Dimitri walked out into the living room. "Roza," he asked, "I don't think we'll have time for that hot chocolate anymore. Sorry."

"It's okay, Comrade," Rose replied, "I think I'm all set to go, if you are. Here's my address." Rose hit send on a text message to 'Woodrow Call' with her address in it.

Dimitri told her, "Let's head out then. I wouldn't want you to get into trouble."

As they both began walking out the door, Rose smiled, saying, "Trouble is my middle name. Rosemarie Trouble Hathaway. Well, actually, I don't really have a middle name, but if I did, I'm sure that would be it."

Dimitri gave a small, dry laugh. "What's the middle initial 'M' for on your student record, then?"

"Oh, that's my father's last name. My parents weren't married yet when I was born, so I got two last names, but my parents figured it'd be easier if I just went by mom's name. My mom never changed it."

"Oh? What name is that?" Dimitri asked.

Rose winced as she said, "Mazur."

"As in Abe Mazur? The privatized security guy? Ex-Navy Seal? That guy?" Dimitri asked as he unlocked Rose's car door.

Rose grimaced. "Yes. I take it you've heard of him."

"And you didn't think this was worth mentioning before we were ... intimate?"

"Would you still have been willing if I had told you?" she asked with a smirk.

"No, probably not," Dimitri admitted, turning the key in the ignition and setting the GPS on his phone to go to Rose's house.

"And now that we have, aren't you glad that's an experience neither of us missed out on?"

"Perhaps," Dimitri answered, scratching his chin, "Still, there are a few things we should probably talk about. Should've probably talked about before this happened." Dimitri motioned between the two of them.

"Okay, Comrade," said Rose, "Shoot."

Dimitri took a deep cleansing breath and began. "Roza, even if you're not underage and not my student, I still run the risk of losing my job. Can we keep this a secret until after you graduate?"

Rose placed her hand on Dimitri's. "Of course," she said, "I'm an expert at not getting caught. Besides, the last thing I want is to hurt you because of this." Dimitri immediately felt himself calming.

"And what is this, Roza?" he asked, eyeing her with curiosity.

Rose exhaled and then paused. "I don't know," she said, "Friends with benefits, maybe?"

"Roza," said Dimitri, grinning, "were you and I really friends before this?"

Rose frowned and shrugged. "Maybe a little?" She paused and let out a deep breath. "So, just benefits?" She gave a little laugh. To her surprise, Dimitri did, too.

"Maybe we should work on the friends part more.  I'd really enjoy spending more time with you.  Outside of detention," he said with a genuine smile, adding, "Or the bedroom."

"I'd like that," said Rose, returning his smile.

"What about you and Adrian? It's really over - right? What happened?" Dimitri asked.

Rose frowned again. She felt like her emotions were all over the place for the past few minutes with Dimitri. "Yes. It just wasn't meant to be. I'm not broken or anything, but he hurt me a lot when he left. Adrian and I met at St. Vladimir's the end of my freshman - his senior - year. I didn't even like him at first, but he has always had a way with people. We started dating after he graduated. If we'd stayed together the entire time, July would've been two years. I left him four times while we were together, but I always came back to him. Every time I did, he left whoever he was with for me. This time, he left me. Now he has someone else."

"Were you in love with him?"

Rose took a deep breath and thought. "I loved him. I wasn't in love with him, though. He was just comfortable to be with. I don't know if I've ever been in love."

"Was he the only person you've been with?" Dimitri asked.

"Wow, Comrade, you don't pull any punches, do you?" asked Rose, eyeing him meaningfully.

"It's a good question to ask if you have sex with someone," he said, with a shrug.

"No," said Rose, "He was my first, but I was with one other guy one of the times while we were broken up."

"Do you mind if I ask who? Anyone I know?"

"Captain of the football team. Mason Ashford. I don't think he has any classes with you. We dated for a couple of months and it only happened once and then I broke up with him a few days after and went back to Adrian. I feel bad because I'm pretty sure I was his first. I think he and I are better as friends, though," Rose replied, "Is that going to be weird for you at school?"

"So many things about this are going to be weird, Roza," he said, scratching his chin, "I think we need to give this a lot of thought."

"What about you?" she asked, "How many people have you been with? I know you've been with at least one person from your Adult Friend Finder listing."

"How do you know about that, anyway?" Dimitri asked, narrowing his eyes at her.

