Page 46 of Merrick

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-violenturge 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.