He placed his hand on the small of her back as she sat in the backseat across from where he had been sitting. He could smell her fresh perfume as she moved past him, and he felt a jolt in his penis when she accidentally brushed against him. If he loved touching her while she was fully clothed, he could only imagine how he was going to enjoy touching her naked body. But all things in time, he thought, as he got on the seat across from her, and Deuce closed the door.
As Deuce got behind the wheel and they began their trek to Jersey, it wasn’t long before Mick found himself slouched, his arm on the middle armrest, and enjoying the fact that she was near. He was a man who always felt tired and on the brink of collapse given his increasingly stressful line of work, but he felt just the opposite around Roz. He felt younger, and vibrant, and bursting at the seams with life and all of its possibilities. It was a strange feeling for Mick, and he was going to savor it.
Roz, too, felt alive and vibrant as they drove to Barry’s house. Although Mick spent a good deal of the ride fielding phone call after phone call, Roz spent that same time observing him. He looked drained to her, as if he was working too hard but had to keep working anyway and nothing or nobody was going to stand in his way. Some women would be offended by his lack of attention, but Roz wasn’t one of them. It was a good sign to her. It was the sign of a man who had his priorities straight. Business and then pleasure. Later, if their association led to something serious, and they actually did become a couple, it would have to flip. Roz would insist upon it. But expecting him to change his style for her now, when he barely knew her, would be ludicrous. Let him handle his business. She was fine with that.
She still didn’t know the true nature of his business, just that he was a businessman, but from the bits and pieces of conversation she couldn’t help but hear, it seemed as if he oversaw a vast empire. She heard him fire somebody, promote somebody, cuss somebody out. He didn’t give a nickel and didn’t take one. Roz was impressed. He could be the most consequential man she’d ever met.
He could also be the most dangerous. She couldn’t say why she felt that way, but she felt that way. He was a bad boy. He’d already made that clear to her. But the fact that he had another side, and she was getting through to that side of him, was exciting. Bad boys didn’t get turned down sexually by some random woman and then show up at her doorstep three weeks later if they didn’t have another side. Mick showed up. He came back.
That meant the world to Roz.
CHAPTER SIX
By the time the limo pulled up at Barry’s big suburban house, Mick was ending his last call. And he waited for the nag. Every woman in his past complained whenever he had to handle business while transporting them to dinner, and he always had to cuss their asses out and remind them that they didn’t mean shit to him and he could put them out right here and right now if they didn’t like it. He was that kind of man.
But Roz proved her mettle again. Because she didn’t complain at all. She seemed perfectly content to sit back and enjoy the ride. Being with him seemed to be enough. Mick wasn’t used to that. And he loved it. She proved her differentness again.
“What are you writing?” Mick asked.
Roz had pulled a slip of paper out of her purse and was writing something on it. “My cell phone number,” she said. “Give me yours.”
Mick smiled at the way she commanded him that way, and then reached into his pocket, pulled out a business card, and wrote his cell phone number on the back. He handed the card to her.
“Thanks,” she said, as she handed her number to Mick. “I like to keep the cell phone number of the person I’m out with in case we get separated.”
Mick smiled again. It would be some trick to get separated like that at a house party, but he didn’t quarrel with her. He liked her efficiency.
Barry Acker and his wife Agnes met them at the door. What surprised Roz was that Barry, a man in his sixties, had a wife who looked younger than Roz. And movie star beautiful too, like a clone of Nicole Kidman, down to the flowing red hair. She wondered if his wife had been one of those brownnosers in one of his plays who had a talent, not for acting, but for wooing directors and producers as if they were born seductresses. But Roz wasn’t going to judge. Maybe it was love.
But when they entered the foyer of the home, and Mrs. Acker made it a point of hugging Mick and then kissing him on the lips, Roz knew better. Love her ass. She was a seductress from way back and even with Barry at her side, she had her sights set on Mick.
Mick, however, immediately pulled back from her, placed his hand on the small of Roz’s back, and pushed Roz slightly forward. “I want you to meet Rosalind,” he said to Agnes. “Rosalind, this is Barry’s wife Agnes.”
Agnes had some acting chops too, Roz thought, because she put on an excellent, Tony-caliber, how thrilled I am to meet you performance. “Hi, Rosalind. It’s so wonderful to meet you!”
“Nice to meet you too, Mrs. Acker.”