“Don’t worry,” Trina said. “I intend to.”
Reno looked at her as she began putting lotion on her legs. “What time is it?”
Trina looked at the clock on the nightstand. “Six thirty.”
“We’ll be on time for a change.”
“Or early,” said Trina.
“So how did it go today?” Reno asked this as he continued to watch her lotion her legs. He began drying his dick as he watched.
“It went well. We made some sales while I was at the store, which is always good.”
“You talk like you don’t always have sales.”
“We don’t.”
This surprised Reno. “For the entire day?”
“Yeah, sometimes.”
“Damn girl. Are you guys breaking even?”
“Not sure,” Trina said. “Since you won’t let me have anything to do with the man who was going to go through our books.”
“Ah, forget about him. You need an accountant, say so. I’ll have one of mine take a look, and it won’t be that prick Jody Parks either.”
But Trina wasn’t having it. “No, thank-you, Reno.”
“Why?” he asked. “You need an accountant.”
“Yeah, but I don’t need him running back to you telling you how terrible we’re doing. I don’t need that kind of accountant.”
Reno was concerned. “It’s that bad?” he asked her.
“It’s not bad. But compared to what you’re used to it might be.”
Reno walked up to his wife and stood in front of her legs. He was still drying off his ever-increasing dick. He took one hand and lifted her chin. Her big hazel eyes, coupled with her gorgeous dark skin, always captivated him. He let out a tight exhale as soon as she stopped looking down at her legs, and up at him.
“You’ve got it all figured out, don’t you?” he asked her.
“I never said that,” she replied.
“You want to be so independent of me that you don’t want me to so much as sneeze in the direction of that boutique.”
“I never said that either.”
“Didn’t have to say it. Your actions says it all.” Then he looked down from her face to her breasts and the rest of her body. “Just like mine is about to say a few things too.”
“Oh, Reno, not now!” Trina implored. “We’re going to have dinner with the mayor! We can’t be late. We’re on time for a change, you said so yourself.”
“Or we’re early, like you said,” he said, still wiping his dick in a fashion that was clearly more about arousal than removing any wetness. “So just shut the fuck up and turn your ass over.”
Trina looked up at him again. “And what if I don’t?” she asked in that teasing voice of hers he loved.
“Let’s put it this way,” Reno said, in that firm voice she didn’t love. “There’s an ass with two juicy cheeks sitting on that bed. Right now they’re a beautiful dark brown just the way I like’em. But if I don’t see that ass off of that bed and staring in this mug of mine in about two seconds, pain more than beauty is going to be what comes to mind whenever you think of that particular posterior.”
Trina, knowing from past experience that Reno didn’t bluff, immediately turned around and laid on her stomach.
“That’s my baby,” Reno said as that ass came into view. He tossed his towel aside and squatted down. He began rubbing and kissing both cheeks. And then he parted them and licked with that long, caressing lick that caused Trina to tremble. She closed her eyes as Reno licked her long and lovingly.
And as he licked between her crack, he reached his fingers into her folds and began to massage her with even more love. She opened her legs wide and enjoyed his attention. She was so relaxed, and so completely in his control, that she could have fallen asleep where she lay as he did what he did with that expertise that always reassured her. She’d been with Reno a long time, but she never recalled a time that he’d ever disappointed her in bed. Never. And for a woman like Trina who had many boyfriends in the past who did nothing but disappoint her, that was saying something.
When Reno finally stopped his oral sensations and entered her from behind, she was more than ready to receive him. She sighed in sensual pleasure as she could not only feel but could hear when his penis became saturated with her vaginal juices as soon as he entered her. Reno could feel it too and let out a guttural sound of his own. And when he lay on top of her back and began his masterful strokes, they both felt the sensation.
As those strokes continued, they didn’t give a second thought to the engagement they very well might turn up late for. Because it felt too good. Because it felt as if they didn’t care about anything at this moment in time, except each other.
Reno closed his eyes and thought of the woman beneath him as he fucked her. He could smell her wonderfully unique scent and feel the texture of her skin against his own. And the feel of his dick deep inside of her intensified even more for no other reason than the fact that it was Trina he was fucking.
His Trina.
She belonged to him and he knew she knew it. This woman was his and the thought of it sometimes made him giddy. There was no other human being alive that he would have preferred to be with. None other alive.
And when his strokes produced that friction where she tightened her vaginal muscles around his expansiveness, and they both exploded with cum with an intense, throbbing release, it brought tears to his eyes.
Trina lifted up and Reno slammed her back down as they loved and could barely bear the intensity. Especially Reno, who was straining every muscle in his body as he came.
“Oh, Tree,” he said as he poured into her, as he continued to stroke her, over and over, refusing to stop even though his dick felt like sparks of fire every time he made contact with her. He kept pounding it, and she kept taking it. Then he started talking so low she could barely hear him. But he kept talking.
“Nobody else,” he kept saying as he poured and pounded. “Nobody else.”
