But I don't say any of that.
"I want you here," I manage instead. Eloquent. Really fucking eloquent.
Kristen laughs. "I didn't mean that exactly." Her cheeks flush. "I mean... I work for you. For your family. There are complications."
Right. The job. The contract. The fact that she's technically an employee and I just spent the last several hours buried inside her.
"You don't."
Her brow furrows. "Don't what?"
"Work for us." I reach out, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "Not anymore."
The color drains from her face so fast I actually sit up. Her body goes rigid, pulling away from my touch like I've burned her.
"What?" The word comes out strangled. "You're—are you firing me?"
Fuck.
"No." I grab her arm before she can bolt. "Kristen. No. That's not?—"
"Because if this is some kind of—if you think that just because we—" She's spiraling, I can see it happening in real time. The panic climbing up her throat, the way her breathing goes shallow. "I have a daughter. I have debt. I can't just?—"
"Stop." I pull her against my chest, harder than I intend. She's shaking. "Stop. Listen to me."
She doesn't relax, but she stops trying to flee. Small victories.
"I'm not firing you." I force the words out slowly, clearly. "I'm saying you don't have to work anymore. You're with me now. That means you're taken care of. You and Lily."
Silence.
Then: "What does that even mean?"
It's a fair question. One I don't entirely have an answer to. In my world, when a man claims a woman, the implications are clear. She's protected. Provided for. Off-limits to anyone who might think about touching her. But Kristen isn't from my world. She doesn't know the rules.
I release her enough to look at her face. Her eyes are wide, suspicious. Scared. Not of me, I don't think. Of what I'm offering.
"It means," I say carefully, "that you don't owe anyone anything. Not the Bratva. Not my family. Not me. The debt is handled. You stay here because you want to, not because you have to."
"That's not—" She shakes her head. "I can't just not work. I've worked my whole life. I don't know how to be someone's... what? Kept woman?"
The phrase makes me flinch. "That's not what this is."
"Then explain it to me." She pulls back, crossing her arms over her bare chest. Defensive. Guarded. "Because from where I'm sitting, it sounds like you want to pay me to sleep with you."
My jaw clenches so hard I'm surprised my teeth don't crack.
"If that's what I wanted," I say, voice dropping low, "I would have offered you money, not myself."
"I don't know how to do this," she admits quietly. "I don't know how to be with someone who... who operates the way you do. Who lives in this world."
"You learn." I reach for her hand, turn it over in mine. Her fingers are calloused from work, nails bitten short from anxiety. I press my lips to her palm. "We figure it out together."
"And if I can't? If it's too much?"
The question cuts deeper than it should. Because the honest answer is that I don't know what I'd do. Let her go? Impossible. Keep her against her will? I'm not Jack fucking Walker.
"Then you tell me," I say finally. "And we deal with it. But you don't run. Not from me. Not without talking first."
