Sal Gabrini 3: Hard Love Read online

  That comment, however, got Liz going again. “But what about the restaurant reservation? It’s a table for three.”

  Trina looked at her. “So what are you saying? They should come with us?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Liz said. “We have a reservation.”

  Trina shook her head as if she couldn’t believe Liz would even go there. “Girl, bye.” Then she smiled at Gemma. “Enjoy your birthday,” she said, and she and Liz left.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Sal said, “before that Liz comes up with another bright idea.”

  Gemma smiled as he walked her to the passenger side of her car, helped her in, and then walked back around and got in behind the wheel. Gemma was so accustomed to being on her own that she used to find it odd and even a little disconcerting when Sal would always drive whenever they were together, even when it was her own car. But now she didn’t mind it at all.

  He pulled out of the parking lot and headed for her home. They weren’t exactly holding hands, but that didn’t mean Sal wasn’t touching her. He was. His hand rested on her inner thigh.

  “How did you get here?” she asked him.

  “I got on my plane---”

  “I mean after you arrived in Vegas.”

  “Jimmy Mack. He picked me up at the airstrip and dropped me off here.”

  Jimmy Mack was Trina’s husband’s oldest son. “Good old Jimmy.”

  “I told him to keep an eye on you while I’m away. He claims to be doing so. Has he?”

  Gemma thought about it then she nodded her head. “Yeah, he has actually. He’s been coming around Champagne’s a lot lately, and a few times he came by my office just to say hello, which I found odd at the time.”

  Sal nodded. “Good. He’s young but he’s reliable. I like that. I like that about him.”

  “Yeah, me too,” Gemma said.

  Sal looked over at her. “And you didn’t think I was coming for your birthday. I’m kind of hurt by that.”

  “I wasn’t doubting you, I just figured you were too busy.”

  “Too busy to come and wish you a happy birthday? Get outta here! I’ll never be that busy. My baby turns thirty, or any other age, I’m going to be the main one wishing her a happy birthday.”

  Gemma smiled, and looked at him. “I know that now.”

  “Don’t you ever forget it either.”

  “I won’t.”

  Sal squeezed her thigh as he returned his attention to the road ahead. “Trina surprised me,” he said. “She of all people should know I wouldn’t do that to you. Yet she’s criticizing me for not showing up.”

  “It wasn’t her,” Gemma pointed out as they stopped at a red light. “It was mainly Liz, and she just didn’t know your plans, Sal, that’s all. You don’t exactly call me on a regular basis and keep me in the loop.”

  Sal looked at her. “What are you talking? I call and let you know when I’ll be away on business, or when I can’t make it to Vegas.”

  “Which has been a lot lately.”

  Sal nodded. “It’s been crazy lately. Tommy’s handling our international affairs, but that means I have to handle more of our stateside business ventures. And I have my own thing to do. It’s been nuts.”

  Gemma decided to ask it. “Will things change?” she asked.

  Sal hesitated. He knew why she was asking. “I can’t promise you that,” he said. “Things may, things may not. Gabrini, Inc. is expanding, not contracting.”

  “You can always hire some competent people.”

  “We are. We have! But there are certain matters only myself or Tommy can handle. That’s just the way it is.”

  Gemma nodded. She understood that, too.

  But as they continued to drive through the streets of Vegas, and as Sal’s hand began to massage her thigh so completely, even to the point where his hand ended up beneath her skirt, inside her panties, rubbing her clit.

  “You’ve been taking care of yourself?” he asked sensually, as he rubbed.

  “Yes, I have been,” Gemma responded, as her body began reacting to the feel of his touch.

  “What about your male colleagues?”

  Not just her clit, but he was rubbing her folds. Her eyes became hooded. “What about them?”

  “They’re still trying to get into your panties?”

  Gemma managed to smile. “You mean like you?”

  Sal pinched her clit, causing her to yelp. “They aren’t me,” he made clear, “and don’t you forget that. I’m your man. They don’t mean shit to you. Now answer my question. They’re still trying to come on to you?”