SIX
After getting clearance at the gate, Reno drove his Porsche onto the circular driveway of the mayor’s home in that superfast way that he drove, and stopped at the top of the circle. He got out, buttoned his suit coat, and opened the passenger door for Trina. As Trina stepped out, Belle Patrone, standing at the bedroom window upstairs, was watching them. Standing beside her, watching them too, was Connor Rigby, the mayor of Las Vegas. He was a bachelor well into his fifties who was known for liking the ladies. And they all were usually of one type: younger, beautiful, blonde ladies like Belle.
But Belle’s entire attention was on Trina. She stared as Trina stepped out of the car in her perfectly tailored, loose-fitting light-purple dress and her red and white (with a hint of purple) stiletto heels. Her hair was beautifully styled, in one of those Halle Berry Pixie-cuts, and Reno, in his light brown suit, looking sexy himself in Belle’s estimation, seemed to be just enamored with her. As they walked toward the house, he had his hand on the small of her back and was ever vigilant, looking around constantly, as if he was more her bodyguard than her husband. Belle could hardly contain her regret.
“So that’s Katrina Gabrini,” she said as she stared.
“You’ve never met her?” Connor asked.
“Never. I’ve only seen her in pictures. They do her no justice.”
“Ah, she’s all right. Not my type, but she’s all right.”
But Belle took Connor’s assessment of Trina with more than a grain of salt. Connor was some old guy who still believed that blondes had more fun, even fake blondes like Belle. But Reno knew better.
“You’d better get downstairs,” she said. “And let them in.”
“Do I have to?” Connor asked, kissing her on the neck.
She smiled, but moved slightly away. “You have to,” she said.
“You have to also,” he said. “This was your idea, after all.” Then he kissed her on the neck again. “So don’t be long,” he said and left.
Belle inwardly sn
orted as he left. She wasn’t going to be long at all. She had to make her grand entrance, after all.
And sure enough, after Connor hurried downstairs and opened the door, welcoming Reno and Trina into his home, Belle made that entrance. She stood at the top of the spiral staircase and watched as introductions were being made. None of them had bothered to look up at her yet, as they were just greeting each other, but Belle was staring at them. Or at least at one of them.
He still had that swag in spades, she thought, although she already realized that when she saw him in Atlantic City a week ago. She’d seen him by accident at first. He and his son and three other men walked into a restaurant there and he walked right by her. It was obviously a business dinner, as Reno was talking a mile a minute and was animated. But during his entire time in that restaurant, she stared. He never once saw her, but she stared.
The next day, when she texted for him to meet her in a boardwalk café, he was surprised to see her again. He had no clue that she had spent dinner with him the night before.
Reno Gabrini, she thought as she began descending the staircase in her beautiful white dress and heels. She was staring at him now. He wore a simple but obviously expensive light brown suit that highlighted that messy brown hair she used to love to ruffle, and those startling blue eyes she used to find hypnotic. Just as she had realized sooner, his wife was prettier than she had expected. And not just pretty in a beauty sense, but pretty in a sophistication sense. She had swag too. But that didn’t mean, Belle thought as she walked, that she deserved Reno Gabrini.
And Belle’s big blue eyes moved back to Reno’s. She couldn’t take her eyes off of Reno. She remembered how he used to fuck her so hard she could barely walk for hours after he finished. He gave her the best she ever had. Now he was within inches of her again. And she knew she had to play this right. Reno was a smart man. One false move and he would smell a rat. She therefore walked slowly and with great dignity down those stairs. She wasn’t about to rush this monumental moment.
“Oh, there she is,” Connor said as he was the first to see her. Reno and Trina looked up the staircase too.
Trina was startled when she saw her. She was the same woman who had visited the boutique and asked about Reno. And she was here now? Why? Did she work for the mayor? Was she the mayor’s girlfriend? Trina was astounded by her presence. She looked at Reno. Did he really know her as the woman had suggested he did? But Reno, Trina noticed, didn’t look her way. He was too busy staring up those stairs.
Reno was staring because he was floored when he saw Belle. He suspected the mayor would have himself a gorgeous piece of eye candy at the dinner party, but he had no idea the eye candy would be Belle! What the fuck was going on here? He’d licked the shit out of this candy before. Many times before. And now the mayor was about to introduce her to them as if she was some new pair of shoes he couldn’t wait to show off. When Reno not only had worn those shoes before, but had worn them out and discarded them.
“Belle, darling,” Connor said as he took her by the hand and helped her walk down the last stair. “Let me introduce you to my friends.”
Trina wanted to smile. She’d only just met the mayor, yet they were already friends. That was why, in a lot of ways, she hated politics.
“This is Karena,” he said.
“Katrina,” Katrina said, correcting the mayor. She extended her hand to Belle. “Nice to meet you, Belle.” Trina was going to see if she would acknowledge their earlier encounter.
“Nice to meet you too,” Belle said, shaking Trina’s hand. She did not.
“And this is Dominic Gabrini,” the mayor said. “But we call him Reno.”
Even Belle had to smile at that. She extended her hand to Reno. “Hello, Reno. If I may call you that.”
Reno shook her hand cautiously. What in the world was she playing at, he wondered. “Nice to know you,” he said.
Trina glanced at her husband. It was obvious that they had some kind of connection and that he recognized her, but he was going along with the charade too. That disturbed her.
