A Mob Boss Christmas: The Pregnancy (17 page)

“If your way leads directly to the nearest bar,” he
said to Cheri, “then I’m going your way.”

Cheri smiled.
 
They had bars inside the PaLargio, but apparently he needed to get away
from here.
 
Which
undoubtedly meant, she thought excitedly, that he apparently needed to get away
from Trina.

“Sounds like a deal to me,” she said as the Porsche
arrived, and Reno hurried behind the wheel.
 
The valet opened the passenger door for Cheri, and she got in beside
Reno.
 

Cheri couldn’t stop smiling.
 
She couldn’t stop feeling as if somehow this
little trip could possibly end up being the ride of her life.

She looked at Reno.
 
He looked distressed.
 
But that
only made her feel all the more hopeful.
 
Trina really messed up this time, she thought.
 
She really messed up big time.
 
And Cheri Dallas would be right here, at
Reno’s service, to clean up the mess Queen Katrina made.
 
She couldn’t stop smiling, and feeling
downright giddy, as Reno burnt rubber and drove far away from the PaLargio
Hotel and Casino on the Christmas-spirited Las Vegas strip.

CHAPTER EIGHT

After drinking nearly everybody under the table, Reno
was sufficiently sloshed.
   
Cheri
managed to get him back to the Porsche, and retrieve his keys, but driving a
drunk
man wasn’t easy.
 
Reno continued to lean against her, as he was barely conscious, and kept
mumbling something about that wife of his.
 
Cheri knew she should have driven him straight home to that wife, but
she kept looking over at the adorable man and couldn’t bring herself to give
him up that easily.
 
Not that easily.

She decided, as she drove, to take him home with
her.
 
At least for a
little while.
 
Besides, she
thought with a mischievous smile, he wouldn’t know the difference anyway.
 
And to her, given the way he was treating her
lately, if she was going to get anywhere with this guy it was now, while he was
still on the outs with Trina.

“What is it?” Reno asked as she helped him out of the
car and into her home.
 
“What is it?”

“Everything’s fine, Reno,” Cheri said as she plopped
him down on her living room sofa.
 
Reno
was lovable, she thought, when he was stoned.
 
But the more he began to talk about Trina, almost pining about her, the
more concerned she became.
  
What if he remembered
everything?
 
If she gave him more liquor,
which she had planned to do, what if he remembered her giving him that liquor?

She placed his car keys back into his pocket.
 
Better it seem as if he drove them back to
her place, than the other way around.
 

“I’d better get some coffee into you,” she said just
in case.
 
“Before I
send you home to your wife.”

She went into the kitchen.
 
There, she thought.
  
She covered herself.
 
If he remembered anything, he would remember
that she was just trying to sober him up before sending him to his poor,
pregnant wife.
   

But by the time she returned from the kitchen with
the coffee, Reno was fast asleep.
 
Just
like that.
  
He had fallen sideways onto
the couch, his head on the pillow,
his
feet still on
the ground.
 
Cheri sat the coffee tray on
the table and placed his legs up on her couch.
 
He looked so attractive to her, with his gorgeous hair and beautiful
face.
 
She leaned down and slanted what
had become a bang on his forehead.
 
Even
drunk and pitiful he was gorgeous.
 
But
then she stood there thinking about it.
 
She thought hard about it.
 
He
never wanted anything sexual to do with her, and she knew it.
 
He, in fact, sometimes acted as if he hated
her guts.
 
Why should she want to seduce
a man like that?
 
She was pitiful, she
thought.
 
But she wasn’t
that
pitiful.

She put the coffee back in the kitchen, turned off
the lights, and took
herself
to bed.

But she couldn’t sleep.
 
Not with such a hunk of virility in her
living room, literally a room away.
 
And
she was horny as hell, too.
 
She hadn’t
had any in weeks, thanks to the crazy hours the PaLargio’s numerous problems
forced her to work.
 

She touched down there and realized she was already
wet just thinking about Reno.
 
And how grand his rod had to feel, especially if she could get that
rod deep inside of her.
 
She never
viewed herself as mistress
material,
she had too much
going for her for that.
 
But if that was
the only way she could get continuous sex from Reno Gabrini, she just might be
game.

But she had to make sure the plumbing worked right
first.
 
She had to make sure fucking Reno
Gabrini would be worth the career risk she knew she would be taking.

She got her wet self out of bed, and headed for the
living room.

When Jazz saw that it was Trina who had been knocking
on her hotel door, she knew what it meant.
 
Reno, she thought as she allowed Trina in, had won again.

“It’s not about that,” Trina said when Jazz made that
smart remark.
 
“It’s not about winning or
losing.
 
It’s about doing the right
thing.
 
And it’s not right for me to go
against my husband.”

“But I’m your friend, Tree,” Jazz reminded her.
 
“I knew you before you even heard of Reno
Gabrini.”

“But he’s my husband now.
 
And he doesn’t think your being here is a
good idea.
 
And he’s right,
Jazz
.”

“Why is he right?” Jazz wanted to know.
 
“Because he lied on me and claim I was
telling people about his affairs?”

Trina stared at Jazz.
 
“You did lie and tell people he was having affairs.”

“Yeah, well, one man’s lie is another man’s
truth.
 
Because I told
the truth.
 
I told what I heard
and I believe what I heard.
 
I was trying
to protect you, Trina.”

Trina frowned.
 
“Protect me by running around calling my husband a cheater?”

