Roz sat up on top of Mick when he pushed his penis in. She wanted to ride it. She wanted him to relax, turn over the reins to her, and let her ride.
And he did. Mick laid back, fondled her bouncing breasts, and allowed her to take the lead. Roz’s saturated pussy glided along Mick’s hard rod and glistened it with her juices. For several minutes she rode and she rode. Mick could feel every crevice inside of her, and it was one of those enchanting feelings, as she rode. He placed his hands on her narrow waist as her small body sat on top of his muscular body and moved up and down, up and down in a wonderfully slow, sensual glide. His rod was enjoying every second. She gave him that thrill that crept up his legs and entered every inch of his long cock until it was putting a chill into the deepest muscles of his body. She was fucking him hard.
So hard that he couldn’t hold out. He bent his body forward, trying to wait, but she was putting it on him too strong.
“You’re gonna make me,” he said, unable to get the words out completely. “You’re gonna make me!”
And then he flipped her onto her back, shove his cock deep inside of her wetness, fucked her longer. And then he came. He broke his own cardinal rule and came before she came. And it wasn’t a small, dainty cum either. He released hard into her and poured and poured as if there was no end in sight to his outpour. He fucked her and poured into her. He went all out.
It also affected Roz. As she felt his hot liquid squirt around her pussy like leakage of love that was unable to stop, she came too. And her orgasm was as strong as his outpour. He continued to fuck her, that was his way, but it only heightened the feelings to near-impossible-to-bear heights. She was arching and he was pounding and both of them were experiencing that feeling of love they only felt when they were doing each other. All else dissipated. Mick only saw Roz, and Roz only saw him. He wrapped her in his arms, and kissed her, as they came.
But by morning, after they had fallen asleep, awakened, and showered and dressed together, it was all about Joey again. They took the Bentley, with Mick driving, and made their way to the hospital. Mick parked in the parking lot, placed his hand in the small of Roz’s back, and they walked slowly toward the entrance doors.
Roz was dressed in a gray pantsuit and heels, and Mick was dressed in a suit and tie. They knew Joey had survived the night. They would have received a phone call if he hadn’t. But they both were worried sick.
Teddy, Gloria, and Adrian were still at their brother’s bedside when Mick and Roz arrived. Joey’s mother had left just after Mick left and had not returned or phoned, and Mick’s doctor, Dr. Blaxton, was downstairs getting coffee.
But the big news for Mick and Roz was Joey himself. Not only was he awake, but he was alert. He even smiled when they entered his hospital room.
Mick was so overjoyed to see his son vibrant again, that he laughed. “It’s alive!” he said jokingly and everybody, including Joey, laughed. Mick and Roz made their way up to his bedside. “How are you son?” Mick asked him.
Joey loved the sound of his father calling him son. He hated that it still excited him, but it did. “I feel a little rough, but I’m alive. They have me pretty doped up.”
“Yeah, I’m sure they do.”
“Doc Blaxton says he’s going to make a full recovery, Dad,” Gloria said.
Mick placed his arm around her, squeezing her. “That’s great news, honey,” he said. “I’m so happy to hear it.”
“Now you guys can go to Jericho,” Teddy said. “I’ll look after him. He’ll be okay.”
“It’s no big deal,” Mick said. “It can wait.”
“No, it can’t, Dad,” Teddy said. “It’s high time you do it and get it over with.”
Mick didn’t like any child of his telling him what he should do, but he couldn’t argue with good advice.
“Tell him, Joey,” Gloria said. “Tell him he should go see his brother. You’ll be okay.”
“Yeah,” Joey said, “I’ll be just fine.”
But before Mick could think about going anywhere, he had to have a heart-to-heart with his son.
Roz realized it too. “Hey, guys,” she said to the others, “why don’t we go downstairs and get some breakfast? Your dad needs to talk with Joey.”
“Sure,” Teddy said, and Gloria was all for it too. Adrian didn’t see the point. Why couldn’t he talk to Joey in front of them? But he conceded the point and left too.
