Page 21 of Kiss Me Honey Honey (To Love a Psycho #2)

Chapter twent y

Lover, Please Stay

Kenny gripped the steering wheel, eyes ahead as he navigated the car through town. Aaron was too busy trying to do the laces up on his boots to ask questions, and Kenny was grateful for it. He should have left him at home, because there were things he needed to say and refer to right then that he couldn’t let Aaron know.

But nor could he leave him alone.

“Where are we?” Aaron peered out the window as Kenny sidled up to a semi-detached house in another part of town. “This isn’t the police station.”

“No.” Kenny shouldered open the door. “You can stay in the car if you like?”

“With a killer on the loose?”

“Just avoid kissing anyone until I get back and you’ll be fine.” Kenny stepped out.

“Ha fucking ha.” Aaron got out of the car and slammed the door shut. “Can’t guarantee that when I look this good, can I?”

Kenny gave him a look, then marched up to the front door and rang the bell. When that didn’t get an immediate response, he banged his fist on the door .

When the door opened, Aaron blinked. And blinked again.

Flame-haired, and undeniably ripped, Fraser answered the door, wrestling into a dressing gown barely big enough to cover him, revealing a deep V of muscle leading to abs so sculpted they looked like they belonged on a statue.

“Kenny!” Fraser tied the belt on the gown that, try as it might, didn’t have enough material to stretch around his broad frame. “This is a surprise.”

“Is Jack home?”

“Uh, yeah. He’s just…we were …” Fraser’s cheeks flushed a deeper red than his hair. “He’s in the bath. Is this urgent?”

“Unfortunately.” Looked like he’d just stumbled on story time.

Fraser stepped aside, gesturing them both in, and Kenny noted the slight confusion of who Aaron was. But Kenny didn’t have the time or patience to do any introductions right then.

“I’ll go get him.”

“Thanks.” Kenny stepped into the narrow hallway.

As Fraser ascended the stairs, Aaron tilted his head as if trying to glimpse what lay beneath the dressing gown.

Kenny nudged him. “Would you like a tissue to wipe your drool?”

“Oh, come on.” He gestured to the stairs. “It’s just window shopping. Aren’t you curious to see if he’s as big underneath that gown?”

“No.”

Aaron smirked. “Liar.”

Heavy footsteps thudded down the stairs, and Jack appeared, wriggling into a T-shirt over jogging bottoms hung a little too loose to be his own, with Fraser following behind, his gown flaying in the breeze. They really had stumbled on playtime.

“Kenny,” Jack said, tone clipped. “It’s a bit late, isn’t it?”

“We need to talk to you,” Kenny said, clutching his bag as if it held the answers to everything. It might well do. “I’m avoiding the phone in case you want this off the record.”

Jack peered behind him. “We?”

“Yes.” Kenny gestured to Aaron. “We.”

Jack’s gaze shifted back to Kenny. “And what capacity is he here in?”

Kenny shrugged. “My protégé.”

“Aww, thanks, doc.” Aaron wrinkled his nose in mock delight. “Although I prefer the pet name you called me last night, FYI.”

Jack groaned, stomping toward the living room. “Jesus Christ.”

Kenny turned to Aaron. “Do you have to?”

“What?”

“Antagonise him.”

“He started it.”

“And I’m finishing it.”

“Yes, daddy.” Aaron shrugged. “What? If I get protégé, you can be daddy.”

Kenny angled his head toward the living room. “Move.”

Once in the living room, with Jack pacing, Aaron sank onto the couch, but Kenny remained standing.

Fraser popped his head in. “Can I get anyone a drink?”

“No—” Jack began, but Aaron beat him to it.

“I would kill for a tea.” He smiled. “Literally commit murder for one.”

Jack glared at Kenny and Kenny pinched the bridge of his nose.

“I’ll make a pot.” Fraser rushed off.

“Go on,” Jack said, folding his arms. “What have you got?”

“A potential suspect.”

Jack glanced down at Aaron,

Aaron shot his hands in the air. “Not me! Why do you always think it’s me?” He then slouched back in the chair, crossing one ankle over his knee, exuding an air of practiced nonchalance entirely at odds with the tension in the room. Relaxed, like he belonged, but Kenny knew better. Aaron was playing his part, pushing Jack’s buttons in a house where he had every reason to feel out of place.

