Until You Come Back To Me, Book 5 Read online

  As he stepped into the shower and allowed the hot water to careen all over his tired, muscular frame, the door to his hotel room opened, and Gemma walked inside. She had expected to beat Sal in town since she was in Vegas, and was therefore closer, but according to the front desk clerk, he was already here. Somehow she didn’t believe them. But when she entered the hotel room and heard the running water, she believed. And was glad to know it.

  She perused the hotel room as she entered, and was very pleased by what she saw. Then she made her way to the bedroom, saw Sal’s expensive clothes all over the place, and smiled. Yep, Sal had arrived. But instead of picking up after him as was usually her way, she undressed also. She kept her stilettos on because she knew what he liked, and then made her way to the shower stall.

  Sal’s hands were splayed against the shower wall, and he was still relaxing to the feel of the water on his aching muscles. Then he felt a presence. He was trained that way. Only it didn’t feel like a menacing presence, but a calming one.

  “Gemma, is that you?” he asked, since she was the only person who could calm him.

  The shower door was opened and Gemma stood there, naked except for her stilettos, smiling. Sal smiled too when he saw her lovely face, and looked down at her lovely body. His sleeping dick immediately woke up.

  “Expecting somebody else?” she asked him playfully as she made her way into the shower with him.

  “I had a few females coming over,” he responded as he pulled her into his arms. “Now you’ve ruined everything!”

  Gemma laughed. But her laughter was gone when she got a good look at his handsome face. “Sal,” she said, concern on her face now, “why are you looking so stressed? Because you had to leave that board meeting?”

  “Hell no.”

  “Then why are you stressed?”

  “Why do you think, Gemma? I’m about to face your parents again. After all I put them through, I’m not looking forward to this shit.”

  “You weren’t responsible for what happened to Chelsey. You hear me, Sal? It was an awful thing. A terrible thing. But she tried to kill your brother, and Reno did what he had to do. You hear me, Sal?”

  “I hear you. But that was still their daughter, and Reno is still my cousin.”

  “And I’m still their daughter and Chelsey was my sister, a sister I loved dearly. But I can’t blame you for what Reno did. I can’t even blame Reno.” It was still painful, but Gemma was not going to pretend that the facts were not the facts and Chelsey had not attempted to kill Tommy Gabrini. “It’s not your fault, Sal,” she said to him. “Do you hear me?”

  “I hear you. But will your parents hear you?”

  Gemma couldn’t lie to him. She rubbed the side of his face. “No,” she said. “But, in time, they will.”

  But she could tell he still wasn’t convinced. “Yeah sure,” he said. He pulled her closer, and felt his dick wedge against her. “But I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it. Because right now,” he said, “I want to cross all over you.”

  He kissed her, passionately, and she returned his passion. It had been a long year. They had been through so much. But they knew, if they didn’t work at keeping their marriage together, it would fall apart. They did the work.

  Part of the work was knowing what each other needed. As they continued to kiss, Gemma knew Sal needed a serious stress reliever before they went to her parents’ home. And she decided to give him one. She took over.

  They stopped kissing and she pushed him until his back was against the back of the shower. Then she took one of her stilettos and lifted it against the tile to the side of him. She spread her other leg. The kind of stress reliever men from her past would have wanted was for her to give them head, and she would have love to do the same for Sal. But she knew Sal. His idea of relieving stress wasn’t for her to feast on him, but for him to feast on her. And he did.

  He knelt down and, with her legs open and her vagina ready, he feasted. He licked and sucked and ate her pussy with that achingly slow, masterful way of his. His tongue licked her with long licks. His mouth sucked her with slow sucks. And when he ate her, he flicked and sucked her clit at first, and then went in deep. She let out sighs of arousal as he ate her. It was turning him on and relieving his stress big time: his hard eating proved that. But he was relieving her too.

  Sal’s dick was so hard, in fact, that he knew it would start hurting soon if he didn’t put it inside of Gemma. But the way she made him feel, the way she smelled and tasted kept him eating pussy instead of fucking it. He couldn’t tear himself away from her, even as his erection was begging him to.