Now it was father and son, and Mick could tell that son was uneasy. “What you want to talk about?” Joey asked him.
Mick didn’t mince words. “Who shot you?” he asked.
Joey hesitated. “I don’t know,” he said. “Some guy.”
“Who shot you?” Mick asked again.
“I told you I don’t know!”
“That’s what you told me. Now tell me the truth. Who shot you, Joey? I’m not asking your ass again.”
Joey knew he was cooked either way. “This guy named Tony LeKirk,” he said. “A small time drug dealer. A nobody.”
“Why did he shoot you?” Mick asked.
Joey frowned. “How should I know? He didn’t like my attitude. We got in an argument. He shot me. I would have killed his ass if I was packing. I would have won that fight. But I wasn’t packing. I’m trying to go legit like you said I had to.”
“Nobody else was involved in this argument?” Mick asked.
“Nobody. He said I was chatting up some girl he liked in the club, so we took it outside. Why would anybody else be involved?”
Mick didn’t respond to that. He was relieved it appeared to be an isolated incident. He would have his men continue to investigate, just in case. But he was satisfied for now.
Joey looked at his powerful father. And it was a look that said he had other things on his mind. Personal matters. Like Mick’s trip to Jericho. “You have a brother, hun?”
Mick knew his past life was as foreign to his children as his current involvement in their lives. “Yes,” he said. “I have an older brother.”
“What’s his name?”
“Charles.”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
“Briefly, not that long ago. But in terms of talking to him and being in his presence like that, not since I was younger than you.”
“Wow. That long ago?”
Mick nodded. “That long ago.”
“Why are you going to see him now after all these years?”
“I’m getting married. That’s the main reason. I feel my wife deserves to know her in-laws.”
“But your children don’t deserve to know their uncle?”
Mick knew he had it coming. He was a lousy parent and nobody was going to tell him differently. His kids would confirm it. “That’ll come,” he said. “I haven’t gotten a foot in the door yet myself. He probably will not want to have anything to do with me. But I’m going to go and see.”
“And if he tells you to kiss his ass?” Joey looked at him.
“Then there will be no reunion and I’ll just have to bring my wop-ass back here.”
Joey laughed. Then he began coughing.
“Take it easy, son,” Mick said, as he placed his hand behind Joey’s neck and held a straw inside a cup of water to his mouth.
Joey was a little stunned by his father’s touch, but loved it. And when he finished drinking the water, and his coughing had died down, they both stared into each other’s eyes. And Mick leaned down and pulled him into his arms. He held him. Joey was overwhelmed with emotion. And when they stopped embracing, and he looked into his father’s eyes, he could tell he was emotional too. No tears. Neither one of them were about to go there. But Joey could see the feelings behind those hard eyes.
“Are you leaving today?”
The old Mick would have said yes. The kid looked okay. He was going to pull through. Why not? But the Mick who was trying to do better by his children was at work now. He shook his head. “Not today,” he said. “When you get out of this hospital, then I’ll go.”
> Joey smiled. “Really?”
Mick nodded. “Really,” he said.
Joey didn’t know how to react. His father had never sacrificed anything for him before. A part of him was angry about that, but the other part of him was too happy to deal in that dirt of their past. He was going to go with it for now. Because if his father ever found out the true extent of his dealings, and why Tony LeKirk really shot him, there was going to be hell to pay. He was going to need his father’s love unlike he had ever needed it before.
Less than a week later, Joey was released from the hospital. Although he wanted to recuperate at his mother’s home, Mick had him moved to a safe house just in case. LeKirk was dead, but Mick wasn’t all that certain he was buying Joey’s story. He kept Joey under heavy security.
It was only after then, only after Mick was satisfied that Joey was going to be okay, he told Roz to clear her schedule for the following week. She did. And early that Monday morning, without calling to let anybody know they were coming, they were on their way to Jericho.
