Mick Sinatra 2: Love, Lies, and Jericho (9 page)

Mick
Sinatra, a man who bowed to no man, got down on his knees.
 
Roz’s heart dropped through her shoe.

“Rosalind
Anita Graham,” he said with so much emotion that he thought he was going to
lose it, “will you do that most improbable thing, that risky and dangerous
thing, and marry me, sweetheart?
 
Will
you become my first and only wife?”

He didn’t
have a ring, but by the horrid look in her eyes he didn’t need one.
 
She was not about to commit her life to a man
like him.
 
What in the world was he
thinking?
 
He wanted to die where he
knelt.
  
Here he was trying to decide if
he should walk away, without realizing that she was the one who held that
decision in her hands.
 
She was the one
who held his future, his very life, in her hands.
 
And all he could do, as he held his breath in
unbearable agony, was wait for her answer.

Amazingly,
Roz didn’t faint.
 
She thought she
would.
 
She thought, when this day came,
she would completely lose it.
 
That was
why she was looking so distraught.
 
She
thought she was going to pass out.
 
But
she didn’t.
 
She was too happy to
faint.
 
Her heart that had dropped
through her shoe, suddenly soared with unimaginable joy.
 
She knelt down where Mick was, and placed
both hands on the side of his face.
 
Tears were already threatening to break through, but this was
past-feeling now.
 
This was where the
ride or die truly began.
 
This was
dangerous, and risky, and everything else both of them thought that it could
be.
 
And she could not have been happier.

But she had
to be certain.
 
The price was too
high.
 
She had to fully understand what
led him to this point, a point she was beginning to wonder if they would ever
get to.
 
“You want to marry me?”

He nodded.
“More than anything else in this world, I want you to be my wife.
 
Yes, I want to marry you, Rosalind.”

Roz searched
his gorgeous face.
 
She had to be
certain.
 
“Why all of a sudden?”

“All of a
sudden?” Mick was surprised.
 
“I’m late,
what are you talking about?
 
I’m long
overdue.
 
I should have asked you when
you first agreed to relocate to Philadelphia.
 
I should have been man enough then.”

The idea
that Mick didn’t think of himself as man enough concerning anything at all
pleased her.
 
He was showing a
vulnerability he hadn’t shown to her since the night he admitted he was a lousy
father who had work to do to repair his relationship with his children.

“I don’t
deserve you,” he continued.
 
“I’m no
catch, believe me.
 
But I love you so
much it hurts.
 
I love you so much I
sometimes feel, with you by my side, I can do anything.
 
And I’m not giving that up without letting
you know that I’m willing to give you my all.
 
If you agree to be my wife, it’ll be the happiest day of my life.”

Mick
hesitated, but he knew this had to be said too.
 
“And even if you say no and run away from me,” he said, “I’ll still be a
better man for having known you.
 
You’re
a once-in-a-lifetime woman, Rosalind Graham.
 
That’s why I don’t want you to be a Graham any longer.
 
I want you to be mine in every way humanly
possible.
 
I want you to be my woman, and
my wife.
 
Mine.
 
And every man had better know it.”
 
Then he actually found a way to smile that
charming smile of his that he rarely displayed.
 
“Sinatra will look good on you,” he said.
  
“Marry me.
 
You’ll see.”

And that
point of no return Roz thought she had already ventured into, was ventured into
even further.
 
She was over-the-moon in
love with this man.
 
She never thought this
level of happiness was even possible for her.
 
The tears broke free.
 
“Yes,” she
said.
 
“I will marry you, Michello
Sinatra.
 
I’m already your woman, and
every man already knows it.
 
I’ll be
happy, I’ll be proud, to become your wife.”

Mick’s heart
soared through the roof of his soul.
 
He
stood up, grabbing Rosalind with him, and lifted her into his arms.
 
“Oh, baby!” he proclaimed as he hugged her so
tightly, and then kissed her so long and passionately that they both thought it
would hurt.
 
But it didn’t.
 
It felt too good.