This thing between Jack and Aaron grated on every nerve Kenny had. He knew exactly why they disliked each other, and he couldn’t blame either of them for it. Jack visibly bristled every time Aaron edged closer to Kenny’s orbit, his frustration simmering just below the surface. And Aaron? Aaron hated Jack not just for wrongly accusing him of Rahul’s murder last year, but for something deeper, something far harder to ignore. Because Jack had once meant something to Kenny.

The tension between them was a quiet war of territory, and Kenny found himself caught squarely in the middle.

“Who then?” Jack turned back to Kenny.

Kenny yanked out files and photographs from his bag and laid them out on Jack’s coffee table. He nudged aside a few coasters and magazines— Healthy Living and Men’s Fitness —before spreading out the evidence.

“Peter Middleton.” Kenny handed over a report to Jack. “You remember him?”

Jack read the document. “I do now.”

“Escaped the Howells. Went through an unimaginable ordeal, but his life before then wasn’t any better. His father was abusive. Used to let their dog attack him. His mother was an addict. He was already a helpless target when he was lured from the park that day. Escaped after three days of torture, but his parents didn’t even come to get him. He went straight into the system.”

Aaron furrowed his brow. “You didn’t tell me that.”

Kenny looked at him for a moment. “Which part?”

“The dog! Bet it wasn’t the dog’ s fault.”

“You like dogs?”

“Love ‘em. You know where you stand with a dog. People are the ones who lie, cheat and string you along.” Aaron held his gaze. “And, yeah, also about him going into the care system. It’s a shitty place.”

“Exactly.” Kenny turned back to Jack, ignoring the potency of Aaron’s statement. “And as such, it’s unlikely he received the help and support he needed after what he endured.”

“This is an enormous leap, Kenny. How the fuck did you get from there to here?”

Kenny picked up the photograph of Carly and handed it to Jack. “See the lip balm on her desk? Aaron noticed it. Apparently, it’s sold in the campus shop, and there’s a man—disfigured—who buys it in bulk. When Aaron described him—his scars, his withdrawn behaviour—it aligned with what I remembered about Peter Middleton. And if the theory holds that the killer is using a toxin transmitted through kisses, the lip balm could very well be the delivery mechanism. It’s precise, controlled, and deeply personal.”

Jack looked at him over the file, eyebrow arched, unconvinced. So Kenny had to give him more.

“Think about it, Jack. This man—Middleton—brutally assaulted as a teenager. Lips and genitalia severed, effectively stripping him of his autonomy, his ability to engage in intimacy, and his sense of self—”

“Jesus,” Aaron muttered from the sofa. “Poor fucker.”

Kenny threw a glance his way, then turned back to Jack. “Those injuries aren’t just physical. They’re deeply psychological wounds. For someone like him, revenge isn’t just about inflicting harm. It’s about reclaiming power. He’s weaponizing the very things that were taken from him.” Kenny paced, gesturing manically in the hope Jack would see this. See the patterns and lines leading to this man. “The lips are symbolic. They represent intimacy, trust, and communication. Things he’s been denied. By using the kiss as his method of attack, he’s not just taking lives; he’s forcing his victims into a moment of vulnerability, of connection, that he can then exploit and destroy. It’s a way to rewrite his own narrative. To make others experience the helplessness and violation he felt.”

He gestured toward the photo again. “The lip balm fits perfectly into that psychological profile. It’s cheap, accessible, and likely something he uses as a workaround for his injuries. But by introducing a toxin, it becomes his weapon. A way to control the act of intimacy on his terms.”

“Okay…” Jack was humouring him for now. “Why Connie Bishop? The other victims? What’s his motive for them?”

“Think about it. Young. Girls. Blonde…” Kenny stared right at Jack, silently conveying what he wanted to say, what he hoped he would pick up and, regardless of how he felt and what he thought about Aaron, he would at least protect his own professional integrity by not outright saying it.

Aaron dropped his foot from his knee and sat forward, and Jack looked at him for a moment before turning back to Kenny. A silent nod. A shared understanding.

“If this is him, then Middleton is reenacting his trauma,” Kenny said. “But with himself in the position of power. It’s a psychological reversal of his victimhood. By killing these women, he’s flipping his narrative. Taking control of a story where he had none.”

