Chapter Six Fall Into Me #2
Kenny smiled into his skin, soft and unshaken.
“It feels like a game because I make you wait. But it isn’t.
That waiting? That ache you hate?” He touched Aaron’s chest. Flat palm, heart-centred.
“It’s where you learn you’re safe. That I won’t let you fall.
That when I give, I’ll really give. And you’ll know it’s because you let me hold it for you first.” He kissed Aaron’s ear lightly.
“I’m building you a place where you don’t have to choose between being strong or safe.
You can be both. Or neither. You can just… be.”
Aaron’s breath caught. “Feels dangerous.”
“Because your body’s trained to associate honesty with risk. But this—” he kissed his neck “—isn’t about control. It’s about being witnessed. Every version of you. Including the parts you think are unlovable.”
Aaron closed his eyes. “Even the dark part?”
“Especially the dark part.”
Aaron leaned back into him a little more. Bone-deep and trembling but anchored. The steam curled as they settled deeper into the bath, Kenny skimming Aaron’s skin, like a cartographer redrawing borders he already knew by heart. Aaron sipped his wine, then tilted his head back with a satisfied sigh.
Kenny gave it a beat, then put down his wineglass and nudged the underside of Aaron’s chin with his nose. “Let me wash you.”
Aaron snorted. “I can wash myself.”
“You can. And if you want, go ahead. But I can touch you where you need me.”
“Not where I want.”
“Where you need.”
Kenny reached behind for the soap, forcing Aaron forward off his chest, then worked the bar into a thick foam before dragging it down the line of Aaron’s back. “Mmm.” He licked his lips as Aaron arched under his touch. “Look at you. Melting.”
Aaron hung his head. “Not melting… appreciating craftsmanship.”
Kenny grinned, pressing his thumbs into the tension at the base of Aaron’s spine. “Craftsmanship, is it?”
“High-end service.” Aaron tipped his head back again, closing his eyes. “Shame about the attitude.”
Kenny laughed. “There’s only one person in this bath with attitude.”
Kenny pulled Aaron back to him, pressed a kiss to the nape of his neck, then ran soapy hands down his arms, across his ribs, and under the bend of his knees. Aaron shifted lazily, indulgently, letting him. As if he was made of meltwater and trust.
“Turn.”
Aaron glanced over his shoulder, eyes narrowing with faux suspicion. “So you can soap me up and drown me?”
Kenny hummed. “Tempting. But no. You’re far more entertaining alive.”
Aaron twisted, hooked his legs around Kenny’s hips, and dragged him forward into the centre of the tub where they sat chest to chest. Water surged around them, lapping over porcelain to slap onto the floor tiles.
And with their bodies aligned, cocks close, but not quite touching, Kenny started with Aaron’s chest, slow strokes over flushed skin, then moved to his shoulders.
He reached for the shampoo, worked it into Aaron’s hair with careful fingers, massaging his scalp until Aaron tipped his head back, throat bared, eyes half-lidded in something close to surrender.
“God, you are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” Kenny turned on the handheld shower, angled it over him, and watched transfixed as the water coursed through strands of pale gold, streaming down Aaron’s face in perfect, glistening rivulets. “Utterly stunning.”
“Flattery gets you everywhere.”
Kenny chuckled. “I know.”
He then switched off the water, breath tight in his chest, and returned to Aaron’s body. Avoiding the heat pulsing between Aaron’s legs with an almost cruel reverence. His skin was flushed and gleaming, slick with heat and need. Still, Kenny didn’t give him relief.
Not yet.
Then Aaron grabbed Kenny’s jaw, lathered fingers slipping through his beard. “Kiss me.”
Kenny did. No hesitation. No teasing.
He kissed him with everything he had.
Their mouths moved together with a languid, devastating hunger. Tongues slid, lips pressed. Aaron trembled in his lap, cock pulsating between them, the ache so thick it lived in the air.
But Kenny refused to touch him there.
Aaron broke the kiss first, panting, pupils blown wide. He reached behind Kenny, grabbed the soap, and tossed it to the side with a sharp splash. “Your turn.”
He worked the lather between his palms, then ran his hands slowly across Kenny’s chest. He lingered over the scar.
That pale, unforgiving line curving from collarbone to sternum where the hair hadn’t been able to grow back.
The mark his family had left. A wound. A legacy.
A theft Kenny had only begun to reclaim.
Aaron stilled. As he always did when the reminder hit him hard and fast.
So Kenny said, “Look at me.”
Aaron lifted his eyes. Met his gaze. Bare and burning.
