Autumn Rolls a Seven (Billionaire Baby Club Book 2)

by Jasinda Wilder

  He winked at me. “Well, let’s get you home and see how close to forty-seven we can get you before you pass out and beg me to stop.”

  I bit my lip and shifted in my seat. “I can categorically state that I’ve never had to beg anyone to stop giving me orgasms.”

  “Me either, but there’s a first time for everything, right?”

  I laughed. “True. I’m guessing I’ll get to…oh, say…five, before I start to get overloaded.”

  He snorted derisively. “As if I’d settle for anything less than a round dozen.”

  “If you can give me twelve orgasms, Seven St. John, I’ll…well, I don’t know what I’ll do, but you’ll really enjoy it.”

  He gunned the engine. “Sexy girl, you just threw down a challenge. And there’s one thing you should know about me.” A wicked smile. “I never back down from a challenge.”

  11

  We took our time getting back, stopping at a little cafe with a seaside view and killer burgers, local beer on draft, and live music—an acoustic duo featuring a large, bearded man with a twelve-string guitar and a hipster with a slouchy beanie and a Van Dyke beard playing a cajon. Seven and I lingered over beer and the last few fries, listening to the music, enjoying the sunset and the music and the quiet easeful nearness of each other.

  We talked endlessly, and of nothing of any importance. Favorite live shows, favorite bands for working out, running, and concentrating. Not surprisingly, we had drastically different musical tastes. He liked rock and heavy metal and old-school gangsta rap, while I preferred pop and modern hip-hop. But we did, in a surprise twist, intersect on the subject of Debussy. His father taught him the rhythm and the dance of boxing footwork by making him practice footwork while listening to “Clair de Lune.” I discovered the study session power of classical music, and that song in particular became a prominent favorite, often played on repeat while I crammed for exams.

  Eventually, after sipping the same last quarter of a beer for an hour, we finished them and headed for the parking lot. It was dark by then, and cooling off quickly.

  “You gonna be warm enough?” Seven asked, as we got into the Scout. “I don’t even have the top to put on, so…”

  I shrugged. “I’ll be fine.”

  “Hold on.” He held up a finger, hopped out and went around to the back of the truck, reached into the cargo area. I hadn’t even noticed, but apparently he had a duffel bag back there; he produced a black sweatshirt and brought it back with him, handing it to me. “Here. You’ll get cold once we get moving, and the heater can only do so much against the wind.”

  I held it up—it sported the logo of a boxing association. It was huge, thick, and heavy. I had piled my hair up into my ball cap rather than trying to fight the tangles from being dunked in the brine of the sea, so I took the hat off, shook my hair out, shrugged into the hoodie, and replaced my hair up into the hat. Immediately, I was warmer—it smelled like Seven, and felt like wearing a fleece blanket. Of course, it was so big Zoe could have fit inside it with me, with room left over.

  I laughed, shaking the sleeve at him, as a good foot of sleeve dangled past my fingertips. “This thing is huge, Seven. I mean, I know you’re a pretty massive dude, but even for you, this thing is big.”

  He laughed. “I got it free at an event, and they only had triple XL left. Go to enough boxing events over a twenty-year career, you tend to accumulate shit like that. I’ve got storage bins full of boxing swag. I just keep a hoodie or two in any car that’s convertible, ’cause you only get caught freezing your ass off once.”

  “What else you got in that bag?” I asked. “Just curious.”

  “A couple gallons of water, a couple wool blankets, a battery-less flashlight, a small amount of emergency cash, and…I think that’s it. Well, the hoodie you’re wearing, and another one pretty much identical, from a different event.”

  “Smart. I probably should keep an emergency bag in my car, but I never get around to it. And honestly, I’m rarely anywhere but urban areas.”

  “I do actually use this for off-roading sometimes. Me and some of my workout buddies all have vintage four-by-fours like this, and we take a yearly trip out to Moab for off-roading and trail running and hiking and all-around macho hijinks.”

  “I was wondering something.” I glanced at him, biting down on a smirk. “Have you ever done the Rocky thing?”

