Chapter Seven You’re A Mean One, Mr Grinch #2
Aaron slanted him a glare. “Don’t you start with the textbook talk. I swear to God, if you give me a TED Talk on sexual conditioning before nine a.m.—”
“I won’t. Unless you provoke me.” He turned serious.
“Look, baby…what I’m doing, what I’ve been doing, is intentional.
It’s not a game, and it’s not about withholding.
It’s about building something that lasts.
Not just heat, but intensity. Trust. Depth.
I’m giving you time to adjust to it. Because I want you to feel everything. Fully. Safely.”
Aaron blinked at him, momentarily thrown off by the earnestness. Then, “That sounds suspiciously like psychobabble.”
“It’s not babble. It’s behavioural. You’ve spent years disconnecting from sensation. Chasing noise to drown out feeling. You know that. I know you know that. So I’m taking the opposite approach. Drawing it out. Making it slow. Letting your body catch up with what your head’s too scared to ask for.”
Aaron stared at him. “Jesus Christ. Did you just cognitive behavioural therapy me into having better orgasms?”
“If it helps.”
Aaron groaned, dragging a hand through his hair. “You are absolutely the worst boyfriend in the history of all fucking boyfriends.”
“And yet…”
Aaron glanced back out the window. Chewed his lip. “You’re not wrong.”
Kenny cupped his face and nudged him back to him with all that calm, grounded authority back in place. “All of this only works if you’re on board. If you want something else…something faster, simpler…I’ll stop. But if you’re willing to let me keep going, we need a word.”
Aaron let the silence simmer long enough to make Kenny uncomfortable. Then, “You gonna slap me?”
“No.” Kenny closed his eyes. Breathed. Recalibrated. “I’m going to make you feel the best you’ve ever felt. And that might be too much for you. Might.”
Aaron narrowed his eyes. “You’ve done this before.”
Kenny held his gaze. “Not exactly like this.”
“But you’ve…safeworded people? People you’re sleeping with?”
“Yes.”
DI fucking Bellend.
The thought shot through his mind uninvited, bitter and hot. Aaron clenched his jaw. “But that was with…people who were into all that… stuff.”
“You don’t have to be into anything except being okay.
It’s about having a safety net, in case your instincts tell you to say yes when you mean no.
Or to go quiet when something hurts. And we’re exploring something new.
Moving into unfamiliar territory and I’m aware of that.
And I’m now very aware I didn’t ask you.
I read it in you and took a risk. And I trust myself and my instincts and know I can read you well enough even when you’re pushing back on me and how far to go with that, but there’s always the chance I could get it wrong. So it’s important that I give you—”
“Grinch.”
Kenny stilled. “Are you saying that to be the word, or are you saying the word?”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, it doesn’t work if you’re confused when I say it.”
“Well, we haven’t established it.”
“So establish it, then panic.”
“No, then I stop.”
“Being an arsehole?”
“Yes, Aaron. I will stop being an arsehole.”
Aaron smirked. “We should’ve had this chat the day we met. Could’ve saved years of mutual aggravation and me accidentally falling in love with a psycho.”
“As you are fully aware, I’m not a psycho.”
“Didn’t say it was you, did I?”
Kenny looked as though he was rebooting. Aaron could almost hear the internal processing. He tried not to laugh but failed.
Kenny, as always, pulled him back. “Do you want the safeword to be Grinch?”
“Sure.” Aaron shrugged. “It’s festive.”
Kenny studied him for a long moment.
“What?” Aaron dragged a hand through his quiff. “Is it not good enough?”
“I’m waiting to see if you’re going to say it.”
Aaron tilted his head. “If I say it, what do you stop?”
“Whatever needs stopping.”
“But what if you don’t know what needs stopping?”
“Jesus. Right now, I want this conversation to stop.”
“You started it.”
Kenny leaned across the console, gripped the back of Aaron’s neck, and kissed him. Not quick. Not innocent. Not obscene either, but deep enough to leave heat humming in his chest. With enough pressure to anchor him. Enough tongue to remind him exactly who he belonged to.
Kenny knew exactly what he was doing.
And Aaron felt the thrill down to his bones. The control. How he’d made that happen. Let it happen. On his terms.
