Sal Gabrini: His House of Cards (16 page)

But the next
day, when Gemma was back at work, he was at it again.
  
Her client in a murder case had taken the
stand, and it had been a disaster.
 
Now
she was back at her law firm.
 

“How did it
go?” Barbara asked her.

“Don’t ask,”
Gemma responded, and headed for her office.

Barbara
followed her boss.
 
“Did he testify?”

“He
testified.”

“Did he blow
it?”

“He blew up
at the prosecutor.
 
He blew up at the
Judge.
 
So I would say yeah, he blew
it.
 
Whose flowers?”
 
A bouquet of roses were sitting on Gemma’s
desk.
 
Gemma walked behind the desk.

“Want me to
read the card?” Barbara asked with a smile on her face.

“Don’t play
games, Barb. I know you.
 
You read it
already.
 
Give.”

“If you must
know,” Barbara said as she stood in front of the desk, “it says ‘to my darling
wife.
 
With love, Sal.’
 
It’s so romantic, considering who it’s coming
from.
 
Want me to put them in water?”

“Yes,
please.
 
And close the door behind you.”

Barbara
gladly grabbed the roses and headed out of the office, closing the door behind
her.
 
Gemma sat down, leaned back, and
closed her eyes.

It had been
a terrible day at trial.
 
Her client was
obnoxious and contemptuous.
 
He was going
to get the chair if he wasn’t careful.
 
He wouldn’t listen to her advice.
 
He wouldn’t answer anybody’s questions directly.
 
Just terrible.
 
It was so bad that she asked the defendant if
he wanted a different attorney.
 
He
didn’t.
 
He wanted to keep her.
 
He believed in her, he said.
 
It was the first time Gemma was sorry to hear
such a vote of confidence.

Her desk
phone buzzed.
 
She pressed the
button.
 
“Yes, Barb?”

“Mr. Gabrini
on Line 3.”

Gemma
exhaled.
 
And then pressed the
button.
 
“Hello, Sal.”

“Hey.
 
How are you?”

“I’m
okay.
 
Thank you for the flowers.”

“You’re
welcome.
 
I know you like red roses.”

She did.
 
And she appreciated his gesture.
 
But still.

“I know
you’re busy,” he said, “so I won’t keep you.
 
I called your cell phone but it was still turned off.
 
You must have been in court today.”

Gemma had
forgotten again to turn on that darn phone.
 
“Yeah, I was.”

“I’m going
to pick you up tonight, at seven.
 
I want
you to have dinner with me tonight, Gemma.”

Gemma closed
her eyes.
 
“Sal, what good will it do?”

“None
probably,” he admitted.
 
“But what good
is it doing now?
 
With no real
conversation at all?
 
At least I’ll have
dinner with my wife.”

Gemma knew
he spoke the truth.
 
She wasn’t exactly
moving in one direction or another one.
 
She almost felt as if she was standing still.
 
Something was better than nothing.
 
“Okay,” she finally said.

There was a
sigh on Sal’s end.
 
A sigh of
relief?
 
“I’ll pick you up at seven,” he
said.
 
And to avoid her changing her
mind, he said goodbye quickly, as if he suddenly had to go, and they both hung
up.

“Where is he
going to take you?” Trina asked.
 
They
were behind the counter at Champagne’s.

“He didn’t
say,” Gemma responded.

“So what did
he say?”

“He said
he’s taking me to dinner.
 
He didn’t say
where.”

“And you
didn’t ask?”

“No.”

“So how do
you feel about this turn of events?”

Gemma shook
her head.
 
“I don’t know, Tree.
 
I’m excited, because I miss him so much.
 
But I’m uneasy too, because I don’t know what
to expect with Sal anymore.”

“He lied,”
Trina said.
 
“He was wrong.
 
But everybody deserves a second chance.”

“I know that
too.
 
But Sal has got to understand what
I won’t tolerate.
 
I have to be able to
trust my husband.
 
I have to know that
what he says is the way it is.
 
He’s
shaken that faith I had in him.
 