  He snorted. “Would you be shocked to learn that I have? I went all out. I had a match in Philly, so of course I decked myself out in all gray sweats, got myself lookin’ like my guy Rocky, and did a run that ended on those steps, with the fist-pumping and everything. I guess I looked pretty stupid, because people posted some videos of it on social media. I got made fun of online for it, but there were plenty of people who also thought it was pretty funny. But I mean, I am a boxer, and is there any greater movie hero for a boxer than fuckin’ Rocky goddamn Balboa? I think not.”

  “I mean, I feel like if you’re a boxer and you’re in Philly, you kinda have to do the running up the steps thing.”

  “At least you agree with me.”

  I patted his thigh. “I promise, Seven, your secret inner dork is safe with me.”

  He grinned at me. “Why do you think I feel comfortable even sharing my secret inner dork with you? How many people you think I show that side of me to?”

  “Not many?”

  “About as many people as I’ve shared the details of my childhood with. Which is between zero and one, the one being you.”

  “So, what would you say your biggest dork secret is?”

  He sighed, making a thoughtful, musing whistling noise between his teeth. “Not sure I’m ready to reveal that. It’s pretty stupid.”

  “Well hell, now you have to tell me.”

  He tipped his head back and laughed. “Fine. But you can’t tell a soul.”

  “Seven, I already promised you all your secrets are safe with me. I meant it.”

  He twisted his fists on the steering wheel. “I’m a crazy Harry Potter fan. Like, it’s embarrassing.”

  I covered my mouth. “I promised to not tell anyone—I never promised not to laugh.” I broke out in laughter. “You’re a Harry Potter fan? For real?”

  He sighed, almost sadly. “Yes. I have the whole series in autographed first edition hardcover. I have a Gryffindor scarf that was used in the actual movie as well as one of the broken wands used by Daniel Radcliffe in the movie.” He couldn’t help laughing at himself. “God, I can’t believe I’m telling you this. I went to a signing in London, and I got my agent to get me a private…uh, audience, I guess you could call it, with J.K. Rowling afterward, so I could get her to sign my books without being surrounded by people. Even then, I went into the bookstore in disguise, through the back door.”

  “You’re, like, a super fan.”

  “Yes.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “So now you’re going to make fun of me?”

  I wanted to tease him, dearly I did. But I could tell he was trusting me with something that he was probably pretty sensitive about. And one thing I’ve learned about men is that no matter how big, bad, rough, and tough, no matter how wealthy or successful, he’s got a delicate little ego. And the bigger the ego, the easier it is to puncture it.

  But I got the feeling that with Seven, he didn’t have a puffed-up ego, but he also didn’t let people in very easily, so teasing him about this would be a mistake.

  “No, I’m not going to make fun of you. I wouldn’t. There’s nothing embarrassing about that.”

  He snorted. “Yeah, there is. I’m in one of the most macho industries on the planet. I literally beat up people for a living. Admitting to anyone in my industry that I’m a fan of kiddie magic books would be a kiss of death to my reputation and thus my entire career.”

  “I understand that. But I’m not in your industry, and I wouldn’t ever share personal information about you with anyone.” I fed the end of one sleeve into the other so the sleeves formed one long tube, folding my hands
together inside it. “I mean, some stuff I might talk to my girlfriends about. But I’m not an over-sharer.”

  He shrugged. “Girls talk, I know that and I’m fine with it. As long as it doesn’t go beyond the six of you.”

  After that, the ride was quiet for long stretches, punctuated by meandering conversation. Which was, like the casual physical intimacy, something I was finding unusual.

  At some point, his hand came to rest on my upper thigh, casually, gently, affectionately; my hand lay on top of his, fingers intertwined with his.

  Hood up to block the wind from slicing across my ears, sleeves folded up about a dozen times, I was warm and cozy, satisfied to just sit with Seven in silence, watching the seaside slide past my right shoulder, hearing the occasional crash of waves over the rush of the wind past the windshield. If I’d had somewhere to rest my head, I probably would’ve dozed off, and as it was, I felt my eyes sliding closed, head nodding forward, and then I’d blink and jerk awake.

