Romancing Sal Gabrini 2: A Woman's Touch (6 page)

Gemma
thought she was going to die when he shoved it in.
 
She was expecting it, and she was accustomed
to how rough Sal could be, so it only elated her.
 
But Sal eased up on her as soon as he shoved
it in.
 
He placed his hand beneath her
neck, and leaned her head back, before he allowed her to take him in full.
 

But
when she did, and when he started mouth-fucking her in rhythm, he closed his eyes.
 
Mix the love he had for this woman with this
kind of sex, and it was magical to Sal.
 
His entire dick was throbbing and veining from her perfect oral.
 
Nobody did him better.
 
She knew how to lick and suck just at the
right ridges.
 
And he knew how to
mouth-fuck her longer and harder than she’d ever experienced.
 
He knew how to do her too.

It
felt so good to Sal, and was so needful, that it caused him to become
careless.
 
He was so caught up in the
feeling that before he realized it, he began to cum.
 
He poured into her mouth.
 
He had to quickly pull out and lift her head
up, as he poured and poured.
 

But
it was already too late.
 
Her mouth, her
neck, her upper chest, was all completely drenched in his love.

FOUR

She could
see him from the bathroom.
 
That was
where she was, seated on the side of the tub in a bathrobe, her shapely legs
crossed, as she prepared the water for the bath he planned to take next.
 
She had already bathe, while he was on the
phone, but he was still on the phone by the time she dried off, put on her
robe, and began to run him a fresh tub of water.

She
watched as he roamed around her bedroom, yelling into his cell phone at
somebody he called Chazz.
 
It was such a
tough conversation, with Sal in such a state of agitation, that Gemma began to
get concerned again.
 
She watched him as
he moved around the room like a wounded animal, moving and changing direction
so often that she began to wonder anew if she really knew this man.
 
He wasn’t meek and mild, she understood that,
but sometimes, while handling his business, he could seem so vicious.
 
He was never that way with her, but it was
still early.
 
Her father always told her to
watch a man.
 
He can always talk a good
game, but see how he plays one.
 
Sal’s
style of playing, Gemma was beginning to realize, was going to take a lot of
getting used to.

“You
think I’m not serious?”
 
Sal’s voice was
hard and unflinching.
 
“When I tell you
to do something you do it the way I told you to do it, not the way you wanna do
it! Who the fuck are you?
 
You don’t run
this!
 
Now look what’s happened because
of your dumb shit!
 
Got
dammit!”

Sal
rubbed his forehead, moving again.
 
His
suit coat was off and thrown across her bed, and his dress shirt was wrinkled
and half in and half out of his expensive pants.
 
Sal was a neat man.
 
He was always dressed to the nines and almost
as well put together as his brother Tommy.
 
Seeing him so disheveled was odd for Gemma too.

But
she continued to look at him.
 
He was,
from what she could see, trying to calm himself back down.
 

“Where
is he now?” Sal asked the person on the phone.
 
“Yeah, where?”
 
Then he stopped
walking.
 
“What?
 
Whatta you mean you don’t know?” A
pause.
 
“I told you to put a tail on him,
and I said a tail like a damn noose around his fucking neck, and now you tell
me you don’t even know where he is?
 
Are
you kidding me?
 
You and your men wanted
more work, I threw you more work, and you do this to me?
 
Yeah, yeah, you’d better find him.
 
Or I’ll find you!”
 
Then Sal angrily slammed her phone on the
hook.
 

Gemma
looked at him.
  
She wanted to ask if
everything was okay, but Sal was still too agitated.
 
She decided to wait.
 
She just sat there, her legs crossed, as she
ran her hand through the warm bath water.

Then
Sal made another call.
 
This time he
seemed calmer, though not entirely calm.
 
“Will, hey,” he said into the phone.
 
“I’m . . . not great.
 
Where are
you?
 
Yeah?
 
What are you up to?”
 
There was a long pause as Sal listened.
 
Then he spoke again.
 
“Do I need you?
 
That’s an understatement.
 
Yeah, I need you.
 
I need you to get to Jersey and find out what
the fuck Chazz is up to.
 
Yeah, so did
I.
 
But he apparently didn’t get the
memo.
 
The fucker.
 
Yeah.
 
Correct.
 
Get in touch with
him.
 
He’ll give you the backstory, but I
want you to take the lead.
 
That’s
right.
 
And if he has a problem with it,
tell him to contact me, which we know he won’t.
 
Right.
 
Okay, pal.
 
Talk to you later.”

Sal
killed that call also.
 
“Motherfuckers,”
he said beneath his breath, and then looked at Gemma.
 
Gemma was staring at him.
 
And she could tell that he immediately
regretting revealing so much of the other side of his life to her.

He
attempted to smile, but couldn’t pull it off.
 
“It’s ready?” he asked instead.

Gemma
nodded, and stood up.
 
Sal began removing
his shirt, tossing it aside, as he headed into the bathroom.
 
He continued undressing once he got in the
bathroom.

Gemma
studied him.
 
She decided that the time
was now.
 
“What was that about?” she
asked him.

“Nothing,”
he replied as he unbuckled and unzipped his pants.

Gemma
knew better than that.
 
She continued to
look at Sal.

Sal
realized she wasn’t going to let him off that easily.
 
“Just stuff,” he said.
 
“Nothing for you to worry about.”
 
He began to remove his shoes and step out of
his pants and briefs.

And
Gemma was torn.
 
Was this going to be
their life?
 
Sal involved in
whoknowswhat
kind of mess and she was
supposed to ignore it?
 
Was that how
those mob wives behaved?
 
Then she caught
herself.
 
Mob wife?
 
She wasn’t his wife and he wasn’t in any
mob!
 
