Still wearing my bright red suit, I headed back out to the floor. The store had closed, but there were workers around, counting up money from the register, sweeping and straightening. But all was quiet on the far side of the huge Christmas tree. I found Liv at the little computer station, sending the pictures of the children posing with me to their parents. For the first time, it struck me how ironic it was that I was a world famous photographer and she was the one snapping pictures.
She looked up when she heard footsteps. “Santa,” she said in surprise. And then she flushed. “I mean Todd. What are you doing here?”
“I came to see if you were okay.”
An unknown expression passed across her face along with some kind of softening of her eyes. “I’m good,” she said. “But thank you for asking. It’s been a rough day.”
“Because of work?”
“No,” she said, resting her forearms on the table. “Well, I mean yes, it gets tiring sometimes, but it’s not that.” But she clearly didn’t want to talk about it. She put the memory card back in the camera and put it in its case. Then she turned off the computer and tidied up the stage area, putting the stool back in its place and neatening the fake presents that kids always seemed to make a beeline for.
“What’s wrong, Liv?”
She frowned at that for a moment, and I realized that “Todd” didn’t call her that. “Or do you prefer Olivia?” I said, feigning innocence.
“Either’s fine. But I’d just prefer not to talk about it. I don’t even know you,” she said, and a flash of irritation graced her features, making me think that she might be still angry about my turning down her coffee invitation the other day. But whatever else was bothering her was bigger than that.
I moved close to her and grasped her by the arm when she made to move away. “Come here,” I said, tugging her toward my chair. Without letting her go, I sat down, pulling her to me so that she was standing between my spread legs. Then I grasped her around her waist and pulled her down until she was perched on my thigh with her legs between mine. “Tell Santa what the matter is.”
She laughed at that, but her voice sounded a little shaky. “You’re a toy maker, not a psychiatrist.”
“I’m a good listener, though. Department store Santas are known for that.”
She laughed again, but she leaned toward me a little when I wrapped my hand around her hips, pulling her closer to my chest. After a moment of resistance, she relaxed against my body, not exactly slumping against me, but not maintaining the stiff upright posture she’d had a minute ago.
I lightly stroked her hip with my fingers and spoke quietly. “Tell Santa your troubles.”
“It’s my mom,” she said with a sigh.
“What about her?”
“She’s sick. Got a couple of things wrong with her, and it makes it so hard for her to move around. When I’m at work, she can’t go upstairs by herself, can’t cook… things are getting really bad for her.”
“I’m so sorry to hear that,” I said softly, afraid to break the spell now that she was opening up. Instead, I keep stroking my fingers across her hip, lightly. Hypnotically.
“The best thing for her would be if we could get a smaller house. A one-story one that’s easier for her to navigate. She may need a wheelchair at some point, and our place isn’t equipped for that.”
“Can you move?”
“I’d love to, but we can’t afford it. We had a realtor look at our house, and she said we need to replace the roof if we want to have any hope of selling it. And we just don’t have the money. I pick up extra work whenever I can,” she said, gesturing around us, “but it’s not enough.”
Moving my hand up to her side, I pulled her toward me, and now she did lean against me. I stroked her hair as I held her to me, enjoying the feel of her soft body against mine. Her silky hair was smooth under my fingers. Her breath was light on my neck, and I wondered if she was going to cry. I hoped not. I wasn’t good with crying females.
But when she looked up at me, there weren’t any tears in her eyes. Instead, it almost looked like… longing. And that I knew what to do about. I buried my hand in her hair, tilting her head back, exposing her throat. Her eyes flicked back and forth between mine and my lips. The side of her leg was nestled between mine, and I could feel the heat of her skin through the pants of the Santa suit.
And then almost at the same moment, we leaned toward each other. Her eyes closed, and I tugged the beard down, wanting to taste her sweet lips, not the fake Santa hair. Her mouth was warm and soft. So soft as my tongue slid across her bottom lip and then the top. And then she opened her mouth and melted against me, her arm going round my neck. I held her close as I thoroughly explored her lips, her teeth, her tongue. What started out sweet grew into urgency, and I palmed her ass and pulled her even closer to me. Her knee was jammed against my crotch, and I was sure she could feel how aroused I was.
She didn’t seem to mind as she moved her mouth against mine. Absently, she ran her fingers up my neck to my real hair, and I felt the wig and hat fall off. Then her hand was in my hair, rubbing, tugging, caressing. It was magical. The magical kiss we should have shared on prom night but didn’t.
I still had my eyes closed when she kissed the corner of my mouth and then my cheek. By instinct, I nibbled my way down her neck to kiss her throat as she leaned her head back and moaned. “Liv…” I said softly as my lips grazed her neck.
“Todd…” she moaned in reply, but then her moan cut off rather abruptly. I pulled back my head and opened my eyes to find her staring at me. She looked stunned, her blue eyes wide.
“Umm… hi,” I said, wiping the back of my hand across my mouth—which was no longer covered by the fake beard.
“Jackson?” she said, disbelief in her voice despite the visual proof in front of her.
“Yeah, it’s me.”
