Page 4 of Stalker Santa

I lean in close to her and whisper directly into her ear, “Smile.”

I splay my hand across her back, loving the feeling of her in my lap. The photo is snapped too soon, and that's her cue to get off, but she doesn't immediately jump down, and I don't immediately release my hold on her either.

Instead, we stare into each other's eyes, and I swallow hard, suddenly panicked at the thought that she could walk out of here and I'll have missed my shot. This is my moment. It has to be.

“Wait for me,” I order her, my voice coming out rough as nails.

Her eyes widen again as she looks at me with a furrowed brow. “What?”

Fuck, she probably thinks I’m insane. “Wait for me,” I repeat as I tighten my hold on her back. “My shift is up in an hour.”

I grab her waist more firmly because I can’t help myself, but then I force myself to relax my hold.Rein it in.I don’t need to scare her off.

Her eyes flick down to where my hands still rest on her possessively before she turns those hazel orbs back up to me.

“Grab a cup of coffee with me,” I hurry to add, knowing that I probably sound like a half-crazed, desperate psycho but beyond caring at this moment.

She bites her lip, and her eyes go over to her friend indecisively.

“Please,” I add. I never look at her friend, but whatever Zoe sees from her must have been encouragement because she turns back to me and gives me a shy smile. “Okay.”

My heart leaps within me like an overeager pup. She goes to stand, but I grab her hand before she can turn away. She looks back down at me with those innocent eyes of hers.

“Promise?”

Her eyes soften, and she smiles at me, her cheeks turning that beautiful shade of pink again. “I promise.”

My eyes follow her every movement as she goes over to her friend, who obviously starts grilling her about what just happened between us.

I try my best to play it cool, but I grin like a stupid idiot every time my eyes meet hers. Thankfully, she doesn't leave the perimeter. Instead, she sits on a bench and scrolls on her phone while shooting surreptitious glances at me, trying to pretend she's not looking at me.

My heart thunders in my chest with every glance she casts my way. It looks like I'm finally going to get everything I've been patiently waiting for.

Zoe is right within my reach, and there's no way in hell I'm going to let her go.

Not now that I know what it feels like to hold her.

Three

Zoe

This is crazy.I keep glancing over at the sexiest Santa I've ever seen in my entire life, and every time I look at him, his ocean blue eyes are crashing over me harder than the waves in a riptide. I'm sinking in them, but the problem is that I don't want to be saved. I want to drown in the way he looks at me.

It sends tingles skittering along my spine, and I can still feel his big hand dwarfing my back, my waist, my hips. Everywhere he touched still burns, as if he branded me with his imprint.

Gia long since flitted into one of the stores to go shopping, but I insisted on sitting here at this bench where I can sneak glances at him as I wait for him like I promised.

I don't know why I promised him. I don't know this guy at all. Hell, I don't even know his name.

All I know is that when his eyes looked at me pleadingly and he begged me to promise him, I heard myself agreeing instinctively, before I even had a chance to think it all through.

This is not like me at all. I don't go out on dates with random strangers, and there's no doubt in my mind what this man wants with me.

The way his eyes burn at me like blue flames sears my flesh when they land on me. They light me up and have me squirming and hot as hell, making me curse myself for wearing this turtleneck sweater.

His eyes tell me he wants much more than a date. This man wants to devour me whole, and I should be scared of that, but instead, I'm lighting up like a glow stick. I don’t know what's wrong with me.

Maybe this is fate, the lightning bolt strike, the whatever it is that lets the people in romance books know that they're just meant to be together. I don’t know. All I know is I'm drawn to the man in a way I can't explain. When I look into his blue eyes, it's almost like I know him, even though I know I don’t because I know for a fact if I'd ever seen him before, there's no way I would have ever forgotten him. Yet his presence is somehow familiar, and that's really crazy.

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