Tommy Gabrini 3: Grace Under Fire (The Gabrini Men Series) Read online

  “But why her?” Grace wanted to know. “Why did she do it?”

  “Revenge,” Tommy said. “She was in love with Alex Dawse, and had been for years. That’s why she came to see me. She wanted to make sure if it didn’t work out with you, that I would continue to leave Alex alone.”

  “But Alex had tried to kill me. Didn’t she understand you couldn’t let that stand?”

  “Of course she understood it. But she felt she couldn’t let Alex’s death stand either. And she decided that you were the blame, and took it out on you.”

  “And then she’d come for Tommy,” Sal added.

  “Right,” Tommy agreed.

  Grace wrapped her arms around Tommy and laid her head on his shoulder. Tommy knew what she needed. He knew it the moment he held her in his arms. He looked back at Sal. Sal knew it too.

  “I’m going, I’m going,” he said, and closed the bedroom door behind him.

  When Grace heard the door close, she lifted her head and looked at Tommy. He placed his hands beneath her shirt and began massaging her naked ass. “It’s been crazy,” he said, “but you’re going to be all right, Grace.”

  “I know,” she said. “With you beside me.”

  Then she stared into his eyes. She saw so much love for her there, and so much compassion, that his care and concern made her passionate. And she kissed him.

  He removed his hand from her ass and held the back of her head as she kissed him, until he took over the kiss. He loved this woman so much, and it pained him what she had to experience. He kissed her long and hard, as if he wanted to wipe away any memory she had of Deena Driscoll and Alex Dawse and any of those women who would seek to destroy their marriage and Grace too, while they were at it. But not on Tommy’s watch. He kissed her as if kissing was going out of style. He kissed her until she had to pull back, just to catch her breath.

  And then he carried her to the bed, lifted Sal’s shirt off of her, and laid her down. Tommy removed his coat and shirt, tossing them aside, and then he knelt down, opened her legs, and began to lick her. And suck her. And eat her pussy until she was arching so high and squeezing the bedding so hard that she was half off of the bed. When he looked back up, he was panting. He stood up, dropped his pants and his underwear, his dick already aroused, and then he laid on top of her, sucking her breasts as he moved up her slender, brown body.

  As usual, he feasted on her breasts. He licked her nipples and squeezed her mounds and made love to what he called her second pussy. Until the real one was calling his name.

  “Now, Tommy,” Grace was saying. “Do it now. I need to feel you now!”

  And he gave her exactly what she needed. He entered her with tender shove in. Her entire body felt the heat of his entry. And he pushed further and further in until he was lodged deep within her. And he fucked her. He screwed her so hard she felt as if she was inflamed with passion. Every inch of her skin was on fire.

  He fucked her for the longest time. She thought it would be fast. The remains of the day were too emotional and raw for either one of them to be able to maintain any level of intimacy. But they maintained. Orgasm after orgasm. She came and she came even more. Every cum was more intense.

  She wrapped her legs around his back and held onto his sweaty body as he fucked her hard. He looked at her with love in his eyes, as he fucked her. This was his woman. They tried to destroy her. But she fought back. She was a Gabrini now. She was no longer Tommy’s girl. She was Tommy’s woman now.

  And when he started cumming, and began pouring into her, and she felt drenched with his love, tears appeared in his eyes. They wanted to forget their troubles. They wanted to put all of that craziness behind them. And for this moment in time, when their bodies were meld together in lovemaking bliss, they did it. It was them against the world. Tommy kept pumping her, causing her to experience yet another orgasm, until even he was all pumped out.

  When he finally gyrated her for the final time, when he finally pushed into her for the final push, when he finally poured into her for the final pour, neither one of them bothered to move a muscle. They remained where they laid. They were warm, protected, and loved, in each other’s arms.

  EPILOGUE

  Tommy drove his Ferrari up his steep driveway and stopped in front of the circular steps. Grace’s new car, the Mercedes S-class he had purchased for her, still looked as new as the day she drove it off of the showroom floor. Until he grabbed his briefcase, got out of his car, and looked closer. He saw a dent near the backside bumper. His heart pounded, because she had undoubtedly been in some kind of an accident. But he didn’t fly off the handle with worry. There used to be a time, before that night with Deena, when he suffocated Grace with overprotectiveness. He made all of the decisions. He determined what was best for her. But after that night, when he realized she could handle herself just fine, he learned to ease up. He was still protective of her, and would always be protective of her, but every little thing didn’t demand his intervention.

  He walked up the steps and walked into his home. “Grace!” he yelled as he sat his briefcase on the side table in the foyer, and picked up the small stack of mail.

  “I’m in the kitchen!” Grace yelled back.

  “Good evening, sir,” Henry said as he came from the kitchen area. “Would you care for something to drink?”

  “Mrs. Gabrini is cooking?”

  Henry smiled. “Yes, sir,” he said.

  “Then I’ll wait.”

