Page 42 of Bratva Daddy
"Sub drop. The crash that can happen after intense play when all the endorphins fade. It can feel like depression, like beinghollowed out. Some subs need hours of holding, others need chocolate and bad movies. We'll learn what you need."
The care in his voice, the assumption that he'd learn my needs and meet them, made my eyes burn with unshed tears.
"What about you?" I asked suddenly. "What's your aftercare?"
He blinked, clearly not expecting the question. "Dominant aftercare?"
"You're human too," I said, repeating my earlier words. "After you punish me, you might need reassurance that you didn't go too far. After intense scenes, you might need to know I'm okay, that I felt safe."
Something vulnerable flashed across his face, there and gone so fast I might have imagined it. The pakhan who commanded an empire, who'd killed seventeen men with his bare hands, looked momentarily uncertain.
"You hold me," he said quietly. "After. You let me hold you and you tell me you feel safe. That you're okay. That's all I need."
The simplicity of it broke my heart a little. This man who could have anything, who controlled half of New York's underworld, just needed to know he hadn't hurt me in the bad way. That I trusted him enough to be vulnerable in his arms.
"I can do that," I whispered.
"Then we understand each other." He slid the contract back toward me, producing a pen from his suit jacket—an expensive Mont Blanc that caught the light like a weapon. "Last chance to walk away, Clara."
But we both knew I wouldn't. I'd been his since the moment I'd broken his rules and begged for consequences.
The pen weighed more than metal and ink should—it weighed like a future, like a choice, like everything I'd never dared to want. The Mont Blanc sat heavy in my palm while Alexei watched me with those gray eyes that saw too much, understood too much, demanded too much.
"Once you sign, you're mine," he said, each word deliberate as a funeral bell. "Not until your father pays—mine until I decide otherwise. This isn't temporary anymore, Clara. This is you giving yourself to me completely."
The words should have sent me running. Should have triggered every self-preservation instinct I'd developed over twenty-three years of being someone's accessory. Instead, they made my core clench with want so intense it bordered on pain.
I met his eyes, seeing both the predator and the protector there. The man who'd killed for his family and the one who'd built a garden for his grandmother's memory. The monster who'd described drowning someone in concrete and the caretaker who'd brought me ice cream for my sore jaw.
"I've been yours since you grabbed my chin on that street," I admitted, the truth spilling out like blood from a wound. "Everything else has just been catching up to what my body already knew."
Something flashed across his face—triumph maybe, or possession, or just pure want. His hands clenched on the table like he was physically holding himself back from reaching for me.
I looked down at the contract, at all those carefully written sections that outlined exactly how he'd own me. Daily structure, punishments, sexual control, aftercare—every aspect of my life detailed and defined, waiting for my signature to make it real.
The pen moved across paper without my conscious decision, muscle memory taking over where courage failed. Clara Albright appeared in flowing script, looking small beneath all his precise writing. But it was there. Binding. Real.
I set the pen down with shaking hands, and Alexei picked it up immediately. His signature was sharp, aggressive, taking up more space than mine—Alexei Volkov written like a claim, like a brand, like a promise of everything to come.
He set the contract aside with careful movements, as if it was something precious rather than just paper and ink. Then his eyes found mine, and the full weight of what we'd just done crashed over me like a wave.
"Come here," he commanded, voice pure dark authority.
My legs felt like water as I stood, walked around the table on unsteady feet. Each step brought me closer to a future I couldn't fully imagine but desperately wanted. When I reached him, he pulled me down into his lap with one smooth motion, positioning me so I straddled his thighs.
One hand tangled in my hair immediately, pulling my head back to expose my throat. The other gripped my hip hard enough that I knew I'd have bruises—marks of ownership that would bloom purple and blue beneath my skin. The thought made me wet enough that I worried about leaving evidence on his expensive suit.
"Say it," he demanded, gray eyes boring into mine with intensity that stole my breath. "Say what you are now."
My mouth opened, closed, opened again. The words stuck in my throat—not from reluctance but from the sheer weight of them. Once I said this, there was no going back. No pretending this was just about debt or leverage or circumstances beyond our control.
"Yours," I breathed, the word barely audible.
His hand tightened in my hair, pulling hard enough to make my scalp sting. "Louder. All of it."
"Yours," I repeated, stronger now. "Your little girl. Your baby. Your property."
"Mine," he agreed, and then his mouth crashed into mine with the force of a natural disaster.
