Roz wanted to smile, but she couldn’t get past the fact of the matter. “If you would have answered your phone,” she said, “you would have known sooner. But I’m good. Thanks for asking.”
Mick stared at her. She was a long way from where she was claiming to be. He knew. He was a long way too. “Come with me,” he said and, still holding her hand, headed for the entrance. The same Doorman who had questioned if Roz was harassing him, quickly opened the door for them. They walked in. As soon as they did, a man who appeared to be some high ranking hotel official, hurried to their side.
“Mr. Sinatra.” He then looked at Roz and nodded. “Ma’am.” Then he looked at Mick again. “Is there anything I can help you with, sir?”
“The gentleman who opened the door for me?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Fire him,” Mick said.
“Yes, sir,” the official said so fast it amazed Roz.
Although Mick continued to escort her across the lobby, she looked back. The official was motioning for the Doorman to come to him. Roz looked at Mick. “Why would you want him fired?” she asked him. “Just because he thought I was harassing you?”
Mick looked at her as if she should not even questioned it. “Yes,” he said. “What part of that is a problem?”
“I understand he was rude, but to ask them to fire him? He might have mouths to feed, a family to support.”
“He should have thought about those mouths before he mouthed off about you.” Mick stared at her. He knew his lifestyle was going to be hard for her to digest, but something this minor was disconcerting to her? “Stop the problem as soon as you see it, Rosalind,” he said, “or you will have a problem on your hands. Come on,” he said, placed his hand on the small of her back, and escorted her past the public elevators to a private elevator where another hotel official was waiting.
“Mr. Sinatra,” the official said as he swiped his keycard and the elevator door opened. “Have a nice evening, sir, ma’am.”
“Thank you,” Roz said with a smile, but Mick said nothing as he and she stepped onto the elevator, and the door closed shut behind them.
Roz leaned against the elevator wall and looked at Mick. They treated him as if he was the king of the world and he treated them as if they were just the help. The invisible help at that. Since she was more likely to be in the help category than Mick’s category herself, she was bothered by it.
Mick could see that she was bothered. “What did I do wrong this time?” he asked.
Roz did not back off. “The people who work at this hotel show you great respect. You ought to show them some respect in return.”
“I sign their paychecks,” he said. “That, I think, is respect enough.”
Roz stared at him. “You sign their . . . You own . . . Are you telling me that you own the Carson?”
Mick studied her. Would she now show more interest in him when she realized his wealth was well above ordinary wealth? Would she act, as his other ladies always did, as if she just hit the jackpot? “Yes,” he said, and kept his eyes on her. “I became majority owner eight years ago.”
Roz nodded as if it was no big deal, and she even smiled, but she was blown away. The Carson-Benning was one of the oldest and most luxurious hotels in New York. Right up there with the Four Seasons, the James, the Waldorf-Astoria. And he owned it? The man she was worried sick about owned it? Instead of getting more excited, or seeing dollar signs for herself, Roz couldn’t help but feel at least a bit more intimidated. She knew Mick was out of her league. She already knew that. But now she knew they weren’t even in the same ballpark, on the same street, in the same town! She flapped a side swing of hair behind her ear. She was a little off-kilter now, but she was determined not to show it.
Roz should not have felt happy at this moment. This big beautiful man holding her hand right now and escorting her to his hotel room was the same big beautiful man who wouldn’t return her phone calls. He was the same beautiful man who owned the hotel his room was situated in to begin with. But she did feel happy. She felt a kind of joy the few times she’d been around Mick that no other experience could match. But she was also no wide-eyed kid. These were early days still. She remained cautious.
Mick kept his hand in hers as they rode up in the private elevator to his suite on the top floor. And when the elevator opened into that suite, Roz was not surprised that it would be the best suite in the building. Beauty didn’t capture it. The furniture was big and bold, but the color palate was soft cream and soft browns. And it all worked together beautifully. Mick had taste. There was no doubt in her mind about it.
