The Christmas Nemesis List by Dani Hall

Author:Dani Hall [Hall, Dani]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-11-05T16:00:00+00:00

16

HOLIDAY PARTIES

The drive to Ary’s parents’ house on Saturday went smoothly. We checked into my hotel and dropped my belongings off in the room before trekking over to the house. Ary kept his bag in the SUV, which made me purse my lips. He still wasn’t making any assumptions, and I didn’t have the nerve to ask him to stay with me. We’d shared one kiss. One hot, sexy-as-hell kiss that had me desperate for much more. I needed more of his mouth, his lips, his tongue, his hands.

When the large two-story house appeared in front of us, Ary seemed to relax a bit. The bottom of the house was brick, the top part of it slated with tan siding. While the house itself looked cozy enough, I couldn’t stop my jaw from dropping at the sheer number of lights and decorations that bedecked it. A rainbow of Christmas bulbs traced every edge of it: the porch, the railing, the roof, the chimney, the windows. There were five different inflatable characters blown up in the small front yard, along with LED figures such as reindeer, a snowman, and a Santa Claus lit up in white. There was a spectacularly large wreath with dark green branches and red poinsettias hooked on the front door.

“Wow. So, your people are like…really Christmassy.”

“It’s a long story,” Ary said affectionately, gazing at the spectacle of lights flashing with reds and greens and yellows and blues.

This house was a sense of home for him. And inside would be his rather large family, consisting of his parents, his older brother and younger sister, along with their spouses and all of their offspring. I had been trying to commit all of the names of the nieces and nephews to memory, but it proved a difficult task since I wasn’t able to attach a name to an actual face yet.

Ary pulled into the driveway behind a parade of other vehicles. He came around to open my door, and once I was solidly planted on the ground, he went to gather up the supplies we had brought. I had baked two dozen cookies for his family, six different flavor varieties, and had packed them neatly into two pink boxes.

A young woman opened the door before we’d fully made it onto the porch. She had dark brown, almond-shaped eyes that could’ve passed for black. Her hair was cut just above her shoulders, and the raven strands at the crown of her head gradually swept into a dyed caramel color, creating a beautiful ombré. Her appearance startled me, and I couldn’t place her as anyone I pictured.

She pulled me into a tight hug as my brain tried urgently to put the pieces together. When her torso pressed against mine, I felt a firm bump between us. I realized she was pregnant. Which couldn’t be right, because Ary’s sister was the one who was pregnant. Her baggy sweater with a gingerbread man on it hadn’t been snug enough for me to see the slightly protruding stomach before she’d essentially mauled me with affection.

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