  But Gemma relieved his ache. She tore away from him, removing her shoe from the wall and kneeling down. They were playing with fire and they both knew it, because his dick was inflamed. And when she put it in her mouth, and began to take him to heights only she could take him to, he felt as if his body was levitating. He was beyond high. And he started mouth fucking her. He was sliding it along her tongue, all the way to her throat, and she was letting him.

  “Give it to me, baby,” Sal was saying as she gave it to him and gave it to him. But when she took him in full, and went all the way down on him, she gave him too much. He couldn’t help it. He did something he never did to his wife before: he came in her mouth.

  He pulled it out as soon as he could manage the strength to react. Then he stood her up, slung her back against the wall, lifted her legs onto his shoulders, and entered her to complete his cum. And as soon as his dick touched her pussy, he poured out with a ferocity that caused her to cum. He pushed deep inside of her with a force that rammed right up to her g-spot. He hit his target with a powerful blow. She couldn’t stop shuddering from the impact.

  And his dick remained at that spot, pulsating as if it were a heartbeat, and she held onto Sal as the sensations rolled. Her orgasm was long and hard and needful even more than she realized. Because it was a fact: she wasn’t looking forward to this meeting either. She loved her folks, and she loved her departed sister dearly, but she sensed, just as that stressful look on Sal’s face had sensed, this was going to be a tough get together.

  That was why they came so hard. That was why she let her all out to Sal, and Sal put his all into her, and they came with a hardcore cum. Because they both were hoping against hope that their intuition was wrong and that Rodney and Cassie Jones would understand that what happened to their daughter was awful and tragic and unspeakably horrific, but it was not Sal’s fault.

  Unfortunately for them, their intuition was right.

  They realized it as soon as they got out of the rental car, made their way up to the front door, and entered Gemma parents’ home for the first time, together, since Chelsey’s funeral.

  The parents were there, right in the living room waiting for them, but so was a woman they didn’t recognize. But they could cut the tension with a knife.

  They both had showered and changed into casual wear: Sal wore chinos and a white polo shirt, and Gemma wore cuffed shorts and a tucked-in blouse. Sal kept his hand in the small of Gemma’s back as they entered the home. He wished to God she did not have to face this with him. He had tried to go around Gemma and meet with them. He went behind her back more than a few times and reached out to his in-laws, asking if he could meet with them alone, so that they could take all of their agony out on him without Gemma having to deal with any of it. But they turned him down cold. They didn’t want to have anything more to do with him. At least that was how he read their turndown. Now they wanted to meet with him, but with their daughter present, as if to remind her of the scumbag she married. Since Sal already knew he was scum to salt-of-the-earth people like them, and Gem knew too, he didn’t see the point.

  Gemma broke away from the safety of Sal’s embrace and went to her parents, hugging and kissing them both, and her parents welcomed her with open arms. Since Sal wasn’t the touchy-feely type, and he wasn’t an ass-kisser either regardless of the circumstances, he kept his distance and simpl
y nodded his hello. Cassie, at least, nodded back.

  “Sit down, sweetheart,” Rodney said as he steered his daughter toward the sofa between himself and his wife.

  Gemma ordinarily would not go for it. It felt like divide and conquer to her. But she knew how much her parents were still hurting, because she knew how much she was still hurting. She sat down between them. Besides, she knew Sal could take care of himself. And he did. He nodded at the other woman in the room, who sat on one of the two chairs on either end of the sofa, and sat in the second chair.

  After small talk between parents and daughter, Gemma looked at the other woman. “Hi,” she said. “I don’t think we’ve met.”

  “Oh, right,” Cassie said to her daughter. Like Gemma, she was a slender woman, but unlike Gemma, she was very short. “This is Jonnell Keith, dear. She’s a friend of Chelsey’s. She reached out to us at the funeral, as many of Chelsey’s friends did. They’ve been so kind to us. Chelsey was much loved.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Gemma said.

  “I’ve heard a lot about you,” Jonnell said. “Chelsey was very proud of you.”