I can’t
pretend that doesn’t hurt.
 
It’s shaken
me.”

Trina placed
an arm around her.
 
“I feel you, girl,”
she said.
 
“You know I do.
 
If you let a man mistreat you, I don’t care
who that man is, he will.”

“That’s why
I have to know he understands what I won’t allow.”

“And if he
doesn’t understand to your satisfaction?” Trina asked.
 
“Will you be willing to divorce him?”

A pained
expression crossed Gemma’s face.
 
“No,”
she admitted.
 
“I can’t see it going that
far.”

Trina
smiled.
 
“Then you’d better make a
statement tonight.”

“What kind
of statement?” Gemma asked.

“Wear
something very sexy.
 
Make him see what
his lying ass is missing.”

Gemma
laughed.
 
“You need to quit, Trina.”
 
Then she nodded her head.
 
“But I get what you’re saying,” she admitted.

Sal stood in
the mirror wearing yet another one of his imported suits.
 
He looked too formal, and didn’t know how to
tone it down.
 
When he toned it down, he
looked as if he wasn’t taking this dinner serious enough.
 
Then he gave up, it was getting too late, and
phoned Reno.

“You must be
awfully desperate calling me,” Reno said.

“Just answer
the question,” Sal said.

“Dress
sexy,” Reno said.
 
“That’s your answer.”

“Why sexy?”
Sal asked.

“To show her
what she’ll lose if she leaves you.
 
It’ll require a great acting job on your part, but I have faith in you.”

“I’m
touched,” Sal said, and hung up.

What a waste
of time, he thought.
 
But then he thought
again.
 
Sexy, he thought to himself.
 
He should give her sexy?
 

“Then sexy
it will be,” he said, and then went deep into his closet.
 

When she heard
the doorbell ring, Gemma hurried downstairs.
 
Sal had no problem barging into her home and preparing her breakfast
without so much as a how do, but tonight he decided to ring.
 
Which was fine by her.

But when she
opened the door and saw Sal standing there, and when Sal saw Gemma standing
there, they both were taken aback.

Gemma wore a
leather skirt suit where the skirt was so short and tight it barely covered her
panties, and where the buttoned leather jacket had no shirt beneath and was so
low-cut that her cleavage was big and bulging and showing just a tad above her
nipples.
 
Sal was stunned.

Sal stood
there in a puffed-sleeve shirt that opened nearly to his navel, with a gold
chain around his neck and bell bottom pants that were so tight his dick appeared
to be a sneeze away from busting through the zipper.
 
Gemma was stunned too.
 

Neither knew
what to think.
 
Gemma was sexy to Sal,
that outfit was doing all kinds of wonderful things to her smoking body, but
they were about to go out on the town.
 
He
wasn’t the only one who would be seeing that body.
 
Other men would.
 
Sal wasn’t about to allow that to happen.

As for
Gemma, she couldn’t help it.
 
Seeing Sal
in that get-up made her smile.
 
And then
she couldn’t help it.
 
She laughed.

“What?” Sal
asked, at first surprised by her outburst.
 
“I’m trying to be sexy here!”

“You look
like a pimp,” Gemma said between laughs, “and I look like a prostitute.”

Sal had to
smile at that, because she was right, and her laughter was contagious.
 
He began laughing too.
 
“Who advised you?” he asked her.

“Trina,”
Gemma responded.
 
“Who advised you?”

“Reno.”

“Neither one
of them would be caught dead dressing like this,” Gemma said.
 
“And neither should we.”

“I’ve got
clothes here, right?” Sal asked.

“Plenty,”
Gemma said.
 
“Come on in.”

Sal and
Gemma were still laughing as they walked in, closed and locked the front door,
and made their way upstairs.

When they
got upstairs in her bedroom, Gemma handed him a pair of his jeans and a
pullover shirt out of her closet.
 
But
when Gemma went back into her closet, pulled out a pair of jeans and a blouse
for herself and turned back around, Sal had already begun to undress where he
stood.
 
Right smack in the middle of her
bedroom.

