After both couples spent long phone conversations with their children, with Reno and Trina, and with their children’s security details, they all settled down.

Tommy and Grace settled in the master bedroom upstairs, the bed, they knew, that Mick Sinatra slept in whenever he stayed at his resort.  They both spent the first half hour of their time upstairs on the phone, fielding calls from their respective companies.  For Tommy, it was all about a couple new acquisitions GCI was considering.  For Grace, it was all about Trammel Trucking’s fiscal year bottom line, and the upcoming board meeting in reference to it.

But Tommy wasn’t so drained that he still couldn’t place his dick at her entry point, and then all the way inside of Grace.  First it rested there, as they handled their business, but then it began to move in deeper and deeper, and expand.

Grace knew he was aroused, despite their business calls, and despite their exhaustion, because of his thickness and fullness inside of her.  He was so thick, and so full, that he began to arouse her.  And she became as wet as his pre-cum.

But by the time they finished their phone calls, the drain prevented anything beyond arousal.  Tommy did manage to remove the briefs he had on, since his penis had been out of them and inside of Grace the entire time they were in bed.  He also managed to remove the gown Grace wore, especially since he had it lifted up around her stomach area the entire time.

Naked, they snuggled under the covers.  With Grace’s back to Tommy’s front, he wrapped his arms around her and they spooned.  He didn’t get both of them naked for sex.  He was too drain for sex.  He got both of them naked for love: he needed to hold his wife.  And he needed to feel her heartbeat, her essence, and even her body’s temperature, as he held her.

But he also, Grace noticed, didn’t deflate while he was inside of her and soon, as they lay there snuggled together, he began to stroke.

Grace snuggled even closer against him when his dick began to move, and she reveled in her ass against his naked body, and the feel of his hands all over her.  It was sensual to Grace, in that relaxing, don’t-want-it-to-end, almost sleep state.  And when she leaned closer against Tommy’s chest, and could hear his labored breathing, she knew their need was going to overrule their sense. 

They fucked.

Tommy got on his back and pulled her on top of him, to make it easier on her, as his strokes intensified.  They began kissing, and Grace raked her fingers through his hair, over and over, as he pushed deeper and deeper inside of her.  He was making acrobatic movements with his dick that she used to think, before she met Tommy, were impossible.  But even in his drain, he was the best lover around.

And when she came, it was explosive.  Her head leaned back, her chest pushed out, and she felt the wave of lustfulness to the roots of her hair.

Tommy kept fucking her, and staring into her beautiful eyes, as she came.  He wanted her to experience it in its fullness.

But as soon as her orgasm began to wane, he rolled her onto her back, and gave it one last, hard push-in, that took him over, too.

Grace looked at him as he came.  Tommy was not a kid anymore; he was not a young man.  She could see the strain all over his gorgeous face, a strain that didn’t used to be there years ago, despite what he’d been through.  But it was there now.  This drama that permeated every aspect of their lives like a bad habit, was taking its toll.

He laid off of her, and then laid shoulder to shoulder with her.  Until Grace turned onto her side, and faced him.

He smiled when she turned his way, and lines of age appeared on the side of his eyes.  Tommy Gabrini was getting old.  And she really loved this older man.  She traced those lines with her fingers.  “What are you thinking?” she asked him.

“I’m thinking I’m getting too old for you,” he said.

Grace smiled, too.  “No, sir.  Not the way you put it on me tonight.  I’m getting too old for you!”

Tommy laughed.

“But really,” Grace said, turning serious, “what are you thinking?”

Tommy’s look turned serious, too.  He knew what she meant.  “I’m thinking I’ve got to figure out what’s going on, and figure it out fast, before something new breaks out.”

“Another attack?” Grace asked.

Tommy nodded.  He could never lie to Grace.  “That’s what I’m thinking,” he said.  “The way they coordinated those attacks, me and Sal first, and then you and Gemma?  No, babe,” he said, shaking his head, “no small-time hood pulled that shit off.”

“You’re saying, then, that you were figuring Venetti to be small time before what happened today?  I didn’t think of him that way at all.”

“He’s not known,” Tommy said.  “The biggest boys are always known.  They have to be, or there’s no point to their status.  The bigger you are, the less likely you are to be attacked.”

Grace frowned.  “But you’re big.  Sal is big.  You’re Gabrinis!  But you guys were attacked.”

Tommy exhaled.  He hated to tell her this, but after what happened at that hotel, he felt she needed to know, and to understand.  “If we weren’t as big as we are,” he said, “we would be attacked constantly, Grace.  I hate to tell you that, sweetie, but it’s true.  The fact that we get some fool willing to try us every now and then, given the enemies we’ve collectively acquired down through these years, is a tribute to just how big we are.”

