Until You Come Back To Me, Book 5 (13 page)

And
he fucked her like the valuable possession she was.
 
He fucked her long and lovingly.
 
He kissed her and fucked her and they both
felt a magnificent ease with every glide his dick made.
 
Until those glides stopped feeling like sweet
pricks, and began to feel like drips of fire.
 

And
suddenly, easy became intense, and they were inflamed with passion.
  
Sal began to fuck her harder, which was his
usual way, and she began to want him to fuck her even harder, which was her
usual way.
 
And they gave each other what
they wanted.
 
They went rough.
  
The bed began bouncing, Sal was thrashing
into her, and their love making became so emotional that it felt like a
rollercoaster ride.
 
Only they never came
down.
 
They rode high, they rode higher,
until Gemma rode that cock to its highest peak.
 
And they went over, and came.
  

They
rarely came at the exact same time, but tonight, after what could have been
nothing but strain and stress in their relationship, they came together.
 
And they came hard.
 
When Sal had poured all he had to pour into
her, he looked at her.
 
She opened her
big, soft, wonderful brown eyes.
 
And he
smiled.
 
They were on the same page
again.
 

“Happy
birthday, darling,” he said to her.
 
“Happy birthday.”

Rory
opened the door to his hotel room enthusiastically.
 
Because he saw through the peephole that it
was Gemma, and he was pleased to see her.
 
But the look on her face, after he opened the door, tempered his
enthusiasm.

“What’s
the matter?” he asked.

“Hi,”
Gemma said.
 
She hated to do this, but
knew she had to.

“Come
in,” Rory said, taking her by the arm and ushering her in.
 
She wore a gorgeous white pantsuit that
contrasted beautifully with her dark skin.
 
He closed the door behind her.
 
“Now what’s the matter, dear heart?”

Gemma
handed him back his keys.
 
“I can’t
accept the Bentley,” she said.

He
frowned.
 
“But why not, Gemmanette?
 
It was a gift for your birthday.
 
That’s all it was.”

“I
know that.
 
And I appreciate it.
 
But I can’t accept it.”

Rory
considered her.
 
“Is it you who can’t accept
it, or that firecracker husband of yours?”

“I
can’t accept your gift,” Gemma said.
 
“It’s all on me.
 
I can’t accept
it.”

Rory
shook his head.
 
“I’m very disappointed
in you, Gemma Jones.
 
Very disappointed.”

Gemma
would have asked him why, but she didn’t.

“My
wife of thirty years died last year,” Rory said.
 
“And I decided I needed to come back to
Vegas, where we used to call home, and start fresh.
 
Within days of my return, I run into my old
protégé, a young lady I have nothing but respect and admiration for, and my
heart is happy.
 
I saw in you a sign,
Gemma, that I had made the right move.
 
Then I remembered that you had a birthday coming up.
 
And I was thrilled beyond measure to get you
a special gift.
 
The same way a father
would get his daughter a special gift.
 
And you throw it back in my face as if there’s something dirty and wrong
about that?”

Gemma
felt awful.
 
“It’s not that, Rory,” she
said.
 
“You know how much I admire and
respect you too.
 
I’m not questioning
your intentions at all.
 
But I cannot
accept that gift.
 
And I will not.
  
Thank-you, but I can’t take it.
 
I had my assistant follow me here in my car.
 
Yours is in the parking lot out front.
 
I hope this doesn’t interfere with our
friendship, but if it does, I’ll understand.”

Rory shook
his head.
 
“No good deed,” he said.
 
When he said that, and had that look on his
face, Gemma knew it was time for her to go.
 
She turned to leave.

But
he grabbed her by the arm and turned her back to him.
 
“This is how you repay me?” he asked
her.
 
“For all I did for you.
 
For all the calls I made for you.
 
For all the connections I gave to you when
you first started out.
 
This is my reward?”
 
Then he pulled her to him, slamming her small
body against his big body, scaring her, and he began kissing her.

Gemma
fought hard to be free.
 
But when he
wouldn’t let her go, she kneed him in the groin, causing him to let go.
 
And she pushed him away from her.
 
She stared at his face.
 
Her disappointment stretched far wider than
his ever could.
 
Sal was right.
 
When it came to the behavior of men, he
always was.
 
She pointed her finger at
Rory.
 
“Stay away from me,” she
said.
  
And she left his room, slamming
the door behind her.

She
was still reeling from what happened, still hurt that he would go there with
her and reveal his true intentions in giving her such an elaborate gift, when
she saw Sal.
 
He was standing outside of
the hotel’s lobby, just standing there like some loiterer, and her heart
swelled with emotion.
 
She’d never go
against his wishes again.
 
They had their
disagreements about many things, but she would never disagree with him when it
came to these men.
 
If Sal had a problem
with them, she was leaving them alone.
 
She was going to trust his judgment, at least on that count, from here
on out.

She smiled
when she walked outside and up to him.
 
The valets were looking, but she didn’t care.
 
“Hey,” she said.
 
“Are you stalking me?”

Sal
pulled her into his arms.
 
“Hell yeah,”
he said.
 
“What do you think?”
 
Then he looked at her, his face more serious now.
 
“How did it go?” he asked her.

She
revealed a hard-to-read expression.
 
“It
went,” she said.
 
“I gave him back his
keys.”

“He
didn’t like it?”

Gemma
hesitated. “No,” she said.

Sal
nodded, staring into her eyes.
 
“What did
he say?
 
What did he do?”

“He
didn’t like it,” was all Gemma was willing to say.

Sal
nodded again.
 
“Okay,” he said.
 

Gemma’s
BMW drove up at the curb, with her assistant, Curtis, behind the wheel.
 