  “Tired, hmm?” Seven murmured in a low soft rumble.

  “Uh-huh,” I managed, around a yawn. “You’re exhausting.”

  “We’re almost back to your place.”

  I think I did doze off, then, because I blinked and we were pulling into my building parking lot. I blinked again, and Seven was opening my door.

  “Come on, babe. I’ll carry you up.”

  I snorted and levered myself out of the Scout. “I’m not three, I can walk.”

  He just shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

  I did lean heavily on him, resting my head on his shoulder on the elevator ride up to my floor, and then his arm around my waist supported me on the walk to my door. I fished my keys out of my purse, got the door unlocked, and stumbled in, tossing my purse onto the nearby table and kicking off my sandals.

  That far, and no farther, apparently, would my body go. “Okay.” I turned to him, pressed up against him, nuzzled my nose into the base of his throat, locked my arms around his shoulders, and sagged. “Now you can carry me.”

  He chuckled, a buzz of a laugh I felt more than heard. “Made it this far, can’t make it another twenty feet, huh?”

  I shook my head. “Nope.” I felt him crouch, hands wrapping under my ass, and then he lifted me as easily as he might a child. “Actually, I just couldn’t be seen being carried unconscious into my building yet again. Tommy and my neighbors might think I’m an alcoholic or something.”

  He held me in place with one arm barred under my buttocks, and with his other hand smoothed slow circles over my back, into my hair, cupping my nape under the mass of my hair. “Actually, that I do understand. There was a period of time where I was being hauled up to my condo by my friends nearly every night of the week. A neighbor actually filed a complaint about it.”

  I felt the transition from living room to bedroom in the change of the echo of his voice, and then he was settling on the edge of the bed with me on his lap. “What changed? It doesn’t seem like you party like that anymore.”

  “I don’t, and I dunno—it was a combination of things. A friend of mine, a guy a few years older who was kind of a mentor to me as a boxer, he retired and had nothing to fall back on, no hobbies, no interests, nothing to do. So he drank. And drank, and drank. I watched him over the course of a year go from a beast of a man who at forty-five years old could have torn apart any boxer half his age and barely broken a sweat doing it, to a fat drunk slob, going broke and being divorced. And I also got that complaint, which was embarrassing, needless to say, because anything about me goes public, so I got ripped up in the media. Plus, I was just sort of realizing that drinking wasn’t actually helping anything. I was still angry. Still lonely. Still bitter. Waking up hungover wasn’t helping, if anything it was making it worse. I’d be cranky all day until I could get hydrated enough, or more likely, get to my next drink. I wouldn’t say I was at the point of alcoholism, but I would classify it as becoming a major problem. Or maybe there’s a spectrum for addiction, and I was on it, just on the milder side or whatever.”

  “You obviously didn’t quit drinking entirely.” I was just sitting on his lap, head nestled against his chest, his arms around me, clasped low at the small of my back.

  “Actually, I did. I hired a therapist to come to my house once a week, and I went totally dry for six months.”

  I pulled back and gazed up at him. “You did?”

  “Uh-huh. I had to know that I could.”

  “And the therapy?”

  “Just talking through the old shit, you know? My mom, her addiction, her death, foster care, my weird relationship with my dad, fame.”

  “Fame?”

  “Yeah, fame. It’s hard, man. People don’t know. It’s so much pressure, so much responsibility. It’s actually worse in some ways now that I’m on ESPN and Fox Sports and whatever, commentating. Every word I say is scrutinized. When I was boxing, every public appearance was critiqued. And as I passed thirty years old and crept up into mid-thirties, my physique started to get picked apart. I know it’s nothing like what you women go through, especially women in the public eye, but as a male whose job entailed being half naked on TV in front of millions of people, my body was subject to a lot of criticism, especially as I got older. ‘Is he getting fat? I think his arms are smaller, he’s losing muscle mass. He’s slowing down, why hasn’t he retired already? Is it me, or is that once-mighty cross of his not as effective as it used to be?’”

  “Wow, that’s harsh.”

