Until You Come Back To Me, Book 5

by Mallory Monroe

  “Ah, come on, Gem, I knew you were the prettiest. I was just a racist asshole back then.” Then he looked at her, at her sizeable cleavage showing along the opening of his dress shirt she wore, and at her gorgeous face. “You’re still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

  Gemma smiled. “Ah, how sweet. You’re no asshole now.”

  But Sal’s look had already changed. Gemma saw it. “Speaking of ass,” he said, untying his bathrobe, “bring yours here.”

  Gemma frowned. “Oh, Sal, not again!”

  “Yes, again. Come here!”

  Gemma considered him. “I thought you wanted me to eat.”

  “Eat this,” Sal said, looking down at his aroused and exposed penis.

  Gemma smiled, and went to Sal. But instead of him allowing her to give him head, he lifted her shirt, revealing her naked bottom half, and put her on his lap, with her back to his chest. She laid her head on his shoulder as he placed his finger into her pussy. He relaxed too.

  “Still wet,” he said, “even after showering.”

  “You put in so much,” Gemma said, “some still oozes out.”

  “Good.” Then he lifted her slightly onto his penis, and entered her again.

  “Ah,” she said like a sigh as her head leaned back even further and he placed his hand on her long, sleek neck. He began to fuck her.

  “Isn’t that better?” he asked into her ear.

  “Yes.”

  He fucked her harder. “Even Better?” he asked.

  “Better,” she said breathlessly as he pumped harder.

  “Much better?” he asked her yet again, his voice hoarse with lust.

  “Much,” she said, her body bouncing to the rhythm of his fuck. “In fact all.”

  And he pounded her. His dick was going to be swollen and red as fire from this much activity this close together, but he didn’t care. He wanted her and he wanted her now. And he had her. And he did her. He put it on her until she was streaming with cum, and he was pouring into her all over again.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Ted Coggan handed Gemma the full file across her conference table. They were in her office, meeting to go over trial strategy. Ted watched her as she reviewed the info he had on the victim. She wore big reading glasses that only made her look intelligent with her beauty. And she was beautiful, he thought, as he looked at her.

  “Lester Llewellyn,” she said. “In a nutshell.”

  “Essentially, yes,” Ted echoed.

  Gemma closed the file and leaned back in her chair. “I still don’t understand it,” she said.

  “What’s to understand?” Ted asked. “He was a lowlife looking for a free ride. Our client was his meal ticket.”

  “So they were arguing over money,” Gemma said.

  “Right. He wanted to gamble hers away and she was tired of it. When she refused to give him another dime, he decided to steal it out of her purse anyway. Things got heated, they struggled for control of the purse, and then he grabbed the registered gun she keeps in her purse and pointed it at her.”

  “It was her gun?” Gemma asked.

  “It was her gun, yes. And he pointed it at her. Then he grabbed the money and was hurrying toward the door. But Rabina, being Rabina, had a few tricks up her own sleeve and pulled out another gun, and pointed it at him.”

  “Her gun as well?” Gemma asked.

  “Yep. But unregistered. She pointed the gun at Llewellyn and told him she was going to blow his head off if he didn’t return her money and return it now. He turned around, as if he was going to shoot her before he returned a dime, and she shot him instead.”

  Gemma stared at Ted.

  “What?”

  “But that can’t be right. She’s lying.”

  “She’s lying?” Ted considered her. “How so?”

  “I read the police report. Only one gun was found at the scene.”

  Good work, Ted thought inwardly. “That’s right,” he said outwardly. “But she says he didn’t die right away. He, in fact, was able to take the gun he had in his possession and toss it out the window.”

  “And why would he do that?”

  “He was so vindictive that he would want her to hang for shooting him. That’s how she ascribes his motivation.”

  “Or that’s how she covers up her own motivation,” Gemma said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “She could have said they struggled for the gun and the gun went off, but that wouldn’t wash either because she’s too small. From what I’ve read in the file, she’s a very small woman. Nobody would believe a big guy like Lester Llewellyn would have any problem wrestling a gun away from a little lady like her. But if there was another gun in play, then yeah, she would have a case.”

