Chapter Nine Perfectly Broken #3
Kenny snapped his head towards him, a flick of the eyes from road to passenger, but it was enough. He’d heard it. Felt it. The weight of that plea hung between them like a third heartbeat.
Loud. Unignorable.
“I don’t think I’ll survive if you did.” Aaron tried for a smile, but it sagged, broken at the edges. “Not to, like, guilt trip you or anything.”
Kenny took Aaron’s hand, stroking his thumb over his pulse and lifted it to his lips. “I won’t. Couldn’t.” He then kissed the underside of his wrist, lips right on that pulse point. “Not even if you told me to.”
Aaron breathed out a smile. Settled a bit. Then laced his fingers in with Kenny’s and held their joined hands on his lap. Thank fuck for automatic cars. And Kenny. A man who was one of a kind and somehow, impossibly, his.
They didn’t talk much after that.
And after twenty minutes driving out of town, past the coastal roads, inland and sloped, where the wind smelled less of sea salt and more like turned earth and woodsmoke, they arrived at the tree farm.
Chaos in the boot, tongue lolling like a fool, thudded his tail against the crate thinking he was getting the long walkies tonight.
The farm was quiet. Eerily dark, too. Fairy lights strung haphazardly along the barn roof, blinking in warm, uneven strands, and the field stretched out behind it, sloped with damp mud, rows of frost dusted pine trees, needles catching the glow like scattered tinsel.
Aaron stepped out of the car and pulled his coat tighter, breath misting in the cold.
Chaos whined in the back, but they left him in the crate for now.
This was a two-man mission. Especially when the crooked hand-painted sign nailed to the barn wall, its red lettering slightly chipped, made Aaron snort.
Cut Your Own. Saws Provided. Mind Your Fingers.
“Health and safety’s having a stroke.”
Kenny smirked as he came up behind him, slipping a glove-warmed hand into Aaron’s back pocket. “Adds to the charm.”
“If you saw your hand off, there’s still no excuses. You can use your mouth.”
“To cut a tree?” Kenny arched an eyebrow, then slipped his hand out of Aaron’s back pocket to grab the rusted, and suspiciously sticky, saw from the leaning rack.
He angled his head towards the field and Aaron followed him towards the trees all stood in wonky rows, some tall and pristine, others gloriously chaotic, lopsided limbs jutting out like elbows in a crowd.
They walked the rows, boot soles sinking into the wet ground and Kenny kept close.
As if he could feel the noise in Aaron’s head still buzzing.
Blackwell’s hand on his neck, the dog’s ribs, the snap of something raw beneath his skin.
Aaron stopped.
A tree stood slightly apart. It wasn’t the prettiest. Nor even symmetrical. But it was full of character. Limbs uneven, one side too thick, a chunk missing near the bottom as if it had fought for light and lost.
Perfectly broken.
“That one.” He pointed to it.
Kenny stepped beside him, eyes scanning it the way he did a crime scene. “It’s certainly tragic.”
Aaron shrugged. “Tragic’s our brand, right?”
Kenny kissed him then. Soft and sweet and everything Aaron needed but never knew how to ask for. “Then it’s ours.”
Together, they crouched in the frostbitten mud, Kenny guiding the saw in steady strokes, while Aaron braced the trunk, fingers numb inside his gloves.
It took longer than expected. Aaron swore as he slipped, caught himself with a muttered curse, and laughed despite it all, the cold biting his cheeks.
When the tree finally gave, it toppled with a limp thud into Aaron’s arms.
Aaron straightened, breathing hard. Then watched, quietly impressed, as Kenny took the tree from him and hefted it over one shoulder as if it weighed nothing. As if he’d been carrying heavy things—grief, history, him—his whole life and didn’t complain.
Aaron blinked, and for a second, the world went a little fuzzy.
“You okay?” Kenny spun towards him, brow furrowed.
Aaron nodded, then shrugged. “Yeah. Cold.”
Kenny brushed his knuckles along the edge of Aaron’s jaw, warming the space with his eyes. “Come on, then. Let’s thaw you out.”
Chaos lost his mind the moment they got back to the car, tail banging the crate as they secured the tree to the roof. And when they pulled into their cottage’s drive, he howled.
Inside, Aaron fed him while Kenny got the fire going, kneeling on the rug, sleeves rolled, coaxing the flames to life with the same reverence he gave everything that needed warming.
He set the tree in a pot in its usual corner, then retrieved the dusty box of decorations from the loft.
Most of it was second-hand sentiment: baubles from Kenny’s old place, a few mismatched pieces they’d picked up at markets last year. It didn’t matter. It felt like them.
Aaron cracked open two bottles of beer. Put the jukebox on low. Stuffed a mince pie into Kenny’s mouth as he came out of the kitchen, earning himself a muffled curse and a slap on the arse.
