The Promise of Lace

by Lilith Duvalier

  He helped me get them off, pulled them down to his knees and then shifted them off his legs. He threw them over the side of the bed with everything thing else, then reached down and pressed his palms to my stomach. They were as hot as they’d been when he was holding his mug of tea in them. He slid his hands down my body, stopping at my hips, glancing up for permission when they were pressed over the lace trim waistband of my underwear. I lifted my hips in acquiescence and he peeled the cotton and lace down my thighs.

  He spent a moment just looking at me in the quiet of the room, with a little bit of a stunned expression on his face. He stroked his cock almost absentmindedly and I stretched up and pulled open my end table/nightstand drawer. It took a couple of tries before my fingers hit metal and I fished out the little decorative tin that I kept condoms in. I popped the lid open, picked up a Durex, double checked the expiration date and handed it to Dieter. He just looked at it while I snapped the tin shut, dropped it back in my nightstand and shut the door.

  He licked his lips, looked from the little silver square in his hands to me, then back. I was just about to ask him if maybe we weren’t on the same page after all when he carefully tore the package open and rolled the condom down over his erect cock. I wrapped my hands around his biceps and brought him back down to kiss me.

  That heat between us, which had been so scorching that first time, and so electric the second, was mellower this time. Not dull, but embers rather than a fire. Just as hot, but calmer. We weren’t going to fuck, we were going to make love. We weren’t going to play any sex games, any dominance games, he was going to slip inside me and we were going to move together, bodies tight, panting in each other’s ears. That was a little intimidating at three dates in.

  Dieter slipped his arms underneath me, and settled against me. I was utterly enveloped by his hot sweaty skin. The swollen rod of his cock was pressed between us, rubbing just a little bit back and forth against my hip and stomach as I rocked against him. He kissed me, slow and deep, then pulled back just a little bit. I lifted my knees and spread my legs. He pulled back, set kisses against my stomach and the ticklish part of my inner thighs. He ran his tongue over my clit, just enough light teasing strokes to make me squirm underneath him, and I felt his fingers carefully spread the folds of my vagina apart.

  Dieter moved back up to his knees and I felt the head of his cock brush against me. I rocked my hips down, so ready for more. I was little worried, not because of how much I wanted him inside me, because I’d wanted that since that first night where we’d run home in the rain, but how much I wanted his arms around me while he was in me. I didn’t care about who was on top or who was in control, I just wanted him closer than this.

  He gripped his cock to hold it steady and started moving into me.

  My head fell back with a sound that was half a groan, half a sigh. He was thick. He was moving slowly, letting me open around him. I spread my legs out a little further to accommodate him as his cock slid deeper and deeper inside me. I groaned when I felt his hips press to mine. I tangled my hands in his hair and he fought for breath before he finally started to move. Short little rocks that made my blood start on a slow boil at first, then longer strokes, pulling back just to snap his hips forward and make my cunt desperate for him to do more.

  “Oh, Roxanne,” he gasped once he really started to move, making pleasure strike through me over and over. I dug my heels into the mattress and started meeting his movements, rocking my hips back toward his as we moved together.

  I moved my hands from his hair to his shoulders, fingertips digging into the muscles there, harder and harder with every thrust inside me. I could feel the slight stretch of him against my walls, the slide of him moving inside me, his chest hair rasping against my smooth and vulnerable skin, the softer hair on his thighs tickling against the skin of my thighs where they were wrapped around him.

  He kissed me and the movement of his hips slowed down to a controlled, steady, and all too teasing rhythm. I whined and threw my knees wider apart. “Come on, Dieter, Harder.”

  “Wait for it, Roxanne.”

  I tried to wait, I really did. But patience is not one of my virtues. I dug my heels deep into my mattress and started fucking my hips back onto him, moaning when the speed finally hit what I needed it to be. Dieter groaned and swore.

  “Hold on,” he grit out. “Hold on a second.”

  He gripped my arms tight, and somehow, miraculously, managed to roll me up on top of him without slipping out of me. He thrust up inside me and dug his fingers, bruising hard, into my thighs.

  “Take what you want, oh—”He rocked up into me again and I yelped at how much the change of angle improved things. “God, please, Roxanne, just… do it.”

  I set my hands to his shoulders to brace myself and worked backward on his hips until I managed to make the improved angle the perfect angle.

  Doggy style wasn’t the only way to get some attention to your g-spot. I rode him until we were both moaning and gasping for breath. Dieter was shaking and mumbling. “Tell me when you’re there, tell me when you’re there,” over and over again as I felt my orgasm starting to build, the heat and electricity flashing in my body. That heavy feeling behind my navel growing and tightening until suddenly it lanced through me, down through my thighs, up through my chest, one hard shot, then another smaller one, then little tremors as Dieter kept rocking up into me until he shouted and thrust up hard. I could feel him pulse inside of me. His fingers squeezed again and his head fell to the side. We both gasped for breath, still joined at the hip and reluctant to release. Dieter was staring at the place where we met, his teeth so tight against his lip that I could see the white line that the pressure caused on his skin. His hand loosened at my side and he patted my butt gently. Reluctantly I lifted my body up, felt the sensation of emptiness as his cock slipped out of me.

