Romancing Sal Gabrini 2: A Woman's Touch (4 page)

But
then he thought about what Patty had done for him.
 
That was no simple favor.
 
He had saved Patty’s bacon by firing that
shot, but Patty had saved his by shutting his trap.
 
He was in a tough spot.
 

But
it wasn’t like he had a choice.

After
making that choice, Sal got away from Jersey as fast as he could.
 
It had been a long, hard trip and he couldn’t
get away fast enough.
 
And some six hours
later, still drained and jet lagged, but excited to see Gemma again, he walked
into the lobby of the Clark County Courthouse.
 
And he saw her, upstairs in the atrium, hugging on some tall, good
looking, black stud of a man.
 
His heart
sank.
 

It
wasn’t exactly the kind of welcome back he was expecting.
 

THREE

“What
in the world are you doing in Vegas?” Gemma and Marsh Denning stopped their
friendly embrace.
 
They were in the
atrium of the courthouse, with all manner of movement around them, and Marsh
had just surprised her with his presence.
  
“The last time I saw you was in Seattle, at the convention.”

“I’m
here on a case,” Marsh replied.
 
“I
started out as the consulting attorney, but now they’ve asked me to take over
as lead.”

“Well
good for you.”

“Thanks.
 
But it’s a messy one.”

“In
Vegas, they all are.”
 
Marsh laughed.

“So
look at you,” he said.
 
“I learned so
much from that class you taught at that lawyers convention.
 
Think you’ll teach it again next time
around?”

“Hell
to the no,” Gemma said, and Marsh laughed again.

Sal
was downstairs, looking up at the twosome and how easily Gemma was making the
guy laugh.

“Besides,”
Gemma added, “I doubt if they ask me back.
 
I wasn’t exactly the talk of the convention.”

“But
you were a great teacher, don’t shortchange yourself.
 
You had your facts together.
 
That’s what I love about you, Gem.
 
You take care of business.”

Gemma
studied Marsh.
 
What she remembered most about
him wasn’t his competence at all, or his business acumen, but his
unfaithfulness to his wife.
 
He was
married, supposedly happily married, but he couldn’t stop trying to pick her
up.
 
When she turned him down, twice, he
searched out other females.
 
He was, in
truth, exactly what she despised in men.
 
He was, in truth, the very reason she was taking it slow with her own
man.

“But
yeah, it’s so good to see you again,” he said.
 
“I miss that knowledge of yours.
 
Not to mention that rockin’ body.”
 
He said this with a smile and looked down the length of that body.
 
Sal saw him make that look.

Same
old Marsh, Gemma thought.
 
“So how’s your
wife?” she asked.

Marsh
smiled.
 
“Oh, so you remember my marital
status.”

Gemma
didn’t respond to that.
 
It wasn’t a joke
to her.

Marsh
got the point and stopped smiling. “She’s good,” he said.
 
“Thanks for asking.”

Gemma
knew the last thing he wanted to do was thank her for asking about his wife, or
to remember he had one.

“Anyway,
I’d better run,” Gemma said, and put out her hand.
 
“Nice seeing you again.”

Marsh
took her hand, but held onto it.
 
He even
placed his other hand on top, sandwiching her in.
 
Sal saw that too.
 
There was a time he would have run up those
stairs and socked the guy for the imposition alone, but it wasn’t the way the
guy was reacting to Gemma that interested him at this phase in their
relationship.
 
It was Gemma’s
reaction.
 
His greatest fear was that
their long distance relationship would draw her into the arms of some great
looking, smooth-talking Joe, like the guy upstairs.
 

“I
wonder if we can get together,” Marsh said.

“Sorry,
no,” Gemma said, removing her hand from the sandwich, and about to leave.

“All
business I promise you,” Marsh said.
 
“I
want to hire you as a consulting attorney
 
on the case.”

This
interested Gemma enough to listen.
 
“And
what would I be consulting on?”

“This
jurisdiction.
 
I’ve never worked a case
here in Vegas and I need to know what to expect.
 
For my client’s sake.”

“You’re
at trial now?”

“No.
 
Getting ready for voir dire.
 
I could really use some pointers.
 
For my client’s sake.
 
No monkey business, I promise.”

Gemma
smiled at the way he phrased that and then they both turned to the sound of
someone dropping a book on the stairs.
 
She thought she saw a familiar face further down those stairs, but she
turned back to Marsh, who was still talking.

“I’ve
tried cases in Nevada before.
 
Carson,
Reno, places like that.
 
But this is
Vegas, baby.
 
The real deal.
 
I need to know the customs, the nuances of
the jurors here.
 
Please.
 
If you don’t mind?”

Then
Gemma looked back down those stairs again.
 
And that was when she saw just who that familiar face was.
 
It was Sal! Her heart soared.

“I’ve
got to go,” she said hurriedly and was about to get away.

Desperation
rose up inside of Marsh.
 
“At least give
me your office number,” he said just as hurriedly.
 
“I want to hire you.
 
I’ll make an appointment.”

Gemma
looked at him.

“For
my client’s sake,” he added.
 
“I only
want to make sure I get this right.
 
I’ll
be happy to pay you a more than reasonable consultation fee.”

There
were differences from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, Gemma knew he was right
about that.
 
And she also knew Vegas and
their jury pool like the back of her hand.
 
And she knew she could easily handle Marsh and his ridiculous
flirtations.
 
And the money wouldn’t
hurt.
 
She therefore reached into her
briefcase and pulled out one of her business cards, handing it to him.
 