Rose smirked, saying, "I asked you first, Comrade."

"Fair enough. Adult Friend Finder was a mistake I won't make again. I was only with one person from the listing. I closed my account from the site a few days after I was with her. Other than the site, there have been three others. All of the others were long-term for at least a year. Lana was my girlfriend from sixteen until half-way through my second year of college when she transferred to NYU. Tamara and I met during student teaching at the same school and lasted about a year until she had a job offer in Michigan. I broke up with Galina about a year ago and I've been on my own since then. Now, your turn."

"Tasha is Christian Ozera's aunt - his legal guardian. I was at her house just after Adrian broke up with me and she recommended the site. When -"

"Did you sign up for that site?" Dimitri abruptly interrupted.

"No, but I was considering it. Partially because I couldn't get this unattainable, hot, older Russian teacher out of my head. When we were talking, she mentioned that some of the guys on the site had some strange requests."  Rose paused for a moment.  "And then, she mentioned a few of yours. One thing led to another and she showed me your profile picture."

"But my face wasn't even on that," Dimitri said, "How did you know that was me?"

"Comrade, I was there the day you took that picture. I recognized the back yard where the photo was taken, and I couldn't take my eyes off of you that day. I think I practically memorized the way your body looked in those swim trunks." Hearing her say that, Dimitri let out a growl. "But that's also how I knew you weren't quite as unattainable as I thought."

"Just which requests did she manage to mention?" Dimitri asked. He thought to himself that maybe he had been worried about discretion with the wrong woman.

"Oh, you know, nothing major -" Dimitri began to relax until Rose added, "just the school uniform, 'Comrade', 'Roza', curling her hair ... Bending her over your desk ..."

At Dimitri's worried look, Rose quickly added, "Don't worry - I'm the only one she told."

"Good. I have Christian sixth hour, so that could've been very awkward. Parent teacher conferences next month are going to be interesting, though."

Rose chuckled. "I bet," she said.

As the GPS on Dimitri's phone told him to pull into the driveway, Rose said, "So, I guess this is goodnight. How does this work with ... whatever we are? Do I kiss you? Do we plan when we'll be together again?"

Dimitri noticed with weary trepidation Abe's Rolls Royce with the personalized license plate reading 'OFFENSE' sitting in the open garage. A chill went up his spine as he thought of what consequences could await him - or Rose - if Rose's father were to find out about their tryst. He knew he should talk to Adrian before deciding anything about Rose, but he was too afraid of the consequences to keep going the way things were. Dimitri said, "Roza, I really enjoyed being with you, but I didn't really think it through before we were together. I'm not sure this should happen again."

"Why not?" Rose asked, anger flashing in her dark eyes. Rose thought to herself, What the fuck? Was I not good enough in bed or something?

"Rose, I'm almost seven years older than you. In ten years, that won't mean so much, but for now, it's huge." Dimitri stopped for a moment and considered his next words. While he didn't truly believe that Ivan was right about Rose being a crazy, obsessed stalker, knowing her discipline record, he didn't really want to do anything to make her angry enough to act on it - especially since so much already happened between them. "We're in two very different places. I've been out in the world. I've had to provide for myself. But you ... you're just starting out. Your life is about homework and clothes and dances."

"That's all you think I care about?" asked Rose.

"No, of course not," Dimitri said, glancing at the clock and noting that Rose had to be inside in less than 10 minutes, "Not entirely. But it's all part of your world. You're still growing up and figuring out who you are and what's important. You need to keep doing that. You need to be with boys closer to your own age."

"Closer to my age? Like Adrian? Thanks, but no thanks," she said, opening the car door and exiting without even so much as saying goodbye. Rose slammed the door harshly and said to herself, "Just wait until you see me with guys closer to my own age, Comrade. You won't know what hit you."

-=o0/&\0o=-

Author's Notes:

As you've probably noticed I borrowed a little bit of text above from Vampire Academy and changed it to make it fit this story.  That would be the part where Dimitri tried to end things there at the end.  I'll do that once more in the next sub-chapter.  Hopefully they're both small enough parts and changed sufficiently that no one thinks I'm taking credit for Richelle Mead's brilliance as originally written.  Overall, the original unedited text in the two sections constitutes less than 200 words of this 5000 word chapter, so I hope we're all good.

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