“You’re lucky I’m too tired to ruin you,” Kenny mumbled around a mouthful of pastry.
Aaron grinned. “You say that, but you’re already planning it.”
Kenny leaned in, nuzzled the curve of his neck. “Always.”
The lights were low. Gold and glowing. Firelight danced over the grate, while the blinking fairy lights drooped unevenly along the mantel. The whole house smelled of cinnamon and pine, sugar and ash.
And behind all of it was Kenny. Watching him.
Aaron hooked a bauble onto a too-thin branch, then glanced over his shoulder. “How’d it go with the police?”
“It went.” Kenny crouched at the base of the tree, threading a wire hook. “I’ve got the file.”
“So you’ll be balls-deep in that instead of me tonight.”
Kenny rose smoothly and lobbed a bauble at him. “I’ll be bauble-deep when I decide.”
Aaron caught it one-handed, fumbled, then managed to hang it. “That was pathetic.”
Kenny arched a brow. “So was your catch.”
“Maybe it’s your throwing.”
“You’ve never complained about how I pitch before.” Kenny’s mouth curved into a wicked grin.
Aaron’s snort came out hotter than he meant, and he turned back to rearrange some tinsel. “Can I see it? The file.”
“If you want to.” Kenny adjusted a crooked ornament. He already knew Aaron would change his mind three times before making it to page one.
Aaron reached for the final bauble, a glittery lobster in a Santa hat they’d found last year, drunk in some charity shop on Christmas Eve.
He hung it.
Stepped back.
Kenny moved behind him, sliding one hand into Aaron’s back pocket. “You’re still cold.”
“I’m fine.”
“Let me warm you.”
Before Aaron could argue, or smirk, or joke it away, Kenny unzipped his hoodie from behind, dragging it down, slow as molasses.
“The guidance says wrap up when you’re cold,” Aaron snapped before he could stop himself. “Save on the bloody electricity bill. And you love saving money, you stingy bastard.”
“Shh.” Kenny slipped his hand out from Aaron’s back pocket and peeled the hoodie from his shoulders. “Stop fighting me.”
Something in the way he said that made Aaron’s stomach flip.
Instinctively, habitually, he shut up. And he let Kenny lift his T-shirt, warm fingers skimming down his sides, sliding over the ridges of his ribs, then drifting lower, right over that sensitive patch below his belly button that always made him tremble.
Kenny stepped in closer, the heat of his chest pressing into Aaron’s back, and he kissed the nape of his neck.
“Better,” he purred into his ear, then reached around him to pop the button on Aaron’s jeans.
Aaron’s heart thumped as the zip came down with a lazy drag. The denim whispered down his thighs and puddled at his feet. Kenny knelt behind him, bare hands sliding over bare thighs, his mouth finding the dip of Aaron’s spine and a tremor rippled through Aaron like lightning under skin.
“Jesus…” He tipped his head back, closing his eyes. “I’m shivering, lover.”
“I know.” Kenny pulled down Aaron’s boxers then kissed the swell of each buttock, nipping with teeth. “I’ll warm you up soon enough.”
“You’re the worst fucking electric blanket I’ve ever had.”
“You’re not supposed to hump those.”
“Prick—” The insult fractured into a gasp as Kenny dragged his tongue in a wet stripe between his cheeks, then traced a path from tailbone to spine, up to the nape of his neck.
By the time Kenny rose to his full height, Aaron was trembling. Then the rustle of fabric, the clink of a belt unfastening, and the heavy press of Kenny’s cock, thick and hot, nestled against him, had him sucking in a sharp breath, whole body alight.
Kenny pressed warm lips to his ear. “Lie down.”
Aaron’s brain short-circuited. He was so hard he could barely think, pulse pounding in his throat, but Kenny wouldn’t touch him.
He knew it. Instead, he guided Aaron down onto the rug beside the fire, then grabbed pillows from the sofa and arranged them behind their heads.
Then he lay behind him, completely bare, chest to back, cock flush to the curve of Aaron’s arse, and it hit Aaron like a tidal wave: there’d be no fucking.
No rolling. No frantic friction to chase release.
Kenny was going to hold him here. Suspend him.
Tease him to the brink and keep him there.
Aaron whimpered, torn between pleading and cursing. “Kenny…You’re gonna need to fucking touch me.”
Kenny curled his arm tighter around him, spreading his hand over Aaron’s chest. “Shhh,” he whispered into Aaron’s hair. “You don’t set the pace. I do. All you have to do is stay right here and feel what I give you.”
Fuck, Aaron could feel it. Every second.
Every breath. Kenny’s cock hot and hard, not pushing in, not giving anything.
Torturing him with presence. He swallowed.
Eyes burning and he trembled with the ache for more.
He didn’t even know what anymore. Everything.
Anything. Whatever Kenny would give him. Please.