MOB BOSS 2:
THE HEART OF THE MATTER
MALLORY MONROE
c2011
All rights reserved. Any use of the materials contained in this book without the expressed written consent of the author and/or her affiliates, is strictly prohibited.
AUSTIN BROOK PUBLISHING
America’s stomping ground for romantic ebooks
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.
MORE
INTERRACIAL ROMANCE
FROM BESTSELLING AUTHOR
MALLORY MONROE
THE PRESIDENT’S GIRLFRIEND
ROMANCING THE MOB BOSS
ROMANCING HER PROTECTOR
ROMANCING THE BULLDOG
IF YOU WANTED THE MOON
***
MORE INTERRACIAL ROMANCE
FROM
BESTSELLING AUTHOR
KATHERINE CACHITORIE:
LOVING THE HEAD MAN
SOME CAME DESPERATE:
A LOVE SAGA
AND
WHEN WE GET MARRIED
***
MORE
INTERRACIAL ROMANCE
FROM
AUSTIN BROOK PUBLISHING:
A SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP
YVONNE THOMAS
AND
BACK TO HONOR:
A REGGIE REYNOLDS
ROMANTIC MYSTERY
JT WATSON
***
AVAILABLE NOW
ROMANTIC FICTION
By
Award-winning author
Teresa McClain-Watson
***
AFTER WHAT YOU DID
AND
STAY IN MY CORNER
Visit
www.austinbrookpublishing.com
for more information
on all titles
ONE
Reno Gabrini stepped into the shower and allowed the warm water to careen down his tanned, muscular body. He just stood there, his hands flattened against the tiles, his deep blue eyes closed to the reality of the situation, to the anguish of what his rash decision truly meant.
It was that fateful morning after, and his emotions were so contradictory that he didn’t know if he felt like the happiest man alive, or the most selfish bastard ever created. He’d just committed his life to Katrina Hathaway, just vowed to love, honor, and obey the only woman able to penetrate his tough exterior and take him to a place he never thought possible for him to go.
But this commitment, this new marriage, also meant that he had taken her to his place, into his world, a world that had his associates, on his orders, killing that snake Frank Partanna just as they were taking those vows. And the fact that he went down that road with her, knowing the heat on the other side, knowing the kind of life he was plunging her into, was beginning to seem unforgiveable to Reno.
He showered quickly and stepped out of the stall, his dark brown hair slicked back to reveal a smooth, handsome face unable to mask its anguish and despair. He took the thick white towel and dried off, covering his face far longer than it took to dry, still unable to believe what he had done.
When she’d made the decision to leave him and come back here, to her hometown of Dale, Mississippi, he knew he should have let her go. If he truly loved her the way he professed to love her, he should have let her go. But nooo, not Reno. Not the hotel big shot. His perverted, selfish heart got in the way and off he went, hopping a plane for Mississippi and marrying her within the selfsame night, marrying her into a life, his life, that no wonderful, special lady like her should be anywhere near. He took the towel and slung it against the wall. It was done now, it was what it was, but he still hated himself for doing it.
She was awake by the time he reentered the bedroom. They were in some ratty hotel in Dale, supposedly the best hotel in town, after having a big wedding dinner at her parents’ place and celebrating late into the night. They barely had the energy to make it back last night. Now Reno was preparing to leave already.
“I still don’t see why I can’t go with you,” Trina said. She was laying on her stomach, completely naked, the outline of her tight ass through the thin white sheet that covered her causing Reno’s already overactive penis to begin throbbing again.
“We’ve been through this already, Tree,” he said, searching for a pair of briefs in his hastily packed suit case, his gorgeous naked body like a stature of male virility to Trina. And just like that, she wanted him inside her again.
“But you aren’t going back to Vegas,” she said. “You’re going to New Jersey. There’s no heat in Jersey.”
“And that’s where you’re wrong, sweetheart. That’s where the rest of Partanna’s people are. That’s where he was trying to set up his east coast base of operations, on Pop’s turf. I need to check things out, check on my mother and sisters, make sure Carmine’s got it all in hand. We took care of the main players, but there’s still some what you call residual players left. And since I don’t know what I don’t know, since I don’t know what I’m walking into, you will stay put right here in safe little Dale until I can assess the situation.”