Jack rubbed his chin, brow furrowing. “You think he’s doing this for revenge?”

Kenny shook his head. “It’s more than revenge. It’s about supremacy. Survivors of extreme abuse often experience profound feelings of helplessness. In some cases, those feelings manifest as a need to dominate their past, to rewrite their own history. Middleton isn’t just lashing out. He’s creating a scenario where he wins.”

“Wins what?” Jack peered over the file. Definitely on board now .

“The game,” Aaron said, as if to himself.

“Yeah.” Kenny nodded. “He’s reimagining what happened in that house as a game of power. Or maybe they told him whilst he was there they were playing a game with him. He’s still playing. Proving, to himself and to his tormentors, that he doesn’t need what they took from him. He can reign supreme. Be champion. Over them. Over what they did to him. He’s playing them at their own game. And found the perfect way to kill without detection. And guess who he wants to know that?”

Aaron inhaled. “Child A.”

“Roisin,” Kenny interjected.

“But the only evidence we have to prove this theory,” Jack threw the file back on the coffee table, “is a lip balm. I can get the team to look into Peter Middleton, find him, and question him. But I’m going to need something more than a hunch and a tube of lip salve which anyone can buy.”

“Come by the shop,” Aaron said.

Jack looked at him. “What?”

“Tomorrow.” Aaron leant forward, examining the photo of Carly’s last moment. “Wednesdays. He comes in on Wednesdays.”

Kenny raised his eyebrows at Jack. It wasn’t a bad plan.

“I can’t arrest a man for buying a lip balm.”

“No, but you can question him,” Kenny said. “It’s a link. Tenuous, yes. But it’s a link. Then you can observe him. Put a team on him. See how he responds to the questions.”

Jack sighed. “The chief won’t let me pull resources on a hunch. We need something concrete.”

“Trap him,” Kenny said.

Jack gave him a sceptical look. “And how do you propose I do that?”

“Do what they did when he was thirteen. Lure him out.”

“How?” Jack folded his arms.

“You give him what he wants. ”

“And what does he want?”

Fraser entered the living room then, balancing a tray with a teapot and cups. “Who was it who wanted the tea?”

Aaron raised a finger in the air. It wasn’t for the tea, though, but to answer Jack’s question.

Trouble was, it wasn’t Aaron who Middleton was after.

It was someone far, far worse.

* * * *

The ride home was thick with silence.

Aaron stared out the window, watching the streetlights blur into streaks of gold. He couldn’t tell if Kenny was even aware of him anymore. His focus was somewhere far away, brow furrowed, lips set in a line Aaron recognised as the look he wore when he was deep in thought.

He half expected Kenny to drive him back to campus. They’d made a plan: Jack would stake out the shop with him tomorrow, trying to glimpse this Peter Middleton, and in the meantime, Jack would dig into his past. Kenny had handed over the theory, tied with a neat psychological bow, but now it was Jack’s turn to sell it to his superiors, to make it seem like the whole idea had been his. That wouldn’t be easy, and Aaron didn’t envy him.

He didn’t like him either, so whatever.

But Kenny didn’t turn toward campus. He kept driving, hands tight on the wheel, eyes fixed on the road. Aaron didn’t question it. He didn’t dare. Instead, he just sat there, chest growing heavier with every passing mile. When Kenny finally turned into his driveway, Aaron realised with a jolt that maybe Kenny hadn’t been thinking at all. He’d driven on auto pilot.

The car rolled to a stop. Kenny sat there for a beat, blinking himself back to the present. Then, without a word, he cut the engine and climbed out, leaving Aaron sitting in the passenger seat, frozen by the tension. But he scrambled to follow, and felt like he was walking on eggshells, desperate not to break the fragile peace. It reminded him of when he used to follow Kenny in the shadows, watching him from a distance, unseen. His heart thumped.

Kenny unlocked the front door and pushed it open. For a second, Aaron thought Kenny might tell him to leave, go back to his room and stay out of his way, or shut the door on him as if not remembering he was even there. But Kenny said nothing, holding the door open, expression unreadable. So Aaron stepped inside.

The door closed, and the air crackled with whatever Kenny wasn’t saying. Aaron’s chest rose and fell as he waited, not daring to make a move, not daring to break whatever unspoken thread held them together. Then, as Kenny finally turned, silence deafening, he headed for the stairs, unfastening his shirt button as he ascended. He didn’t hurry, but there was an edge to him. A tension in his shoulders. A heaviness in every step.