  He carefully took the condom off, knotted it and looked at me expectantly.

  “Umm… trashcan under the sink.”

  He nodded and slipped off the bed. I heard him run the sink, presumably to get the come and sweat off his hands.

  Dieter kissed me again before he lay back down with me. I grabbed the blankets from the edge of the couch and brought them with me as I collapsed down next to him. He pulled me into his arms and we wrapped up together. We lay in half-asleep silence for a while, tracing shapes with our fingertips over each other’s skin, but never quite fell asleep.

  “Do you want to stay over again?” I asked him quietly.

  “Yeah… do you… do you mind if we get something to eat?” he asked.

  I sat up so I could see the wall clock. To my shock it was only nine-thirty. Between the date gone bad, the walk home in the cold and the really great sex I’d expected it to be at least midnight.

  “Umm… yeah. Chinese sound good?”

  “Great,” he said.

  “There’s a menu on the fridge. I’ll see if I can find some pajamas that will fit you.”

  Dieter stretched hugely and walked over to the fridge. I took a moment to appreciate the curve and bulge of his ass as he did, then went to my wardrobe and started digging for pajamas that wouldn’t embarrass either of us. I found myself some old pajama pants that I’d gotten for Christmas a million years ago that had little pictures of lambs on them. I pulled on a t-shirt that more or less matched. After a lot more digging I found some old linen yoga pants with a drawstring for Dieter. They were a pretty girly baby blue, but I assumed he wouldn’t care about that.

  He was sitting naked on my bed, bent over the Chinese food menu spread out on the coffee table, one finger trailing down it.

  “Here,” I handed him the pants. “I think these’ll fit and they are super, super comfortable.”

  “Thanks.”

  He fished his panties and his camisole back out from the other side of the bed and slipped back into them. I watched him dress with frank appreciation. He gave me a heart-melting grin when he spotted me.

  We put Buffy ba
ck on, put the bed back up into couch form and cuddled until our food came. I buzzed the delivery person up and went to sign the receipt and tip the extremely petite young black girl who handed me our food with a very cheerful smile for someone delivering food at ten at night. I noticed that Dieter managed to be in the one small space of my apartment that could not be seen from the front door while the order was handed off, but I didn’t mention anything. I unpacked the food and he grabbed plates out of the cupboards.

  We ate. Watched a little more TV. I asked him about his family. He told me that it was just him and his mom. His dad was living the cliché, schtupping his secretary somewhere out in Los Angeles and Dieter hadn’t spoken to him since he was seventeen. He and his mom were on bad terms because he refused to tell her where he was until she said that she believed what had happened between him and Jocelyn, the evil ex. He was afraid that she would tell him where he was, so they weren’t speaking.

  We kept talking, the volume on the TV kept going down until we finally turned it off. We finished with our food and put it in the fridge. I gave him my back up toothbrush, the in-package one that I kept in the medicine cabinet in case some terrible fate befell mine. We swished mouthwash like a couple from a freaking Listerine commercial and then went back out to the couch. He moved it into its bed form this time. I hit the lights.

  And we still didn’t go to sleep.

  We talked about books. We talked about TV. We talked about high school. We talked about everything until the dark night visible through the slats of the window blinds started to turn grey, then pink. I fell asleep with my head on his chest, brushing against the soft fabric of his camisole and his strong arm around me.

  Chapter Eleven

  This time when we woke up together after a night of revealing ourselves to such an extreme degree, the morning was comfortable. Peaceful even. We made coffee. We had leftover Chinese for breakfast and watched a little bit more Buffy. I didn’t chase him out this time. He had to get to work. He used my shower and we kissed at the door just long enough to make him late. He rushed back in when he realized that he’d forgotten his phone.

  I took a long shower, thinking over everything we’d talked about. The things that were going on with his mother. The things I’d told him about how angry I used to get with my sisters when we were all in high school. How I was genuinely concerned that my youngest sister might be getting into something shady back in our hometown. I was betting drugs.

  And Jocelyn. We hadn’t discussed her in detail. But she had been a huge force in his life. He’d been with her for a while and she had impacted so many of his habits and likes and insecurities. He’d obviously been trying to avoid letting her come up in discussion, but she was there.

  And that was something that I did need to talk to Hailey about, because I had no idea how to deal with all of the information, and after last night… I was ready to deal with it. I hadn’t felt this kind of connection with a guy in way too long. I was willing to take a couple of risks for this guy.

  I let the hot water run over my body for a long time, washed my hair, scrubbed my skin, shaved my legs again, anticipating that it would come in handy to have them stay as smooth as possible.

  I watched a little TV. Worked on my computer for a little bit. I was procrastinating calling Hailey. Gathering my thoughts. I didn’t want to get on the phone and say something ridiculous like “I’m like, so totally in love with this guy, OMG.”

  For one thing, I wasn’t a fourteen year old who couldn’t understand the difference between real life and MTV. For another Hailey would laugh at me until she cried. And for the last thing that’s not what it was, I didn’t love him, not yet. But I was smitten and I could definitely see myself falling in love with him. I could see myself doing that so soon that I was scared.

