14. Wilder
Wilder
Merrick’s apartment was completely him while also not being him at all.
It was one of those cookie-cutter units that had sprung up in the eighties, completely devoid of all character, but Merrick had done his best with it.
The living room looked to be the place he spent the most time, sketchbooks and paint scattered across the coffee table.
There were a few paint-covered beer cans, discarded paint brushes, and a half-eaten bag of chips.
“I’m going to go look at your room,” Wilder said, waiting until Merrick had started to tidy the disaster on the table before packing it up.
“I can show you.”
“I can find it myself.” Wilder glanced at the table. “Be a good boy and clean up, then come find me.”
Merrick’s chest swelled when he exhaled, and Wilder left him alone to his arousal and confusion.
Merrick’s apartment was probably the same size as Wilder’s house, if not bigger.
Merrick had two bedrooms, one sparse, the other clearly lived in.
Wilder pushed the door open, scanning the space before stepping inside.
The bed was a queen, neatly made with two pillows and a black and white comforter pulled taut at every edge.
There was a black rug on one side of the bed, a nightstand that looked like it had been put together right out of a box and a dresser that matched.
The real standout of the room, and the rest of the house, was the art.
Merrick’s walls were covered with it, and Wilder hadn’t seen enough to know if it was Merrick’s own work or someone else’s.
He imagined it was probably a mix of both, but appreciated all of them as if they had been made by Merrick’s own hand.
Wilder sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled open the drawer of the nightstand, laughing at what he found—a ball gag, a bottle of lube, and a strip of condoms. He pulled all of it out and set it on the bed, then went to the dresser and explored one drawer at a time.
Again, almost everything he found was as expected.
A drawer of underwear, a drawer of socks, a drawer of pants.
There were T-shirts in the closet, most of them black.
Wilder found a surprise in the back of the closet, though, a small Tupperware with a blue lid slightly askew.
He sank down into a squat and pulled the container toward him, pushing aside a well-worn pair of Converse and flicking off the lid.
Inside he found a decent-sized black dildo, still in the package, a black leather blindfold, and a black rubber cock ring.
He wasn’t sure if any of it had been used, but he put the box on the bed and decided he was going to find out.
Merrick eventually appeared, his gaze landing on the box before Wilder.
“Oh, God.”
Wilder patted the bed. “Come sit. Do you want to tell me about this?”
“Not really.”
“Too bad,” he said.
Merrick groaned, scrubbing a hand down his face.
“I know you prefer to top. Have you ever bottomed?” Wilder asked.
Merrick opened his mouth, but no sound came out.
Wilder watched him and waited, patient and not willing to walk away from this conversation without the answers he wanted.
Five minutes passed, Merrick growing more uncomfortable by the second but refusing to answer the question.
Wilder could appreciate the embarrassment and discomfort, but it had no place between two men who fucked the way he and Merrick fucked.
“Get on your knees,” he said next. “Hands behind your head like this morning.”
Merrick complied quickly, sinking down to the rug in front of Wilder’s parted knees. After he laced his fingers together behind his head, he looked up at Wilder and waited.
“Have you ever bottomed?” he asked again.
Merrick gritted his teeth together. “No, Sir.”
“Have you ever had anything in your ass at all?”
“A finger. Once.”
“And you liked it enough to go buy this?” Wilder tapped his fingers against the plastic clamshell packaging around the dildo.
“I just thought about trying it if the situation ever presented itself.” Merrick’s stare flickered down toward Wilder’s thighs. “Do you top?”
“Not often,” he answered honestly. “And not in a long time. But…”
“I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to,” Merrick said quickly, catching Wilder’s stare again before adding a rushed, “Sir.”
“I won’t,” he said simply.
Wilder hadn’t topped in probably five years.
He hadn’t wanted to concede that preference because he didn’t want to end up in a relationship where he was expected to be vers.
He fought enough demons over being a dominant bottom.
He didn’t want a perception of him being vers in any way to give the impression he’d be fine leaning any other direction than how he already did.
Knowing, though, that Merrick had been so interested in bottoming after one encounter with a single finger was enough to raise a red flag, and Wilder studied the description on the toy’s packaging to distract himself.
At his feet, Merrick shifted uncomfortably, drawing Wilder’s attention back to the more pressing matter. He set down the dildo and held up the cock ring and the blindfold, eyebrow raised in question.
“I wanted to see if it made me last longer,” Merrick said.
“Did it?”
“Not every time.”
“And the blindfold?”
“I wasn’t a fan,” Merrick answered. “At least, not the way I used it.”
Wilder set both things down on top of the dildo. “How did you use it? At Rapture?”
Merrick nodded, whispered, “Yes, Sir.”
“While gagged?”
Another nod.
“I know Landon runs a relatively tight ship there, but you know that’s dangerous, right?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Is it something you wanted to try again? In a better environment, maybe?”
Merrick shrugged, an awkward move with his fingers still clasped at the back of his head. “There’s a lot I haven’t done, and I don’t know what I would like or wouldn’t like, so I can’t really say. But I’d try anything with you.”
