“Scream my name!” he was ordering her as his dick kept whipping her. “Scream my name!”
And she did. She screamed his name. “Tommy!” she yelled as he eviscerated her control. “Tom-mee!”
And he watched her scream. He watched her nearly lose consciousness from the intensity of his thrashings. He watched as she slowly but surely forgot all about her yearnings to be free and became, at that very moment, addicted to his sex. So many women before her had, too, and he knew it when he saw it. Which, for Tommy, meant everything. He had satisfied her.
Now it was his turn.
He leaned up and moved his dick as deep down into her as she could bear it. She winced as he went further and further, but she moaned in pleasure when the friction eased. He looked into her tender, golden-brown eyes and smiled. He’d never seen such soft sweetness. And that was when he broke. Her eyes did him in.
He plunged to his deepest point yet inside of her and let it all out. It felt like a tidal wave that rocked him in such a way that he couldn’t move his dick another inch. Every muscle within his body tightened and the intensity shook him to his core. He couldn’t believe the intensity. Even he, a man who thought he could no longer be surprised by any intense sexual experience, was surprised by this one.
And he let it all out. Grace could hear the slouch of his saturation as he came with a fierce release. He poured and he poured. He tried to scream her name but could only manage the first few letters. “Gray,” he kept saying as he poured. “Gra-ay!” His entire body shook as he drained himself dry.
When he had poured all he had to pour out, and the intensity finally began to ebb, he remained poised on top of her. He could not believe that a night that he frankly thought would be decent, sweet sex, turned into so much more. Her friend Nayla had warned him that she was “prudish.” Prudish my ass, Tommy thought.
He moved off of her and lay on his back, beside her. Sweat drenched his chest like rain, and his breathing, though still slightly erratic, was slowly stabilizing. He felt pleased. He felt like a man who had entered a marathon expecting to barely finish, but who went on to capture the gold.
He looked over at Grace, to see if she felt it too. He could tell that she knew they had made a connection, but he could also tell that she had no idea just how powerful that connection had been. In her limited experience she probably expected a man like him to give her better than she’d ever had. So she was expecting extraordinary. But what she didn’t realize, Tommy thought as he looked at her, was that she had given him a session that could damn near rival the best he’d ever had. And that fact was so unexpected for him, and so out of the blue surprising, that he still was at a point of disbelief.
Grace didn’t know what to make of their session. She knew how remarkable it was for her, but she couldn’t tell at all how it was for him. He was staring at her, and he even took his hand and lovingly wrapped a strand of her hair around his finger, but he looked so serious. He looked as if he had hoped for the best, but ended up with something far less. Which upset her. She never promised him that she was some sex queen. Far from it. Cam once said their sex was “just okay,” and Nayla was always quick to call her prudish because she seemed as if she wouldn’t be any fun at all in bed.
But tonight she had been a little flirtatious with Tommy. Mainly because it was her birthday and she was happy, but also because she was thrilled to have him sharing it with her. She didn’t mean anything by it. She didn’t mean to suggest to him that her outgoing personality was going to translate in the bedroom into her becoming some high flying, high kicking sex diva.
But, from what Grace could see, that was exactly what he was expecting from her. Why would he have even bothered if he wasn’t expecting the best from her?
Her fears were confirmed, she felt, when his eyebrows began to knit together as he rubbed her hair and continued to stare at her. He looked as if he was having some serious contemplation. He looked as if what he’d just experienced with her was so below the standard he was used to that it had him worried about her. Which worried her even more.
She thought they had had a phenomenal session, only to see him look so perplexed and disconcerted afterwards. But that was what she got, she felt, for falling in bed with a player of Tommy Gabrini’s caliber. She felt decidedly out of her league.
But then he smiled, which stunned her. “That was fantastic,” he said to her.
Grace could hardly believe her ears. She wanted to jump for joy. But she kept it together. “I’m glad you approve.”
“Approve?” Tommy asked. “Damn straight I approve. It was wonderful, Grace.” He wrapped her hair around his finger again. “You’re wonderful.”
Grace smiled. “Well, thank-you, Mr. Gabrini. You aren’t bad yourself.”
Tommy burst into laughter. “Not bad?” he said, pulling her into his arms. “I’ll show you not bad.”
He began to tickle her, causing her to laugh uproariously. Then he looked deep into those large eyes of hers he was beginning to cherish. He kissed her. Only this time it was a sweet, tender kiss. Then he stared at her again, kissed her on the forehead again, and then got out of bed.
Grace continued to smile but it was all so surreal to her. Whenever she had sex with a man she always felt queasy afterwards. Not because she felt as if she’d done something wrong, but because she felt as if she’d done something odd.
She was feeling that way right now.
The idea that she would allow this big man to remove her clothes, kiss all over her, and then put his dick in her seemed almost unreal to her. She used to be amazed at women who could do this casually. And go from man to man doing it, too. But after meeting a man like Tommy, and that instant attraction she felt to him, made her understand.
