Reno's Gift (Mob Boss Series) (25 page)

Then
Sal had to catch himself again.
 
Why
would dating a black girl be any different from dating a white girl?
 
What would be the difference, he
wondered.
 
All of them were probably
pains in the asses for the most part.
 
Which made him slow it down again.
 
He loved women, but he had yet to meet one who proved to be worth his
time.
 
And Gemma probably wasn’t an
exception.
 
He wanted her sexually, there
was no doubt about that, but she was
 
firebrand.
 
Firebrands were fine
in the short run.
 
He wasn’t sure at all
if he’d want a woman like that for the long haul.
 
Caution, he felt, was the rule of the day.

But
that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to hit it and hit it repeatedly tonight.

“I
have beer and I have wine,” she yelled from the kitchen.
 
“It’s your call, Sal!”

“Beer!”
Sal yelled back, an easy call for him, and then headed for the kitchen.

When
he arrived, he leaned against the doorjamb.
 
Gemma had taken off her heels, which only proved to Sal
 
just how sensible she was, and she was buried
in the frig pulling out two bottles of beer.
 
Her ass was so tight Sal was getting a hard on just watching it.
 
He knew he was going to fuck it.
 
Before the day was out he knew he was going
to tap that ass hard, and he was getting excited by just the prospect of it.

He,
in fact, decided to be bold.
 
He didn’t
know any other way to be.
 
She might be a
prude in the long run who talked a good game but in the end didn’t cover her
bets.
 
But he doubted it.
 
He was a reasonable judge of character and if
he had to place Gemma Jones anywhere on that freak spectrum, she’d be right up
there with him.
 

Off
the charts, in other words.

He
walked up behind her and placed his hands on either side of her trim but
shapely hips.
 
She was popping open the
bottle tops on the refrigerator’s bottle opener and hadn’t turned around.

“You
have a nice view,” he said to her as he placed his hands on her.
 

“I
think so,” she replied.

When
she didn’t object to his first move, he made another one.
 
He leaned in closer, pressing his hard-on
against her ass, making it clear to her how turned on he was.
 
And then he kissed her on the back of her
neck.
 

But
as soon as Gemma felt his tongue on her, she turned around quickly.

“What
do you think you’re doing?” she asked him, her face serious and uncompromising.

Sal,
however, never backed down from a challenge.
 
“Whatta you thinking I’m doing?
 
I
was kissing you.”

“Kissing
me?”

“Yeah,
and grinding you a little.”

Gemma
almost laughed.
 
Was he serious?
 
Who would admit that?
 
Men would do it, but very few of them would
admit doing it.
 
But Sal freely admitted
it, she thought.
 
“Kissing me and
grinding on me?” she asked.

“Yeah,
what of it?”

“Do I
look like a gotdamn sex toy to you?
 
Do I
look like somebody who wants to be grinded and kissed?”

Sal
started to say yes, but thought it best not to.

“What
the fuck is your problem?” he asked instead.
 
Was he this far off about her, he began to wonder.

“My
problem is you.”

“What
about me?”

She
didn’t respond.
 
She just stared at him.

“I
see.
 
You don’t want me is that it?
 
Is that your problem?”

“That’s
not the problem.”

“Then
what’s the problem?
 
You want me?”

“Yes,”
Gemma said.

Sal
was lost.
 
“Then what’s the fucking
problem?” he wanted to know.
 
“I want
you, you want me, we’re two consenting adults.
 
What’s the problem?”

But
Gemma just stood there, kind of lost herself.
 
“I don’t know,” she admitted.
  

And
that admittance, and that look of vulnerability in her eyes, stopped him
cold.
 
He liked his women freaky, not
vulnerable.
 
He would have bet the ranch
that she was the former and not the latter.
 
What the fuck was this?

Gemma
could ask the same thing, too.
 
She liked
her men spunky just like Sal.
 
And men
like that were always good in bed.
 
But
she was getting a tingling sensation just because he called her darling, or
looked at her a certain way.
 
None of
those other men from her past ever made her feel like that.
 

And
she knew the deal.
 
She knew, once she
allowed Sal to put his dick on it, that would be the end of their
relationship.
 
He might want to hit her
again, whenever he was in town, but that would be the size of it.
 
Booty calls for both of them.
 
She’d be just another female in yet another
town, and then he’d be gone.
 

Nope,
she decided.
 
She wasn’t giving it up
that easily.

“I
really have an early day tomorrow,” she said.
 
“Why don’t we drink these beers and then call it a night?
 
Or if you don’t have to waste your time,
since my naked body isn’t going to be in your immediate future, you can leave
now.
 
I won’t be mad at you.
 
I know what time it is.”

Sal
stared at her.
 
She was right.
 
He wanted to fuck her and that was about the
size of it for him.
 
For most women he
met, hell all of them really, that was enough for them.
 
He was good looking, rich, obvious stacked to
the max.
 
Considered great in bed.
 
That was good enough for them.
 

But
not Gemma Jones.
 
Not this black beauty
with the sleek, panther-like body.
 
She
probably could afford to be picky.
 
She
probably had them lined up, all of those big, black studs with their big, black
equipment.
 