  That was always nice to hear, but it was sad too. “I was very proud of her,” Gemma responded. “We had our difficulties,” she added, “but I was proud of her.”

  “Of course.”

  “You were a close friend of hers, or?”

  “Very close,” Jonnell said. “We met on assignment. I was a journalist too. We hit it off and stayed in touch.”

  “I see,” Gemma said. Sal could tell she was sizing this woman up, trying to see how she fit into this meeting that the Joneses felt was so important that they asked Gemma and Sal to drop everything to attend.

  But Sal was more concerned about his father-in-law. This was the man of this house. He ran this. Whatever the big deal was, he was the one who decided it was big.

  “Why did you ask us to come, Rodney?” Sal asked him pointblank.

  Rodney Jones pushed his slender frame up toward the edge of his seat, as if he wanted to address Sal directly with no interference. “I asked my daughter to come, and to bring you with her, because I want to know the truth. And I want to hear it from you.”

  Sal didn’t blink. He crossed his legs. “What truth are you referring to?” he asked him.

  Rodney looked anguished, but Cassie interrupted him. “Chelsey is my daughter,” she said.

  It didn’t seem like earth-shattering news, but Cassie looked as if it was. “I know that,” Sal said.

  “She was not Roddy’s daughter,” Cassie added.

  Sal did not know that. Cassie looked at Gemma, as if she was hearing this for the first time too. And she was hearing it from her parents for the first time, but she and Chelsey, when they were very young, had already concluded as much. But like most things in their family, it was never openly discussed.

  Cassie continued. “Rodney was hurt by the affair,” she said, “and he was bitter, but he decided to raise her as his child. There was no other way.”

  Gemma put her arm around her mother’s shoulder. “I know, Ma.”

  “I treated her differently,” Rodney confessed, anguish on his face too. “I didn’t mean to, I really didn’t. But I did. I treated her like she was less-than. And even with her success, I behaved as if she was an abject failure.” Then he looked at Sal. “But that didn’t mean I didn’t love her. That didn’t mean I would not have died for her because I would have. That didn’t mean I could be fed a pack of lies about her and believe it because I didn’t care either way.”

  Rodney calmed back down. “She was a problem daughter,” he continued. “I’m not going to sit here and pretend she was the model daughter, because she wasn’t. She gave us a lot of grief. A lot of grief.”

  “What pack of lies are you referring to?” Sal asked him, discerning, correctly, that those supposed lies were the reason for this get together.

  It was obvious that Rodney would have loved to tell it all himself, but he deferred to his houseguest: to Jonnell Keith. Everybody looked at her.

  She looked a Sal. “You’re a liar,” she said.

  Sal had planned to keep his cool no matter what. These were grieving people after all. But he lost it as soon as that woman uttered those words. “Who the fuck are you to call me a liar?” he shot back.

  “Don’t you dare use that gutter language in my home!” Rodney yelled. “And especially not to one of my guests!”

  Sal wanted to fight back, but he looked at Gemma. The despair on her face reminded him of these people’s pain. He looked at Jonnell. “What are you talking about lady?” he asked her.

  “You told them that your cousin, Reno Gabrini, killed Chelsey,” Jonnell said.

  “And?” Sal asked her.

  “And that was a lie. A close friend of mine is with the Chicago P.D. and I asked him to look into it. According to every police report he reviewed, you were listed as the shooter, not your cousin. You killed Chelsey.”

  Gemma couldn’t believe the nerve of this woman. “But that’s not true,” she said.

  “It is true. They said it was justifiable,” Jonnell added, “but they made it clear that your husband was the one who pulled that trigger. Not his cousin.”

  “He lied to you,” Rodney said to Gemma, “and he lied to us because he knew what it would do to us if we knew the truth. Your association with him caused us to lose our daughter.”

  “Why would you say that, Dad? That’s not true!”

  “It is the truth!” Rodney shot back.

