"Do you want me to stop seeing Shika?"
Ino tensed, kept her face carefully blank. "It's not my place to tell you so, is it? It's his choice."
Temari stepped up to the end of the counter and leaned an elbow on it, making Ino feel boxed in. She drawled, a bit mocking, "I didn't say I'd stop seeing him if you told me to."
Ino stiffened. "So you want to know what I think, but you're not going to take it into account. Gee, thanks."
Temari smirked. Ino felt like bristling; instead she went back to sorting flowers into piles on the end of the counter.
"Why do you bother asking?"
"Didn't say it wouldn't do anything. Just that I'm not going to dump him just because you ask."
Ino slanted her an angry look. "I don't care whether he fucks you or not. As long as he doesn't bring back a disease."
She'd been hoping to anger her, at least a little, but Temari only smirked more widely. "Scared of the Sand Bends? Bit late for that, hon."
Ino started at the unexpected pet name, turned to stare at her. Temari had abandoned her post, stalked closer with long, elastic steps.
She leaned into Ino's space right there in full view of the front window and whispered in her ear, "Or did you forget?"
Ino flushed despite herself. Argh! She couldn't let Temari get to her! She was just trying to take Shika away, with her... legs, and her lips, and her breath against Ino's ear, and that insinuating tone...
She fought not to remember that time in detail. Temari was right, if there had been a disease to pick up, Ino wouldn't have needed Shikamaru as intermediary. Because they'd -- "... Who knows what you picked up since then?" she managed to say, airy and just a tiny bit flustered.
Temari leaned in and bit her earlobe. Ino gasped, nipples painfully tight all of a sudden behind her flowershop apron.
"I could show you," she invited, deep voice deceptively soft. Ino shivered all over.
"-- I don't know if you've noticed -- but. He's not here."
And she minded, she minded a hell of a lot, because Shikamaru was her friend and teammate and potential boyfriend, and Temari was the girl who was better than Ino at everything and might take him away for good instead of only part-time, and she wasn't going to even look at Temari twice if she didn't have to when Shikamaru wasn't concerned.
And it didn't make things clench and warm in her belly when she thought of Temari's hands ruffling up her skirt.
"He's not here, yeah. But he'll be here soon. We should work on getting along, hm?"
Ino bristled again. The superiority dripping from those words...! She faced Temari fully -- nose to nose, way inside her space but she wasn't going to back down. "I'll get along with you as far as I need to, and not an inch further!" she snapped, finally drawing that line in the sand. Because Temari knew perfectly well Ino didn't like her even though Ino was social enough not to say it point blank, and she kept pushing and pushing and that was enough.
Temari was staring at her with disturbing intensity, eyes glittering -- challenge.
Interest.
"... Fair enough... So how far do you need to? In bed, for sure..." she said, voice low, laughing like a purr.
Ino clenched her fists and denied that other things were tightening along with them.
"Will you be polite out of it? ... Do you think he can't tell you don't like me?"
Ino's upper lip curled up in a sneer. "I was trying not to throw it in his face. It's called being polite."
"Don't do it anymore," Temari said, suddenly serious. "I like you better when you snipe than when you swallow it."
And then two hands slipped around her waist, settled on her ass, pulled her flush against Temari's body. Belly to belly, chest to chest, breasts pressed tight together, and Temari leaned in and kissed her, her tongue teasing Ino's lips right there at the counter where anyone could see.
Ino gasped, pushed against Temari's shoulder to keep her at bay, but the surprise tightened their grasp, and then she felt nails against the back of her thigh.
She was kissing back, she realized with a gasp, and broke away except there were those hands and that challenging look that meant she couldn't run. And she hissed, wound wiry dirty-blond hair around her fingers and tugged. "You--"
Temari laughed, low and knowing, and whispered against Ino's lips, "Shh,
he's coming. Make it look pretty."