She smiled a bitter, painful smile. “I already had the perfume on. How in the world was I going to change it? Scrub it out of the skin it had already penetrated? But I did. Like the good little foolish wife I went back into the house, up the stairs, into the master bathroom, and began to scrub off my perfume. Until I looked at myself in the mirror and asked myself, ‘what are you doing, fool? You are scrubbing off perfume, idiot!’ And I realized how unhappy, how unfulfilled I was. I gave up a job I loved; I gave up friends I adored; I gave up my style, my flair, everything that made me ShoShawna Shanks, to become Mrs. Alexander Grant.”
Her smile left. “I stopped scrubbing, just like that. I walked out of that bathroom, down those stairs, out of that front door, and kept on walking. He was calling me, telling me the car was here and what the F did I think I was doing. But I kept walking. Eventually hailed a cab and kept going. Because I realized what I was doing. I wasn’t scrubbing away perfume. I was scrubbing away everything that made me who I was. Until, when I looked at myself in that mirror, I was unrecognizable.” She shook her head. “I can never go back to being that person again.”
“And you think I would try to turn you into that person?”
“No. But I never dreamed Alex would try either. You’re not Alex, I know that. But you didn’t see what I saw when he changed.”
She had to take a moment, as the memories began to flood her again.
“When you decided that we’d be exclusive,” she continued, “and you suddenly wanted to change the rules and commit, something from the beginning we both said was off the table, I began to see those same tell-tale signs in you.” She shook her head. “You’re an alpha-male, Tommy, which is fine. The only kind of man I like. But after Alex I became an alpha-woman. Which means, the two of us together,” she shook her head. “It won’t work. Not the way you want it to work. Not the way I would want.”
Tommy’s heart was hammering. “How would you want it to work?” he asked her.
She didn’t skip a beat.
“Just like it’s working now,” she said.
SIX
The next morning, Reno lifted Trina into the warm water of the garden tub and sat down behind her.
“You don’t have to do this, Reno,” she said as he began to bathe her.
“I don’t have to do it? Of course I don’t have to do it. I wanna do it. I love doing it, are you kidding?”
Trina smiled.
“I get to rub your gorgeously toned arms,” he said, bathing her arms.
“And your fine, flat tummy,” he said, bathing her there.
“And your wonderful, fat, ham-sized thighs--”
Trina laughed. “Quit playing, boy!” she said as she pushed her body against his, effectively wedging his penis between her crack. And Reno was laughing too.
But they both closed their eyes when they realized the sensual position there were now in. Especially when Reno’s lathered hand moved down to her womanhood, and began bathing her there.
He knew he had said that he would wait; that his wife had been through such an ordeal in Nevada that the least he could do was wait until he had her out of Nevada before he started banging on her again. And he knew this bath wouldn’t make it any easier. But after holding her all night, and after the way she slept like a baby in his arms, he wanted to keep pampering her, to let her know that he would be by her side as long as the good Lord gave him strength.
So he decided to bathe her.
“Reno, it feels so good,” Trina said, as her bare back leaned against his muscular chest, as her womanhood reacted to his expert massage between her folds.
“Oh, babe,” Reno said as he took a finger and plunged it into her vagina; as his penis began to expand against her ass; as he could feel the moistness of her vagina began to saturate his finger. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know what?” Trina asked, her body now sliding along the tub’s bottom as Reno’s finger penetrated deeper and deeper.
“I don’t know,” Reno said, his voice barely discernible now, “if I can hold out.”
“You don’t know?” Trina asked, as Reno slid a second finger inside of her while his thumb massaged her clit.
“Oh, Tree,” he said, as his movements increased, “I don’t think I can hold out.”
“Then don’t hold out, baby,” Trina said, her body sliding so hard that Reno’s penis was now sliding up and down her crack, moving right along with her.
And when she said that, when she gave him the permission he sought, he lifted her toned body upward, slung his now rock-hard penis between her legs, and entered her womanhood with a slide-in that made them both sigh in sex-starved lustfulness.
She was effectively seated on his lap as he drove deeper and deeper into her. The water began slouching violently against their naked bodies, and then cascading up and over their bodies as his big hands continued to grip her small hips and thrust her forward and back, forward and back, faster and faster and faster still, until some of the water began to careen completely out of the tub.
“You know how to do me, Tree,” Reno said with an ache in his voice as he fucked her; as he looked down to see his thick penis enter in and almost out of her, over and over, taking on the silky stream of her pussy wetness even despite the wet water around them.
Trina leaned back against the ribbed abs of his stomach, her head on his shoulder, her hand on the side of his face, and let him fuck her hard. This was what she needed. She knew it the instant he entered her. And it felt so good to her, so needful to her, that now she was riding him: moving her hips herself, feeling that rod so far up inside of her that it felt sweetly wedged there.
They rode and they rode: Reno and Trina. Husband and wife. The two of them against the world. And they were doing it on a day when they should be in mourning. On a day when they should be frightened and unhinged and so concerned about how in the world were they ever going to get back to the way they used to be, not just a few days ago, but over half a year ago. Before all of the craziness of this world decided to pay them a visit.
