Page 36 of The Santas Who Stole Me

“No. You did that; you didn’t need me. Georgie, you are such a badass. Please tell me you aren’t hurt. I should have stayed with you instead of loading shit. I was being selfish and wanted to hurry to get you home with me.”

“I’m okay, though, maybe I’ll have a nightmare later but for now. I’m …” She pauses, unsure how to finish her thought.

So I do it for her. “Proud of what you did?”

“Yes. I should feel bad hurting someone.”

“You defended yourself when someone put hands on you that you didn’t want. You amaze me more every day that I’m with you.”

She blushes at my compliment, but I can tell she likes that she made me proud.

“Calum, what the fuck? We try to go out for one nice evening and now I have to call for a cleanup.”

I turn to meet my brother, but before I can give him a warning. His steps falter when he sees Georgie clinging to me and glances at the scene on the ground again.

“He was pushing me, and I hit back. Sorry about the mess, Keeper,” she mumbles into my neck, not looking at him.

He steps over to the guy and turns the knife a little to the right before speaking in his ear. His body rigid with anger, the guy recoils at his voice as much as he did the knife twist. “You don’t touch things that don’t belong to you.” Keep steps over him the same way I did and rubs a hand along her back.

She stays attached to me but lifts her head up enough for him to run his thumb along her face.

I should be feeling weird about the closeness of my brother to us, since this is more intimate than when we all slept with her, but seeing him made her feel better, so I say fuck it.

In a blink Zeke is next to us scanning Georgie’s face and body for marks.

“She hit the fucker; the blood is from his nose. I’m so proud of you.” I nuzzle into her neck. I’ll say it a thousand times if it makes her feel better.

The guys add their agreements about how well she did. Zeke holds out his arms to take her from me like he would a baby.

She crawls over to him, and I laugh. Can you die from someone’s cuteness? I might.

“I’m okay, Zeke. He held me against the wall and tried to … I don’t even know what his plan was. Hitting him felt good though.”

“You did amazing Georgie. Let’s get you loaded in the car and back home. We can order takeout and get some rest,” Keeper says.

I know he wants her away from the fucker who is trying to crawl away. He’s not moving very quickly and hasn’t even tried to remove the knife. Pathetic really.

“No way, I want our tree, and I remembered something else we used to do at my house.” She pauses, then says, “Popcorn garland.” I am sure if she unwound herself from Zeke she would have used jazz hands when she said it. I won’t let this little prick ruin her fun.

“No idea what that is, cookie, but we can do it. Load up with Zeke and I’ll follow with the tree.”

She shrinks into Zeke trying to hide. Hair hangs from her face, but she doesn’t move to push it out of the way, shielding herself.

“I’ll deal with him too. Don’t give him a second thought.”

Zee nods in understanding that I’m going to kill him, so he carries her away.

She blows me a kiss over his shoulder on the way out. Keeper stayed back with me. As fucking pissed as I am that he thought he could touch my girl, this guy is seriously fucked with my brother here. Keeper is much more cruel than me.

I grin like crazy when he slams his boot to the back of the guy’s neck and pulls out the knife only to quickly place it in his other kidney again. This is the corner of the store, and it seems pretty slow this time of day, or maybe Zee closed the building down except for the guy in the back to help us load, but either way no one else is here. Not that Keeper would care. This is going to awaken her fears and play in her nightmares again. He drags the man over to the lighting section and wraps a cord around his neck. Sobs rack from his chest, and tears fall down his face.

“Keeper, enough with the theatrics; she is waiting for popcorn garland.”

“You’re lucky my brother lacks patience when it comes to our woman, or I would cut every inch of your skin off before hanging you.” Keeper is speaking the truth.

I’ve seen him do that before, and it’s as gross as you can imagine and takes forever. I’m not making my girl wait for that shit. He frays the end of the electrical cord before hoisting it up over a rafter at the top of the warehouse. I’m one second from starting to impatiently tap my foot. Fuck this for taking from my time with her. My balls have been aching for her all day. I shove my hand in my hair, pushing it back from my face, before I add the flame to the cord.

“No, please it was just some pussy, no need to do this.” He sniffles.