Wilder sighed. “Don’t write a check you can’t cash.”
“You’ll stop if I say stop, right?” Merrick asked.
“Of course.”
“Then I can cash it.”
Wilder gently pressed the side of his finger against the bottom of Merrick’s chin, tilting him up enough that he could force eye contact. “I’m not vers, Merrick. I’m never going to prefer topping.”
“I love topping you. I don’t want to not do that.”
He hummed. “Tell me more.”
“I like when you’re on top because I can watch your face. The way your eyelashes flutter sometimes, and how you swallow really hard before you come. It makes me want to suck on your Adam’s apple. God, I’m doing it again.”
“Doing what?”
“Talking too much.”
He made a rough grab for Merrick’s face, pinching his cheeks together like a hooked fish. “Enough of that. Do you understand me?”
“Y…yes, Sir.”
“There is no such thing as too much. And in the unlikely event there is, I’ll tell you to stop. Just like you can tell me.”
“Yes, Sir,” Merrick muttered through his puckered cheeks.
“What other things do you want to try?” Wilder asked.
“I…can’t think straight right now,” Merrick admitted.
He exhaled a laugh, leaned in, and slanted their mouths together, kissing Merrick roughly before pulling away.
“Did you get everything you need to paint?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Alright. Lunch then, and we’ll head back to my place.” He reached around and loosened the death grip Merrick had on his own hands. “Up you go.”
Merrick unfolded himself and stood, and Wilder was reminded how broad and beefy the man was.
He gathered the toys from the bed and followed Merrick into the living room.
There was a wooden box balanced precariously on the back of the couch, which Merrick picked up and tucked carefully under his arm.
“It’s all in there?” Wilder asked.
“Yeah, it’s like a travel thing. Bryce—” Merrick stopped, jaw hanging open.
Wilder could tell he wanted to stop himself, and he watched the debate as Merrick talked himself out of it.
“Bryce got it for me for my birthday a few years ago. It’s kind of clunky so it’s not really practical for day-to-day travel, but it fits everything I need and it doubles as a table if I need one.”
Wilder nodded.
“And it has a built-in spot to hold water so I don’t have to use beer cans,” Merrick added.
“You don’t have to use beer cans here.”
“It’s easier.”
“Debatable, but okay.” Wilder opened the door and stepped onto the landing, waiting while Merrick locked the door and slid his keys into his pocket. “It wouldn’t be much work to take care of your place the way you take care of mine.”
Merrick threw him a crooked glance. “Is that an order?”
“Does it need to be?”
“Yeah, maybe.”
Wilder waited until they’d reached his car, and he used his body to box Merrick in against the passenger side door. The wood box was massive between them, but Wilder pressed in anyway. He hoped it made Merrick uncomfortable, he wanted him to be uneasy.
“You’re with me through the weekend,” Wilder said, brushing his nose against Merrick’s. “Home on Monday, yes?”
“If that’s what you say.”
“Home on Monday,” he repeated, “and you’re not welcome back until your place is as clean as mine.”
Merrick drew in a sharp breath but offered no argument, only a soft concession.
“Good boy.” Wilder tapped his hand against the side of Merrick’s face, making a note of the low and rumbling growl he let out at the contact. “Get in the car.”
He tossed the dildo and other toys onto the back seat, not caring if any pedestrians peeked in and saw what he had back there.
Merrick gave much more care to the box of his paints, setting it down on the floor behind the passenger seat and testing how much it slid around before climbing back into the front seat.
Wilder buckled his seatbelt and was about to ask Merrick what he wanted for lunch when he decided it didn’t matter.
Merrick had been trying to lean into understanding submission all day, and Wilder wasn’t about to ruin that for him.
He appreciated the eager way Merrick approached their relationship.
From the morning coffee to the fresh sheets, to the easy way he found more than one occasion to call him Sir.
So without asking, Wilder drove them north along the coast until he found the restaurant he was looking for.
It was a place Wilder had only been to once, but the shrimp was to die for and he’d been looking for any excuse to go back.
Merrick proved the perfect reason. Wilder pulled into a parking spot and waited in front of the car for Merrick to check his paints once more before joining him.
Wilder held out his hand, and Merrick took it, and Wilder thought for sure his heart was about to burst. Their hands fit together so neatly, his smooth palm against Merrick’s calloused knuckles.
It was a connection he hadn’t realized had been missing from his life and for the first time in a very long time, Wilder thought it might not be so bad to fall in love with someone.
He filed that dream away and walked them into the restaurant, Merrick half a step behind him. The host led them to a table near the window, so small their knees touched beneath it. He handed each of them a menu, and before Merrick could even look at it, Wilder snatched it out of his hands.
“You don’t need that,” he said calmly.
Merrick’s cheeks darkened, and Wilder wanted to make a list of a hundred ways to make this gorgeous and daring man blush for him.
“No cilantro,” Wilder repeated the earlier food restriction Merrick had given him, and Merrick leaned back and settled into his seat.
“You remembered,” he murmured.
“I listen when you speak.”
“Yeah,” Merrick agreed. “I’m starting to believe that you do.”