They just rode.
To hell with it, they both thought, as they rode.
Later that same morning, Reno had rode her so hard that he dried off, laid across the bed, and fell back asleep. Trina was up, dressed and in the kitchen of the small safe house. Her parents, Cecil and Earnestine Hathaway, had arrived in Vegas early that morning, even after she had pleaded with them not to come. She had told them she was fine and in good hands with Reno.
But they came anyway. They wanted to pay their last respects to Belle Gabrini by attending her funeral, was their reason for coming, but Trina knew them too well. They also wanted to eyeball their daughter and see for themselves that she was all right.
They were now seated at the small kitchen table with her, sipping coffee, and the conversation quickly veered from gratitude that she wasn’t seriously hurt to a hard plea for her to return to Mississippi with them.
“We’ve been talking about this, thinking about it long and hard, baby girl,” her father, a kind, thoughtful man, said. “And we’ve decided we just can’t keep allowing this. You can’t keep allowing it.”
Trina really didn’t want to hear it, not any of it, but they were her parents. She had to let them have their say. “I can’t keep allowing what?” she asked her father.
Her mother, however, by far the more aggressive of the two, answered. “You can’t keep letting that man put you in mortal danger,” she said. “That’s what!”
Trina stirred her coffee, doing all she could to maintain her cool. “I’m not in any mortal danger,” she said.
“Oh, yeah?” Earnestine asked. “Then why are you here? Why aren’t you still at that fancy PaLargio your husband owns? Why are you in this little rinky-dink place where bodyguards are all over the street, all around this house, where a helicopter circling the place like you some mafia boss in hiding or something. Oh, but I forgot. It’s your husband, the mob boss, who’s really the one in hiding.�
��
“Nobody’s in hiding,” Trina said, and looked up at her mother. “And Reno had nothing to do with what happened to me.”
“How could you fix your mouth to lie like that?” Earnestine asked her daughter and Cecil quickly placed his hand on his wife’s hand, to calm her down.
He, instead, looked at Trina. “Then why did it happen to you, baby girl?” he asked. “That’s what we’re trying to understand. Why did this happen to you?”
Trina exhaled. She looked at her father. Relatively speaking, she had always been far closer with him than she had ever been with her mother. And he, she felt, deserved an explanation. “Reno’s sister, MarBeth, was hanging out with the wrong crowd. There was some kind of drug shooting or something, and she was caught up in it.”
“His sister?” Earnestine asked. “So it’s not just him anymore. It’s his sister too. She’s a mob boss too now?”
Trina was shaking her head. “It’s nothing like that, Mama,” she said.
“Then you need to tell me more than what you’re telling. What does this sister’s connections to some drug shooting have to do with you? Why were they shooting at you?”
“They weren’t just shooting at me,” Trina tried to point out, although she knew she was, if that gunman was to be believed, the intended target. “They shot at everybody in the penthouse. I was the only one who wasn’t shot.”
“Thanks to that cousin of Reno’s, that Tommy person. If he wouldn’t have been there you would have been dead. That incredible fact may make you feel warm and cuddly at night, but it only makes me more enraged.”
Trina was getting a little enraged herself. “Enraged with who?” she frowningly asked her mother. “Me?”
“Reno!” her mother yelled. “For putting my baby girl in this position!” Tears were now in her mother’s eyes. “He should have never married you, Katrina. I’m sorry but it’s the truth. That man has put you in harm’s way for life.”
“Reno loves me.”
“We know he loves you,” her father said. “But love ain’t got nothing to do with this, Tree. His lifestyle has put you in danger. He has put you in danger, that’s just a fact. And we, your mama and me, think you need to consider leaving this marriage and coming back home to Dale with us.”
But Trina was already shaking her head.
“It’s Reno they really want,” her father continued, despite her protestation. “After you leave the scene, and they realize the marriage is over, then they’ll leave you alone.”
“No,” Trina said.
“He put blood on your hands, Katrina!” her father suddenly said with uncontrolled explosiveness in his voice. “You killed two people because of him, baby girl. Two of God’s children. How can you live with a thing like that over your head? How can you say no?”
Trina just sat there, clutching her coffee cup. She knew she had killed two people. And she knew they were God’s creation. But they should not have come to her home, with guns, trying to kill her. It was awful, and she would have preferred it never happened. But she didn’t go to their homes with guns, they came to hers. She didn’t invite this fight, and she wasn’t about to lie around crying over something that wasn’t her fault to begin with.
“How can you say no, baby girl?” her father asked her again, calmer now.
“Because Reno loves me---”
“You said that already,” her mother said snidely.
“And I love him,” Trina continued, ignoring her mother. Then she looked at both of her parents. “I don’t think you guys understand,” she said. “If I didn’t have Reno, I wouldn’t wanna live. He left me seven months ago by listening to the same kind of advice you’re giving me this morning. He, too, believed that he was too good for me and was bringing me down and I was better off without him. And when he left, I didn’t think I was going to make it. It was a nightmare for me. A seven month long nightmare. It felt worse than death for me. And you’re asking me to leave him?”