  Henry continued to smile, and Tommy failed to see the humor, but he was too busy reviewing the stack of mail to make any comment, as he headed for the kitchen. Henry followed him.

  “How was your day, sir?”

  “Hectic. How was yours?”

  Henry smiled again. “Wonderful,” he said.

  Tommy glanced back at him, what the hell was his problem, but he continued to thumb through his mail as they headed for the kitchen.

  Grace smiled when they walked in. Tommy, however, frowned. “What in the world are you doing?”

  “Baking a cake,” Grace said.

  Tommy smiled. She had flour all over her face, her clothes, in her hair. The marbled top center island, where she was mixing her ingredients, was an unqualified mess. “Sure you have enough flour for the cake?” he asked as he walked around the island toward her.

  “Very funny. I know what I’m doing. I’m baking you a cake.”

  “And destroying the kitchen in the process?”

  Grace grinned, and continued mixing her ingredients. “Something like that,” she admitted. When he walked up to her, she turned toward him and he kissed her on the lips.

  “I saw a dent on your car,” he said casually, although he definitely wanted an answer.

  “It was my fault. I was backing out at the doctor’s office today, and didn’t see this cement post I should have seen. I only bumped it, but it did produce a dent. I already called the insurance company. They’ll take care of it.”

  “Be careful out there, Grace.”

  “I am careful, Tommy.”

  Tommy nodded. He was still learning. “I know,” he said. Then he smiled at the flour on her face. “This cake baking of yours is admirable,” he said, “but it’s really not necessary, love. You could have had the chef and his staff take care of this. Or Henry,” he added with a smile, which mortified Henry. He wouldn’t know a ladle from a baking pan. “Or you could have ordered a cake.”

  “I know,” Grace said, “but we need a cake and I wanted to bake it myself. So it’ll be memorable and special.”

  Tommy stood beside her. She smelled sweeter to him than the cake she was trying to make. He placed an arm around her waist. “And why do we need such a special cake?” he asked her.

  “To celebrate.”

  “To celebrate what?”

  Grace smiled, then looked at him.

  “What?” he asked, attempting to figure out why did Henry first, and now she was smiling at him as if they had a secret. Then he remembered. She had h
er annual physical today. But could it be? Was it possible, he wondered?

  “Are you telling me,” he decided to ask, “that we’re . . . that I’m having a baby?”

  Grace laughed. “That we’re having a baby, yes!”

  Tommy’s heart swelled with joy as soon as he heard the confirmation. “Oh, Grace!” he said, and pulled her into his arms. She dropped her spoon and held him too. She was as joyous as he was. They both had always wanted a big family. Now was high time they got started.

  Then Tommy pulled back, his expensive suit now covered in flour too. “How far along are you?”

  Grace inhaled. “Three weeks,” she said.

  This surprised Tommy. “Three weeks? You mean . . .” It was three weeks ago when Tamara was killed. It was three weeks ago when Grace had to handle Deena Driscoll. It was three weeks since that horrid night.

  Grace was nodding. “Yes,” she said. “That terrible, awful night produced something beautiful, Tommy. Our child was conceived.”

  Tears began to well up in Tommy’s eyes. It had been a long road, but they were going to make it. He knew it all along, but now they had no choice. They had to make it.

  “You know what this means,” Grace said, wiping his tears, despite her own.

  Tommy looked at her. “What does it mean?”

  “It means you’re a great husband now, and you’re going to be a great father.”

  Tommy smiled and pulled her into his arms again. He was overjoyed. No news could have been better than this.

  But then he realized what all he had to do. He had so much to do! And he released her from his grasp. “I’ve got to get started making the arrangements.”

  Grace frowned. “What arrangements?”

  “What arrangements? Everything, Grace! Where we’re going to stay, for instance.”

  “Where we’re going to stay? What are you talking about? We’re going to stay here!”

  “Oh hell no,” Tommy said firmly. “You aren’t staying here. Not while you’re carrying our child! You and I will take a leave of absence from our respective businesses, and I’m going to find us a nice, quiet, stress-free home, in a nice, quiet, stress-free town. At least until Tommy, Junior is born.”

  Grace laughed. He’d even determined the sex. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Don’t bet on it,” he said, as he began heading out of the kitchen.

  “But Tommy!” Grace said, amazed that he was actually serious.

  “I’ll handle it, Grace,” he said as he walked out. “You just cook that cake.”

  Grace looked at Henry. “He can’t be serious,” she said.

  But Henry was laughing. He was enjoying this. “He means it,” he said. “I’ve known him for a very long time. He absolutely means it.”

  “He means it!” Grace said, still amazed, as if she still had to convince herself. But then she smiled, too, and shook her head. “This pregnancy is going to be a trip,” she said. “You hear me? It’s going to be crazy!”

  “Are you ready for it?” Henry asked her.

  “No,” she admitted. “But Tommy is. Tommy definitely is. I guess I’ll just have to follow his lead.”

  COMING SOON:

  TOMMY AND GRACE:

  BOOK FOUR

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