Aaron unlaced his boots and kicked them off, the dull thud against the floor breaking the quiet. He then bolted up the stairs, pulse thundering in his ears, and by the time he reached Kenny’s room, Kenny was shrugging out of his shirt, the fabric slipping from his shoulders. That shouldn’t have made Aaron’s stomach twist. But it did. And as Kenny pulled his shirttails free from his chinos, his gaze locked onto Aaron with a look that stopped him in his tracks. Aaron felt as if he was being undressed just standing there, as though Kenny could see every dark corner of him, every crack he’d tried to plaster over.

His mouth went dry.

Aaron ripped off his jumper, and his chest heaved. God , he wanted this man. Wanted him in ways that felt primal, aching, impossible to ignore. He wanted Kenny to take him apart piece by piece. To destroy him. Then rebuild him. And consume every part of him until there was nothing left. His knees felt weak. Hands trembled. And he stood there, not just wanting Kenny to touch him, but wanting him under his skin. To dig his nails into every part of him. Burn with him.

He’d never felt this before.

Never wanted someone this much.

Never felt so close to falling apart .

Kenny’s hands were on him, dragging down his joggers and underwear, stripping him bare and Aaron was already hard, already desperate, and Kenny noticed. He kissed him, and Aaron thought he might explode there and then. But Kenny, ever intuitive, didn’t let him. He pulled away from the kiss, guiding Aaron over to the bed and laid him down.

“Touch yourself,” Kenny said, almost a growl.

Aaron shimmied to lay himself out, then wrapped his hand around his erection. He stroked. Eyes on Kenny as he watched from the foot of the bed shredding the rest of his clothes to stand there fully naked, cock hard and enticing. Kenny’s gaze burned into his skin like a brand and every movement, every breath, every brush of his fingers against his own body, amplified under Kenny’s watchful intensity. And when he tightened his grip around his length, the sensation was electric, but it was nothing compared to the raw, magnetic pull of those eyes on him. Kenny didn’t touch him. Didn’t speak . He didn’t need to. His presence alone was enough to send a shiver down Aaron’s spine, every nerve ending alive with anticipation.

There was power in it. Vulnerability too. Every slow stroke was a silent offering, an invitation Aaron wasn’t sure he was ready to give but couldn’t stop himself from wanting. His chest tightened, pleasure twisting with something deeper. Need. Craving. A pure ache to be seen and understood.

Kenny saw him.

Every broken piece. Every flicker of desire. Every unspoken plea.

Aaron’s breath hitched as their eyes locked, heat flooding through him. This wasn’t just lust. It was surrender .

“Slower,” Kenny commanded, his voice a husky rumble as he drifted over to the bedside table, opening a drawer and removed a tube of lube. He squeezed the liquid onto Aaron’s dick and hands, and Aaron moistened himself while Kenny returned to the foot of the bed, slicking up his own pulsing length. “Faster.”

Aaron obliged, arching his back, groaning at his own pleasure and how it had Kenny greedily watching, jerking himself off in perfect rhythm. Then Kenny crawled onto the bed, still palming himself, straddling Aaron’s thighs like a man completely undone.

He leaned down, breath scorching against Aaron’s ear. “I swear to god, you ruin me just by existing.”

He then roamed his slick hands over Aaron’s chest, gliding his fingers over his skin as if he needed to memorise every inch. Nails scratched lightly, dragging goosebumps from Aaron in their wake. Then he pinched Aaron’s nipple piercing, harder this time, and Aaron gasped, hips snapping up to meet the weight of Kenny’s body.

“Fuck,” Kenny rasped, as if the words had been dragged from somewhere deep. “You don’t even know what you do to me, do you?”

If it was even half as much as what Kenny did to him, Aaron knew . Every nerve in his body screamed it. But he didn’t need to say a word. His body was already answering. And with his hand wrapped around himself, desperate and needy, he surged forward to capture Kenny’s lips.

“Uh-uh.” Kenny shifted back, just out of reach. Eyes dark. Breath uneven. “You ask for it.”

That was the thing with Kenny. Even in moments like this—when desire unravelled every thought—he made Aaron want to beg.