  “Whoever they are,” Gemma said, “no.”

  “Good,” Sal said, massaging her again. “That’s more like it.”

  In more ways than one, Gemma thought, as his expert fingers began to slink inside of her slit. “And what about you?” she asked him.

  “What about me?”

  “How many females have been trying to get into your panties?”

  “My panties?” Sal asked, which caused Gemma to smile. She knew he would take offense to that particular word.

  And he did. So much so that he unzipped his pants. “Put your hand in there,” he said to her. “Go on. Put it in there.”

  Gemma found this a little like high school, but she smiled anyway and reached inside of his pants.

  He started to speak, but her hand made contact with his penis. He had to hesitate, to resume breathing, and then he continued. “You feel any panties in there?”

  “Panties? No,” Gemma admitted. “Penis?” she asked, as she began to rub him. “Plenty.”

  Sal sighed as he drove. He looked over at her, at the way her eyes were hooded and her lips were puckered, and he knew he had to get going.

  “Forget this,” he said, as he swerved out of the slow lane he was in, and put the pedal to the metal. He had to get her in bed and in bed now, and he started driving as if he was more than willing to die getting there.

  CHAPTER THREE

  His hands were beneath her thighs, lifting her legs and spreading them wide, and his tongue was between those legs slicing through her slit with precision accuracy. He had her naked, and in bed, and he was naked, and at the bottom of the bed, and for every arch of her beautifully sleek black body, his pink tongue licked her with those long, loving strokes that made her feel, not just the lick itself, but the texture of the lick. And when he began to part her folds wider, and eat her, she began to scream.

  “Like that!” she yelled breathlessly. “That’s it. That’s the place. That’s it, baby, that’s it!” Her flat stomach started rising and falling as his mouth hit her sweet spot and stayed there. Sal was a man among boys when it came to sexual timing. He knew what it took to please her. He knew what it took to make her feel as if she was on a launching pad, ready to soar high, but he allowed her to enjoy the takeoff almost as much as the flight itself.

  And she was enjoying his foreplay completely. Because he didn’t let up. Because, as soon as she thought he was finally relenting, he placed his two big hands beneath her small ass and lifted her closer to his mouth. For even greater access. For an even greater opportunity to take her there.

  And he took her there. His mouth, his tongue had her squeezing the sheets, and lifting her body. But her lift played right into his hands, because it allowed him to eat harder, to lick deeper, to get her so close to cum that by the time he finally stopped, her stomach was still rising and falling, as if she’d just completed a marathon.

  Sal leaned up, and sat back on his lower legs. He was breathing irregularly too, as the veins in his muscular arms, and his flat, ribbed abs, and his thick neck and chest all felt on fire with passion. Sal did nothing halfway. He didn’t live his life that way, and he didn’t love his woman that way. And his woman, his Gemma Jones, appreciated it.

  She looked at him. She used to think Sal was a nice looking man. Not nearly as fabulously attractive as his older brother Tommy, or as ruggedly handsome as his cousin Reno, but
good looking nonetheless in his own way. But once she got to know him, and to learn about his loving and caring heart, she felt he had Tommy and Reno and Jimmy Mack and any other Gabrini beat. He was a great looking man to her, with a heart that matched the beauty of his face and body. Although he was hardly a softie. Sal was hard. She accepted that. And when it came to anybody two-timing him or getting in his grill about any misunderstandings, he was harder than hard. Maybe too hard, Gemma used to think. But when it came to loving her, the way he was doing now, and caring for her, she knew he was just right.

  And he was the master in the bedroom, she thought, as he continued to sit on his lower legs, to regulate his breathing and to settle his passion back down before he lost all control. He had such a strong, sincere face, Gemma thought as she stared at him, and she loved the way he never rushed it. But his strong, chiseled body was such a turn on! And his dick was so aroused that it stuck out as stiff as steel, as if it was pointing directly at her. And the idea of that steel going inside of her, to fuck the shit out of her, made her bite her bottom lip. She wanted him to go in now. Right away! No waiting any longer.

