TOMMY GABRINI 2:
A PLACE IN HIS HEART
By
MALLORY MONROE
Copyright©2013 Mallory Monroe
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This novel is a work of fiction. All characters are fictitious. Any similarities to anyone living or dead are completely accidental. The specific mention of known places or venues are not meant to be exact replicas of those places, but are purposely embellished or imagined for the story’s sake.
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MORE INTERRACIAL ROMANCE
FROM BESTSELLING AUTHOR
MALLORY MONROE:
THE PRESIDENT’S GIRLFRIEND
SERIES IN ORDER:
THE PRESIDENT’S GIRLFRIEND
THE PRESIDENT’S GIRLFRIEND 2:
HIS WOMEN AND HIS WIFE
DUTCH AND GINA:
A SCANDAL IS BORN
DUTCH AND GINA:
AFTER THE FALL
DUTCH AND GINA:
THE POWER OF LOVE
DUTCH AND GINA:
THE SINS OF THE FATHERS
DUTCH AND GINA:
WHAT HE DID FOR LOVE
THE MOB BOSS SERIES
IN ORDER:
ROMANCING THE MOB BOSS
MOB BOSS 2:
THE HEART OF THE MATTER
MOB BOSS 3:
LOVE AND RETRIBUTION
MOB BOSS 4:
ROMANCING TRINA GABRINI
A MOB BOSS CHRISTMAS:
THE PREGNANCY
(Mob Boss 5)
MOB BOSS 6:
THE HEART OF RENO GABRINI
RENO’S GIFT
BOOK 7
THE GABRINI MEN SERIES
IN ORDER:
ROMANCING TOMMY GABRINI
ROMANCING SAL GABRINI
ADDITIONAL BESTSELLING
INTERRACIAL ROMANCE
FROM MALLORY MONROE:
DANIEL’G GIRL:
ROMANCING AN OLDER MAN
(with Katherine Cachitorie)
ROMANCING MO RYAN
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INTERRACIAL ROMANCE
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KATHERINE CACHITORIE:
DANIEL’S GIRL:
ROMANCING AN OLDER MAN
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LOVERS AND TAKERS
LOVING HER SOUL MATE
LOVING THE HEAD MAN
SOME CAME DESPERATE:
A LOVE SAGA
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INTERRACIAL ROMANCE:
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YVONNE THOMAS
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A REGGIE REYNOLDS
ROMANTIC MYSTERY
JT WATSON
ROMANTIC FICTION
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TERESA MCCLAIN-WATSON:
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BOOK TWO
DUTCH AND GINA
THE PRESIDENT’S GIRLFRIEND SERIES
BOOK EIGHT
RENO AND TRINA
MOB BOSS SERIES
BOOK EIGHT
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CHAPTER ONE
She opened it.
Tommy watched as her eyes went from mild amusement, to sustained shock, and then, finally, to joy. She was overjoyed. The Hope Diamond, her eyes seemed to suggest, could not have been more beautiful.
She looked back up at Tommy. She had such a loving look in her big brown eyes that it made him all the more certain he was doing the right thing.
“Will you make a decent man out of me, Grace,” he asked her, “and marry me?”
Grace McKinsey stood momentarily silent and continued to stare at him. It was late Thursday night. They had just flown in from a very taxing trip to Vegas and were standing at the front door of her apartment. Both were emotionally spent. Tommy, she thought, was about to say goodnight and go home and get himself some rest. But instead of leaving, he pulled out a box containing this brilliant 12-carat diamond ring that she now held in her hand, and asked her a question she had prayed he would one day ask her. But instead of answering him with what she knew was the only answer she was going to give to him, she found herself speechless. She found herself staring at him.
His blondish-brown hair, usually immaculate, had flapped over his forehead in a bang-like sweep toward his eyebrows, as if even his hair was responsive to the sudden change that was taking place between them. His blue sports jacket, which matched the greenish-blue of his eyes, was off and tossed over his broad shoulder the way he often carried it, but he wasn’t smiling that rakish smile that always made Grace feel that it was a special thing to be his woman. He was serious. Tommy was dead serious. As if he was holding his breath in anticipation of her response.
And for Grace, there was no other answer for it. “Yes,” she said as if she’d never been more certain of anything in her life. “Yes.”
Tommy’s heart swelled with emotion. Everybody knew he had an affinity for beautiful black women, so none would be surprised that he had asked one of them to be his wife. But for Grace to have said yes pleased him beyond measure. And it was a daunting, fantastic, terrifying emotional release. He used to shield his heart by having only open relationships and one-night stands that he knew were dead-end streets. But the women he was most attracted to cherished their freedom. So he gave it to them.
But often late at night, when one of those same women would be asleep in bed beside him, he would still feel as alone as a man on a deserted island. He would dream about having a wife he could pamper, and children he could raise the right way. He would dream about having a family of his own. But instead of getting that cherished family he wanted so badly, he gave, and received, that cherished freedom everybody assumed he wanted more.
