The Promise of Lace (10 page)

“Okay.”

He didn’t say anything for a while.
Just
kept playing with my hair.
Adjusted the covers around
us.
Settled his hand around my waist differently.
“Well. For one I get a killer discount at work.”

I snorted against his chest.

“I… umm.
I like the way they feel. I like the
fabric more than guy’s underwear. I like the fit. Finding a bikini cut in men’s
underwear is like searching for some kind of Holy Grail.” He breathed deeply.
My body rose and fell with his. “I like the way I look in them. I used to be…
sort of scrawny. The gym body is new. And…umm…” he breathed deeply again, and I
could hear his heart beat starting to drum against my ear. “It’s a little bit
because… I was… I was in this really,
really
,
abusive relationship.
For… way too long.”

I wasn’t sure what to say to that. I stopped tracing my
fingers across his chest, flattened my hand and ran it down around his waist,
sort of hugging him closer to me.

“Sorry. This isn’t… isn’t really a second date thing.”

“It’s okay,” I said. He was right, this wasn’t a second date
thing, but it was hard to deny we had a connection, and I could hear his heart
hammering under my head. And I was really uncomfortable with just having
ordered him around the way I had if he’d been abused. Sex games weren’t the
same as abuse, and I knew that… but with no discussion beforehand I needed
little more explanation to be okay with what had just gone down between us.
“You can tell me whatever you want.”

“Okay. Okay,” He blew out a breath. It didn’t slow down the
beating of his heart. “Umm… so… I don’t want to go into a lot of detail about
an old girlfriend on a second date, but she was… awful. She was controlling and
not just… I don’t know, whatever people think that means in a normal
relationship, but she… I don’t even know how she managed it. It’s like, at
first we were dating, like normal, and then somehow I couldn’t talk to my
friends and she was checking all my texts at dinner and deleting the numbers of
people she didn’t want me to talk to and throwing fits so that I couldn’t make
it to group projects and I was trapped in a lease I couldn’t afford with her
and I was missing classes and she… she just completely controlled every aspect
of my life. I don’t even remember how it all happened, but at the end she
controlled what I ate, she threw out most of my clothes and controlled
everything I wore. She’d insult and degrade me in front of everyone we knew to
the point that no one talked to me anymore. I was… totally cut off. I felt like
was going crazy.”

I hugged him a little closer “And no one believes that it’s
that bad when you’re the guy. If you complain they make fun of you for being
whipped. If you try to get help there’s nowhere for you to go. And she was like
a foot shorter than me and it’s not like I had marks or bruises or anything.
She only hit me once. It wasn’t that kind of abuse.” He coughed and cleared his
throat.
“God.
I’m so sorry. This is not…”

My own heart was beating too fast now.
For
one, because I definitely felt bad about getting pushy with him now.
For
another because this had gotten really deep really fast and now I felt
responsible for reacting in the right way. I pushed myself up and kissed him
lightly. “It’s alright. Tell me what you need to tell me. It’s okay.”

“That’s sort the missing piece of how I wound up in this
job. I umm… I sort of woke up one day.” He looked away from me as he kept
talking, so I set my head back on his chest, hoping that he’d be more
comfortable that way. “Realized how bad it really was.
Because,
I mean…
I was the guy. And she wasn’t really physically abusive. I
didn’t realize what was going on until… one day I did. I needed to leave, like
that second, I needed to go. I didn’t have any money anymore, she controlled
all of that. I took my computer to three pawnshops before I found one that
didn’t ask me to try and prove that it was mine.
Which was
great because I didn’t even have the password to it anymore.
Then I got
the cash, got on a bus, and wound up here. I lucked into this job almost right
away. I was in a youth hostel for a couple weeks, and then when the computer
money dried up and I was still waiting on a paycheck I was in a shelter for a
couple weeks. One of the girls at work had a couple friends who needed another
roommate for their house. And I just… sort of… went overboard doing whatever
the hell I wanted for a while.
A lot of Mexican food and
staying out all night, because I wasn’t allowed either of those things while I
was with her.
I got a tattoo. I tried on a pair of panties at work and
just… I just needed things that were
mine
so badly it
almost didn’t even matter what they were.”

“Yeah.
I get that,” I said quietly, pressing a
kiss to his chest as he spoke.

“And I calmed down after a couple months. Convinced my mom
that I really did have to drop out and move away. That my girlfriend really
was
doing this to me and I really
didn’t
have any choice but to leave. I
stopped going out drinking just because I could.
Tried a
little bit of dating here and there.
Which was… hit
and miss.
Went out with a few girls that I just didn’t connect with and
one girl that reminded me of her so much that I had to have my roommate come
pick me up because I was too freaked out to get home by myself. It’s been a
little more than a year. I’m over the… you
know
.
The reaction stage.
But a couple things stuck. I make killer
fajitas and empanadas because I like them and because no one stops me. And I…
exercise my discount sometimes.”

I nodded,
then
realized that wasn’t
quite enough. I moved up to kiss him again.

“Thank you for telling me all of that,” I said softly. It
felt weirdly hollow, like it always did. It was the response I’d fallen into
the habit of using during a very unusual streak in my junior year of college
when four people in the group that Hailey, Carla, Gillian, and I had hung out
with had all come out one after the other. It was mostly an affirmation for
them that the big thing that they needed to get off their chest had been
received and that it was okay, but it just sounded so… detached somehow.

His arms, which had been loosely wrapped around me,
tightened around my back a little. “I’m sorry. That was… that was a lot to just
drop on you.”

