Page 31 of Don't Shoot Me Santa

Yes, he wanted him.

Of course he did. His cock ached with it. Whole body humming on a low, relentless frequency tuned to Aaron. And only Aaron. Which was new. Unsettlingly new. Gone were his days of bleeding off pressure on a stranger against a wall or in a dark corner, a nameless body serving as a fix for his restless heart. Now he had Aaron, the compulsion for newness, for faceless bodies, had gone quiet. What burned in him now wasn’t about scratching an itch, though. Nor was it even about hisowndesire.

It was about Aaron’s.

Whatheneeded.

What he asked for in the way his body trembled, in the sharpness of his defiance, in the cracks of his surrender. And Kenny wanted all of it, wantedhim, in every way that counted.

Kenny had spentyearslearning Aaron. Not only loving him butstudyinghim. Watching the shifts. Mapping the rhythms. Listening to the silences between the sarcasm. He’d learned how Aaron used sex like a sedative. How he chased it when his thoughts grew too loud. He used pleasure like a scalpel, carving out the noise in his chest until all that was left was sensation. Aaron’s arousal was often a mask. A clever one. But still a camouflage for emotional dissonance. Not unlike how he’d used to seek the thrill of a backroom fuck, but Aaron also needed to feel safe when he let go. So he poured all his energy into Kenny. And if there wasanyhope of this lasting, of them building something that wasn’t built on heat and panic and need, then it had to shift.

Not completely. Not overnight. But gently.Intentionally.

Truth was, they were already halfway there.

They’d slipped into it without fanfare. Without labels. Kenny had been shaping the edges of what they were becoming, careful not to call it by name. Not because he didn’t know—hedid. But because Aaron wasn’t ready to hear it. Not yet. Naming it might startle him, make him recoil from something he didn’t fully understand. So Kenny moved slowly. Cautiously. Dipping into this new dynamic the way he sank naked into the bath right then. Deliberate, measured, letting the warmth rise around them until it wrapped them in an unbreakable cocoon of heat.

Tonight, he’d give Aaron what he needed.

Not what he thought he wanted.

And especially because Aaron hadn’t learned the difference yet.

Settling back against the porcelain, Kenny closed his eyes, steam curling around him, and listened out for the footsteps to arrive. When Aaron appeared in the doorway, two glasses of red wine cradled in his hands, Kenny beckoned him forward with a playful wiggle of his fingers. Aaron stepped in, placing the glasses on the shelf behind the bath. Then he stripped, folding himself down into the hot water, fitting neatly between Kenny’s legs. He pressed his back to Kenny’s chest, shoulders loosening under the heat and contact, and Kenny swept Aaron’s damp hair aside to kiss his temple before reaching for the glasses and handing one over. Aaron accepted it without looking, sipped, then drifted his thumb along the rim, lost in the wine’s swirl.

“Nice wine,” Kenny said after a sip, trailing his fingers idly down the length of Aaron’s arm. “Good choice.”

Aaron didn’t respond with words, but Kenny felt the shift. Subtle, but there. The slight melt of muscle beneath his fingertips. The way Aaron leaned deeper into his shoulder. A fractional surrender. Not relaxed. Not yet. But easing. A loosening that only came after weeks of gentle persistence.

Aaron had been carrying tension lately. Braced for something. Kenny wasn’t sure what, exactly. Probably a combination of the holidays pressing in and the creeping unease at the dog shelter where he worked and had found a purpose. A skill. A reason to be. New management, new eyes, though. And with it the rising dread that someone would seetoo much. Know too much.

Which was why Kenny had started shifting their rhythm.

Subtly. Intentionally.

It hadn’t started as a decision. More a reaction to the way Aaron withdrew the tighter the world pressed. And it wasworking. Gradually. Aaron wasn’t offering words, but his body was speaking. Less fight. Less facade. More of that quiet, aching stillness only surfacing when the mask slipped.

Kenny kissed the back of his neck. Let it linger.

He was close. He could feel it.

That sweet, suspended moment before surrender. When Aaron stopped trying to perform or protect, and simply…was.

His heart swelled. Not with triumph. With tenderness.

And yes, other parts of him stirred in kind, but he let that feeling hum beneath the surface.

Aaron shifted. The water swirled. “You know I can feel that, right?”

Kenny smiled. “I’d be worried if you couldn’t.”

“So why not get it over with? Why not… let me have you?”

Kenny traced a circle on Aaron’s arm with his thumb. He understood the question beneath the question. This wasn’t about sex. It was him wanting to feel something familiar. Fast. Loud. A shortcut to closeness. And sometimes, yes, he gave him that.

But not tonight.

Not when they were so close to something that couldn’t be undone.