I feel like the vulnerable one when I pick up the first piece. I'm not even the one who made it, but it's…a lot. To see how someone else sees you.
Bowen didn't miss anything. The three freckles on my nose that are bigger than the rest. The shallow dimple in my right cheek, or the swoop of my hair. The scar on my chin from falling on my bike, or the way that my left eye is slightly darker than my right.
It's agonizing to know that I spent years wishing Bowen saw me, and he did see me. Every detail. He saw me with such clarity that he was able to burn me from memory.
“Why?” I ask, setting down a long hunk that has my hands burned into it. My hands. I'm still blushing over an outline of my back and shoulder. From the vantage point of someone behind me. My head is turned deep into the black shadows of the burned background.
“It was the only thing that made my mind quiet for a little while.” Bowen looks like a caged beast, standing there watching me pick up each piece of his heart and inspect it.
There's an entire stack of flat wooden pieces with my eyes on them. The eyes I didn't look at him with for years.
I wipe the tears on my cheeks, looking all around. “When did you figure it out?” I ask, so quiet I'm not sure he hears me.
“I don't think you want the answer to that, kitten.”
“Tell me anyway.”
“Always. I always fucking knew.”
Bowen takes a step towards me and halts.
“The first time I walked in your room and saw you curled up in bed. It felt like the first real breath I had taken since the night he died.”
“Boe…”
“When it broke my goddamn heart every night you got drunk, even though you knew if you did, I wouldn't come.”
The tears are rolling hot trails down my cheeks. But I refuse to look away. Not anymore.
“When, sometimes, I would still show up, even if Tucker told me you were wasted. I'd sleep against your bedroom door, just to be close.”
I step closer to him but stop when he continues, “I knew for sure when I just wanted to fucking kiss you. I wanted to kiss you until you stopped crying. I wanted to kiss you until you remembered that you are still alive. That I am still alive.”
“So, what are you waiting for?” I breathe.
We crash into each other in the middle of the cabin. Surrounded by the scars left inside him, I jump, and he catches me.
“I'm sorry,” I say between kisses. But he just grips onto my hair and kisses me harder. His lips don't just touch, they consume. They're demanding and unyielding, and I fall into it. Into him. We don't break apart when something crashes against the floor. I barely even register the hard surface under me, not when he's pulling me roughly against his length, and I'm surviving on the air he breathes into me.
I could easily spend entire days with Bowen Briggs kissing me and come out of it feeling like it wasn't long enough. His beard burns just enough to make me feel exactly the way he wanted me to. Alive.
I haven't felt this alive in years. I moan into him when he sucks on my tongue, and my insides clench when he groans at my teeth sinking into hislip. We're mouths and hands touching and gripping, and I never want it to end.
We don't stop when his phone rings the first time. But by the third time, I'm groaning and pulling back. Bowen isn't deterred, just latches onto my throat instead.
“Boe, answer. Third call,” I mumble. To my dismay, Bowen actually listens. He rips the phone out of his pocket, honest to God growls, and swipes to answer.
“The woods better be on fire,” he snaps. Then, after a beat where all I hear from the other end is “dinner” and “fuck with Mom,” Bowen tilts his head back like he's begging the heavens for the call to end. When it finally does, his nostrils are flared, and he's taking slow, steadying breaths.
His pupils are still shot to hell when he looks at me. His jaw flexes when I attempt to adjust myself in my pants. “What is it?”
“Ian,” he grumbles, swiping his thumb over my wet lip. He tugs on it gently, transfixed.
“What did he want?” I look down when the rest of my senses make it through the thick fog of desire, and I feel something poking into my butt. I pull out a sharp scalpel thing and cringe. That could have been bad.
“Sunday Bennet dinner. I missed last week. He threatened the whole pack on my doorstep if I don't show up.” He scrubs his hands over his face before looking at me again and groaning low in his throat. Those hands land on my upper thighs and tug me closer. “Fuck it. We can stay in here and lock the door.”
“I feel like a flimsy old lock doesn't stand a chance against Ian, Boe.” I pat his cheek and pretend that I'm not thoroughly disappointed about not being ravished right here. It would have totally been worth the splinters.
