Romancing Tommy Gabrini (2 page)

But
Tommy wouldn’t relent.
 
He could feel the
intensity, too, but he couldn’t relent.
 
“Where are you going?” he asked her.
 
But when she said “I can’t tell you,” Tommy stopped all movement.

Shawna
began bucking her thighs for him to keep pleasuring her, but he wouldn’t.
 
She opened her eyes and looked into his.
 

Tommy’s
breath caught when she looked those big, doleful eyes of hers directly at
him.
 
His brows knitted as he stared deep
into those eyes.
 
He used to love this
woman with a passion no one could match.
 
Now he wasn’t sure if he even liked her all that much.

ShoShawna,
however, was more annoyed than puzzled.
 
“Why are you stopping?” she asked him.
 
“What’s wrong with you?”

“
You can’t tell me
?” Tommy asked with an
incredulous tone to his voice, as he repeated with amazement the words she had
just said to him.

But
Shawna would not back down.
 
“No, I can’t
tell you,” she said.
 
“So what?
 
What’s the big damn deal?”

“My
woman is about to take off and go off to who knows where, and she can’t even
tell me where she’s going?
 
She can’t
tell
me
?”

“I
can’t tell you.”

“You
can’t or you won’t?”

“I
won’t.
 
All right?
 
Satisfied?
 
I won’t!”

She
said this with a defiance she quickly regretted.
 
She looked at him.
 
He looked so uncommonly handsome to her at
that very moment.
 
His thick,
blondish-brown hair framed a face whose jaw was strong, nose was aristocratic,
and eyes were so cobalt blue they looked like glass.
 
He was always the best looking man in the
room, and always the very definition of sexiness.
 
But Tommy could be hard, too.
 
And exacting.
 
A man who gave no nonsense and took none.
 
And right now, as she stared into those
otherwise adorable eyes, she saw the steel in him.

Tommy
sat there, still staring at her.
 
He
could feel her vagina pulsating, revealing her need for his cock to continue
pleasuring her, but he pulled out instead.

ShoShawna,
angry, scrambled off of him.
 
“Fuck you,”
she said as she moved off.

Sometimes
Tommy wondered why he even bothered.
 
He
was considered one of the most eligible bachelors in Seattle, where he
lived.
 
He was a man with more women
desperate to have him than he could count.
 
But he kept putting up with Shawna’s shit.

“We’re
supposed to be a couple,” he said. “But you get to roam the world and I don’t
even know what town, what state, hell what country you’re in at any given
moment.
 
That’s unreasonable, Shawnie.”

“It’s
not unreasonable,” ShoShawna said angrily as she put on her panties.
 
“You’re the one who’s being unreasonable.”

“Because
I want to know where you are?”

“Yes!
 
It never bothered you before!”

“That’s
a
got
damn lie!” Tommy blared.
 
“You know it’s bothered me for years!”

“But
you didn’t do anything about it for years!”

“That’s
why I’ve got to do something about it now,” Tommy said softly, his voice more
measured.

ShoShawna
looked at him.
 
There was something about
his tone that made her know that his declaration, although not new to her since
he’d said it many times before, was different this time.
 
Everything about their relationship seemed
different this time.
 
And differentness
always terrified her.
 

She
looked down, at his still exposed penis; at that same penis that had her so
dick-whipped that she was still throbbing for more.
 
And she did what she knew how to do whenever
Tommy was upset with her.
 
She removed
the handkerchief from the pocket of his Armani suit, wiped off his penis, and
then, before he could react, mouth-fucked him.

Tommy
closed his eyes with a frown on his face as she attempted, once again, to gloss
over their monumental problems with a quick hit.
 
It worked many times in the past, he was
ashamed to admit.
 
But he couldn’t allow
it to work this time.

“Not
this time, Shawnie,” he said to her.

ShoShawna
knew he loved the way she gave him head.
 
The fact that he was rejecting it now spoke mightily to her.
 
She hesitated and then looked up at him.
  
He was shaking his head.

“I
can’t do it anymore,” he said.
 
“I can’t
keep kidding myself.
 
What you want and
what I want are worlds apart now.
 
And
yes, I put up with it.
 
You’re right
about that.
 
For far too long I’ve put up
with you.
 
Even in your profession as a
hired gun, a profession that you know disgusts me, I put up with it.”

He
stared into her now ominous-looking, darkened eyes.
 
She knew where this was going.
 
They both knew where this was going.
 

“But
I can’t put up with it any longer,” he made clear.
 
“I want a wife who loves me more than she
loves the thrill of the chase.
 
I want
children just like Jimmy Mack and little Dominic, whose Christening we just
attended.
 
I want the kind of love my
cousin Reno and his wife have for each other.
 
I want that, Shawnie.
 
But you
want your work.
 
Which is fine.
 
You can have your work.
 
But you can’t have me, too.”

ShoShawna’s
heart began to pound.

“I’ve
been thinking about this for a long time,” Tommy continued.
 
“Since you stood me up the day we were
supposed to marry, I’ve been thinking deeply about this relationship.
 
It used to be good.
 
I used to look forward to being with
you.
 
