Romancing Sal Gabrini 2: A Woman's Touch Read online

  Gemma relished it too, as she closed her eyes and enjoyed Sal and Sal alone. She missed his taste, and the way he knew how to tongue her without turning it into something sloppy and uninviting. She enjoyed his kiss. She knew some of her lawyer friends would see her and mention it later, even joke about it, but she wasn’t thinking about them. She missed Sal, and by the way he was kissing her he missed her, and nobody else, at that point in time, mattered.

  When Sal stopped kissing her, they looked once again into each other’s eyes, smiled, and then he pulled her in his arms again. Then finally, after a few moments of him hugging her again, they were able to separate.

  “So,” he said, still holding one of her hands, “what’s your schedule like the rest of the day?”

  “It’s good. I was just going to go over to Champagne’s for a few hours before I called it a day. But anyway, I thought you said you were going to phone me when you were on your plane heading this way?”

  “I did phone you,” Sal said, “but your cell phone was off.”

  Gemma smiled. She was in court all afternoon. “My bad,” she said with a smile.

  Sal smiled too. Ran his hand up her arm, glancing at her breasts. “You think you can take a rain check on going over to Champagne’s?”

  Gemma knew exactly why he wanted her to take the rain check. “For you?” she asked. Then thought about it. “Not really, no.”

  Sal, surprised by her response, stopped smiling. Gemma laughed. “Of course I can take a rain check, silly,” she said, placing her arm through his as they turned to leave. “Let’s go.”

  Sal smiled too, as they turned to leave. But he also, while placing his hand in the small of her back and assisting her out of the doors, turned back toward the man upstairs. He was still, to Sal’s growing disgust, staring at Gemma.

  As Gemma and Sal walked across the parking lot, Gemma was texting Trina that Sal was in town and she therefore wouldn’t be able to come over to Champagne’s. Trina text her back that she had better not come with her “honey boo boo” in town, prompting Gemma to smile. Then Tree added: Ask him about the parents. Gemma knew she had to, but she also knew she had to pick her moment. She replied to Trina: Mind your own business. To which Trina finally replied: Can’t. Too busy minding yours. Gemma laughed and put her phone away. Sal asked what was funny, but Gemma didn’t see the point of repeating it. “Just Tree,” she said instead.

  They finally arrived at her BMW, which was parked on the backside of the massive parking lot. Sal automatically opened the passenger door for her, sat her down in the passenger seat, and walked around and sat down himself behind the wheel. He pressed the start engine button and looked at the dashboard.

  “How old is this thing?” he asked her.

  “What thing?” Gemma asked him. “This car is my pride and joy, boy, what are you talking about? And it’s just a year old, thank-you very much. And it’s almost paid for.”

  Sal looked at her. “What’s almost?”

  “Well, almost in my mind anyway,” she said with a smile. “I have three more years to go.”

  “Three years?” Sal asked, surprised.

  “Yes, Sal, three. Something I’m very proud of. It would have been five more years if I hadn’t doubled up and tripled up on some of the payments. Everybody doesn’t have it going on like you do. So don’t hate. Appreciate.”

  Sal laughed.

  Gemma looked at him. He was a very good-looking man, in a rugged sort of way, with thick, silky hair, big, blue eyes, and tanned skin. And his muscular body, she thought as she glanced down at him, wasn’t chopped liver either. “What about you?” she asked him. “How did you get to the courthouse? Reno sent a car for you?”

  “I didn’t ask him to send one. He didn’t know I was coming to town either. I caught a cab,” he said.

  Gemma smiled. Somehow she couldn’t picture Sal in a cab.

  Then Sal started driving. And he nodded. “Nice ride,” he said.

  “Well I’m glad you approve, Mr. Gabrini.”

  “So who was the guy?”

  Gemma looked at him. “What guy?”

  “The one that couldn’t stop laughing at your jokes. The one who couldn’t keep his hands off of you. The stud upstairs at that courthouse.”

  “You mean Marsh?”

  Sal glanced at her, and then back at the road. Who the hell was Marsh?

