Page 18 of Erotic Temptations 1

He exhaled once, slowly, like he was bracing for something serious after the laugh we just shared. “I owe you an explanation.”

“For what?” My voice was thin, even to me. I wanted to sound casual. Instead, I sounded like someone who needed the Heimlich.

“For how I was earlier,” he said. “For acting like you’d set the place on fire.”

He paused, like the words were hard, then pressed on. “Last holiday season, new Santa started. Seemed friendly enough. At first it was just, you know, jokes. Lame, but not offensive, until they were. I called him on it, said it was inappropriate considering our work environment. Most are in it for the paycheck. They forget or don’t care they’re representing the innocence of childhood.”

Mason had been right to put a stop it. Childhood wonder had a ticking clock already. No one had a right to steal any part of it. I may not enjoy oozing kids or launchers, but they left Santa’s chair with a candy cane, a coupon, and career advice, not a small part of their innocence vaporized.

“He chilled with them but started pushy flirting with me. Didn’t matter that I wasn’t interested. He crossed right over boundaries like he was oblivious to them. Caught him more than once following me around the mall. Compliments. DMs. Texts. Thing was, I’d never given him my number.

Pretty soon, he was waiting for me by the car at closing.”

I sucked in a sharp breath, clenching my hands under the table.

“I told him to cool it,” Mason went on, his voice flat like he was recounting someone else’s story, “but he escalated. Started saying shit in public, getting pissed when I changed up my routine and where I parked, refusing to back off. It got ugly. He found my parking spot one night and tried to grope me. I snapped. I’d reached my breaking point. Security got involved. So did the cops. An ambulance pulled up to the scene.”

A muscle in his jaw clenched. “He’s not here anymore.”

My stomach twisted. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”

“Me too,” he said. “I know what it’s like to feel uncomfortable.

I’m bigger than most, and some people find that intimidating. When you walked up…”

“In a Santa suit,” I said.

Mason shrugged. “Only the attraction was reversed and I tried to squash it.”

He looked at me, something soft behind the green. “I refuse to make anyone feel like I did.”

“This makes so much more sense. You weren’t a jerk because you were attracted to me. I was a trauma reminder all day.”

He nodded. Then leveled me with a look that melted every muscle in my body. “The cognitive dissonance was hard to wrap my head around.”

I thought about that for a second, then leaned forward. “Just so we’re clear, you haven’t made me uncomfortable. Not once. I mean, unless you count the beard tape, but that was my own personal hell.”

He grinned. “Good. Santa shouldn’t feel threatened.”

That made me laugh. “Santa takes his personal space very seriously. Unless he’s offered free food.”

My back took that moment to protest the chair I was sitting in. I twisted to one side, hoping to stretch away my back pain. Didn’t work. Any chair that didn’t offer lumbar support should be outlawed. At the ripe age of twenty-five, I needed a chiropractor and a sciatica pillow for my butt. And ice packs for my abused thighs.

Those drooling, cookie-munching toddlers were turning me into a ninety-year-old man. If I didn’t keep my guard up, I’d need a cane and a patch of lawn to protect.

He pulled back, breathing harder than before. “Still hurt?”

“My face or my ass?” I grinned at him.

He didn’t miss a beat. “Both.”

“That chair’s a torture device.”

He came around behind me, hands on my shoulders. For a second, I thought he’d push me down, but instead, he tugged the chair back from the table and crouched behind me, big hands kneading my lower back through layers of fabric. His fingers curled deep, right along the line where the suit bunched up.

I groaned, because it hurt and helped, and it was embarrassing how quickly I got hard just from him working my muscles. He squeezed my hips, thumbs digging slow circles, then raked those same thumbs just under the foam padding.

The Santa suit bunched awkwardly, so it was less massage and more Mason fighting my costume for control. He seemed to enjoy the challenge.