For the longest time they held each other and kissed. It was the most sensual experience for both of them. Soon Tommy placed one finger and then two inside of her vagina, and his fingering increased as their kisses grew more desperate. By the time he pulled his fingers out, they were saturated with her vaginal juices. He licked it, and put it back in.
“You do it to me, Grace,” he said as he kissed her cheek, her nose, and rubbed his lips against her lips. “You do it to me!”
He kept fingering her, with two and then three fingers, until it should have hurt. But it didn’t. “Oh, babe!” he said.
And then he couldn’t delay any longer. He couldn’t hold out any longer. He moved on top of Grace, guided his fully erected penis inside of her, and sighed as penis touched pussy after a long, long time apart.
Grace wrapped her arms around his upper back, and her legs around his lower back, as she gave him full access to her wet and ready womanhood.
“Feels good,” she said, as he fucked her.
“Feels good?” Tommy asked her, as he watched her.
“Yes,” she said breathlessly. “Yes. Nobody. Do. Me. Like. You, Tommy! Oh, Tommy! Oh, Tommy!”
He was banging her now. The feelings were too intense and he was putting it into the highest gear.
“The way you do me,” he kept saying. “Oh, Grace. Oh, baby!”
Tommy couldn’t believe how great it felt to make love to Grace again. It felt as if he was coming home, when he had been away too long, but she made him feel as if he had never been away at all. He wrapped her in his arms, and fucked her so hard even the bedsprings were screaming. Tommy was right where he wanted to be.
And when they came, they came together. Grace began sliding her legs up and down along his sweaty back as her orgasm had her in spasms. Tommy’s cock was deep inside of her, hitting her at the exact right spot over and over, making her tighten and pulsate and throb.
“Give it to me, Grace,” he cried. “Give it to me!”
And he ejaculated inside of her, squirting with a load that saturated her. And he kept on fucking her. He couldn’t stop. He felt so good that he couldn’t even slow down. They were cumming together. It had been so long. It was beyond wonderful now.
When Tommy finally stopped moving. When he finally pushed deep inside of her and couldn’t push any more, he looked at her with eyes so loving it warmed her heart.
“My baby,” Tommy said, staring sincerely into her beautiful face. “I missed you so much. My baby.”
And he kissed her with so much passion all over again, that it momentarily took her breath away.
Afterwards, in each other’s arms, they talked. Some about Ed and how they were going to break the news to Destiny, but mostly about their own relationship and what this all meant.
“Where do we go from here?” Grace asked him. They were lying face to face.
Tommy stared at her. “Where do you want it to go?”
Grace didn’t immediately respond. Her eyes showed how carefully she was thinking about his question. Then she looked into his eyes. “I’m not sure,” she responded honestly. “It’s all happening so fast. Ed and I got into that altercation. I filed divorce papers. Now he’s dead. And now this: I’m in bed with my ex-husband. I didn’t think I’d ever see this day again. It’s a lot to take in, Tommy.”
Tommy could see the distress on her pretty face. And he nodded his head and rubbed the side of her hair. “I agree,” he said. “It’s a lot.”
But Grace continued to stare at him. To study him. He seemed as anguished as she was. “Where do you want this to go?” she asked him.
“I want us to be together,” he said. “I want this to go somewhere.”
That was good enough for Grace because her feelings were vague like that too, as if there was too much background noise to focus on just one thing.
Tommy moved onto his back and he moved her with him. She laid her head on his shoulder. Time would tell where they were headed. Time would be the arbiter. And before long, Grace fell asleep. She fell asleep thinking about time, and Tommy, and Ed, and Destiny, and how in the world would she ever know normal again. But she fell asleep. She always felt protected whenever she was in Tommy’s arms.
