5. Seven #2
Ever gave him a sympathetic look and pet his head like he was a cat.
“Why didn’t you accept his offer?” Mal asked suddenly.
There was no judgment in his voice. There was no anything, really. It was like Mal was just satisfying his own morbid curiosity. Or maybe Enzo had asked him that, too.
“Why didn’t I agree to let him put me through college in exchange for being at his beck and call?” Seven asked, like the answer was obvious.
Wasn’t it?
“You did say the sex was, like, life-changing,” Shiloh reminded him. “Mind-blowing sex and not having to work some lame part-time job sounds like a pretty good deal.” When Levi hooked a brow at his boyfriend, he hastily added, “For you, I mean…obviously.”
“I’m sure that’s not what I said,” Seven grumbled, rolling his eyes.
“No, that’s exactly what you said,” Levi countered. “You were drunk on Jericho’s couch during movie night and very proudly told all of us that he’d made you come so hard you could now…what was it?”
“Speak Italian,” Ever answered, giggling.
“That’s right.”
“Damn, nobody has ever made me come so hard I learned another language,” Nico muttered. “That would have been handy for my language credit.”
“Is that why you can speak Russian now, Ever?” Shiloh teased.
Ever blinked at him, expression guileless. “No, I take classes twice a week.”
Levi and Nico snorted.
“Even so,” Seven said, dragging the attention back to himself. “That doesn’t mean I want to be his paid whore.”
Mal shrugged for a third time, looking bored. “If I had to be a whore, paid is better than not paid…right?” He looked at Nico for confirmation. “Law school’s expensive.”
Nico flushed. “Why are you asking me? Are you calling me a whore?”
Mal’s eyes went wide, and he shook his head rapidly, his cheeks flushing. “What? No? I—”
Nico was the only person who could pull that reaction from Shiloh’s brother.
“I mean, if the stiletto fits,” Levi muttered, pulling a face at his best friend.
“Eat my whole ass,” Nico shot back. “Before you met gumdrop there, you had more passengers than a New York City subway train.”
Ever gasped, covering his mouth with his hand, looking at Levi with doe eyes. “Really?”
“He’s exaggerating,” Levi muttered, looking at Shiloh who was now studying him like a bug under a microscope.
When the laughter died down, Mal looked at Seven. “Would you do it for free?”
“I-I honestly don’t know…” he admitted. “Calling a guy Daddy and being a contracted submissive are way different. I’ve read up on it a little, but I don’t really know…well, anything, really. It seems really fucking intense.”
“Doesn’t his brother own a sex club?” Levi asked. “Maybe talk to him.”
Seven gawked at him like he’d grown a second head. “You think I should ask Enzo’s brother about being a submissive?”
“You are having dinner with him tonight,” Shiloh pointed out.
“And our parents,” Seven fired back.
Ask Enzo’s brother about being a submissive?
That was fucking insane. That was weird.
Wasn’t it? Did Seven even want to know what went into it?
Would it matter? Would Seven ever want to play like that with someone else?
He had liked the power exchange. Not having to think…
being told what to do… He’d been floating on the ceiling by the time it was over.
Nico had called it subspace. Seven had tried to look it up, but then he remembered there really was no point.
Maybe that would have been part of Enzo’s “training program.” What the fuck had that even meant?
Training him. That had bothered him more than anything.
Had he not done a good enough job that night?
Why had he even wanted a repeat if he wasn’t what Enzo wanted?
Mal shrugged. “I’m just saying, you seem to have questions and, in a couple of hours, you’ll have access to someone who sounds like an expert.”
Seven sighed. “I’ll…think about it.”
“It’s not too late to run, Mama,” Seven muttered under his breath, standing outside the Conti’s enormous Tuscan-style mansion.
Seven’s mother gave him the look. The one that told him not to push his luck. He huffed, scooting closer to her, preparing to use her as protection if necessary. When he looked at her again, she was shaking her head like he was being ridiculous.
Of course, she would think he was ridiculous.
She’d helped sell him out. What could Francesca Conti have said to his mother to get her to go along with this?
He knew the woman was persuasive, but his mother wasn’t exactly someone who was easily swayed.
In any direction. Except when it came to his low-life father.
