“Okay, I’ll take it.”
“If you get a good lawyer, and I can put you in touch with one—he’s a grumpy fucker, but he’s a great lawyer and he owes me a favor—you could negotiate a bonus if the box office gross hits certain milestones. Like five hundred million and a billion worldwide.”
“I will definitely take that. You think it could make that much?”
He nods. “Question. How did you make money in New York during the pandemic?”
Random, but good question. “I did Zoom parties for kids. Virtual entertainment. I worked on optimizing the website and social media for that business, and it grew exponentially during lockdown.”
He leans in, but not to kiss me. “Thatbusiness? You have other businesses? Besides performing in the theatre?”
“Etsy store and other money gateways, yes.”
“I just—and I don’t mean this in a condescending way—I just don’t understand why you’ve always done these low-paying jobs when you could be running a studio someday.”
Surprisingly, I am not offended at all. His inability to understand how I choose to live my life—that used to be the reason I had so much friction with him. I thought he was so entitled. But he seems to really want to know why I do what I do now.
“I don’t want to run a studio,” I tell him. “I like every single revenue stream I have created for myself, and I’ve been saving since I started babysitting at the age of fifteen.” I watch his expression and wait for that to sink in before revealing the next thing. “I started investing in the stock market when I was eighteen. I have enough money saved for a twenty-percent down payment on a fourplex apartment building here in the LA area. In two years I’ll have enough for another fourplex. I am all about the passive income, baby. I’ve had it all planned out since I was twenty-one. By the time I’m fifty I’ll be able to retire if I want to. But I won’t want to because I like doing what I do.”
I can tell Elijah’s old-money brain is melting. He keeps blinking, and then he just says, “Wow.”
“Yeah. If you were worried about me struggling financially, you don’t have to worry about that.”
He stares at me in awe, shaking his head. “You are the most incredible person.”
“I know.”
He covers his heart with his hand. “Truly. I’m so glad Paxton paid you to be an elf at my ex-wife’s marriage reception.” He’s being funny, but I can tell the thought of Paxton is making him a little anxious again.
We could be here for a while, so I need to do something about that. I clocked a stash of absorbent paper towels and bottled water in here earlier for cleanup… “Me too. Come sit with me again.” I pat the floor next to me in front of the door.
He picks up the suit jacket he had removed, folds it, then plants a kiss on my lips before settling against the door.
I lean in toward him, nuzzling and then kissing his neck. He wraps his arm around me, his groan vibrating against my lips. I begin stroking his chest. His pecs feel so good, I have to unbutton his shirt because I remember getting a glimpse of some chest hair back in the day and I need to get my hands on everything that’s going on in there.
Bingo.
A perfect smattering of dark chest hair. I plant kisses below his collarbone and down, down, down.
“Back to driving me crazy, huh?”
“I was merely exploring your upper-front-torso quadrant. I can venture south, toward your lower-front-torso quadrant with my hand, if you’d like.”
“Yesssss. I would like.”
“I would also like…” I stroke him over the pants again, slowly and gently. He expresses gratitude with a very firm erection and a moan. His shaky inhale tells me I need to free the beast immediately, and I do that. I unzip and shepherd that big, bad boy out. It is the most handsome erection I have ever seen. For such a grumpy man, he has a remarkably pleasant-looking penis. And strong. Like the boner of a man from an empire of steel should be. His skin is so hot and stretched tight. I lightly drag my fingertips up the significant length of his shaft and then raise my hand to my mouth and wait for his heavy-lidded eyes to follow.
Holding his gaze, I lick up the palm of my right hand. And then the left, because this will be a two-hand job. I get to work stroking upward from his balls with both hands at the same time and then trailing each other, up and down the shaft, one after the other. Slowly, with a firmer grip each time.
“Fuck, I was so obsessed with you in film school.”
Gripping the base of his shaft with one hand, I give careful attention to the head with the other. “Yeah. Same.” Pulling, sliding, tugging at the most sensitive part.
There’s a super masculine, badass rumble at the back of his throat that turns into a really vulnerable sound that I love. “Why didn’t you come up to the hotel room? Huh? Why did you leave town without seeing me?”
“Call me old-fashioned, but I’d prefer to discuss that when I’m not in the middle of performing a low-key hand job.”
“Fair enough.”
