White Hot Holidays 15: Santa's Helpers Read online

  An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication

  www.ellorascave.com

  Santa’s Helpers

  ISBN # 1-4199-0472-8

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  Santa’s Helpers Copyright© 2005 Jennifer Dunne

  Edited by Sue-Ellen Gower.

  Cover design by Syneca. Photography by Dennis Roliff.

  Electronic book Publication: December 2005

  This book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the authors’ imagination and used fictitiously.

  Warning:

  The following material contains graphic sexual content meant for mature readers. This book has been rated E–rotic by a minimum of three independent reviewers.

  Ellora’s Cave Publishing offers three levels of Romantica™ reading entertainment: S (S-ensuous), E (E-rotic), and X (X-treme).

  S-ensuous love scenes are explicit and leave nothing to the imagination.

  E-rotic love scenes are explicit, leave nothing to the imagination, and are high in volume per the overall word count. In addition, some E-rated titles might contain fantasy material that some readers find objectionable, such as bondage, submission, same sex encounters, forced seductions, and so forth. E-rated titles are the most graphic titles we carry; it is common, for instance, for an author to use words such as “fucking”, “cock”, “pussy”, and such within their work of literature.

  X-treme titles differ from E-rated titles only in plot premise and storyline execution. Unlike E-rated titles, stories designated with the letter X tend to contain controversial subject matter not for the faint of heart.

  SANTA’S HELPERS

  Jennifer Dunne

  Chapter One

  Marissa pulled the shutters of Santa’s Toy Shop closed and dropped the hook that would prevent one of the other elves—or any nosy mall patron—from accidentally opening the door while she changed. The stand-alone garden shed, donated by Lolly’s Lumber, was painted Christmas red with green shutters, the roof mounded with piles of fake snow, and its scalloped trim painted a pale blue-white that glittered like icicles. On Christmas morning, the Lolly brothers would draw a lucky winner from among all the entrants who had filled out the forms with their names and addresses, and some lucky person would get an extra, unexpected Christmas gift of a slightly used garden shed. She suspected the winner’s first act would be to visit Lolly’s day-after-Christmas sale and buy paint in a less garish color.

  The shed had been plenty roomy for getting dressed in her elf outfit when her stint at Santa’s Wonderland started back in November, but the collection of wrapped presents for the Giving Tree had long since overflowed the designated shelves and was taking over all available floor space. The folks from the charity responsible for handing the gifts out were supposed to be picking up the presents today, so at least she’d have room to undress when her shift was over.

  Her ever-active imagination prompted her with a vision of how the undressing might work out. She’d slip into the shed, exhausted by the craziness of Christmas Eve in Santa’s Wonderland, too tired to notice that someone had followed her inside the shed. Her first clue would be when strong hands grabbed her around the waist, and Dean’s low voice whispered in her ear…

  “Don’t turn around.”

  “Okay,” she whispered in response, a surge of adrenaline spiking her pulse and breathing, and waking her from her after-work stupor.

  Dean’s hands slipped under her miniskirt, stroking up her stocking-covered thighs to tug her legs slightly apart. The fingers of one hand drifted down between her legs, brushing back and forth across her clit with teasing barely there caresses, while he placed the other higher on her abdomen, his fingers working their way between the hem of her turtleneck and waistband of her tights to stroke her bare stomach. He pulled her hips back, until she felt his hard cock prodding her ass.

  “Dean? What are you—”

  “I want you, Marissa. I’ve been watching you prance around in your skimpy little elf costume for weeks now, hoping you’d give me a sign that you felt the same way. Today’s our last day. I knew if I didn’t make a move now, I’d never know how sweet your pussy tasted, or how good it felt to have you wrapped tight around my cock.”

  He flexed his hips, rubbing his cock up and down the cleft of her ass. Marissa moaned.

  “Oh, Dean, I want you, too.”

  “That’s all I needed to hear.”

  He ripped her skirt and tights down her legs, baring her ass. The cool air across her pussy drew her attention to how wet she was. Dean thrust his fingers inside her folds, stroking her throbbing flesh.

  “You’re hot and wet. Just the way I want you.” He turned her so that she faced the empty wire shelves, and pressed on the small of her back with his free hand. “Bend over and grab the shelf.”

  She did as he ordered, her throat dry and her pussy wet. Her swaying breasts throbbed, the nipples tightening and tingling, aching for his hot hands to squeeze and caress them.

  He stroked her pussy, again and again, until his fingers were coated with her juices. Then he put his wet hand on her ass, and probed her hole with his slick fingers.

  “Dean!” she cried.

  A second finger joined the first, stretching her opening, and she moaned with pleasure, bucking her hips to press his fingers deeper into her ass.

  “Oh, yeah. Just how I like it,” he whispered.

  He took his fingers away, replacing them with the tip of his cock, now wet and smeared with her juices. Holding her hips firmly with one hand, he guided his hot, wet cock into her ass.

  “Oh, God. You’re too big, Dean. I can’t take all of you. Not there.”

  “You can, and you will.”

  He grabbed her hips tight with both hands and thrust, hard and deep, burying himself to the balls in her ass. Marissa screamed. It was so good. Better than she’d ever felt before.

