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Florence is wearing his shirt.
It’s jarring enough that Anatoly stills in the doorway, wanting to preserve the image, the small bag of groceries she had sent him out for loose in his grasp.
She sits at her small table in the breakfast nook, squinting at paperwork, no doubt for the new flat they’re moving into. The reading glasses she pretends not to need sit crookedly on her nose, and her hair is mussed like she’s been running her fingers through it. The afternoon sun gleams golden on her skin, softening her silhouette in the light.
And, of course, his shirt.
His shirt, which has ridden up where she’s crossed her legs, which has slipped enticingly down her shoulders, which she wears only half-buttoned. He wants to bite the curve of her neck, to touch the smooth skin of her thighs, to sneak up behind her to kiss her ear, to make her gasp and squirm in pleasure.
Instead, he watches her for a little while longer.
The flat isn’t home, and neither is England yet. Florence has done her best to make him feel welcome, but they’re moving soon regardless, and there’s been no point in decorating. Anatoly’s spent the past couple of weeks feeling like he’s in yet another hotel.
Even if the new flat is more comfortable, he’s not sure if England will ever truly feel like home. Just the act of buying groceries is strange, and had taken him far longer than it should have, the fact that he’d never done such a thing before aside. The West is endlessly frustrating, and it sets his teeth on edge that he can’t get it right immediately, that he’s constantly fumbling for the right thing to do.
But Florence wearing his shirt is a strange comfort, a bastion of familiarity in a foreign land. There’s something pleasing in the sight of his basic, Russian-made shirt on her in her very Western flat. He likes how she’s completely enveloped by him, how there could be no doubt whose lover she is. He wants to carry her to their bed and cover her body with his own.
He’s never been a domestic man, but he’s starting to see the appeal of coming back to someone waiting for you.
“Hello, dear,” he says, deciding he’s waited long enough. “I brought back food.”
“Anatoly!” she says, starting up from her paperwork. “Oh I’m sorry, I lost track of time, and the BCF called, and —”
“You’re wearing my shirt.”
“Yes, well, I—do you mind?”
Mind? He nearly laughs before he realizes she’s serious, sitting there clearly trying not to look concerned. He wonders if she’s ever worn her lover’s clothes before. Certainly he can’t see the American having let her, he of the starched, white suits.
“Darling, as far as I’m concerned,” he finally says, stooping to pick her up and press a kiss to her ear, “I think you should wear my shirts all the time.”