17. Merrick
Merrick
Merrick’s hands trembled as he dried the last plate.
His cock hadn’t gotten the memo he was in trouble, though, instead tenting his jeans like society would collapse if it weakened even in the slightest. He and Wilder hadn’t been together long, and in that time he hadn’t done anything to warrant a punishment.
Merrick understood that was part of the arrangement, though.
He understood what Wilder offered him as a dominant, and as he shuffled to the bedroom with his chin tucked against his chest, he reminded himself of all the ways Wilder had shown up for him that others never had.
He joined Wilder in the bedroom, where he was sitting on the edge of the bed with the wooden spatula clenched tightly in his fist. When he saw Merrick, he stood up and gestured to the place he’d vacated.
“Pants down, hands on the edge of the bed.”
The instruction was short and precise, void of the usual tenderness Wilder managed to infuse into his words.
Merrick’s fingers slipped against his zipper, but he managed to drag his jeans down to mid-thigh.
He bent over and braced himself against the foot of his bed and his pants lost their hold on his quads and slid down to his knees, then his ankles.
“Why do you think we’re here?” Wilder asked.
Merrick could taste bile in the back of his throat. “Because I did something wrong.”
“What did you do?”
“I talked too much.”
The wooden spatula landed against his ass with a deafening crack. There had been no warm-up, no preparation, no warning. Just one sharp sting against the center of his ass cheek that pushed the air right out of his lungs.
“Wrong,” Wilder said. “What did you do?”
Wilder spanked him again, and Merrick fisted the sheets, back arching.
“I was mean to myself,” he muttered. “About myself.”
“Correct.” Wilder struck him again and again. “And I told you to stop, but you didn’t. You would have kept going.”
“I just—”
Wilder cut him off with another slap, this time against the delicate sliver of skin where his thigh met his ass. Merrick grunted and clenched his teeth, fighting through the shock of the impact.
“You just?”
“Nothing, Sir.”
“Better.” Wilder smoothed his hand over the small of Merrick’s back—for balance—then he rained down five more strikes of the wooden spatula. It hurt far worse than Wilder’s hand, an intense and focused pain that Merrick was desperate to get away from.
“You can carry an art show if you want to carry an art show, right?”
Merrick wanted to agree with Wilder, he really did, but all he found were tears in the corners of his eyes and a near-violent urge to argue the point. He didn’t know which was worse, to lie to Wilder to get out of the punishment or to tell him the truth and have it continue. So, he said nothing.
Wilder made a frustrated sound, hooking an arm around Merrick’s throat and yanking him upright.
He tripped over his pants, but Wilder didn’t take him far, only to the dresser against the opposite wall.
Merrick braced himself against the edge, and Wilder kept his neck pulled up at an uncomfortable angle.
“That one’s yours,” he said, pointing at a small rose Merrick had painted years ago. It was in an ornate gold frame beside a framed irezumi he’d bought at a tattoo convention over a decade ago.
“So is this one.” Wilder pointed next to a larger piece that had certainly been drawn and painted by Merrick’s hand.
It was older, from high school, the water tower in St. Jack’s Bay.
Escaping the monotony of smalltown life had been a necessity for him, but he’d never forget being young and stupid, climbing up to the top of the water tower to watch the stars.
Wilder continued like that until he’d talked his way through every piece of art in Merrick’s bedroom that he’d made himself.
After he finished, Wilder dragged him back to the bed and shoved him down hard onto his stomach.
His cock still hadn’t caught on, and his own weight against his dick did nothing to ease the throbbing want between his legs.
“I don’t know a thing about art, but I could pick your work out of a lineup. Why do you think that is?”
Wilder didn’t give him time to answer. “It’s because your style is uniquely you and that is worthy of recognition, is it not?”
“It is,” he mumbled into the sheets.
The wet sheets.
The wet sheets that tasted like salt.
Merrick closed his eyes, lashes sticking together.
“Is it not?” Wilder asked again, but before Merrick could repeat his answer, Wilder was back at him with the spatula.
One after another after another until he gave up and dropped it on the floor and switched to his hand.
Everything hurt and nothing hurt at all, and Merrick gasped and cried out as Wilder went at him rougher until they were both panting and out of breath.
“Is it not?” Wilder asked one last time, pushing him down into the bed before releasing his hold entirely.
Merrick turned his face to the side, eyes screwed shut and cheeks wet with tears. “It is,” he said, and for the first time he meant it. “It is.”
“You have spent the whole beginning of our relationship talking down to yourself about everything I love most about you—” Wilder stopped, and Merrick pried his eyes open.
“That you what?”
A soft touch brushed tears away from his cheeks.
“That I love about you,” Wilder said quieter, almost secretive. “I love you.”
It wasn’t even a thought in Merrick’s mind to argue the point.
With bruises on his ass and precum smeared across his stomach, the punishment had taken Merrick apart in deeply focused ways.
He lay there on the bed, raw and splayed open, but it was like…
he didn’t know how to explain it. All it would take was one word, and he would be put back together, more whole than he’d been before.
“You love me.”
“Apparently, very much.” Wilder flung himself backward onto the bed so they were eye level. “I hope that’s okay.”
Merrick nodded.
