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“Here, this should be your size, well, it’ll be too big. You asked for an extra-large, so… but we can belt it tightly,” she muttered, casting a critical eye down me. Dumping the clothes in my arms, she flitted to the other side of the tiny room and tutted at her reflection in the floor-length mirror.
“These stockings, I swear, this is my third pair, and they keep getting runs in them,” she muttered.
“I’m sorry, I don’t think I’m the person-,” I started again, setting the clothes she’d pushed into my arms on a nearby chair. I had to get a grip. I couldn’t let this woman continue to think I was someone else. What was I doing anyway? I should never have let her drag me in here. Phil would be looking for me and what if someone saw me without my mask on?
My rambling thoughts came to a screeching stop as Charlie reached up under her short, swinging green skirt and started to pull her candy cane stockings down her long, shapely legs.
Feeling like a creep, but unable to move my eyes for even a second, I watched as she kicked off the stockings, and reached for a fresh pair. She tutted as she searched through the box full of Christmas clothing. “Damn, that was the last pair. Will these do?” She tossed me the question casually. She held up a pair of over-the-knee socks, with white and red stripes.
“They’re fine,” I heard myself say. I had clearly lost control of my body, as I continued to stand there and watch her roll the socks up her legs, my body turning to stone at the sight. I was really entering creep territory now and had to say something, but it felt harder than ever now.
She straightened up, her simple, efficient movements looking hotter than a titillating burlesque dancer could ever dream of being.
“You need a hand? Can you see in those glasses?” She approached me, her cheerful, teasing tone feeling warm inside my cold chest. Before I could stop her, she tugged off my glasses and undid my mask.
I stiffened only further but didn’t push her away. I wasn’t used to casual touch. It felt downright odd to be touched by a stranger, and so easily. I was a thorny bastard most of the time and had a downright dislike of people acting overly familiar with me.
Until now, it seemed. There wasn’t a single part of me that wanted her touch to leave me. Barefaced finally, I waited for her to recognize me. She was looking up at me, her head tilted right back to meet my eyes, such was our height difference.
Her eyes roamed over my face, and a look I recognized flashed across her features.
“What’s wrong?” I murmured, waiting for her to turn from the most intriguing woman I’d met in years, perhaps ever, into an adoring starstruck fan. How disappointing that would be, but then, I was used to being disappointed by people.
“I think you might be a bit too young and handsome to be a convincing Santa, but I guess we have to go with it for this year,” she said instead of asking me for an autograph.
I blinked at her. “You don’t recognize me?”
“How could I? We’ve never met. You were just sent from head office for today, right?” She smiled up at me. “Unless we have and I don’t remember, I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re right. We’ve never met,” I heard myself say.
She nodded, and stepped back, picking up the pants of the Santa outfit. Huge, red velvet pants that were more than double her body, as she held them out. “We’re going to have a job keeping these up,” she fretted, biting her lip. “Anyway, let’s try. Take your jeans off,” she said, snapping her eyes back to me, and making zero effort to turn away.
“I’m sorry, what?” I asked numbly, feeling a million miles away from the usual gruff rockstar persona that I lived in. After thirty minutes in Briar Vale, I was already reverting to the bumbling, confused teen I’d been when I’d left here.
“Lose the jeans, Santa,” Charlie commanded, tilting her head to the side and grinning at me. “We’re running out of time, and you don’t want to get on my naughty list.”
Fuck, in addition to tricking this gorgeous woman, and watching her change, now I was sporting a rapidly swelling hard-on that couldn’t possibly go unnoticed if she tried to wrestle me into those huge pants.
I opened my mouth to finally come clean, just as the door to the hut burst open.
“Charlotte Winter? I’m sorry I’m so late!” A man blustered into the tiny hut. He was older, burly, and had a very fitting Santa vibe.
“Sorry, who are you?” Charlie asked him, as I edged toward the door.
“I’m Santa, from headoffice,” the newcomer said.
Charlie stared at him, and then flicked her green eyes to me, confusion clouding their pine-green depths. Fuck, this was too embarrassing. I fumbled my mask and glasses on, as I backed out the door. Both Charlie and the real Santa watched me, speechless, as I turned on my heel, threw the last of my dignity out the window, and made a break for it.
Fucking Briar Vale. Hell on earth, and it had already started.
CHAPTER2
Charlie
“Charlie, I ordered you a peppermint mocha martini,” Lily, my childhood bestie and enabler, informed me as soon as I swung into my usual seat at our local bar. I unwrapped my huge thick scarf and peered at the glass before me dubiously.
“I just have one question,” I teased her. “Why?”
