Mick Sinatra: For Once In My Life

by Mallory Monroe

  He sat on the edge of the bed. She noticed he was in the same suit from yesterday. He was a very elegant man. Sleeping in his clothes was not his style. But apparently, she thought, it was his style last night.

  “I didn’t expect you to still be here,” he said after he sat down.

  “I didn’t expect to be here either,” she admitted.

  Mick considered her. “Why did you stay, Rosalind?”

  Roz looked away from him. She was lying on her back, and was covered by all-silk bedding, but she had never felt more vulnerable. But she garnered the courage to look at him again. “You’ve had a rough life, Mick,” she said. “And the fact that you rose to such prominence in the business world speaks volumes about your ability, and resiliency. But your life has also tainted you.”

  Mick’s heart dropped, because he knew she spoke the truth.

  “You’re rough and tough and refuse to take crap from anybody.”

  “I wouldn’t mistreat you,” Mick said suddenly, and he was astounded that he had blurted such weak words out of his mouth. He felt like a drowning man and Roz held the life jacket. All she had to do was give it to him, like giving a dog a bone. He didn’t like that feeling.

  “But that’s the thing,” Roz said, going with his so-called weak words. “That’s why I stayed,” she continued. “I don’t believe you’ll mistreat me. I think we’ll have our moments, but I believe you will respect me and I will respect you even in the midst of those moments.”

  Then she frowned, and looked away. “I wish you didn’t have that other part of you. I wish to God you didn’t have to go through what you’ve gone through in your life.” She looked at him again. “But I can’t change any of that. And strangely enough, I don’t want to change you.”

  Mick’s heart began to soar. “Not even my warts?” he asked.

  “Without those warts, it wouldn’t be Mick.” She rubbed his crumpled coat lapel. “Just an empty guy in an empty, slept-in suit.”

  Mick laughed. He loved her quick wit. “So true,” he said.

  But then his look turned serious. “That is why I wanted you to come to my world, Rosalind. I needed you to see its beauty, and its ugliness. I needed you to see what you would be getting yourself into.”

  “Before we got in too deep, as you said,” she said.

  He nodded. “Before hearts get broken, yes.”

  Roz placed her hand on the side of his gorgeous face. He was in a lot of ways a very lonely, scared, vulnerable man. She would never tell him any of that to his face. He wouldn’t be able to take it. But that was what she felt when she looked into his eyes. Others saw coldness. She saw pain. “I think we’re worth giving it a try,” she said.

  Mick could feel a swell of emotion. He was so overcome that he lifted her out of bed, causing her to laugh, and swept her up into his big arms. But when they became eyeball to eyeball, and he could feel her sweet breath, her bare ass beneath his shirt she wore, could see the smoothness of her brown skin, the levity was gone. This was serious and sensual all at once. And Mick kissed her.

  “I know you’ve had your bathe,” he said. “You’re always freshly bathed. But would you care to join me in the shower?”

  Roz knew what he meant. They would shower some, fuck a lot. “Yes,” she said. “I’d love to.”

  Mick smiled again, kissed her again, and carried her into his room-sized master bath.

  After sitting her on the elongated marble countertop, he turned on the shower. By the time he had the shower water running, Roz had unbuttoned his oversized shirt, but had not removed it yet. When Mick saw her sitting there, with the shirt half open, revealing her big brown breasts, and her hair undone and falling half in her face, his throbbing dick began to pulsate.

  He removed his suit coat, and unbuttoned and removed his shirt. And then he removed his shoes, unzipped and unbuttoned his pants, and removed his remaining clothes. Because it felt different this time. It felt more intense. It felt as if he was about to make love to, not just a beautiful woman, but his beautiful woman. That pride of ownership was beginning to take hold. The fact that she stayed, that she didn’t allow his life to scare her away, changed the dynamic in ways neither one of them could have expected.