CHAPTER TEN
It was a cool Monday morning, weather-wise, and they both wore their leather jackets and jeans. Roz wore a red sweater shirt, a waist-high zipper jacket, and ankle buckled boots with her jeans. Mick wore a black turtleneck, his brown bomber jacket, and expensive Bruno Magli desert boots with his. Roz was especially impressed with Mick’s look, as his thick brown hair had been wind-blown into a heavy pile on top of his head, and strands had escaped into a bang around his forehead.
It was for that very reason, the strength of the wind, that Roz had thought about wearing her hair in a ponytail. But she was about to meet Mick’s long-lost, almost mythical brother Charles for the very first time. She wasn’t about to go to Maine looking ratchet. She had her stylist do her up. Now her long hair framed her narrow face in waves of big curls. And she knew her stylist had hit it out of the ballpark when Mick, who didn’t throw around accolades easily, complimented her on her hair as soon as he laid eyes on it.
Mick, in fact, was in great spirits as he drove them all the way from Philadelphia to the outskirts of Maine. He had decided to drive his bright red Maserati, deciding that it was less ostentatious than his black Lamborghini, but that was ridiculous to Roz. They both were ostentatious! But leave it to flashy Mick Sinatra to view a red hot Maserati as a conservative car. They laughed about it, they were in that kind of jovial mood, and Mick even joked that she was just jealous that her big-ass Bentley wasn’t in the same class as any of his sports cars. Since it was Mick who had given Roz the Bentley, and he was the original owner of it, she went along with the slight. He was in a great mood, given the unsettling reunion that was ahead of them, and she was more than happy to go with the flow.
But as they drove out of New Hampshire and were entering the great state of Maine, Mick’s entire demeanor changed. Roz noticed it when she realized he was driving slower than usual. Mick loved fast cars for a reason. He drove fast. But he was barely going the speed limit.
She looked at him as he drove, but she didn’t say a word. He was miles away from her, thinking about matters she couldn’t begin to even guess about, so she left him to it. He was born and raised in Maine and this state had to harbor some heavy-duty feelings within him. She gave him room to experience those feelings.
And for miles upon miles she allowed him to drive his slower speed, and have his inner conversations. It could have been a stall tactic, this uncharacteristically slow driving he was doing, and she suspected that was part of it. But she knew Mick. He wasn’t afraid to face tough situations, like reestablishing contact with a brother he had all but deserted. This went deeper for him than just a stall.
And sure enough, as soon as they passed the sign that said Jericho County, 3 Miles, Mick pulled over to the side of the road. It was just after noon. They weren’t even in Jericho yet. But he pulled over.
Now Roz was worried. Was he going to back out? “What’s wrong?” she asked him.
Mick was staring ahead, as if he was still trying to work it out in his mind, but then he looked at her too. But it was a piercing, devastating look. “Marry me,” he said.
Roz continued to stare into his big, green eyes. Her look was searching for answers too. Only her look was more disconcerting. She was worried about him. “I already said I would,” she said.
“Marry me now. Today. Before we go to Jericho.”
Roz never made monumental decisions based on facts that were not evident to her. She studied Mick’s handsome, but distressed face. What was the urgency? “Why?” she asked him.
“I don’t want to introduce you as my girlfriend. I want to introduce you as my wife.”
Roz continued to study him. She didn’t respond because she felt he owed her a more complete explanation.
Mick gave her one. “I want my brother, I want the entire town to understand what you mean to me,” he said. “They can disrespect a girlfriend. They can dismiss her as one of many. But they will not disrespect my wife.”
Somehow Roz knew this was not about her. Not exactly. “I understand what you’re saying,” she said, “but whether I’m your girlfriend or your wife, I don’t care about how they perceive me. You respect me. That’s what matters to me. If you respect me in front of your brother and this entire town then I cannot ask for more, Mick.”
“So the answer is no?” Mick asked.