  “No, it’s not,” Sal said. He looked especially at Cassie, but also at Rodney. “I didn’t kill your daughter,” he said. “I didn’t kill her because my cousin Reno was a faster shot. But I would have killed her before I let her murder my brother, which is what she tried to do.”

  “That’s a bald-faced lie!” Rodney declared. “Chelsea would never harm anybody!”

  “But her girlfriend had been killed, Dad,” Gemma reminded him. “She was distraught about what happened to Karen. She wanted revenge right then and there. She would have killed Tommy if Reno hadn’t pulled that trigger.”

  “But he didn’t pull it,” Rodney said. “Salvatore pulled it and he knows it!”

  “Stop saying that, now I mean it,” Gemma said angrily. “Sal did not kill Chelsey.”

  Rodney reached onto the cocktail table, grabbed a folder, and handed it to Gemma. “It’s right there in black and white,” he said. “Read it and weep.”

  Gemma opened the folder and began to read the report. Sal’s heart was hammering, not from guilt, but because Gemma was in the middle; because Gemma had to deal with pain on every side.

  “That police report makes clear who killed our child,” Rodney said. “And it wasn’t Reno! Jonnell didn’t just come here telling us tall tales. I asked her to look into it, and she did. She came with the truth.”

  Rodney stood up. Sal, perceiving a sudden threat, stood up too. “I want you to leave my house and leave it now,” Rodney said.

  “Daddy, don’t,” Gemma said heartfelt, rising too. “Don’t do this.”

  “Now you can divorce him,” Rodney said to her, “and go on with your life.”

  “Divorce him?” Gemma was incredulous. “Because of what some police report says?”

  “Because of what he said!” Cassie said as she stood up too. “You heard him. He said he would have killed Chelsey himself but somebody else beat him to it.”

  “Chelse stabbed Tommy, Ma,” Gemma tried to get her to understand. “And she would have continued to stab him. She would have killed him. What do you think they were going to do? Let her?” She tossed the report back onto the table. “I don’t care what some report says. I believe my husband.”

  “You believe him?” Rodney couldn’t believe it. “You believe that gangster over an official report? Over us? Then you’re no longer the woman I raised you to be.”

  Sal went over to Gemma, took her by the hand, and pulled her away from her parents. “You’re right about that,�
�� he said to Rodney. “She’s not the woman you raised. She’s even more of a woman.”

  “Who are you to tell me what my daughter is?” Rodney fired back. “She was the apple of my eye before she married the likes of you!”

  “Roddy,” Cassie said, placing her hand on his arm.

  But he jerked away from him. “Ever since the day she met you you’ve caused nothing but heartache and grief. You’ve been nothing but trouble to her!”

  “Was he trouble to you when he saved your life?” Gemma angrily asked her father.

  “My life would have never been in danger if it wasn’t for him!” Rodney responded. “So yes, he was trouble to me even then! Him and his mob ties! Don’t you dare throw him saving my life in my face ever again!”

  “And don’t you dare throw divorce in mine ever again!” Gemma was as angry as her father was bitter. “You feel guilty for how you treated Chelse, and you want to take it out on Sal. And that’s okay. Sal is strong enough to take that. He’ll take that all day long if it’ll give you some relief. That’s the kind of man he is. But I love Sal with all my heart. I’m not divorcing him. Not ever!”

  “Fine,” Rodney said. “Then you can leave right along with him. Until you see the truth, you’re not welcome in our home either. I cannot forgive him. I will not forgive him!”

  Gemma saw it clearly now. “So he gets blamed for something he didn’t even do, but that’s okay? That’s fine? Got it.” She hugged her mother’s neck. She even hugged her father, and he allowed it.

  But as she and Sal began to leave, Rodney pulled his daughter back. He loved her. “You’re making a big mistake, Gemmanette. You need to come to your senses. You need to choose.”

  “No, Dad,” she said. “You and Mom are my parents and will always be my parents. Sal is my husband and will always be my husband. You’re the ones who need to choose. When I said I Do and married Sal, I made my choice.”

  Then she and her parents exchanged another strained, but loving look, and she and Sal left their home.