Page 39 of Naughty Santa

To make matters worse, he’d shown up with it this morning and gotten her to kick the thing around with him for half an hour. It had been silly and more fun than Paris cared to admit, and Joe was right. He was great at it.

“Okay, dear. Jaden and I are going to go home and get dressed for the party. We’ll be back here in half an hour or so to help with all the finishing touches before the guests arrive.”

“Santa’s really coming?” Jaden asked his grandmother, who covertly winked at Paris as she said, “Only if you shake a leg and come on. We’re running late.”

Paris waved goodbye to Sandy and Jaden. “See you in a little while.”

She needed to get ready for the party as well, but she was too nervous about tonight. The holiday party had obviously been a big deal to Aunt Lydia and to the locals and she didn’t want to screw it up.

“Dammit,” she muttered when she realized one of the sprigs of mistletoe Joe hung this morning had fallen down. Dragging a chair over, Paris retrieved the mistletoe and climbed up, struggling to reach the hook. Teetering on tiptoe, she prayed she didn’t fall and bust her ass. That would be a great way to make a stressful day even more painful.

“Hey, whoa.”

Paris heard Joe’s voice a second before she felt his steadying hands on her rear end. “What are you doing?”

“The mistletoe fell.” With him spotting her, she was able to slip the ribbon over the hook. “There.”

Joe reached for her hand, helping her down. “You should have asked me to do that. Or left it. We’ve hung enough mistletoe that we’re in danger of turning the Holly Jolly into Lover’s Lane. Put a few glasses of the spiked eggnog in Bob’s hand, and none of the lovely ladies of North Pole are safe under the mistletoe.”

“Thanks for the warning,” she said with a tired grin. “I’ll give Bob a wide berth tonight. Your mom and Jaden went home to get ready.”

He nodded. “Guess that’s our cue to go get dressed as well. You ready?”

Paris looked around, hesitant to leave. “I feel like maybe there’s something I’m forgetting to do.”

Joe grasped her hand and dragged her to the counter, picking up her coat. “Paris. Astronauts can see the Holly Jolly from space, we’ve strung up so many lights. The good ladies in town have wrapped everything within a ten-mile radius that doesn’t move and made enough Christmas cookies to choke Jim’s entire herd of cattle. There is nothing else to do now except enjoy the party.”

She let him lead her to the front door but turned around when they got there, looking at the store, the decorations, the lights, the gigantic tree in the back corner with Santa’s huge chair sitting next to it. “It does look pretty good, doesn’t it?”

Joe grinned. “It looks perfect. Lydia would be proud of you.”

She’d never met Aunt Lydia, never knew anything about her while she lived except that her dad affectionately called her kooky and she had some connection at the bank who hooked her up with crisp, clean five-dollar bills every year on her birthday.

Since moving to North Pole, however, Lydia had become real. It was obvious she’d made a huge impact on the people in this town, and they had loved her. And over the past few weeks, Paris had come to love her too. More than that, she regretted never getting to know her before she died.

So Joe’s comment touched Paris more deeply than she would have imagined.

She turned to him and smiled, and then stretched up on tiptoe to kiss him. She could tell the impromptu kiss surprised him. They’d been very careful to keep their affair a secret, and now, here she was, kissing him in the front windows of the Holly Jolly where anyone passing on Main Street could see them.

Joe’s shock didn’t last more than a second before his arms were around her waist and his tongue was in her mouth. God, the man could kiss.

His common sense kicked in first—in truth, she wasn’t sure hers ever would have—and he broke the kiss, his lips tipped up in an amused grin. “Don’t mean to brag, but I didn’t even need the eggnog or the mistletoe.”

Paris laughed and rolled her eyes. “Come on, naughty Santa.”

He’d dropped his Santa costume by her place earlier today. The plan was for him to dress there—to ensure that Jaden wouldn’t catch sight of him at home—then she’d text him once all the kids were there. After that, he’d walk the back way from her house to the rear entrance of the store and enter from the workroom, grabbing the sack of toys that was stowed there.

Once his Santa duties were done, Joe planned to go back to Paris’s house, change into his street clothes, and then show up at the party as himself.

He held her hand the whole way to her place, claiming he did it because she was always falling on her ass. She didn’t bother to point out she’d stopped falling ever since trading in her belovedFendi boots for his mother’s sturdy winter ones. But why would she tell him? She had no problem with Joe holding her hand.

She had no problem with anything Joe did to her.

As soon as they walked into her house, Paris turned around, pushing him against the front door, expanding on the kiss they started at the store.

Joe’s hands wrapped around her, gripping her ass and pulling her closer to him. She could feel his erection through his jeans.

It was stupid to start something they didn’t have the time to finish. She needed to change into her elf costume and return to the store in twenty minutes. While the idea of a quickie was appealing, it occurred to her she’d much rather have hours—no, days, weeks, months—wrapped up in Joe’s arms.

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