Seven sighed inwardly, then looked down at his fitted black cargo pants and cream-colored pullover, plucking an imaginary piece of lint from the fabric.
If not for Felix, Seven would have arrived in his version of casual, his usual jeans and hoodie combo.
Both his mother and Felix had balked at the idea.
When his friend had heard he would be interning at one of the biggest law firms in the country, he’d sent over an entire new wardrobe free of charge, because that was just the type of person Felix was.
It wasn’t that Seven didn’t know how to dress himself when it mattered.
He just didn’t have a lot of money to throw at things like fancy clothes.
He had to help his mother with rent. He had to cover all the school expenses his grants didn’t.
Maybe he should have just agreed to be Enzo’s temporary bed-warmer.
His insides curdled at the thought. It wasn’t the sex.
It wasn’t even really the money…though that did make him feel some type of way.
It was how easily Enzo had used words like “trained” and “submissive.” How he’d basically told him to have zero expectations.
Seven had spent most of his life expecting nothing from a man who was supposed to care for him.
He loved his mother more than anything in the world, but he refused to become her, waiting on someone who thought of him as nothing but a placeholder.
He’d watched his father drain the happiness out of his mother for too long, leaving her a shell of herself.
He glanced over at her. Despite everything, his mother looked effortlessly chic. Felix had offered to dress her, but his mother had refused. She found her pleasure in taking thrift store finds and turning them into one-of-a-kind pieces, just like what she wore now.
Her off-the-shoulder black silk blouse showed off her golden skin, and the pleated balloon pants she wore would have looked ridiculous on ninety percent of the population, but not her.
Her black hair was cut into blunt bangs and a razor sharp bob that rested just past her perfect jawline, accentuated by her dangly gold earrings.
She’d finished her look with tons of gold bracelets, three necklaces, and a scorpion ring that showed off her long, slender fingers.
She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, even after all she’d been through.
“You’re staring,” she said as she reached up to ring the doorbell.
“Sorry,” Seven said. “You just look really pretty, Mama.”
She bumped her shoulder into his. “Thank you, habibi.”
Francesca Conti chose that moment to fling open both of the double doors before them, clapping her hands together with delight when she saw them. “You’re here,” she cried, as if they were old friends.
“Francesca,” his mother said, stepping into the foyer.
The two women embraced, exchanging cheek kisses. Mama Conti held his mother at arm’s length. “You always look stunning.”
Always? Did they…actually know each other?
“Says you,” his mother countered. “I love that dress.”
Francesca looked down at her white shirt dress. “It has pockets,” she said, then demonstrated this by shoving her hands into said pockets and twirling. “I found it at that vintage shop on Everly Street. The one with all the Jimmy Choos in the window.”
“Oh, I love that place,” his mother said.
“We should go together when we both have a day off,” Mama Conti suggested.
His mother nodded, giving a genuine smile. “We could do lunch, too.”
“It’s a date,” Mama said as a man joined them. “Oh, there you are, amore mio.”
The man had an expensive haircut, whiskey-colored eyes, and a black beard with two stripes of silver on either side of his mouth. He was, objectively speaking, smoking hot.
“This is my husband, Dario,” she said, snuggling into his side. “These are the two I was telling you about. This is Seven and his mother, Neith. Aren’t they beautiful?”
Husband? He didn’t look much older than Seven’s mom. And while Francesca was far from old, she was most definitely a decade older than his mother and, apparently, her own husband. Or maybe he just looked young for his age. Either way, Seven bet it was Dario who was the lucky one.
“Welcome to the chaos,” Dario said by way of greeting, sweeping his arm grandly towards the noise in the distance. “Most everyone is already here, but we’ll try not to overwhelm you.” He looked at his wife. “Right?”
Mama laughed her bell-like laugh, then waved him off like he was silly.
That was when Seven remembered he was holding a bottle of wine.
He thrust it towards Dario, who took it with a nod and a blinding smile.
Seven felt like he’d fallen into some kind of chick flick where everyone was hot and cultured.
Once inside, Seven’s stomach growled as he was hit full force with the scents of olive oil and garlic. Fuck, he was starving but far too nervous to eat. Stupid fucking Enzo. If Seven wasn’t so preoccupied worrying about seeing him, he could enjoy what he was sure would be a feast.