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“No.”
“So you’ve never—”
“No, I haven’t.” His gaze locked onto mine. “So you need to be gentle with me, and go slow.”
My breathing hitched. “Then isn’t it fortunate we’re in a place where we can take as long as we like?”Oh my God, the possibilities…
He bit his lip. “I thought you needed to kiss me again?”
That was all it took to take him into my arms, our bodies pressed together as we kissed, lingering chaste kisses that fed something deep inside me.
“I have a confession,” I murmured against his neck.
“Hmm?” Santa sounded blissed-out.
“I’m dying to see what you look like without the Santa suit.”
He pulled back, and my chest ached to see sorrow in those hauntingly beautiful eyes. “I’m afraid that will have to wait until next time.”
Shock thrummed through me. “I… I have to leave?”
He nodded. “Time might stand still here, but it’s still ticking away in your realm.”
Then it hit me. “But…next timeis a year away.”
Another nod.
“Can’t you visit me when it isn’t Christmas Eve?”
He shook his head. “One night is all I get. True, it’s an elastic kind of Christmas Eve, spanning every time zone, and I can stretch it to fit in everything I need to do, but once my job is done, when dawn comes Christmas morning, I have to return here.”
I don’t think I’d ever felt so sad. “So what does it matter if time stands still here? I’m limited by the time in my own realm.”
He cupped my cheek. “You need to know something. It will be a long year for you, I know, but it will seem even longer to me—and I will spend every one of your five hundred and twenty-five thousand and six hundred minutes, waiting until I can hold you again.”
I froze. “2015 isn’t a leap year, is it?”
“No, thank God. The next one is 2016.”
“And how do I get back? In the sleigh?”
He nodded. “It’s the only way to cross over between the realms.”
I smiled. “Good. That means I’ll get a chance to say goodbye to the girls.” I preened. “Your reindeer like me.”
“That’s because until now, they thought I was the only person in their world. No one else can see them.” He rolled his eyes. “Except for NORAD’s Santa tracker, of course. And then you greeted them.” He held out his hand. “Come on, before it gets much later.”
“Only if you kiss me one more time under the mistletoe.”
His face glowed. “That, I can do.”
When I was forty-eight
2015
The light was starting to fade, and NORAD’s Santa tracker had been following his progress across the globe.
Except I knew different. NORAD couldn’t see him.
