The Promise of Lace Read online

  “I didn’t say he lied. I said that he had a rule about not having sex on the first date. He was very upfront about that.”

  “Still. Kinda strange since it sounds like he was putting some serious effort into keeping to that rule and you weren’t doing anything to help him.”

  “Maybe he is gay,” Hailey suggested.

  “He went down on me for like 20 minutes. I think we can cross ‘gay’ off the list.” I shook my head and dug my fork into my eggs.

  “Maybe he’s trans,” Noah suggested.

  “I could feel it through his jeans,” I told him.

  “Trans guys can get it up,” Noah said. “My buddy Donald is trans and he says he can be up and running no problem. It’s just a little… smaller. And there’s still a vagina behind it. Maybe he needed more time before he showed off the dual genital issue.”

  I shook my head. “Dieter was packing in a way that had to be all original equipment.”

  “Maybe he’s got something and he didn’t want you to see his big, pus dripping chancre,” Hailey suggested in a hushed voice. I made a face of disgust at her.

  Noah shot her a look. “Yeah. I need that image while I’m eating.” He shoved another big bite of bacon into his mouth and chewed with evident exasperation, then washed it down with a gulp of Bloody Mary.

  All this seriousness was bumming me out. “Maybe he’s a spy?”

  “No,” Hailey shook her head. “Spies always nail the girl. Look at James Bond.”

  “Solid point,” I conceded. “This is going to drive me nuts.”

  “I guess it’s always going to be a mystery,” Noah shrugged.

  I set down my mimosa glass and toyed with it for a moment before saying, “He said he’ll tell me on our second date.”

  Hailey choked on her drink. “You’re going out with him again?”

  I looked up from my glass. “Yeah. Were you not listening to the story? We went out, we had fun and then, again, he went down on me for twenty minutes. My knees were still knocking together when I walked him to the door. Why wouldn’t I go out with him again?”

  Hailey and Noah exchanged a look. Hailey nodded at him. “Because you never give guys a second chance,” he said, looking gently incredulous. Like he was reminding me of my own address. Or my birthday. Some totally basic fact about myself that I should have known.

  “You once broke up with a guy because you were sick of the traffic between your place and his,” Hailey corroborated.

  “We had three separate blizzards where it snowed over a foot and a half that winter,” I defended myself. “The highway between our places was littered with spin offs and he was all ‘hey baby, wanna come have some cocoa’ and didn’t think ‘I don’t feel like dying in a fiery car wreck tonight’ was a legitimate reason to stay home. And he never even offered to travel the highway of death back to my place.”

  Noah nodded. “Alright. Fair enough.”

  “You started dating him before the snow fell,” Hailey challenged.

  “Yeah. And every old lady in the world was driving on the streets between my place and his at all hours of the day. I was never on that road going more than ten miles an hour, even for the week we were dating where there wasn’t any snow. Besides. His place always smelled like feet.”

  “What about Thorn?” Hailey asked.

  I searched my memory, did not come up with a ‘Thorn’.

  “Thorn? Gellert the Mighty?… son of Kendrick the Giant Killer?” Noah prodded. “Thorn. You met him at the Social? I really liked that dude.”

  The light bulb finally went on. “Thorn the Live Action Role Play guy who spent all of his weekends in a tent in Shakopee playing castles and monsters?”

  “You liked him too,” Hailey wheedled. “You said he was sweet and well read. You even thought the LARPing was cute.”

  “The LARPing, as a hobby, was cute,” I said. “The fact that he and his friends talked to each other at all times as though the game was still going on and referred to each other by names that made it sound like they had escaped from Lord of the Rings and were running rampant all over Minnesota? Not cute.”

  “So… you dumped him.”

  I rolled my eyes. “But I like this one. I can go out on a second date with him. See what the big secret is.”

  “And dump him after you find out?” Noah asked, with a cheeky smile.

  “You do… tend to go through guys,” Hailey said gently.

