Page 38 of Don't Shoot Me Santa

“Right.” Kenny smiled, not quite. “Let’s start there. So you’ve noticed I’ve been shifting the dynamic?”

“I know you’ve been edging me like a sadist with a PhD.”

“Not a sadist, but I appreciate your attempt at clinical diagnosis.”

Aaron slanted him a glare. “Don’t you start with the textbook talk. I swear to God, if you give me a TED Talk on sexual conditioning before nine a.m.—”

“I won’t. Unless you provoke me.” He turned serious. “Look, baby…what I’m doing, what I’vebeendoing, is intentional. It’s not a game, and it’s not about withholding. It’s about building something that lasts. Not just heat, but intensity. Trust. Depth. I’m giving you time to adjust to it. Because I want you to feel everything. Fully. Safely.”

Aaron blinked at him, momentarily thrown off by the earnestness. Then, “That sounds suspiciously like psychobabble.”

“It’s notbabble. It’s behavioural. You’ve spent years disconnecting from sensation. Chasing noise to drown out feeling. You know that.Iknow you know that. So I’m taking the opposite approach. Drawing it out. Making it slow.Letting your body catch up with what your head’s too scared to ask for.”

Aaron stared at him. “Jesus Christ. Did you just cognitive behavioural therapy me into having better orgasms?”

“If it helps.”

Aaron groaned, dragging a hand through his hair. “You are absolutely the worst boyfriend in the history of all fucking boyfriends.”

“And yet…”

Aaron glanced back out the window. Chewed his lip. “You’re not wrong.”

Kenny cupped his face and nudged him back to him with all that calm, grounded authority back in place. “All of this only works if you’re on board. If you want something else…something faster, simpler…I’ll stop. But if you’re willing to let me keep going, we need a word.”

Aaron let the silence simmer long enough to make Kenny uncomfortable. Then, “You gonna slap me?”

“No.” Kenny closed his eyes. Breathed. Recalibrated. “I’m going to make you feel the best you’ve ever felt. And that might be too much for you.Might.”

Aaron narrowed his eyes. “You’ve done this before.”

Kenny held his gaze. “Not exactly like this.”

“But you’ve…safeworded people? People you’re sleeping with?”

“Yes.”

DI fucking Bellend.

The thought shot through his mind uninvited, bitter and hot. Aaron clenched his jaw. “But that was with…people who were into all that…stuff.”

“You don’t have to be into anything exceptbeing okay. It’s about having a safety net, in case your instincts tell you to say yes when you mean no. Or to go quiet when somethinghurts. And we’re exploring something new. Moving into unfamiliar territory and I’m aware of that. And I’m nowveryaware I didn’t ask you. I read it in you and took a risk. And I trust myself and my instincts and know I can read you well enough even when you’re pushing back on me and how far to go with that, but there’s always the chance I could get it wrong. So it’s important that I give you—”

“Grinch.”

Kenny stilled. “Are you saying that to be the word, or are you saying theword?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, it doesn’t work if you’re confused when I say it.”

“Well, we haven’t established it.”

“So establish it,thenpanic.”

“No, then I stop.”

“Being an arsehole?”

“Yes, Aaron. I will stop being an arsehole.”