by Allysa Hart
As soon as I was standing, his father advanced toward me, grabbing my hands in his. I was shocked to see that there were tears in his eyes, and his features were fraught with emotion.
“Crystal.” His voice cracked. “I’ve been waiting for this day for a long time. I’m so sorry about your father, and I’m so sorry I wasn’t able to grant your Christmas wishes all those years ago.”
My mouth dropped open as a tear tracked down his face. I felt myself start to tear up in response to his genuine emotion. “Oh, no,” I whispered. “I was just a little girl. I didn’t understand. It’s okay. Please don’t cry.”
He cried harder, pulling me into his arms for a tight bear hug. It felt lovely. He was soft and warm and smelled like Yule, but older and more mature. There was a faint hint of sandalwood mixed in with all the Christmas.
His tears were warm and wet against my cheek, and my heart broke for this sweet man who had the weight and wishes of all the world’s children on his shoulders.
“I’ve waited so long for this day,” he repeated in my ear. He finally pulled back, clasping both of my hands between his and beamed at me. “Well, little elf, you finally got your Daddy now, haven’t you? I’m sorry you had to wait so long, but I know my boy will spend every day proving he was worth the wait.”
My eyes narrowed in confusion as I weighed the meaning behind his words. I glanced at Yule in question. Had he told his father everything? Yule shook his head. His eyebrows were raised high, and his mouth was set in a flat line. I looked back at his father, and he winked at me.
“You knew?”
Santa, the elder Santa, threw back his head and laughed, a merry ho ho ho. “Of course I knew. I’m Santa.” He said this as if it was of no consequence. “As soon as I read those letters, I knew. I couldn’t grant your wishes back then. I couldn’t give you the daddy you needed. Not for a long time, anyway. But you got him, didn’t you?”
He looked back and forth between the two of us with a smirk.
For a brief moment, irritation rushed through me, and I read the same emotion on Yule’s face as we realized we had been set up in a conspiracy that dated back two full decades, if not longer. Our eyes met, and then we laughed. Deep, rolling belly laughs. The elder Santa joined in, and soon Mrs. Claus appeared, beaming, in her red dress, with rosy-red cheeks.
She didn’t say a word, or bother to introduce herself. She simply took me in her arms and pulled me close against her generous chest, patting my hair, and murmuring about how happy she was to meet me. She called me her successor, and I waited for the clutch of panic and anger I always felt when Yule made reference to my being Mrs. Claus. It didn’t come.
“See?” Yule teased, taking my hand, and pulling me away from his mother. “It’s destiny. It’s been destiny from the very beginning. Before dating or marrying was a thought in either of our heads. You were always mine. You just didn’t know it yet.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I’m yours. It’s destiny. Fate. Written in the stars, etcetera and so forth. The point has been made.” I was teasing, too, but serious. I wiggled my eyebrows at him and giggled. “So, what are you going to do about it?”
“This.” Yule, in his Santa suit, dropped to one knee in front of me. He snapped his fingers, and a ring box appeared in his hand.
I gasped aloud. I’d known it was going to happen. It was simple deduction, of course, but now that it was really happening, I couldn’t breathe.
This is crazy, I told myself, beginning to head down that spiral of reality. I had met this man only ten days prior. There were a million reasons this would not work. But God, I wanted it to.
“Crystal Angelina Turner.” Yule took my hand in his, and kissed the top of it before continuing. “We may not have known each other long, but we have the rest of our lives to get to know each other better. We are, as you say, written in the stars. You are my fate, my destiny, and my soul mate. Will you also be my Mrs. Claus? Marry me.”
When he spoke, he looked into my eyes, and I could see the love shining out from his soul as he gazed up at me. I got lost in those blue eyes of his, and all my doubts and worries melted away.
“This is crazy,” I answered, shaking my head. “But the good kind of crazy.” I mirrored his earlier words back to him. “Yes, Santa Daddy, I will marry you. I can’t wait to be your Mrs. Claus.”
Yule jumped to his feet, a smile on his face as he gave a cry of victory before gathering me in his arms, lifting me off my feet, and spinning me around in a circle. Then he set me down and kissed me so deeply, I don’t think I imagined that my boots sank down into the snow.
When we finally broke apart, his father cleared his throat and I blushed. I had forgotten we had an audience.
The elder Santa stood there, Mrs. Claus by his side, wiping his eyes with the edge of his red velvet scarf. “Now that,” he choked out between tears, “is what I call a happy ending. A real Christmas miracle.”
“He sees you when you’re sleeping.”
I was awakened to Santa’s gruff voice singing in my ear. Moaning, I turned to cuddle into his warmth, pressing my body against his. I frowned when I realized he was still wearing his Santa suit. I tugged at it, pulling the jacket open to lay my head against his bare chest. He chuckled and kissed the top of my head.
“Or when you’re not sleeping, as was the case with you last night, naughty girl. You were supposed to rest.”
I opened my eyes as much as I could, as they were still heavy with sleep. I wasn’t sure when I had finally gone to bed, or how much sleep I had gotten, but it had been pretty late, and I suspected it wasn’t much.
I had spent most of the night packing, in between stalking my brand-new husband using a Santa tracker app on my phone. I knew it wasn’t accurate, but it helped me count down the hours until he would be home and officially on vacation. The hours until we could start our honeymoon and our new life together. This man was my husband now. The wedding had been small and lovely, a quiet and intimate ceremony the morning before, at the North Pole, before the Christmas craziness officially commenced.
Once I had stopped fighting what he insisted was my destiny, my entire outlook on life had changed. I’m not sure when it happened, exactly, as the entire romance between us had been a crazy whirlwind of emotion, but the love I had for him consumed me, and I felt like it was easier to breathe when he was around. He made me a better person.
