But there she was right now, in the arms of the man who had just asked her to be his wife. And he held onto her too. He had her wrapped in his arms so tightly that it felt like a possession. It felt as if he was melding her body to his body until they were dissolved into one body. This was their engagement fuck, and it felt as serene as it felt unbearably sensational.
Grace held onto him as tightly as he held onto her, as he pumped into her for an hour on end. He couldn’t stop rubbing his lips against the side of her face as he fucked her. He couldn’t stop grunting and groaning as he fucked her. He kept telling her over and over how much he loved her and wanted her until the words themselves became grunts and groans.
She looked in that mirror again, as the most sexually experienced man she’d ever known made long love to her. He was pumping his ass off. He was staking his claim. And the more he pushed his penis deeper inside of her, thrashing into her now, the more her own thoughts became as muddled as his words. She opened her legs even wider, as they swung freely on either side of him, and took his thickness, his bigness, inside of her tight vagina in full.
He was so full, in fact, that the friction of her tightness against the thickness of his dick became too daunting for either one of them to control. And he spilled out in climax, which climaxed her, and they arched together in a cum that lifted both of their sweat-soaked bodies high, where his dick continued to stroke her to get the last of the sensations out, and then slammed them both back down.
It would take several more moments before either one of them could so much as move a muscle. And then Tommy, his chest heaving from the intensity, leaned back and looked at her. He smiled that rakish smile of his that made her smile too. “That, my love,” he said, in response to the question she had asked at her front door over an hour earlier, his saturated penis still wedged deeply inside of her, his breath labored, “is how I feel about you.”
Two hours later, after they had a second round of lovemaking, this time in a chair, Tommy was fully dressed and standing beside her bed. He had one hand in his pants pocket and the other hand on his hip. And he stood there, lingering, and staring at Grace. She was fast asleep now, comfortably tucked under the sheets and sleeping as if she was in a fanciful state. She was looking so serene and angelic, it seemed to him, that he wondered why was he so worried.
But he was. His heart was heavy. What kind of husband would he be, he wondered. What kind of father? Would he be overly-protective of his loved ones to a point where they would turn against him, or would he miss the mark entirely when it came to leading his family down the right path? He was a workaholic. Could he be able to slow it down for them? His own father was a lousy example, and so was his mother. Who could he turn to? He had a few uncles left, and some cousins, but they were all mobsters or worse. They wouldn’t have a clue about taking care of a family the right way either. There was an exception. His cousin Reno was a good man who was raising his family right, but he had his own problems to worry about. Tommy had only been responsible for himself and, at varying degrees, his baby brother Sal, all of his life. How in the world was he going to be responsible for a wife and, hopefully down the road, children?
But that was the deal now. Grace McKinsey was his responsibility. He and she were now linked together and would soon become as one. She, Grace, would be Mrs. Thomas Gabrini. And the thought of it, of what it truly meant, staggered Tommy.
He knelt down beside her bed as tears came to his eyes. He knew he wasn’t so much as worthy to utter a single word of prayer, especially given the life he’d led or even after what he and Grace had done just a couple hours earlier. But he had to. For her sake. He had to.
He began to pray, rambling at first because of a lack of practice, and then he found his voice. He was raised a Catholic. He was raised to reverence God. He therefore prayed that he could be a man worthy of this special lady. He prayed that he wouldn’t let his past get in the way of their future. “Make me better than what I am, Lord,” he prayed. “Make me worthy of Grace. Please make me worthy of this kind, wonderful person that I am now responsible for.”
And the more he prayed, the more his spirit lifted. It wasn’t going to be easy, because he wasn’t an easy man, but they were going to make it after all. He believed that. With all his heart, he believed that.
He looked at Grace even longer, kissed her on the forehead, and then got up off of his knees and went home.
CHAPTER TWO
The knocks on her door early the next morning seemed to get louder with every step she took. By the time she made it up to her front door and was looking out of the peephole, the knocks were deafening to her just-awaken ears. And when she saw that it was Nayla Santiago, her oldest and one of her dearest friends, she closed her eyes momentarily. It was six thirty in the morning. Who knocks on somebody’s door at six a.m., she wondered. Who does that? And then she opened her eyes again, and opened the door.
“It’s too early, Nay,” she said as Nayla smiled.
Nayla, her hazel eyes bright with anticipation, was dressed for work, Grace decided, in a really cute pantsuit. “You have company?” Nayla asked, looking down at the male dress shirt Grace wore.
“No,” Grace said, looking down too. Tommy left Grace naked in bed last night, so she had to scramble to find something to put on when that banging on her door woke her up. She wasn’t oriented enough to remember that her bathrobe was in the bathroom, so she grabbed one of the dress shirts he kept in her closet. She was covered, but barely. “It’s early, Nay! It’s six a. m.”
“You know I know it,” Nayla admitted, walking on in. “But Jillian’s making all the supervisors attend some seminar on effective management in Portland today, and I wanted to catch you before I left town. She claims if we don’t drive those three hours and attend this boring-ass seminar, we could be fired. Her ass lying, but I can’t take any chances. But what about you? Why come you aren’t already up on this beautiful Friday morning?”