“By warning you!”
Jazz
said.
 
“By telling you to get away while you
could, before he started controlling everything about your life.
 
But you wouldn’t listen.
 
Now he’s controlling everything about your
life.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is true!
 
Look at what happened in Georgia. You go to Georgia with him, don’t even
stay six months in Georgia, and he pops up with another child I’ll be you
didn’t even know he had.”

“He didn’t know it either.”

“Yeah, right.
 
And if you buy that I’ve got some swamp land
in India I can sell to you real cheap.”

It was a conversation like this, where Jazz was her
old hateful self again, that made Trina realize just how right Reno was.
 
“I’ve arranged for you to stay at a hotel a
couple blocks from here.
 
My stepson is waiting
downstairs to take you there.
 
I’m sorry
that I wasn’t able to keep my word---”

“You gave me your word, Tree,” Jazz said, jumping on
any opportunity to throw it back in Trina’s face.
 
“You said you was gonna help me.”

“I am helping you.
 
I just can’t let you stay here while I help you.
 
I knew Reno would be upset, but I never
dreamed he’d be this upset, Jazz.
 
He
doesn’t want you anywhere around him.”

“And you know why, don’t you?
 
Because I told on his ass!
 
Because having me around means he can’t run
around with all of those whores he’s been running around with.”

Trina stared at her old friend.
 
Why, she wondered, was she constantly trying
to recapture something that probably never really existed?
 
Jazz was there for her when she was broke and
disgusted just like Jazz.
 
But as soon as
she started moving on up, as soon as she started moving up that social ladder
toward Reno, Jazz was suddenly against her and started doing everything in her
power to break her away from Reno.
 
Trina
saw it as clear as day now.
 
She knew
Jazz harbored some jealousy.
 
And on some
level Trina may have even understood the jealousy part.
 
She saw the jealousy all along.
 
But she never saw the hate.
 
Not this kind of hate.
 
Until now.

“Because I said I would help you,” Trina said, “I’m
going to keep my word. I’m going to let Jimmy Mack take you to the hotel and
I’ll foot the bill.
 
I’ll also have one
of my assistants get in touch with you and see what kind of work you want to do
and if we can help you find a job in that field.
 
But because of how you feel about my husband,
and therefore about me, it won’t be here at the PaLargio.”

Jazz just stared at Trina.
 
“So it’s like that, hun?”

“It’s exactly like that,” Trina said.
 
“I’m giving you one final chance to get you a
job and to get back on your feet.
 
If you
blow it, it’s on you.”

Jazz began shaking her head.
 
“You’re wrong for this, Tree.
 
You promise you would help me, not some
crusty-ass assistant!”

“Jazz, you’d better be glad I’m doing this much for
you.
 
You’re a hateful woman. I see it as
plain as day now.
 
You were always
telling me how I had blinders on when it came to Reno.
 
And you were right.
 
I did have blinders on, but not when it came
to Reno.
 
I had blinders on, all this
time, when it came to you.”
  

“Yeah, is that something Reno taught you?
 
Is that it?
 
Hun, Tree? Is that what this is all about?”

Trina stared at her friend a moment longer, and then
walked out of the hotel room.

Jazz ran up to the door and yelled out.
 
“Kiss my ass, Katrina Hathaway!
 
Kiss the blackest part of my black ass!”
 
Then she slammed the door of her hotel room.

Trina started to turn around and toss her out of that
room with her bare hands.
 
She started to
race downstairs and
tell
Jimmy not to take that witch
anywhere.
 

But she didn’t do it.
 
She was the one who went to Jazz and gave her hope.
 
She was the one who went to Jazz and promised
to help her.
 
She had to help her
now.
 
But Reno was right.
 
She should have never brought Jazz here in
the first place.
 
She was going to keep
her word and help Jazz out, but that was as far as it was going to be able to
go.
 
Their friendship no longer existed.

Trina, in tears, headed back for the penthouse.
 

Jazz, inside the hotel room, leaned against the door
and cried.

Reno was sitting half erect on the sofa by the time
Cheri made her way into the living room.
 
His
feet was
on the floor, but he was still
asleep.

Good, she thought.
 
Better to have him already in position, as if it was all his idea.
 
And that would be her backup plan. She would
claim it was all his doing.
 
She went
along with it, but he, she was determined to make clear, was the
instigator.
 
Why, after all, would he
have insisted on coming home with her in the first place?

She lifted off her gown, revealing her naked pink
body, and then sat, face to face and straddling style, on Reno’s lap.
 
He stirred by the sudden feel of weight on
him, but he didn’t open his eyes.
  
So
Cheri slowly but deliberately began unbuckling and unzipping his pants.
 

She then saw the bundle neatly packaged inside his
briefs.
 
She began to lick her lips.
 
He looked as if he was well endowed.
 
But she had to see it for herself.
 
She could barely contain herself as she moved
to see Reno Gabrini’s equipment for the first time in her life.

She slowly began to take the top tip of his blue
briefs and pull them down over his penis.
 
As soon as she got them halfway down, his penis sprung out like a big,
thick, juicy side of beef and she could not have been more pleased.
 
Reno Gabrini was packing solid meat!
 
No fat anywhere.
 
It was more masculine, larger,
more
sensual that any dream she’d ever had about it.
 
No wonder that nigger witch of a wife of his
was so protective of him.
 
That bitch,
Cheri thought, was dick-whipped.
 
If a
dick like this was banging her every night, Cheri would have been just as
protective too.