Page 35 of Kiss Me Honey Hone

Kenny glanced down at him, laptop whirring back to life. “You could continue to read that book.” He kicked the thick textbook dumped on the floor.

Aaron snatched it with a theatrical groan. “I don’t think I’ve ever been rejected in favour of a corpse before.”

“Get used to it.”

Aaron’s smirk widened, defiance sparking in his blue eyes. “You saying we’re gonna do this again?”

Kenny stomped around the sofa, laptop clutched in one hand like a shield. “Read the book. I’ll go to my study.”

Aaron fell back to the cushions, flipping open the book as if it weighed a tonne. But before Kenny stormed out entirely, he stopped. Turned back. Then, holding the laptop precariously in one hand, he cupped Aaron’s chin. Aaron’s eyes widened. Dilated. And Kenny leaned down, face inches from Aaron’s. “Thank you.”

He then traced his thumb over Aaron’s lips, each touch sending an electric pulse through his hand, down to the thundering rhythm in his chest.

“You’re not gonna kiss me, are you?” The raw, unspoken truth in Aaron’s tone twisted the knife already lodged in Kenny’s chest.

Because those lips, soft and inviting, promising everything and nothing, could shatter him completely. They might as well contain poison far deadlier than anything he’d read about in a pathology report. Because surrendering to Aaron’s meant destruction.

So he forced out his reply, “Not yet.”

Aaron’s eyes were a tempest of defiance, daring and dangerous and locking onto Kenny’s with an intensity refusing to surrender. Then, with a wicked smirk, he wrapped his fingers around Kenny’s wrist like a silken snare and, without a word, without breaking the charged connection in his gaze, he guided Kenny’s thumb into his mouth.

Kenny’s breath hitched.

Aaron’s warm, wet mouth closed around Kenny’s thumb, maddeningly sweet and dangerously seductive. Because he wasn’t crude with it, or rushed with abandon. Aaron was slow. Purposeful.Achinglytender. And his tongue curling around the pad of Kenny’s thumb burned into his memory, because Aaron wasn’t just touching him, or reminding him of their first encounter when Aaron had stretched that beautifully cruel mouth so effortlessly around his cock, but he was branding him. Owning every inch of Kenny’s willpower with every languid suck.

Kenny couldn’t look away and Aaron’s eyes stayed locked on his, bright with intensity, daring him to resist what they both knew he couldn’t. It wasn’t just a tease. It was a confession. A plea. A promise of what could be if either of them dared to take that final, irrevocable step. And when Kenny finally pulled back, sliding his thumb from Aaron’s lips with a soft, obscene pop, Kenny’s cock inflamed, telling him he wanted in that devilishly beautiful mouth. Now. Ever more so when Aaron flicked his tongue over his tip, an unspoken dare haunting the space between them.

Kenny was losing a battle he swore never to fight and Aaron was carving out the pieces of his soul he wouldn’t ever get back. Because Aaron was the only one who could ever fill them.

Falling back on the sofa, Aaron gazed up at him with a devastating mix of triumph and yearning, and Kenny knew then, with bone-deep certainty thatwhen, not if, butwhenhe kissedhim again, he’d give permission for Aaron to destroy his entire life.

“Read the book,” Kenny said. “I’ll see you in bed.”

Chapter nine

You Can’t Quit Me Baby

Aarondidsee Kenny in bed.

Only a glimpse. Fleeting. Hazy with the edges of exhaustion. He arrived late, well into the next morning, slipping under the covers with a careful grace only half-rousing Aaron from his restless sleep. He barely registered the shift of the mattress before Kenny’s arm encircled him, pulling him in with a tender, unrelenting strength.

With his back pressed against Kenny’s chest, body aligning with his instinctively, and the sweep of Kenny’s lips along his bare shoulder, more than a whisper, soft and reverent, a ripple of sensation tap danced down Aaron’s spine. But it was the rasp of Kenny’s beard that destroyed him, and Aaron stirred, just enough to lift an arm free of the duvet, fingers seeking Kenny’s hair, threading through the familiar strands and gripping tightly, keeping Kenny’s mouth where he needed it. On him. Heachedfor Kenny’s lips on him. Anywhere he was willing to put them.

“Sleep.” Kenny’s hot breath trickled on Aaron’s shoulder. “We’ll do this properly.”

The words, heavy with promise, made Aaron’s heart clench, but his body betrayed him. Too tired to question, too lulled byKenny’s presence to push, he let go of Kenny’s hair, tucking his arm back under the duvet. Kenny didn’t move away, didn’t leave him wanting. Instead, he draped his leg over Aaron’s, locking them together in a tangled intimacy so natural it was almost unbearable. And Aaron gripped Kenny’s thigh as if holding him there, anchoring himself to this moment.

ToKenny.

Even if he couldn’t haveallof him, he’d take these fleeting moments where he could pretend he felt the same. So he allowed his eyes to drift closed, falling into the comfort of Kenny’s arms for as long as Kenny allowed them to be there.

Those arms were gone in the morning, replaced once again by empty sheets. But when he opened his eyes, Kenny was crouched before him, chin on the edge of the bed, stroking Aaron’s cheek with the back of his fingers. Aaron blinked, lifting his face from the pillow. Kenny had his three-piece suit on. Navy, this time. Glasses. Work mode.

“I need to go to work,” Kenny said, voice light. “And you have a lecture in two hours, which I’m delivering.”

Aaron swallowed, the realisation Kenny was kicking him out causing a lump in his throat. Their weekend hiding away was over. He was shoving Aaron back to the wolves. Cranking up those professional walls again.

“Now we can do this in one of three ways.” Kenny stood, adjusting the sleeves on his jacket to poke out the slight hint of burgundy shirt cuffs.

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