  I sighed, finished off my mimosa and took another bite of my eggs, chewing way more than was strictly needed while I thought of a reply. Did I let a lot of guys fall by the wayside? Yeah. But I didn’t need a relationship for the sake of having a relationship. I didn’t need to deal with shit tons of crazy just so that I could have a boyfriend.

  “Fine. Maybe I let the occasional guy slip by without putting a lot of effort into finding a reason to keep him around. But I can find out what Dieter’s big secret is first.”

  “Before you…” Hailey prompted. I scowled at her.

  “Before I… calmly evaluate if whatever it is a deal breaker or not, have a conversation regarding anything that I have reservations about, and then make a mature and informed decision.”

  “To dump him,” Noah finished for me.

  I whacked him in the arm.

  “Screw you guys.”

  Chapter Seven

  Dieter texted me a couple times over the next few days, asking cute little hypothetical questions. His texts were interspersed with Hailey’s, hypothesizing reasons why Dieter wouldn’t have wanted to have sex on the first date, because apparently ‘he just fucking didn’t want to’ wasn’t a good enough reason for her and Noah.

  I had been thinking a lot about Hailey and Noah’s teasing about my little… issue with commitment. It’s not like they weren’t right. It took a lot for me to loosen up emotionally with a guy.

  I didn’t need what they had, but I respected it, and I hadn’t had it in years and sometimes… it seemed appealing. To just be comfortable and in love with someone that way. To want them enough to overlook annoying quirks like wanting to be called “Son of whoever” or be willing to drive behind the slowest Buick Lucerne in the world for what felt like hours just to see them.

  I was willing to give Dieter the chance to become that person.

  We texted for the rest of the day. Dieter and I suggested books back and forth. He’d talked me into Fahrenheit 451, but I hadn’t talked him into Les Miserables yet. He mentioned indie films in one text, and how he’d actually never been to one. I mentioned the theater in my neighborhood that showed them and had a liquor license. There was something in German that I couldn’t even pronounce showing that Friday.

  I wanted to see him.

  I met him outside my building. We’d both dressed up again. He looked at me in that way that made me want to bite my lip and hide my face. It wasn’t a look that made me feel like he wanted to devour me or throw me over a table or anything. He just looked at me like I was the only thing worth looking at. It was enough to turn any girl’s head.

  We walked to the theater hand in hand. He offered to buy drinks, but I insisted on picking up the tab this time.

  The movie was pretty much what I’d thought it would be: dark, but interesting, more violent than I’d expected, with very small subtitles and an ambiguous ending. About halfway through, during a scene that I was hoping was a dream sequence, Dieter pulled an old school pretend-to-yawn so he could wrap his arm around me. I set my head on his shoulder.

  It was a warm night, so we walked around the block a couple times before I invited him backup to my place. I had run out of wine, so I poured us both a glass of this god-awful strawberry daiquiri mix I’d had in the fridge since the fourth of July. I dropped down on the couch next to him, and slung my legs over his.

  We sat together quietly for a few moments, him running his fingers up and down my bare calf while we both sipped what tasted like Kool-Aid with rubbing alcohol in it.

  “I wasn’t sure you�
��d answer when I texted you,” he said finally. “I wasn’t exactly… you know… smooth last weekend.”

  I’d had a nice night and I was feeling warm and relaxed. He’d been a little odd last time, but I was glad that he was here. Was I little worried about this secret he was still holding onto? Yes. But he sent me little messages that made me laugh during the day. He made me feel beautiful and desirable. He gave head like he had two tongues. I liked him.

  I leaned up and kissed him. “I guess you weren’t,” I agreed quietly. “But I’m all about second chances.”

  It hadn’t sounded like such a lie in my head.

  “And that’s what’s awesome about you.” He slipped a hand under my butt and pushed up. I used the lift to rock up and straddle him. I leaned over and set my glass on my end table. Hands free now, I wrapped them around his neck and pressed forward into a warm, comfortable kiss. He set his forearm around my waist and pulled me closer to him. We both chuckled and broke the kiss when we heard the stupid click of our cellphones hitting each other in our pockets. We fished them out of our respective pockets and set them on the nightstand, his face up and mine face down so we wouldn’t accidentally grab the wrong ones later. Then we pressed back together as though technology hadn’t just butted in to ruin everything.