  “He’s an attorney I know,” she answered his unasked question. “Well, I don’t really know him. You remember that lawyers convention I attended in Seattle?”

  “What are you nuts? Of course I remember it! That convention marked the beginning of our beautiful relationship.”

  And it is beautiful, Gemma thought. “Marsh was there,” she said. “Marshall Denning.”

  “So you guys struck up some kind of friendship at the convention?”

  “Not really, no. He tried to hit on me, twice. I turned him down, twice. We talked a few times after that about the law itself. Good conversation. And that was the sum total of it.”

  Sal knew the guy was interested in Gemma just by the way he was looking at her. He was glad she understood it too. “You see him often?” he asked her.

  “Often, no. Not ever actually. He’s in town on a case. He works out of Philly. Or is it Baltimore? Or DC?”

  “Gem!”

  “DC, I think. I told you I don’t know him like that. But at any rate, he wants us to meet and discuss the case he’s working on.”

  That didn’t sit right with Sal. “A guy who hits on you every chance he gets wants to meet with you?” He looked at her. “I don’t think so.”

  “You don’t think what?”

  “I don’t think you’re going to be meeting with him.”

  “He wants to consult on jurisdiction, Sal. If Marsh or any other attorney wants to consult with me to help his client, I’m not going to refuse to help. Especially since it’ll be a paid consultation. If he gets out of his lane, I know how to put him back in.”

  Sal gripped the steering wheel. “It’s not about whether or not you can put him back in his place. It’s about a man being a man. Just leave that guy alone.”

  “Don’t sign that next contract.”

  Sal frowned. “What next contract?”

  “The one the Gabrini Corporation plans to sign. Don’t sign it.”

  Sal didn’t get it. “And why the hell not?”

  “Because I don’t want you to.”

  “What the fuck you know about any contracts I’m signing?”

  “Nothing. What the fuck you know about any consultations I might or might not need to have?”

  Sal had to smile. “It’s not the same. This guy likes you.”

  “Oh, and Shannon, your right hand girl, the woman you used to date but now works in your office with you on your personal staff, doesn’t?”

  Sal didn’t like where this was going. He stopped at a red light and turned to her. “It’s not the same,” he said again.

  “The thing is, Sal, you run your business, and you’ve got to let me run mine. Just like you won’t allow me to come up in your office telling you what you can and cannot do, you have to afford me the same courtesy and respect. You have to.”

  Sal looked at her. What was he doing? Gemma could handle some stud. Why was he feeling insecure about that? He placed her hand in his. And smiled. “You’re right,” he said. “You only get to be right once a year,” he added, and Gemma laughed. “So cherish it.”

  “I will,” she said. He leaned over and kissed her on the lips. She thought it would be a peck, but when they were about to separate he pulled her back toward him and kissed her longer. When the car behind them started blowing the horn, and Sal looked up and realized the light had turned green, he pulled off.

  But not before giving the guy the bird in the rearview mirror. “Asshole,” he said into that same mirror, as he pulled off.

  Gemma smiled and shook her head. She wasn’t exactly dating Mr. Meek and Mild, she once again reminded herself. The
n she looked out of the window and thought about what would happen once he got her home and how, after dinner, to her great delight, he was going to prove to her just how un-meek and un-mild he really was.

  But by the time they arrived at her house, and he pulled her BMW into the garage, Sal had something more immediate in mind. He got out of the car and walked around to the passenger door. Gemma was just grabbing her purse and briefcase when Sal opened the door. But just as she put her legs out and was about to stand up, he knelt down in front of her, inside the open car door, between her legs, and reached under her skirt. When he began pulling down her panties, she smiled.

  “Sal, what are you doing?” she asked.

  Sal removed her panties off of one shoe, and opened her legs wider. “When you kissed me at the courthouse, it was restrained. I don’t do restrain very well.” He said this and licked her, causing her to immediately pulsate down below. “In fact,” he added, licking her again, “I don’t do restrain at all.”

  And he began licking her with long swipes along her folds, with licks around her clit. Gemma leaned back on her elbows, amazed that this was happening in her garage, especially with the door still up. But it felt so good!

