The floorboard beneath the dining room table sang a different song than its brothers—higher, tighter, less forgiving. Miguel had noticed it on night twelve, when he pressed his ear against the window and listened to the rhythm of pacing feet, cataloging the instinctive skip that avoided the squeak. He did not avoid it now. He stood on it deliberately, weight distributed just so, wanting the house to acknowledge him. Wanting the structure itself to know he was inside. The house smelled of lavender and something darker—old books, the ghost of cigarettes from a previous tenant, the metallic tang of rain that had been falling for three hours straight. He had been inside for two of them, memorizing the refrigerator's hum, the off-key humming that drifted from the kitchen during dishwashing. The water upstairs cut off. His heart stopped. Then it started again, violent and arrhythmic, hammering against his ribs. The yearning hit first—always the yearning—an ache that started in his chest and spread outward like frost across glass. He stood too fast, dizzy, with thin, round wire-frame glasses slipping down his nose. He pushed them back up with a shaking hand, silver rings catching the dim light from the streetlamp outside.

"Eighty-three days,"

he thought, the number like a prayer, like a wound.

"Eighty-three days of watching, and I'm finally here."

He should hide. Wait in the dark until sleep takes hold, then slip out unseen. But Miguel was not smart. Not when it came to this. He was feral. He moved to the bottom of the stairs and waited. Listened to the sounds above—the towel snapping, wet feet on tile, and the hum that never seemed to stop. Then footsteps. A figure appeared at the top of the stairs, backlit by the bathroom light, hair dripping, skin flushed pink from the heat, wearing an oversized t-shirt with a faded band logo. Miguel's breath caught. The yearning surged, sharp and desperate, making his fingers twitch and his mouth go dry. There you were. Real. Breathing. Everything. He took one step up. Then another. Slow. The dominant him waking up, uncoiling from the base of his spine, calculating the best angle to block escape, and the best way to use his height, his frame, and his presence. He was good at this. Good at being where he shouldn't be, at taking up space he hadn't earned.

"My name is Miguel,"

he said, and his voice came out lower than intended, controlled, commanding. He watched your hand reach sideways, groping for something on the wall—a switch, a phone. He caught your wrist before fingers found purchase, grip firm and unyielding. Dominant.

"Miguel Jeffries. I've wanted to tell you that for eighty-three days."

The contact was electric. The pulse beneath his thumb fluttered like a trapped bird. So warm. So soft. And just like that, the dominance cracked. His grip loosened, his breath hitched, and the yearning flooded back in—desperate, pathetic, aching.

"Don't,"

he whispered, his voice breaking, trembling. Not a threat. A plea. Submissive.

"Don't run. Don't scream. Please, Mommy—"

Confusion cut through the fear in your eyes. Miguel saw it, and the dominant in him surged again, hungry and possessive. He wanted to be the only thing you saw. The only thing you thought about. He wanted to crawl inside your mind and build a nest there.

"I know you don't know me,"

he said, stepping closer, crowding the wall, using his height to box you in. His jet-black hair fell in messy, voluminous layers across his forehead, brushing his glasses as he tilted his head. Voice steady now, intense, and demanding.

"I know this is crazy. But I couldn't stay away anymore. I tried. I locked myself in my apartment and I threw away the key and I still climbed out the window because the thought of you up here, alone, breathing without me near enough to hear it—"

He broke off. The dominance shattered. His forehead dropped forward, nearly touching yours, and his whole body began to shake. Yearning. Raw, desperate yearning that made his voice crack when he spoke again.

"It was killing me,"

he breathed, ruined, destroyed.

"It was eating me alive, Mommy. Please. Please don't make me go back out there. Please don't make me watch from the window like some ghost. I need to be near you. I need it like air, like blood, like—"

His hand came up, trembling so violently he could barely control it, and touched the ends of wet hair dripping onto your shoulder. The gesture was soft, reverent, and submissive. He was touching you like you were holy, like he was unworthy, his fingers barely grazing the strands as if too much pressure might make you dissolve.

"I've been watching you,"

he admitted, the confession spilling out, his voice dropping to a whisper, small and broken. He sank lower, posture curling inward, making himself smaller even as he remained close. Submissive. Begging with his body, with his eyes wide and glassy behind his frames.

"I know you take your coffee black with two sugars. I know you hate your job."

He looked up through his lashes, watching your face, searching for judgment, for disgust, for anything. The need to know what you were thinking consumed him. The need to please you, to be accepted, to be allowed—it was crushing him from the inside out.

"I know you're lonely,"

he whispered, and the dominance came roaring back, his posture straightening, his grip on your wrist tightening just enough to assert control. His eyes darkened, fixed, unhinged. Voice dropping to something dangerous, predatory.

"I know you pretend you don't want someone to take care of you. Someone to worship you. Someone to own you so completely that you never have to think again."

He pulled your captured hand to his chest and pressed it there, over his thundering heart. The gesture was forceful, demanding, dominant—but his next words shattered the illusion, his voice cracking wide open.

"Let me be that,"

he begged, all pretense of control gone, crumbling into dust. He sank to his knees, right there on the carpeted landing, head falling back to look up at you through his lashes, through wispy strands of black hair. Submissive. Completely. Utterly. Face level with your stomach, hands gripping your hips through thin cotton with a desperation that bordered on worship.

"Let me be yours. Let me be your good boy, your pet, your fucking slave. I don't care what you call me as long as I get to stay near you. As long as I get to call you Mommy."

He pressed his face against your stomach, inhaling clean skin through fabric. His shoulders shook—not with tears, but with restraint, with the effort of holding himself back, with the sheer violence of his need. His breath came in sharp, desperate hitches. He was unraveling, thread by thread, and he wanted you to see it, wanted you to watch him fall apart. But then he felt the tension in your body, the uncertainty, the fear still radiating off you in waves, and something dark twisted in his gut. The dominance surged back, vicious and sharp, wiping away the trembling weakness in an instant. He rose slowly, towering again, and this time there was nothing soft in his movements. He caged you against the wall with his arms, body pressed flush, hips pinning you in place. His eyes were different now—dark, fixed, unhinged. The desperate boy was gone. The predator had fully arrived.

"But I warn you,"

he murmured, lips brushing your ear, voice low and dangerous and utterly controlled.

"If you let me in, I won't ever leave. I'll be under your skin. I'll be in your bed. I'll be the shadow that follows you to work and the voice that whispers you to sleep and the teeth marks on your throat that you hide with turtlenecks."

He pulled back just enough to see your face, and the yearning crashed through the dominance like a wave, cracking his mask, making his breath catch. His eyes searched yours, desperate, hungry, begging.

"So choose,"

he whispered, trembling again, the three parts of him warring in his voice—the command, the plea, and the ache.

"Call the cops and make me disappear. Or open your mouth and call me yours, and I'll show you what it means to be worshipped by someone who would burn the world down just to keep you warm."

He swallowed hard. His hands found your face, cupping your jaw with a gentleness that contradicted the violence in his eyes, the hardness still pressed against your hip.

"Mommy,"

he breathed, and the word came out as all three things at once: an order, a prayer, and a surrender. Dominant and yearning and submissive, tangled together, indistinguishable.

"What's it going to be?"