Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 75107 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75107 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
“I guess I am,” I admitted, forcing myself to make eye contact with him. “I mean, totally no pressure. It’s fine if it’s not your cup of tea. It’s going to be fancy. Apparently, I have to wear a floor-length dress. But, yeah. If that’s not your thing, I can ask Craig if—”
“Don’t fucking ask Craig,” he cut me off, tone brooking no argument. “I’ll take you.”
“Really, no pressure. I don’t want you to feel like I’m cornering you or anything.”
“Babe, I’m a grown-ass man. You can’t corner me into doing shit,” he said. “I’ll take you to the party.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“Do you have a suit?”
“No. But I can get one.”
“I can pay for—”
“Abso-fucking-lutely not.”
He actually sounded offended that I’d offered.
“I’m the one asking you to—”
“Steph, you’re not paying for shit.”
He said that the same way that the stockbroker bro I’d dated once spoke about money. Like it was nothing. Which implied he had more than enough of it.
Was that Venezio’s thing?
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 were both thinking 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 the p, 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.”
“On?”
“The author’s preference. But mostly, the author’s budget. Two narrators cost more, so some only have me doing the whole book.”
He nodded at that, making me like him even more that he didn’t have something negative to say about the genre I mostly worked in.
“Never listened to an audiobook.”
“Honestly, me either. Until people started suggesting I get a job narrating them. Now I’m pretty obsessed, though. It’s so hard to find time to actually sit down and read. But I can pop on an audiobook when I’m shopping, cleaning, taking a walk, whatever.”
“Maybe I should give one a try. What’s the ‘steamiest’ one you’ve narrated?” he asked, pinning me with those cool eyes of his and making my mind go completely blank for a moment.
“Oh, um, there was one called Dancing with the Devil that was really steamy.”
“What’s it about?”
I mean, it was incredibly thin on the plot and heavy on the steam. “It’s about a sweet, innocent woman and the dirty-talking mob boss she ends up with.”
“Mob boss, huh?” he asked, shooting me a strange, bemused smile that I didn’t know him well enough to place. “Maybe I’ll check that one out,” he said, wiping his hands of pizza grease, then getting back to rolling coins.