  Then he started moving, pulling back and thrusting deep, again and again. She clenched her hands around the wire mesh of the shelves, the metal digging into the flesh of her fingers, anchoring herself against the force of his thrusts.

  “Please, Dean. Please! Finish me off.”

  He increased the speed and force of his thrusts, rocking her nearly off her feet. Then, with a final surge that actually lifted her feet from the floor, her ass impaled on his cock, he came, flooding her ass with his hot seed. He lowered her feet to the floor, and reached between her legs to rub and squeeze her clit.

  With a hoarse scream of satisfaction, she came into his hand. Still gripping the shelves, her ass braced against his hips, her breasts swayed gently with the echoes of Dean’s thrusts. He stroked lightly between her legs, his slow, soft caresses helping her come down from the height of her passion.

  “Oh, yeah. That’s what I wanted, all right,” he whispered.

  “Me too.”

  Finally, he allowed her to turn around and look at him. His lean and compact body was gloriously naked, displaying his rippled abs, solid chest, shoulders wide enough to rocket a fastball from right field to first base before the batter was halfway there, and long, powerful legs that could beat out a throw to home on a sacrifice bunt. He’d told her plenty of baseball stories over the weeks they’d worked together. Now she knew what else those powerful legs were good for.

  And between his legs, his cock hung limp, still glistening with his cum. Even completely spent, he wa
s impressive. And she’d taken all of him. The memory of how he’d stretched and filled her ass made her pussy pulse hot and ready, eager for his cock to fill her there as well.

  The door of the Santa’s Toy Shop garden shed rattled in its frame, startling Marissa out of her daydream.

  “You in there, Marissa?” Dean called through the door.

  Her cheeks flamed. How long had she been standing here, thinking about making love to him? Had her shift already started?

  She glanced at her watch. Five minutes after eight. He was late this morning.

  “Just a sec. I’m getting dressed,” she called back.

  Trying not to knock against the pressboard wall—she had an irrational terror of tipping the shed over while she was half naked—she shimmied out of the embroidered jeans she’d worn to work, revealing the red-and-white-striped tights she’d worn beneath them. Her thong panties were damp from her daydream, but the tights were okay. She pulled on her green crushed velvet miniskirt and adjusted it with another swivel of her hips. She traded her comfy cotton roll-neck sweater for a plain white turtleneck and green crushed velvet vest. Her elf name, Belle, was embroidered on the left-hand side of the vest, in scrolling white letters, above the topmost of two buttons shaped like giant peppermint candies. She slipped her feet back inside her sneakers, then covered them with the green felt boot toppers. Finally, she put on her red-and-white Santa hat with the jingle bell.

  As a student of fashion and fabric design who’d just finished a six-month work assignment for a design house in New York’s fashion district, she felt a dull, creeping horror every time she confronted the ridiculous costumes they were forced to wear. The outfit’s one saving grace was that it was well constructed and comfortable.

  She took a deep breath, and psyched herself up to face Dean without revealing her thoughts. Compared to that, dealing with the mob of last-minute shoppers already lined up to see Santa, even though Roger wouldn’t arrive for at least another half hour, would be a piece of cake. Christmas Eve. Her last day as an elf. Her last day to let Dean know she was interested in him. Somehow, she’d find a way to do it.

  There wasn’t enough wall space to hang a mirror in the shed, so she patted herself down to be sure everything was tucked in and presentable. Too bad she couldn’t get Dean to do the final check. Her mind wandered to an image of his strong hands smoothing over the velvet of her elf costume, fondling her ass and her breasts. That led to more thoughts of him pulling her costume off and taking her up against the shelving, packages cascading unheeded to the floor around them.

  Shaking her head to dispel the image, she stuffed her clothes on top of her coat and purse in the tiny cubbyhole assigned to her. She lifted the latch, and smiled at Dean.

  He was dwarfed by his oversize jacket, white leather with the navy blue screaming panther on the back, that marked him as a member of one of the university teams. The jackets were sized to fit the bulky football players, not baseball and track athletes.

  Dean wore the jacket every day, regardless of weather. It was well below freezing today, but rather than wearing a winter coat, he’d layered a thick cable-knit sweater underneath it. It was a shame to bury his fine physique under so much clothing. She wished they’d met during the summer, when she could have seen him in a T-shirt that clung to his chest and broad shoulders, and skimpy runner’s shorts.

  “Sorry I’m late. I had to park in the overflow lot and take the shuttle in. Give me a minute to get changed, and I’ll help set up.”

  “No problem. I was late, too.”

  He ducked into the Toy Shop garden shed, and after a brief flurry of banging he emerged in his elf costume. Like her, he had to wear candy-cane-striped tights, elf-boot shoe toppers, a white turtleneck, a green velvet vest fastened with peppermint candy buttons, and a red-and-white Santa hat. Instead of the miniskirt that completed her costume, however, he wore a pair of green velvet knickers with shiny brass buckles at the waist and beneath each knee. And his vest bore the elf name, Jingle, in swirling white script.