It felt so
good that Mick put her back against the wall of that conference room, ripped
the seat of her panties, unzipped and pulled out his dick, and entered her with
a hard thrust that was meant to be shocking.
 
And it was.
 
It was the best shock
to Roz’s system that she could have ever experienced.
 
It was the first time she had a fiancé, and
that fiancé was making love to her.
 
She
ran her hands through his thick hair as he humped on her and pushed deeper into
her folds and fucked her pussy with precision strokes.
 
He was fucking her so hard, and so lovingly,
that his entire body was sweating with passion.

Mick had
never felt this intense about anybody before, and that feeling was reflected in
the way he was putting it on her.
 
His
thick legs, his tight ass, his entire body was pushing into her with an urgency
that caused his muscles to ache.
 
He
wasn’t just fucking her.
 
He wasn’t just
glowing in the feeling of sliding across her wet pussy, a pussy he loved as if
he’d never fucked one like it.
 
But he
was marking his territory for all eternity.
 
Nobody was getting in between he and Roz, and he wanted every human
being to know it.
 
But he especially,
right at this moment, wanted Roz to know it.

And even as
she came, even as she tried to push down that wall to get away from the
intensity of her own cum, to get away from his unrelenting dick, he pulled her
into his arms.
 
He usually gave her room
to experience her orgasm in her own space.
 
But this time he invaded her space.
 
He wanted her to know that she was his, and that her cum could never be
distant from his.
 
He held her as she
came.
 
She melted in his arms.

And it was
so beautiful to Mick, and felt so magnificent, that he began cumming too.
 
Roz felt his release with a hot drop, as if a
rocket had flown out of its silo and landed inside of her.
 
And she tightened around that rocket, causing
Mick to lean his head back in nearly unbearable ecstasy.
 
Because she was marking her territory
too.
 
She was making it clear to Mick
that he was hers just as absolutely as she belonged to him.

Mick knew it
too. He kept pounding into her as he came.
 
He looked at her beautiful face as her vaginal muscles kept tightening
more and more around his cock.
 
It was
the best fuck he’d ever had.
 
It was the
best she’d ever had.
 
Because it was
born, not out of the lust that was surely there too, but out of the love that
surpassed it all.
 
They’d never known
love like this before.
 
It was
shocking.
 
It was freeing.
 
It was sweet.

When it was
over, Mick plopped down in a chair and took Roz with him.
 
They laughed when she fell on his lap and his
penis literally stood back up.
 
Then the
laughter died into a kind of unbridled joy.
 
And Mick looked at her.
 
“You
won’t be sorry, Rosalind,” he said.

“I know I
won’t,” Roz responded.
 
“This is going to
be so wonderful, Mick.
 
There’s no other
man I could ever want.”

Mick stared
at her.
 
“You mean that?”

“Of course I
do!
 
What other man can tear my sexy
panties almost every week just to get inside of them, and I don’t cuss his ass
out?”

Mick
laughed.

“Of course I
mean it” Roz added.
 
“I don’t want
anybody but you.”

“My baggage
and all?”

Roz nodded
happily.
 
“Your baggage and all.
 
And don’t forget I’m no Miss Perfect
either.
 
I have baggage too, pal.”

“Ah,” Mick
said dismissively.
 
“Kid’s stuff.” And it
was, compared to his.

And they
fell into each other’s arms again.
 
“You
know what this means,” Roz said.

Mick pulled
back and looked at her.
 
He looked
concerned, as if she was going to pull the rug out from beneath him.
 
“What does it mean?” he asked her.

“It means
it’s high time you meet my family.”

Roz could
see the change in his eyes.
 
“They won’t
bite,” she assured him.

“A good girl
like you marrying a guy like me?
 
I don’t
know now, Rosalind.
 
They aren’t going to
like it.”

Roz knew her
father, a traveling musician, would be in her corner.
 
But her mother, a conservative, law and order
criminal court judge, was another story.
 
“We’ll see,” she said.
 
“Sometimes
people have the capacity to surprise you.”

“Or not,”
Mick responded.

“Or not,”
Roz admitted.
 
“But it’s a chance we’ll
have to take.
 