Trina watched him as he slipped on his briefs, his penis so massive that it made him look loaded down with padding, only she knew for a fact that Reno’s equipment was all real. Then she closed her eyes. Some marriage, she thought. Not that she expected it to be normal. She didn’t. She, after all, had just hitched her wagon to Dominic “Reno” Gabrini, the owner of the world renowned PaLargio Hotel and Casino, a man whose father was a major mob boss for years before Frank Partanna’s people gunned him down. And they were married last night, just as Partanna himself was being hit, and hit on Reno’s orders. So she expected her marriage to be anything but normal.
But she didn’t expect to spend the first full day of that marriage alone.
Reno looked at her after he put on his briefs. Looked at this wonderful woman that was now his sole responsibility. And he smiled. “I never promised you a rose garden,” he said, causing her to smile, too. Then his expression changed. This was too serious to joke about. “You okay?” he asked her.
Trina could have lied and said that she was. Let him go on his merry way contented. But she was no liar and wasn’t about to begin her marriage that way. “Not really, no,” she said. “But I understand you’ve got to take care of your business. I understand it.”
Reno loved her even more at that moment. She was a special lady, and he didn’t deserve her. He walked over to the bed and sat on the edge beside her gorgeous black body, a body stretched out naked underneath that sheet. “I’ll be back in a couple days, babe,” he said, reaching underneath the sheet and caressing her ass. “Then we’ll plan our honeymoon. Okay?”
He couldn’t even promise her, on his return, when they could actually get away for a honeymoon. Because they couldn’t any time soon. Because he still had serious obligations at the PaLargio back in Vegas, obligations he couldn’t delay any longer. Which made him feel even worst. Which made him want to kick himself for being such a prick. He frowned. “I’m sorry, Tree,” he said.
Trina stared at him, her big hazel eyes narrowed to get a good look at him. “What are you sorry about?”
Reno exhaled, his hand now resting stationary on her bare backside. “Marrying you,” he said.
Her heart dropped. “Marrying me?” she asked.
“Yeah, marrying you,” he repeated. “Bringing you into this crazy, fucked up world of mine.” He frowned again. “I should have been stronger, Tree. When you left me, I should have let you come back here and
forget about it. I should have let you go. I should have given you that chance to have the kind of life you wanted to have, not the kind I was ramming down your throat. But saying goodbye to you?” He shook his head. “I couldn’t do it.”
Trina stared at the man who was now her husband, at his strong jawline, at his beautiful sky-blue eyes, at his fine, ribbed, muscular body, and she ached for him. “I’m glad you couldn’t, Reno,” she said. “I would have been devastated if you wouldn’t have come and got me. I think I left because I needed you to come, I needed to be absolutely sure that our love could withstand all the things you have to put up with. You aren’t ramming anything down my throat.”
Reno tried to smile. “You would have been devastated, hun?” he asked jokingly.
But Trina remained serious. “You didn’t just marry me as if I had no say in the matter. I married you, too. And I didn’t come into this marriage with blinders on. My eyes were wide open, bud, okay? I knew what I was getting into.”
She didn’t know, Reno thought sadly, not by a long shot. But he loved her for being strong, for at least trying to understand. Ordering that hit to avenge the deaths of his father and brother was the hardest thing he ever had to do in his life. He was no murderer! He believed in God for crying out loud! He was no soulless killer who didn’t understand the consequences of what he’d done.
But he felt he had no choice but to do it. He felt as if life had dealt him a sorry-ass hand and he had to play it. But now blood was on his hands. He was a tainted man now. And Trina needed a man like him like she needed a hole in the head.
But he needed her.
Trina stared deep into his troubled eyes. She could see his anguish, could sense how much he hated the decisions he’d made, decisions he felt forced to make. “You think there’ll be a mob war, don’t you, Reno?”
But Reno shook his head. “With Frank out of the picture and all of his major players out with him, no,” he said, massaging her ass more vigorously now. “There won’t be a war. Partanna, you see, was never a very bright man. He was a fool if you want to know the truth. He wanted more power, that’s why he was trying to take over Pop’s territory. He was west coast, he was mickey mouse mafia, but he wanted in with the big boys, with the east. But he didn’t have the allegiances he needed, no outside loyalties whatsoever. No back-up. Everybody hated his guts. I mean everybody, all the families. My old man’s pals, all of those east coast mafia wise guys, figure his business went down with the boss. Figure you get rid of Partanna and the men always around him, which is what we did, and you’ve gotten rid of the Partanna organization. The whole shebang. In truth, Tree, he was an easy target.”
“Like your father was?” Trina asked and she could tell it touched a nerve with Reno.