  He hated the costume, but she had to admit, she liked looking at him in it. The turtleneck hugged his shoulders and upper arms, emphasizing his well-formed biceps, triceps and deltoids, while the vest showed off his wide shoulders and narrow waist. The knickers fit tight across his lean thighs, stretching to show off his sculpted ass whenever he bent down to pick up a toddler. And the crushed velvet made her want to run her hands across the fabric, brushing the soft nap as she stroked it over his firmly muscled body.

  Not that she’d ever told him that, of course. They were friends, and had to work together. She couldn’t face him if she found out she was the only one who felt any attraction.

  As the other university student hired to play Santa’s helper, he’d worked the same evening and weekend shifts as she had, until school closed for the break, and they went to full-time elf status. Shared adversity was supposed to bring people closer together, and she suspected that was true, since they’d become friends over the past few weeks. At first, it seemed she had nothing in common with a frat-boy jock studying economics, but they quickly learned they shared a love of indie music and an irreverent sense of humor. From that beginning, they’d built a strong friendship.

  She wanted more than friendship from him, though. Just the sight of him made her blood heat, but so far she hadn’t been able to determine if he was also attracted to her. She had until seven o’clock tonight to discover his true feelings. And then, if all else failed, she’d come right out and tell him how hot he was. If he didn’t share her feelings, she never had to see him again.

  Dreaming of Dean’s deep, penetrating kiss, Marissa had no trouble smiling at the woman clutching a camcorder and two restless toddlers at the head of the line.

  “Santa will be arriving soon. Would your children like to pet the reindeer?”

  Marissa gave the waiting children a couple of reindeer treats each, showed them how to hold the treats in the palm of their hands so the reindeer could lick them, and opened the outer gate to the reindeer pen. If the children stuck their hands through the bars of the inner fence, the reindeer would eventually come over to get the treats, and they could pet them.

  Glancing over at the petting zoo every once in a while to make sure the kids weren’t doing anything they shouldn’t be doing, she started unlocking the computer and photography equipment. The garland-wrapped tripod was a fixture of the Santa’s living room set, but the digital camera that topped it was dutifully locked away at the end of every shift.

  Dean threw open the shutters of Santa’s Toy Shop, then bounced out, grinning broadly.

  “Last day. You ready for the madness?”

  “Did you see how many kids are in line already? We’ll be lucky to get any breaks today.”

  He shrugged then leaned down to plug in the photo printer. Marissa paused to admire the way his crushed velvet knickers stretched taut across his ass. He was one fine-looking elf.

  Dean continued talking as he connected cables. “I hope Roger’s up to the challenge. At least he hasn’t shown up drunk so far. But don’t forget to test any water before you give it to him. He spiked his cup with vodka last night. Said it was medicinal, to relax his throat for all that ho-ho-ho-ing.”

  “Right. Why didn’t you say something last night when it happened?”

  “It was right before closing. And you were in a hurry. Hot date?”

  “I wish. No, last-minute presents. For some reason, my cousins are coming for Christmas Eve dinner, instead of New Year’s this year. I’d been counting on picking up their gifts at the after-Christmas sales.”

  “That’s rough.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “So, you’re leaving right after work tonight, too?” He brushed off his hands, and strode over to the counter.

  “I told them I’d be there by eight.”

  He frowned down at his costume. “I can’t wait until this day is over. I’m putting this behind me and never thinking of it again.”r />
  Marissa blinked. He was never going to think of Santa’s Wonderland again? Did that mean he was never going to think of her again?

  “It’s not that bad.”

  “Yes it is, Belle. I’m a grown man, calling myself Jingle and wearing an elf suit. I’ll be so glad to be rid of it. I think I’ll burn it to celebrate my liberation.”

  “You can’t do that. If you don’t return your elf suit clean and in good repair, you’ll forfeit the security deposit. That’s an entire paycheck. Plus you’ll lose any bonuses for meeting your photo sales quota.”

  He blew out his breath in a gust. “Next year, I’ll have a real job.”

  Chapter Two

  They’d ushered at least two hundred kids through Santa’s Wonderland before the To-Go mall delivery service brought Roger his lunch, ostentatiously carrying the bag with the restaurant logo clearly visible down the line of waiting families. Roger declared it was time for his lunch break, and headed for the privacy of the Toy Shop.

  Marissa headed down to the food court to pick up two orders of burgers, fries and shakes for her and Dean. Behind her, she could hear Dean calling out to the assembled children, “Who wants to help feed the reindeer?”

  A chorus of shrill voices shouted, “Me! Me! Pick me!”

  She’d been on reindeer duty before, and cheerfully let Dean take over today’s feeding, while she walked down to the food court and back. Unlike the earlier reindeer treats, the official food and water required entering the pen with the twenty-pound bag of reindeer chow and a garden hose. About the size of a shaggy German Shepherd dog with antlers, the reindeer looked lazy and slow moving, but let them see an open gate, and they were off and running like racehorses. When one of the reindeer escaped during the first week of the petting zoo, mall security had taken nearly two hours to catch it, chasing it up and down the corridors like a scene out of a slapstick Christmas comedy movie.