Outside these walls, the Belyaevs still wanted me. The bratva world was still dangerous. My father's debts were still unpaid. Everything was still complicated and messy and uncertain.
But here—right now—wrapped in Nikolai's arms with his love confession still echoing in my ears, I felt safe. Cherished. Home.
For the first time in three years, I felt like maybe everything would be okay.
Chapter 12
Nikolai
IwokeatsixAMbecause my body was trained to wake at six AM. Thirty-three years of discipline didn't disappear just because I had a woman in my bed. But for the first time in maybe ever, I didn't want to get up. Didn't want to move. Didn't want to disturb the small, warm body pressed against my side like she'd been designed to fit there.
Sophie.
Even thinking her name did things to me. Made my chest tight. Made something warm unfurl low in my stomach that had nothing to do with morning arousal and everything to do with the fact that she was here. In my bed. Where she'd been sleeping for three weeks straight.
Morning light filtered through the curtains I'd forgotten to close last night. We'd been too busy. Too focused on getting her into bed, getting her clothes off, getting inside her. The light painted her honey-colored hair gold where it spread across my pillow. My pillow. Like she belonged there.
She was wearing one of my t-shirts. Black, too big for her, the collar slipping off one pale shoulder. Nothing else. I knew because I'd been the one to dress her after we'd finished last night. Had pulled the shirt over her head while she was still fuzzy and sated and not quite back to being fully big. Had tucked her against my side and listened to her breathing even out into sleep.
Her face was peaceful. Lips slightly parted. One hand curled against my chest over my heart. Her bad knee bent, leg thrown over mine like she was claiming me even in sleep.
I just watched her for a while. Let myself have this moment before the day started and I had to be the Pakhan again. Before I had to think about territory disputes and Belyaev threats and the dozens of decisions waiting for me.
Right now I was just Nikolai. Just a man waking up next to the woman he loved.
The past three weeks had been the most stable, peaceful weeks of my life. That probably said something terrible about my life, but I didn't care. Sophie had signed the contract with all the optional clauses. Had become mine officially. My Little. My responsibility. My devotchka.
And she'd thrived under the structure.
She followed her rules without complaint. Bedtime at ten PM on weeknights—sometimes she tested it, stayed up until 10:15 or 10:30, earned herself minor consequences that she seemed to need just to confirm the boundaries were real. But mostly she came to bed when I told her to. Let me tuck her in. Let me hold her until she fell asleep.
Three meals a day. No skipping. That had been harder. She had a tendency to forget lunch when she was deep in work. But I'd made it non-negotiable. Had Irina bring food to the library if Sophie didn't come down. Had sat with her and watched her eat when the anxiety made her stomach tight. Had praised her when she cleaned her plate without being reminded.
She checked in before leaving the compound. Always. Texted me where she was going, who she'd be with, when she'd be back. Never ignored my calls. That rule was sacred after what had happened with the storage unit. She knew it. Respected it. Hadn't tested it once.
The intelligence work was going well. Better than well. She worked in my library every afternoon, cataloging communications and surveillance reports with that brilliant photographic memory. She'd built detailed timelines of Belyaev movements, cross-referenced contacts, identified patterns I'd missed. She was an asset. Not just because of her memory, but because she was smart. Analytical. Saw connections.
But it was the evenings I looked forward to most.
We had dinner together every night. Sometimes in the formal dining room with Mikhail and my brothers when family business required it. More often in my study or my bedroom, just the two of us. Conversation flowed easily now that the walls between us had come down. She told me about her childhood, her mother who'd died young, her complicated relationship with her father. I told her about growing up in the bratva, about my mother leaving, about the pressure of becoming Pakhan at thirty-three.
After dinner, things varied. Sometimes she wanted to be big—wanted adult conversation and wine and sex that left us both wrecked. Those nights I fucked her hard and watched her come apart under my hands. Watched her scream my name. Watched her float in that post-orgasmic haze where she was soft and pliant and completely mine.
Sometimes she just wanted to be held. Wanted to curl up against me on the sofa while I worked or read. Wanted my arms around her and my hand in her hair and the steady rhythm of my breathing to ground her. Those nights we didn't have sex. Just intimacy. Just connection. Just being together.
And sometimes—more and more frequently—she slipped into Little space.
It had happened gradually. The first time had been accidental, a week after we'd signed the contract. She'd had a nightmare about Sergei, woken up crying and small and needing comfort she couldn't articulate. I'd held her and whispered reassurances in Russian and watched her transform into someone younger. Someone who needed her Daddy.
After that, it became easier for her. More natural. She'd come to me in the evenings and ask if she could be little tonight. If Daddy would read to her. If she could color while I worked. If we could watch a movie with her in my lap.
I'd said yes every time. Had created space for Little Sophie in my life. In my home. In my heart.
Watching her bloom under my care had healed something in me I didn't know was broken. Some part of me that had been locked down since my mother left. Since I'd learned that emotional vulnerability was dangerous. That caring too much meant getting hurt.
Sophie made me want to care. Made me want to be vulnerable. Made me want to build a life instead of just surviving one.
I traced my finger down her spine. Watched goosebumps rise on her skin even through the t-shirt. Her body responded to my touch even when she was asleep. The knowledge made something possessive and primal stir in my chest.
