And he'd never once made me feel broken for any of it.
"Last night," I started.
The words caught. I set down the purple pencil, picked up red, tried to find the shape of what I was trying to say.
"When you touched my face."
He went very still.
"When you let go."
The sentence hung between us, incomplete. I could hear Ghost breathing. Could hear the distant hum of traffic from the street below, muffled by expensive windows and thirty stories of air. Could hear my own heart beating, too fast, too loud.
"I didn't want you to let go."
The admission came out barely above a whisper. I still wasn't looking at him—couldn't look at him, couldn't handle whatever I might find in his expression. My hand had stopped moving on the mandala, the red pencil suspended above an unfinished section.
"I know it was the right thing," I continued. The words were coming faster now, tumbling out before I could second-guess them. "I know you were giving me space, giving me choice. And I needed that. I did. But—"
I finally looked up.
His eyes were dark. Intense. Burning with something that looked like hunger barely leashed.
"But part of me wanted you to kiss me anyway. Part of me wanted you to just—take. To not ask, to not wait, to just—"
I couldn't finish the sentence.
The silence stretched between us, heavy with everything I wasn't quite saying. The question was there, building in my chest, pressing against my ribs. The thing I'd been circling since I woke up, since I buried my face in his sweater and breathed him in, since I watched him braid my hair with gentle, competent fingers and wondered what it would feel like to let him take care of me forever.
I made myself look at him—really look, taking in all the pieces. The killer who'd broken two men on a street in the Lower East Side less than twenty-four hours ago. The caretaker who'd run my bath and tested the temperature three times and braided my hair without pulling. The man who'd been patient with me for five months, who'd learned my patterns and my triggers and my particular brand of broken, who'd met every confession with acceptance instead of judgment.
All of him. Every contradictory, impossible part.
"I don't want this to be temporary."
My voice came out small, but steady. Steadier than I'd expected.
"I don't want you to just be Lis on a screen, or Maks who's protecting me until Anton's gone." The words were spilling out now, faster than I could filter them. "I don't want to be your asset or your project or your responsibility. I want—"
I had to stop. Breathe. Find the courage that had been building since the moment he'd let go of my face last night.
"I want you to be my Daddy."
The word hung in the air between us.
I'd never said it out loud. Had never let the sound of it exist in the physical world, where it could be heard and judged and rejected.
"For real," I continued. My hands were shaking harder now, but I couldn't stop. Couldn't take it back. "Not just online. Not just for now. I want—"
I met his eyes. Let him see everything—the fear, the wanting, the desperate hope I'd been carrying for five months without letting myself name it.
"I want to be yours."
The silence stretched.
His eyes had gone dark. Intense. Burning with something that looked like hope and hunger and heartbreak all at once, everything he'd been holding back suddenly visible in the shift of his expression.
"Auralia."