Grace hadn’t thought of it so starkly in a long time.  She stared at Tommy.  A look of regret pierced his eyes.

“That’s why you’re never out of the game,” he said. “You may want to be out with every fiber of your being, but you can never get out.  Look what they did to Gemma in that DA’s race in Vegas.  They used the fact that she was a Gabrini against her.”

“It was a crying shame, too,” Grace said.  “She would have been a phenomenal District Attorney.  But they chose to elect a crook instead.”

“Yeah,” Tommy said.  “They would rather elect a crook than a Gabrini.  It’s the suit we wear.”  Then he looked at Grace.  “That goes for you.  That goes for our children, too.”

Tommy could see the pain in Grace’s eyes, and it broke his heart.  He tried to offer some hope.  “I’ll figure some of this shit out before they grow up, Grace.  Before it comes to that.”

Grace smiled, although she knew there was going to be no getting around it.  “But if it’s hard on you,” she said, “that must make it doubly hard on Sal.  At least you aren’t as far in as Sal.  You’ve never been a mob boss.  Everybody knows, despite all of Sal’s protestations up and down the street, that he is a boss.  And like you said, a big one.”  Then she managed to smile.  “But it is curious why he still refuses to admit he’s who we all know he is.”

Tommy smiled, too.  “As if somebody like Mick Sinatra, the mob boss of mob bosses, is going to believe that shit.  But that’s my baby brother.  That part of his life is private, and he aims to keep it that way.  Even from me.  Even in the face of damning evidence.  He thinks he’s protecting us.”

Grace smiled and rubbed Tommy’s chest.  “What I don’t want you to do,” she said, “is worry about me.”

Tommy looked at her.  “What do you mean?” he asked.

“I mean I’m over it,” Grace said.  “You chose me to be your wife, and the mother of your children, and I finally, after a lot of starts and stops, accepted my role.  I’m a Gabrini now.  That name carries a lot of opportunities.  A lot.  But it carries a lot of responsibility, too.  Instead of hoping things change by the time they grow up, I’ve been teaching our children to be independent, and strong, so they can handle being a Gabrini.  I don’t want Destiny, or TJ, to ever be as ill-equipped as I once was.  That’s my job.  And I’m going to do it right, Tommy.  For our children’s sake.  And for your sake, too.”

Tommy knew why he loved this woman.  And it had nothing to do with beauty or bed skills.  He pulled her into his arms.  “I love you,” he said.

And Tommy did something he had only did a few times before in their marriage: he serenaded his wife.  Grace laughed as Tommy serenaded her with an old Billy Joel song: Just the Way You Are.  One of Tommy’s favorites.   She laughed, but then she stopped.  It was too precious to be lighthearted.

Grace only knew the song vaguely.  She wasn’t exactly a Billy Joel fan the way Tommy was.  But she loved the way Tommy sang that song to her:

“Don't go changing, to try and please me
You never let me down before.
Don't imagine you're too familiar
And I don't see you anymore.

 

I would not leave you, in times of trouble
We never could have come this far.
I took the good times; I'll take the bad times,
I'll take you just the way you are!

 

Don't go trying, some new fashion
Don't change the color of your hair.
You always have my unspoken passion
Although I might not seem to care.

 

I don't want clever conversation,

I never want to work that hard.
I just want someone, that I can talk to,
I want you just the way you are!”

 

Grace had tears in her eyes when Tommy finished singing that song.

“Ah, babe,” he said, and wiped the tears away.  “An Italian who can actually sing isn’t that unusual.”

Grace smiled, and then laughed, and then hit him playfully on his chest.  “But an Italian stallion willing to sing to his wife?  And a Gabrini no less?  That’s unusual!”

Tommy knew it too.  He couldn’t imagine Sal nor Reno even attempting a serenade.  But he always did march to the beat of his own drummer.

They laid there longer, and soon the good feelings detoured into what tomorrow was going to bring.  When Cassius came to the resort.  And it was then that Grace thought about something else.  She looked at Tommy.  “What happened with Cassius?” she asked.  “With your grandfather?  Sal was talking as if it didn’t go well.”

Tommy would have preferred Sal told Grace.  It was so personal!  But she asked.  He wasn’t going to leave her guessing.  “It didn’t go as expected, that’s for sure,” he said.

“What happened?” Grace asked.

“Cassius claimed that my father, that Benny Gabrini, was not Sal’s biological father.” 

Grace was stunned.  She leaned up on her elbow.  “What?  Are you serious?”  Then she quickly realized Tommy always was.  “Who’s his father then?  Does he know?” she asked.

Tommy pulled her back into his arms.  “Yes,” he said, and proceeded to explain.