ROMANCING TOMMY GABRINI

by Mallory Monroe

  “Happy Valley,” she said when she finished her sip. “It’s a small town outside of Portland.”

  “Over in Clackamas County, right?”

  Grace smiled. “Right.”

  “I know it.”

  “When my parents divorced, my mother remarried. Her new husband wasn’t real interested in having a kid around so my father, who had moved to Seattle, came and got me.”

  “Good man.”

  “Yes,” she said. “He was wonderful.”

  Tommy nodded, and stared at her. “Was?”

  “He died. He and Jillian’s husband were driving back to their hotel from a golf tournament in Palm Springs when their car was broadsided. Both of them were killed.”

  Tommy was astounded. “Your father was Mike McKinsey?”

  Grace looked at him. “You knew him?”

  “I didn’t know him, no, but I knew a McKinsey had died in that car accident with Clive Birch, who was a friend of mine. I knew he had been a VP at Trammel. And he was your father?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Geez. I didn’t put two and two together. And he was in that accident with Clive. Your father.”

  “It was an awful thing. Jillian was torn up and I was torn up and we kind of grieved together. I was her assistant at the time. It was awful.”

  Tommy understood that.

  “That was also when Cam and I became closer.” Grace said this and looked at Tommy, expecting him to once again admonish her for her poor choice of man. But he didn’t go there.

  “Who came after Cam?” he asked.

  “Nobody came after Cam.”

  Tommy hesitated. “So you haven’t been with anyone since Cameron Birch?”

  Grace nodded her head. “That’s right.”

  “Not even for a . . . night?”

  Grace knew what he was asking. She sipped more wine. “Not even for a night,” she said.

  “I thought you said you guys broke up five months ago?”

  “Four months ago.”

  “So you’re telling me that you haven’t had any in four months?”

  Grace smiled. “You make it sound like it’s been four years.”

  Tommy raised his eyebrows. “Well,” he started saying, but Grace shook her head.

  “Never mind,” she said and Tommy grinned an alluringly rakish grin and hunched his shoulders. Grace loved that smile of his.

  “But what about you?” she asked him. “What’s your status?”

  “My status?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Single,” he said firmly.

  Grace smiled. “You say that so proudly.”

  “Not really.”

  “Yes really. You said that with some serious emphasis, as if you were reciting some kind of battle cry: ‘Say it loud! I’m single and I’m proud!”

  Tommy laughed. “Well I certainly didn’t mean to sound any trumpets. I’ve never been married was my point.”

  “Never even engaged?”

  Tommy didn’t want to be reminded of his last engagement. An engagement that left him alone on what was supposed to be his wedding day. “Yes,” he said. “I’ve been engaged before.”

  Grace waited for him to elaborate, but nothing else was said. She knew what sore spots looked like, having one or two herself, so she decided to move on. “What possessed you to buy a restaurant? Especially one as luxurious as this one,” she added.

  Tommy was more than willing to move on, too. “I buy many businesses,” he said. “Some I keep, some I sell for profit. Diamante’s was one of the ones I decided to keep.”

  “So you’re what they call a corporate raider?”

  “That’s not the phrase I would have chosen, but yes, that’s right. I’m a venture capitalist.”

  “Not a bad living I’m sure.”

  Tommy chuckled. “It pays the bills.”

  “No, Tommy. My job pays the bills. Your job don’t have bills.”

  Tommy laughed and lifted his wine glass. He then took a sip himself.

  “So what did you do before you became a mega businessman? Did you ever work in a McDonalds, say, like the rest of us? Or were you born into the good life?”

  Tommy snorted. “Not bloody likely,” he said. “My old man was a cop and I followed in his footsteps, and my kid brother followed in mine.”

  Grace was astonished. “You used to be a policeman?”

  “I did.”

  “What rank?”

  “Captain.”

  “You were a police captain? Wow. Why did you leave?”

  “Many reasons, and I just wanted to try other things. So I prayed and went for it.”

  “You went for it and never looked back.”

  “You got that right,” Tommy said.

  “You didn’t want to look back?”

  “Not for a second. Being a cop was tough. And restraining. I’m glad to have that life behind me.”

  When the waiter left, they both got down to business. It tasted so good that Grace ended up cleaning her plate.

  Tommy picked up her empty plate, turned it over and then back upright, and smiled. “Still think it’s too much food?” he asked her.

  “What can I say? I was suddenly hungry.”

  Tommy shook his shoulders effeminately. “I’ll show you hunger,” he said, and Grace laughed.

  They arrived at her apartment building and took the elevator to the seventeenth floor. Tommy leaned against the rail and Grace stared up at the changing floor numbers as they chugged along. There were other people in the elevator, too, but Grace could feel Tommy’s eyes all over her. She felt conflicted by the attention. Especially after what Nayla had told her. And, in truth, she didn’t know what she wanted to do herself. Guys like Cameron she understood. Their motives were usually crystal clear even when they didn’t intend for them to be. But guys like Tommy were in a different league. Grace didn’t know where to begin to figure out his motivation. Sometimes it was obvious. He wanted sex and sex alone. But other times it wasn’t obvious at all. They seemed to connect on a deeper level, and he seemed to want much more. Or, she thought wryly, she at least hoped he wanted more.