  “Yeah. And you can’t respond. Responding just pours fuel on the flames. So I’d work harder, cut harder and bulk harder. Work the bag until my knuckles bled through the tape.” I felt him flex his fist. “Eventually, I had to face facts—I was slowing down. I mean, it’s relative. I was still competitive. I could still win. But I was unbeaten, a perfect record with only a few draws in my earliest years on the pro circuit. So I had to ask myself, did I want to keep boxing and risk ruining my perfect record, or did I want to retire on my terms, and preserve my legacy?”

  “So you retired.”

  “Yup. Hardest fuckin’ decision of my life. I loved boxing, Autumn. Loved every second of it. I loved the training, I loved the crowds, the little zing of fear before a fight. But the fights themselves, man, I fuckin’…I lived for the fights.”

  “Think you’ll ever come out of retirement? Like one more fight, for charity or a big paycheck or something?”

  He shrugged. “I mean, I’m not gonna rule anything out, but it’s not likely. I’ve stayed in good shape, but getting to the point that I could be competitive in the ring again is a whole other monster. It’d have to be the right fighter, the right venue, the right time, and the right paycheck.”

  I yawned, burying it in his shoulder. “I need to take my clothes off, but it’s too hard.”

  He laughed. “I got you.”

  “I bet you do,” I said, snickering.

  He twisted and lowered me to the bed, unbuttoned my jeans and tugged them off, peeled my shirt off. “Bra too?

  I hummed an affirmative and he reached under my back, pinched and released. I peered sleepily at him as he slid the undergarment off my arms and tossed it aside on the pile of my other clothes. “Underwear too. I’m a sleep naked kinda girl.”

  He growled. “My pleasure, sexy thing.” And just like that, I was naked. He ran a hand from my thigh to my hip to my breast. “I know you’re half asleep, so I’ll leave you be. But walkin’ away from you naked like this? It’s like dying of thirst and walking away from a river.”

  I tangled my fingers in his shirt as he stood up. “Don’t.”

  “Don’t what?”

  “Go.”

  “Autumn…” he trailed off, pulling the blankets from under me and covering me with them.

  “Just lay down with me. Please?” I blinked up at him in the darkness of my unlit room. “You can leave after I’m asleep if you really want to.”

  He brushed my hair away. “I’ll stay. And I’ll be here when you wake up.”
/>
  He kicked his shoes off, his shirt, and his shorts, then crawled over me, pulled the blankets back and slid under them. He sidled up behind me, his huge hot arm draping over me like a heated, weighted blanket, wrapping low against my belly. His erection nestled between my buttocks.

  “Ignore that,” he murmured. “It’ll go away.”

  I huffed, nearly asleep. “I’m sorry I’m so tired.”

  “Nah. Just sleep.”

  I faded, drifting. “Never just slept with anyone like this.”

  “Me either.”

  Slow drowsy warm comfort, Seven’s bulk behind me a sheltering bulwark, his body radiating heat. His arm seemed to weigh me to the bed, somehow comforting.

  So close to sleep, my thoughts were fuzzy, unfiltered. Words buzzed out of my lips, unbidden truth seeping from my mouth. “Seven?”

  “Mmmm.” He was nearly asleep too.

  “If I fall for you…will you catch me?”

  His nose tickled against the back of my neck, his breath hot. “Yes, Autumn. I will. Always. But don’t think of it as falling. Think of it as…choosing.”

  “Have you…chosen me, Seven?”

  He sighed, a quiet slide of a breath. “Yes, I have.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because…because I’m enjoying this, laying here like this, holding you as we fall asleep, almost as much as I enjoy fu…having—um, being with you.”

  “You can call it fucking, Seven. Terms aren’t all that important to me.”

  “It’s not just fucking, though, is it?”

  “I mean…no.” I covered his hand with mine where it lay against my belly, between navel and sex. “But then, earlier today was the first time, wasn’t it? And it doesn’t really count.”

  “It counts.” He swallowed hard. “It definitely counts. Being inside you like that…it felt better than…than anything I’ve ever felt. I’m still not sure how I managed to pull out in time.”