“I know,” I whisper.
I tried to save you from this. I tried.
Something in him crumbles.
He reaches for me, and I fall into him.
His hands are gentle.
Mine are anything but.
I grip and claw the front of his hoodie in my hands like he's my only lifeline in turbulent waters. I'm slowly drowning without him, and that's the truth. His hoodie is warm and soft when I bury my face into him, and I let out a sound of tormented relief when his strong arms envelop me.
Bowen exhales, long and low, and I feel it move through both of us.
One of my hands releases the fabric long enough to search for his neck. To feel the proof of his life racing against my palm.
He's real. He's here. He's okay.
He tilts my chin up, and I let my eyes slide closed.
I don't know who kisses who first. Just that it starts slow. Soft. A quiet, terrifying kind of kiss. A kiss not shared amongst the monsters in the dark. Not a kiss that feels necessary for survival, but a kiss of pure aching want.
Bowen's lips part, his hands moving to the back of my neck, and the touch of his tongue against my own is a fuse lit in both of us. His gentle touches from a moment ago are replaced with hands that feel desperate, just as desperate as my own.
I don't protest when he runs them down my back, but I whimper my displeasure when he takes his mouth away long enough to lift me. Then I'm wrapped around him, consumed by him. His scent, his touch, his nipping teeth on my lip, his fingers gripping my hips. Holding me as close to his body as he can get me.
It's not close enough. I don't think it could ever be close enough.
My legs are still squeezed around his waist when we tumble down on a soft bed. His bed. The kernel of my old self that survives somewhere insideis absolutely buzzing with satisfaction that I've found myself here. Under Bowen Briggs. Boe. My Boe.
My Boe, who huffs a deep and raspy laugh when I grumble at not being able to get him out of his hoodie and shirt fast enough. I drop my hands and legs, keeping them bent on either side of him, but I watch with hooded eyes and a racing heart as he leans up on bent knees and shucks off the clothes.
His chest is familiar, but not. He's not the same seventeen-year-old that I used to try not to stare at and inevitably fail miserably. There is a smattering of black hair over his chest that tapers down an abdomen he has obviously spent time sculpting. The ridges of his abs flex with his movements, and I'm loath to lose the visual, but then he's leaning over me again, hands on either side of my head.
I stare at the mole over his lip.
“We can slow down, kitten.”
Slow down? My body is screaming for him. My answer is to struggle out of my own shirt, pulling his stomach down to mine when there are finally no barriers between us. And his answer to that is warm lips on my jaw. My neck. Teeth digging into my shoulder. Fingers a gentle contrast running up and down my sides. The contrast of rough and soft makes my already fuzzy head positively spin.
His hands are a shot of Whiskey. His mouth is a cocktail full of everything I need. I don't know when the rest of my clothes came off, or when he shucked out of his own. But absolutely nothing in my life has ever felt as right as I feel now, completely naked and completely wrapped up with Bowen Briggs. I feel stripped down in every way possible.
The evidence of our want is pressed together between us. He groans softly when I press up against him, and I shudder when he returns the movement.
His curls tickle my chest when he leans down to kiss and suck across my skin. I want him to leave marks all over my body. I want there to be avisual reminder tomorrow, when I'm no longer cocooned safe away from the world, that this was real. For a short time, I was his, and he was mine, and nothing else fucking mattered. I bury my fingers in his soft curls and let the rest of the world go. It's just him and I here.
I moan, my hips bucking up when a hand engulfs my erection. Bowen Briggs is touching me.
“Is this okay?”
Okay? Is he serious?
“More,” I moan. I need more. I need everything.
He grasps us together as best he can, stroking slow and steady. Sure movements that have my eyes rolling closed. Pleasure explodes in tiny bursts through my whole body when his thumb glides across the head of my cock, and I whimper.
“More,” I say again. My voice is quiet but needy, and Bowen hums an approving sound. His breaths are just as choppy as my own.
