Was he independently wealthy?
A decade ago, that would have seemed absurd for his age. But this was a new day and age. Maybe he made an app that sold for a fortune. Maybe he’d mined a bunch of crypto before it was a thing, sat on it, and sold it. Maybe he was a content creator who only worked a few hours a week yet somehow raked in millions. Hell, maybe he slapped on a horror movie mask and took off his clothes on one of those adult websites.
There was no shortage of ways to make money these days.
“Okay. Well… good. Thank you.”
“Don’t gotta thank me. So, when’s the party?”
“Next Saturday.”
“Cutting it close.”
“I know. But I know I can get the toys in time. And even if I have to wrap them all myself, I will get them ready for Christmas morning.”
“If anyone can, it’s you.”
“Thanks. My stubbornness comes in handy sometimes. So what are you still doing here so late?”
“Shipment tonight,” he reminded me.
“Oh! Right. Duh. Do you want help with it?”
“You’ve been on your feet all day.”
“You were the one falling asleep at the table.”
“Everyone else left almost two hours before. Bored shitless after forty-five minutes. I don’t sleep much anyway,” he added with a shrug.
“Really? I love sleep. And pre-sleep. And post-sleep. Basically, I really like being in my bed.”
“Yeah?” he asked, shooting me a look from the side that had my heart swooping and my sex tightening. And now we wereboththinking about other things that might happen in my bed.
“Why—” I started, having to stop to clear my throat when it sounded a little husky, “Why don’t you sleep?”
“Never really have. Parents used to fight a lot. The building was always loud all night too. Just got used to not getting much sleep. Three hours is plenty; toss in a twenty-minute nap here or there, and I can fucking take on the world.”
“Consider me appropriately impressed. I’m pretty grumpy if I don’t get five or six hours at least. Though, I’ve been getting less pretty consistently since Thanksgiving. Between this and my real job, I’ve been sacrificing sleep.”
“What’s your real job?”
“A narrator.”
“A narrator,” he repeated, brows pinched.
“I narrate audiobooks.”
“Yeah? What kind of books?”
“Mostly steamy romance, though I won’t turn down a good thriller or cozy mystery every now and again.”
He shot me another of those smirks of his, this one dripping in sex appeal. “Steamy, huh?”
“Yep,” I said, popping thep, ready for the usual comments about romance being low-brow or steamy books being the same as porn. I had arguments prepared for both instances. I just really didn’t want to have to argue with Venezio.
“You do both parts?” he asked.
“That depends.”
