CHAPTER FOUR
Early the next morning and Mick was on top of Roz pumping hard inside of her as if he was starved for her.
He had her wrapped into his arms as he did her, and Roz had her chin over his broad shoulder allowing him to ravage her body.
She was enjoying every second of it too.
But tears were staining her large, clear eyes as if she knew it was only a temporary fix for a major-ass problem that was not going away.
But yet in still it felt so good to Roz when he began pouring into her that she was arching and crying out in elation. Nobody but Mick knew how to put it on her. Nobody but Mick.
But when he had poured out and all of her sensations began to ease, and after they laid there several minutes just trying to recover their equilibrium, Mick pulled out of her, laid on his back, and then grabbed her and laid her on top of him. And they laid that way for another several minutes.
Until Roz finally spoke. Their lovemaking wasn’t the only thing hot and heavy.
Last night was still hot and heavy on her mind too.
And not just because of the terror she felt when Nikki called and told them about Teddy’s accident, but because of her anger with Mick.
That was still there. That wasn’t going away so easily.
“My birthday is coming up soon,” she said.
“I’m aware.”
I’m aware? Was that all he had to say? She wanted him to reassure her that he’d at least plan to make an appearance at her party, but she couldn’t even get that out of him. That was why appeasement never worked with Mick. Only hardball did.
That was why she decided to cut the bullshit and go there.
“Coming home late I’m used to. You always come home late.
But not coming home at all? And for three nights in a row?
” She lifted her head from his muscularly-barreled chest and looked at him.
“How would you feel if it was me pulling that shit on you?”
“It wouldn’t be you,” Mick responded.
Roz searched his face. “How can you be so sure?”
“Because I won’t allow it.”
Roz was offended. It was as if he was saying that he did what he did because she allowed it. “You bastard!” she said as she angrily moved to get off of him.
But he pulled her back. “That’s not what I meant,” he said. “I wouldn’t allow you to work like I’m working is what I’m talking about.”
“Then why don’t you stop working like you’re supposedly working since you know I don’t like it? Since you know it’s that serious?”
“It can’t be helped. I’ve got competitors joining forces to outbid me in a rigged game. I’m going through the process of unrigging it.”
Then he took Roz by the chin and lifted her face up so that they were face to face. “I’m out there working. Not fucking around.”
Roz continued to stare at him with a baffled look on her face. “Are you done?”
Mick found her response offensive. “Am I done what?”
“Unrigging it?”
That was better. “Yes,” he responded.
But Roz was still staring at him as if she was mystified by him. “I’m nobody’s fool, Mick.” There was pain in her voice.
Mick considered her. “I know that.”
“You’d better know it,” she shot back as if to make clear to him just how up to here she was getting with him. Then she laid her head back on his chest.
Mick held her tightly in his arms. In a lot of ways their marriage was in shambles.
There was no other way he could view it.
Roz was the hardest woman he’d ever known.
She expected more from him and took more out of him than any woman ever had.
It seemed like it would be the easiest thing in the world for him to dump her and go find himself one of those pliable women that would walk on fire for him and let him do whatever the hell he wanted to do with them.
But that would require him to leave Roz.
That would require him to leave that headache of a woman when there was no way he could see himself doing that.
If he left her, he would no longer have a headache on his hands alright.
But he would most certainly acquire a heartache.
His heart would ache for Roz. It would break too.
And that, to Mick, would be infinitely worse than any other pain their coupling gave to him. And it gave him plenty.
Their marriage was hanging by a thread, alright, and most of it was his fault.
But despite that reality, Mick still could not imagine a scenario where he would completely cut himself off from this unrelenting, never-easy, complicated woman he held in his arms. There was no way he could ever let her go.
She was his vulnerability.
She was his weakness.
And because he knew that, was it sabotage that he was not doing right by her?
Even if it was, he’d never admit it to her or anybody else on the face of this earth, as he rubbed his hand along her ass, craving her again, and held her even tighter.
Within seconds he was entering her. Within seconds she was moaning, giving him permission, and he was inside of her all over again.
And Roz, who never turned Mick down in bed, knew one day she had to. For her own sake and peace of mind and just plain sanity, she had to!
But like all those other days when she could not overcome her weakness for that man, this was not going to be that day.
He did her as only he could, and she was moaning and groaning almost as much as he was.