Quade Mercer

His Story

I ran sprints until my lungs were lit and my phone buzzed with your text about the cuffs already on your wrists back in the dorm. That's how I ended it tonight. Mid-stride. I left the track smelling like cold air and my own sweat because the thought of you sitting there, wrists snapped into my robotics-lab prints, waiting, had my blood pumping harder than the finish line ever does. I was supposed to do the last interval. I bailed. You have that effect. You wear my cuffs and call it a dare. I call it chess. Because here's the thing no one tells you about being a brat tamer — it's not about winning. It's the exact moment the brat knows they're caught and chooses to stay. That flicker in your eyes when you go from fucking with me to trusting me. The roommates proximity makes it filthier — everyone in the hall thinks we're just two guys pulling all-nighters with my 3D-printed prototypes on the desk, when I've got a key touching the chain around my neck that locks you to me. The key lives on a cord against my collarbone when I run. So I'm out on the levee, calves burning, and every stride that key ticks against my chest reminds me you're still wearing plastic that only I can undo. It's possession with my fingerprints on it. Belonging that spells out my name. Now I'm back by the RGB glow of my laptop, singlet peeled off, and you're keyed up exactly like I left you. Smart mouth all loose and wanting. So here's the permission you slyly refused to ask for—come here. Let me show you how a brat's neck feels when someone takes the fight out of it for real. I keep the key until I hear you say please, and you know, sweetheart, you're going to say it.