Winter in Cambridge

Chapter 11 - Calling your bluff

Author Note

Accompanying song:

Porcelain by Moby

"I know what I want, Winter."

Tom spoke softly as he stepped back towards her and gently cupped her face in both hands, stroking her cheeks with his thumbs.

"You."

He leaned forward and started kissing away the shining tears that stained her puffy cheeks.

"I don't want anyone else," he whispered against her trembling skin as he continued to hold and kiss her softly.

Tom moved one of his hands around the back of Winter's head and into her hair to steady her as his lips travelled across her face, chasing her tears away. He could taste the saltiness of both her tears and the sweat from her recent orgasm that coated her cheeks.

"Please, Winter... Please don't push me away."

He kissed the corner of her mouth, trying to cling onto her as his other hand moved down from her cheek to caress her neck, his fingertips lightly brushing against her pulse. But Winter stepped back from Tom, slipping out of his grasp and took hold of his left wrist, raising it in front of his face like she was in a courtroom presenting her evidence.

"You still have this on your finger," she took a deep breath before she continued, trying to hold herself together. "You're still my Professor. Nothing has changed, Tom, just because you want it to."

Winter let go of Tom's wrist, pushing it towards him as he looked from her tear-filled eyes to his wedding ring glinting in the green light of the nightclub's emergency exit sign.

"You were right on Monday," Winter said quietly. "You can't do this... I can't do this," Winter emphasised those words as she looked at him through her bleary vision.

Tom's hand trembled as he focused on his wedding ring, and Winter blurred into the background, her features lost to the darkness surrounding them in the shadows of the alleyway.

His heart lurched with guilty pain as Winter reminded him what he had said just a few days ago. Then his eyes shifted back to focus on Winter's teary, kelp-green eyes as they illuminated under the green haze, calling him back to her like a beacon of light in the dark, whilst his hand blurred into his peripheral vision.

The two choices he had were right in front of him.

Michael's voice sounded so much closer, and Winter knew she had to go before she was caught with her Professor alone down an alleyway, hidden out of sight as if trying to keep a secret locked away in the dark. It drew her attention away from Tom as she turned her head to look towards the direction of Michael's voice.

She looked back at Tom one last time, chewing on the inside of her bottom lip, debating yet again if she was making the right choice before she walked away, wrapping her arms around her body, trying to keep herself together.

Tom stood frozen to the spot as Winter walked away as the song, 'Porcelain' by Moby, played quietly in the background.

The emergency exit door for Lola Lo had been pushed open as a couple of drunken students fell through the door, setting off an alarm and jolting Tom from his daze.

Tom blinked as his left hand dropped away to his side. His heart raced as he looked around for Winter, not realising she had left. He had been too caught in his thoughts.