Page 8 of Stalked By Santa

“You know that isn’t true, Maddie. I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be, where I’m needed.”

The room is too hot. He’s too close. His scent surrounds me, and it’s indescribable. Snow and cedar and something else, something I can’t name but that feels like coming home and every happy moment I’ve ever known.

This man broke into my house. I should run, but my legs won’t move.

I shake my head, trying to break whatever spell has fallen over me. “Whoareyou?”

FOUR

NICK

I don’t answer right away.I can’t, not when she has me spellbound.

Never have I dared to come so close to her, and proximity makes her even more irresistible. Intoxicating, really, and I don’t trust myself not to do something I won’t be able to take back. Because however bold her letters were, the gulf between her innocence and my experience isn’t lost on me.

Her skimpy tank top and shorts reveal more than she likely realizes. The thin material hugs her curves, doing nothing to hide the soft swell of her curves, the hard points of her nipples.

Tonight, she’s pulled her hair into a messy bun that I long to free it from. An urge so intense that fighting it would take all of my self-control. And so I don’t fight it, don’t even try.

Barely breathing, I step closer, invading her space. And as the brown and gold strands fall around her face, I bend down and murmur the answer to her question in her ear.

“I have many names, angel. What I’m called shifts in every land. But you can call me Nick.”

Her body tenses, but her arousal permeates the room, telling me exactly what I’d find were I to push those tiny shorts down over her luscious hips. But she doesn’t answer, and it won’t do for my girl to be scared, so I add, “Or you can call me Santa if you’d prefer.”

For the second time tonight, she shakes her head. “No, you can’t be…”

While I swore I’d stay away from her, I’ve nonetheless envisioned our first meeting countless times. And right now, it’s going all wrong. Her doubts fill the room, marring the perfect trust her letters always displayed. So though it kills me, I step away from her, putting some needed distance between us so that I can fucking think straight.

I gesture toward the sofa. “Sit.”

She complies immediately. Of course she does. My Maddie isn’t wired to disobey me.

Yet she doesn’t believe. She doesn’t believe I’m who I say I am. Worse, she’s in danger of losing her belief in Christmas, in goodness itself, entirely. That can’t happen. I won’t allow it.

“Oh, my little Maddie, I assure you that I very much am. I’ve watched you for years, watched you in moments when you thought you were alone. I know things about you that no one else does, and that no one ever will if I have anything to say about it.”

“Like what?” she asks, the question breathless.

My God, can she truly be this innocent? She knows damn well all the dirty fantasies she confessed to me. But if this is how she wants to play the game, then so be it.

Holding her gaze, I decide to start from the beginning. “One year, you received one of that season’s trendiest gifts for girls your age in your stocking. A multicolored pen that vibrated. You found a creatively naughty use for those vibrations, didn’t you?”

Her cheeks flush a deeper shade of pink, and she nods.

“Do you know how fucking hard I got reading the thank you note you sent me for that pen? A note you sentyearsafter the fact despite knowing damn well by that point that your mother had purchased it, not me. Yet still, you described your first orgasm in provocative detail andbeggedme to kidnap you from your bed in the middle of the night.”

My own words push my desire up a notch—and my frustration, too. Frustration that only grows as she stares down at her hands, not answering me.

And yet it’s clear from her expression that she remembers that damn letter as well as I do—how could she not? That was the letter where everything changed. The one she sent the day she turned eighteen…

“Well, Maddie? Do you still believe that I’m not real?” I demand, voice rough.

Looking up, she frowns. “I never said that you weren’t real, just that you weren’t…”

“The man you’ve fantasized about for years? The person you’ve confided all of your doubts, dreams, and darkest desires to in letter after letter?”

“Oh God, those letters…” She turns her face away from me, staring out the window into the darkness of night. Nearly too softly for me to hear, she adds, “The hard copy proof that I’m a needy, screwed-up mess. That’s why you’re finally here—isn’t it? You want to scold me, too.”

---