21. Merrick
Merrick
It took six months to get everything organized for his first art show.
Finding a location to host had been easy, coming up with the theme was the hard part.
Taking time away from Wilder to paint in privacy was harder.
Merrick believed Wilder truly enjoyed sitting on the couch behind him while he painted, and Merrick loved that too, but he wanted as many of these pieces to be a surprise to Wilder as he could manage.
In the end, his brother had been a big help keeping Wilder busy so Merrick could get his work done.
They’d gotten closer since Bryce moved in with Holden, and Merrick had met Wilder’s friends too.
It was a curious thing to be accepted by people with open arms from the drop.
Merrick didn’t have to perform or be anything other than who he was.
If he talked too much, Wilder’s friends listened. There was no judgment, no competition.
For the first time in his life, he felt comfortable in his skin.
Well, not specifically in that exact moment, because while he waited for the doors to open on his show, there was a leather band bound tightly around his dick, keeping him swollen and hard.
Wilder had taken care to put the ring around his cock and balls before he left for the show, patting his thick erection through the fly of his pants once he was zipped in.
He hoped his arousal wasn’t obvious, but Wilder promised him everyone would be looking at Merrick’s art, not his junk.
“It all looks so good,” Bryce said, coming to stand beside Merrick and knocking their elbows together.
“Do you think so?”
His brother nodded. “This one is gorgeous.”
“I was working on it when I met him,” he said. “I didn’t know how to finish it.”
“Then he made you come so hard you saw stars and suddenly understood the color patterns you needed to make it work?”
Merrick’s jaw went slack and he glanced down at his brother, who smirked up at him knowingly. “I can’t paint like you, but I’ve got Holden so…I get it.”
“Can we pretend we didn’t have this conversation?”
“This is the first time you haven’t had something to say,” Bryce teased. “I think we need to talk about sex more often.”
“I regret letting you in to help me set up.” He gave his brother the finger and shoved him, heading toward the small green room at the back of the art gallery. He met the owner, Roland, and his husband, Donny, on the way back.
“I’m going to go ahead and open the doors up,” Roland said after they shook hands. “That good for you?”
Merrick knew Wilder was outside, that he was the first in line. “Perfect.”
Donny patted him on the back and trailed his much taller husband to the front door.
Merrick didn’t have it in himself to be alone in the gallery once the doors opened, so he closed himself in the green room, forehead pressed against the back of the door.
The noise of the gallery grew louder in his ears, and Merrick’s palms started to sweat.
Seconds turned into minutes turned into half an hour, and a knock on the door startled him backward.
“I’m coming!” he called out.
The door cracked open and Wilder slipped inside, closing it quickly behind him.
Again, Merrick lost his breath at the sight of the man in front of him.
He’d seen Wilder dressed all kinds of ways, to work and from work, casual, dressed up for dates, but he’d never seen Wilder like this.
Not his man in a slim cut, black suit, tailored to within an inch of its life and paired with a crisp white dress shirt and pin-straight black tie.
Hie hair was slicked back, a few strands falling loose across his temple.
“You better not be,” Wilder warned.
Merrick rolled his eyes.
“What are you doing in here?” Wilder asked.
“Hiding.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m overwhelmed?”
“Why?” Wilder asked again.
“It’s a lot.”
“Says the man who thrives on attention.” Wilder smirked. “Your brother has told me all about the art shows you used to make him sit through when you were younger.”
“That was to get my parents’ attention, not everyone’s attention.”
“Everyone is an overstatement.” Wilder held out his hand and Merrick took it, letting him draw them closer together. “But there’s a few.”
“A few.”
Wilder kissed the corner of his mouth and slid his hand down, cupping Merrick’s perpetually hard cock in the palm of his hand.
“I know you’re hoping I’m going to distract you right now. Turn around and take down my pants, let you put this beast of a cock inside me.”
Merrick’s knees quaked. “Yes, Sir.”
“But I won’t let you off that easy,” Wilder teased, tugging on Merrick’s bulge. “First you have to go out there with me, talk me through every single painting you put on display, especially the one that matches my tattoo.”
Merrick didn’t have words.
“And after you tell me about all of them, you’re going to tell everybody else,” Wilder went on. “You’re going to go out into that room of people who came here to see you, and you’re going to talk about your art. It’s the third best thing you do.”
“Third?”
“Right behind fucking and also making the art in the first place.”
Merrick managed a weak laugh, grimacing when Wilder took his hand away.
It killed him inside, but he let Wilder walk him out of the room and into the gallery.
Everyone might have been an overstatement, but a few was certainly an understatement.
There was easily three dozen people there already, including Wilder’s friends Justin, Micah, and Keith, his brother and Holden, Riggs and his boyfriend, Smith, and a man he knew to be the brother of Riggs’s dead husband.
There were other faces he recognized but couldn’t place, and he squeezed Wilder’s hand to ground himself.
“Tell me about this one,” Wilder said softly, coming to stop in front of the closest painting.
It wasn’t a sunset, instead a random scattering of flowers, almost like tattoo flash.
It was something he’d practiced on to work on his techniques, but in the end, it had felt deserving of making the final cut.
So, Merrick started to talk and by the time they made a loop of all the pieces, he didn’t want to crawl out of his skin.
Wilder stayed close to him while people asked questions about his paintings and his tattoos, and the night was finished before it had even gotten started.
Merrick had sold more than half of the paintings, the sunset he loved the most the first to go.
He was initially sad, but he quickly realized Wilder had been the one to make the purchase.
“Where do you want to hang it?” Wilder asked, leaning against the wall with his arms folded in front of his chest. He’d long ago ditched the jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. The crowd had filtered out, and it was the two of them left, with Roland and Danny in the back.
“What are you thinking?”
