never found anyone who made me want to try.
But I knew the signs. Had studied them, learned them, understood them the way I understood threat assessment and financial analysis and anything else I needed to survive.
She was fighting regression with everything she had.
Somehow, I just knew. She was a Little. In distress. Being sold on a stage to criminals who would use her, break her, destroy that soft vulnerable part of herself that she was trying so hard to protect.
And my immediate, irrational, absolutely certain thought was: Mine.
The word echoed in my head like a command. Like something fundamental and undeniable. Like gravity.
Mine. Mine to protect. Mine to care for. Mine to keep safe. Mine.