I want to have a big
wedding, Mick.
 
A big, beautiful church
wedding.
 
And I want my family, my
mother, my father, and my brother, to be there with me.”

Mick placed
his hand on the back of her slender neck.
 
“Your wish is my command,” he said with a smile.
 
“I’ll just have to make them love me too.”

Roz
laughed.
 
“With my mother?
 
Good luck with that.”
 

But then
Mick’s smile turned into a more serious, contemplative look.
 
Roz noticed the switch immediately.
 
“What are you thinking about?”

Mick
paused.
 
And then he spoke his
truth.
 
“My family,” he said.

“Your
children?”

“My
brother.
 
In Jericho.”
 
He looked at Roz.
 
“We’ll go and meet your family, where, I’m
sure, I’ll be in the hot seat.
 
And then
we’ll go and meet mine.
 
Where, I’m sure,
I’ll be in the hot seat there too.”
 
Then
he frowned.
 
“But it’s time.”

Roz knew how
powerful those words were.
 
Mick left
home when he was a teenager after witnessing his father kill his mother and
then his father go to prison, on the testimony of his big brother Charles, for
life.
 
The courts eventually overturned
their father’s conviction, many years later, but on the day of his father’s
release, Mick took care of the bastard himself.
 
It took a lot for him to tell her that part of his story, but he
eventually told her.
 
Going back home was
nothing more than going back home to Roz.
 
Going back home for Mick was an entirely different reality.
 
“Why now?” she asked him.
 
“Because we’re getting married?”

“Because I
saw Joey last night.
 
Just before I came
to see you.
 
He was trying to become a
big time drug dealer, believe it or not, and was at this club buying a stash.”

Roz was
floored.
 
“A drug dealer?
 
I had no idea!
 
I mean, I know he has some serious attitude
issues, but I never thought he would be that stupid.”

“He’s that
stupid,” Mick admitted.
 
“And I know I
have a hand in that stupidity.”

“What did
you do?”

“I jacked
his ass up.
 
I was going to beat the shit
out of him, I really was.
 
I may have
dropped the ball, I may not have been there emotionally for him, but it was
still unacceptable that any child of mine was going to deal drugs.”

“You told
him that?”

“Yes.”

“What did he
say?
 
Knowing Joey, it was something flip
I’m sure.”

“It
was.
 
He said I used to sell drugs my own
damn self and he was following in my footsteps.
 
What was the big damn deal?
 
That
was the gist of his reaction.
 
But it
wasn’t about his words that got to me.
 
Or even his actions.
 
It was that
look in his eyes, Rosalind.
 
You should
have seen that look.
 
It reminded me of
the look, the hate I used to have in my eyes when I was looking at my father.
 
And now my eighteen year old son was looking
at me with that same hate.”

“But it’s
more complicated with him, Mick,” Roz said.
 
“He has some hate for you,” she said honestly.
 
“I’ve seen it too.
 
But he has a lot of love for you too.
 
I’ve seen that more.
  
It’s not as cut and dry as it was between
you and your father.”

“But that’s
the thing.
 
Because I know it will be cut
and dry for him one day.
 
And my
influence over him will be nothing more than kicking his ass and daring him to
kick mine.”
 
Mick shook his head.
 
“I can’t let it get to that place.”

Roz squeezed
his powerful bicep.
 
She was pleased that
he understood that.

“So I told
him to take that boatload of money he had in his possession, money he claimed
he borrowed from some guy I later found out, by asking around, was a loan
shark, and I made him give it back. Then I told him to show up at SI this
morning.”

Roz was
surprised.
 
“You’re going to let him work
for you?”

Mick
nodded.
 
“I’m going to have to,” he
said.
 
“I’m just beginning to keep an eye
on all of my children.
 
But of all of
them, Joey needs the most help right now.”

Roz
agreed.
 
“I think so too.
 
And I know you’re doing the right thing.
 
But it’s not going to be a smooth transition
with him, so you’ve got to give him time.”

Mick
smiled.
 
“He’s already proven that.”

“Already?
 
What did he do?”