“It’s okay… just…” I licked my lips and squirmed a little in
his embrace. “It is a lot. But it’s okay.”

He kissed me again then pulled my hair back from my face and
looked directly in my eyes for the first time in the last few minutes. “I’m a
work in progress… but I really like you.”

He whispered it to me like it was a secret.

“I really like you too,” I whispered back. He grinned.

“So…
Mexican food huh?”

“Love it.” He nodded.
“And Tex Mex.
I even make a couple of Middle American things. There’s this Nicaraguan stew I
could make you some time.”

“You cook?”

“I love to cook.”

“Do you want to make breakfast in the morning?” I asked.

“Yeah.
I’d love to.”

“Fantastic. I’m a terrible cook. I’ll be in charge of
chopping and coffee.”

“Alright.”

I reached out to my nightstand/end table and flicked off the
light, then settled back down on his chest. I felt him tuck his nose to my hair
and fell asleep to the steady beat of his heart.

Chapter Eight

Things were awkward in the morning. I’d expected that. It’s
rare for a deep confession that seemed totally and completely necessary after a
couple drinks and a couple orgasms to still seem like a brilliant idea in the
harsh morning light and Dieter had run through a couple major confessions last
night.

I pulled on my green satin robe with the orchids embroidered
on the borders right after I woke up. It was a good thing we had slept naked
last night. This robe and the purple nightie he had picked out for me a couple
weeks ago were the only even moderately nice pajamas I had. Everything else was
old and worn out and full of holes.

 
I let him use the
shower first, figuring that since the bathroom was the only other room in my
entire place it was his best chance to clear his head. I had the French press
done by the time I heard the water turn off. He showered fast.

I suddenly realized that his underwear was totally
unwearable
and wondered for just a second what he’d wear. I
entertained the idea of him wearing a pair of my panties for a moment. It was…
intriguing until the logistics kicked in. For one, I was not going to lend my
Plain-Jane-Hanes to a guy who regularly wore nicer lingerie than I did. For
another, nothing that fit my slim frame was going to be able to pull over the
fine, taut muscles of that ass.

He could go commando. He’d survive.

He gave me a mouthwash sweet kiss as we switched places
between the bathroom and the main room and when I got out of the shower there
was a cup of coffee set out on the kitchen counter for me and he had dug out a
pan and a bunch of things from the cupboard. Whatever he was doing it smelled
great.

I walked through the living room/bedroom portion of the
apartment over to my wardrobe and stopped when I realized the issue I was about
to run into.

The only thing that really divided the kitchen from the
living room/bedroom was the kitchen island. It was a studio apartment. Other
than the bathroom, it was really just one big room. While Dieter
had
either seen or had his tongue on
pretty much every part of my body last night, it still seemed odd to just drop
the robe and stand here naked while he was sautéing.

But not as weird as it was to dig out clothes and run back
to the bathroom. That would just exacerbate this little veneer of overexposed
awkwardness that overlaid the morning. I always forgot that happened with
one-night stands.

I slipped my underwear on under the robe, then hung it up,
put on a bra, and stepped into the jeans that Dieter had thrown across my
apartment last night.

I caught him watching me out of the corner of his eye as he
tossed warmed tortillas onto plates and decided that I liked the way he was
looking at me. I spent more time that I really needed to flip through the
blouses in just my bra before picking out an orange camisole and an orange and blue
checkered shirt to throw over it. He looked at me nervously as I came over, and
I tiptoed up to press my lips to his.

“How did you sleep?” I asked quietly.

“Really well,” he said, with a dopey smile that suddenly
made all the awkwardness fly out of the room. I kissed him again and settled
into one of the stools at the kitchen island that served as the only
delineation between my kitchen and my bedroom/living room.

He’d made eggs with spinach, onions, and Worchester sauce.
They were fantastic. I hadn’t realized that eggs had degrees of deliciousness.
My eggs only came in edible, rubbery, or burnt, but Dieter really could cook.

Normally the presumption of a guy just digging through my
cupboards would have irked me, but I liked that Dieter felt comfortable enough
with me to do that.
Besides.
He had done it in the
name of breakfast.

We sat, chewing in silence that started out comfortable, but
become more and more expectant the longer we went without speaking. Dieter
tapped the tines of his fork against the edge of his plate. They made a soft
“ting-ting” noise.

“Roxanne?” he started. “Are you okay with what I told you
last night?”

I took refuge in continuing to drink from my coffee cup.
“Which part?”

Nice, Roxanne
, I berated myself.
That was a jackass question

He cleared his throat.
“Um, all of it.”

I nodded. Set my mug down.
Turned it back
and forth for no real reason.
“Honestly?”

I glanced up. He was looking down at his plate with evident
concentration.

“Seems a waste to be dishonest at this point,” he replied
quietly.

“Okay.
The old girlfriend issue?
That’s not you. It’s just something that happened to you. I wouldn’t hold that
against you. The underwear thing… I umm…” I cleared my throat. “I… got a kick
out of last night and it’s not like it actually matters.”

“But?” he prompted.

“It’s not exactly a ‘but’.” I raked my hair back from my
forehead. “I got…You know, I got controlling with you last night.
The
footsie
at the table just so you’d
squirm… and then making you… you know.”
“
Come in my panties?” he supplied. He had a slight upward turn to the
corner of his mouth.

“Yeah.
That.” I cleared my throat. “Are you
okay with what happened last night? Because if I’d known there’s no way I would
have… pushed like that. I mean… we should have at least talked about it.”