Reno Gabrini: A Family Affair (3 page)

“Can you help me?”

Reno turned around.
 
It was the gorgeous girl who roamed his casino earlier.
 
“Excuse me?” he asked.
 
His security guard continued to head that
way.
 
Reno motioned that he had it under
control, and the guard went back to his post.

“There’s a leak,” she said, “in my hotel room.
 
The maintenance person came to repair it and
I decided to pay a visit to the casino during that time.
 
When I returned to my room, I assumed it
would be repaired.
 
But it’s not.
 
I couldn’t find anyone in maintenance, but
was told by one of the clerks that you could help me.”

Reno continued to stare at her.
 
She had an innocence about her that she
played to full effect, and a regular guy might be persuaded by her
chasteness.
 
But Reno was no ordinary guy.
 
He’d been around that block too many times
before.
 
In his eyes, she was innocent
the way every convicted killer was innocent: in words, but not deeds.
 
“I’ll send somebody up,” he said to her.

“Somebody was already sent up,” she said to him,
“and I still have the problem.
 
If you
are a manager as I was told, I suggest you come up and see this for
yourself.”
 
She looked hard at Reno,
expecting to be rebuffed.
 
She didn’t
know why, but he had that kind of curt manner about him.
 
Nothing about him was what she had
expected.
 
He wasn’t the suave, debonair
hotel magnet she had been told he was.
 
His suit was obviously expensive, but it was badly rumpled.
 
His hair was thick and brown and rich, but it
was messy as hell.
 
And his eyes, those
intense blue eyes she’d heard so much about, looked weary.
 
But even with all of that, he was still
attractive.
 
Even with all of that, he
still had a sex appeal that she’d been told was so alluring that she’d
volunteer to be with him.
 
But she wasn’t
doing volunteer work tonight.
 
She was on
assignment.
 
“All I’m asking,” she added,
“is to be able to get a good night’s rest.
 
I am paying to stay here, after all.
 
I’m not being unreasonable.”

Reno took his business seriously, and treated every
guest, no matter who they were, with great respect.
 
Because of her resemblance to Trina, she was
a temptation, and perhaps she had some notion in her pretty little head that
she could seduce him.
 
Maybe this leak
situation was the ruse she needed to get him in her room so that she could try
out her wiles, and bend him to her will.
 
But no woman made Reno Gabrini do anything he didn’t want to do.
 
Not even his wife.
 
This woman was dreaming if she thought she
was going to be the exception.
 
But she
had a point. She was a paying guest.
 
“After you,” he said, and they headed for the public elevators.

Jimmy was just getting off of the elevator when his
father walked up.
 
He was so flustered,
and so beside himself with what appeared to be shame and guilt, that he didn’t
even realize his father was there, and with another woman.
 
He brushed past them, and hurried away.

“That was rude,” the woman said, looking at Jimmy as
he rushed by.

But Reno didn’t respond.
 
He was too busy looking at Jimmy too.
 
Until they had to get on the elevator, and
the doors closed them in.

“I’m Felicity, by the way,” the woman said, as she
extended her hand.

Reno, still thrown by his son’s behavior, shook her
hand nonetheless.
 
“I’m Reno.”

“Nice to meet you, Reno.
 
I hope we can get this matter resolved.
  
I have a business meeting in the morning and
I need my sleep.”

“What business are you in?”

“Import/export,” she said.

Such a response was so vague that Reno got the
message. “In other words,” he said, “none of my business?”

She smiled.
 
“Something like that.”

When they arrived on the twenty-third floor, and
entered her room, Reno could hear the toilet running as soon as they walked in.

“You hear it?” Felicity asked.
 
“It’s been that way since I checked in.”

Reno made his way to the bathroom.
 
She followed behind him.
 
“I hope you can stop it,” she said as they
walked.

“Did you shake the handle?” Reno asked.

She looked at him.
 
“What is that supposed to mean?
 
Shake what handle?”

Reno glanced back at her.
 
“The toilet handle,” he said.
 
Then he walked up to the toilet and
demonstrated.
 
“Like this,” he said.

“Why would I need to do something like that?” she
asked.
 
Then she smiled.
 
“But it stopped.
 
The noise has stopped.
 
I didn’t know I had to shake anything.”

“You shouldn’t have to, you’re right.
 
It’s not supposed to work this way.”
 
He walked over to the sink.
 
“I’ll have maintenance come up in the morning
and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
 
He washed his hands.

“If it does happen again,” Felicity asked, “do I
have permission to ask for you?”