  “The neighbors,” she said weakly. She meant to tell him that the neighbors might see them, but Sal’s tongue was so expert that she couldn’t formulate a sentence. “The neighbors,” she said again, her flat stomach inhaling and exhaling as he did her. “The neighbors.”

  The feeling was so good to Sal that he couldn’t care less who saw them. “Fuck the neighbors,” he said, as he continued to lick her. His erection was so stiff he had to unzip his pants to give it room to expand. And it sprung out, stiff as steel. But this wasn’t about his dick. Not yet. This was about tasting Gemma. And smelling that wonderfully intoxicating scent he missed. This was about pleasing Gemma.

  And he was pleasing her mightily. He had her legs gapped open, with his hands resting on either side of her slender, dark thighs, and his tongue plunged deeper and deeper inside of her. And when he started biting her, her body buckled in joy and spewed out so much vaginal juices that she involuntarily began to scream. When she realized just how far he was willing to go, and what her reaction to his extremeness was going to be, she immediately scrambled and reached underneath her steering wheel, pressed the garage door button, and her automatic garage door began to close. Sal had a dangerous streak in him that she loved, but also feared. But right now, as he continued to eat her so ferociously that he was biting her, over and over, she loved that dangerousness. Her body was arching and bouncing and her legs were kicking, as he ate her. She loved his dangerousness.

  Sal loved it too, so much so that when her juices started flowing and his mouth had her vagina swollen and pulsating from his ravaging, he couldn’t wait another second. This was the stuff his dreams were made of. And he had to feel her too. He straddled his body on top of hers, moved up to her face, and inside that car he shoved his dick into her mouth.

  Gemma thought she was going to die when he shoved it in. She was expecting it, and she was accustomed to how rough Sal could be, so it only elated her. But Sal eased up on her as soon as he shoved it in. He placed his hand beneath her neck, and leaned her head back, before he allowed her to take him in full.

  But when she did, and when he started mouth-fucking her in rhythm, he closed his eyes. Mix the love he had for this woman with this kind of sex, and it was magical to Sal. His entire dick was throbbing and veining from her perfect oral. Nobody did him better. She knew how to lick and suck just at the right ridges. And he knew how to mouth-fuck her longer and harder than she’d ever experienced. He knew how to do her too.

  It felt so good to Sal, and was so needful, that it caused him to become careless. He was so caught up in the feeling that before he realized it, he began to cum. He poured into her mouth. He had to quickly pull out and lift her head up, as he poured and poured.

  But it was already too late. Her mouth, her neck, her upper chest, was all completely drenched in his love.

  FOUR

  She could see him from the bathroom. That was where she was, seated on the side of the tub in a bathrobe, her shapely legs crossed, as she prepared the water for the bath he planned to take next. She had already bathe, while he was on the phone, but he was still on the phone by the time she dried off, put on her robe, and began to run him a fresh tub of water.

  She watched as he roamed around her bedroom, yelling into his cell phone at somebody he called Chazz. It was such a tough conversation, with Sal in such a state of agitation, that Gemma began to get concerned again. She watched him as he moved around the room like a wounded animal, moving and changing direction so often that she began to wonder anew if she really knew this man. He wasn’t meek and mild, she understood that, but sometimes, while handling his business, he could seem so vicious. He was never that way with her, but it was still early. Her father always told her to watch a man. He can always talk a good game, but see how he plays one. Sal’s style of playing, Gemma was beginning to realize, was going to take a lot of getting used to.

  “You think I’m not serious?” Sal’s voice was hard and unflinching. “When I tell you to do something you do it the way I told you to do it, not the way you wanna do it! Who the fuck are you? You don’t run this! Now look what’s happened because of your dumb shit! Gotdammit!”

  Sal rubbed his forehead, moving again. His suit coat was off and thrown across her bed, and his dress shirt was wrinkled and half in and half out of his expensive pants. Sal was a neat man. He was always dressed to the nines and almost as well put together as his brother Tommy. Seeing him so disheveled was odd for Gemma too.

  But she continued to look at him. He was, from what she could see, trying to calm himself back down.