“Kiss me,” Aaron plead, balls agonisingly tight.

Kenny smiled, a cruel, beautiful smile. “Good boy.”

He then wrapped his hand around Aaron’s throat, adding pressure, the way he’d done on that first night in the back room, and kissed him. Aaron fluttered his eyes closed, arching into Kenny’s touch, wanting him to squeeze harder, to stop him from breathing. Because he didn’t need air. Not when he had Kenny. Like this. Claiming him.

Tearing his mouth from Aaron’s, Kenny’s chest heaved as he knelt back on his knees. A growl rumbled in Aaron’s chest as he stared up, breath catching at the sight—Kenny fisting himself, eyes locked onto him as if he was the only thing in the world that mattered.

Kenny then curled his fingers tighter around Aaron’s throat, firm but measured, grounding him with the weight of dominance where he could, no doubt, feel his pulse hammering beneath his grip, and he leaned down, pressing the length of his cock against Aaron’s and wrapping his hand around them both. Their slick skin slid together as Kenny intertwined their fingers, spreading the squelching lube between them. Aaron bucked beneath him, desperate for more friction. More anything .

Kenny grinned. Dark. Feral. Hungry .

He moved his hand in tight, rhythmically rough strokes, cocks sliding against each other, wet and wanting, pushing them both closer to the edge.

“Look at me,” Kenny whispered.

Aaron snapped his eyes open, locking onto Kenny’s lust fuelled gaze. His lips parted as he panted heavily. Then Kenny pressed his thumb against Aaron’s pulse, right at his throat—firm, commanding—stealing all the air from his lungs. His vision swam, stars edging in. He couldn’t see anymore. Couldn’t think .

All he could do was feel .

Pleasure surged through him like fire. He trembled, quaking under the sensation, every nerve alight, strung out and burning for release.

“That’s it, baby.” Kenny fisted them both with relentless desperation. “Let go.”

Aaron did. And he convulsed as he came, hot and hard. Kenny groaned, shuddering as he, too, reached his climax, thick ropes of come landing over Aaron’s stomach, mixing with his own. Kenny slowed his strokes, milking the last of their pleasure before collapsing onto Aaron, slick with sweat and come.

He released his grip on Aaron’s throat, moving to cup his cheek. “That’s my boy.”

Aaron turned his head, lips seeking Kenny’s, and lapped up those words. His praise. The way Kenny staked his claim on him.

He wasn’t getting it back.

After a moment, Kenny reached for the tissues on his nightstand, handing one to Aaron. He then slipped under the covers and pulled Aaron to him, circling his arm around Aaron’s waist to hold him close. They lay face to face, the silence heavy but not uncomfortable, and Kenny stroked away Aaron’s hair from his forehead as if smoothing out something fragile.

Aaron watched him, crumbling, and couldn’t bring himself to look away. But after a long moment, he broke the quiet.

“Tell me what happened between you and the detective?”

Kenny’s eyes glimmered before he closed them, exhaling deeply. “You don’t really want to know that.”

“I do.” Aaron scratched his nails through Kenny’s beard, coaxing him to open his eyes. “I want to know everything about you. Every insignificant detail.”

Kenny’s eyes locked on Aaron’s. “Why?”

“I don’t know.” Aaron chewed on his lip. “Call it being a glutton for punishment. Or maybe I’m just curious about your life before me. Or probably for some other reason you’ll explain in half a second.”

Kenny’s lips curved into the faintest smile, though his eyes remained serious and he stroked his hand down to cup the side of Aaron’s face. “It’s not unusual to want to know what came before you. When you’re deeply drawn to someone, especially when there’s so much intensity between you, the unknown feels like a threat. You want to understand what came before you because it helps you frame where you fit now.”

Aaron swallowed hard, the truth of Kenny’s words striking too close to home. “So, what? I’m jealous of him because he had you first?”

“Maybe.” Kenny wriggled, getting comfortable. “But it’s deeper than that. It’s about validation. You’re searching for proof that I’ve never felt like this before. That what we have is unique. It’s not just curiosity. It’s reassurance. A way to quiet the part of you wondering if this is routine for me. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

Aaron wanted to protest, to argue that Kenny was wrong, but the words wouldn’t come. He hated how exposed he felt, how easily Kenny could see right through him. Did he know he was in love with him?