“Because it’s six a.m. Nayla,” Grace reminded her again as she closed the front door. “Even on a workday I don’t get up at six a.m. Besides,” she added as she began walking toward her sofa, “I’m still on vacation, remember? I’m not due back to work until Monday.”
“Monday?” Nayla asked, following her. “But you told me you were coming back from Vegas last night. I thought I got a text from you a couple days ago saying you’d be back in town Thursday night and you’d see me Friday.”
“Right,” Grace said, sitting down on the sofa. “But I didn’t mean I’d see you on the job. I thought we’d have lunch or something.”
“Oh. Well. There you go,” Nayla said, sitting down too. “Miscommunication. But I wouldn’t be able to have lunch with you today anyway. We’re expected to work through lunch at this boring-ass, waste of time and money seminar.”
“I hear you.”
“But you can’t tell that Jillian Birch a damn thing. One of her friends is conducting it so she wants us to support her friend. Can you imagine running a business like that?”
Grace knew exactly what Nayla meant. And this, she knew, would be the perfect time to tell her friend that Tommy had given her his forty-eight percent shares in Trammel Transport and, coupled with the ten percent shares her father had left her on his death, she was now the majority stakeholder in the company. But she had already decided she wasn’t going to give Nayla any beforehand information. Tommy, as chairman of the board, said that Jillian, along with the other board members, would be notified Monday morning that Grace was now majority shareholder at Trammel. Nayla, and everybody else, would have to be notified after that.
But she was still wearing that rock of a ring Tommy had given her last night, which Nayla’s already pop eyes immediately noticed.
“What in the world,” she said as she moved closer to Grace and grabbed Grace’s finger. “What is this?”
Grace would have preferred to let this wait too, but the cat was already out of the bag. “It’s an engagement ring.”
Grace was a little taken aback by that look on Nayla’s face. It almost looked angry. “I mean, Tommy Gabrini asked me to marry him.”
Nayla fell back on the sofa. She was staring at Grace. “And what did you say?”
Grace frowned. “What do you mean what did I say? I said yes, of course. It was the happiest news of my entire life. I gladly said yes.”
There was a moment, a very brief moment, where that little twinge of jealousy Nayla always displayed whenever somebody else had better news to tell than she had, appeared in her eyes. But then she smiled and hugged Grace’s neck.
“Does Jamie know?” Nayla asked. Jamie Rogers was a close friend too. Sometimes Grace’s closest friend.
“Not yet,” Grace said. “He’s still out of town on business. I want to tell him in person.”
Nayla smiled. “He’s going to be so shocked. I don’t think he likes Tommy very much.”
Grace started to say something. Tommy and Jamie had a wonderful relationship. A better one than Tommy had with Nay. But she didn’t go there.
“Anyway,” Nayla said, “congrats, girl. I really hope this one works out for you.”
“Tommy is no Cameron Birch, don’t worry about that.” Cameron Birch, Jillian’s son, was once Grace’s boyfriend until she caught him in bed with not one, but with two women. She dumped him then and never went back.
“Speaking of Cameron,” Nayla said. “I heard he was in Vegas right around the same time you were there too. And that he was staying right there at the PaLargio too.”
“Yeah, I saw that asshole,” Grace said. It wasn’t a fond memory though. Tommy and his cousin Reno, who owned the PaLargio Hotel and Casino, had to handle Cam when he put his hand on her. They took him out of her sight, so she didn’t know what exactly they had done to him. But she was certain it was unpleasant.
Nayla looked at her. “You sound like he tried something with you.”
“Why would you say that? Because I called him an asshole? He is an asshole.”
“Yeah, but you said it with too much gusto, girl.” They laughed. “Something went down. Tell me.”
“It was just Cam being Cam. He was questioning why I was in Vegas, which was incredible to me.”
“I’m saying!”
“But I ignored him,” Grace said.
“So what happened?” Nayla asked.
“I got away from that zero and went on about my business.”
Nayla stared at Grace. She knew she was lying. Grace never really confided in her the way best friends should. But the truth would come out. She knew a lot of the same people Cam knew. She’d get the real story soon enough. “Anywho,” Nayla said, “I came by early because I don’t have enough butter to cover my bread.”
“Translate please,” Grace said with a smile.
“I need to borrow a few bucks until payday next week.”
Nayla was always good about paying her back so Grace never had any problem with lending her money. As long as it was nothing outrageous. “How much?” she asked as she stood.
“Could you spot me fifty until payday?” Nayla asked.
“Yeah, I think so,” Grace said as she went into her bedroom.
Nayla shook her head. The size of that rock on her finger! Why would Tommy Gabrini want to marry Grace? She looked way better than Grace, if you asked her, and nobody was giving her any ring like that! But innocent Grace got one. What was this world coming to, Nayla wondered.
“Here you are,” Grace said as she returned with the cash.
Nayla stood, accepted it, and gathered back up her purse and jacket. “I’ll call you later,” she said as she headed for the door. “It’s a three-hour drive and we’re supposed to get there by eight, so I’d better get going.”