  “Where is he now?” Sal asked the person on the phone. “Yeah, where?” Then he stopped walking. “What? Whatta you mean you don’t know?” A pause. “I told you to put a tail on him, and I said a tail like a damn noose around his fucking neck, and now you tell me you don’t even know where he is? Are you kidding me? You and your men wanted more work, I threw you more work, and you do this to me? Yeah, yeah, you’d better find him. Or I’ll find you!” Then Sal angrily slammed her phone on the hook.

  Gemma looked at him. She wanted to ask if everything was okay, but Sal was still too agitated. She decided to wait. She just sat there, her legs crossed, as she ran her hand through the warm bath water.

  Then Sal made another call. This time he seemed calmer, though not entirely calm. “Will, hey,” he said into the phone. “I’m . . . not great. Where are you? Yeah? What are you up to?” There was a long pause as Sal listened. Then he spoke again. “Do I need you? That’s an understatement. Yeah, I need you. I need you to get to Jersey and find out what the fuck Chazz is up to. Yeah, so did I. But he apparently didn’t get the memo. The fucker. Yeah. Correct. Get in touch with him. He’ll give you the backstory, but I want you to take the lead. That’s right. And if he has a problem with it, tell him to contact me, which we know he won’t. Right. Okay, pal. Talk to you later.”

  Sal killed that call also. “Motherfuckers,” he said beneath his breath, and then looked at Gemma. Gemma was staring at him. And she could tell that he immediately regretting revealing so much of the other side of his life to her.

  He attempted to smile, but couldn’t pull it off. “It’s ready?” he asked instead.

  Gemma nodded, and stood up. Sal began removing his shirt, tossing it aside, as he headed into the bathroom. He continued undressing once he got in the bathroom.

  Gemma studied him. She decided that the time was now. “What was that about?” she asked him.

  “Nothing,” he replied as he unbuckled and unzipped his pants.

  Gemma knew better than that. She continued to look at Sal.

  Sal realized she wasn’t going to let him off that easily. “Just stuff,” he said. “Nothing for you to worry about.” He began to remove his shoes and step out of his pants and briefs.<
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  And Gemma was torn. Was this going to be their life? Sal involved in whoknowswhat kind of mess and she was supposed to ignore it? Was that how those mob wives behaved? Then she caught herself. Mob wife? She wasn’t his wife and he wasn’t in any mob! He promised her he wasn’t. But she was nobody’s fool, either. He was in something.

  “I’m going to go help out at Champagne’s while you bathe and get some rest. I should be back in a few hours.”

  Sal, now naked, looked at her, his tanned, toned body unable to escape her gaze. “I thought you said you could get out of it.”

  “I can,” she said, trying not to get distracted by his nakedness. “But it won’t be fair to Trina. I haven’t been to the store all week. I told her I would come this evening to discuss inventory. It’s the least I can do.”

  Sal started nodding his head, and his agitation was returning. “Yeah, right,” he said. “It’s the least you can do.”

  “I haven’t been all week.”

  But Sal wasn’t going along. “Stop bullshitting me, Gemma,” he said. “You hear me? The only reason you all of a sudden need to leave is because of that conversation you just overheard. Now suddenly you’re wondering how in the world did you get hooked up with a joker like me. You’ve got this nice little suburban life, you don’t need the aggravation. That’s what this got to go shit is about, so don’t fuck with me. You tell me the truth.”

  Gemma just stood there. She could see the disappointment in Sal’s eyes. “That’s not it,” she said, but he cut her off.

  “That is it!” he blared. “That’s exactly it and you know it. I’m a big boy. I can take it. Took it all my life. I can take it.”

  A weary look came over Gemma’s pretty face, and she sat back down on the side of the tub. “You’re right,” she said. And then she looked up at him. His heart sank when she looked those pretty, sad eyes up at him. “I can’t play the dumb girlfriend,” she said. “I can’t hear you talk about tailing people and getting somebody else to go to New Jersey to keep an eye on the other guy you hired, I know what that means, Sal. You say you’re not a mob boss---”