“Absolutely,” Reno said, as he began drying his
hand.

“In that case,” Felicity said, and quickly lifted
her dress all the way off of her body, revealing that she wore no bra.
 
Then she just as quickly pulled down her
panties, stepped out of them, and playfully kicked them aside like the pro he
took her for.
 
“You deserve to be
rewarded.”

Reno wasn’t at all surprised by her sudden switch
from virgin to maven, but it didn’t matter.
 
He began to move past her.
 
“No
reward necessary,” he said as he moved.

But she blocked his progression.
 
“So what’s the problem, Reno?
 
You look like a man who knows how to have a
good time.
 
What is it?
 
It can’t be my body.
 
Not this body.
 
And you’re obviously interested.”
 
She looked down, at Reno’s bundle.
 
He was clearly aroused.
 
She looked back up into his handsome face.
 
She moved closer, fondling her nipples.
 
“What is it, Reno?
 
Is it my body?”

“I’m married.”

That seemed like a non-answer to Felicity.
 
“And?”

“And that fact may not matter to you,” Reno said as
he moved past her, “but it matters to me.
 
Have a good night.”

When she reached for Reno’s crotch, to squeeze it,
he grabbed her by the wrist and twisted.

“Ouch!” she screamed out.

“Don’t fuck with me,” Reno said to her.

“I won’t,” she said, tears of pain suddenly
appearing in her eyes.

Reno continued to hold onto her wrist, as her teary
eyes only made her look sexier.
 
He even
looked down at her naked body again, which he hated his horny ass for
doing.
 
But then he released her bony
wrist, and left.

Felicity was shocked.
 
This had not gone according to plan.
 
In the casino, he was as interested in her as
all those other men were.
 
What went
wrong, she wondered, and would they hold it against her?
 
She quickly ran to her purse, fumbled through
the contents, and pulled out her cell phone.

As soon as Reno walked out of her hotel room, he
stood at the door with his hand still on the knob.
 
It wasn’t going away.
 
Lately, it was on him in such a mighty way
that he worked doubly hard just to suppress it.
 
He wasn’t going to cheat on Trina, but how many more nights like this could
he endure?
 
He was accustomed to
temptation.
 
Not a day went by when he
wasn’t being propositioned by some great looking female visiting his hotel or
casino.
 
But it was different when Trina
was in town.
 
He could manage it.
 
All he had to do was go upstairs to their
penthouse or, if she was staying the night at their Vegas estate, take a drive
over there and get some.
 
And whenever he
was the one out of town, he usually didn’t stay longer than a couple days tops.
He could manage to do without for two days.
 
But Trina had been gone ten days.
 
With four more to go.
 
This shit
was getting unmanageable.

He pulled out his cell phone too, as he headed for
the elevator.

Trina Gabrini poured herself another cup of coffee as
she stood in her parents’ kitchen with a smile on her face.
 
It was eight in the morning, she and the
children had been on vacation for ten days, and she’d never seen her parents
happier.
 
Between their home in Dale,
Mississippi, and this condo in Florida that Reno purchased for them, their
retirement kept them in high cotton.
 
But
to have their two youngest grands visiting them, along with their daughter, was
the stuff dreams were made of.
 
They were
overjoyed.

“It was delicious, Katrina,” Cecil Hathaway said to
his daughter.
 
He, his wife Earnestine,
and their grands were seated around the peninsular.
 
Their plates were all completely or nearly
clean of the food Trina had served.
 
“Thank your mama for preparing breakfast for us, Dom,” he said to his
grandson.

“Thank you, Mommy,” Dominic Gabrini, Jr. said
eagerly.
 
“It was really tasty.”

“Thank you, Mommy,” Sophia Gabrini, the youngest
child, echoed.
 
“It was really good.”

Trina smiled.
 
“You’re both welcomed,” she said.
 
Both of her children were adorable to her.
  
They were two biracial kids that everybody
fell in love with instantaneously, even though they were polar opposites.
 
One of them was as tamed as an angel.
 
The other one, Dom, was wild.

“What’s on the agenda for today?” Earnestine asked,
and all eyes fell on Cecil.
 
He was the
event coordinator for their visit to Florida.

“I thought the children could go out on the street
corner and panhandle,” Cecil said.
 
“They
could sing some torch songs and tap dance for the people.
 
Then we could take all the money and go on a
cruise.”

Dommi’s eyes lit up.
 
“Really, Grandpa?”