When Kenny pulled back, he didn’t go far. He stayed close, hand still warm at the nape of Aaron’s neck, forehead pressed to his. “Can we please confirm that if you say Grinch, it means you’re uncomfortable and want me to back off?”
Aaron scoffed. “I never want you to back off. I’ve literally begged you to do the opposite. Full throttle. Hold me down, rearrange my insides, and ruin my life a little.”
“Good,” Kenny said, unfazed. “I will. When you’re ready.” He breathed the words more than spoke them. “But to get there safely, we need the word. So please, say it. For me.”
Aaron sighed. The weight of emotional responsibility physically exhausting. “Fine. Yes. Okay. If I say Grinch, you stop. Whatever you’re doing. Doesn’t matter if you’re boiling a fucking egg or balls-deep in me.”
Kenny bit back a smile. “Deal.”
Aaron narrowed his eyes. “But if I say Grinch Grinch—and believe me, I will—you stop everything. Immediate halt. You wrap me in a blanket, feed me gingerbread, bring me a JD or that really fucking nice wine you keep saving for some apocalypse or some shit, and put on something wholesome. No blood. No dead dogs. No existential dread.”
Kenny opened his mouth.
“And,” Aaron pointed at him, “you do not psychoanalyse the plot. You don’t rip the character arcs to shreds. No ‘technically this character is experiencing maladaptive grief’ commentary halfway through The Grinch. You watch the damn thing. And cuddle me until I’m nothing but a content burrito.”
Kenny laughed, full and warm. “I’ll consider it a tiered system.”
Aaron nodded. “Good. You’re finally learning. Can I come up with other words for things I want?”
“No. It’s a stop word, not a wishlist.”
“Seriously flawed system.”
Aaron reached for the door again but paused. Looked back. Turned serious. Let his vulnerability show for once. “So, for clarity… cause you get off on that shit…you’re not gonna hurt me?”
“Never.”
“So…what you’ve been doing…this edging thing. Denying me. It’s part of this?”
“Yes.”
Aaron nodded once, then hesitated. Testing the shape of it in his mind. “Right.”
The pause between them felt heavy in a good way. Settled. Kenny didn’t fill it. He let Aaron sit with it. Trust it.
Then, gently, Kenny asked, “Do you want me to stop?”
Aaron thought about it.
He should probably say yes. Would be easier.
Less confusing. Less exposing. He’d spent the last few days trying to push Kenny into giving in—sex, release, something—to regain the upper hand.
But then he thought of the bath. The messages.
The praise. Kenny’s hands. Kenny’s voice.
How his body still buzzed at the memory.
There was no way he could pretend he didn’t ache to be cared for and looked after in the way only Kenny knew how.
So he looked him in the eye. “No. I’m oddly curious where it goes.”
Kenny smiled. “I promise you it’ll be worth it.” He nudged his chin towards the building. “Now go be useful.”
“You don’t know my work ethic.”
“Oh,” Kenny started the engine, “I think I do.”
Aaron shook his head but couldn’t hide the way his mouth curved.
Chaos leapt out after Aaron with a yelp of excitement, slipping on the frost-crusted gravel towards the entrance to Shanklin Residential Home.
But before he could stagger in, Kenny wound down the window, leaning over the seats to shove an envelope at him.
“Don’t forget to hand these in when you get to work.”
Aaron narrowed his eyes. Then snatched the envelope containing those bloody forms.
“See you at four.”
Aaron nodded then watched as Kenny drove off.
“Fuck,” he muttered into the fog.
Grinch.
Jesus.
He’d agreed to a safeword.
A fucking safeword. Before breakfast.
And the worst part? He hadn’t even realised he wanted one.
Not the actual word, but the idea of it.
The whole setup. The blanket. The gingerbread.
The invisible pause button he hadn’t known he’d been crawling through life without.
It was an option to tap out. Not be on edge every second of the day.
And to stop performing toughness as if his life depended on it.
It gave him this weird, quiet sense of power. Not the loud, sharp kind he usually had to claw for. Not teeth-bared, fuck-off, touch-me-and-die energy. But that he got to decide. What happens next. What he’s okay with.
That shit mattered.
Because he’d never had that given to him before. People either wanted his compliance or his chaos. Not his choice.
He adjusted his scarf and huffed out a breath, shaking the thoughts off like water.
Keep it moving. Stay loose. Stay flippant.
Go to fucking work.