“Come on, folks, let’s have a seat,” the mayor said as he escorted them into the living area. And they all sat around and small-talked.
Trina, however, spoke the least. She was too busy studying Belle. Who was she, Trina wondered, and why did she come into her store without acknowledging who she was? And the way she was making no bones about staring at Reno, smiling at him, laughing uncommonly hard at his lame jokes. She was behaving like some mean girl from high school, and was rubbing it in.
But it wasn’t her behavior that concerned Trina. Reno had a long trail of ex-girlfriends in Vegas who ran into him and attempted to pretend she wasn’t by his side or had any connection to him whatsoever. But every single time Reno would set them straight. “This is my wife Katrina,” was his usual line. And he’d include her in all conversation and make sure those skanks knew who they were dealing with.
But this skank wasn’t even acknowledged as a former skank of his. He, in fact, was all but ignoring her as he and the mayor and Belle talked politics and sports. But after dinner, when the mayor pulled Trina aside to show her some African art he had collected from his travels, as if she would automatically be interested in such a collection, she was certain then that something different was up. Because Belle and Reno went a room off from the living area, and closed the door.
As soon as the door closed into the library where Belle had asked him to follow her, Reno wanted to know what in the world was going on.
“I know you’re surprised.”
“That would be a fair conclusion,” he said. “So what’s the deal? Since when have you been all tight with Connor Rigby?”
“Ah, he’s nobody. Barely a friend. A lover, yes, but barely a friend. He agreed to do me this favor.”
“What favor?”
“Invite you over so that I could meet with you in a place I knew would be out of Bruno’s reach.”
Reno frowned. “Bruno Lucci? What the fuck kind of reach would he have?”
“And that’s exactly why I felt I had to come here personally. You’re one of my oldest friends, Reno, and I wanted to make sure you understood the danger. Because you’re doing exactly what I knew you would do.”
“And what is that?”
“You’re underestimating him, Reno. You’re assuming the Bruno Lucci you put away a decade ago is the same Bruno Lucci today. But he’s not. He created a syndicate in prison during that decade, a syndicate of very loyal men, and now he has a long and powerful reach.”
Reno found this hard to believe. He just couldn’t imagine how Bruno Lucci could have transformed so much that he now had a reach that could touch him. Not that weak, misogynist piece of shit. But Reno was no fool either. In the murky world he had to maneuver in, anything was always possible. Always.
“So what are you telling me, Belle?”
“I’m telling you to watch your back. Bruno has designs on you. When we talked in Atlantic City, I told you he was making a little noise. But now that noise is becoming music, Reno. Killer music. The kind of tunes that can take you away from here. I don’t have the kind of connections that knows the inner workings of his syndicate, but I have been told that many Dons have signed on with him. Many of them. Some you wouldn’t even expect to be in his corner. But they are.”
“Why?” Reno asked. “Because of their friendship with the Dolph?”
“And the fact that they believe your decision to call the cops on Brew led to the Dolph’s heart attack, yes. That has something to do with it. But it’s mainly because they hate your guts and want a piece of you too. They figure their hands can remain clean if they let Bruno handle it. Bruno Lucci is no joke, Reno.”
“Ah, come on, Belle,” Reno said. “What could that no-dick fucker do to me?”
Belle hurried to Reno and placed her hand on the side of his face. The sincerity in her eyes startled him. “Don’t underestimate him, Reno. You hear me? He’s not the same man! After that ca
stration, he changed.”
Reno smiled. “Oh, I’ll bet he did.”
But Belle remained serious. “He became fearless, Reno. He doesn’t care anymore. He’s said to have killed five different men while he was incarcerated but had the kind of loyalty that nobody would snitch on him. He got away with it five times. All he need is one time to get you, Reno. And if that happens, I don’t know what I’ll do.”
She hesitated, still staring at him. Then she hugged him and placed her head on his shoulder.
Reno was floored. He pulled her into his arms, but he didn’t know what to make of this emotional side of Belle. He knew she still cared about him, just as he still cared about her, but the idea that she would come all this way to Vegas to warn him about some smalltime punk like Bruno was hard to fathom. Could it be true and Bruno really was a high roller now? Or could it be a pack of lies and Belle was up to no good? But what could she be up to, Reno wondered. She had more men than she could handle, so he didn’t see how it could be about that. But for Belle to be this emotional, and this certain that he needed to watch his back, made it clear that it was about something.
And she was right. He shouldn’t underestimate Bruno. And he wasn’t about to.
But he wasn’t about to underestimate her, either.
Later that evening, after they said their goodbyes to the mayor and Belle Patrone, they took a fast drive back to their temporary home in suburbia. Reno stared straight ahead as he drove, as if he was doing some heavy-duty thinking, but Trina kept looking at him. She was amazed that he didn’t bring up his encounter with Belle at all. Not at all. And it angered her. She wanted to tell him about his behind, especially after he allowed the mayor to take her to see some African collection she didn’t even care about, while he disappeared into some room with beautiful Belle. But she knew Reno would only fight her fire with even more fire. She, instead, decided to take a different course.
“She seemed nice,” she said.
Reno's Gift (Mob Boss Series) Page 10