“No, Dommi,” Trina said.
 
“Grandpa’s just fooling.”

Dom was disappointed.
 
“Really, Grandpa?”

Cecil laughed. “I’m just fooling with you, Little
Man!
 
You know your grandpa won’t have you
out on a corner begging.
 
Although, I can
book you and your sister in the rec room here at the condominium.”

“Dad!” Trina said, and Earnestine laughed.

“Stop worrying.
 
I’m just kidding!
 
I have
educational things planned too.”

Dom and Sophia attended different private schools,
but both schools had an end of term vacation period that Trina always tried to
make the most of.
 
This was the first
time, however, she ever took them away from home, and their father, this long.
 
“I don’t ever want them to think that life is
just a vacation,” she said to her father.
 
“They are not now, nor will they ever be children of leisure,” she
added, as the doorbell rang.

“I agree with your concerns,” Cecil responded as he
headed for the front door of the large condo with the open floor plan.
 
“I’ve got it covered.
 
I’ve got the good stuff you said I had to
squeeze in, but I’ve also got a bumper car ride---”

“Yea!” the children declared.

“And other fun stuff like that.
 
But first, we go to the children’s art
museum.
 
They have an African-American
exhibit on display.”

Trina nodded.
 
“Sounds good, Dad,” she said, as Cecil opened the door.

When he opened the door, and saw who was behind it,
he was floored.
 
“Reno?” he asked, and
everybody looked toward the door.
 
When
Reno stepped in, looking freshly scrubbed and in a pullover shirt and jeans,
his hair actually combed and in place for a change, the children’s already big
eyes widened like saucers.

“Daddy!” Dommi cried, knocking over his glass of
milk as he jumped down.
 

“Boy!” Trina yelled when she saw the spilled milk,
but Dommi was off to the races.

“Daddy!” Sophia cried, hitting the floor and running
too. To Trina’s relief, she wasn’t as clumsy as her brother.

Reno dropped the carrying bag off his shoulder,
grinning as he saw his children, and swept them both up into his arms.
 
“There’s my gremlins!” he said joyfully.

Earnestine and Cecil were ecstatic to see him too,
as Cecil closed the front door.
 
At first
he wondered how Reno got past security, but then he remembered Reno had a key.

But Trina wasn’t concerned with how Reno got
in.
 
She was concerned with why Reno was
there at all.
 
He would not have come
without calling, if it wasn’t serious.

“How’s everybody?” Reno asked Cecil.
 
But when he looked over and saw Trina
standing behind the peninsular, wiping milk off the countertop, he couldn’t
look away.
 
Although she wore a jersey and
a pair of oversized Puma shorts, and her hair was in a ponytail rather than her
usual fancy hairdo, she looked simply irresistible to him.
 
Great looking ladies crossed his path all day
long, but Trina was the one he wanted.
 
Trina was the one who made his heartbeat quicken.
 
Trina was the one who made his dick throb.

And he was throbbing as he walked toward her.
 
The children wouldn’t let go of him, they
were clinging to him, but his entire focus was on Tree.

“Hello Reno,” Earnestine said with a smile.
 
She noticed his fixation too.
 
“Don’t you look refreshed.”

“Thanks, Ma,” Reno said with a sheepish smile, as
he, too, realized he had completely neglected her presence.
 
He leaned over, despite carrying two
children, and kissed her on the cheek.
 
“Don’t you look gorgeous.”

Earnestine blushed.
 
“Oh, go on!” she said with a grin on her face.

“Yes,” Cecil responded, “go on with those
lies.”
 
Then he laughed and Earnestine
hit him.

But Reno began moving toward Trina, the one he most
needed to see.
 
“Hey,” he said as he
approached her.
 
His heart was hammering
as they leaned into each other and kissed on the lips.
 
And although he knew it wasn’t the time or
the place, he couldn’t help it.
 
His kiss
lingered.
 
It was the taste of her, and
the smell of her, that refused to let him peck and go.
 
He wanted to tongue her, to smother her with
love, but knew he couldn’t.
 
Not
here.
 
Not yet.

“Everything okay?” Trina asked when their lips
finally parted.
 
Her heart was hammering
too.
 
But not just because she missed him
and he looked so good, although he did look superfine to her.
 
But because she couldn’t see him coming all
this way unless something was wrong.
 
“Jimmy and Val okay?
 
Maddie
alright?”

“They’re good.
 
I spoke with Jim on the plane.
 
He
was acting upset when I saw him earlier, but he’s usually upset about
something.
 
