Casper Gets His Wish (6 page)

Of course, Casper thought, without much fire at all, without anything but a kind of dazed horror. He was never having a nog binge again. He pushed away from Dmitri—from
Hollyberry
—to jerk at his clothes, his
wrinkled
, wrinkled from Dmitri’s
hands
, tux. He felt the pounding ache of frustration in every inch of his body, especially a particular few inches.

“Casper.” Dmitri’s voice was rough, but Casper couldn’t look at him. He felt pathetically obvious in how much he wanted Dmitri. Dmitri knew it now, if he hadn’t already. Which he might have, Casper now realized, and grew even colder.

“You’ve had your fun at my expense, as usual. I think we’re done here.” He was surrounded by snow and for the time in his life, it made him shiver and wish he lived somewhere nearer to the Equator. He crossed his arms and raised his chin. “From now on, I expect your paperwork in a timely manner.”

“Oh really?” Dmitri didn’t budge. He was frowning, truly frowning, at Casper’s expression, or maybe his words. “That’s it? Casper Silverbell has spoken?”

“Do we really need to see more of each other?” Casper managed. Ice and snow had nothing on him. But if anything, Dmitri just looked even more pissed off, and then determined.

Casper reminded himself he didn’t care what that was about.

Dmitri considered him for another moment. Then he shrugged. “Not if you don’t want to,” he agreed easily enough, and inexplicably, Casper felt thrown. If
he
didn’t want to?

“What?” He swallowed the taste of eggnog, this time from Dmitri’s mouth. “What do you mean?” he started to demand, only to be confused again when Dmitri straightened his bowtie and looked right at him with that damn twinkle in his eyes. Casper scowled, and felt a tiny, thin, rush of heat return to him. “Take me seriously.”

He stepped in, his mouth open to tell Dmitri Hollyberry
exactly
what he thought of him, only to realize
exactly
what that was. He shut his mouth.

Dmitri looked amused, as always, but his sigh was tired. “It means use your imagination, Casper.”

“I don’t have one, as you well know,” Casper snipped, whisper quiet.

“I don’t know that actually.” Dmitri leaned in, his breath warm, his words slowing. “But okay, it means I take you
very seriously
, Mr. Silverbell, and I’ve been wishing….”

“What?” Casper couldn’t help asking, his cheeks hot as the doors swung open and he had to step sideways to get out of the way. He saw the jolly red and white outline of a full-figured man and heard, dimly, over his internal embarrassment, the Big Guy explaining that Dmitri was urgently needed inside, something about making a speech. He didn’t give Dmitri a chance to put it off but shoved him through the door. Then he looked at Casper.

Casper straightened.

“You’ve been very good this year, Casper,” Santa murmured, his mouth a droll little bow, his cheeks roses, his dimples merry.

Then, laying a finger aside of his nose, and giving a rather broad wink, he left, and Casper realized, with complete and utter mortification, that the Big Guy had known his wish after all.

–

It was impossible to get any sleep after that, but work was work, and it was the end of another month, and so exhausted, hungover, and sexually frustrated, Casper came into work anyway.

Most hadn’t bothered. But it was an important time for him and staying at home would have meant more dwelling on that kiss, and what Dmitri had meant. Casper loved math, but thinking about Dmitri made him long for a bit more imagination, because all he could think was….

No. No matter what the Big Guy had hinted.

So for the entire day he’d stayed in his office, drinking coffee and reviewing each department’s paperwork.

Every department but one. He wasn’t sure if he was more hurt or angry, but he definitely wasn’t waiting or lingering until the afternoon in case a binder from downstairs might appear, perhaps carried in personally. When it was finally sent up, via the mailroom, he furiously jammed it in at the bottom of the pile and refused to look at it for another few hours.

He thought that he should allow Gift Development’s budget get filed as it was and let that department panic when they received no funds for the next month. He would watch
them
freak out and storm into
his
office as they realized how much they needed him, an accountant, to watch over them. But that idea seemed childish in the extreme and he’d had enough embarrassment to last for a few decades.

But when there was nothing else to do, he opened up the binder. Then he stared, and blinked, and then stared again. He pulled out his glasses and put those on, but the information in front of him did not change.

A moment after that and he was on his feet and out the door, disbelief, shock, and total fury carrying him to the elevator and making sure he barely paused when the doors opened to let him out into this floor of Gift Development.

Of course
none of them had come in today. The floor was empty except for an unsurprised-looking Miss Pinebough. 

“Mr. Silverbell,” she greeted him with a smile, and then grabbed her purse and hightailed it to the elevator. Casper nodded in return and carried on.

He slammed Dmitri’s office door open and heard it hit the sugar glass and then swing closed behind him. Dmitri was at that magnificent desk he kept well-polished yet buried in crap, working for once, and Casper stalked over to him and dropped the binder. Then he flipped through it and yanked out some papers to wave in the other elf’s face.

Dmitri, very slowly, pulled a candy cane from his mouth and set it down on the desk. The sticky sweet scent in the air did not soothe Casper’s nerves. Neither did the way Dmitri licked the taste from his lower lip as Casper raised his voice.

“Did a
child
do this math? Were you out of crayons?” he accused as scathingly as he could. “As if I needed any further proof of how little you think of me and what I do!” With a flourish, he handed the papers over.

Dmitri took them. Without looking away from Casper, without taking his intense, shining gaze away from Casper’s face, he tossed the papers onto his desk and then reached over to hand a different binder to Casper.