  Especially Mick. He was looking for somebody to love him. That was what he thought was going to be the most wonderful thing for him. But now he realized, as he stared into the eyes of this wonderful lady, that it just might have flipped on him. And instead of somebody loving him, he just might have somebody to love. And that felt even more powerful.

  Roz felt the fire as it walked to her. She felt his heat as if it had already burned her. And when his smoldering eyes locked onto hers, she felt his heart.

  She wrapped her arms around him as he began kissing her on her mouth. She lifted her head as he kissed her neck and sucked her nipples. She drew up her legs as his fingers fondled the deepest recesses of her vagina, and came up as wet as if he had released inside of her. Which meant to Mick that she was ready. Not for his dick yet. But for him.

  He leaned down, opened her legs, and began licking her and eating her and going down on her in ways that had her not only leaned back on the huge vanity counter, but had her halfway in the sink.

  It felt so good, it felt so intense that she was pushing on his head, to make him stop, when they both knew stopping was the last thing she wanted. He lifted her as he ate her, carried her into the shower stall, and continued to eat her as the water poured on both of them.

  The water felt like calming acupuncture needles to Mick, as he went down so hard on Roz that he needed that calm to balance his heightened sensual appetite. Because he couldn’t get enough of Roz. He held her beneath her thighs, and she held onto him, as he pushed her back against the hot stall and couldn’t stop mouth-fucking her.

  But just when she was on the edge of cum, and just when she was about to scream with joy, he wanted to feel it when it happened. He moved her slightly down, and guided his fully aroused cock inside of her.

  She jerked upward as it shoved inside with one hard thrust and kept going, deep, deeper and nearly to her deepest point. But he reserved that for last. Because he would cum too soon if he took it all.

  He fucked her. He fucked her against that shower stall and watched her bounce up and down every time his cock shoved into her. He moved his ass around and around as his cock did magic tricks inside of her. He was giving her the best that he had. And she was cumming as he gave it to her, over and over, as if neither one of them wanted this to end.

  Until Mick was cumming too. Until he was releasing so much beauty inside of her that all they could do was hold onto each other and experience the joy together. Because it was different now. She made a decision. They were at the sensitive beginning of what they both hoped would be a long-lasting, committed relationship. It was exciting. It was sobering. It was beautiful.

  Over the next several days, Mick did something he’d never done before in his life: he took time off from his work. A complete break. And spent it all with Rosalind. He wined and dined her, made long, passionate love to her, and treated her like his queen.

  Until it was time to leave.

  He flew back to New York with her, just to see her safely home, and that fact alone endured him even more to her. They sat on his private jet, sipping wine, as they made the short trek back to her territory.

  Oddly enough, Mick always felt so comfortable around Roz that he always found himself restful. Around everybody else he was restless. But not around Roz. He was so restful, in fact, that he was lying down, on one sofa-styled leather seat, while Roz sat up across from him. She was going through his things. Not his business things, but his personal things. All in a side pocket by her seat. Things such as his discarded reading glasses, a pair of socks, a shoe horn. Just odd things like that. And then a CD. She pulled it out. “Stevie Wonder: The Definitive Collection.” She looked at Mick. Because of her father, she had an affinity for music too. “You bought this?”

  Mick
looked at what she was talking about. “I did.”

  “When?”

  Since I met you, he could have said. But he wasn’t about to. “Not that long ago.”

  “What, you ordered it online or?”

  “No, actually, I went to a music store and purchased it.”

  Roz smiled. “You walked into a music store for the sole purpose of buying an old Stevie Wonder CD?”

  “That’s right.”

  Roz shook her head. He never ceased to surprise her. “I didn’t know you were a Stevie Wonder fan.”

  “Neither did I. Until I heard one of his songs.”

  “Which one?” Roz asked excitedly.

  Mick reached for the CD. Roz handed it to him. He popped it into the stereo above his lounger and pressed number five. The song, For Once In My Life, came on.

  Roz and Mick both listened to the entire recording, staring at each other. When the song ended, they both were bright-eyed with unshed tears. Tears of joy.