“Over our bed would be nice.”
“Over…our?”
“Ours,” Wilder said again, giving him a small nod of his head. “If you think mine will do. For you, I mean.”
“I do,” he said. “I mean, I think so.”
Wilder arched a brow.
“Yes, please. Sir.”
“That’s better.” Wilder traced his tongue across the front of his teeth and beckoned Merrick closer. “Are you ready to go home, then?”
“More than.”
They said their goodbyes to Roland and Donny, then headed for Merrick’s car around the corner. When they reached the parking lot, Wilder opened the door for him but boxed Merrick in before he could sink into the seat.
“I am so proud of you,” Wilder said against his mouth.
“I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“A lie.”
“Wouldn’t have,” he corrected.
Wilder put an inch of space between them. “Maybe so. Get in.”
Merrick got into the car and buckled up, drumming his fingers against the center console while Wilder walked around to the driver’s side.
He was desperate to get home, to get out of his clothes, to get inside of Wilder’s tight hole.
What he got instead was the slam of a car door, and the quick work of Wilder’s fingers between his legs.
“What are—”
He couldn’t get the words out before Wilder’s mouth sealed around his burning hot and engorged cock.
He’d been so hard for so long, the cock ring was excruciating.
Wilder’s mouth did nothing to help his pain, and before he could stop himself, he had his hands in Wilder’s hair and his hips off the seat.
“Settle,” Wilder warned, pushing him back down.
Merrick felt the cold cut of Wilder’s teeth, and he sank as low into the seat as he could manage.
“Just needed to taste you,” Wilder murmured, sucking him in earnest until Merrick began to babble nonsensically.
He heard the words coming out of his own mouth, the declarations of submission and love, the promises for their future, for a thousand more sunsets.
When Wilder popped the snap on Merrick’s cock ring, there was no stopping his body from chasing after release.
He fucked hard into Wilder’s throat, shooting his load against the roof of Wilder’s mouth with no warning at all.
Merrick blacked out, stars against the sides of his vision while he poured himself into Wilder’s hot and waiting throat.
He felt like he came forever, waves of pleasure rolling over him one after another, a tide battering him and not letting him come up for air.
He didn’t get a rest until Wilder took his mouth away, wiping his chin with his thumb.
He crooked his finger and Merrick swayed into him, groaning when Wilder kissed hm and tongued Merrick’s own cum back into his mouth.
After a breathtaking kiss, Wilder pulled away and put the car into drive.
He didn’t even bother to put Merrick’s still pulsing cock away, and Merrick didn’t know if he was supposed to touch himself or not.
They were two blocks down the road when Wilder glanced at him from the corner of his eye, expression unamused.
“You didn’t ask if you could come.”
“I’m sorry.” Merrick thumped his head against the headrest. “I’m sorry, Sir. I couldn’t stop it.”
“I wanted that cum elsewhere.”
“I know, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
“How will you make it up to me?” Wilder asked, merging onto the freeway and heading south toward home.
“What?”
“How will you make it up to me?” Wilder repeated.
“How do you want me to make it up to you?”
Merrick closed his eyes, and Wilder said nothing to him for the rest of the drive.
He was definitely in trouble but not in a serious way.
Wilder wasn’t angry at him, but he was definitely going to make Merrick regret coming without permission.
He tried to think of ways to apologize, but there was no way of telling what Wilder was in the mood for.
When they got back to the house and parked, Wilder still didn’t say anything to him. It wasn’t until they were inside with the door locked behind them that Wilder spoke to him again.
“Have you decided?”
“Yes, Sir.”
Wilder gestured at the space between them, and Merrick took a step forward.
He reached for Wilder’s tie, hesitating until Wilder indicated it was okay for him to continue.
Merrick loosened the knot and pulled it free and then opened each button one at a time until he reached Wilder’s belt.
He stripped Wilder down to his underwear, then stripped himself down to nothing.
He fitted the leather cock ring back around himself then rubbed his half-hard dick against Wilder’s thigh.
“You’re going to hump me?” Wilder murmured, wrapping his arms around Merrick’s shoulders and letting him.
“I’m going to offer myself to you,” he said, sliding down until his knees hit the floor.
There was a certain kind of rightness that came from being at Wilder’s feet, and he breathed into it and lifted his hands, threading his fingers together at the base of his skull. He blinked up at Wilder, and he waited.
“Yourself,” Wilder repeated, running his hand along the side of Merrick’s face. He leaned into the touch, whimpering out loud.
“Me,” Merrick said. “All I am and all the things you know I can be. Sir.”
“That sounds like you’re offering me everything I’ve ever wanted.” Wilder gripped his chin and angled his face up so there was nowhere for Merrick to look except right into his eyes.
“Yes, Sir,” he agreed. “That’s the plan.”
“And what do you get in return?” Wilder asked. “For all of that.”
There was an easy answer and a hard one, a long one and a short one.
Merrick knew the one Wilder would want him to give so he answered Wilder truthfully, talking through the hot tears that prickled against the backs of his eyelids and the ache in his knees from being on the floor so long.
He told Wilder about all the things he’d ever wanted and a few he’d never even really dared to think about for long enough.
Wilder sank down to his knees and took Merrick’s dick into his hand, stroking while Merrick finished his answer, stroking him until there was nothing left to say.
“Good?” Wilder asked.
“I’m good, Sir.”
Wilder gave his cock another squeeze and stood, gesturing over his shoulder toward the bedroom.
“That’s a good start, I think, but it’s nowhere near enough, Merrick. You have a spanking coming your way and then a very, very long night.”
Precum leaked out of his slit, and he fell forward onto all fours.
Yeah, he was good.
The final Ink and Ember book is out in October.
Toren: Ink and Ember 3 is available here.