Wilder leaned in and kissed him, so gentle and daring, nothing like the kisses they’d shared before, nothing like the punishment Wilder had put them both through.
Merrick whimpered, his entire body searching for more of that tender kindness, and Wilder offered it back in spades.
With delicate caresses over his ribs and his arms, the careful way Wilder hiked their bodies together, Merrick’s knee hitched over his hip.
“I love you,” Merrick said back, a whisper into their kiss.
“You don’t have to—”
“I love you,” he said again. “I love you, Sir. Wilder. I—”
Wilder cut him off with a hot swipe of his tongue, the wet connection of their mouths as the kiss deepened.
Merrick didn’t bother holding back. He’d already made a mess during his punishment, and so he poured his want into Wilder’s mouth, hips thrusting in search of friction while Wilder kissed him.
“Easy now,” Wilder soothed, his hand finally moving between their bodies and curling around Merrick’s cock. “I’ve got you.”
“I know.”
It was work for Wilder to get his own pants open with one hand as the other stayed firmly pressed against Merrick’s neck and jaw.
Eventually, it was both of their cocks together in Wilder’s hand, and nothing left in Merrick’s body except for pleasure.
There was no rush in those moments, both of them seeming to enjoy the sound of their own breathing, the desperate noises that fell out of Merrick’s mouth.
Wilder touched him like they had all the time in the world and, finally, that was enough.
Merrick came hard and long, his release painting both of their stomachs and Wilder’s steady fingers.
His cum slipped down both of their shafts, and his entire body trembled at the change in temperature, in sensation.
Wilder came next, their foreheads pressed together and breath mingled.
That was what Merrick wanted to paint, the way every line in Wilder’s face went slack when he felt good, the way his lips turned down a little and his chin quivered.
Wilder grimaced when he came, the first shot always looking like it hurt him before pleasure took over.
Merrick wanted to commit it all to his sketchbook.
“I want to draw you like this,” he said before he could think better of it.
Wilder exhaled a laugh through his nose. “What part of me?”
“All of them.” Merrick traced his fingers across the corner of Wilder’s lips. “Here, and here.” He dragged his way down Wilder’s jaw. “I want to draw the way the veins in your arm bulge when you jerk off. I want to figure out the exact color of your cockhead before you blow.”
Wilder made a rough sound at that, crashing their mouths back together before Merrick could say anything more.
Merrick’s body hurt, but he’d never felt better, never been happier.
At least not until Wilder flipped on top of him, pressed his hands against Merrick’s chest and pinned him flat against the bed.
“I don’t know how I made it this long without you.”
Merrick blinked back more tears, grabbing Wilder’s shirt and pulling their bodies back together. He initiated the kiss and Wilder allowed it, and they kissed until they were lost in each other again, until the only thing Merrick could feel was the throbbing need in his cock.
“Wilder. Sir.”
“I know,” Wilder whispered, riding him and grinding their cocks together.
It was indecent to see their dicks smashed together, sticky and swollen, and he regretted the dinner he’d made, hated they were at his apartment and not Wilder’s house.
Wilder continued to ride him, throwing his head back in the way he did before he came.
Merrick settled his hands around Wilder’s hips and let him take control, not that he didn’t have it already, but Wilder’s body turned wild, uncontrollable.
There was nothing Merrick could do besides watch Wilder move on top of him, chasing another orgasm.
Wilder’s hips stuttered and he fell forward, bracing himself with one hand in the middle of Merrick’s chest. He came with a strangled cry, going still as he shot his load all over Merrick’s stomach.
Wilder drew in a breath and then started to move again, using the weight of his body and the friction from his still leaking cock to draw a second orgasm out of Merrick that left them both sweaty and breathless.
Wilder collapsed beside him on the bed, and Merrick rolled onto his side, tucking himself against Wilder’s chest.
“I know,” Wilder murmured, folding Merrick into his arms and kissing the top of his head.
“I’ll look into a showing.”
“I know.”
Merrick closed his eyes and caught his breath, turning his attention from the ache in his chest to the soft slide of Wilder’s hands moving over his body. Wilder rolled him onto his stomach and slid between his legs.
“What are you doing?” he murmured.
“Making sure you’re not hurt.”
“It does hurt,” he said, using his arms as pillows to prop his face up.
“That’s not the same thing.”
Wilder’s fingers pressed and kneaded their way over his ass and the backs of his legs, and Merrick’s breath caught in his throat when Wilder spread his cheeks apart and paid the same attention to his asshole.
As soon as the touch was there, it was gone, and Wilder finished his inspection with a soft tap against the back of Merrick’s knee.
“You…are a mess,” he announced.
The bed creaked when Wilder stood.
“Where are you going?”
“To get you cleaned up.”
The thought of moving was torture, more than Merrick could handle. He shook his head and reached up, beckoning Wilder back into his bed.
“Not yet, please.”
If there had been a question, it was answered.
Wilder sat back down on the bed and pulled Merrick into his lap.
He exhaled completely, lungs deflating and shoulders sagging.
Merrick leaned all of his weight into Wilder’s chest and just like he’d done in the days prior, Wilder continued to hold him up.
“You tell me when, okay?”
Merrick nodded, enjoying the peace. Enjoying the quiet.
“Yes, Sir. I will.”