“Jackson?” she said again, this time in a much higher pitch with a lot more decibels behind it.
“Yes,” I said. “Look, I know I should have told you, but—”
She leaped to her feet and backing away so rapidly that she almost fell off the stage. I jumped after her, grabbing her arm, not wanting to have to explain to the kids tomorrow how Santa let his elf break her leg.
“Look, we’ve been working well together, could we just pretend that—”
“No,” she said flatly, wrenching her arm away from me.
“Liv, I know how you must feel about what happened after the prom, but—”
“Actually, Jackson Young, you don’t know how I feel about that.” She drew her hand back and slapped me across the face. Hard.
“Now you do,” she said, and she grabbed her purse and stormed off.
Jackson
Where was she? I needed her. I was outnumbered here, big time. “One at a time. Just you. Yeah, you with the bowl haircut. Hey, it’s a compliment. But no, you wait. And get in line. Hey man, can you put the phone down for one minute and teach your kid what a damn line means?”
It was five minutes into the Saturday shift, and I was never going to make it. Not without her. “Next? No, not the crying one. The one after that who looks like Eddie Munster—I’ll pose with him next. Why? Because Santa only takes pictures with non-crying children. What do you mean where’s the camera? You’ve got one on your phone, right? So take one with that. A flip phone? You’ve got to be kidding me.”
This was a fucking nightmare. A woman was trying to deposit a screaming baby on my lap. Another little boy was clinging to my leg. Another woman was standing next to me, leaning over, trying to get a selfie with the two of us. Suddenly I wished I were back in a war zone. It kind of felt like I was.
And then the cavalry arrived with a whirlwind of red and green. “I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to get back in line, sir,” she said. “And ma’am? Could you please wait down there with your child? And you, young man, you seem to be first in line. What’s your name?”
She bent down and listened for a minu
te and then scooped up the little boy and deposited him on my lap. “This is Marcus.” Without looking at me, she went to unlock her camera.
As Marcus rambled on about some sort of Lego set, I watched her shoot the photos. She was pissed off at me, that much was clear. But I wasn’t sure if I was pissed off at her, too, or just grumpy because it was morning, and I was awake.
Liv was crouched down now, facing us, and as she shifted positions, I caught a brief glimpse of her inner thighs before she glued her knees together again. For some reason, that made me mad. I wasn’t trying to ogle her; I was just trying to do my fucking job. Spread a little fucking holiday cheer. She had no right to look so damn good. “Don’t take the picture from below,” I snapped.
“Excuse me?”
“Stand up to take the picture. And step to the side a little. No one wants to see us a hundred percent straight on.”
“Maybe the picture would look better if Santa’s eyes weren’t bloodshot.”
“Fine,” I growled. “Take a lousy picture. Is that part of your elf-lore? Do you have some story for why elves are bad with cameras?”
“Would you like to take the picture, Mr. Big Shot?” It was a little disconcerting to see a pointy-eared elf glare at anyone like that.
“I’m just saying, if you listen to me, you’ll take a better picture.”
“And if the kids listen to you, they’ll learn to swear and complain about everything.” She set the camera down on the table and lifted Marcus off my lap. As she did so, she hissed at me. “Next time, you can take the pictures, and I can sit there on my butt doing nothing the whole day.”
She stalked off, holding the boy under his arms. “Just remember, nobody comes here to sit on an elf’s lap,” I growled after her. It felt good to get the last word in even if those words had been pretty fucking stupid.
After that, we fell into an uneasy truce. We both realized that sniping at each other in front of the kids was a pretty fucking bad idea. As a teacher, she knew this, but I felt I should get points for coming to the realization myself. Putting others’ needs before my own was not my area of expertise.
And in the back of my vodka-soaked brain, I knew that she had every right to be mad, and that I was an ass for being angry at her for being mad. But neither of us had left high school unscathed. In one night, I’d lost my best friend—a woman I’d come to care about very much. That it was my own fucking fault didn’t change that.
And then there was the matter of that kiss last night. It had been incredible. Even better than the few fumbling smooches we’d shared on prom night. God, neither of us had known what the fuck we were doing back then. But now we were adults, and that kiss had affected me more than anything in years—at least until she realized who I was and hauled off and slapped me. She was a strong little thing. My cheek had stung for an hour.
To my surprise, we weren’t all that busy as the day went by. I guess a lot of parents had brought their kids here right after Thanksgiving. So that was good. That meant that every once in a while, Santa could close his eyes and catch a few zzzzz’s. But when I was awake, it also meant that I had a lot of time to watch Liv as she moved around the stage, tidying up. Or sat at the computer, e-mailing pictures with an adorable little frown of concentration on her face.
At first, when she caught me looking at her, she’d glare at me. But after a while, she seemed to begin to see it as an opportunity to get back at me. That wasn’t good. There was nothing more dangerous than a beautiful woman who knew her own power.
She was completely professional, if there was such a thing as a professional elf, in front of the kids, but during the quiet times, she knew my eyes were on her. And she’d do things like stretch her arms over her head, ostentatiously to soothe her tired muscles, but it would make me practically salivate at the way her green dress would rise up on her thighs. Or once or twice she’d bend down, running her fingers up and down her red tights, as if she was smoothing them out. But then she’d always give herself away by peeking at me out of the corner of her eyes to see if I was watching.
