Page 103 of Don't Shoot Me Santa

“Every… Fractured.…Beautiful part of you.”

Then, softer.Fiercer. As deep as he could go, body and soul.

“I want all of you…” He held there, waiting until they both hit the edge to breathe out through their shared climax, “Always.”

Chapter seventeen

Yule Shoot Your Eye Out

Kenny slipped beneath the duvet in the hush of early morning, the quiet so complete it felt sacred. The house still smelled faintly of firewood and sweat, of come and cinnamon. AndAaron.

Having sent off the profile to DS Parry, he was now free of it. He’d been refining it after tending to far more urgent matters. Namely, Aaron. Making love to him twice in front of the fire, coaxing a third orgasm from him with nothing but his hand and voice, until Aaron was wrecked, beautifully, wordlessly undone, too raw to speak or cry or even think. And Aaron had lain there for hours, stretched out and trembling in the firelight while Kenny worked beside him, grounded by the nearness of him. Then as Aaron found the strength to move, he’d crawled into Kenny’s lap, still half-dazed, pressing his face to Kenny’s neck while they reviewed the case notes together.

Aaron had even scavenged the fridge, putting together a meal from scraps and half-forgotten ingredients. Odds and ends Kenny wouldn’t have considered. But Aaron made it work. Growing up in a care home and scraping through union nothing made him resourceful. Even in the kitchen, which Kenny usually ruled, Aaron had his quiet magic. He could feed someone as if it was an act of love.

And that night, it had been.

Now, in bed, Kenny inched closer, drawn by the gravity of a body he knew better than his own. He curled his arm around Aaron’s waist, the dip of it so familiar it felt like the shape of home.

Aaron stirred, lifting one arm from beneath the duvet, loose and warm with sleep, slipping his fingers into Kenny’s hair and tugged him to him.

God, he loved it when Aaron did that.

That half-conscious reach. Wordless need. The quiet gravity of a boy who’d learned long ago not to ask for comfort but did it anyway. And how his body asked for connection even when his words couldn’t. So Kenny pressed closer. Wrapped him tighter. Until there was no space left between them. Until their hearts synched and their skin felt like a single surface.

Maybe theywereone person. Maybe that was the point.

Kenny was a twin. Built in mirror image. And when Jessica had been ripped from him, torn away before he even understood who he was without her, he’d never stopped searching for his other half. Some reflection. Some echo.

Had he ever imagined it would be someone like Aaron?

Complicated. Prickly. Beautifully broken. The son of the very nightmare that haunted Kenny’s personal and professional life?

Of course not.

Yet, here he was.

Warm andpliant in his arms. Breathing slow and steady. Trusting him, submitting to him, even in sleep, with all that raw, buried weight.

It should have been impossible.

But somehow, in this moment, under this blanket, with the world held at bay by shared warmth and the steady pulse beneath Aaron’s skin, it made perfect sense.

All of it.

Kenny closed his eyes and kissed Aaron’s shoulder, breathing in the only truth that mattered.

He’d found his other half.

And he wasn’t letting go.

Aaron shifted beneath the duvet, drowsy but aware. He found Kenny’s hand resting warm on his thigh and laced their fingers together, pulling them under the covers, close to his chest. “Is it over?”

“I’ve sent what I know. That’s me out.”

Aaron brought Kenny’s hand to his lips, kissed the knuckles gently. “Until the next one.”

“If they follow my leads, there won’t be a next one.”