I'd never held anyone like this. After sex, sure—there'd been a few women over the years, transactions more than connections, and I'd always left or made them leave within the hour. But this wasn't after sex. This was after something else entirely. After I'd taken my hand to her ass, given her the discipline she'd been craving, and then held her while she sobbed with relief so profound it had cracked something open in my own chest.
The spanking itself hadn't shaken me. Twenty strikes, firm but not brutal, enough to mark but not damage. That was just mechanics. Math and muscle memory.
But after—blyat, the after had wrecked me.
The way she'd collapsed against me, not in defeat but in surrender. The way her tears had soaked through my shirt while she thanked me—actually thanked me—for giving her what she needed. The way she'd gone soft and small in my arms, letting me see the parts of herself she kept locked away behind that brilliant, fractured exterior. I'd whispered to her in Russian, called her kitten, told her she was safe, and felt her whole body relax like she'd been waiting her entire life to hear those exact words in that exact voice.
I shifted my gaze down to her face, visible in the spreading dawn light. Her dark hair was a mess against my chest, tangled from sleep and from my hands. Her lips were slightly parted, and there was a tiny crease between her eyebrows like she was saving lives in her dreams. One of her hands rested over my heart, fingers splayed, and I wondered if she could feel how it stuttered every time she made those small sleeping sounds.
My chest tightened again, that same sensation I'd been fighting all night. Like something was breaking and healing at the same time. Like my ribs were too small to contain whatever was expanding inside them.
I knew what it was. Had known for hours, probably known since the moment she'd submitted to me, given me her pain and her trust in equal measure. But knowing and acknowledging were different things, and acknowledging meant I couldn't pretend this was just protection, just the Dom response to finding a Little who needed care.
This was love.
Lyubov.
The word sat heavy in my mind, foreign despite being in my native tongue. Love was what got people killed in my world. Love was weakness, leverage, a knife someone could twist. My brother Nikolai had just learned that lesson with his Sophie, though it seemed to be working out for them. But they were different people. He was the Pakhan, the strategist. I was the enforcer, the beast, the one who did terrible things so others could sleep at night.
Men like me didn't love. We possessed, we protected, we controlled, but we didn't love. I didn't have the framework for it, the experience, the fucking instruction manual.
But looking at Maya's sleeping face, feeling her breath against my skin, knowing she trusted me enough to be this vulnerable—what else could I call it? This need to keep her safe that went beyond protocol. This desire to give her everything, not just protection but happiness, comfort, those small moments of joy I'd seen when she laughed at the kittens. This terror that something could happen to her, that I could fail her the way I'd failed to protect so many others.
She shifted slightly, burrowing closer, and made a small sound that might have been my name. My arms tightened around her automatically, and I pressed my lips to the top of her head. Her hair smelled like the vanilla soap from my shower, and underneath that, something uniquely her—something clean and slightly medical, like she carried the ghost of antiseptic in her skin.
The sun was properly up now, painting my bedroom walls gold. In an hour, maybe two, she'd wake up. We'd have to figure out what this was, what came next, how to navigate a relationship neither of us knew how to have. I'd have to learn to be someone's Daddy not just in the bedroom but in life. She'd have to learn to trust that I wouldn't disappear, wouldn't hurt her, wouldn't become another ghost haunting her survival.
But for now, she slept against my chest, trusting me to hold her, and I stared at the ceiling making promises to myself, to her, to whatever god might be listening to a man like me. I'd figure this out. I'd learn to love her properly, with the same precision I'd learned violence. I'd keep her safe not just from the organ smuggling syndicate but from everything, including her own self-destruction.
I'd probably fuck it up. Multiple times. In creative ways. But looking at her now, feeling this impossible thing in my chest that could only be love, I knew I'd die trying to get it right.
Because Maya Cross—brilliant, broken, mine—deserved nothing less.
Shewokethewaythe sun rose—slowly, inevitably, with small movements that built toward consciousness. First her fingers flexed against my chest, then her legs stretched, toes pointing, and finally she made this sound—half moan, half purr—that went straight to my cock despite the fact that we'd been up half the night.
The trust in that unconscious stretch destroyed me. She didn't jerk awake. Didn't go rigid with panic about where she was, who was holding her. She just . . . woke up. Like waking up in my arms was natural. Safe. Home.
Her eyes opened, those hazel depths still hazy with sleep, and when they found mine, she smiled. Not the careful smile she gave when she was thinking seventeen steps ahead, not the brittle one she used as armor. This was soft, unguarded, real.
"Morning," she murmured, voice rough with sleep.
"Dobroye utro, kotenok." The Russian came out without thought, and her smile widened.
"I don't know what you said, but I like how it sounds."
"Good morning, kitten," I translated, and watched color bloom across her cheeks.
She ducked her head, pressing her face against my chest, and I felt her lips curve into another smile against my skin. This was dangerous—this softness, this domesticity. Every instinct I'd developed over thirty years screamed that I should get up, put distance between us, rebuild the walls that kept people alive in my world.
But I didn't move.
Instead, I found myself thinking about all the things she'd missed while running, while hiding, while trying to survive. She'd spent six months in shadows, in basement clinics, in the spaces between legal and illegal where people went to disappear. Before that, she'd been in that hospital, surrounded by death and corruption, trying to save people while the system she'd trusted sold organs like produce.
She deserved sunlight. Fresh air. The simple pleasure of existing in public without looking over her shoulder.
The thought was insane. The Syndicate and the Belyaevs were still hunting her. Taking her out would expose her, make her a target. The smart move was to keep her here, locked in the compound where my men could maintain a perimeter, where the security cameras covered every angle, where—
"Your heartbeat just tripled," she said against my chest. "What are you overthinking?"