She was trying to drive me crazy, and it was working.
On Sunday, determined to fill the down time with something other than drooling over her, I brought one of my cameras in. Liv temporarily seemed to forget her anger as I set it up. “Is this what you used… over there?”
“One of several.”
She went back to the computer then, but she watched me as I finished setting up and used some of my equipment to check the lighting on a couple of shots I planned on taking.
That’s right, sweetheart, this time it’s your turn to watch. But too bad it was my camera she was watching, not me.
A small wave of kids came by, and when they were gone, I took some pictures. Candid shots of passing shoppers. The tree behind us. Even one of Liv at the computer, an elf intently staring at the screen. That gave me an idea.
“Why don’t we get some elf-action shots?”
She frowned up at me.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re the one with all those stories about what elves do all day. Let’s take a shot or two like that. Like the one of the elves living in tree houses. Why don’t you stand off to the side of the tree and pretend you’re peering through its branches?”
“Why?”
“Why not? We’re not busy.”
She apparently had no argument for that. I set up the shot while Liv wove her way into the low branches of the Christmas tree from the side, making it appear that she was in the tree looking out. I took a dozen shots or so, and then we looked around for another elf-related activity.
We tried out a couple of different poses so I could get some pictures. I couldn’t tell for sure until I viewed the pictures on my computer, but she seemed to be pretty damn photogenic. I couldn’t wait to see them. The one we were shooting right now was adorable. She was on her back in Santa’s chair, her head resting on one armrest, and her feet propped up on the other. She had a phone in front of her and was concentrating on it intensely. Santa’s elf, taking a break. Goofing off. It was perfect.
The last one we did was of her on the floor opening presents like a little kid on Christmas morning. “No, that doesn’t look right. When you kneel like that, I only see a few inches of your tights, and it looks like your legs just disappear into a red blur. Try putting your knees out to the side.”
She did so, and I looked through the camera. “That’s no good, either. Elves aren’t supposed to look stiff and uptight. How about your legs straight out in front of you, like the way those grubby little kids sit when you’re telling them a story?”
She frowned. “I can’t sit like that; my dress is too short.”
I looked at her for a moment. Her spreading her legs in that little tunic dress was not a problem for me, but it probably wasn’t the look we were going for. “Put that big wrapped presents between your knees. Then you’ll be covered and you can pretend like you’re opening it.”
Liv thought about it for a moment, and the nodded. “Turn around for a minute,” she said after checking to make that no one else was nearby either. When she gave me the all clear, she had her legs spread wide with the white box with red ribbon between them. God, what I’d give to see her legs spread like that without the present and without the red tights. And preferably with her ankles tied to the foot board of my bed.
I took a few shots from above as she pretended to open the package, and then knelt down at her level, getting in closer, zooming in on her face and the look of delight there. She was a good actress. And fucking beautiful.
For just a moment, I flashed back to that night six years ago. Prom night. And I remembered the way she looked as she bashfully shed her clothes and climbed into the bed. Back when she’d thought I was wonderful. Before I fucked everything up. God, she’d been gorgeous, and now she was even more so.
“Santa?”
We both looked up. A woman was at the edge of the stage with an older boy, perhaps seven or eight y
ears old. I glanced back in time to see Liv spring into action. She shoved the fake Christmas present out of the way before she got to her feet, but for just a second, I saw a glimpse of her white panties between her spread legs. I never thought that white panties under red tights could be hot, but apparently they could when they belonged to Liv. And somehow, that brief illicit glimpse plus my memories of her naked body prom night made me hard. Instantly hard.
Shit. I wasn’t some fucking high school boy anymore who couldn’t control his urges. Back then, I’d get hard all the time when she was around, even though we were just friends. I was a grown man now, with considerably more experience with women. Yet I was as hard as a fucking rock.
Which presented a big problem I didn’t think about until I was back in Santa’s chair, and the little boy was climbing the steps to the stage. “He can’t sit on my lap,” I hissed to Liv.
“Why not?” She looked surprised.
“Because if he does, he’s going to learn a lot more about Santa—and the birds and the bees—than he bargained for.”
“What do you mea—?” She followed my gaze to the bulge in my idiotic red pants that was clearly visible even with the padding over my abdomen. She gulped, staring at the proof of my arousal for a little longer than necessary, which was flattering but not very helpful under the circumstances.
At last, she stepped away to meet the child. Unfortunately, her efforts to redirect him didn’t go very well. “Santa’s really tired today. He’s had a lot of kids on his lap. Why don’t you just stand here next to him? You’re a big boy, you can stand.”
But that wasn’t good enough for the little snot. “I wanna sit on his lap and read him my list.” While I scowled at him, I willed my erection to go away, but it wasn’t in the mood to, not with Liv so close.
She tried again. “Santa can actually hear you better if you stand by his side like this. What’s the first thing you want for Christmas?”
Bad Boy Santa: A Second Chance Christmas Romance Page 3