The Way You'd Loved Her | winrina

Chapter 8

Winter blushes, but squeezes her fingers back. "No," she says, swallowing. "I'm not - that wasn't what I had in mind. I wanted to see a movie with you. That's all."

"Sorry for ruining it for you, then," she smirks wider.

Winter presses a small kiss to the corner of her mouth. "Shut up."

"Any other public place you'd like to touch me inappropriately?" Karina keeps going, laughing when Winter playfully growls, and barely dodging her when she tries to catch her in her arms. What do they look like to bypassers? Just another happy couple in love? The thought flashes through her head as she runs out of the theater, Winter hot on her heels, both of them giggling like teenagers.

She huffs when Winter tackles her to the nearest snowbank, minding their fall so that she's the first to land, with Karina on top. "Really?"

"You started it," Winter counters, a smile on her face. On anyone else - Jeno, for example, Karina thinks before cursing at herself - the smile would seem mild, almost small. On Winter, it's huge. Brilliant. She can't help but stare at it, raising her hand to smooth her thumb on her cheek - something she only realizes she's doing when she catches Winter's gaze, as soft as the falling snow.

It's been snowing a lot lately.

She knows she'll always associate snow with Winter from now on, and she doesn't know if that's good or bad. Probably the latter. This story can't have a happy ending.

Winter leans up and softly catches her lips, gliding her hands to the small of her back, rubbing small soothing circles.

(Can't it?)

They trade small kisses at red lights and Winter gently declines when Karina asks, with a coy smile, if she wants to come up. She watches her drive away, and she stands there long after Winter's beautiful black car takes a turn and disappears.

Snowflakes land on her cheeks, and she catches one with her tongue, feeling its momentarily cold before it melts.

Jeno doesn't call that night, either.

*

"Dinner was delicious."

"You don't have to sound so surprised," Karina huffs, taking a plate from Winter's hands and wiping it before putting it in the cabinet. "I'm a decent cook."

"You're a great cook," Winter corrects, stealing a quick kiss. It burns pleasantly on Karina's lips, travels down to her navel and lower, lower, before she shakes her head and scowls at herself. 'Settle down, Yu.'

"Flattery will get you nowhere."

"I distinctly remember flattery getting me in a lot of places," Winter purrs, stealing another kiss, this time slower, more pronounced. She welcomes Winter's tongue in her mouth, perhaps, just a touch too enthusiastically for someone who's been avoiding her boyfriend after cheating on him. Multiple times. And very likely to cheat again.

But Jeno's words cut deeper than she's thought, and now - now she's too far gone, with Winter and everything, to be ready to face him anytime soon.

She's honestly not even sure she still has a boyfriend. But she does have a girlfriend, however fake it might be on her part, and she decides to focus on that.

"Right," she arches her eyebrow at Winter, licking her lips and smirking inwardly when hazel eyes follow the movements of her tongue. "Except that wasn't flattery. I distinctly remember you avoiding sex with me at any cost."

Winter's blush will never cease to amaze her, she thinks. "I had my reasons."

"They seem silly now, don't they?" Karina whispers, gliding her lips up Winter's neck. She nuzzles her nose under her jaw, greedily inhaling her scent that's become familiar to her over the course of these months. God, it's been months of dating Winter. Letting her hold her hand and kiss her lips and finger her in a movie theater.