“Thanks,
Gem,” Marsh said with a grand smile, accepting the card.
 

“Gotta
run,” Gemma said, taking off without looking back this time.
 
To her own surprise, she couldn’t get to Sal
fast enough.

But
Sal was downstairs watching how fast she was getting to him, and it concerned
him.
 
“Take it easy,” he said beneath his
breath as she flew breezily down those stairs, her briefcase and purse flying
just as freely as her lithe body.

And
what a body, Sal thought as he watched her fly.
 
She was tall and slender, not thin, and with all the right curves.
 
Her hair was short, soft and vibrant, with a
bounciness to it Sal loved.
 
And there
was no narcissism about her hair either.
 
He could run his hands through it at will, and she never complained.

And
that dark, gorgeous face.
 
Those high
cheekbones and full, perfection lips.
 
He
was still amazed that he once wondered about her beauty, and whether she was
the best-looking woman he’d ever seen, or the ugliest.
 
Now best-looking or beautiful or even
gorgeous weren’t strong enough words to describe how he felt about her looks.
 
He even noticed other men giving her
approving looks, sometimes double takes, as she hurried down those stairs and
across the lobby toward him.
 

He
also noticed how that stud upstairs was still standing there, staring at her
too.

As
soon as Gemma arrived at Sal’s side, that remarkable face of hers was bursting
with the most welcoming smile.

“Hey,
Sal,” she said grandly.
 
She wanted to
jump into his arms, even in the middle of the courthouse lobby, but there was
still an awkwardness about their relationship that kept them both cautious.
 
They’d been dating for a few months now, but
they’d only been able to see each other a couple weekends out of those
months.
 
And that didn’t include when she
left him after she found out he had to retaliate forcefully against some
enemies of his.
 
She went back to him,
and promised to work through her concerns, but that didn’t end her concerns.

Their
relationship was still, for both of them, a work in progress.

 
“How are you?” Sal asked her, equally
cautious.

“I’m
great.”

“Next
time don’t run down those stairs so fast.
 
You trip and fall, that’ll be a long tumble down.”

Gemma
was so unaccustomed to somebody concerned about her at that simple level that
she almost wanted to laugh.
 
Sal could be
so protective!
 
But she didn’t.
 
She was learning more and more about
him.
 
And this was no laughing matter for
him.
 
“I will be more careful,” she said.

“Because
all it takes is a little trip.”

“That’s
true.”

Sal
studied her.
 
He loved the way she was
learning to trust him more, without battling him.
 
But he knew it would take time before they
both were one hundred percent on the same page, and he had promised her he
wouldn’t rush it.
 
She left him once
before, he didn’t want to ever have to go down that road again.

But
that didn’t mean he didn’t want to hold her.
 
He wanted to feel her in his arms again so badly that he could barely
contain himself.
 
He wanted to run his
hands through that soft, bouncy hair of hers.
 
But he was, technically, at her place of employment.
 
He didn’t want to embarrass her in front of
her peers.
 

But
when she said, “it’s so good to see you again,” and smiled that smile he still
dreamed about, he was a goner.
 
Fuck it
, he said to himself, and pulled
her into his arms.

Gemma’s
heart leaped with joy when Sal took her into his arms that way.
 
It was that tough, rough, unable to be
diplomatic Sal’s way that she loved.
 
And
she missed it desperately.
 
She missed
that warmth and safety she always felt when he held her.
 
He was a muscular man, and strong, and
whenever he held her she felt so vulnerable!
 
But it wasn’t a vulnerability that came from a place of weakness, but a
place of affection.
 
She really wanted to
trust this guy.
 
She really wanted to
love this guy unconditionally.
 
But she’d
been hurt so many times in the past by guys who didn’t mean half as much to her
as Sal already meant to her.
 
And they
managed to hurt her.
 
She could only
imagine what Sal, if he messed up, could do to her.
 
And that reality, that she could be giving
her heart away for the trampling, frightened her beyond compare.
 

Sal
wasn’t exactly unconcerned about their relationship either.
 
As he held her, he held his eyes tightly
shut.
 
It wasn’t because of the physical
part of their relationship.
 
All Gemma
had to do was feel his already sizeable boner against her body to know that
there was no question about how easily she could turn him on.
 
It was the emotional part that concerned Sal
the most.
 
He’d never felt this way about
any of his previous girlfriends.
 
He’d
never worried about them the way he worried about Gemma.
 
He’d never hated to part from them the way he
always hated to part from Gemma.
 
And
when he pulled back from her and looked into her bright brown eyes, he’d never
wanted to kiss them the way he wanted to kiss her now.
 
And although he knew he might be crossing a
line, and she might have to hear about it later from her teasing co-workers, he
couldn’t help it.
 
He placed his lips on
her lips, his big, blue eyes immediately turning hooded with lust, and he
kissed her.
 
Long and sweet.
 
He relished the kiss.

Gemma
relished it too, as she closed her eyes and enjoyed Sal and Sal alone.
 
She missed his taste, and the way he knew how
to tongue her without turning it into something sloppy and uninviting.
 
She enjoyed his kiss.
 
She knew some of her lawyer friends would see
her and mention it later, even joke about it, but she wasn’t thinking about
them.
 
She missed Sal, and by the way he
was kissing her he missed her, and nobody else, at that point in time, mattered.

When
Sal stopped kissing her, they looked once again into each other’s eyes, smiled,
and then he pulled her in his arms again.
 
Then finally, after a few moments of him hugging her again, they were
able to separate.