Gemma, at
first, thought about going into the bathroom to undress, since Sal hadn’t done
so.
 
But when he pulled off that shirt,
and she saw his toned and tanned upper body, she knew she wasn’t going
anywhere.
 
She began to undress where she
stood too.

Sal’s heart
soared when Gemma unbuttoned that tight-ass leather jacket and removed it.
 
Because the bra was attached to the jacket,
as soon as she removed the jacket her big, juicy breasts popped out.
 
He could barely contain himself.

He didn’t
realize he had stopped undressing and was only watching her, until she began
shimmering out of her tight leather skirt and he saw her naked body for the
first time in nearly three weeks.
 
He
suddenly wanted to join his naked body with hers and quickly removed his shoes,
and then pulled down his pants and briefs.
 
If the fact that he was staring at her body wasn’t an indication to
Gemma of just how turned on he was, seeing his fully erected penis spring out
of his pants sealed the deal.
 
He was
completely turned on.
 
And neither one of
them made any bones about their attraction to the other.
 
Because Gemma was staring at his rocking body
too.

Sal didn’t
hesitate.
 
He’d been dreaming of being
with her again ever since she left him, and he wasn’t about to let her get away
from him this time.
 
That night when he
lied to her still seared in his memory as the dumbest thing he’d ever
done.
 
He hoped that this move, as he
walked up to her and placed his hands on her smooth, slender arms, proved to be
the smartest.

He wanted to
apologize to her.
 
He wanted to explain
himself in vivid detail to the woman he loved more than life itself.
 
But something deep within him told him not to
speak.
 
Just hold her.
 
And so he did.

Gemma felt
some kind of powerful way when Sal placed his hands on her for the first time
in three weeks.
 
And the fact that they
both were naked, as if they had both been stripped bare, was a heady antidote
to their separation.

And the
sensual feelings that raced through her body.
 
His penis was so stiff and ready that she only had to open her legs
slightly, and it landed between her legs.
 
Like a resting place before the journey.
 
And they both knew they were about to take a journey.
 
No questions had been answered.
 
Nothing had been resolved.
 
But he was still her husband, and she was
still his wife.
 
No third party had any
claims on them.
 
Just each other.
 
They both needed to be with each other.

Sal looked
into her big brown eyes and saw that love again.
 
But it was laced with pain.
 
He saw that too.
 
No amount of sexual release was going to
release that much hurt and despair.
 
But
as he began kissing her; as he began to rub her body and kiss her passionately,
he knew that they were on the mend.
 
He
knew that they were on the long road to recovery.
 
If their bodies joined tonight, he knew their
hearts would soon follow.
 
Because his
never left.
 
He loved this woman more
today, at this very moment, than he had ever loved her before.
 
He was going to do everything in his power to
keep her by giving her the best sex she ever had.
 
He felt he needed to brand her again.
 
He felt he needed to remind her that she was
still his despite the very real fact that he didn’t deserve to be in her
presence.

He lifted
her, laid her on the bed, and knelt down.
 
As soon as he opened her legs wide, and began to eat her, he could feel his
entire body throb.
 
She tasted
wonderfully.
 
And the way she reacted to
his tongue, the way her pussy began to pulsate, made him want to do her harder
and longer and even more lovingly.
 
And
he did.
 
He licked her with long, tender,
super-slow licks.
 

She felt
those licks.
 
She felt his tongue glide
across her wetness, licking her from one end of her pussy to the other end, and
licking her with such a fierceness that she felt the hunger as if she hadn’t
ate in years.
 
Sal was doing her.
 
The man she still loved was giving her those
feelings even her pain couldn’t suppress.
 
And she laid there and let him.
 
She laid there in a relaxed excitement that made even her untouched breasts
feel as if they were being caressed.

To her even
greater delight, and within seconds of her thinking it, Sal moved his hands up
to her breasts and began to massage and squeeze them.
 
Gemma felt as if she was in another world
when he began doing her top to bottom.
 
She lifted her legs onto his back, and allowed him to go down on her
even harder, as she moved to that precipice of orgasm that made her want to
scream.