Mick also still held her hand. And suddenly her heart felt faint. If he escorted her straight to his bedroom, she would know that was the only reason he brought her up here in the first place. Not to talk. Not to explain why he didn’t come back to her. But to get another hit. The fact that she had showed up eliminated any pretense that she wasn’t interested in him. What man wouldn’t take advantage of that? But Roz had high hopes for Mick. Why she had such hopes was a mystery. But her hope could not be denied.
And when he sat her down on the beautiful living room sofa, and poured drinks and sat down beside her, her joy could not be denied either. She believed she would have turned him down if he would have proposed a roll in the hay right away. At least she wished she would have enough self-respect to say no. But he didn’t put her in that position. She sipped champagne and crossed her legs. Mick sat in the flanking chair, crossed his legs, and sipped champagne too. He looked so tired and drained, Roz could not help but comment.
“Long day?” she asked.
“Yes.”
Then Roz suddenly had a horrible thought. “I sure hope it didn’t begin late last night when you left my place.”
That was the beginning. Mick had not been to sleep since. He had a vast empire, and it was mostly legit, but it was built on crimes. When you were buried in it as deeply as Mick was buried in it, it took a lifetime to dig out.
And then there were nights like last night, where the house of cards were trying to cave-in all at once, and he had to spend his every waking moment preventing the fall. From Pennsylvania to Florida he was in damage control. Not because the Feds were closing in, but because they would have knocked the whole thing down had the agent that rat bastard Tonk Maggio had snitched to had not been crooked as a curve and in Mick’s pocket too.
After a night like that he couldn’t go back to sleep even if he wanted to. And he didn’t. He was not the kind of man who did what he did, and had no second thoughts about it. He had nightmares about it. But he had no illusions about it. He was dealing in dirt, not because all the bad guys were picking on him, but because he was dirty. Because he was a bad guy too. Tonk Maggio’s number was up last night. One night his number was going to come due. His father once said that his brother Charles was going to die a beloved old man. Mick, his father said, was going to die a lonely old man. He was too mean to ever be loved. Mick realized long ago that he was living up magnificently to that prophesy, and then some.
But telling Rosalind about his sordid life and the fact that he had to stay up all night to sort through it would be too much for any rational being to handle. Especially one he actually liked. “I’m alright,” was all he would say about it. “What about you? Did you teach today?”
Roz nodded. “Oh, yeah. Teaching pays the bills nowadays.”
“Eventually you’ll make some decisions, yes?”
“I’ll have to. My brother’s still bugging me about partnering up with him, but I’m not ready to throw in the towel yet. But yes, I’ll have to make some decisions soon.”
“Is your brother your only sibling?”
“No, I have a sister too. We aren’t all that close, but yeah. What about you? Do you have any siblings?”
There was a slight hesitation, and Roz could tell Mick was not comfortable speaking so personally. But he asked her. His family background was fair game too. “I had a sister, we called her Spr
ig, but she died. I have a brother,” Mick ultimately said. “A big brother. Charles Sinatra.”
“Oh, okay. Is he from around here, or---”
“No. He’s from Maine. He lives in Jericho, Maine. Where we were born.”
“Jericho, Maine,” Roz said. “Never heard of it.”
Mick didn’t skip a beat. “Thank your lucky stars,” he said.
Roz smiled. “Are you and Charles close?”
Mick didn’t hesitate this time either. “No. Not at all.”
Roz waited for more, but no more came. “Your folks still living?”
Another flash of something in Mick’s eyes. He didn’t even speak this time. He just shook his head.
“Mine are alive and well,” Roz said.
Mick seemed pleased to hear this. He looked at her. “Are you and your parents close?”
“My father and I are. He’s a musician. He travels around the country playing different gigs. He always stays with me when he’s in town.”
“Perhaps he is the reason you have your show business thirst.”
Roz nodded. “That’s what he figures too. I don’t know.”
“What about your mother?” Mick asked. “Are you and she close?”
Roz shook her head. “No. We don’t get along at all.”