He promised her he wasn’t.
 
But she was nobody’s fool, either.
 
He was in something.

“I’m
going to go help out at Champagne’s while you bathe and get some rest.
 
I should be back in a few hours.”

Sal,
now naked, looked at her, his tanned, toned body unable to escape her
gaze.
 
“I thought you said you could get
out of it.”

“I
can,” she said, trying not to get distracted by his nakedness.
 
“But it won’t be fair to Trina.
 
I haven’t been to the store all week.
 
I told her I would come this evening to
discuss inventory.
 
It’s the least I can
do.”

Sal
started nodding his head, and his agitation was returning.
 
“Yeah, right,” he said.
 
“It’s the least you can do.”

“I
haven’t been all week.”

But
Sal wasn’t going along.
 
“Stop
bullshitting me, Gemma,” he said.
 
“You
hear me?
 
The only reason you all of a
sudden need to leave is because of that conversation you just overheard.
 
Now suddenly you’re wondering how in the
world did you get hooked up with a joker like me.
 
You’ve got this nice little suburban life,
you don’t need the aggravation.
 
That’s
what this
got to go
shit is about, so
don’t fuck with me.
 
You tell me the
truth.”

Gemma
just stood there.
 
She could see the
disappointment in Sal’s eyes.
 
“That’s
not it,” she said, but he cut her off.

“That
is it!” he blared.
 
“That’s exactly it
and you know it.
 
I’m a big boy.
 
I can take it.
 
Took it all my life.
 
I can take it.”

A
weary look came over Gemma’s pretty face, and she sat back down on the side of
the tub.
 
“You’re right,” she said.
 
And then she looked up at him.
 
His heart sank when she looked those pretty,
sad eyes up at him.
 
“I can’t play the dumb
girlfriend,” she said.
 
“I can’t hear you
talk about tailing people and getting somebody else to go to New Jersey to keep
an eye on the other guy you hired, I know what that means, Sal.
 
You say you’re not a mob boss---”

“I’m
not Mafia.
 
I’m no mob boss, all right?”

“Then
what are you?” Gemma asked pointblank.
 
“If you’re not in the mob, then what are you in?”

“I’m in
looking out for my friends and family.
 
And running my businesses.
 
That’s
all I’m about.”

“But
having people tailed---”

“Sometimes
it’s messy.”
 
He was attempting to avoid
profanity.
 
“You’d better believe it
is.
 
And I hate that it comes to that.
 
But what the fuck . . . I mean, what the heck
do you expect me to do?
 
Sometimes stuff,
I mean shit, I mean stuff, oh fuck!
 
Sometimes shit falls into your lap, all right,” he went on in his
natural tongue, “and you have to deal with it.
 
I deal with it, Gemma.
 
I have
to.”

Gemma
continued to stare up at him.
 
She looked
so vulnerable to him at that moment in time that it buckled his knees.
 
He went to her, and knelt down in front of
her.
 
He took her small dark hands into
his large bright ones.
  
“I’m not smooth,”
he said.
 
“I told you that before we went
down this road together.
 
I told you I’m
not going to be the kind of man you deserve.
 
I’m not that guy and I’ll never be that guy.
 
Too much baggage, sweetheart, too much of a
messy past.
 
But I promised you I would
be faithful to you, and I would cherish you, and I would make certain that
you’re loved and protected every day that I’m alive.”
 

Then
a concerned look came onto his face.
 
“This isn’t easy for me, either, baby.
 
I know what you’re going through.
 
My anxiety is nothing compared to yours, I know that too.
 
But it’s there and it’s real.”

Gemma
placed her hand on the side of Sal’s face.
 
She knew what it was taking for him to be this exposed.
 
Especially since he wasn’t, as he often told
her,
touchy feely
at all.
 

“I’ve
never been in love a day in my life until I met you,” Sal admitted.
 
“And I mean never.
 
I’ve gone from, and excuse the language but
it’s the way I talk, fucking women up and down the line, from coast to coast,
to just being with you.
 
That’s a hellava
change, Gemma.
 
But I’m doing it because
I know you’re worth it.
 
Our relationship
is worth it to me.”

Tears
welled up in Gemma’s eyes as she rubbed the side of Sal’s gorgeous face.

“Most
people would say I’m not worth it for you, considering the kind of wonderful
and upstanding woman you are, and if I’m honest I would have to agree with
them.”
 
He said this with a smile, but
Gemma could see the pain.
 
“But it’s not
what people say, or even what I say about it.
 
It’s what you say, Gem.”

 
 
Tears
dropped from Gemma’s eyes and Sal’s heart plunged.
 
“Oh, babe,” he said with his own level of
emotion as he stood her up and pulled her into his arms.
 
They stood there, as she quietly sobbed, and
he held onto her tightly.
 
It was Gemma
who finally pulled back.

She
grabbed tissues off of the dressing table and began wiping the mascara from
beneath her eyes.
 
“Sorry about that,”
she said.
 
“I didn’t mean to cry.
 
I’m sure I look like Wolfman Jack’s sister
right about now.”

Sal
managed to laugh.
 
“I’m sure you don’t,”
he said.
 

Then
she frowned and exhaled.
 
She looked at
Sal again.
 
“You’re more than worth it,
Sal, please believe that.
 
It’s not about
your worth.
 
It’s
 
just that . . . those times, when you have to
look out for your friends and family, does it sometimes involve illegal
activities?”
 
She asked this and stared
at him.

Sal
didn’t flinch.
 
“It involves me looking
out for them.”

“Whatever
it takes?”

Sal
nodded.
 
“Whatever it takes.”

Gemma
frowned.
 
“And I’m just supposed to
accept that?
 
Without you even telling me
what it’s about?”