Page 11 of Merrick

“That’s…something,” Merrick muttered. “But I’m not sure what to say.”

“You have the floor and the words escape you?” Wilder chuckled. “You don’t strike me as the type to have performance anxiety.”

Merrick’s cheeks burned, and the floodgates opened.

“I don’t have performance anxiety. I just talk a lot. I’ve always talked a lot, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with talking a lot, but everyone else seems to think there’s plenty wrong with it. My brother especially hates how much I talk, but he talks just as much, you know? But that’s probably because he had to keep up if he wanted to get a word in, and it’s just, like, there’s always stuff in my brain. The only time it gets quietis when I’m painting or fucking.” Merrick snapped his mouth closed, sucking in a breath that hollowed his cheeks.

Wilder watched him, head cocked to the side and one brow slightly arched. “I have questions,” he said.

“Okay.”

“What do you paint?”

That wasn’t what Merrick had expected. He released the hold he had on his own mouth and took a drink of coffee. It was delicious, probably expensive.

“All kinds of things. Right now, I’m working on a sunset, but I just finished a pretty decent-sized dragon, and before that I was working on some new techniques for shading flower petals.”

Wilder nodded. “Acrylic?”

“Watercolor,” he said. “Mostly.”

“Is that your job?”

“Not directly. I’m a tattooer.” Merrick stretched out one of his arms. “I didn’t do these, but I mean like…”

“So you paint for work?”

“And fun. I’ve painted since I was a kid. Art has always come really easy to me.”

“Okay.” Wilder nodded. “What kind of stuff do you talk about? When you do all this talking, that is.”

“Everything.” He let out a self-deprecating laugh. “My brother says I talk about anything, basically just whatever is in my head.”

“Why do you think you have the urge to say everything that pops into your brain?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s why I’m asking.”

Wilder took a drink of his coffee and without thinking too hard about how or why, Merrick did the same.

“So?” Wilder prompted.

Merrick talked a lot because it was the only way his parents would pay any attention to him. They hadn’t been absent parents, but they hadn’t been involved either. It was sometimes like he and his brother had been accidents or afterthoughts, or otherwise inconsequential to their parents’ lives. The chatter had forced their hand, their action. Being good at art hadn’t hurt either.

“So I don’t get overlooked,” he said out loud for what might have been the first time ever.

Wilder took a step closer, reached around him and set the mug down. They were close, as close as they’d been the night before when Merrick had finally reached orgasm, their breath mixed and their bodies pressed together. He exhaled at the memory, shifting his gaze to the floor. Wilder’s finger tapped the underside of Merrick’s chin and Merrick had no choice but to look up.

“Who could overlook you?”

He huffed a laugh. “I guess we’ll never know now.”

Wilder smiled at that, a small and unexpected thing that had Merrick’s heart doing a little backflip in the center of his chest.

“I certainly think it’s been fifteen minutes,” Merrick murmured.

“I had twenty,” Wilder admitted. “Can I kiss you?”