“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 himthe 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 himfeel 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?