Mick understood family hurt and pain, and he wasn’t about to go there with her. He had too many rocks unturned in his own life to be turning over someone else’s. “Any more auditions on the horizon?” he asked her: safer ground.
“Yes, actually,” Roz said. “And I’m very hopeful about them. But we’ll see.”
“Your hope springs eternal.”
“And eternal and eternal,” Roz said with a laugh. “Yes, it does. It always will.”
“Good,” Mick said, meaning it.
And then he leaned his head back. With his lazy eye, and his overflowing eyelashes, he appeared to be asleep. But he wasn’t. He just felt at peace whenever he was around Rosalind.
Roz stared at him. She didn’t realize he was staring back. But the concern in her eyes surprised him. He would have thought that she would behave as if she was sitting on easy street now that she had his attention, but the opposite seemed to have developed. She seemed as if she was slightly more uncomfortable, and unsure how to behave, as if the street had not gotten easier, but harder. As if his extraordinary wealth was a curse, not a blessing. What shocked Mick was how right she was. What shocked Mick was how determined he was to make sure she didn’t live that curse.
He was about to sit his glass on the tray, escort her downstairs, and tell Deuce to take her home. Get her away while he still could. But she spoke first.
“Have you eaten?” she asked him.
Mick’s eyes opened wider. He suddenly realized he hadn’t eaten a thing all day. “No,” he said.
“Why don’t you go lay down and rest for a little while? There’s a kitchen in this place, I’m sure. I’ll fix you something to eat.”
Mick studied her. He had a dinner date in a couple of hours with a few of his business partners. Why was he even considering her offer? But he wasn’t only considering it, he was accepting it.
“Sounds good,” he said, and stood up. “Sure you’ll be okay?” he asked her.
“I’m positive.”
“The chef can come up, if you would like some assistance.”
But Roz shook her head. “I know my way around a kitchen, thank you,” she said, and Mick laughed. And he sipped the last of his drink, sat it back down, and headed for the bedroom.
Roz headed for the kitchen. Her only hope, as she opened the massive refrigerator, was that there was practical food inside. She could cook, but she didn’t do fancy. She was saved. Plenty of ordinary food. All kinds of food, in fact. She smiled. She felt perfectly at home.
An hour later, Mick was snoring, sleeping like a baby, as she made her way to his bedroom. All she had to do was to follow the snores. What threw her, when she got there, was that he was naked in bed, lying on his back. His penis was asleep too, but it was still undeniably huge. And his abs, and his thighs, and his muscular arms and chest. And thinking about what that penis did to her before, and what it could do to her again, caused her vagina, not tingle, but pulsate with sensual joy. Because the thought, that she was going to turn him down if he wanted some, was preposterous to her now. She wanted to throw herself on him. That was how badly she wanted him. But she kept her composure. She walked up to his bed, and gently called his name.
CHAPTER NINE
But he didn’t answer. He was sleeping so hard she didn’t think any manner of calling his name would wake him. She sat on the edge of his bed, and gently shook him. “Mick?” she said. “Mick?”
She shook him again. And again. Then harder. It was only then did he wake with a start, lifting up as if he was under some sort of attack. When he saw that it was Roz sitting there, waking him up, he laid back down. And smiled.
“You’re a hard sleeper,” she said.
“I fell asleep. Sorry about that.”
“Nothing to be sorry about,” she said as she stood again. She began picking up the discarded clothes he tossed when he stepped out of them. “You were tired. I’m glad you got yourself some rest.”
Mick watched her as she gathered up his clothes. As she took care of his needs. No one had ever done that for him before, as most women would just let the maid take care of it, and it affected him greatly. With someone else he would immediately think game. This person wanted something from him. But this was Rosalind who was picking up after him. This was the first woman who ever turned down his sexual advances. The first woman who refused to let his connections with a Broadway director give her an advantage over the other struggling actresses. The first woman who got an inkling of just how rich and powerful he really was, but seemed more intimidated than emboldened by it. This was Rosalind. This was the first woman he didn’t just fuck, but actually made love to, and it was so beautiful that it touched him to his core. Just as something as simple as her picking up after him was touching him now. She stood apart from all the rest. Far apart. He was never going to think game when he thought of Rosalind.