But he said he’s alright.”

“I hope he and Val aren’t at it again.”

“I asked that too.
 
He says they’re good,” Reno said, as he sat his children back on their
feet.

Sophie immediately began to cry.
 
“Daddy,” she said, reaching her little arms
up to him again.

Cecil picked her up.
 
“Give your daddy a break, sweetie,” he said.
 
“He just got here.
 
He’ll pick you up again.
 
Okay?”

“Okay, Grandpa,” Sophie said so tenderly that
Cecil’s heart melted.
 
And he held her
tighter.

“So what brings you to Florida?” Trina asked Reno.

This was the part Reno knew he would struggle
with.
 
He wanted to tell her the truth:
that he missed her and needed her, but he didn’t want to sound like a chump
either.
 
“No biggie,” he said.
 
“I was just passing through.”

Trina knew he didn’t have any out of town business
trips on his itinerary before she left, and he didn’t bring up any trips when
they spoke a few nights ago.
 
She started
to ask where he was headed while passing through Florida, but she saw that look
in his eyes.
 
Reno couldn’t hide shit from
her.
 
His eyes always told his story.

“Wanna talk?” she asked him.

Reno’s heart soared.
 
He knew that phrase so well.
 
It
was the term they used around the children whenever they wanted to make
love.
  
He loved the fact that she was
making it easy for him.
 
He loved the
fact that she didn’t find a man who would travel this far just to make love to
his wife pussy-whipped.
 
Although, if he
were to be honest, he was.
 
“Yeah, I need
to talk to you,” he responded to her.

Trina rinsed out the milk-soaked dish cloth, placed
it across the sink, and dried her hands.
 
“You guys excuse us,” she said, as she and Reno headed toward the guest
bedroom in the three bedroom condo.

Dommi began following behind them like the man he
took himself to be, but Cecil, still holding Sophie, managed to grab Dommi by
the back of his shirt and pull him back.
 
“They’re going to talk privately,” he said.
 
“As difficult as this may be for you to
believe, I honestly don’t think they need your input.”

“What does that mean?” Sophie asked.

“It’s code,” Earnestine said, “for your brother to
mind his own business.”

Dommi leaned against his grandmother.
 
He was missing his father already.

Reno missed his children too.
 
He couldn’t recall a time when they had been
away from him this long.
 
But when he and
Trina walked into that guest bedroom, and he closed and locked the door, the
only thing he was missing was being with Trina.

He slammed her back against the door, and was
kissing her so vigorously that Trina had to breathe through his mouth just to
stay alive.

“
Oh, Tree
,”
he said into her mouth as he kissed her and wouldn’t stop kissing her.
 
He pulled down her Puma shorts and her
panties.
 
She gladly kicked off her flip
flops, and stepped out of those shorts and panties.
 
Then Reno grabbed hold of her bare, tight
ass, squeezing the flesh out of it, and lifted her into his arms.
 
She wrapped her legs around his waist as his
lips rubbed against her lips and then began kissing her even more vigorously.

Trina’s ass was in pain because of Reno’s harsh
squeezing, but it was a sensual pain that made her want his roughness even
more.
 
He pulled her closer and closer,
as he rubbed his fully erected penis against her vagina, and Trina knew then that
her suspicion was exactly right.
 
He came
to fuck.

She returned his vigorous kisses.
 
She pulled him as close as he was pulling
her.
 
She knew what she had in Reno.
 
She knew her husband had a sexual appetite to
rival any she’d ever seen, and leaving him this long was risky.
 
There were always rumors of his
infidelity.
 
Rumors of him fathering some
woman’s child.
 
Rumors of him caught in
the act with this woman or that woman.
 
Trina
had heard it all.
 
But she believed
Reno.
 
Now she understood why.
 
No man would travel twenty-five hundred miles,
from Vegas to Miami, if all he had to do was pick any woman he wanted and go to
bed with her.
 
He obviously didn’t want
any
woman.
 
He wanted Tree.
 
The cat was away, Trina thought with joy in
her heart, but Reno was no mouse.
 
He
didn’t play.

And he wasn’t playing when he lifted her into his
arms, carried her across the guest room to Trina’s unmade bed, and laid her
onto the bed.
 
He lifted off his own
pullover shirt, went to the bottom of the bed, put his head between her legs,
and opened her.
 
He began licking her as
soon as he opened her, and she responded with a soft cry and uncontrolled
spasms.
 
It had been too long for her
also.
 
She missed him!