Until Grace came along. Until this beautiful, unpretentious woman entered his life and showed him that freedom was a prison too. That was why she checked him at the beginning. That was why, when he told her he only dabbled in open relationships, she told him he could keep dabbling as much as he pleased, but not with her. Either he commit to her and her alone, or keep it moving. She was more than willing, she made perfectly clear, to continue to live her life by herself.
Now he was standing outside of her apartment, exhaling because she said yes, and sweeping her into his arms. He shut his eyes in a tight squeeze as he held her. He couldn’t believe his good luck. Grace wasn’t just eye candy. She wasn’t like those drop-dead-gorgeous supermodels he was known to favor. Above anything else, she was a woman of integrity and substance. She was a woman who challenged him to be the kind of man he always wanted to be.
And now she had just agreed to officially become his. To be his. He was no longer freedom’s prisoner. He was no longer trapped in
a lifestyle that was supposed to shield him from pain, but ended up shielding him from love. A loveless existence, yet he was supposedly free? He even thought of Janis Joplin, one of his favorite old-school singers, as he held Grace. Freedom’s just another word, Janis used to sing, for nothing left to lose. And that was it, Tommy thought as he held Grace even tighter. That was exactly it.
After embracing her for far longer than he knew was necessary, he then placed his hand on the back of her head, pulled back, and looked into her gorgeous, dark brown face, and into her sparkling, big brown eyes. His own eyes were already bright with unshed tears, and he could tell that hers weren’t far behind.
“Thank-you,” he said to her heartfelt, as if he was grateful she didn’t turn him down, which astounded Grace. There was no way she was going to turn down a marriage proposal from a kind, wonderful man like Tommy.
She placed her hand on the side of his gorgeous face. All his life, even as a child, he was admired for his beauty. And even Grace would admit that he was, above all men, most remarkably beautiful. But Grace admired him for so much more. She admired him for his decency and his honor, and for the way he stood by the people he loved even to great risk of harm to himself. Dapper Tom, they loved to call him, as if being some playboy lover was all he was about. But Grace knew he was about so much more.
“Now, Mr. Gabrini,” she said with that dazzling smile he loved, a bright white smile that contrasted perfectly with her dark skin, “I just said yes, I’ll marry you. How in the world do you feel about me now?”
She expected him to say he felt thrilled and elated, or something along those lines, but he didn’t say a word. He just stared at her, looking serious again. Looking, it seemed to her, as if he had just made the decision of his life. And then, without any warning, he lifted her into his strong, muscular arms, lifted her as if he was cradling a baby, and then stared at her again. She was, at first, smiling by the surprise of his lift. But as she looked into his eyes, and saw the love there, her look changed too. And he began kissing her. She wrapped her arms around his neck as she returned his kiss. At first they kept it chaste and loving, but then Tommy put his tongue in, and changed the dynamic.
He carried her inside of her apartment, kicked her front door shut, and then carried her, still kissing her, still loving the taste of her, into her bedroom.
He tossed his sports jacket across the room. The jacket landed, not on the floor where it should have landed, but exactly across the chair.
Grace grinned and shook her head. “Lucky bastard,” she said.
Tommy smiled too as he laid her on the bed. Then laid on top of her. But all smiles disappeared as he began kissing her again, long and hard, with his tongue elevating their passion. His head moved from one side to the other side as her taste intoxicated him.
Grace was a fairly inexperienced lover when he first had her, but he had taught her well. Now she was a pro, returning his kisses with that hunger he longed for. Because she was as hungry for him as he was for her. She wanted him as much as he wanted her. And hunger and want mixed with the kind of love he and Grace shared made for an explosive passionate output. And he was putting it on her. He was kissing her so long and so hard that it would have felt unnatural if their lips would have parted.
But they did part because Tommy wanted to taste more. He made his way to the prize, trailing kisses down the chin of her face, and then to her long, graceful neck. He lifted her blouse and her bra over her head and threw them off, tossing them on the bed beside them, as his kisses moved from her neck to her chest, and then to her perfectly stacked, not-a-sag-in-sight, alluring brown breasts. And he lifted them even higher as he took her nipple in his mouth. He licked one and then the other, and sucked them both, and took his hand and squeezed her mounds as he sucked.
Although Grace loved every part of Tommy’s lovemaking, she especially loved the way he handled her breasts. As soon as his tongue licked her, and began sucking her, her body relaxed into a place of sensuality where it felt as if she was floating on air. Her eyes could barely stay open, as he pleasured her.
