Page 9 of Stalked By Santa

Suddenly, it all falls into place. Mentally, I replay the surveillance footage from the night before. How did I miss it? Her loss of belief was never about her boyfriend cheating—it was what he said afterward. Fuck.

And yet, Iknowmy girl—and exactly how to handle this.

“Yes, Madelyn. We’relongoverdue for a discussion about those letters, and they areexactlywhy I’m here.”

FIVE

MADELYN

Of course thisis about the letters. Those stupid, stupid letters. But how could this man have read them? All those letters that I addressed to Santa Claus at the North Pole.

Except hasn’t he just proven that he has? I told no one about the screwed-up things that I did with that vibrating pen. No one except…

This man looks nothing like how I envisioned Santa, yet he’s everything I want. Everything I’ve ever wanted. Confronted with the sheer physicality of him, my doubts war with my desire to believe and my shame over the realization that whoever this stranger is, he clearly read every damning word that I wrote.

“The letters were a mistake,” I whisper, doubting that my face can get any hotter. “A stupid, fleeting impulse that I regret now.”

“A fleeting impulse that you gave in to over three hundred times in the past four years? I call bullshit,” he says, voice hard. “So cut the crap and answer the question that’s been tormenting me: Why would a good girl like you write such filthy things, but more to the point—why would you write them tome? And don’t try to lie to me, little one. You don’t want to be on Santa’s naughty list.”

God, Barry said the same thing, called the letter he found “filthy” and not the sort of thing a good girl would write. There was no explanation I could offer Barry and none that I can offer this man, either. This man who has read things so much worse than the single letter Barry stumbled across in my apartment.

How do I explain that I don’t alwayswantto be the good girl that everyone thinks I am? That I want to experienceeverything—right and wrong—but that I’m not brave enough to explore that darkness on my own? That I need someone bigger and stronger to take control?

Except I have. I’m sure of it. And in my stupid, childish fantasies, the man that I confessed those sick, twisted needs to understood. Somehow, I convinced myself that if my fantasies were really so wrong, he’d have written back and told me to stop.

Instead, he’s here demanding I explain—just like Barry did. It just proves how deluded my fantasies really were. Sure, he claims they turned him on, but he hasn’t so much as kissed me. No, instead he’s standing there patiently waiting for me to explain to him why I’m so screwed up.

Forcing myself to meet his gaze, I shake my head, willing myself not to make this worse by crying. “There’s nothing to talk about. I know how wrong they were. Know that I’m not supposed to…”

“Want the things that you do?” he asks, voice low. “You don’t know the first thing about impossible desires, little girl. Each December, the North Pole is flooded with requests I can’t possibly grant and half the ones that I do are problematic, to put it mildly. And yet all you’ve asked for, Maddie, is for me to do exactly what I want to you.”

His words make me feel like I’m falling. And yet part of me still believes that they can’t be true—that none of this can be real. Thathecan’t be real—or at least not who he claims. And yet he knew about the pen…

“Only Santa was supposed to read those letters,” I protest, hating how childish and unsteady my voice sounds in the empty house.

“And I did, love. So why are you so upset?”

“Santa isn’t real,” I whisper, hating the words but needing to say them, needing to admit the truth before this goes any further. “That kind of goodness can’t be real.”

At this, his eyes darken. “Oh, I’m not a good man, Maddie. Make no mistake about that. Would a good man have watched you in secret for years, even in moments where you had every expectation of privacy? Would a good man have tracked your every move, stolen belongings he knew you wouldn’t miss just to hold something that had touched your creamy skin? Would a fuckinggoodman have stalked you?” He shakes his head. “No, I’m not good. I’m too obsessed with you to be good.”

His words unlock something inside me—a dark, needy something that I’m afraid to examine too closely but know that I must. My head spins as I try to make sense of my body’s reaction to everything he’s just confessed.

Because his confession should frighten me.Heshould frighten me. He’s just broken into my house and confessed to stalking me. I shouldn’t find that freakinghot…

But somehow, I do. Him caring enough to engage in that degree of obsessive surveillance makes me feel wanted, cherished,safe—and oh so very wet.

“I’m… I’m obsessed with you, too,” I admit, eyes downcast.

“Look at me, Maddie,” he orders, all traces of warmth disappearing from his voice.

Time stops as his gaze searches mine. Standing in front of the fireplace, his muscular frame silhouetted by the flickering flames, there’s nothing jolly or merry about the leather-clad older man observing me.

He crooks a finger. “Come here.”

At the ice in his voice, I shiver, wishing I were wearing something warmer. Some screwed-up part of me wants to obey him, the same part that wrote those embarrassing letters, but I’m frozen beneath the scrutiny of those cold blue eyes. Trapped.

Shaking his head, he sinks into the chair nearest the fire. My father’s chair.

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