“Okay, Nay, talk to you later,” Grace said, Nayla left, and Grace closed the door. Nayla wasn’t right about a lot of things, she thought, but she was right-on about Jillian’s mismanagement. As Jillian’s chief of staff, even Grace knew that Trammel was barely turning a profit. Yet Jillian felt it necessary to send well-paid supervisors all the way to Portland to support some friend of hers? Grace knew, when she did get back to work on Monday, and had access to the true state of Trammel affairs, she was going to have her hands full.
Sal Gabrini’s white Ferrari came to a screeching halt inside the horseshoe driveway of his brother’s home. He jumped from the car in his sweats and tennis shoes, ran across the sidewalk, and used his keycard to enter the home without bothering to knock or ring a bell.
“Hennessy, what’s up?” Sal said with gusto as he hurried past Henry, his brother’s butler, who had scrambled to greet him at the door.
Henry was still putting on his liveried jacket as Sal flew past him. “But Mr. Gabrini is still getting dressed, sir,” Henry said with some degree of frustration. “Sir?” he added loudly, but Sal was already halfway up the staircase, taking the steps two, even three, at a time.
Tommy’s bedroom was at the end of the hall of the massive home, and Sal hurried across the marbled landing to the bedroom’s double doors. He swept those doors open too, without bothering to knock, only to find his brother standing at the front side window, dressed in his dark brown Armani suit and glossy black imported shoes, with his hands pushed down in his pants pockets. Sal stopped in his tracks. There was always something about Tommy’s sereneness that always forced Sal to calm down too.
Tommy didn’t bother to turn around.
Sal walked over to his brother’s side. First he looked out of the window too, at the waterfall cascading down in the middle of the garden, and then he looked at Tommy.
“Good morning,” he said.
“You must have flown,” Tommy said.
“I wanted to make sure I caught you before you left.” Sal continued to stare at his brother. “You were shitting me, though, right? That phone call this morning, you were screwing around with me, right?”
“And why would I do something like that, little brother?”
“Little my ass!” Sal said as if he was offended, and Tommy smiled. Sal was the younger brother, but there was nothing little on any part of his body. He, in fact, had been out on his early morning jog when he got the phone call. “So you’re telling me, standing right here right now, that it’s true? That you actually asked her?”
Even Tommy’s smile turned solemn. He understood the gravity too. “I asked her,” he admitted.
“And she said yes?”
“Remarkably, she said yes.”
Sal shook his head as if he was still unable to believe it. “I didn’t think you had it in you, Tommy. Honest to goodness, I didn’t think you had it in you. Especially after Shanks. After Shanks I didn’t think you’d ever ask another woman to marry you. Not ever. But you asked Grace already.”
Tommy didn’t respond to that. But Sal was still befuddled. “Why?” he asked. “After Shanks, why would you want to put yourself through that kind of shit again?”
Tommy turned sideways, now facing his brother, and leaned against the window frame. “She deserves better than what I’ve been giving her, that’s the bottom line. I’m rarely in town, I’m always on the go when I am in town, and when I do spend time with her it’s always on my terms.”
“Of course it’s on your terms! You have a global business to run. Grace understands that.”
“Her understanding it doesn’t make it right,” Tommy made clear. “What I came to realize is that I’ve been treating her the way I treated my other women. As if we were in some uncommitted, open relationship, when we most definitely are not. So after that craziness with Shanks I thought long and hard about what it was I really wanted in this life. I decided I want Grace in my life, above anything else. I want Grace. But I wasn’t going to keep her if I didn’t make some drastic changes.” Then a frown came on his face. “I wasn’t treating her right,” he added.
“But that’s bullshit, Tommy,” Sal said, refusing to agree. “I�
�m sorry, but it is. You treat her like a fucking princess, what are you talking? Princess Grace, that’s what we call her behind her back. Yeah, you’re more experienced than she is, and I get that. But you baby her, Tommy. You hold her hand, you pamper her, I’d bet even she has to tell your ass to lighten up. The way you treat her compared to all those other women in your past, it’s no contest!”
“But I don’t want her to be compared to any of those other women,” Tommy said irritably, pointing at his brother, as he pushed from the window frame and began walking across the room. He glanced back at him as he walked. “That’s the point,” he added.
Sal’s tired blue eyes followed his brother’s movements. He was proud of his brother for taking this major step, but he was terrified for him too. Tommy was a lover, and all the women who’d ever been with him always treated him as if they had some rock star in their beds. Those same women, many of whom were among America’s most beautiful themselves, wasn’t going to stand for this. Sal knew it. He wondered, however, if Tommy really knew it. And more importantly, if he had prepared Grace.
“I’m not comparing her to those other girls,” Sal said, “but I know for a fact some of those females aren’t going to take this news too kindly. I don’t know much, but I know a hellava lot about females, big brother, and I know you don’t play with their emotions. Especially black chicks.”
“You don’t play with anybody’s emotions,” Tommy replied as he stood at the granite-top center island inside his open door, room-sized, walk-in closet. “Race has nothing to do with it,” he added as he grabbed his belt from a hangar and began putting it on.
TOMMY GABRINI 2: A PLACE IN HIS HEART Page 2