Santa, Sir

Elf Duty

My spine felt like it had been replaced with a rusty coat hanger. Eight hours of managing the line, wiping down the velvet throne, and fielding questions about reindeer nutrition while wearing a green felt tunic that smelled vaguely of mothballs and despair.

"Time for the final tally, Elf Katie," Ronan’s voice boomed, startling me.

He didn't boom in a jolly way. He boomed in a ‘You have three seconds to comply, or I will calculate the precise velocity needed to launch you through the wall' kind of way.’ I am beginning to wish that I had taken the as a gift wrapper.

I looked at the clock. 7:02 PM. Shutting down the Head Santa station was the most satisfying part of the day, primarily because it meant Ronan Rourke had to stop pretending to be a figure of good cheer.

"All clear, Head Santa," I reported, trying to inject some professionalism into my exhausted tone. I snatched the clipboard with the day’s photo sales data. "Twenty-three melt-downs, seventeen instances of parents arguing over who gets the 'good angle,' and one child who asked if you could fix his mom’s broken-down Honda."

Ronan grunted, which was his version of a laugh. He was already shrugging out of the heavy red coat—a custom-tailored garment that somehow still managed to look menacing on him. Without the padding, he was just enormous. The contrast between the luxurious velvet and the sheer bulk of the man was jarring.

He was the worst kind of taskmaster. He didn't care about making wishes come true; he cared about efficiency. He timed the photo sessions, optimized the gift wrapping queue, and barked logistics commands at the other Santas like they were recruits in a boot camp. Bad Santa. That was my internal nickname for him.

"The Honda question," he said, pulling off the stiff white gloves. His hands, massive and scarred, were definitely the hands of a mechanic, not a toy-maker. "Did you tell the child that Rourke Customs doesn’t deal in cheap imports?"

"I told the child you were primarily focused on sleigh maintenance, Head Santa," I corrected dryly. "And that perhaps his father should consider a better warranty."

He gave me a sharp look, the kind that usually meant he was trying to decide if my sarcasm was worth docking my pay. "Efficient. Good."

He walked over to the supply closet and started meticulously folding the red coat, treating the cheap fabric like it was a priceless artifact. Control, always control. The man had to organize everything, even the synthetic beard hair.

"See you tomorrow, Elf Katie," he said, his voice instantly losing its theatrical boom and settling into a low, gravelly tone. The transformation was complete. Ronan the Santa was packed away. Ronan the Motorcycle King was back.

"Good night, Mr. Rourke," I replied, grabbing my bag. I couldn't wait to get home and scrub the faint, lingering scent of cheap peppermint tea out of my hair. I hurried out of the North Pole, leaving him in the quiet, empty hall, still folding things with unnerving precision.

He was exhausting. But at least he wasn't boring.

Ronan’s POV

The silence of the deserted North Pole headquarters was absolute now that she was gone. I zipped the red velvet coat into its garment bag with methodical precision, the sound unnaturally loud in the empty hall.

“I told the child you were primarily focused on sleigh maintenance, Head Santa.”

Her words echoed in my head. The dry wit, the complete lack of fear in her voice. She wasn't intimidated by the booming Santa persona, and more surprisingly, she didn't seem intimidated by the man underneath it, either. She saw the absurdity of it all and met it with a quiet, unshakeable competence that was as rare as it was infuriatingly intriguing.

I placed the hat and gloves in their designated boxes. Control. Everything in its place. It was the only way I knew how to function. In my previous life, as a ProDom, control was the entire point. I dictated the terms, the pace, the outcome. It was a structured world of command and response, of power given and power taken. But it had grown stale. The submission was always too easy, the participants too predictable in their needs. I grew bored of the game once I’d memorized all the moves.

Katie was not predictable. She followed my directives as Head Santa’s elf to the letter, but with an undercurrent of defiance that told me she was analyzing every command, judging its efficiency, and finding it lacking. She was a challenge. A puzzle box wrapped in a cheap felt tunic.

My phone vibrated in my pocket, a harsh buzz against my thigh. I pulled it out. A text from Marcus.

MARCUS: They’re pushing back. Said the midnight pickup is non-negotiable. It feels wrong, Ronan.

A familiar cold knot tightened in my gut. Of course, it felt wrong. It was wrong. This was a probe, a test of our defenses. The life I’d fought to protect Marcus from was creeping back in, chipping away at the fortress I’d built around us. My world—the shop, our safety—was under siege. The Santa job, this ridiculous escape, felt like a flimsy cardboard shield against a battering ram.

I needed a better anchor. A different kind of control.

And suddenly, the idea that had been a faint whisper in the back of my mind became a roar.

A contract.

A structured dynamic, away from all this. A world with rules I create, with a participant who is strong enough to handle them. A space where my need for dominance could be unleashed, not on terrified clients, but on someone who could meet my intensity with her own. Someone who wouldn't break.

Her employee file was in the administrative office. It was a breach of protocol, but protocol was for lesser problems. I found her number in under a minute.

I stared at the digits on my screen. This was a monumental risk. She could say no. She could report me. She could walk away and leave me with nothing but the lingering scent of her sarcasm.

But the alternative—letting the chaos of the outside world consume me without a single part of my life being under my absolute control—was unthinkable.