Page 66 of Kiss Me Honey Hone

Aaron’s hand trembled as he reached for Kenny’s face, his touch hesitant but firm as he dragged his fingers through Kenny’s beard. “I wanted you to notice me that night. I wanted you to feelsomething. At first, it was for you to pay for what I thought you’d done to my life.”

Kenny’s chest rose as Aaron’s words settled like a weight.

“Then you kissed me. And I was fuckinggone. Had no idea you’d kiss like that. You’dbelike that. It was like you pulled every single bit of me out.”

Kenny closed his eyes, exhaling shakily. In some distant part of himself, he’d always known. Or suspected. The coincidence of their meeting, the magnetic pull between them. It was too perfectly imperfect to be built on a chance.

“Aaron…”

Aaron didn’t let him finish. He lurched forward, capturing Kenny’s lips in a kiss both chaste and consuming. A kiss demanding attention. Pleading forgiveness.

“I never meant forthisto happen,” Aaron said once they’d pulled apart. “I was meant to tease you. Lead you on. If I’d known then that one kiss would leave me like this—drowningin you, fuckingdyingfor you—I would’ve run away.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“So you know. Know why I can’t move on from this. You. Because I’ve been chasing you for so fucking long.”

Kenny held him closer, as though that could make sense of everything. Words failed him, scattered and useless. Eventually, his lips found Aaron’s, and the way he yielded to him, Kenny realised he didn’t need words. Words couldn’t explainthis. The mess. The chaos andmadness.

And they couldn’t capture how beautiful it was.

Aaron inclined back, piercing blue eyes searching for something. Reassurance? Clarity? Absolution? “You think I’m crazy, right?”

Kenny ghosted his fingers along the curve of Aaron’s jaw. “If you are, I’m close to diagnosing myself insane, too.”

Aaron’s blue eyes had always been striking, but now they glimmered with something more. Honesty. Conviction. A fragile bravery stripping everything away, and laying him bare. Aaron didn’t break easily. He wasn’t weak. He had strength. It took guts to expose himself the way he had. To admit his failings. And to stand without the armour he’d spent years perfecting. The façade, the walls, the Teflon coating he’d used to deflect every wound, every hurt, every rejection—gone.

And only now, with those defences crumbled, could he heal.

Kenny felt the enormity of it, the significance of being the one Aaron had let in, the one he’d chosen to see the wreckage beneath the surface. He wanted to believe that this—them—could be something more than the chaos that brought them here. That maybe, just maybe, there was something amid all that had gone wrong that could beright.

But the thought cut both ways. Because if this—ifhe—had become Aaron’s therapy, then it gave him credit, anexcusefor crossing lines that should have been there for a reason. For shattering the boundaries he was supposed to protect.

He couldn’t let himself off that easily, even if this was inevitable.

Buzzing shattered the moment, and Kenny released his arms from the blanket to check around the room. His phone was somewhere among the mess on the floor, and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to find it and return to reality. But he couldn’t ignore the other things in his life that were his responsibility, either. So he twisted, the blanket falling off them both, and sat with his back to Aaron to pick up his suit trousers and check in his pocket. Ashe fished his phone out, Aaron hitched up on his elbow, ghosting his fingers along Kenny’s spine. It felt so good, it waspainful. Like his skin burned for Aaron’s touch. Then when Kenny scrolled through the piled up messages and Aaron wriggled up to press his lips along his back, to his shoulder blades and neck, Kenny wasn’t ever going to resist.

Kenny’s head rolled back, baring his neck to Aaron’s hungry kisses, and Aaron trailed his fingers, tender yet insistent, down his arm, snatching the phone from his grasp.

“We’re not finished yet,” Aaron rasped into his ear.

Kenny turned to meet his gaze. “I’m not as young as you.” As he swiped the phone back, it rang in his hand and a tussle with Aaron had him answering the call on speakerphone.

“Kenny?”

Kenny cursed and shoved Aaron back down on the sofa. “Jack, hey.” He cleared his throat to rid the unease in it, then peeked back to Aaron who rolled his eyes, giving the wank sign, so Kenny turned away. “Sorry, I…” What was he sorry for?

Absolutely fuckingnothing.

“Been calling. I heard what happened at theGazette.”

Aaron furrowed his brow, then kicked his bare foot at Kenny’s back, mouthing,what? Kenny grabbed his foot behind him, squeezing him into submission.

“Something had to be done,” Kenny said, loosening his hold on Aaron’s foot, delicately stroking it instead, gliding his fingers between his toes, watching Aaron melt into the cushions.

“And you know you leave it to us. I could have you arrested for what you did.”

Aaron bolted up despite Kenny’s attempted foot massage to tame him, but Kenny tapped a hand on his chest and shoved him to lie back down. “Are they pressing charges?” He held a finger up to Aaron to silence him.

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