  I dithered a little bit longer, poured myself a cup of coffee and then grabbed my phone. I swiped the screen, told myself not to tap my Facebook app, just to freaking call Hailey while I knew she’d be available for a little longer.

  I didn’t realize that it wasn’t my phone until I opened up my contacts and didn’t recognize any of the names.

  Dieter had grabbed my phone before he left for work.

  I sighed, annoyed. I had more important calls to make today than just Hailey, and, one more aggravation of the twenty-first century, because I could just enter his number into my phone, I didn’t know what it was.

  Shit.

  I grabbed my keys and my purse, and with my hair still wet, went down to the garage for my car. Of all the things I didn’t want to do today, shagging ass to the suburbs was pretty high up on the list, but I didn’t want to leave Dieter with my phone. For one, I really needed it, for another, while I was sure he wouldn’t just go through it… it was a really private thing for someone you had just started dating to just have in their possession for hours on end. Hailey was going to be obnoxiously texting me and my texts came up on my main screen, there were a couple of apps that he didn’t absolutely need to know about at this point in the game. And there were a couple of organizations and websites that could potentially email me that he also didn’t strictly need to know about.

  Traffic was ludicrously thick all the way out to the highway. It was noon on a Wednesday; I couldn’t imagine why all these people had to be in the suburbs this time of day or why they had to go there so slowly.

  This sucked. The damn thing shouldn’t be this important. Dieter would figure out that he’d grabbed the wrong phone, and he’d have to come back to get his own. I didn’t need it for any business related things today. I could handle anything I needed to just as simply from my computer today… but I couldn’t let someone else have my phone. Just didn’t trust anyone enough for that.

  It took me damn near forty-five minutes to get to the stupid mall. Another 10 minutes to find parking. But I didn’t have to go all the way to the lingerie store. Dieter was sitting at a Caribou Coffee right inside the entryway.

  Looking at my phone.

  Maybe it wasn’t what it looked like, I told myself. Maybe he was just using the 3G to check his own email.

  “Hey! Dieter!” I called out.

  He didn’t smile when he looked up at me. His mouth was set tight. He looked upset, not angry, the lines of his face weren’t nearly hard enough for that.

  He looked hurt. And just at the edges of that hurt, he looked panicked like he had been last night, when someone had walked into the bathroom.

  I walked up to him. I wasn’t sure enough of the situation to sit down, so I just stood at the edge of the table and set my hands on the surface. He didn’t say anything. He just set my phone down on the table and slid it across to me.

  I did the same with his.

  “Lucky we ran into each other so easy, I guess,” I said. He was still just looking at me in a way that made me really uncomfortable. “Sad isn’t it? That just not having your cell phone is such a disaster these days?”

  He cleared his throat. “Did you tell Hailey that I was some sort of attention whore pervert?”

  It felt like someone had dropped ice water over my back. “What? No, of course not.”

  He tapped my phone on and turned it around so that I could see.

  My text inbox was open, and I had easily ten texts from Hailey, the last one was a quick read and it was not a gentle suggestion.

  “Okay… then why… but why did you tell her everything about me?” he asked. “Because… I thought… I thought that was… that was all private, Roxanne. I mean, I… I thought we were… building something.”

  “Dieter,” I started, and then fumbled for words. “Dieter, it isn’t like that. We weren’t making fun of you. Hailey is my best friend, we tell each other everything. And I didn’t… She’s just like this. She doesn’t actually mean any harm by any of this… and I didn’t say anything to her except just the facts. I swear.”

  He checked his own phone. “My break’s over. I have to get back to work.”

  “Dieter, come on,” I reac
hed out to grab his arm and he turned just in time to evade me.

  “I just… I told you the one thing that I just can’t handle is being humiliated in front of people, and I just…I didn’t think I’d have to specify that I can’t handle being humiliated for your friend’s amusement either.”

  “I never meant to hur—”

  “It’s just… it’s a first step, Roxanne. And it’s a first step that I just… can’t ever do again. Ever.”

  “It’s not like that, Dieter, I swear it’s not.”

  “I need to get back to work,” he repeated, and started to walk away.

  “I’ll… I’ll call you later, okay?”

  “You do what you need to do,” Dieter said.

  He didn’t even look back.

  I stood there for a second, shocked, then regained my composure and hustled back out to my car.

  My drive home was even slower than the drive out to the mall had been. I had this horrible gnawing feeling in my stomach that got worse whenever I imagined that expression on his face. Hurt. Betrayed even. It was like the look a dog gives you when you accidentally stepped on its tail.

  I gave up a few exits before mine, left the highway and parked at a MacDonald’s that looked like a great place to get shot. I dug my phone out and looked over my texts from Hailey from the last couple days.

  I’ve been looking up cross dressing online. You wouldn’t believe all the wrinkly old dick I’m finding. Do a Google search before you get too serious about this guy.

  If you want to borrow Noah to make sure that Panty-boy isn’t gay before you sleep with him, he owes me a favor.

  He hasn’t used the abuse thing to get away with anything yet has he? Cause every jerk in the history of the world has used that to get away with shit. We both know you’re too smart for that.