“I’m going to be frank with you,” Roz said. “I don’t want to get married in front of some strangers in some musky justice of the peace office. I don’t want that. I want a church wedding, Mick. I want a minister to marry us, or a priest, not some government official.”
Mick understood. He nodded his head.
“But,” Roz continued, “if it means this much to you then, yes, I’ll marry you right now. It won’t be what I had in mind, but I’ll do it.” She smiled. “I’ll gladly do it, Mick.”
Mick smiled too. “Quit lying. You won’t gladly do shit.” Roz laughed. Then he turned serious again. “But thank you for being willing to.”
“I mean it. We can do it right now.”
Mick shook his head. “No,” he said, taking her hand. “No, we aren’t going down that road. Because you’re right. I want to marry you in style too. I want to give you the wedding of your dreams and that’s exactly what I’m going to do. No settling for less.” Then he frowned. “I don’t know what came over me.”
Roz suspected he knew exactly what, but he wasn’t ready to face it. But if they were going to be in this together, he had to. And he had to face it before they met his brother. “What compelled you to make the suggestion?” she asked him. She hated taking him to that place. But she knew she had to.
Mick felt foolish.
“What?” Roz asked.
Mick hesitated again, and then responded. “I wanted my brother, I wanted Charles to see that I made it,” he said.
Roz’s heart dropped. A man with his level of success. A man with his power and position. But he was still that boy who ran away from home.
“Oh, Mick,” she said, squeezing his hand.
“He thinks I’m just some thug who never did anything the right way. And before I met you, he would have been correct. But I wanted him to understand that I have you now. Against all odds, I won you. I wanted him to know that I’m not just a thug anymore. I’m a winner now.”
Roz could feel tears brighten her eyes, but she held on. Mick was not an overly sentimental man, but when he was vulnerable, when he allowed himself to go there, he was something magnificent to behold. She placed her second hand on his hand, and smiled. “When you singled me out, and started showing interest in me, I felt like a winner too, Mick. You chose me over all those women you could have had. I didn’t think I was good enough to even be in the contest, but yet I won the grand prize.”
Mick snorted. “Some prize.”
“The grand prize,” Roz said again. “I’m not taking it back! But what I’m saying is that I feel you. I feel the same way you do. And if your br
other and these people in Jericho don’t think that the fact that we have each other is enough success for them, then I say tough.”
Mick laughed.
“I say tough tittie, baby! It’s enough for us.”
Mick actually said amen, which made Roz laugh, and then they were pulling back onto the road, driving those three miles, and happy again. And finally, after years and seemingly lifetimes later, they were entering Jericho, Maine.
It wasn’t much to see at first. Just a lot of open roads and houses on acres of land. But once they were in the heart of the small town, Roz felt on display. She felt as if no circus freak alive had anything on her. Because they stared and stared at her. Some people even stopped walking, and stared. Mick drove slowly through Main Street, remembering the drug store and the bar and the tool and dye shop. And every person in that town stared as if they were staring at some alien arrival. Some of it was the car. Maseratis probably didn’t grow on trees in a town this small. But most of it was undoubtedly the fact that some gorgeous white man was in town with some black woman, in aforementioned Maserati, and the gossip mill was ready to churn.
It could not have been more evident than when Mick pulled in front of a diner. Since he refused to call his brother and give him a beforehand warning of his arrival (he was afraid his brother might have told him not to come), he had no clue where his brother lived. He had no choice but to ask.
Roz felt so out of sorts in such an unabashedly nosy town, that she decided to remain in the car. But Mick wouldn’t let her. He noticed the stares too, and the unfriendly looks, and his overprotectiveness took over. Nobody was going to stare her down as if she was less-than them unless they stared him down first. “Get out,” he said to her. “You need to stretch your legs too.”
Roz knew his insistence had nothing to do with any leg stretching. They had stopped for gas not all that long ago. But she didn’t question it and did as he told her to do. She waited for him to open the passenger door, and she got out too.
Mick Sinatra 2: Love, Lies, and Jericho Page 12