After going to the bathroom to discard his condom and otherwise clean up, Tommy returned to the bedroom and began to dress. Grace wasn’t accustomed to the hit and run lifestyle so she was still in bed, expecting him to return. When she saw him grab his briefs and put them on, she quickly remembered who she was dealing with. He was, after all, Mister Open Relationship. He wasn’t the type to hang around, and had made no promise to her that he would. This was a one-night stand for him, pointblank period the end, and she would be nothing short of a fool if she even thought that it could ever be more.
She got out of bed.
Tommy watched her as she walked around the bed and grabbed her bathrobe. Her tight little body still had him throbbing. He wanted her again. Just that quickly. He wanted to be inside of her again.
But he kept on dressing. The fact that he wanted to stay so badly was the very reason that he knew he had to leave. This night of sex might not have been the absolute best he’d ever had in his entire life, but it was definitely the most intense he’d ever had. It had been so unexpectedly emotional that it still shook him. That was why he had to leave. He saw the potential in Grace as his life partner. He probably saw it the moment he first met her. But that didn’t mean he was ready to commit his life to her. That didn’t mean he was ready to give up his entire lifestyle for her. The idea of family life, of having that wife and kids, was a beautiful thing. But the reality of that life, and what he would actually have to give up to have that life, and how much of himself he would have to expose, was another thing altogether. And that reality made him double down. He grabbed his belt, slipped it on and buckled it, and then grabbed his jacket without bothering to put it on.
Grace noticed his seeming sense of urgency, but she didn’t question it. She wanted a man on the night of her thirtieth birthday, and she got one. She couldn’t possibly be offended if he was only willing to give her what she wanted. And not an ounce more.
“Got everything?” she asked when he flipped his jacket over his shoulder, his messy hair and five o clock shadow making him look like a rugged model on a magazine cover for outdoorsmen.
“I think I do,” he said, glancing around her small bedroom.
“Good,” she said, staring at him. He looked so ad
orable that she gave him an innocent hug. He returned her affection, touched by the gesture.
“Take care of yourself,” she said when they ended their embrace. And it sounded so final to Tommy. She sounded like all of those other women in his life whenever he got out of their beds. Take care of yourself, was one of the most overused lines. Because they knew it could be some time before they ever came back together. If they ever did. And, for some reason, with Grace, he was disturbed by the thought.
“You take care, too, Grace,” he said.
Grace smiled. “I was born taking care,” she said as she began walking toward the front door. Tommy grinned as he followed her. As he watched the outline of her naked ass through that robe she wore. She had spunk, and he liked that.
But spunky was the last thing that Grace was feeling. Because she was reeling, too. She didn’t know what to think or how to feel. She’d never had such an emotional sexual encounter in her life. How was she supposed to feel? Cam’s sex was usually good, and the other boyfriends she’d had in the past weren’t what she’d call bad, either. But comparing her experience with Tommy to them would be like comparing a porterhouse steak to potted meat.
“You have to be patient with that elevator,” she warned him when they arrived at her front door. “It sometimes takes a while to come up even after you press that button repeatedly. I’m talking two-three minutes sometimes.”
“I’ll take the stairs if it takes that long.”
Grace nodded. “Good plan,” she said. “I had to do that myself a time or two.”
The idea of her running up dark, dingy stairs alarmed him. “Not at night I hope.”
“A couple times at night, sure.”
“That’s not a good idea, Grace. You don’t know what pervert could be waiting in that stairwell.”
“I only did it a couple times.”
“Don’t do it again.” He said this so firmly that she was slightly offended by it. “I’m just saying,” he said and smiled. And she smiled, too.
“You could probably charm the grand prize lottery winner out of their lottery ticket with that smile, you know that, buddy?” she asked him.
He laughed. “Believe that if you want.” Then his look turned serious again. “But be careful, all right? Wait on the elevator, I don’t care how long it takes.”
“At night, okay. But during the day? I don’t know about that.”
Tommy smiled. Half a concession was better than none. “Fair enough,” he said.
Grace nodded, although she sensed that his concern was misplaced. It was as if he was going on about her stair climbing so that he wouldn’t have to go on about them. Which was fine by her since she didn’t have a clue, either.
“Good night, Tommy,” she said, unsure how they should part.
Tommy still felt unsettled. He felt as if he was about to leave someone near and dear to him rather than what they both knew, given her objections to open relationships, was nothing more than a one-night stand. No relationship at all. And the fact that these feelings were rising within him, feelings he hadn’t expected to ever have for a woman ever again, threw him.
He had to do her a favor and get the hell away from her as fast as he could. He wasn’t ready to give up his lifestyle. He wasn’t ready to cede power to a woman like Grace, a woman who could leave him dangling too and break his heart even worse than ShoShawna had broken it.
“Good night, Grace,” he said. And as quickly as he said it he wanted to pull her into his arms again, and carry her back to bed. But he knew that would only complicate an already complicated situation. He just opened the door, glanced back at her with that killer smile of his, a fretfulness in his deep blue eyes, and then he left.
Grace closed the door behind him, still reeling herself. If there was ever a guy who had the potential, she thought, it was Tommy. She saw something so decent in him that it scared her. But then she dismissed such hopeless fantasies.