Would he care?

But eventually, his need to know outweighed his need for self-preservation. “Have you?”

“Have I what?”

“Felt like this before?”

Kenny’s expression softened as he ghosted his forehead to Aaron’s. “You don’t need to compete with my past. Just like I don’t yours. This is this now .”

Aaron narrowed his eyes. “You’re a real pain in the arse, you know that?”

Kenny chuckled. “So I’ve been told. ”

“I still want to know.”

Kenny inhaled sharply. “No. I haven’t.” He kissed him softly, as if the answer had lived on his lips all along. “Not like this. Not in a way that terrifies me... and still makes me want you, anyway.”

Aaron smiled against Kenny’s mouth, fluttering his eyes shut at the revelation warming through his veins. But when Kenny pulled back, Aaron dragged his tongue over the lingering wetness on his lips, opened his eyes and smirked.

“I still want to know about you and Bellend.”

“Course you do. Because you also like feeling you have one up on him.”

“So tell me. What was it? Fuck buddies? Passing fling? A relationship?”

“Yes.”

Aaron shoved him. “Prick.”

Kenny grabbed Aaron’s hand. Squeezed. Then tucked it back under the sheets, covering it with his own on Aaron’s hip. “It was all those things at various points in the six years we were in and out of each other’s beds.”

“Were you in love with him?”

Kenny’s expression turned thoughtful, eyes fixed on the ceiling for a moment. “Yes. But I didn’t really understand how to deal with that then. Nor did I know how to deal with his love for me. It became…a weapon. Suffocating. He, rightly so, wanted to change certain aspects about me and I, rightly so, wasn’t ready for those things to change. And when you’re carrying that in a relationship you have to keep hidden, it stops feeling like a relationship at all.”

“Why were you hiding it?”

“Because our superiors would have taken us off the case we were working on. Neither of us wanted that to happen. We were both at the start of our careers and we knew we were on the verge of something that would be the making of us. But a defence lawyer worth half his salt would tear the case apart if he whiffed any conflict of interest. Could use it to discredit anything we said. It’s still a bone of contention now, despite us not having spoken in years. It was too much pressure. And eventually, our edges frayed, loosening the hold we had on each other.”

“How did it end?”

“Badly.”

“In what way?”

“In a way that I hurt him considerably and he couldn’t forgive me, so he left. Without saying anything. Just upped and left. Took a job in Glasgow. I didn’t speak to him again until last year.”

“Wow. Glasgow. What did you do?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Did you cheat on him?”

“As I said, when a relationship stops feeling like a relationship, it becomes easier to justify your actions.”

“So, you cheated on him?”

“Yes, okay. Fine. If you want to strip it to its simplicity. I cheated. I had…addictions back then. Things Jack wanted me to stop. Smoking. My obsession with finding Jessica’s killer. And…going to clubs.”

Aaron pursed his lips. “Lucky you don’t do those anymore.”

Kenny clutched Aaron’s arse, dragging him closer. “My addiction has changed.”

Aaron’s heart pounded, the intensity in Kenny’s eyes impossible to ignore. “Kiss me.”

Kenny did, slow and languid, as though pouring every ounce of regret and unspoken apology into the kiss. A promise and a confession wrapped into one. Aaron felt like he was being drawn deeper under Kenny’s spell.

Aaron pulled back just enough to whisper against Kenny’s lips, voice shaky but firm. “Is this why you’re involved with the son of serial killers? Because you know that if you stick your dick anywhere else but in me, I’ll have you killed in your sleep?”

Kenny’s lips twitched into a grin. “Does sound like a surefire way to help break a habit.”

Aaron smiled, but it was a fragile thing, weighed down by the darkness swirling in his immature heart. His chest ached as though he was splitting open and he pressed closer to Kenny, threading his fingers through his beard, holding his face as though he might slip away.

Then, ghosting his lips to Kenny’s, he let his heart bleed out. “You can take everything you need from me, lover.” He kissed him, languid but greedy. “Use me. Ruin me. I’ll be whatever you want. Whenever you need. Just never stop wanting me .”

Kenny squeezed his arms around him, sliding his nose down the length of Aaron’s and when he spoke, it was barely a whisper, as if he hadn’t meant to say what he did out loud but Aaron caught every, charged word.

“It’s not me I’m worried about in all this.”