He exhaled. Paulo Gabrini, his old man, was a lone wolf in many ways just like Frank Partanna, a boss who couldn’t rely on the very men he trusted most. His backup weren’t strong enough, Paulo used to always agonize about. They didn’t have an ounce of the toughness Reno had. Paulo trusted Reno. He would have followed Reno to the ends of the earth and desperately wanted Reno in the business with him even up to the time of his death. But Reno knew he wasn’t cut out for some coldhearted gangster life. He just wasn’t.
“Yeah,” Reno said, remembering how badly his father wanted him in the business, “like my old man. Except my old man had plenty of friends. Everybody loved Pops.”
“But his business went down with him too, didn’t it?” She said this and stared at Reno. She knew she was treading on rough terrain, but she had to know what his true intentions for going to Jersey were. Was he going to make sure the heat was off, as he was claiming, or to make sure his father’s various business ventures were still alive and well and run by whom? Certainly not Carmine or Dirty, Reno’s brother-in-laws. Trina couldn’t see Reno putting those two in charge of the entire Gabrini operation. That was why she needed to know if her new husband was going to take over that operation, an operation that she suspected had far more illegal components than legal ones.
“Carmine’s handling Pop’s affairs,” Reno said, and he said it in a way that let Trina know it was only words.
“But Carmine can’t handle it, can he? I heard your own father say he couldn’t. I heard your father say Carmine, Dirty, and your late brother Joey together couldn’t hold water to you.”
“Yeah, well, it ain’t my old man’s business anymore. It’s Carmine’s now. Carmine and Dirty’s. I’ll advise them, but I’m not getting into that.”
But Trina was no fool. With his decision to order Partanna’s death, she knew he already was in “that” and in it deep.
Reno smiled and hit his wife lightly on the butt. “Stop worrying,” he said. “I got this, all right?”
Trina tried to smile too. Nothing more she could do at this point. And then she began thinking about him, and how terribly she was going to miss him. He was going to miss her too, as his hand moved down between her legs, expertly moving down to her folds. When his fingers slid in and began massaging the sides of her folds and then her clit, she closed her eyes in a relaxed moan. She could feel his fingers slipping into her, could feel the growing saturation as he moved in and out of her. And he started moaning too, his eyes staring at her beautiful face, his heart amazed to have her as his own. He wanted her to squirm, to feel the enchantment he felt, as his fingers dug deeper into her, circling inside of her, absorbing her wetness like a sponge of anticipation. He continued to stare at her, he loved the way she loved his touch. He couldn’t take his eyes off of her.
And it was as plain as day how this would end. He had a plane to catch, he knew he had to get out of Dale, but no way was he going anywhere without fucking her first. Especially when he slid his now wet fingers out of her, and the mouth of her vagina resisted his exit.
He stood up, his erection a revelation in just how committed to fucking her he really was, as he stepped out of his briefs, removed the sheet from her naked body, turned her onto her back, and opened her legs.
Trina’s moan became a guttural groan as his tongue moved in where his fingers had been, and it, too, began to caress her clit just the way she liked it. He kissed it and sucked it and kept his head buried between her legs as if he was on a treasure hunt. Reno loved the way she tasted. Loved the way she smelled. Loved the way he could always bring her to orgasm just with his tongue.
But she wanted to pleasure him, too. He was always giving and giving, always handling everything for her, now she wanted to give back.
She allowed him to continue tasting her, allowed herself to enjoy his wonderful, caressing tongue, until he began to ease up. As soon as he did, she closed her legs to him. It was something he hadn’t expected, especially when she took her hands and pulled him onto the bed, onto his back.
He closed his eyes in sweet anticipation when she straddled him with her ass backed up to his face, and began sucking his penis with that slow, perfect lick he loved, her tongue so soft on his skin. She kissed it, jerked it, licked it. And when her mouth covered it, and she began to take it in full, his stomach muscles stretched with a feeling so euphoric he thought he would cry. She knew how to do him unlike any other woman ever had. When she was slow, he wanted it slow. When she sucked faster, he wanted it fast. Now she was ferocious, jerking it and sucking it and taking it in so deep that he found himself squeezing her ass to control his own intensity.
He massaged her ass as she sucked him, until his tongue was licking her, too. And he continued to eat her, continued to kiss that ass he loved so much and to move down further and suck on her clit as if he was sucking for air. And her wetness only made him want her more. For the longest time she sucked him ferociously and he sucked her vigorously, each unable to imagine it any better than this.
MOB BOSS 2 Page 1