Page 21 of Don't Shoot Me Santa

“Hmm.”

Aaron studied his face. “You gonna help them?”

“I haven’t decided.”

Aaron snorted. “Sure you have. You just haven’t told them yet. You wouldn’t be here, serving me my favourite meal, talking soft and staying close, if you weren’t already halfway to balls-deep in the crime scene.”

Kenny winced. “That is…an incredibly unnecessary visual.”

“I’m incredibly horny and emotionally compromised. This is what you get.”

He scooped the last of the shakshuka onto a wedge of bread and shoved it in his mouth. A silence followed. Until Kenny stepped forward and sank to his knees in front of him.

Aaron flinched. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“Staying close.” Kenny cradled Aaron’s neck, stroking his thumbs along Aaron’s jaw in grounding strokes. Rhythmic. Familiar. Ritual they’d both come to rely on. “You’re important.” He kissed him. Soft. Sweet. Beautiful. “You’re heard. You’re my constant.”

Then he kissed him again. Deeper.

Aaron resisted at first, too knotted up in his own pride and panic to let go. But his body betrayed him. Of course it did. He was conditioned for this touch. Forthatvoice. For the way Kenny gave him enough to feel safe. His mouth softened. His arms moved without thought, curling around Kenny’s shoulders and dragging him closer. Not for friction. Not for escalation.

Forcontact.

To feel.

To befelt back.

He kissed Kenny deeper, not hungrier, but heavier. Needing weight. Proof. And Kenny gave it. He swept his tongue around Aaron’s. Just enough.Always just enough. And Aaron wrapped his legs around him, crossing his ankles together at Kenny’s lower back, clinging onto him as if half-sinking, half-saved.

Kenny stayed on his knees, one arm wrapped tight around Aaron’s waist, the other stroking up his spine in long, soothing sweeps. Then he slipped his hand beneath Aaron’s jumper, fingertips warm and smooth as he traced the delicate curve of Aaron’s lower back.

Aaron melted.

So close to being that fucking Crème Egg in the sun.

Then Kenny leaned into his ear and whispered, “I love you.”

And Aaron blinked. Turned to utter mush.

He didn’t even have the energy to call him an arsehole.

So he held on tighter.

Chapter four

Come on, Santa

Kenny called DS Parry back once Aaron had finally unlocked himself from his arms. If he was going to step into this, time mattered. The scene wouldn’t stay intact forever. So he agreed to look. No promises, only presence. And he arranged to visit the site where the boy had been found.

Aaron, as Kenny knew he would, came with him.

It was part of the agreement. If Kenny was going to reopen the part of himself he’d carefully closed off, step back into the twisted wiring of someone else’s mind, then Aaron came too. Not in any official capacity. But close enough to witness. Close enough to keep Kenny tethered to something that didn’t bleed.

Something real.

Human.

Because when he stared too long into the why of a killer… he needed someone beside him to remind him what it meant to survive one.