Kenny placed his hands over Aaron’s, anchoring them there at his pounding heart. “I love you.”
Silence. Aaron’s throat worked as if he might speak, but no words came. He was too far gone. Too vulnerable in that moment to climb back up.
So Kenny did what he always did. Held him in it.
And only when he knew Aaron had eased out of the past did he help him from the water, reaching for the towels and patting Aaron dry in distracting, teasing patches.
Aaron gave him a sleepy swat. “You missed half my back, you prick.”
Kenny slapped his arse playfully. “Be good.”
They were both still hard. Achingly so. Doing nothing about it was its own kind of exquisite torment.
Kenny let Aaron’s hand wander anyway, allowing him to palm the weight of his cock, feel the rigid heat filling his grip.
He even held his gaze while Aaron drew back his foreskin, sliding in massaging strokes leaving Kenny breathless.
It was permission, but not freedom.
A taste, not a feast.
Before Aaron could push him past the point of no return, Kenny closed his hand around Aaron’s wrist. Firm. Final. “That’s enough.”
Then he reached for Aaron’s toothbrush. Tilted Aaron’s chin up.
Brushed his damn teeth for him. On the surface, mundane.
Domestic. But the intimacy of it unravelled Kenny in ways a hand never could.
Aaron, who flinched from vulnerability and wore sarcasm and sex like armour, stood there with his lips parted, letting Kenny do this. No fight. No mask. Just surrender.
Kenny’s chest ached. Because this was the real edge play between them.
Not orgasm denial. Not bruising kisses or whispered commands.
It was this. The quiet places where Aaron let him in.
Where Kenny was allowed to tend to him in the simplest, most human ways, brushing away not just the taste of wine and toothpaste, but the residue of all the years Aaron had survived by himself.
When he finished, he wiped Aaron’s mouth with the towel, then said, “Come to bed.”
Aaron followed him across the wooden floor, holding his hand, barefoot and loose-limbed in that post-bath sprawl.
Kenny didn’t turn on the overheads, instead choosing the bedside lamp, casting the room in a low golden hush.
He then folded back the duvet, reached for Aaron, and tugged him beneath it with him.
Under the sheets, he skimmed his hand down Aaron’s thigh.
A quiet claim. A reassurance. Then nudged him gently, and Aaron rolled without resistance, fitting into the curve of Kenny’s body.
“Sleep,” Kenny whispered into his neck.
Aaron let out a quiet huff. “Bossy.”
Kenny smiled and folded him in tighter. Chest to back, arms locked around his waist, one leg hooked over Aaron’s hip until he’d covered every inch of him.
“Careful,” he whispered into his ear, breath warm against damp hair, “or I’ll edge your dreams too.”
Aaron snorted, but he found Kenny’s hand under the duvet and laced their fingers, guiding them to his chest, right over where his heart thundered, unguarded and real.
“As if you’re not already in my dreams.”
The silence settled after that. Not heavy, but whole.
Aaron relaxed in increments, the subtle exhale of a body no longer bracing for impact.
Stillness, not because the tension was gone, but because it was being held.
Witnessed. Then Aaron lifted their joined hands to his lips and pressed a kiss to Kenny’s knuckles.
Gentle. Thoughtful. A gesture that said everything without trying to.
Then, “Kenny?”
Kenny rubbed his lips along Aaron’s back in response, the coarse bristle of his beard dragging over delicate, pale skin. “Hmm?”
There was a pause. A recalibration.
“I…” Aaron’s voice wavered, as if he wanted to retreat before he’d even begun. “I fall in love with you more every day, and I have no fucking idea what to do with that.”
Kenny stilled as his heart jolted. Pulled taut. Swelled. It was pride, yes. Of course. A sliver of smugness, naturally. But mostly? It was aching, aching joy.
Had anyone ever said that to him before?
No. Not like that. Not with that sincerity.
That weight. And certainly not a man like the one he held in his arms. Aaron.
Who clawed at softness as if it might bite.
Aaron. Who loved as though it cost him something every time.
And Aaron, who bled trust in increments and still found his way back here. To this. Him.
Kenny swallowed the impulse to answer too quickly. To kiss it away. He let the words settle instead. Let them sit in the space between them.
Then, quiet and certain, he said, “Then tomorrow, I’ll give you one more reason to. And show you exactly how to hold it.”
Outside, the snow whispered against the windowpanes. Inside, the storm living beneath Aaron’s skin went quiet. And in that hush, Kenny held him. Bodies entwined. Fingers knotted. Breath shared.
The truth of them burning low and steady between the sheets: messy, complicated, and utterly inseparable.