With a huff, Casper took it. He had to tear his eyes away from the infuriating curve to Dmitri’s full lips and the memory of them on his to glance through the binder. He flipped through it, all the while realizing quickly, if still furiously, that it was same paperwork, but filled out correctly this time. Beautifully and anally put into proper sequence and filled in with such an attention to detail that any other day, he might have sung in exultation and repeated the sounding joy.

But he looked through it, checking it twice, making sure every ‘i’ had been dotted, every ‘t’ crossed. He shook his head in confusion and then slammed the binder down anyway. It felt good.

“What are those supposed to mean? You did it wrong on purpose? I swear you
like
to make me see red!” He stopped to gasp at Dmitri’s sudden, blinding smile. “You like to make me see red!”

The twinkling eyes. The heavy breathing and close talking. The smiling. Oh dear. It was all adding up very clearly, and in the right column this time.

“You might think you’re lacking in imagination, but I think you make up for it in other ways. And if you pretend you don’t know what that means, it means you’re smart, you’re sincere, and you’re very pretty when you’re angry,” Dmitri spoke at last, and Casper knitted his brow.

“Lacking!” He repeated in a huff, equator-hot all over as he ignored every ridiculous word and how it made heart go rum-pa-pum-pum in his chest. “I beat your new game in a matter of hours.” He’d been up all night, but Dmitri didn’t need to know that. In fact, Dmitri immediately sat up, unhappy for perhaps half a second and then grinning again.

“Of course you did.”

“Don’t patronize me, Hollyberry!” Casper crossed his arms, messing up his tie.

“I’m not. Lumps of coal, but you’re a touchy little smart ass.” It was absolutely horrible how Dmitri said that, like he found it
endearing
.

“I’m losing my mind and my temper and you! You find it….” Casper stumbled and Dmitri leaned back. 

“Amusing?” He supplied. “Adorable? Arousing?”

Casper was burning up and pulled at his tie, only to immediately hate himself for it and how the action made Dmitri light up. “I’ll be whatever I want to be, thank you,” he insisted crisply.

Dmitri shrugged. “As long as you aren’t like this with the other departments you oversee. I am special, right?” He looked so serious and sincere at that, that Casper’s heart thumped again. He covered it with a scowl and a few steps to get closer, moving around the desk.

“I don’t
have
to be like this with anyone else,” he explained in a perfectly calm, albeit loud and exasperated, shout.

Naturally, that elicited a twinkly-eyed response. “I knew I was special.”

“You arrogant, creative…
artist
!” Casper made it a swear word as he came around the desk, then stopped when another step would have had him tumbling into Dmitri’s lap. But it was too late. Dmitri reached up and pulled him forward by the heart-shaped candy cane silk print of his necktie. Which Casper had pulled out from his waistcoat just seconds ago, as though he’d wanted Dmitri to do that very thing.

His leather dress shoes hit the tips of Dmitri’s ratty canvas and Casper frowned and shook his head. He reached out, hooking his fingers into Dmitri’s collar and drawing him up to his feet, leading him closer and kissing him before he had to hear another stupid word.

Dmitri more than met him halfway, groaning when Casper slid his hands through his hair to keep him close. A kiss shouldn’t burn like this, Casper thought, even as he panted for it and angled his head back. It shouldn’t make him yearn and think he might never have enough. Dmitri seemed similarly conflicted. His kisses didn’t stop, they grew more urgent. Casper’s back hit polished oak. His suit would be mussed, he was aware of that. He didn’t much care.
Eight maids-a-milking
, Dmitri was quick with buttons.

“That’s it, Hollyberry. That’s it,” Casper ordered, snarling between kisses because he had waited ten years for this. Dmitri had sticky hands and a peppermint-flavored tongue. He groaned when Casper pulled his hair and then urged him down, his fingers tugging at pinstripes and rumpled clean white cotton. Casper wrapped his legs around him. “Like that. Get my fudging clothes off already, Hollyberry, or I’ll do it myself.”

Dmitri’s amusement was as hot as his response, nodding and following each command as though he’d been waiting for them. “Fuck yeah, Casper. Whatever you say.” He swore like a human and Casper loved it. He got Casper’s suit open, his pants down, while Casper was exploring under his thin t-shirt, discovering sensitive skin and metal piercings to go with the swirled ink. Another human touch, and for that, when Dmitri wouldn’t stop whispering in his ear, fogging up his glasses, “Did you wear these for me? My wish, Casper, is what you are. So sewn up and tidy, but that’s just the surface,” Casper told him to shut up and kiss him again, he was dying here.

And after that, when he was on fire and aching, he closed his eyes and thought of glaciers to keep from coming apart.

“Are you
just
going to kiss me? Where’s that vision of yours?” Casper inquired as coolly as he could with his voice rough and his fingers curled into all that ink, only to fight back a moan when Dmitri grabbed his hips and yanked him closer. Casper finally understood the purpose of that loose belt when Dmitri’s pants fell easily to the floor. A moment later and Dmitri was doing things with his fingers that put him on Casper’s Nice list for the next thousand years at least.

Casper reached out blindly, sweeping just about everything off the desk but the piece of candy cane still wet from Dmitri’s mouth. It stuck to his hand, sticky and lightly sweet. Casper popped it in his mouth and then drew it out slow, rather enjoying the surprised groan from above him. He opened his eyes.