  I’d gotten off twice in the last week just thinking about the last time we’d been in my apartment together and now, with his arms around me and his tongue gently touching mine, I was already getting wet in anticipation. His hand stroked up my back, up my neck and into my hair. I rocked down into his groin, just a little bit. It was a suggestion, not a demand. He tilted out of the kiss and started working his lips down my neck.

  He unbuttoned my blouse and I shrugged it off my shoulders, letting it drop onto the floor behind us. There would be an awkward moment when I had to kick it out of the way when I unfolded my couch/bed so things could keep going, but that moment was going to be a little awkward either way. Sometimes I did consider living in a place that was big enough for my couch and my bed to be two separate pieces of furniture, but I wasn’t going to give up floor to ceiling windows for it.

  My bra tonight was utilitarian. Nude colored. Comfortable. Just worn out enough where I was starting to think that I should just throw it away. Dieter didn’t mention it. He just started kissing the tops of my breasts like he had last time. I started unbuttoning his shirt. He helped me work it off his arms and over the back of the couch.

  “When did you get this tattoo?” I asked, tracing my finger over his shoulder. I could feel the way the ink raised his skin. It was strange. I didn’t have any tattoos of my own. I hadn’t realized that they could be felt that way.

  “Umm… earlier in the year,” he said, kissing my neck now, as he talked. “Came into a little money, had a friend who owed me a favor.”

  “Don’t see a lot of guys with flowers on their tattoos.”

  “I’m not really a skull and flames kind of guy,” he responded with a chuckle.

  “Yeah. I’d noticed that about you,” I sighed. I pulled his undershirt over his head.

  “So…” I said, running my hands over his back, enjoying the feeling of the muscles there. I could feel the lines between them, like they were lakeshore-smoothed pebbles under his skin. “I have been thinking about that blowjob thing. The offer still stands.”

  He panted against my chest, and didn’t answer.

  “Dieter?”

  “Umm… okay. I promised I’d tell you on the second date, right?”

  I petted my hands over his hair and tipped his head back so that we were face to face.

  “If it’s something you don’t want to talk about, or can’t talk about, you can just tell me that,” I said quietly. “It’s not like I’m going to be angry or anything. We’ve known each other a couple weeks. You don’t have to bare your soul.”

  He chuckled, kissed me. He played with the button at the top of my fly for a few moments. As a show of trust, and a little bit as a push to stay on track, I reached down and popped it open. He locked his eyes on mine and reached between us again, tangling our fingers for a moment before he undid the button at the top of his own jeans. I waited, but he didn’t continue to undress.

  He took my wrists gently in his hands and pulled my hands down to his groin, settling my fingers at his zipper. I took the tab between my fingers and leaned forward to kiss him as I tugged it down. It came down easily, he wasn’t flaccid, but he wasn’t nearly as hard as he had been last time.

  His breathing got heavier, but not aroused heavy. More like he was steadying himself for something. Involuntarily, I found myself shushing him. Making nonsense soothing noises and running one hand over his hair. He seemed so nervous. I wondered… it seemed unlikely, really unlikely, given the freaking amazing head the other night, but possible… he was a few years younger than me.

  “Dieter… you’re not… you’re not a virgin are you?”

  He laughed, one harsh bark.

  “No. Nope. Not a virgin.”

  “Alright.”

  We resettled ourselves on the couch so that we were lying down, him with his head on the armrest, me still straddling him.

  I finished unzipping his pants and tugged the waistband of his jeans down over his hips. I pressed him backward onto the couch, ran my hands up his chest and stooped to kiss him again. He was still tense and rigid under my hands. Last time we’d been tangled up in each other like this all I’d wanted to do was ride him like a stallion, but something that needed a steadier hand was happening. I wanted him to be comfortable, so we were going slowly. I touched him and kissed him. Took his nipples in my mouth and sucked them until his tight breath became more of a pant than the shallow pull of air that it had been before. I worked my way down his stomach and he started to go tight on me again.

