#Sundaysnippet A KISS UNDER THE CHRISTMAS LIGHTS #holidayromance #holidaytbrlist

To celebrate the opening of my 2022 Holiday website book store, every Sunday I’m going to post snippets of the books available to purchase in the store.

Today is an oldie but a goodie. From my first SAN VALENTINO holiday book, A KISS UNDER THE CHRISTMAS LIGHTS

Can a kiss stolen under the Christmas lights persuade her to spend the rest of her life with him?

            He came toward me and I could see every ripple of muscle, every action and reaction of his gait, every blink of his eyes, as it happened. Detailed, distinct, delicious.

            The bright sun shone low due to the hour, but it haloed around his form, bathing him in light.

            He looked like an angel.

            A dressed-all-in-black angel, but an angel, nonetheless.

            “Need some help?” he asked when he was within a foot of me.

            I still hadn’t moved, my fingers cemented around the ladder rungs. I couldn’t feel them anymore. Merda, I couldn’t feel anything I was so numb from just looking at him.

            But I could hear. My blood, as it river-rafted crazily through my temples; my heart drumming like a heavy metal band in my chest.

            And his voice. Mio Dio, his voice.

            When I was six I had a terrible chest cold. Wheezing, choking on phlegm, unable to cough anything up. The doctor told mama to keep me warm and hydrated and the cold would ride itself out in time. Nonna Constanza, ancient even when I was a kid, scoffed and prescribed her own old-world remedy. She sat me in her lap, cooing to me with her singsong voice and held a tiny shot glass up to my lips coaxing, “Tu bevi, Gia bambina. Tu Bevi.”

            Drink, Gia baby. Drink.

            She tilted the glass back into my mouth and I did. I drank every drop.

            I don’t remember much after. Daddy told me later I slipped into a mini-coma for about sixty-two hours, bombed out of my head from the anisette nonna had dosed me with.

            But this is what I do remember. The amber-colored liquor slipped down the inside of my mouth to the back of my throat and onward into my belly, tasting of melted marshmallows and warming each place it touched like a million little hits of heat popping everywhere inside me. When it reached my tummy it settled and dug in, filling my senses with the sweet flavor of mama’s Sunday morning caramel rolls and sugar.

            That’s what his voice sounded like: warm and sweet, thick, delicious, and soothing.

            My entire body relaxed when I heard it. My paralysis flew and my frozen-in-place digits melted.

            He’d held my stare the entire time, never wavering, never becoming distracted by something else. He looked straight at me; just me. Like a missile dead-eye-aimed for a target.

            “Here,” he said, moving in closer, so close I could make out the actual color of his eyes now. I’d thought they were dark and from far away and they were. But seeing them now, face-to-face, I spotted little flecks of yellow and slivery shards of gold mixed into the center and surrounded by a ring of deep, rich, mink.

            If his voice was warm and soothing, his eyes were hot enough to singe, and mama mia, I wanted to be burned.

Honestly – I love this book and this family sosos much!

To order the book directly from my bookstore, click this link: WEBSITE BOOKSTORE