Tommy held her and watched her sleep. She used to be like a rose to him, a fragile, sweet, vulnerable rose. But he realized now that she wasn’t that girl anymore. She had blossomed into a beautiful spruce tree, or a pagoda: grounded, sturdy, but still with that sweet vulnerability, that fragileness, that made her need him. And that was what Tommy was after. When he saw Liz in Syria, he felt like an intruder. He felt as if he was intruding into her world. When he saw Grace at Destiny’s birthday party, he felt welcomed. He felt as if she was welcoming him, as if she was inviting him, into her world.
He believed that was why he chose Grace their first time around. That was why he placed Grace above all the women he could have married. It wasn’t something he was proud of, but he had a reputation as the player among players back in the day, and his reputation was true. He had days where he would fuck one woman in the morning, another one in the afternoon, and a different one that night. And later that night, when he was alone, he would still want a woman.
Then he met Grace.
Grace wasn’t an experienced lover back then, although, he thought with a wry smile, she was well-experienced now. He had taught her well. But what separated her then, and what he still loved about her now, was the way she made him feel. Not just sexually, although she made him feel fantastic sexually. But whenever he held her in his arms, as he was holding her now, she made him feel as if he was home. His father abused him. His mother neglected him. He had no home in his youth. He tried to create one on his own, but until Grace and Destiny came along it was just a big, fancy house to him. It was just a place, but not a shelter.
He gathered Grace tighter into his arms. She stirred but continued to sleep. He smiled because she slept with a puckered mouth, as if, even in her sleep, she was putting her all into it. She always slept so peacefully, Tommy realized, when he held her. Maybe she felt at home with him too. And there was no place like home.
But Tommy was never just a feeling man. He was also a thinking man. And he knew he had to take this slow. He was not going to rush her, or rush into this himself. The biggest mistake he felt he made in their marriage was not realizing early on the dramatic change in lifestyle Grace would undergo as his wife. He threw her out to ride the waves and she nearly drowned in the undertow. Even now, as they were in bed together, upheaval was in the background. Their daughter no longer had the man she called her stepfather. That stepfather was scum, but they still had to tell her that she would never see him again. Upheaval.
And although Tommy saw a definite change in Grace, and although he felt unlike he had ever felt before that she could handle the drama now, he was not taking any chances. They were going to take this slow. For her sake, he thought, as he held her even tighter, and for the sake of his own heart.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Destiny!” Nancy Morton said as Destiny ran up on her porch and she embraced her vigorously.
“Hey, Grandma,” Destiny said, as she returned the embrace. She was always thrilled to see her grandmother. Then she stopped embracing her and looked at her. “Did you get it?” she asked.
“You know I did,” Nancy said. and Destiny stumped up and down with joy.
“Where is it, Grandma?” Destiny asked. “Can I play with it?”
“It’s on your bed,” Nancy said, “and of course you can play with it.”
Destiny wanted to take off running right away. But her parents had taught her well. “Mommy, may I?” she asked as Grace made her way up on the porch too.
“You may,” Grace said, and Destiny opened the screened door and ran inside, with the screened door flapping shut behind her.
Grace smiled as she took a seat beside her mother and sat Destiny’s overnight bag beside the chair. It was Friday afternoon and Grace had just driven three-ho
urs up Interstate 5, from Seattle to Portland, Oregon, so that her daughter could spend the weekend with Grace’s mother. It had been a tough couple of weeks following Ed’s death. She felt the drive would do her some good.
“What is it that I just gave her permission to do?” Grace asked her mother. “Open another gift?”
“You know it,” Nancy said. “I got her some doll she asked me to get for her. It was my pleasure to get it. Although I didn’t see why she would be all excited about some little black baby doll when you and Tommy spoil her rotten with toys so high tech even I can’t figure them out.”
“Because she knows you can’t figure them out,” Grace said, “so she doesn’t ask you for anything like that. But that’s Destiny. She appreciates the little things just as much as she appreciates the big things.”
Nancy agreed. “That is so true,” she said.
Grace leaned back, and removed her sunglasses. “Where’s everybody?”
