“Are you okay? I didn’t mean to startleyou.” Choking him to death hadn’t been my goal.
He shook his head as he finished taking adrink of his soda. “No, it’s fine. I just wasn’t expecting it.”
That was an understatement. “Yeah, I’m nottrying to kill you before we get to the good part of the date.” The humor was alittle bit inappropriate, but Lane didn’t seem to mind.
“So now you’re turning into a serial killer,but you’re going to let me die happy?” Lane smirked.
“Of course, I’m looking forward to the restof our date.” We both knew what I was thinking about.
Lane blushed faintly but didn’t seem upsetwith the direction the conversation had taken. He just started poking at hisfood and seemed to be gathering his thoughts. When he finally spoke, he stilldidn’t look at me, but his voice was firm. “I like that, yes. I also like mildpain, like what you did the other night. I’ve never been in an actualrelationship with BDSM, but I’ve fooled around with it a little bit. The formalside of things doesn’t really appeal to me. But things like nipple play andspankings are stuff I enjoy.”
I appreciated the way he laid it out, notmaking me dig for answers, or even worse, guess. “I’ve never done anythingformal with that either. Have you ever been to a club or anything like that?”
“Eli dragged me a few times. It’s notreally my thing. I know it sounds odd with the pictures and all, but being watchedme nervous.” Lane was starting to grow more confident with the discussion,because he glanced up at me.
He cocked his head and just seemed to beanalyzing my reactions. “Is it something you ever wanted to explore?”
I shrugged. “I like what we did and I likebeing in control, but it’s not something I ever felt the need to exploreseriously. Maybe if it was something that my partner needed it would bedifferent.”
I rolled the idea around in my head, tryingto figure out how I felt about it. “Aside from taking control in bed orsomething like a scene, I don’t think I would need to be in control of the restof the relationship. What about you?”
Lane finished chewing and took another sipbefore answering. “I have a lot of friends who are in the lifestyle indifferent ways. I can see why some of it appeals to them, but I’ve never neededthat much of it in my life. Having a serious relationship doesn’t make meuncomfortable, but I don’t need someone who wants that much control over therest of my life. It feels like it would be hovering, and I like my space.”
“I can understand that. I feel the sameway.” Then I gave him a teasing grin. “Not that I mind spanking you if you’vebeen naughty.”
Lane laughed. “I’ll remember that.”
That definitely wasn’t a no.
I filed the information away for later. “Iknow there’s the stoplight system and safewords in the BDSM lifestyle, but whathave you used?”
Lane seemed to find the question easierthan the others because he answered right away. “I’ve done both, depending onthe situation. The stoplight method is probably the best just in case, but whatdo you think?”
“I think red, yellow, and green are thesafest. But unless I knew someone really well, and it was strictly a role-playscenario, no would mean no for me.” I’d seen enough of the lifestyle and hadenough interesting conversations with people when they’d come in for tattoosand piercings that I understood why no didn’t always mean no, and maybe I wastoo cautious, but it made me uncomfortable.
“I understand.” Lane went back to eating,but his eyes kept glancing over toward the front door. With another date, Iwould’ve thought they were ready to leave, but I knew he was looking at hisbag, not an escape route.
Finally, I decided to address the elephantin the room.
I knew he would bring it up eventually, butI figured there was no reason to wait. I also didn’t want him to think that Iwasn’t excited for it or the idea made me uncomfortable. “I’m assuming the gymbag has the stuff you’re going to model for me?”
His blush flared back to his face and hiseyes darted between me and the bag. “Yes, I grabbed the stuff that you liked anda few other pieces for you to see.”
He said it very matter-of-factly, but hewas clearly nervous. Maybe too nervous. There was a fine line between showinghim I was okay with who he was and pushing him. I might have reached that line.“If this makes you uncomfortable, you don’t have to.”
He shrugged, and his shoulders went downlike the stress was slowly easing out of him. “I like the clothes. I guess Ijust worried about…” His voice lowered and he glanced down at his plate again.“I’m enjoying getting to know you, and the idea of scaring you off makes me…uneasy.”
It felt a little bit like we were back inschool, trying to work out how the other person felt. It was almost like Ishould be passing him a note and asking him to check yes or no if he liked me. Butas crazy as it would probably sound, I was enjoying every step of ourrelationship.
It’d been a long time since anyone had mademe feel like Lane did. “I’m enjoying getting to know you too. But I want to getto knowallof you. Eventually, I’d like to see you at work, and I wantto know the whole person, not just the part of Lane who doesn’t want tosurprise people.”
He looked up, a cautious smile on his face,and nodded. “I’d like to see your work too. I’ve never seen anyone get a tattooor even inside the shop. I looked at some of the sketches you have in thewindow, but that’s about it.”
“What? Stalking prevents you from cominginto the business?” I grinned as he laughed. “You’re not a very thoroughstalker.”
He shook his head in mock remorse. “I’llhave to practice more on you, then, so I can get better.”
I liked the sound of that. “Practice allyou want. I’m going to start paying better attention, though.”
