Page 1 of Mr. Naughty List
Chapter One
Freshly scrubbed andeager, Aaron fairly skipped by the glittering storefronts in Market Square. Knoxville was all done up for Christmas with lights and ribbons and wreaths, and he hummed along to “Jingle Bell Rock” as he passed the outdoor ice rink on his way to the cozy, familiar pub where he usually met his hookups.
He paid Scruffy City Hall’s leather-clad bouncer the $10 cover charge for the night’s band and headed inside to find the dim, wood-lined interior already packed with people. Needing a drink sooner rather than later, Aaron forced his way through the crowd and up to the bar to put in his order with the hipster, bearded bartender and was gratified by a glorious whisky sour within mere moments.
An unfamiliar and yet very Christmas-y song rang around him, emanating from the next room. Visible through an arched doorway, the small, crowded stage flashed with spangled lights from a disco ball.
The holiday spirit was evidently rampant amongst the patrons, a mix of college students and single thirty-somethings, dancing and singing along to the catchy, Christmas-themed chorus. Silver, gold, and red decorations hung from the pub’s ceiling, adding a sparkle and shine that lifted the room out of mediocrity and into joy. Aaron’s spirits rose even higher.
Gazing around, hoping not to see any familiar faces and pleased to find nary a one, Aaron moved into the room where the band responsible for the jangling array of Christmas tunes amped up the excitement of the drunk and adoring crowd.
Dodging elbows and squeezing between dancers, Aaron sought out a place where he could watch, listen, and drink. The rock-n-roll carols vibrated his bones, a cheering, holiday-infused hum that made his eardrums ache, but Aaron didn’t plan to be here long enough to worry about his hearing. Fingers crossed, anyway.
He’d already been blown off once that evening by a potential hookup. In his desperation to secure an end to his current spell of celibacy, he’d been less choosy than usual in arranging this one. Aside from a photo of a handsome, if rather cruel-looking face, to identify the guy by, Aaron only knew his screenname—CaptainKY—and wasn’t even sure if that referred to the state or the lube.
Aaron had resisted the lure of hookup apps for almost six months. He’d been proud of himself for making good use of the Internet and his right hand to satisfy his needs instead of requiring the sexual services of a stranger. Not that hewantedto be celibate. It was just that it was so damn hard to find no-strings-attached fucks in a town the size of Knoxville. Not as a teacher trying to keep his sexuality quiet.
The last thing Aaron needed was to find himself face-to-face with a student’s closeted dad on parent-teacher night, or discover he’d screwed the older brother of one of his current students, or to trip and fall into some other horrible situation that could cost him his already tattered reputation and maybe his job.
Thus, his usual preference was to pick up men passing through town: business travelers for the most part, though truckers would do just fine if he was looking for a certainexpérience spécifique. That’d been the plan tonight, actually. A tough-looking man who’d been trucking through town had offered to meet him for drinks and a long, slow blow job, followed by a nice, hard spanking. But the trucker had backed out at the last minute for an unspecified reason.
Which, okay. Fine. Whatever.
Aaron sometimes backed out of hookups too. It happened—second thoughts, or some protective instinct warned him against a particular rendezvous, so he flaked. But he’dneededit tonight. He’d been aching for it for weeks now. So, no sooner than the trucker had ditched him, Aaron had been back on the apps, scrolling for a new catch.
And he’d found one.
Cruel face. Baseball cap. In town for a monster truck show.
Aaron could totallynotrelate to that interest, but all the better. It was so much less likely they’d have to spend a lot of time talking. Instead, he’d test CaptainKY out here at the club, make sure he felt safe with him, and then go back to the hotel where the guy was staying. Probably not the Hotel Oliver, since that was a bit posh for the stereotypical monster truck fan, but maybe the new business-class Marriott, which was right around the corner from his apartment. Aaron wouldn’t even be tempted to spend the night.
Sipping his cocktail, he meandered closer to the stage, attracted by the glow of the fake stained-glass windows on the balcony above the room and the optical illusion of the castle-like hall behind the stage itself. The sound was tight, and the performers were dressed up in Christmas glitz—reindeer antlers, wristbands made of tinsel, and the girls wore shimmery hair and makeup. Entertainment, Knoxville style.
Aaron was meeting CaptainKY between nine and nine-thirty, but he’d been too anxious and horny to wait at home, so he’d come out a little early. He figured a drink in advance would soothe his jitters and make him looser all over. For whatever happened in the hotel. God, he hoped the guy was hung. He needed a cock in his ass more than he needed air.
Aaron drowned that desperate thought with another mouthful of whiskey. Fixing his attention on the band, he noted that it was made up of two girls and two guys: a glittering, probably Korean woman on drums, a pixie-looking lady with blue hair seated at a decorated, stand-up piano, and two fine, wiry pieces of man-flesh on bass and guitar. Both of the guys weren’t too precious to play up the Christmas theme either. One wore jingle-bells on reindeer antlers, and the other had tinsel bracelets and necklaces shimmering with every move.
Aaron’s gaze hung on the lead-singer-slash-guitarist. Beneath the reindeer antlers, the man wore his light brown hair shorn close to his scalp, and he possessed an easy sexuality that made Aaron’s nipples tingle and his overeager cock rush hot with blood.
Aaron rolled his eyes at his own horniness, annoyed to be like a raw nerve, needy and twinging with every semi-arousing stimulus in sight. Like this tall, handsome singer with his beautiful, angular body.Damn. Nothingsemi-arousing about him. More like a total hard-on.
Finally finding an empty corner to lurk in while he waited for CaptainKY to arrive, Aaron stared at the stage, chewing his bottom lip and nearly drooling over the lead’s muscled arms and attractive hands. It was like a poem, the way the tendons of his forearms moved with each chord change. Aaron’s skin felt alive just watching.
As minutes passed and Aaron slowly sipped his whiskey sour, letting the alcohol relax his high-strung nerves, he admired the singer’s strong jawline and the wiry ligaments of his neck as he sang Christmas songs both strange and familiar. His voice was a scratchy baritone that sent shivers down Aaron’s spine.
Aaron licked his lips again, spinning out a fantasy where he got this man on a bed somewhere, straddled his long legs, and unwrapped the nice package showcased by the tight fit of worn jeans.
Flushing with want, Aaron fanned himself. He shouldn’t have worn a sports coat. Christ. Given that he’d been horny as hell before he even arrived at the pub, it wasn’t surprising that he was steaming hot in here now, or that his imagination had taken such a dirty turn when faced with a man exactly his rough-looking type. This was the kind of man who clearly knew what to do with his hands—based on the work those fingers were doing on the fretboard, anyway.
Standing there, sporting wood beneath his sports coat, Aaron was unprepared for the effect a certain toss of the lead’s chin would have. That quick move, followed by his piercing gaze raking over the crowd, triggered Aaron’s memory.
In a flash, he knew him.
RJ Blitz, former high school senior, sat in back row of Aaron’s very first English Composition class as a teacher. He’d glared at Aaron like he’d wanted to turn him inside out, or beat him up, or do something else that had left Aaron feeling eternally anxious for that whole school year.
Fuck.
Even now Aaron battled the fear that a student would guess his sexuality and use it to hurt him—either professionally or physically. He only needed one more strike and he’d be out. Even five years ago, before the mistake and the humiliation, RJ Blitz had been a student Aaron had avoided interacting with.