But as relaxing as his tongue were on her breasts, his tongue on her pussy was a feeling altogether different. There was no relaxing when Tommy moved his body and his mouth downward, between her legs. He’d already ripped apart the seat of her panties during a fit of passion in the limo drive from the airstrip. Now he had her skirt lifted, and what remained of her panties pulled up to her navel, as his tongue began its long, repetitive licks that were so delicate, but that caused her to nearly faint with desire.
With every long, slow lick he made all up and down her folds, swelling them from the sensual vibrations alone, her body was arching to the touch. And when he began to suck, she became moist to a point of near-saturation and she could hardly lay still. She placed her legs on his back, to leverage her heightened urges, but that new positioning only heightened his own urges and he feasted on her cunt. She screamed out as he began feasting. She screamed out when his entire mouth began to eat.
As he ate, Tommy knew he was addicted to Grace. He was a goner when it came to everything about this woman. Unlike any other female he’d ever had, there was something about Grace’s taste that always took him to that place of arousal that made him feel as if he couldn’t control himself. Even his penis felt super-hard beneath him as he mouth-fucked Grace. Yet that pain was mixed with the pleasure of her magnificent taste. He was a lover from way back, who’d been with more women than he could ever count, but inexperienced Grace was the one who took him to that most special of places, and knew how to keep him there.
And he devoured her pussy while he was there. He devoured every inch that his tongue, his mouth, his teeth, could penetrate. He was licking her with slathering licks, making mad love between her legs, even as he had to continually hold her ass in place and pull her back toward him as she, too, was in that special place. She begged him to stop, and she would have killed him if he would have dreamed of stopping, in that place. It was that beautifully unbearable serenity. It was so intense that Tommy knew his penis couldn’t hold out any longer. They had reached such a zenith that they had made their way to where her ass was on the edge of the bed, just about to fall out of the bed, and he was already out and knelt down with his head buried between her sultry, tight thighs.
But his penis was in overdrive now. It was so hard that it was painful. He stood up, pulled his shirt over his head, and stepped out of his shoes, pants, and briefs. Then he pulled off what remained of Grace’s tattered panties and her skirt, along with her shoes. And then he slid her further onto the bed, laying her head onto the pillows, and got on top of her.
He held her tightly in his arms as he guided his fully aroused penis inside of her tight moistness, and began to stroke steadily. At the beginning, it took all he had not to pound her. It took all he had not to immediately began thrashing into her. But he didn’t make love to her just for the feeling at climax. He made love to her for the feelings in total. It was no accident that he lasted longest with Grace. He loved her and he wanted more than just the feeling of her. He wanted to experience all of her. He wanted to experience that feeling of peace that he always felt when he first entered her. He wanted to experience her wetness and her tightness and her sensitive walls. He stroked her so gently, as he pushed in slightly, and then pulled out slightly, and then inched in further still. That was how Tommy did it, and that was why every woman who had ever been with him, with Grace chief among them, knew he was the best.
For the longest time he fucked her this way, with gentle strokes that packed a sweeter punch with each new push-in, until he was so deeply embedded inside of her that every vein of his dick could be felt rubbing against her vaginal walls.
His tall, lean body virtually covered hers, as he held her so tightly and fucked her so emphatically that it felt as if he was marking his territory for any man out there who would dare to come this way. This belonged to him, his every thrust proclaimed.
But even as his b
ody rocked the bed, even as his body overwhelmed hers, she still managed to look over his broad shoulder at the round mirror that hung against the backside wall. She could see both of them through that mirror. She could see his beautiful ass squeezing and releasing as he moved back and forward inside of her, over and over, pumping her hard and long, moisturizing both of them with her own juices and with his pre-cum and creating the sound of passion, that slushing sound, that always heightened her arousal.
She placed her hand on the back of his blondish-brown hair as it lay silk and smooth and neatly trimmed at the nape of his neck. When she first saw Tommy at a dinner party, she could hardly believe how gorgeous this man was. It wasn’t just that he was tall and tanned and had those odd greenish-blue eyes and that perfectly groomed hair. But he possessed a kind of enigmatic charm and elegance that went well beyond pretty. He was pretty-plus. He had whatever “it” was, and he had it in spades.
And for this man, who could easily have any woman in the room, to have singled her out for attention, still gave her some pause. She had been so over pretty boys by the time she first met Tommy that it wasn’t even funny. Cameron Birch, her boss’s son and the man Grace had dated for many years, turned her against pretty boys. He broke her heart, in fact, and she wasn’t trying to go back down that road with anyone. Too many women wanted the pretty boys, and the pretty boys knew it.
After Cam, Grace made up her mind that she wasn’t going to spend her life looking over her shoulder, worrying if her man was faithful, wondering if some woman who looked fifty times better than she did was commanding his attention. But she amazingly not only ended up falling in love with another pretty boy, but she fell for the king of pretty. She fell for a man who made pretty boys look unattractive and minor league. And he was wealthy too, and decent and kind? She pinched herself sometimes.
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