One
Now
CJ
* * *
I’m trapped in a puke-green elf sweater when I hear the unmistakable sound of a door clicking open.
“Occupied!” I call, trying to sound breezy instead of panicked. But as I’m the human equivalent of a deer with its antlers caught in a bush, it comes out high-pitched and squeaky.
I hold my breath at the silence that follows, praying that the intruder chose to vacate my holly-jolly hidey-hole. Then a voice I know all too well sends goose bumps rippling over my skin.
“‘Occupied’ is not the word I’d use for whatever’s happening right now. But please, carry on.”
“What are you doing in here, Wyatt?” I hiss, increasing my frantic efforts to either successfully pull this nightmare sweater onto my body or to rip it off entirely, ideally so I can set it on fire afterward.
“I’d ask you the same thing, but you’re clearly moonlighting as…” My nemesis moves closer, and I stiffen, horribly aware that he’s soaking in every detail of my predicament. “...as a past-her-prime elf desperately clinging to her youth in a skirt that’s too short for the dress code at Santa’s workshop. Did I get it right?”
The goose bumps disappear in a wave of fury, which is comforting. Angry, I can work with. Angry is my normal state around Wyatt Jones, after all.
“Does it look like I need your sad little attempts at humor right now?” I snap. “Either help me or get out.”
Even though I can’t see him, I know Wyatt’s right there, his big, stupid body far too close to my sweaty, struggling self. The air shifts against the exposed skin of my stomach a split second before a pair of hands lands on my waist.
“What are you doing?” I jump away with a yelp.
“I’m doing what you asked me to do, you lunatic.”
“I obviously meant for you to get out! Since when do you help me?”
Wyatt’s sigh somehow manages to convey both irritation and the depth of his suffering. “I’m helping you because I don’t want to be responsible for traumatizing the janitorial staff when they find your pale, puffy, oxygen-starved corpse collapsed behind the desk at the end of the night.”
I swear, if my arms weren’t trapped over my head in their sweater prison, I’d be throwing windmill punches right now to force him out of the room. This is my villain lair, not his.
“You’re the only pale, puffy corpse in here,” I mutter, twisting away when his hand slides up my side.
Another impatient burst of air wraps around me. “Stop wriggling. And you can’t even see me. You have no idea how pale or puffy I am.”
“Stop touching me!” I try to twist away, but his hold is too firm. “I don’t want your help, and I don’t want to know anything about your puffy parts.”
“Too bad.” That large, warm hand moves to my stomach, and I’m propelled backward until my shoulders bump against the wall of the general manager’s office in the fanciest event space in Beaucoeur, Illinois. “Now can you please. Just. Hold. Still.”
Wyatt starts to tug the fabric that’s got me trapped, and when his fingers brush just under my breasts, I start flailing even harder, struggling to pop my head through the neck hole so I can tell him to his face just how much he can fuck off right now. At least I hadn’t changed into the lacy bra I’m supposed to be wearing with my party dress tonight. He’d probably have an eye full of my triple D’s right now if not for my reliable full-coverage beige workhorse.
“Relax, Charlotte Jane.” His low chuckle sets my teeth on edge. “There are inflatable tube men waving their arms outside used car dealerships that have more dignity than you right now.”
His hands are moving all over me, and my heart’s beating so hard that I’m sure he can feel it slamming against my sternum. At this point, I can’t tell where the adrenaline from being trapped stops and the adrenaline from being touched by Wyatt starts, but I hate it. I hate all of it.
“This is fine,” I say a little desperately. ”I can take it from here. Please, just?—”
“Off or on?”
“What?”
“Are you taking this off or putting it on?” He enunciates each word with insulting slowness.
Oh. “On,” I say sulkily.
