Page 76 of Chips & Checks
It’s not a loaded question. He says it as if we’re already an us, as if the idea of me sleeping in his bed is something he expects now. Not just a perk. Not just a convenience. A habit. A privilege.
I nod, setting my cup down before I take another sip and jitter myself into another overthinking spiral. “You hungry?”
“Only hungry for you,” he says with a lazy smirk, but there’s a thread of sincerity underneath it that makes my stomach flutter.
I roll my eyes. “I mean, actual food. It’s almost dinner time already.”
“We can order in. But first—” Bowen closes the distance between us, slow and deliberate. His hands land on my waist like he’s memorizing the shape of me. “You’ve been quiet.”
“Just thinking.” I loop my arms around his neck and rest my cheek against his chest. His heart is steady beneath my ear, and the sound of it calms some of the chaos inside me. “About earlier. About what my dad said.”
Bowen hums low in his throat, not pushing me to explain, just letting me lean on him.
“He meant well,” I murmur. “But it’s hard, having someone else try to define what my happiness should look like.”
He pulls back just enough to look down at me, brushing a strand of hair from my cheek. “You get to decide that, Vi. No one else.”
I tip my chin up to kiss him, soft and slow, but hungry underneath. This isn’t about expectation. It’s not about pressure. It’s about finally wanting something enough to let myself have it. Him.
Bowen deepens the kiss, one hand sliding into my hair, the other gripping my hip. I melt into him, every nerve ending firing to life. This is different. More.
When we part, I’m breathless.
“I want to,” I whisper.
His brow furrows. “Want to what?”
I smile, slow and sure. “Show you.”
The kiss starts sweet. I mean for it to stay that way. But then Bowen makes that low, hungry noise against my mouth, and it hits me—hard—how much I want this.
Not just the way his body feels under mine. Not just the way he touches me like I’m sacred.
I want to give him everything.
My fear is still there, a hum in my chest. But stronger is this wild, electric need to know what he tastes like. To make himfall apart for me. To see him lose all that cocky composure and just… unravel.
“Bowen,” I whisper, my voice barely audible over the thunder in my ears.
He pulls back just enough to search my face. “You okay?”
I nod slowly. “I want to taste you.”
His breath catches. For once, the boy who always has something flirty to say is speechless. His eyes search mine, not with lust, but reverence.
“You sure?”
“Yes.” I trace his jaw with my fingers. “I’m ready.”
He cups the back of my head and kisses my forehead like I’m something precious. “You don’t have to prove anything.”
“I know. This isn’t about proving. It’s about choosing.”
I’ve thought about this—him—so many times I’ve lost count. In stolen moments, in quiet nights when I couldn’t sleep, in the locker room between treatments when his voice echoed down the hallway and lit me up like a live wire. I’ve imagined what it would feel like to have him undone beneath me. Not because I owe it to him. Because I want it. I want him wild for me. I want to be the one who drags those filthy sounds from his throat, who makes his thighs shake, who turns the king of cocky grins into a gasping, desperate mess. This isn’t a favor or a milestone—it’s mine. He’s mine.
His voice drops, rough and reverent. “You really want to suck me, baby? Wrap those pretty lips around my cock? Let me feel you, feel how good and warm and wet your mouth is, knowing it’s you, Violet. Fuck, I’ve wanted this. Thought maybe I’d never get it.”
We barely make it to the couch. Clothes go fast. Mine get tossed in a fluttery arc across the living room, his unzipped and yanked down with urgent hands. He leans back into thecushions, completely naked, looking like sin and salvation in one beautiful package.