“Out living their lives,” Nancy said. “They check in once a week and that’s good enough for me.” Then Nancy looked at her daughter. “Where’s Tommy?” she asked.
Grace frowned. “Tommy? Why would you ask me about Tommy?”
“When my grandbaby called me two weeks ago and told me she and mommy were spending the night at daddy’s house, I knew something was up with you two.”
“Oh, please, mother,” Grace said. “I just buried my husband. What are you talking about?”
“That’s exactly what I’m talking about. Why would you, a married woman at the time, be spending the night with your ex? Because I know Tommy Gabrini. And I know how he still feels about you.”
Grace smiled. “You seem to know a lot today.”
“I know Tommy Gabrini,” Nancy said. “And I know how he feels about you. I know good and well he is not going to have you spending the night inside of his house unless he’s spending the night inside of you.”
Grace laughed a laugh of incredulity. “What?”
“Laugh all you please,” Nancy said, “but I know that ex-husband of yours. What the heck is going on?”
Grace’s laugh began to fade. Because it was a question she had been asking herself. It had been two weeks since she and Tommy slept together, and ever since that day Tommy kept his distance. Part of the time he was out of town on business, and she understood that. But she didn’t understand the nearly total radio silence he imposed on her. It surprised her at first. He would phone every few days, but only to talk to Destiny the way he did when Ed was still a part of their lives. He didn’t come over, he didn’t phone every day the way she was expecting. It was shocking to her. Didn’t he realize she had gone to bed with him? Didn’t he realize how big a deal that was for her? Whenever she would think about it, anger began to creep in.
Then she’d think again. He was handling it his way. She needed to handle it her way. So Grace refused to let Tommy or anybody else define her approach. She went on with her life. She fell into a new normalcy that was as different for her as it was traumatic, but she handled it. She was not in a committed relationship for the first time in a long time, and although the adjustment found her drowning herself in her work rather than in her tears, it was still a difficult transition.
Especially during the police investigation. Ed’s body had been found in a rough part of town frequented by hookers and addicts. The police concluded, in their flimsy investigation that should have been far more thorough, that Senate candidate Dr. Edwin Jefferson, apparently out prowling for a prostitute, had been carjacked, robbed, and beaten to death. They rounded up all kinds of suspects for a couple of days, and questioned them to great fanfare. Even Grace was questioned. But she didn’t know a thing. Nobody knew a thing. There were no witnesses that were willing to come forward. That was the end of that.
Ed was eventually buried. They had a ceremony outside Seattle, in Edmonds, his hometown. Grace attended the funeral, not out of any respect for a man who would have destroyed her if he could, but because Destiny wanted to go, and she and Tommy felt she needed that closure.
“What’s going on, Grace?” Nancy asked her daughter again.
“Nothing’s going on,” Grace answered truthfully. “And I mean nothing.” A dose of pain ripped through her. She stood up. “I’m going to use the restroom and get back on the road. I want to get back to Seattle before dark.”
“Why?” Nancy asked with a smile. “Got yourself a hot date tonight?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact,” Grace responded. “I have myself a hot date with a tall glass of champagne and a good book. I’m going to wash my hair and then get busy.”
Nancy shook her head. “Child, not me,” she said. “If I was young like you, and owned my own company, please. You couldn’t keep up with me on a Friday night. I’d have three good looking studs pleasuring me. One pleasuring my top, one pleasuring my bottom, and one fanning the flames because I was going to be on fire!”
Grace smiled and shook her head. Not because she knew her mother was joking, but because she knew she wasn’t.
“Champagne my ass,” Nancy continued. “I’d be having me some fun! You only live once, Grace. I say live it up. Those books can wait!”
Grace grabbed Destiny’s overnight bag. She wasn’t thinking about her mother’s advice. She was on respite right now. She wasn’t about to clutter up her life again when she just got the clutter out. She had no issue whatsoever with spending her Friday night alone. None whatsoever! She was looking forward to it, in fact. “I’m sure you’ll have fun for the both of us, Mother,” she said, and headed inside the house.