“He cocks an
attitude because I had him working in the mailroom.”

Roz
frowned.
 
“Where did he think he was
going to work?” she asked.

“With my
vice president, or some such higher up,” Mick said.

Roz shook
her head.
 
“That foolish child.
  
So what did you do?”

“I took him out
of the mailroom and placed him in the cafeteria.
 
He’s a busboy now.”

Roz couldn’t
help but laugh and shake her head.

“That will
let me know if he’s in it for the long haul,” Mick said.

“Oh, he’s
not going anywhere,” Roz said.
 
“He’ll
stick around.
 
Busing tables and
all.
 
He wants to be with you that
badly.”

Mick was
banking on that being true.
 
“And the
other reason I feel it’s time to go back home,” he said, staring at her now,
“is you.
 
You need to understand why Mick
the Tick came to be.
 
It started in
Jericho.
 
It’s time to go back.”
           

Roz
nodded.
 
Months ago, he had spoken boldly
of finally going back to Jericho, Maine, to reconnect with the big brother he
hadn’t spoken to in decades, but he never brought it up again.
 
And Roz never brought it up either, knowing
how painful a place that had to be for Mick.
 
Now, on the day of his proposal, he was feeling bold again.
 
And this time, she needed to hold him to it.
 
“I think it’s time too, Mick,” she said.
 
“I need to know your family just as you need
to know mine.
 
And from how you described
your brother, I doubt if he’ll put you on any hot seat.
 
A pedestal is probably more like it,” Roz
added with a smile, and hugged Mick again.

Mick pulled
her tighter into his arms.
 
He
appreciated her hopefulness, but he knew she had no clue.
 
Mick was hardcore.
 
He was a thug to his soul and knew it.
 
But his brother Charles was just hard.
 
She had no idea what kind of raging storm
Jericho held for them.
 
But he had to
face it.
 
After all these years, after
all this talk of going, he had to go and face the ghosts of his past.
 
With Rosalind by his side, he actually
believed he could do it.
 
He never did it
before because his big brother’s rejection would only confirm a harsh truth for
him: nobody in this world truly loved him.
 
But now that he had Rosalind, even with his brother’s rejection, he knew
he still would have somebody to love.
 
And somebody that loved him.

He squeezed
his eyes shut and held her even tighter.
 
Now was the time.
 
There never was
going to be a better time, he felt, than right now.

But first
they had to tell his children.
 
Mick
arranged to meet them for dinner a week later, and he arrived at the restaurant
ahead of Roz.

He stepped
out of his car, handed his keys to the valet, and buttoned his Armani suit coat
as he entered the crowded restaurant.
 
And that was when he saw them.
 
All four of his grown children.
 
All smiles and happiness as if they were the regular American
family.
 
And Mick felt inadequate.
 
This was so far out of his lane that he felt
out of bounds.
 
Give him a board meeting
to preside over.
 
Give him a roughneck to
rough up.
 
But this?
 
He wanted to turn around and leave.
 
But Rosalind was right.
 
It was time, it was overtime, for him to stop
running away from the emotional side of his duties as a dad, and embrace his
children.
 
It was a little late, but he
knew that was his fault too.

But none of
those truths made it any easier.
 
He
stood back, against the wall, and allowed couple after couple to go in front of
him, as he watched his children.
  
He
watched them the way he watched an adversary.
 
He sized them up the way he sized up an opponent.
 
Because he didn’t know them.
 
He didn’t know their strengths.
 
He didn’t know their weaknesses.
 
He had to rely on his instincts.

Adrian was
his oldest.
 
Handsome and strong, but
Mick’s instincts could see some insecurity underneath.
 
He should be the leader of the pack by virtue
of his age alone, but he wasn’t.
 
Teddy
was their leader.

Teddy
Sinatra.
 
His second oldest son.
 
He was a charmer, a lover, but there was a
heart of steel beneath those cool green eyes.
 
Although he looked a lot like Mick, even Mick saw the resemblance, he
wasn’t like Mick at all.
 
That
unfortunate title belonged to his youngest son, to Joey.