  The elevator binged and then the doors opened, and Grace and Tommy stepped off. Like two interested people burdened by anticipation, they walked quietly to her apartment at the end of the hall.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  She lay naked in the middle of her bed, her inner thighs already wet and ready, as he slung off his shirt, stepped out of his shoes, and then unbuckled and unzipped his pants. The rod that flapped out was already heavy with his erection and Grace couldn’t avoid staring. She didn’t mean to. It wasn’t as if she’d never seen a dick before.

  But his manhood won the prize hands down. She’d been with black guys who were average-to-large, and white guys who were average-to-small. But none of them, not one, had equipment that was as large and thick and as inviting as Tommy’s. His dick was so inviting, in fact, that as his naked body climbed on top of her, and that same hard, thick dick slid across her thigh, her vagina pulsated in a way that caused her to smile. She felt like a novice again. She felt the kind of anticipation she had her very first time.

  Just a few minutes earlier she had inwardly debated whether to let him in her apartment at all. They were standing at the front door. She had thanked him for coming to her surprise party, and he had mentioned how much he enjoyed himself. His blondish-brown hair had flapped over his forehead, and he had his sports jacket off and over his shoulder, revealing just how buff he really was. And she felt the weight of just how difficult it would be to turn him down.

  It felt like the perfect storm. Every indicator was a go. He was sex personified when she hadn’t had any in months. She was just a threshold away from inviting him into her home and having, if his sophisticated style and sensuality was any indication, the best sex she’d probably ever had. All signs suggested she should do it. Without hesitation she should just do it.

  She felt awkward as she stood at her front d
oor, her key in her hand, because even with all of those outward signs she was still inwardly conflicted. And she noticed how Tommy didn’t seem awkward, or conflicted, at all. He leaned against her doorjamb.

  “Are you going to invite me in?” he asked her.

  “I’m thinking about it.”

  Tommy smiled. The man was so good looking that Grace was staring at his smile. “What’s there to think about?” he asked her.

  Grace couldn’t verbalize what. She knew they both were consenting adults. She knew he would view her as immature or lacking experience if she didn’t go for it. But it was the fact that she was experienced, well experienced, that gave her pause. Because she also knew, if what Nayla said was true, that he liked to “play the field” when she wasn’t the field-playing type. If she allowed him passage through her front door, and it led where their body heat was suggesting it would most certainly lead, there would be no turning back for her. She’d never had a casual sexual relationship in her life. She’d had many that didn’t last long, as the guys would get what they wanted and would eventually move on, or she’d uncover the truth about their motivations and move on herself, but she always had every intention of a long-term affair.

  But Tommy would probably have very different ideas. He would probably view their night together as a hit and run. Which meant, by letting him in, she had to be willing to take that kind of hit. And she wasn’t at all certain if she could take it.

  Tommy seemed sympathetic to her hesitation, she thought, because he spoke up. “You know what I think?” he asked her.

  She looked at him. What would a man like him know about it? He probably had never been conflicted in his life. Not about something like this. He probably always erred on the side of getting some, which didn’t make her decision any easier. “What?” she asked him.

  “I think you should let me in.”

  Grace smiled. “Why am I not surprised?”

  “You should let me in,” Tommy said, his face turning serious, “because it’s the first night of your thirtieth year and I would hate for you to spend the rest of this night alone.”

  Grace loved the way he put that. Because she didn’t want to spend the rest of her birthday alone, either. And, if truth be told, she couldn’t think of another human being alive, especially of the male specie, that she’d rather spend the rest of her night with.

  And she let him in.

  Now they were naked on her bed. He had her arms lifted over her head, his big hands clasping her small hands, and was kissing her with an edginess that made her passion soar.

  He kissed her on her mouth, moving his lips in tantalizing circles as if he was determined to suck the life out of her. She moaned as his passion built. And when he had to come up for air, he moved his lips across her lips, still hungering for more, and then plummeting her lips again. And they went another round, kissing until air was needed again.

  He wrapped his arms around her as he kissed her. He loved the way she felt in his arms, and how she made him feel when his lips connected with her skin. He couldn’t stop kissing her. For the longest time he held onto her and kissed her as if he’d never had it so good. He thought he would be quick about it. Get in and get out. Enjoy it while he could. But he had only just begun to fuck her, and already he was stuck on her lips.

  Grace, too, was surprised by their connection. She couldn’t let him go either. The more he kissed her, the more she wanted to feel his kiss. The more he held her, the more she wanted his arms around her. She had never dreamed, just a few days ago, that she could ever want someone this badly. But she wanted Tommy. She wanted him to hold her the way he was holding her, and to never let her go.

  Tommy moved his kisses to her small, bare brown shoulders. He loved the way she tasted. He sucked her and licked her and held her. He moved back to her face, and looked in her eyes to see if she, too, was enjoying their union. And she was. He could see the twinkle in her eyes. There was something so sweet, and so endearing about her that he felt a soaring sense of purpose with her. This was where he wanted to be, and she was who he wanted to be with. That was how he felt. On this strange night, in her strange bed, he’d never felt more at home.