  “So you believe she has a case?”

  “I believe her story is far-fetched and implausible. I believe we’re going to have a tough time convincing a jury.”

  Ted smiled. “You will just have to convince them because that’s her story and she’s sticking to it. That’s why I hired you. You can convince them.”

  Gemma sat quietly, her arms folded.

  “I didn’t say it was going to be easy,” Ted added.

  “When can I meet with her?”

  “I think it’s time you and she met. I’ll set something up. But remember she’s still not sold on anybody other than myself defending her, so don’t bring it up. Let me handle that. You size her up, tell me later what you think.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “It’ll be informal. Meet for dinner maybe. Bring your husband along so she doesn’t think you and I are an item.”

  Gemma frowned. “Why would she think that?”

  “Because you’re beautiful. You do know you’re beautiful, right?”

  Gemma knew no such thing. “Is our client in love with you?”

  Ted smiled. “All of my clients are in love with me, sweetheart. All of them.”

  “Humble, aren’t you?”

  “Just truthful,” Ted responded confidently. Then he added: “Our client? She’s not black.”

  Gemma looked at him. Where did that come from? “And you’re telling me this why?”

  “Because black people don’t ask me to represent them. I’m too successful for them. You know how we are. We’re like crabs in a pot when it comes to one of us trying to get out. We cut each other down while whites build each other up and support each other and they all climb out of that pot. But not black folks. We pull each other right back in.”

  Although he said it with a smile, Gemma could see the bitterness in his eyes. “I don’t know anything about these black people you’re talking about,” she responded, “but that hasn’t been my experience.”

  Ted gave her a doubtful look. “Oh, really now?”

  “The African-Americans that I know do not go around tearing each other down. They build each other up. They have been very supportive.”

  “Yeah, right. I married a white woman because I wasn’t going to sit back and let some sister tear me down. And don’t look at me like that. You feel the same way about the brothers. I did my research on you. You didn’t want to get knocked around either, and I suspect that’s the reason why you married a white man.

  “You suspect wrong,” Gemma made clear.

  Ted was trying her, to see how an out-of-left-field question could throw her, as the prosecution would try to do time and time again during trial, and he was so far surprised that she wasn’t defensive at all. She was firm, but she wasn’t defensive. “Then why didn’t you marry a brother?” he asked her.

  “I married my husband because of who he is, how he treated me, and the level of joy he brought into my life. If he was orange with yellow polka dots and was the man I know as Sal Gabrini, I still would have married him. Perhaps you married your wife because of the color of her skin, but I would never be so foolish as to marry somebody for that reason. His color has nothing to do with him, since he didn’t pick it, and it has nothing to do with my deci
sion to marry him. His heart and my heart had everything to do with it.”

  “So you’re telling me you’ve never even heard of negative black folks trying to tear people down?”

  “I’ve heard of black, white, Asian, Hispanic, every race known to man trying to tear people down. It’s not about their skin color, it’s about the hate in their hearts. Why are you harping on one race as if hateful behavior is specific to them?”

  Ted didn’t like her, but he respected her. “I just thought we had that in common,” he said.

  Gemma frowned. “You thought we had what in common?”

  Ted smiled again, but again Gemma could see the vile in his eyes. “I thought we shared a mutual distaste for the actions of some of our people.”

  Gemma realized how little she liked Ted Coggan, and how his ridiculous attitudes were doing more to tear people down than any negative naysayer ever could. She signed on to represent their client, and she was going to keep her word and represent to her best ability, but her respect for the celebrity attorney in front of her went to nil. “You thought wrong,” she said to him, and went back to reviewing the file.

  But Ted laughed. He laughed so boisterously that she had no choice but to look at him. “Something’s funny?” she asked.

