“Nope, just personal.” He smirked, and I felt my stomach flip. God, that smile was a killer. “Sleepy, lazy sex in the morning, or half drunk, aggressive sex late at night?”
“Damn, that’s a hard one. I like both, for different reasons.” I tried not to think about Seven, about what he’d be like half drunk and aggressive, or sleepy and slow. “If I had to pick only one, for the rest of my life, I’d say sleepy morning sex.”
“Related, so not a new question. But, why?”
“It’s more…intimate, I guess. Don’t get me wrong, I like to have fun, but when it’s slow and sleepy and lazy, first thing in the morning, it’s just… better. I don’t know.” I had a vision of Seven in my head, naked with a sheet over his waist, half asleep, reaching for me, and I shuddered. My skin tingled. I could almost feel his big rough hand on my hip, pulling me toward him.
Down, girl.
He grinned, but it was more of a baring of teeth, feral and primal and eager. Hungry. He knew what I was thinking—he could see it in my eyes, I was sure. “A girl after my own heart, but don’t tell anyone else.”
“Your secret is safe with me,” I said, unable to stop a smile. “And why?”
“It’s unfiltered. Raw. I don’t mean that in the crass way, though. Raw, in that sense is…”
“Personal.”
“Connected. Deep. Real.”
I shivered, thighs squeezing together under the table. To be deep, personal, and connected with a man like Seven must be…intense.
“Again, not what I would have expected. I’m sorry if it seems judgmental of me.”
He shook his head. “Not at all. I am aware of a certain reputation I have. And to be fair, it’s not entirely unearned.” He sipped. His eyes bored into me. “Your turn.”
“What one nonsexual thing turns you on more than anything?”
He rocked back in his hair, nodding. “Good one.” He stirred his drink, fished a lime wedge off the top of the layer of ice, squeezed the juice out of it, dropped it back in. “Damn, though, that’s a really good question. Hard to answer. Really got to think about it.” He eyed me, searching me and thinking. “Okay, so this one is really gonna kill my status as a hard-ass. But. It’s nonsexual affection. The little shit. I’ve never been a relationship guy, and all I can say without it getting into heavy territory is that I’m just not, and I have reasons. But the few times I’ve been with a woman long enough for it to be a thing, when a girl, like…” he trailed off, shook his head. “I dunno how to even put it. The sissy, lovey-dovey shit. If I was bullshitting with my boys, I’d call it pussy-whipped bullshit, but since you’re a chick and this is real talk, I’ll give you the truth. Mainly because you seem…trustworthy, I guess. I like that shit. It makes me crazy. Playing with my hair, touching my shoulders—I don’t mean hanging off me like some trophy piece of ass on the red carpet, just…intimate touching. I don’t get it very much, and that shit turns me on like literally nothing else short of grabbing hold of me and going to town, know what I mean?”
Very much not what I expected.
“You?” He finished his drink and chewed on the straw.
“Smell.” I felt myself blushing a little. “Weird, maybe, but a man who smells good is an immediate turn-on. It’s not any one specific smell, and just bathing in cologne is definitely not what I mean. It’s a lot of things. Being clean, obviously. The right cologne in the right amount. Natural smells. If a man smells good enough, it can make me, like, unbearably horny.”
“Unbearably horny.” He gave me a heavy-lidded stare. “Good to know.” He smirked. “And how do I smell?”
I held his eyes. “Your scent was one of the first things I noticed about you.”
“One of, but not the first. So what was the first thing?”
“Well, our first interaction was on the phone, so your voice.”
“And do you have a thing for voices, too?” he asked, a cocky, teasing grin on his face.
“I mean, not really.” I’d finished my second glass, so I could possibly blame what I said next on that. “Not until I heard your voice, at least.”
“Kinda how I felt about redheads.” His grin widened, turned less teasing and more flirty, more seductive. “Didn’t know I had a thing about a particular hair color until I saw you.”
I couldn’t look away, felt myself being drawn in like a fish on a hook being reeled in. “What’s your next question?”
“You want dessert? Or drinks somewhere else?”
“No dessert. I wouldn’t mind stretching my legs a little, and maybe another drink.”
He just nodded, leaned back in his chair and dug into his hip pocket. Fished out a folded stack of cash, counted off way more than dinner could be even at a swanky place like this, and shoved the rest back into his pocket. “Ready when you are.”
Was I ready? I wasn’t so sure. If I spent another second in this man’s presence, the heat boiling in the pit of my stomach was going to explode into something wild and desperate and possibly embarrassing.
But yet.
We left his car in the care of the restaurant’s valet, parked in a corner by itself and cordoned off by big orange cones, and set out on foot.
“I know a place a few blocks from here,” Seven said. “It’s kind of off the beaten path, a bit of a dive, but the drinks are good, and it’s quiet. A locals-only kind of place. They know me there, so I can get left alone.”
“Is that a big thing for you, getting left alone in public?”
He shrugged. “I mean, I’m not Tom Cruise level famous, so I don’t get swarmed with paparazzi every time I step foot in public. I’m just a retired boxer and TV commentator. But I still get recognized, asked for autographs. Scenes like with that hostess. So yeah, finding somewhere I can just keep my head down and have a couple drinks in peace, it’s pretty nice.”
“You like being famous?”
“It has its perks. You’ll get this since you said you grew up poor too, but I honestly like the money more than the actual fame—I like knowing I’m set for life. As for fame, at first, having people know me and want to talk to me and have me sign things was cool. And it still is, in a way. But it’s exhausting. People think they know you. They think they have a right to you, to your time, your attention, to details about your life. It’s a trade-off.”
“I don’t think I could handle being famous. I’m a pretty private person.”
“That’s what’s funny—so am I. I didn’t set out to be famous, I set out to be the best goddamn fighter on the planet. I wouldn’t say I succeeded, I’m not that cocky. I’ll never put myself in the same category as Ali or Rocky Marciano or Joe Louis. Those guys really are the greats. But, I think I achieved a lot of what I set out for. And the fame just kind of…came with it, I guess.”
We walked and talked, then. Our hands brushed, our hips now and then. I smelled him, leather and spicy, musky cologne and clean male. Felt his heat, his bulk.
At some point in the walk, he grabbed my hand to guide me around a car blocking the sidewalk, putting himself between me and the car, and he didn’t let go after that. I noticed. He noticed. First date, and were holding hands.