Her mother chuckled. “You got that right!” she yelled after her. “You got that right!”
After Grace used the restroom and said her goodbyes to Destiny, she got in her Audi and was back on the road again. She was just pulling back onto I-5 when Tommy phoned. It surprised her since he hadn’t phoned just to speak to her before.
“You guys still in Portland?” he asked.
“I just dropped Desi off. I’m on my way back now.”
Tommy was in Seattle, about to go into a meeting of his senior staff, when he felt that heavy need to give Grace a call. He felt that need every single day since they slept together, and he had to tamp it down every single day. Taking it slow meant just that. But there he was on a Friday afternoon, in the hallway outside of his conference room at the Gabrini Corporate Headquarters building, phoning Grace.
He knew it was too soon. She had just buried Ed a few days ago for crying out loud, and given the circumstances surrounding that death, he knew he should be keeping his distance all the more. But he was aching to be with Grace again, and to talk with her, and to find out if she was ready to give a relationship another try. He wanted it desperately. There was no doubt in his mind that he wanted Grace. But she had to want him too.
“I was wondering,” he said, “if you had any plans tonight.”
Grace’s heart wanted to soar when she heard those words. She could see him now, standing there looking all fine in his gorgeous suit, or in one of his beautiful cardigan sweaters. She wanted to tell him that she had no plans whatsoever and she was down for whatever he wanted.
But she thought about what she wanted, and how badly she had wanted to be with Tommy over the last two weeks. But after the day they slept together, and she returned to her home and he returned to his life, what she wanted never came up. She expected him to phone and ask if she was okay with the fact that he was staying away. She expected him to ask if she wanted to speed things up, or talk things over, or just end it before it could begin again. She expected him to treat her like his partner, not like his child.
“Actually,” she responded to him, “I do have plans tonight.” Champagne and a book awaited her. That was what she planned to do before he phoned, and she was sticking to it.
Tommy had been pacing up and down the corridor, but then stopped walking when she answered him. One hand was in his pocket. The other hand was gripping his cell phone. “You have plan
s?” he asked.
His response alone, one that made clear he was surprised she wasn’t pining away by the telephone waiting for him to decide to call, was the very reason she knew she was responding the right way. “Yes,” she said. “I have plans. Why?”
“I thought we might get together.”
Music to Grace’s ears. She couldn’t deny it. But she wasn’t jumping just because he wanted her to jump. She wasn’t going back to those frog days ever again. “I can’t tonight,” she said. She would be open to a different night, but he was the one who needed to go there.
He didn’t go there. Tommy was not accustomed to a woman turning him down, and it did something to him. Even if the women had plans for that night, when he called they canceled those plans. “Okay,” he said. “I’m late for a meeting anyway, so I’d better get to it.”
His abrupt shift surprised Grace. But she wasn’t complaining about that either. If he was upset because she wasn’t available to him on a mere few hours’ notice, then that was his issue. Not hers. “I’ll talk to you later then,” she said.
“Destiny doing well?” he asked.
“Very well. She loves spending time with her grandmother.”
“I already have some guys down there keeping watch. Just in case.”
Grace understood. Wherever Destiny spent the night anywhere, Tommy had some of his men, or women, in close proximity. “That’s good to know,” she said. Then he said his goodbye, and ended the call.
Grace pressed the end call button inside her Audi too, and continued to drive home. A part of her questioned her decision. After being with a man like Ed, she would be a fool not to question every decision she made. But the greater part of her knew she was making the right move. It kind of threw her for a loop when they slept together after all those years, something that carried a heavy burden all its own, and he didn’t follow up to make sure she was okay. He didn’t even phone to talk about it, or even to talk to her at all. He phoned and talked with Destiny. But that lack of care with her heart bothered her. What did it portend for their future, should she decide to go down that road again with Tommy, if he was already inattentive to her needs?
Tommy Gabrini: The Grace Factor Page 11