Page 73 of Toy for the Teachers (Forbidden Fantasies)

I readily told her about my mother’s Russian feast, always large enough to feed an army. Millie listened with rapt attention, and her impenetrable light slowly consumed us both. I found myself smiling as we walked out into the cold, wet afternoon.

“This weather isn’t so bad,” Millie mused under our shared umbrella, her arm wrapping around mine.

I had never seen a woman make a tan raincoat look so beautiful. In a scheme of gray, her smile was a rainbow of color, and I found myself smiling back.

“No, you’re right,” I had to agree. “It’s nice. It keeps you close.”

Though people passed us by on the city sidewalk, Millie and I continued to linger. We let the rain fall around us and the world pass us by. When she rose up on her toes to kiss me, I didn’t care if time stopped. I relished the chance to have her lips locked with mine. I adored the feeling of her free hand slipping under my raincoat just to press her palm against my chest.

“I think I love you, kraseevaia,” I mumbled before I could second guess the thought.

Millie grinned like my sunshine on the gloomy day.

“That’s good,” she declared over the sound of the rain, “because I think I love you too.”

Our kiss flourished and grew until the cold wind chased us back to the car. There, in the dry interior, I could hold her hand over the interior as she smiled contentedly again. I shifted the car into gear, and as I pulled out into traffic, Millie’s phone chimed in her coat pocket. Her face didn’t fall, but it definitely faltered.

“Is everything okay?” I asked, rolling up to a stoplight.

“It’s Warren,” she explained.

Her eyes scanned the screen. Her thumb scrolled lower.

“What is he saying?” I had to know, growing more impatient in the silence.

“He wants to talk,” she explained, “to… all of us.”

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