Page 38 of Merrick

“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 toa 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.”

CHAPTER 15

Merrick

Merrick scrubbedhis kitchen sink Monday morning thinking about Wilder. He thought about how Wilder ordered for him without asking, how Wilder brought him back home and sat on the couch while Merrick painted until dinner time. He had asked questions at first about color names or technique, but eventually he’d quieted down and Merrick had filled the space. He didn’t normally want to talk when he did art, but he enjoyed explaining things to Wilder and he enjoyed the way Wilder smiled after he did it. Everything after that passed in a blur of sweat and cum and bruises, Merrick’s secret toy stash untouched. Wilder had tucked it into his own closet when they’d gotten back after lunch and hadn’t said a word about it since. Merrick didn’t say anything either, even though the dildo hung over his head like a ghost.

He flipped on the water and rinsed the cleaner out of the sink, finding a residual pasta stain in the corner of the basin his sponge hadn’t been able to scour clean. Merrick scratched at it with the edge of his fingernail, cursing under his breath when the faded red refused to budge. An insistent knock on his doordrew his attention from the task at hand, and he dried his hands off on a towel.

“Hold on!” he shouted from the kitchen, checking his phone for text messages from Wilder and finding none. He had no idea who would be coming to visit him in the middle of the day on a Monday, but when he opened the door and found his brother on the welcome mat, he had his answer.