Page 36 of Merrick

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 foughtenough 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.”