“Oh, well,” she thought regrettably as she headed for the shower. “No sense crying over spilled milk.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Two Months Later
“It’s about time,” Jillian said as soon as Grace stepped off of the elevator on the top floor at Trammel.
“What’s about time?” Grace asked.
“Get back on,” replied Jillian as she stepped onto the elevator. “If I have to suffer, you’re going to suffer right along with me.”
Grace got back on the elevator. “What suffering? Jilly, what are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about Thomas Gabrini. That’s what I’m talking about.”
The doors to the elevator dinged shut and Grace suddenly felt as if she was trapped. Her heart was hammering. Jillian was talking about Thomas Gabrini? The same Thomas Gabrini that Grace had had sex with two months ago? Why would Jillian be all of a sudden talking about him? Grace hadn’t heard from him since that night, and she’d long since gotten over it. Jillian couldn’t possibly know anything about that.
Or could she?
“What about him?” Grace asked, trying with all she had not to show any emotion. She removed her briefcase from her right hand to her left and pressed the elevator’s down button.
“He’s not satisfied with my plan and he wants to meet with me. Since he couldn’t seem to keep his eyes off of you at my dinner party a couple months ago, since he found you so attractive, I figure your presence at this meeting can only help.”
She didn’t know anything, which was good, but Grace was still baffled. “What plan he isn’t satisfied with?”
“Our plan for internal changes here at Trammel,” Jillian explained. She pulled a compact out of her purse and was checking her heavy makeup. “His people claim we do business all wrong, perhaps even unethically, and he wants us to change everything.”
“I still don’t get it, Jilly. He wants us to change before he’ll sign a contract with us, is that what you’re saying?” From the way he used to come around, she thought he already had a contract with them. She also had noticed how she hadn’t seen him at the office ever since their night together.
Jillian, however, found her lack of knowledge nauseating. She rolled her eyes. “You don’t bother to learn anything about this business. Sometimes I wonder why I keep you around at all.”
But Grace stood up for herself. “That’s not fair, Jilly,” she said. “I do my job and I do it well.”
“Then why don’t you know anything? Why don’t you know that Thomas Gabrini owns Trammel?”
The doors opened on the ground floor and Jillian hurried off. Grace, stumped, just stood there, and then raced off behind her.
“He owns it?” she asked as they headed for Jillian’s car. “What are you talking about? You own Trammel.”
“And so does he,” Jillian said. “Unfortunately.”
Grace grabbed Jillian by the arm to stop her progression. Jillian stopped and looked at her chief of staff. Grace’s bright brown eyes were wide with confusion. “Okay, now, you really need to explain to me what’s going on.”
Jillian seemed flustered, as if she was about to relay information that Grace should already know. “Once upon a time, just after Clive died, I owned seventy-seven percent of the shares in Trammel, that’s accurate. And with Cam’s five shares I was unquestionably the majority stakeholder.”
“Right.”
“About a year or so before my husband and your father were in that car accident, Trammel was beginning to get in some serious trouble and then the accident and then I was given the reins. In order to stay in business, I had to sell off many shares.”
“How many?”
Jillian hesitated. “Forty percent.”
Grace was floored. “You sold more than you kept?”
“I had to,” Jillian said loudly and then, realizing there were others coming and going in the building’s garage, she motioned for them to get in her car.
She pressed the keypad on her Bentley and she and Grace sat inside, with she on the driver�
�s side and Grace as her passenger. She turned to Grace.
“I had no choice but to agree to his terms. And he wanted forty percent stake. So I gave it to him, and kept thirty-seven percent.”
“But why would you give up so much? I mean, you needed the capital, okay, but---”
“There’s no but about it, Grace,” Jillian made clear. “He was the only game in town, at least the only one I would want to do business with, and that was what he was offering.” Then bitterness appeared in her small eyes. “The ruthless sonafabitch.”
“So you now own thirty-seven percent,” Grace said, “and he owns forty?”
“Right.”
“But I still don’t see how he can dictate to you. Cam still owns five shares in Trammel. His five shares, along with your thirty-seven, would give you more stake in the company than Tommy, that is, than Mr. Gabrini’s forty percent.”
“Yes, but there’s your ten percent out there and another group of investors who own the final eight percent.”
“Are they willing to part with their shares?”
“They say they aren’t, of course. But Tommy is rich. And anybody can be bought. The asshole. He’s been away in Europe for two months. Two whole months. He’s not back in town two days and he’s already demanding I do this and I do that. Who does he think he is?”
Jillian exhaled, to collect herself again. But Grace was still reeling over what she’d just heard. Tommy had been out of the country for the last two months? Was that the reason why he didn’t phone her? The fact that he wasn’t available was why she hadn’t heard from him? But that didn’t wash either, Grace thought. Because, in or out of the country, he still could have phoned her if he was interested. Surely he could have done that. And if she was so interested, why didn’t she phone him?
Because she knew, like he knew, that you don’t follow up on one-night stands. You just don’t. He moved on with his life, and she went on with hers. She had to remember that. She had to get herself together before she got anywhere near Tommy Gabrini so that she didn’t forget the truth about their relationship: that there was no relationship. And neither one of them had ever expected there to be one.
ROMANCING TOMMY GABRINI Page 9