  But she knew Sal. He wanted her settled back down first. He didn’t want any quick cums when he entered her, not for either one of them. But that only excited her more. Because she knew the deal. If he wanted her settled completely down before he entered her, he was a man with a plan. He was planning to fuck her for hours.

  And she meant hours and hours.

  And after several more minutes of waiting, where both of them were settled back down, he decided that it was time. Time to enjoy the show.

  He moved his body closer to hers, to where her thighs were resting on his lap, and he took his hands, parted her slit, and allowed his rock hard penis to push itself inside of her with a thrust that not only made Gemma rise up, but the feel of her sweet pussy made Sal rise too.

  And it began.

  Sal’s strokes.

  He started with that thrust, as if to get her attention again, and then it eased into a lull. A sweet, gentle lull. He wasn’t trying to make her cum. He was trying to get her to experience the fact of what was happening. The fact that his dick was embedded inside of her. The fact that he was making her feel fuller and fuller with every stroke of his expanding dick. The fact that he was the man she loved, and she was the woman he loved, and he wanted both of them to realize what that fact alone did to lovemaking. It made love feel, not just like sex, but like love should feel. Real, and deep down, and so tangible that the extension of his dick became the extension of his heart. He was having long, sweaty sex with her. He was fucking her passionately. But he was loving her especially. And that was what he wanted her, what he needed her, to understand. This was no ordinary fuck. Before they hooked up, they’d both had ordinary fucks their entire lives. But this was more than fucking. This was the manifestation of their love. A love, Sal felt a need to emphasize to her, that no man alive could replicate.

  His strokes became so tangible to Gemma that she pulled his body down on top of hers. She needed him to ground her. She needed him to make her feel that warmth, that protectiveness, of his big, hard body.

  Sal loved whenever Gemma took a proactive move like that. He gladly laid down on her. He was so thrilled that she wanted him as badly as he wanted her that he wrapped her in his arms and began kissing her with vigor, as he fucked her.

  And he fucked her for hours. He kissed her for over one of those hours, as he moved from her mouth, to her face, to her neck, to her breasts for the longest time, then back to her mouth. His pre-cum and her vaginal juices had both of them saturated the entire time. And he didn’t stop stroking her. Not for a second. He kept that dick shoving into her as if he was shoving into his life source itself. He was like a sex-starved man feeding on her. And Gemma’s food, to Sal, was special. He had never, not ever, had anything like it.

  He was never one of those men who believed that the blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice. Gemma was a dark-skinned black woman, and her juice was definitely sweet, but neither one of those reasons, he believed, was why her pussy felt and tasted so special to him. There were too many other black women with sweet juice.

  But Gemma, to Sal, wasn’t one of many. She was one of one. Her own woman. With her own style. With her own integrity and fortitude and heart. He leaned on one elbow and looked at her as he fucked her. There was once a time when he didn’t see her beauty. There was once a time when only busty blondes were beautiful to him, and Gemma didn’t fit that bill. Now, in his eyes, none of those blondes fit Gemma’s bill. Because she was in a class all by herself. He couldn’t verbalize why her. He couldn’t even internalize why. But that was her specialness to him. Her uniqueness. The fact that she wasn’t in some mold, but she broke the mold and created her own.

  But just looking at that black beauty of a woman he had beneath him, with her velvety smooth skin, and her rich, full lips, and her high cheekbones and natural hair and perfect white teeth, made him think of splashing. When he was a kid, his favorite thing in the world was when he and Tommy would run out to the creek near their home and jump in. And that wondrously cool water would splash all over him, and he’d encapsulate himself in it so completely that sometimes, depending on what turmoil was going on in their family home at the time, he didn’t want to come back up for air.