“Dinner’s ready,” she said, as she folded his underwear. He loved seeing her touch his intimate apparel. “Unless you think you can use some more rest,” she added. “You can always eat later. There is, believe it or not, a microwave in this joint!”
Mick smiled. “Go figure.”
“Go figure,” Roz agreed, with a smile of her own.
Mick stared at her. Because he was touched even more by her smile. And his look changed. He reached out his hand to her. “Come here,” he said.
Roz felt some kind of tingle when he used that voice of command. It made her feel as if she somehow belonged to this man. An irrational feeling, she knew. But she felt it. And she sat his underwear in the chair, and went to him.
He took her hand and sat her on the edge of his bed. He was naked as a jaybird, but she loved the fact that it didn’t seem to bother him at all. It bothered her, in a powerfully sensual way, but he was not a man of inhibitions. He was completely relaxed.
“Thank you,” he said to her.
“What for? For cooking? I plan to eat that food too, you know.”
He smiled. “For that, yes. But also for picking up after me.” His look turned serious. “That’s not done, you know.”
In whose world, she wondered. Because it was nothing to Roz. She saw clothes discarded, she picked them up. No big deal. But apparently it was a big deal in Mick’s considerably different world. So she didn’t argue the point. “You’re welcome,” she said.
And they found themselves, on that bed, staring into each other’s eyes. And then Mick stared at her pretty lips and pulled her toward him. And kissed those very kissable lips. Just a peck. And the peck that became a kiss that lingered, that became a kiss so filled with passion that he couldn’t stop kissing her. He pulled her on top of him, and made long love to her mouth.
Roz could feel his cock come to life beneath her, as she held his face and kissed him vigorously too.
Mick kissed her with an emotion that staggered him. Every time he was near this woman, it gave him a rush of feeling he’d never felt before. It felt desperate and calming, intense and relaxing, all at the same time. But it all amounted to the same thing: he wanted her. He wanted her as deeply as he kissed her long and hard.
He placed his hand beneath her skirt and inside her panties and massaged her bare ass. He was still kissing her, still unable to break the union, and his penis was activating to a must-have level. He had to get inside of her. He had to feel that feeling of euphoria once again.
And he did it. He put on a condom, removed her clothing, and guided it inside of her. And then, as they began to gyrate, a shift occurred. The desperate and intense were gone, and the calming and relaxing pushed on. They made love in a way that left him, not attempting to just fuck her, but to make love to her. He held her tenderly. He pushed into her folds slowly. He stroked her pussy with an ease he didn’t usually feel.
But he felt it with Roz. And Roz felt it with him. And soon they were in a rhythm that neither one of them were accustomed to, but both of them adored. They took it slow.
They laid on Mick’s bed and fucked for forty minutes. They laid on Mick’s bed and moved their bodies in complete sync and harmony. Mick was rubbing her ass, and she was embracing his rock hard frame, and they were kissing and looking into each other’s eyes and kissing all over again.
And when they came, Mick moaned and clenched it out, while Roz pulsated and eased into her orgasm. Because it was less about sex for both of them this time. And more about each other.
Later, after Mick got even more sleep and Roz watched him sleep, they showered together, and then had dinner, and then left Mick’s hotel five hours after they had arrived. Mick felt a heavy burden as they stepped off of the private elevator and was escorted by his General Manager across the lobby and to the limousine. But his burden had nothing to do with the fact he had missed his very important meeting. He rescheduled it for later tonight. It wasn’t even because of the stress his entire organization was under. His burden was born out of something he taught himself to avoid like a plague years ago: guilt. Pure, unadulterated guilt. He placed his hand in the small of Roz’s back as he assisted her into the limo, and sat on the seat beside her. He was guilty that he didn’t let her go, while she had the chance.
Mick Sinatra: For Once In My Life Page 11