But now it’s just burdensome and
painful and. . . and sad.
 
And I can’t do
sad anymore.
 
I’m a man pushing forty,
Shawnie.
 
I’m too damn old for these
games you keep playing! ”
 

Then
he exhaled and looked away from her and out at the quiet stretch of Vegas.
 
“When we return to Seattle, I want you to
pack up the scattering of clothes you have at my house, and I want you to leave
my home.
  
I wish you well in your
career, and I pray you find in that work you love so much whatever it is you
need to get by.”
 
He then looked at
her.
 
And she saw the steel in him.
 
“But don’t come back to me.”
 

ShoShawna
felt as if her heart broke in two when he said those words.
 
And she hated Tommy Gabrini for breaking
it.
 
And she hated him worse because she
didn’t see this coming.
 
Not right
now.
 
Not when they were doing their
thing.
 
Why did he have to bring this
into it?
 
And it angered her, not just
because he was dumping her, but because he didn’t give her the pleasure of
dumping him first.
 
Who did he think he
was?
 
It was his good fortune to hook up
with her, not the other way around!
 
And
she wanted to lash out and tell him so.
 

But
she couldn’t.
 

Because
she knew it would be nothing but a lie.

“Stop
the car,” she said as she attempted to press the intercom button that would
alert the driver.

“When
we get to the airport,” Tommy said, “and if you then want---”

“Stop
the car,” she said louder, her eyes unfocused, as if she were on the verge of
panic.

“We
aren’t stopping any car in the middle---”

“Stop
the
got
damn car, stop it now!”
ShoShawna screamed into the intercom.

Walter
Lenzatta, the driver, immediately pulled over to the side of the road.
 
ShoShawna was hurrying out before the car
could come to a complete stop.
 

“Shawnie,
wait,” Tommy said, reaching for her arm, but she was already out of the
door.
 
Tommy zipped his pants and slid
across the seat after her.
 
They were on
a back road, where there was little in sight, but ShoShawna was walking as if
she knew where she was going.
 

And
Tommy was hurrying after her.
 
“Shawnie!”
he yelled to her.
 
“Shawnie!
 
Shawn!

But
she kept going.
 
Why he put up with this
shit, he kept asking himself.
 
But he
hurried after her anyway.
 
When he
reached her, he grabbed her by the arm, slung her around, and then began
force-walking her back to the limo.

“Let
me go, you asshole!” she was screaming and fighting.

But
Tommy wasn’t thinking about her screams or fight.
 
He walked her to the car, his expensive suit
coat flapping in the Nevada wind, and he slung her startled body back onto the
seat.
 
She moved to get back out but he
pushed her back in, got in himself, and slammed the door.

“Let
me go!” she yelled again.

“When
we get to the airport you can go wherever the fuck you want.
 
But I’m not leaving you out here in the
middle of nowhere just because you don’t like what I said to you!”

“I
don’t give a damn about you!
 
Who the
hell cares what you have to say?
 
I hate your
guts!
 
I’m glad I don’t have to put up
with your white ass another day!”

“Good!”
Tommy said, although it pained him to hear her say that.
 
“But you aren’t getting out of this car
again.”
 
Then he pressed the intercom
button, and ordered Len to cut the scenic shit and get them to the airport as
quickly as he could.

As
the car moved again and took, this time, the direct route to the airport,
Tommy’s heart was hammering.
 
And
ShoShawna’s was just as stunned.
 
Because
this was it.
 
All of their break-ups and
make-ups might just be over for good this time.
 
And it was a sobering thought for both of them.

As
soon as the limo arrived at McCarran International Airport, ShoShawna got out
of the car and waited for the driver to get her luggage out of the trunk.
 
Tommy got out, too, and ShoShawna glared at
him as he buttoned his suit coat and rubbed his hair in place.
 
The idea that she wouldn’t have a man that
gorgeous in her life anymore was too much for her to even think about.
 
She just had to get away from him.

Len
removed her luggage so that he could carry it to Tommy’s waiting private plane,
but ShoShawna snatched her luggage away from him and began walking in the
opposite direction.
 
No goodbye, no
see ya’, wouldn’t wanna be ya’
.
 
She just left.

Tommy
placed his dark shades on his anguished face and watched her leave.
 
She had issues, severe issues that he’d been
enabling for far too long.
 
And even now
he still had that urge to go after her.
 
Even
 
now.
 
But as she entered the airport and
disappeared from his sight, he knew he had to let her go.
 
As difficult as it was, he had to let her go.

He
made his way to his plane, boarded the plane, and then took a seat in the
cabin.
 
The crew knew Tommy’s moods well,
and knew to leave him alone.
 
He placed
his hand on his chin, looked out of the window, and couldn’t stop thinking
about Shawnie.
 
But his anger, and
disappointment, and the searing pain couldn’t be quenched.
 
Not this time.
 
Because he knew like he knew his name that
there would be no break-ups to make-up this time.
 
He couldn’t allow it.
 
Not this time.

He
removed his shades.
 
Tears had already
welled up in his drained blue eyes.
 
By
the time the plane lifted up into the wide blue yonder, he could hardly see the
world for the tears.