  Roz went to Mick, and he pulled her into his arms. And held her there until the plane touched down, and they were back on her turf.

  During the limo drive to her apartment, Mick still held her: he held her hand. But she could tell something different was on his mind.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked him as their driver drove them slowly through the busy, gritty streets.

  “I want something that I know you don’t want,” he said.

  Roz stared at him. “Such as?”

  “I want you to move into my penthouse at the Carson.”

  He was right. “Why would I want to do that?” she asked. “I have a perfectly fine apartment of my own.”

  “In Brooklyn,” Mick said.

  Roz could have been offended by that. But she understood where he was coming from. “It’s a fine apartment, Mick. It’s perfectly safe, if that’s what you’re worried about. It’s as perfect and safe as any apartment can be.”

  “The Carson would be safer,” he said. “For you.”

  But that was a non-starter with Roz. “Thanks, but no.”

  Mick looked at her, and clutched her hand tighter. “Even though it will make me feel better?” he asked.

  Roz was touched by his concern, but she had to stay true to herself. “I want to make you feel better.” He smiled. “And not just in that way,” she added, punching him in the gut with her free hand. “But I have to be careful.”

  “Careful about what?”

  “I have to make certain that I don’t become your whore, Mick.”

  Mick was mortified. “My whore? I will never view you that way! You’ll never be that to me.”

  “And to be certain of that, I’m going to stay right where I am and we are going to keep doing what we do until . . .”

  “Until what?” Mick asked.

  “Until we get it right.”

  Mick thought about it. Then decided he could live with that. He squeezed her hand tighter. “Just be careful,” he said.

  “I will.”

  “I mean it, Rosalind. Take no chances with anyone. The same way you treated me when we first met and I offered to give you a lift? That’s the way you treat all strangers.”

  Roz smiled. “But you ended up giving me a lift. And a whole lot more.”

  Mick couldn’t help but smile himself. “Forget I used that example,” he said, and Roz laughed.

  After walking her to her second floor apartment inside her Brooklyn brownstone, with further assurances that she would watch out for herself, Mick got back into his limousine to make the journey back to Philly.

  But he had company. Danny Padrone, one of his men who had been working a case for him, had gotten into the limo and was now seated on the backseat.

  “Sorry it took so long, boss,” he said as Mick got in.

  “What do you have for me?” Mick asked.

  Danny handed him the file. “His name is Carmelo Rivera.”

  Mick saw a photograph of Carmelo. A very handsome young man.

  “They dated for almost three years,” Danny went on. “By all accounts it started out pretty well. Rivera worked as a set designer and Miss Graham was teaching acting and picking up acting gigs. But then Rivera lost his job, and had to result to freelancing, but it wasn’t paying the bills. He relied heavily on Miss Graham during that time. And she did help him a lot. But that’s when the jealousy and over-possessiveness started. That’s when he started accusing Miss Graham of cheating on him.”

  Mick continued to look at the various photographs of Roz’s ex. “Was she?” he asked without looking at Danny. Although Mick showed little interest, he was very much interested in the answer.

  “We weren’t able to find any instances of infidelity of any kind,” Danny said. “So no sir, she was not unfaithful to Mr. Rivera.”

  Mick expected that answer, but he was relieved to hear it anyway. “But Rivera thought so?”

  “He thought so, yes, sir. He became obsessed with it. As their relationship began to crumble, his allegations became even more far-fetched. That’s when he posted the nude photos on the internet.”

  Danny handed Mick another folder. “These,” he said.

  Mick took the second folder and opened it. There were nearly ten different pictures of Rosalind lying naked in her bed. Of Rosalind getting out of the shower. There were a couple shots of Rosalind on top of Rivera, making love. Mick’s jaw tightened as he looked at those last two photographs.

  Mick closed the folder and crossed his legs. “Take me to him,” he ordered, and Danny alerted the driver.