  But as his penis began to harden, he knew he had to get on with it. He wasn’t going to be able to just hold her all night. Not with the boner he had to satisfy. So he got on with satisfying her. He moved down, to her chin and her neck, sucking her in ways that made her entire body react. And then he was on her breasts, licking each one, his tongue moving in a slow motion glide from one to the other as if he was determined to make her feel as intense as he felt. When she began to moan again, unable to quietly accept the feelings his expert mouth was giving to her, he moved on.

  Grace wanted him to move, too, to that special place. She rubbed her hands up and down his back as he handled his business, her body’s awareness heightened with anticipation. But she couldn’t imagine he’d go there now, not their very first time together. And when he began to move down, kissing her stomach and then her thighs, she ran her hands through his silky smooth hair. Because he was going there. He wasn’t hesitating to go there.

  Tommy moaned himself when his tongue first touched her clitoris. He loved her smell and the fresh pinkness of her folds. And he licked her so slowly, with such long glides, that when his tongue slipped inside of her she lifted her hips and vaulted her butt off of the bed. Tommy grabbed her butt cheeks and squeezed as his mouth fucked her. He wanted her to feel that intensity. He wanted her to eventually feel as if she’d had sex many times before, but nothing like this.

  Grace already felt that way. She felt it when he lifted her legs, opening them as wide as they could open, and licking her as if he was licking ice cream.

  “Oh,” he said as he licked her, “I love your taste. I love it. Oh.” And just like her lips previously, he couldn’t stop kissing her cunt. He couldn’t stop licking it, and sucking it, and devouring her there. He stretched his body out on her big bed, with her legs still in the air and his hands still holding her by the ass, and continued to mouth fuck her. He licked her so long, and ate her until he had her so wet in her own juices, that her entire vagina was red hot and ready.

  And he was beyond ready. But he moved back up, to hold her in his arms again. There was something so powerful about the way she felt in his arms that he needed to feel that again. He kissed her on her neck and her ear and rubbed his massive penis against the outside of her vagina.

  “I want you raw,” he whispered in her ear as he rubbed his cheek against her soft, tender cheek. “I’ve never wanted anybody so badly. I want you raw.”

  “I want you, too,” Grace managed to say. “But we can’t.”

  “I know, baby. I know. But the way you make me feel!” He said this with such emphasis. “Gotdamn!”

  He moved his lips back to her mouth and kissed her without even pretending any delicacy. He couldn’t help it. She had his sensuality at a fever pitch. And he plummeted her. He kissed her so hard and so long that his lips felt seared to hers. He loved her taste and her smell and how delicate her luscious skin felt in his arms. And to make it a more perfect union, she returned his kisses with an almost equal passion. She held him in her arms and seared him with kisses of her own. She felt the fever too. And she plummeted him.

  And then neither could wait another second. They had let it go on too long. His dick rubbed against her vagina one time too many. Her vagina felt his thick shaft moving over her one second too long. And now it was too late. Their feelings were too heightened. Their weakness for each other’s sex had become too engrained.

  He wanted to put it in. Raw as raw could get.

  And she wanted to let him.

  But he couldn’t.

  And she wouldn’t.

  He reached for the condom he had placed on her nightstand, put it on that big dick she was craving, and looked her dead in the eyes when he slowly, for the very first time, put it deep inside of her.

  “Aaaah,” he said in a long, dr
awn-out exhale as his penis connected with her pussy for the very first time. And it became all about the movement. He moved deep into her, and slid back out. He tapped his dick on her clit again, and then slid it back in. Over and over. Until he was going in and coming partially out. It was all in the movement. He laid back down on top of her and pulled her, once again, into his arms.

  “You’re so sweet,” he said as he fucked her. Her passageway was so tight, and so filled with friction, that he felt as if he was expanding with every inch of her vagina that he conquered. He knew she would be tight. He knew she was no sex maven. But he never dreamed she’d be this tight, and this sweet, and this irresistibly sensual.

  He thrashed his cock into her cunt for a long, wonderful experience. At one point he laid on his back, and put her on top, and she rode him, with his hands squeezing her bouncing breasts as she rode. He squeezed her so hard that she screamed in pleasant pain. She never felt this elated before.

  At another point she was on her side, and he was behind her, with his hand holding up one of her legs as he got just the right angle to continue thrashing her. And he kept fucking her. Over and over.

  And then he was back on top, and he was holding her in his arms again, and kissing her again, and thrashing her without pause.

  She’d never been this thoroughly worked over before in her life. Every muscle in her body was alive and vibrant and filled with sensual desire. And she loved it. She held onto this big man as he fucked her so long and so hard that she began to scream his name. He knew how to make her feel as if there was no better feeling than the pounding he was putting on her right here and right now. She screamed his name again, as his gyrations increased. And she screamed again and again until the feelings were so intense that she couldn’t do anything but scream.

  Until he hit that sweet spot in just that certain way that caused her to not only scream, but go over. Her body clenched into a sensual ball of fire that made her buck her legs in an ecstatic release.