  “I was just trying you on for size,” he said. “I was trying to see if I could get you to lose that super-cool style of yours. You know I don’t think like that.”

  But Gemma wasn’t buying his just playing response. She saw that look in his eyes. That man meant every word he said. But she wasn’t about to argue with him about his own feelings. He had to live with that. She, instead, got back down to business and left him to himself.

  Reno Gabrini, the owner of the PaLargio Hotel and Casino on the Vegas Strip, felt his wife nudge his elbow as he opened her car door. They were in the parking lot of the popular Hemmingway restaurant after a business meeting with another casino giant. They were thinking about a merger. The meeting had gone better than expected.

  But his wife nudged him again. He looked at her. She was an African-American beauty, even as she was pushing forty, and he loved her as completely as he had when they were first married. “What?” he asked her.

  Katrina “Trina” Gabrini motioned her head toward the restaurant’s exit where Sal Gabrini had just walked out with a beautiful woman beside him. Trina’s car was parked further back along the curb, and the Valet was just bringing around Sal’s Porsche. The woman and Sal were in what seemed to be a very intense conversation, but Reno didn’t see anything unusual about the scene. Sal was his cousin, but he was a major businessman too. “So what he’s with a woman,” Reno said. “Big deal. Probably a business meeting.”

  But Trina wasn’t buying it. “Yeah, right, Reno. A business meeting with a beautiful blonde, the epitome of the type of woman Sal used to go goo-goo eyes over before he hooked up with Gemma. I’ll bet Gemma would be curious to know about this quote, unquote ‘business meeting.’”

  Reno looked at his wife and decided to speak with a harsh tone because he knew her. “You listen to me,” he said to her, “don’t you dare call Gemma and start shit with Sal.”

  “Who said I was going to call Gemma?”

  “Don’t you bring it up, you hear me, Tree? I don’t want Sal giving you a hard time over stupid stuff that’s not even our business because I may have to kill his ass. So if you want Sal alive and me out of jail, you’d better keep your trap shut. You hear me?”

  Trina rolled her eyes.

  “You hear me, Katrina?”

  “Yes, I hear you! Damn! All I was doing was pointing out what I’m looking at with my own two eyes. Sal has always loved the ladies.”

  “But he loves Gem more,” Reno pointed out.

  Trina exhaled and nodded. “True that. He loves him some Gemma.”

  “So give him the benefit of the doubt and stay out of it,” Reno ordered her again.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll stay out of it,” Trina assured him. “Because it is a hurtful thing.”

  Reno frowned. “What’s a hurtful thing?”

  “Hearing rumors about your husband’s infidelity.” Trina said this and looked Reno dead in the eye. There had been more rumors around town about Reno Gabrini and his ladies than Trina could ever count. Even after all of their years together, there were still rumors.

  Reno looked at his beautiful, African-American darling. He put her through a lot down through the years, and even though they were rock solid now, the pain was still there. He leaned down and kissed her on the lips. He was recently crowned, by a local magazine, as the most powerful man in Vegas, but he knew the truth: he would be nothing without his beloved Tree.

  After kissing her, he looked into her sultry, hazel eyes. “I love you,” he said to her.

  “I love you too,” Trina replied. “But I don’t want Gemma hurt.”

  “Nobody’s hurting Gemma. If Sal hurts Gemma, I’ll kick his ass myself. And it’ll be my pleasure.”

  Trina smiled. Reno and Sal never did get along. And then she cranked up, closed her car door, and drove away, waving bye to Reno as she did.

  Reno walked to his car, which was even further back along the curb. But when Reno got into his car, and saw the blonde give Sal a kiss on the cheek and a hug, he suddenly became concerned too.

  “What the fuck,” he said as he watched what any outside observer would consider a very chummy couple. And when Sal’s car was brought around by the valet, and Sal helped the woman into his car as if they had not met for dinner, but had come together, Reno was even more concerned. Sal’s big brother, and Reno’s best friend Tommy Gabrini had gone through a divorce some years back, and Reno remembered how painful that experience was. Not Sal too, he thought, as he cranked up his car and began to follow behind his cousin. Nobody was going to hurt Gemma. Not on Reno’s watch.