What did she need with him?

But she
wasn’t getting rid of him that fast.
 

“Where
do you want to sit?” he asked her.

TEN

Reno
sat at the head of the table with Dominic on his lap.
 
Tommy and Grace flanked his right, while Sal
and Jimmy flanked his left, and they were all laughing and talking and enjoying
a full course meal at the breakfast table.
 
When Trina entered the room, fully dressed in her business skirt suit
and briefcase, she hurried toward Reno.

“Good
morning all,” she said as she hurried.

“Good
morning to you,” Grace replied.
 
“Don’t
you look pretty today.”

“Oh,
thank-you, Grace.
 
You’re a dear.
 
You look spiffy yourself.
 
Love that green.”

Jimmy
looked at the outfit Grace wore.
 
And he
agreed with his mother.
 
She wore a plain
white pair of pants that fit her to perfection, he thought, and that green,
sleeveless blouse that hugged her flat stomach and small arms and was a glowing
compliment to her skin tone.
 

He
always knew his Uncle Tommy had good taste, but the few women he’d ever seen
him with weren’t quite like Grace.
 
She
was pretty like the others were, and had that air of sophistication too, but
there was something far more down-to-earth about her.
 
To Jimmy she seemed like the kind of girl who
wouldn’t mind spending all day relaxing at the spa, but who also wouldn’t mind
handing you the tools if you had to bleed the car brakes.
 
All of Tommy’s previous ladies seemed kind of
stuck-up and super girly-girl to Jimmy.
 
But in Grace there seemed to be a less-complicated elegance about
her.
  
A woman who went against
type.
 
A woman who was strong enough to
not think of herself as weak and insufficient if a man took care of her.
 
Jimmy could now see why Tommy would have
chosen her to be his wife, and maybe
 
one
day the mother of his children, above the others.

“You
look like you’re in quite the hurry,” Grace said to Tree.

“I
know.
 
I am,” Trina replied.
 
“I want to go over our backlog before we get
too many customers.
 
Liz can only work
half a day today and Gemma has court this morning.
 
So I’m the one who’ll have to get it
done.”
 
She grabbed a toast off of the
tray in the middle of the table, and kissed Dommi on the forehead.
 
She kissed Reno on the mouth.

“What
do you think you’re doing?” he asked her.

“I
told you I want to get to the boutique early.
 
Fran’s going to come and pick up Dommi for the day.
 
I’ll get with you guys later.”

“I’m
talking about breakfast,” Reno pointed out.
 
“Sit down and eat.”

“But,
Reno, I need to---”

“I
didn’t ask you what you need to do,” Reno said firmly.
 
“Sit down and eat a full breakfast.
 
You barely touched dinner last night as it
is.
 
Enough is enough, Tree.
  
You’re running yourself raggedy.
 
Sit down.”

Trina
rolled her eyes at the intrusion into her progression, but she was nobody’s
fool.
 
She did as Reno told her to
do.
 

“Damn,
Tree,” Sal said as she sat down.
 
“Who’s
your daddy?
 
I thought your daddy lived
in Florida.”

“Nope,”
Trina said as she shook her head and buttered her toast.
 
“That’s where you’re wrong, Salvatore.
 
My father actually moved to Vegas,
miraculously became younger and whiter, and has decided to take over my entire
life.”

Everybody
laughed.
 
Except Reno.

“Very
funny,” he said to Trina as he chomped down on more hot cakes.
 
“Don’t forget the last time you thought you
were funny,” he added.

“What
happened the last time?” Sal asked.

Jimmy
grinned.
 
“He ran me and Ma around the
house with his belt.
 
We were just
playing a joke on him, that’s all, but he took it to a whole other level.”

“But
that’s your old man,” Sal volunteered.
 
“He takes everything so seriously.
 
When we were kids he was like that.
 
Never cracked a smile.
 
He was so serious one of the nuns had to tap
him on the shoulder and tell him to lighten up.”
 
Laughter again.

“Don’t
even start, Sal,” Reno said with a smile.
 
“Where was your ass last night?
 
Who was tapping on that?”

“What
are you talking?” Sal asked as if he had no clue.
 
“I took Gemma home.”

“It
took three hours to take her home, did it?” Reno asked.
 
“Three hours?
 
I didn’t know she lived that far.
 
I didn’t know anybody in Vegas who could live that far.”

“Forget
you, Reno,” Sal said as everybody laughed.
 
“Gemma’s not that kind of lady.
 
You should know.”

Tommy
glanced at his brother.
 
Standing up for
a woman, separating her as a better class of lady, was something Sal never
did.
 
But he just did for this Gemma
Jones.
 

But
Reno didn’t let up.
 
“You ask Tree who’s
her daddy.
 
Who’s your mama?” he asked
Sal.

“Who’s
your mama?” Dommi parroted his father, and brought the house down.

Gemma
Jones parked her Volvo next to Trina’s Mercedes, grabbed her purse and
briefcase off of the passenger seat, and made her way across the parking lot
into Champagne’s.
 
Trina had just
finished ringing up a customer’s order, and the customer was walking out as
Gemma walked in.