  Carmelo Rivera grabbed his surf board and made his way back to the small beach house on the Jersey Shore. It wasn’t his place. He wasn’t even renting it. He was house sitting for an out-of-town friend. A lady friend.

  But when he placed his board in the garage and entered the small house, he was shocked to see two men in his kitchen. The big bulky one was standing up. The muscular one, the extremely well dressed one, was sitting at the table with a folder in front of him. Since Carmelo wasn’t certain if the men were friends of his friend, he remained calm. “May I help you?” he asked.

  “Sit down,” Danny ordered.

  Now Carmelo was getting upset. “You don’t tell me what to do. Who are you? Are you looking for Lacy?”

  Danny went to Carmelo, grabbed him by the arm, and threw him down in the chair across from Mick.

  “What’s going on here?” Carmelo asked angrily. “Who are you people?”

  Mick shoved the folder across the table.

  Carmelo glanced at the folder. “What’s this?”

  “Look at it, prick,” Danny ordered, “and stop asking so many fucking questions!”

  Carmelo was more nervous now. These people looked like Mafia. He had no dealings with Mafia types. What was going on?

  But he opened the folder. The answer, apparently, was in that folder.

  When Carmelo saw the nude pictures of his ex Roz Graham, he actually felt relieved. He looked at Mick. “Nude pics of my girlfriend,” he said. “So what?”

  “There’s a problem with that assessment,” Mick said.

  Carmelo hesitated. He knew Roz was no longer his girlfriend. Was that the problem? Because he spoke as if she still was? All kinds of possibilities raced through his head. What if this guy was her new man? What if there could be some blackmail money in this for him? His anxiety lessened, and he immediately sought more information. “A problem?” he asked. “What kind of problem?”

  “Those are no longer nude photographs, or pics if you like, of your girlfriend. Those are nude photographs of mine.” Mick looked Carmelo in his eyes. “I do not like the idea of those nude photographs of my lady over the internet any more than you like the idea of dying.”

  Carmelo swallowed hard when Mick said that last word. And suddenly he knew blackmailing a man like this was crazy talk. This man was no joke. This man was serious as a heart attack.

  “Both of those matters are not going to be possible,” Mick added.

&n
bsp; Carmelo looked confused because he was. “Both of what matters are not going to be possible?”

  “There is no way that those photographs can stay online, and you live. Those two matters cannot possibly coexist in this space and time.”

  Carmelo’s heart was now racing. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying, dickhead,” Mick answered, “that you take down every single one of those photographs, or you die trying. The choice is yours.”

  “You kept them in a controlled account,” Danny said, “which is good. But you had better sweep it clean. If we find one anywhere, that’s lights out for you.”

  “But it’s not possible to get every single one---”

  “Yes, it is,” Danny said, “and you know it. You just have to be savvy, and you are. I’ve seen your internet footprint.”

  Mick stood up. Danny stood Carmelo up.

  Mick began to walk toward Carmelo’s side of the table. “What do you say, Mr. Rivera?” he asked. “What is it going to be? Life, yours that is, or those photographs?”

  Carmelo nodded. “I’ll take them down,” he said, watching Mick’s approach as if he was fending off an attacker. “I’ll take down every one. I swear.”

  “But in case your word is as useless as the way you treated Rosalind,” Mick said, “I need you to understand the seriousness.”

  Mick was now within an inch of him. “What do you mean?” he asked.

  Mick grabbed Carmelo by his fat neck and smashed his head through the window next to the table, shattering the glass. Cuts immediately opened up on Carmelo’s handsome face and the blood began to gush.

  “This is what I mean,” Mick said angrily. “Do you understand my meaning now?”

  “Yes, sir,” Carmelo was crying. “I understand, sir. Yes, sir!”

  “Hopefully that makes it clearer,” Mick said.

  “It does,” Carmelo insisted. It was all appeasement, but he felt as if he was fighting for his life. “I’ve never seen anything clearer!”

  Mick looked at the pitiful loser, and then let him go.