Page 28 of Don't Shoot Me Santa

Kenny didn’t react. But he wasn’t moving either.

Aaron smirked. Bastard was watching.

Good.

He rolled his hips again, hanging from the pole like temptation in denim and bone. He trailed one hand across his chest, grazing his nipple piercing, then down into his waistband. Enough to tease. To makeeverymovement say,You could be inside me instead of slicing onions.

“Dinner’s burning,” he called, low and breathless.

That earned him something. A shift, a breath, the subtle stillness meaning Kenny wasfeelingit, even if his hands were still working. “Let me worry about dinner.”

“You could worry about me.”

“I am.” Kenny flicked his gaze behind him. “Always.”

Aaron bit his lip. Hooked his knee around the pole and spun once more, dropping into a perfect floor arch, chest rising, thighs flexed, eyes half-lidded.

The music purred on.

Etta begged.

The kitchen smelled of garlic and want.

Then as the saxophone swelled on the track, Aaron danced his way over to Kenny, every step a blend of tease and challenge. A threat wrapped in promise. And he mouthed along to the lyrics as he moved, fluid and feral, circling Kenny as if he were the pole itself, dragging his hand across his shoulders, down his back, pressing his chest momentarily to Kenny’s spine before slipping away.

Then, with no shame and even less restraint, Aaron draped himself over the counter beside the stove, laying himself out like an offering. Back arched. Elbows behind him. Hair a mess of damp waves. Jeans clinging as if fighting gravity, waistband slouched low enough to reveal the slope of his stomach, the faint trail of hair leading into shadows. Right to the edge of obscenity.

A prize.

Unwrapped.

Up for claiming.

Kenny looked at him. Calm. Composed.Cruel.

“You’re glistening,” he said, utterly unfazed. “Might want to towel off before you slip and crack your head open.”

Aaron popped upright. “I hate you.”

Kenny smirked. “That’s not what your body’s saying.”

Aaron flipped him off, outrage brewing.

But Kenny caught his wrist, then slipped Aaron’s raised middle finger into his mouth and sucked on it. He twirled his tongue around it. Flicked the tip, eyes locked on Aaron’s the whole time. Aaron might come in his pants from that alone.This. Kenny’s filthy cruel mouth making promises his body ached to cash.

But no, Kenny wouldn’t let him and with anobscene pop, he released his finger. “Yes, I want you. Badly. Always.” Kenny angled his head to the table. “But right now, I want you to set the table.”

Aaron didn’t even have the energy to growl. Or stamp his foot. Nor shoot off another crude quip or bratty protest. Because Kenny had done it again. Cracked right through the performance. Slipped under the armour. He’d known—of coursehe’d known—that Aaron wasn’t really trying to get fucked.

He was trying to escape.

And if sex was the escape, then Kenny? Kenny would’ve just been a body. A fix. A distraction with hands. And a mouth. A really good, warm, expert mouth. But a mouth, nonetheless. And whilst that wasn’t completely true, Aaron understood why Kenny had pulled him back, redirected him. Why he’d handed him plates instead of permission. Because Kenny wanted himpresent. Not spiralling. Not deflecting. Not lost.

Kenny wanted Aaronin the roomwith him.

So Aaron set the table, the jukebox flipping to something sultry from their mess of a playlist. Maybe Patsy. Maybe Zeppelin. Didn’t matter. It filled the space while Kenny moved behind him. And as he laid the cutlery, one piece at a time, he shook himself out.

“Thought you were joking when you said I should get used to being rejected for corpses.”