“Fear of what?”
“Losing you.” His voice cracks slightly. “Something happening to you because I didn't do enough, didn't anticipate the right threat, didn't protect you well enough.”
My chest tightens. “Ty?—"
“Let me finish. He takes a breath. When I'm scared, I default to protocols. To procedures. To controlling every variablebecause that's how I was trained. But you're not a mission parameter. You're the person I love.” He exhales like he's been holding a breath. “I need you to know—this dynamic we have? It only works if there's trust going both ways. And this week, I broke that trust by trying to control you instead of trusting you to make good decisions with the information I give you. I wasn’t honest about my fear and I can’t expect you to be honest and tell me everything if I’m not honest back. I didn’t want you to think I was a weaker man by admitting I’m afraid, but that wasn’t fair to you.”
“I did the same thing,” I admit. “I've been saying yes to everything you ask but then resenting it instead of being honest about what feels like too much. I didn’t tell you how uncomfortable I was and how overbearing you’d gotten.”
“So, we both fucked up.”
“Pretty much.”
He reaches for me, and I step into his arms, pressing my face into his chest and breathing in his scent. His heart is racing.
I pull back to look at him. “What now?”
He guides me to the couch, and we sit facing each other. Then he takes both my hands.
“I need you to tell me what this week felt like, be blunt and honest.”
I take a breath. “It felt like you were treating me like I couldn't be trusted. Every post I wanted to make, you had notes. Every outing I mentioned, you had concerns. And I get it—safety is important. But it started to feel less like partnership and more like surveillance. It felt like you didn’t trust me at all.”
He nods, jaw tight. “That's fair. And probably accurate.”
“And I didn't help,” I continue, “because I stopped pushing back. I just agreed to everything and then felt resentful. Which isn't fair to either of us.”
“Why did you stop pushing back?”
“Because I was scared that if I challenged you, you'd think I wasn't taking this seriously. Or that I didn't respect the dynamic we're building.”
“Madison.” He squeezes my hands. “The dynamic requires honesty. If something feels wrong, I need you to tell me. That's not disobedience. That's communication.”
“Even in the middle of a crisis?”
“Especially then.”
I nod slowly. “Okay. Then here's what I need.”
“I'm listening, Madi Baby.”
“I need you to give me more context. When you say something's too risky, I need to understand why. Not just trust blindly, but actually know what the threat is so I can make informed decisions. Instead of a simple, ‘no delete this,’ I need you to say, ‘this doesn’t work because the street sign is in the bottom left. It could be an easy edit. Or instead of, ‘you can’t go to dinner with Holly tonight,’ say, ‘the restaurant you’ve chosen has connections to the trafficking ring, pick another one.’”
He's quiet for a moment. “That goes against every instinct I have. My training says the less you know, the safer you are.”
“But I'm not an asset,” I counter gently. “I'm your partner. And I can't be a good partner if I don't understand what we're up against and it will feel less like a toxic controlling relationship and more like care. Maybe eventually, when you say no, I won’t need justification, but for now…”
He exhales slowly. “You're right. What else?”
“I need us to separate the Daddy Dom little girl dynamic from the crisis management. When you're making safety calls, that's not Daddy making rules. That's Ty the analyst doing his job. And I need to be able to disagree with the analyst without it feeling like I'm challenging Daddy. It feels wrong to challenge you as my Daddy, but I have to be able to as a woman with my own autonomy.”
His expression shifts to surprised, then thoughtful. “That's... actually really insightful.”
“I've been thinking about it a lot.”
“We need clear delineation,” he says. “When I'm speaking as your partner who happens to have expertise in security, I need to flag that. And you need to feel free to push back without worrying it'll bleed into our dynamic or you might end up over my knee.”
“Exactly.”