But just as
she was at that point, Sal knew he had to put it in her and do it to her in a
way that blew her mind.
 
He didn’t want
her to have a series of mini-orgasms.
 
He
wanted her to have the full effect in one magnificent climax.
 
He wanted his cum to drown her with his love.

He stopped
mouth-fucking her and moved up onto her body.
 
He moved her further onto the bed and lingered over her as he looked
into her beautiful eyes.
 
Then he began
sucking her breasts as she did exactly what he wanted her to do.
 
He wanted to feel her hand on his rod.
 
And she obliged him.
 
She wrapped her small hand around his large
penis and guided it inside of her.

Sal looked
up at her when their first penis to pussy contact was made.
 
He could see her eyes become hooded and
sensual and her body lift from the fullness of his entry.
 
He, too, became so excited by the feeling
that he moved from her breasts to her mouth and kissed her so hard she could
barely breathe.

And then he
was fucking her.
 
His penis was pushing
through her friction, pushing harder and harder, until he got into the right
rhythm for both of them.
 
She could feel
his cock rub around her vagina as if he was on a treasure hunt in search of
that wondrously elusive gold, and he could feel her wet pussy close in around
his cock and squeeze it just enough to make him weak with love for her.
 
There was nothing in this world to Sal like
making love to the one he loved, and tonight was that special night.
 
He was making love to the one he loved.
 
He was giving it to her gently and hard.
 
He was fucking her brains out.
 
And she was loving it.

She was
loving it so much, and he was putting it on her so good, that Gemma had the
longest orgasm of her life.
 
She arched
and tightened and pulsated with sensations that touched every part of her
body.
 
She was squirming like a fish out
of water as he fucked her.

Sal began to
cum during her orgasm, and the two of them wrapped each other in their arms and
experienced that flight of fancy that took them into a dimension they had never
seen before.
 
Sal was near tears as he
fucked her.
 
Gemma was in tears as she
fucked him.
 
Because it was the greatest
pleasure they had ever experienced, laced with the greatest pain they had ever
had to endure.
 
It was the pain of
separation.
 
The pain of not being on the
same page.
 
The pain of secrets and lies.

Sal held
onto Gemma, and Gemma held onto Sal long after the feelings of sex had
subsided, and the reality of their situation took root.
 
Sal’s dick had saturated her.
 
Gemma’s vaginal juices had saturated
him.
 
But he stayed inside of her as they
held onto each other.
 
It was all about
branding her now.
 
It was all about
making her understand that she still belonged to him.
 
The longer he stayed inside of her, the more
he hoped she understood how much he wanted her.
 
And needed her.
 
And wasn’t about
to let her go.
 
The longer he stayed
inside of her, the longer he knew she wasn’t going to be able to leave him again.

And sure
enough, the longer he lingered inside of her, the bigger he became.
 
The bigger he became, the more she began to
want his sex again.
 
And he gave it to
her again.
 
He gave it to her with even
harder thrusts.
 
She began squeezing his
ass.
 
He began kissing her lips.
 
And soon they were fucking again.
 
It was loud sounds of sexual togetherness, as
her wetness and his wetness drenched them both, until she was having another
orgasm, he was cumming inside of her again, and they both were overwhelmed with
love.
 

They didn’t
fall asleep.
 
They were so drained, and
so satisfied, that they couldn’t fall asleep.
 
Sal had moved off of her, and put them both under the sheets, and then
he pulled her back into his arms.
 
And
they were just lying there.
 
They both
knew that words eventually needed to be said, but neither one of them were
ready to talk.
 
Sal just held his wife,
and Gemma rested her head on his chest.
 
For nearly an hour they laid there in silence.

Until Sal
spoke.

“It’s my own
damn fault,” he said.

Gemma didn’t
react to that.
  
Because she knew he had
to say more, much more, to reassure her.
 
His sex, and the way he did her, reminded her of whose she was, but her
heart was still unsettled.
 
She invested
so much in Sal.
 
But she wasn’t certain
anymore if it was a worthy investment?