  Reno Gabrini was a very busy man who had far more that he needed to be doing than tailing his cousin’s Porsche. But he tailed him. For Gemma’s sake, he followed him through the streets of Vegas until Sal and his lady friend were pulling into the driveway of a modest (by Gabrini standards) house.

  Reno felt some kind of way as his cousin, his very married cousin, got out of his car and escorted the blonde bombshell to the front door. He remembered when Tommy got shot in Chicago and how some beautiful blonde was living in a big house Sal owned there. He warned Sal then not to be fooling around on Gemma, but Sal told him to mind his own business. Which Reno knew he should have been doing right now. But Reno loved Gemma. He knew Gemma before Sal knew her. He had an almost fatherly affection for her. And what he was seeing didn’t sit well with him at all.

  When the door was unlocked, Reno hoped Sal would say his goodbye and get his ass away from there. But it didn’t happen. Sal went inside the home with the woman, closing the door behind him. Reno closed his eyes and exhaled. He had too much to do to be spying on some asshole like his cousin. But he didn’t like it. Sal was going to break Gemma’s heart if he wasn’t careful.

  And Reno wasn’t going to allow that.

  Despite what he told his wife, and despite what he had said previously himself, Reno put his nose in it. He grabbed his cell phone and called Sal’s wife.

  Gemma and Ted were still meeting when the call came in. Gemma picked up her cell phone from her desk and glanced at the Caller ID. “I need to take this,” she said to Ted and answered the call. “Reno, hi.”

  “Hey, babe,” Reno’s voice said over the phone. “How are you?”

  “I’m doing well. What about you? Everything okay?”

  “I hope so.”

  Gemma didn’t like the sound of that. “Excuse me?”

  “I don’t beat around the bush, Gem. You know that.”

  “I know it.”

  “Sal left a restaurant with some woman.”

  Gemma’s eyes glanced at Ted for some reason, although she was certain he couldn’t hear Reno’s voice. “Okay,” she said into the phone.

  “And not just any
woman either. A beautiful blonde, just like he likes them. Or, at least, he used to like before he met you.”

  Gemma knew her husband used to have a thing for blondes, which made their coupling so unusual. “So they left a restaurant?” she asked Reno.

  “They left and went to a house. I figure it’s her place, but I can’t be sure about that. I want to go up to the door and drag his ass out of there, but you know how volatile things get when Sal and I get together.”

  “Especially when you disagree,” Gemma said.

  “Right. But I’m parked outside of the house right now. It’s nighttime, she’s gorgeous, I just don’t see the fucking point. Even if she’s a business associate, he should have handled that kind of business in the daylight. He’s a married man for crying out loud.”

  Gemma listened to Reno, a man who used to be accused of all kinds of indiscretions with females. Gemma remembered wondering how Trina put up with it. But now it was her man being talked about, and she didn’t like it. “Are they still there?”

  “They’re still there. They just went in. He’ll probably be there for a while if their chumminess is any indication.”

  “Chumminess?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Reno said. “He was hugging on her and she gave him a little peck on the cheek. Very chummy.”

  Gemma’s heart dropped.

  “It might be nothing,” Reno quickly added. But then he thought again. “I take that back. It’s something. But it might be innocent. Sal helps people. Maybe he’s helping that chick.”

  “Why did you call me, Ree?” Gemma asked him.

  “I called you because it looks damn suspicious to me, and you have a right to know. I’m no snitch, but I’ll always put my nose in when it comes to the people I love. Now take down this address. Check it out or not, but take it down.”

  Reno’s voice always sounded like a command, but Gemma knew he meant well. She followed that command and took down the address. “Thanks, Reno,” she said afterwards.

  “I’m no fucking snitch,” Reno reiterated. “But this is different.”