Page 161 of Lovely Venom

Raina and I shoot a look at each other. “That’s Fallon,” she whispers. “His neighbor.”

With all that happened in the last few months, I never got up there to meet her.

“And what does she mean, her father?” my wife whispers. “Who’s her father?”

“No idea. Rhys told me Trace checked her out.” I nudge her off my lap and quickly start redoing my belt. “Something’s not right.”

Raina adjusts her dress with a frustrated sigh. “This is what we get for trying to screw in public to knock down that kink list of yours.”

The list I made after readingherbooks.

“I can’t believe you’re actually forcing me to meet your father,” Rhys mutters, flipping through a book on Dirk’s counter. “D, how long will it take to tat a skull on my neck?”

“No!” Fallon says and glues herself to his body, arms wrapped around his torso.

My cousin goes absolutely rigid, and for the first time, I notice that his neighbor is a...bombshell.

He he...

“I cut my hair for you,” he says.

“Wait, what?” Raina elbows past me. “Holy fucking shit. He actually chopped it all off.”

“Daddy doesn’t like long hair,” Fallon says.

“Oh dear God,” I murmur. “Did he get her pregnant?”

“We should go out there.” Raina glances at me over her shoulder. “Someone needs rescuing.”

“Hang on.” I hold her back.

Rhys mutters something that sounds vaguely like a confession and definitely like regret. “I told you, I had to get a new tattoo as partof that deal.”

Pouting she says, “This is not what I had in mind when I said you need to do a couple’s errand with me.”

“I went ice skating with you,” Rhys says. “And remember, I’m just doing all of this to keep you quiet.”

Quiet for what?

“Doing what, Rhys?” Fallon looks adorably confused.

My cousin scrubs a hand down the back of his freshly shorn neck. “Please go sit and—”

“Can I sit on your lap?”

Looking closer, I see Fallon is wearing a sweater with embroidered poinsettias and a very short red plaid skirt that flares when she spins toward him. Her auburn curls bounce all around her.

“Not, right now.”

“Are you still mad at me because I bought us matching pajamas?” she says, arms crossed. “How else will my family know we’re a happy couple on Christmas if we’re not coordinated?”

“Christmas?” I mutter.

Last year, Rhys went back to Dublin for Christmas, and I assumed he’d take the same trip again this year. He does some kind of nature retreat every year. Now he looks like a man seconds away from detonation.

“I agreed to be your boyfriend for the holidays and—”

“Youaremy boyfriend,” Fallon says brightly. “Forever. And I have witnesses.”