Sal opened the passenger door for her.
 

“Call
me later?” Gemma asked before she got into the car.

“Yeah,
sure,” Sal responded, although she knew he never hardly ever called her like
that, unless something was bothering him.

They
kissed on the lips, Sal said hello and goodbye to Curtis, and he watched as
they drove away, passing his Porsche, which was parked further away from the
hotel’s entrance.
 
But instead of Sal
leaving too, he headed upstairs.

Rory
thought Gemma was returning, it was such a fast turnaround, that he opened his
door without checking the peephole first.
 
As soon as he realized it was Sal, he tried to close the door back.
 
But Sal blocked the door with his very
expensive, and very large shoe.
 
He let
up, and Sal walked into his room, closing the door behind him.

“What
do you want?” Rory asked him.
 
“To level
more false accusations against me, perhaps?”

But
Sal was all business.
 
He always was when
it came to Gemma’s wellbeing.
 
“You can’t
have her,” he said.

Rory
looked at him curiously.
 
“I can’t have
who?”

“That
couch, motherfucker,” Sal said with a flash of anger. “Who do you think?
 
You can’t have her.”

“I
don’t want her,” Rory lied.

Sal
stared at him.
  
Then he nodded his
head.
 
“Yeah, you want her bad.
 
Real bad.
 
Your old lady died, now you see my wife as her replacement.
 
You remember how virtuous Gemma was, and how
beautiful and sexy.
 
And you want
her.
 
But that ain’t gonna happen,
pal.
 
Not in your lifetime.
 
Not in mine.
 
Forget about it.”

“There’s
nothing to forget.
 
I don’t want Gemma.”

“She’s
off limits,” Sal said, refusing to buy into Rory’s lies, “she’s unavailable,
it’s not up for debate.
 
Not in a million
years will you put your sweaty palms on my woman.
 
You’ll have to go through me first, and you’d
have an easier time going through a brick wall, before you get pass me.”

Rory
was beginning to sense the danger.
 
He
did his homework.
 
He knew there were
rumors swirling around about Sal Gabrini’s affiliations with mobster
types.
 
Some even suggested that Sal
himself was a mob boss.
 
But he didn’t
believe it.
 
Sensible Gemma, he knew,
would never marry a man like that.
 
But
now, looking into this man’s cold, blue eyes, made Rory rethink his
calculation.
  
“Whatever she told you,”
Rory said, “is not true.
 
Yes, I was
disappointed when she returned the car, but that’s all I was.
 
Nothing happened.”

Why
did he have to say that? To Sal’s ears, it meant that this guy tried to make
something happen.
 
So Sal felt he had no
choice.
 
He took his fist and hit Rory
hard, directly in the gut, causing Rory to double over in pain.

“Why
did you do a thing like that for?” he asked Sal, his eyes round with shock.

“Just
in case something tried to go down,” Sal said, “I wanted to make sure I made it
clear to you that you’re fucking with the wrong family.”
 
Sal smiled.
 
“But according to you, nothing went down.
 
So you’re fine.
 
But stay away from her.
 
Go out of your way to stay away.
 
Or the last thing on this earth you’ll be is
fine.”

Sal
made sure he had perfect eye contact with Rory when he made that last
statement, then he walked out of the hotel, and left.
 
Gemma probably defended her own honor just
fine against that old ass creep.
 
He knew
it.
 
But he fired a warning shot all the
same.

It
was the end of closing arguments.
 
The
defense made their impassioned plea, the prosecution made theirs.
 
The judge read the jury instructions, and it
was all done.
 
It was out of their hands
now.
 

Gemma
and her client rose from the defense table.
 
The prosecution and her staff rose from their table too, as both sides
watched the jurors retire to the jury room to begin deliberations.
 
After the jurors were gone,
Rabina
looked at Gemma and hugged her neck.
 
“Thank-you so much!” she cried.
 
“You were brilliant!”

Gemma
didn’t see where she was all that brilliant, but she wasn’t going to disparage
a compliment.
 
As a defense attorney, she
got so few.
 
“You’re welcome,” she
said.
 
“Remember to stay around the
courthouse.
 
Sometimes verdicts take
hours, sometimes days.
 
Hopefully it
won’t take too long, and hopefully we’ll have a successful outcome.”

“Oh,
we will,”
Rabina
said confidently.
 
“You tell your husband thank-you,” she
added.
 

Gemma
was puzzled.
 
“My husband?” she asked.

“Yes!
 
You tell your husband I will not forget.
 
He came through for me with those jurors, and
I will come through for him.
 
Tell him
that please.”

“But
what are you talking about?
 
What jurors
did he come through with?”

Rabina
smiled.
 
“Just tell him
thank-you,” she said, and hurried toward the back of the courtroom, where Ted
Coggan, who made it his business to stay as far back as possible, stood.
 
They left out together.

Gemma
was floored.
 
Sal had told her, in no
uncertain terms, that he did not have a sexual relationship with
Rabina
Chen.
 
He told
her that he didn’t even like the woman, especially after some bad business deal
he had with her.
 
Then why was he
involved in her case, if she was to be believed?
 
And why behind Gemma’s back?

She
gathered up her briefcase, and hurried out of the courtroom too.

“Is
he in?” Gemma asked as she entered Sal’s suite of offices on the top floor of
the Gabrini Office Complex.
 

“Yes,
ma’am,” one of his assistants quickly told her, and then hurried to open his
door for her.
 
Sal had made it clear:
whenever his wife arrived, somebody had better acknowledge her presence, open
his door for her, and then get out of her way.
 

Gemma
entered his office, closing the door behind her.