EMBRACE winrina

CHAPTER TEN

Karina POV

I heard the front door of my apartment opening and closing, letting me know that Winter had gone to work. I couldn't find it in myself to feel bad for making her walk; I was much too bent out of shape about Jeremy showing up. I'd explained to him on more than one occasion that what we had would never be more than a little bit of fun, and that if he couldn't handle that, then we would have to stay friends- friends that weren't sexually involved in any way, shape, or form.

I wasn't exactly proud of myself for preferring sex over romance, but I'd known Jeremy for a while and even if I did somehow manage to move past the fact that I couldn't open up to people anymore, I probably wouldn't have started with him. He provided me with a release, and as much as I hated myself for thinking it, he wasn't all that great for much else. He could be sweet, sure, but he would never be able to make me genuinely laugh and he would never be a shoulder to cry on. Not that I cried anymore; I hadn't allowed myself to cry in two years, and I highly doubted anything could change that.

He had been over after I dropped Winter off at the grocery store yesterday, and in a not-very-surprising turn of events, we fought. We weren't together, which was my doing, because if Jeremy had his way, we would be more than just occasional sex and brief conversation. He seemed to think that we already were more than that, which is why he became pissed every time he found out I slept with someone else. He yelled and I yelled back, and I'm assuming he decided to bring over flowers and apologize because he knew I wasn't going to be the one to do it. It's not like I wanted Jeremy out of my life, but I knew that continuing to sleep with him would only hurt him, and I didn't want to do that.

I wasn't an idiot with my body, and I might have been very... sexually active, but it wasn't with random strangers that I met off the street.

Well, with the exception of Winter.

Most times were men because it was easier for me to develop an emotional attachment to women and I wouldn't allow myself to do so, so sleeping with guys to relieve my frustration tended to work out better. Unfortunately, for a reason that seemed to escape me now, I decided that I wanted to switch things up on that night in the hotel. As much as I hated to admit it now, Winter was sexy and her personality intrigued me even more that night, and I didn't want to say no. I thought, one night with a woman couldn't hurt, right?

I couldn't have been more wrong. Maybe if she had actually been a woman and not a seventeen year old, things might have worked out differently. But now I had broken the law, and on top of that, I was providing a home to the person who prodded me to do so. I was still pissed at her for lying to me, but for the time being I was pushing that out of my head. I was trying to push it all out of my head because I needed to focus on ensuring her safety, but she made it ridiculously hard. It seemed as though every minute she got the chance, she was mentioning the night we'd spent together. I didn't want to hear about it anymore because I couldn't take it back and now I would always have this weighing on my shoulders, as if I didn't already have enough to deal with.

My mind was fucked up as it was, I didn't need Winter coming in and making it worse.

I didn't know how long I lied in bed for, nothing but a towel covering my nude body. I was too distraught to actually get up and put clothes on, but when the light outside of my bedroom window started to fade, I finally decided to pull myself together. I texted Jeremy and told him that I was sorry, which was mostly a lie because I didn't think I had anything to be sorry for. Before he'd even laid a finger on me, I told him I didn't, and never would, want a real relationship. But regardless, I couldn't have him coming over tomorrow and acting like he had today in front of Winter, so I told him what he wanted to hear.