  I bit at the stretch of skin between either side of the zipper and he jumped underneath me. There was no underwear waistband. I liked a guy going commando. I smiled and nuzzled my face down against the wiry hair of his treasure trail. He smelled clean. Like body wash. Something with “forest” or “rain” in the name. A little like the Tide from his jeans.

  “Roxanne?” He said quietly.

  “You still okay?” I asked, popping my head back up. If he asked me to stop, I’d back off, but he must have been thinking the same things that my friends and I had been. It was really weird for a guy to say no.

  “Yeah… I’m… I’m good.”

  “Okay,” I dropped a kiss to his stomach. “I’m taking your jeans off now.”

  He pursed his lips tight, but he nodded. He was saying yes, even though his body didn’t seem to be. I’d go slow. Slow enough for him to change his mind.

  I started working the waistband of his jeans down over his bare hips.

  I got them about halfway down before I realized that he was, in fact, not going commando.

  He was wearing panties.

  They were a dark midnight blue, bikini cut, made out of a soft floral patterned lace. There was a little satin bow in a slightly lighter blue color on the front.

  “Oh,” I managed. “Is this… is this what you were going to tell me?”

  “Yes,” he replied. His voice was tight. He was definitely worried.

  The half hard line of his cock was visible through the flimsy fabric, strangely pink through the navy.

  It was weird. I couldn’t really pretend that it wasn’t. But did it bother me? I thought about another conversation with Hailey and Noah. Was this something that made me not want to see him again?

  “It’s… I… It’s sort of something I’ve always liked,” Dieter said. “I mean, just underwear. I don’t wear skirts or dresses or anything. Just the… just the panties… and… umm… and I have a little lingerie. Just… nothing serious. Nothing with like cups or boning or laces or anything…but I’ve thought about it.” I realized that this was all nervous babbling and set my hands at his sides, using the touch to reassure him. “I… does it weird you out?”

&nbs
p; I wasn’t sure.

  He did look good in them, the more I thought about it. They made his strong hipbones look like they were chiseled into his body. The way the leg holes curved around his thighs exaggerated the muscles in them. The lace matched his tattoo. The cut exaggerated his gorgeous body. I liked that about it. I tugged his jeans down a little farther, revealing more of him. Above me, he made another held in little noise. I ran my finger up the groove in his mid-thigh, then flattened my hand and ran my palm over his groin, over the satiny smooth fabric covering his cock.

  He choked and rocked up into my hand. “Roxanne,” he huffed.

  But it wasn’t just the look to consider. He worked in a lingerie store. He’d just admitted that he had more than this pair. There was definitely plenty of underwear. And “a little” lingerie.

  Was it a fetish thing? Would I still think it was cute if he couldn’t climax without it?

  I decided to go for plausible deniability in my reply.

  “Look at you,” I whispered, running my hand over the lacy edge of one of the leg holes. There. Supportive, but noncommittal. That was, after all, how I rolled.

  He loosened a little further under my hands. His face relaxed. I definitely liked that. He finally seemed to breathe out and I smoothed my hands down over his lace-covered hips. The fabric felt really nice between my hands and the firm muscle of his body. I tugged his jeans down further, finally all the way down his legs, off over his feet. Dieter lay still, watching me intently, making no move to either stop me or hurry me along. He just let me touch and look at him. And I did look. Muscular and sweet and lying on my couch in nothing but blue lace panties stretched tight over his cock, which was getting noticeably harder under all the attention.

  We’d had a lot of fun.

  He was the handsomest guy I’d ever had up here.

  You only live once.

  I set my hands at his knees and dragged my palms up his strong legs. I skimmed my hands one by one over his burgeoning cock, realizing as I did that he was shaved completely clean underneath. That weirded me out a little. But he hadn’t said shit about the fact that I hadn’t been as immaculately shaved, so I decided to ignore it for now.