“Now I can rest with you,” I countered, snuggling in even closer than before. “You need to rest, too, after your long night.”
Yule shook his head and hooked my chin with the crook of his finger.
“I will, later. Right now, I want to watch you open presents.”
At the mention of gifts, I sprang up in bed. It was my first ever real Christmas morning, and he had promised it would be amazing.
“Are there presents?”
“Mountains of them.” He grinned widely when he answered.
“Eeep!” I squealed and jumped off the bed, sprinting to the door, and down the short hallway to the living room. “Holy holly!” The small pile of packages under the tree had more than tripled in size overnight. “What are you doing? Making up for lost time? Geez!” Staring at the pile of gifts, I almost felt silly for being so excited. I truly was acting like a child on Christmas morning, but I could not help myself.
“When Daddy makes a promise, he keeps it, little elf,” he whispered into my ear.
I turned and threw my arms around his neck. “Can I open them all? Right now?”
He tightened his arms around me and lifted me off my feet. “Nope, not until you earn them.” He wiggled his eyebrows.
I eyed him dubiously. “How?”
“Oh, I think you know. Christmas morning candy sticks should be our first new tradition as husband and wife,” he quipped.
“Presents first,” I huffed. “If you wanted to do that first, we could have just stayed in bed. But you lured me out here to this pile of presents, and now I want to open them. If they are reall
y good, maybe you’ll earn some bonus points for later.”
Yule guffawed loudly, kissed my cheek, and leaned in to whisper in my ear. “If I get enough bonus points, do I get to shove my candy stick in your Hershey hole?”
I was still sputtering when he set me down on my feet, turned me toward the tree, and got me moving with a loud slap across my bottom.
“Ow!” I exclaimed, turning to glare at him. “We don’t have time for all of that, anyway. After presents, I need to finish packing so we can move to the North Pole in time for the New Year’s celebration. I promised your mother.”
Santa took a step back and looked around the room at my piles of half-packed boxes. “Silly girl, did you forget your Daddy has magical powers?”
With a smile and a wink, he lifted his hand between us and snapped his fingers. In a second, the entire room was empty save for the Christmas tree and the surrounding presents.
I shook my head, and rolled my eyes, wagging a finger as I teased him. “Silly Santa, I thought real daddies did things the hard way.”
He gaped at me, feigning wounded shock. “I worked all night! I traveled all over the world and back again and delivered millions of presents. I’m tired. Plus, there’s only one thing Santa Claus wants to do the hard way on Christmas morning, little elf, and that’s Mrs. Claus.”
Don’t miss the first two books in the Fantastical Daddy Dom series?
Check out Genie Daddy!
Genie Daddy, Fantastical Daddy Doms Book 1
I lost everything, was shipped off to live with an aunt I barely knew, and was put to work cleaning her dilapidated antique shop.
And then, I met Callum.
Or should I say I released him?
I was a socialite with a strong sense of entitlement and a lot of anger.
He was a Dominant genie with a hard body and an even harder hand.
It could never work.
Could it?
* * *
Check out Ogre Daddy!
Ogre Daddy: Fantastical Daddy Doms Book 2
The princess was destined to be mine. She just didn't know it yet.
Sparks fly, skirts go up and panties come down. My stubborn princess will learn that her Ogre Daddy is determined to turn our nightmare into the ultimate happily ever after.
Writing has been a passion of mine since I was 9 years old, and I always dreamed of becoming an author, but life happens and sometimes that first step seems like a giant leap. I credit a life changing move from the Oregon to Utah in the fall of 2013 as the catalyst that began my writing career.
I now reside in Southern Utah with my husband, my two children, two dogs, my mother, my 92 year old grandfather and a lizard named Leo.
I write what I love to read, which is fun romantic stories about submission in its many forms, and often joke that my stories get slightly dirtier with each one I write. When I am not writing, I enjoy my passions, which include cooking, drinking good coffee and good wine, shopping for crazy knee socks, celebrating with sushi for every occasion, and most of all spending time with my friends and family.
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Love Multiplied Series
Green Valley Brides
Luke’s First Bride
Luke’s Rogue Bride
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Corbins Bend
A Perfect Partnership- Corbin’s Bend Season 2
Ginger Up- Corbins’s Bend Season 3
A Holiday Ruse- Corbin’s Bend Season 4
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Vegas Nights Series
Collared
Claimed
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Second Chance Ranch Series
Winterland Daddies
Spring Fever Daddies
Other Books by Rayanna Jamison
Catching Her Cowboy Daddy
Cole for Christmas
Santa Sir
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Collections
Sweet Town Love (with various authors)
12 Naughty Days of Christmas (with various authors)
12 Naughty Days: A Holiday Collection (with various authors)
A Spanking Good New Year (with various authors)
Masters of The Castle: Witness Protection Program (with various authors)
Other Uses for a Wooden Spoon: A Corbin’s Bend Cookbook
I am a full-time mom to two sassy, strong-willed, loveable little girls. What can I say? They take after their mama. I’m on the wrong side of thirty, I have been married to my best friend for over ten years and I can’t imagine doing life with anyone else by my side. We are Southern California transplants, currently residing in a very rural part of the East Coast. I have two crazy dogs that I adore, even though they drive me out of my ever-loving mind most days.
Writing and graphic design consume all of my spare time, and I could not be happier. This journey I am on is a crazy one, but I wouldn’t trade it for the world.
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A Rose in Bloom
Adopting Katie
Katie’s New Daddy
Genie Daddy
Ogre Daddy
Masters of the Castle: Witness Protection Program
Paris Heat