  Gemma gave him that sense of contentment. She made fucking her feel like the most privileged thing a man could do. And Sal was taking full advantage of that privilege. He fucked her and fucked her. Her pussy was on fire, and his dick was inflamed, by the time they neared their cum. And when they did cum, they came together. Gemma clamped down one time too tightly, restricting any penis movement at all, and Sal couldn’t take it. He lurched forward and poured into her. Gemma was already in the throes of spasms and pulsations and when he poured, she broke loose too.

  They were still holding onto each other, and were still wedged together by sweat and passion, when they both felt the love in a way that was nothing short of deep down, gritty, raw sensationalism. Until Sal’s dick, and Gemma’s pussy, couldn’t do it a moment longer. The bed shaking stopped. The grunts and groans stopped. And they crashed. They crashed into each other’s arms.

  After showering together and falling asleep, they slept for hours. By the time Gemma woke up, Sal was still dead to the world. She used to wonder how they could fall asleep side by side, but whenever she woke up she would end up on top of him with his arms firmly around her. Nowadays it was no mystery to her. Sal was the culprit. As soon as she was out like a light, he would slide her on top of him, place the covers over both of them, and it was only after that, it seemed to her, that he was able to get some sleep.

  By the time he woke up later that night, he woke up alone. No Gemma on top of him, no Gemma beside him. He hated the feeling. He laid there, thinking about how much he hated it. But that didn’t mean he was ready to take the plunge with her. That didn’t mean he was ready to make her a Gabrini and forever change the trajectory of her existence. He saw what happened with Grace when Tommy married her, and she saw what life with Reno did to Trina. It changed both of them. It hardened both of them. Gemma was hard already. She was already a woman who didn’t take shit from anybody. He didn’t want to turn her into some stone.

  But as he continued to lay there and think about it, he knew it would eventually happen. One day she was going to be his wife. But it wasn’t a reassuring thought for Sal. It was a terrifying one. Because the day he made Gemma his wife, was going to be the day he gave in to his weakness, and selfishness. He wouldn’t be doing her any favors. Being a Gabrini was a hell of a burden to bear. But he would be doing a world of favors for himself.

  He sat up on the side of the bed, his body naked and still feeling the effects of that pounding he put on Gemma. He often wondered what would become of the two of them. What if he was able to maintain his strength and not marry her. Would some other man come along and take her away from him? That would be a non-starter, as far as Sal
was concerned. Nobody was taking Gemma away from him. But marrying her wasn’t the answer either.

  But just thinking about her made him anxious to see her face again. He slipped on his pants, searched around for his shirt, but couldn’t find it. Shirtless, he made his way downstairs. He could hear her in the kitchen, which he hoped meant she was cooking him some food because he was starving. And as soon as he entered the kitchen he saw that his hope was realized. She was standing at the stove, in his white dress shirt, her long, black legs striking a daring pose beneath the shirt, preparing a meal. His heart soared. Sometimes he couldn’t believe how fortunate he was.

  “What’s for dinner?” he asked as he sat at her granite-top center island.

  “Salmon and rice.” She knew it was one of Sal’s favorite dishes. She looked back at him. “Will do?”

  He smiled. “Perfect,” he said. “You couldn’t do better. And not just in your choice of meals, either. But also in your choice of man.”

  Gemma took a dishcloth and threw it at him. He laughed and ducked. She continued to plate the food.

  Sal continued to stare at that smoking body of hers. “Can I ask you something?” he asked her.

  She smiled. “You can ask,” she said.

  “Why do you always, but always stand so straight and have your head held so high, even when you’re cooking? It’s not a conscious thing, is it?”

  “Oh, yes it is,” Gemma admitted.

  “Really?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Gemma said. Then she felt she needed to explain. She stopped what she was doing, turned toward him, leaned against the drain board, and folded her arms. His dress shirt was only partially buttoned up, revealing equal parts of her breasts and her flat stomach in a super-sexy way. His dick began to throb. “I wasn’t born with great posture, if that’s what you think,” she added. “It was very much a conscious decision.”