“Yes!” her mother said. “His chickens have come home to roost. He’s bad news, Katrina!”
“No, he’s not. I reject that out of hand! Reno is not bad news. He’s a great man. He’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. That’s what he is. The best thing.”
Trina exhaled, to calm herself back down. “I know you mean well, Mama, and I know y’all love me and all that. But you are so wasting your time. I’m not about to leave Reno. No way. No how.”
Cecil and Earnestine stared at their daughter, wondering whatever happened to that innocent, but always headstrong little girl they used to know. And then realizing, Cecil more than Earnestine, that she was still the same person, just the grown-up, mature, experienced version.
And Reno, in the bedroom, was wide awake in bed. Through the paper-thin walls he had heard every word. And it was still tearing him up a little more inside. Because no matter how much he knew he couldn’t go along with the Hathaways’ advice, he couldn’t disagree with it, either.
He closed his eyes. Ashamed.
Tommy’s Bentley made its way up to the drive-through window at Starbucks, paid for a half-caff latte, and took a slow drive through downtown Seattle. He sipped his coffee, listened to Nelly Furtado on his stereo, and pressed the button on his car phone.
Reno, who had fallen back asleep after the heated conversation between Trina and her parents had ebbed, answered his ringing cell phone.
“This better be necessary,” Reno said on the other end, and Tommy smiled. Reno was a lot of great things, but an early bird wasn’t one of them. Probably because he often didn’t go to bed until the wee hours of the morning.
“Rise and shine my man,” Tommy said.
“Up yours, Tommy,” Reno replied.
Tommy laughed.
“What the hell time is it anyway?”
“Ten am. Daytime.”
Reno yarned. His voice raspy. “How you doing?”
“I’ll live. It’s you I’ve been worried about. How’s everything going? How’s Tree?”
There was a hesitation on Reno’s part. Could be because he was just waking up, although Tommy suspected more. “It’s tough,” Reno admitted. “What can I say? But it’s all right. I’ll be glad to get her out of Dodge.”
“I hear that.”
“So how you doing?” Reno asked again.
“I’m doing okay, why are you asking me that again?”
“Because you don’t sound okay.”
“Can’t help how I sound to your sleepy ears.”
“All right, all right, who is it?”
“Pardon?”
“Pardon? What’s pardon? You and your manners, geez. Who is it this time? Which one of your females got your ass in a twist this morning?”
Shawna’s beautiful face, turned toward the sunlight, flashed before Tommy’s eyes. He sipped his latte, blew through a yellow light. “Who says it’s a female?”
“You need to settle down, Tommy.”
“Here we go.”
“You aren’t getting any younger. You should be tired of playing the field.”
“Give Trina my love.”
Reno laughed. “Okay, I’ll stay out of your business. You can dish it but you can’t take it.”
“You don’t tell me your sad stories,” Tommy said, “and I won’t tell you mine.”
“Ah, so it’s like that?”
“Exactly like that. But really, how’s Trina getting along?”
“Better than me, I think. She’s a strong lady.”
“I told you so. I just hope you aren’t sitting around beating yourself up, Reno. What’s done is done. Tree understands that. You need to.”
“I will. Especially after this funeral. After I can get this whole thing sorted out. I’m pulling out hairs trying to figure this shit out, Tommy.”
“Stop trying. Just be there for Tree.”
“Yeah,” Reno said. “You’re right.” Then he pivoted the conversation away from him and his issues, as Reno was a master at doing. “So you�
��re still in Portland or what?”
“No, I got back last night.” Then Tommy hesitated, but Reno really was the only human being he could discuss it with. “When I got back,” he said, “Shawna was here.”
“Already?” Reno said, surprised.
“Yup.”
“Whoop, there it is.”
“There what is?” Tommy asked.
“She’s the dame got you in this tizzy.”
Tommy smiled. “I’m not in a tizzy, whatever the hell that means.”
“You fucked her brains out, didn’t you?”
Tommy hesitated. Reno was about as diplomatic as some banana republic dictator. But it was weighing heavily on him. “Yes,” he admitted.
“No surprise there. Even though, let you two tell it, it’s over and it’s been over since forever. Please. What’s with you two anyway? It’s on again now? You guys ought to just get married and give the rest of the world a break.”
Tommy’s heart squeezed. “I wish.”
“But Shanks ain’t having it?”
Tommy sighed, looked left to right and then proceeded through a stop sign. “Right.”
“What you expect, Tommy? That’s Shanks. She’s always been a lone wolf, that’s how she rolls. That’s why I never went after her. She’s a gorgeous girl, but that’s about all she is. She’s too tough to tame.”
“Oh, and Trina isn’t tough?”
“She ain’t that kind of tough,” Reno said. “When I think of Trina, for example, I think of a good, loyal, but strong as hell mob wife say. A woman like Ma was, who looks out for her man and his interest. When I think of Shanks, I don’t think mob wife. I think mob boss.” Tommy laughed. “No, I’m serious here now. That sister, that Shanks, is something else. She’ll be too busy running everything, bossing you around, before you can even think about bossing her.”
MOB BOSS 3: LOVE AND RETRIBUTION Page 8
