Romitri Short Stories | ✔ | 18+

Get the Picture, Part 2

By the time Friday morning had arrived, Dimitri and I had spent hours and hours on the phone talking to each other. He was sweet, charming, and completely disarming. He told me about how he grew up in a house with three sisters, his mother, and his grandmother, and how he had spent many of his teenage years babysitting for his nephew, along with telling me stories of how he had panicked at the responsibilities and done foolish and reckless things to rebel, inevitably learning his lesson and seeking out the more responsible choices. He even told me about his eccentric interest in westerns, right down to the boots, cowboy duster jacket, and country music he sometimes chose to listen to.

I knew that Dimitri and I weren't dating - at least, not yet - but it began to feel like we were from the time we had spent together. We may have only known each other for a couple of days, but I knew him better than some of my ex-boyfriends. And we'd spent more time talking, in deeper conversation, than I had with anyone. Well, except Lissa. I knew him: his kind, gentle, fearless soul; his witty, clever intellect; his dutiful, protective, respectful, honor-bound sense of obligation. There was no one like him I'd ever met in my whole life.

And I was already falling for him. Hard.

If anyone tells you that you can't fall in love with someone you've only known for a couple of days, you'd be wrong. I may have only known him for days, but we'd spent so much time baring our hearts and souls to each other that it was like I had known him for months or years.

I had given him my heart already and he didn't even know it. The only question now was how he felt about me, and what would happen when I was alone with him.

Oddly, Lissa had told me repeatedly about how formal he was with her. She was only slightly less uncomfortable with the idea of taking nude photos than I had been, but he hadn't taken the time to get to know her like he had with me. Lissa found him to be a man of few words who did his best to keep his respectful distance and do only exactly what needed to be done, very businesslike and straight-forward, to make the flawless photos he'd taken of her happen.

Dimitri buzzed me into the building. After climbing the stairs to his floor, I reapplied a light coat of my lip gloss and then knocked on Dimitri's door, nervous and anxious about finally meeting the man I was in love with face-to-face. As I stood there waiting for Dimitri to answer the door, in a sudden panic, I realized that I would be naked in front of him within minutes, too. This would be a whole new level of vulnerability for me.

I was grateful that I had spent an extra half hour perfectly curling each strand of my hair this morning and that I had picked out the sexiest red satin and lace bra and panty set I had ever seen. As Dimitri had requested, I had worn them underneath my paramedic uniform, which included a very unattractive and uninteresting light blue button-up shirt with patches and labels all over it, some unflattering and loose-fitting navy pants, and a pair of suspenders to hold the pants up.

As soon as Dimitri opened the door, he smiled. "Rose," he said. That Russian accent in his deep, rich voice was like warm liquid chocolate.

I returned his grin, throwing him my own man-eating smile. "You must be Dimitri."

He was even more handsome than his picture. Dressed simply, barefoot in a plain black v-neck t-shirt and low-slung faded blue jeans, he still looked like he could be a model instead of the photographer. His shoulder-length hair was loose and down and it looked so soft I almost couldn't stop myself from running my fingers through it. Never before had I seen a man where you could see the outline of his abs through a t-shirt, but I could on Dimitri. He looked like he must work out constantly.

I knew he was trying not to be obvious about it, but I watched as his eyes trailed all the way down my body and back up again. I was still standing in the hallway and neither of us had said anything. If I didn't know better, I'd think he was checking me out. And knowing that I was about to be naked in his apartment, I had no idea what to do with that knowledge.