Page 78 of Dream a Little Dream

“Ask me how this makes me feel.” Aaron trembled beneath Kenny’s fingers. Maybe it was the cold. The alcohol. The place.

Or maybe it was Kenny.

“How does this make you feel?” he asked, barely a whisper on fractured breaths.

Aaron’s lips twisted into a smirk, but the amusement didn’t reach his eyes. There was too much sadness there. Too much feeling. “I don’t feel a fucking thing. Nothing. Numb.Dead.”

Kenny loosened his grip, and Aaron stumbled back, the full power of his lie gripping Kenny where it hurt. Hisheart.

Then, in a sudden and wild burst of anger, Aaron hurled the nearly empty bottle of JD into the river, watching it vanish beneath the dark water. “I don’t give afuck!” he yelled, voice reverberating through the trees. “I don’t give a fuck aboutthat.” He pointed at the makeshift memorial as tears, probably long held back, flooded his face and he shook. “And I don’t give a fuck about some old man hanging himself in a fucking cell. I’m glad. Fuckinggladhe’s gone.” He wiped his nose with the back of his arm, trembling uncontrollably. “I don’t care. I don’t fuckingcare!”

Aaron stumbled back, but Kenny was on him in an instant, grabbing him before he could escape. Oh God, how much he hurt for him. The confliction. The torture. Kenny took it all for himself, wanting to take it away from him. Wanting to give him something that wasn’t pain and sadness.

But Aaron shoved him away, fists clenching. “And I don’t care aboutyou,Dr Kenneth Lyons. I don’t give a fuck aboutyou. I don’t feel a damn thing when you look at me. Don’t burn for you to touch me. Don’t think about you. Barely remember your kiss setting me on fire. I don’twantyou.”

His words were a mess of lies, dripping with alcohol and pain, and his breath hitched as he turned to walk away, but Kenny grabbed him again, this time pressing him up against the roughbark of a tree and letting that confession wash over him. Fuel him. Set him free. Make himwhole. His head swam, the pull of desire tightening around his throat and weakening his restraint. Aaron, the elusive, infuriating, intoxicating man, was everything Kenny craved. Like the nicotine he couldn’t ever shake. His obsession with thewhy. His need to fix the broken. It all had Kenny hooked and needy. And he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t already known all of that when Aaron had provocatively danced for him.

On a nightclub dancefloor.

In his own damn house.

He locked his gaze onto Aaron’s, full of unhinged desperation. “Cain?”

Aaron’s breath was too shaky to respond, and nor did he show any trace of recognition. A brief dilation of his pupils was the only thing telling Kenny he’d even heard him. Then, brimming with defiance, Aaron growled through gritted teeth, “And I never want you to kiss me again.”

Kenny crushed Aaron against the tree, loosening his hand around his arm to trail it up behind his neck, and lost control. “Liar.”

“Which part?”

“All of it.” Kenny dug his fingers into Aaron’s neck and he freed his other hand from around Aaron’s arm. If Aaron wanted to leave, he could. He could push him off and run. But he didn’t.

“Prove it.”

Unable to stop himself any more now than he ever could have before, Kenny crashed his lips onto Aaron’s, hard and desperate, pulling every emotion he’d fought to hide to the surface. Aaron fisted Kenny’s shirt, pulling him closer, clinging to him like he was the only thing keeping him tethered to the earth. The kiss was wild, brutal, fuelled by everything they couldn’t say and as Aaron demanded access to Kenny’s mouth with his tongue,something broke inside him. Even more so when Aaron wrapped his arms around his neck, hoisted himself up, and clasped his legs around Kenny’s waist.

Kenny had to hold him against the tree to keep them both from falling to the ground, cutting Aaron’s back on the rough bark. But the need for him, forAaron, was overwhelming.Uncontrollable. Because Aaron returned that want, thatneed, with his legs clamped around him, clinging onto him with every desperate kiss, probing tongue, forcing them deeper together than the last.

All Kenny had left was lust. And he roamed his hand beneath Aaron’s top, trailing his fingers over the lines of his ribs, his chest, up to his piercing, grazing the metal he now knew was there and wanted his mouth on. Then when Aaron gasped, a guttural, primal sound, he became an unrelenting mess of depravity, groans wild and uncontrolled as Aaron tightened his legs around his waist so Kenny could feel the hardness within his jeans.

There was no return from this. No moral ground to sink into. And he pulled back, both of them panting, breath clouding the air between them, and Aaron’s eyes were dark, intense, filled with something making Kenny’s pulse stutter. “There you are,” Kenny rasped, voice heavy with desire.

Aaron’s response was immediate, reckless. “Here I fucking am,” he panted, licking his sore lips with his enticing tongue. “And you fuckingwantme too.”

Kenny could feel Aaron’s excitement hard against him. It was undeniable. Everything Aaron felt was there, laid bare, and Kenny smashed his mouth back on his to prove him right. To give him that, at least. And Aaron couldn’t get enough, clinging onto him like a desperate, deprived limpet, stealing more. And more. Andmore.

“You’re gonna fucking kill me,” Kenny rasped between heated kisses.

“Probably.”

Then, just as before, his phone rang, piercing through their haze.

Lips hovering just inches away, his breath ragged, Kenny yet again pulled away. Heart thudding and panicked, but Aaron grabbed his neck, mashing their bodies together. “Don’t answer it,” he growled, fierce and frantic, before kissing him again, hard.

For a moment, Kenny gave in, lips moving against Aaron’s, matching his urgency. But the phone kept ringing, relentless, and finally, Kenny stepped away, head bowed, and Aaron scrambled to set his feet back on the ground.

Kenny took out his phone, checked the number, silenced the call. “Shit.” He shoved the phone back into his pocket, chest heaving, then met Aaron’s insufferable gaze. “We need to talk.”

Aaron wiped his mouth. “I’m not allowed to talk.”

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