CHAPTER NINETEEN

By the time Mick made it upstairs, Roz was still in the shower. He removed his clothing and would have just gone to bed and dealt with that shit tomorrow, but when he went into the bathroom to pee and he saw Roz through the shower door slumped against the wall as if she was too exhausted to move, he hurried over and opened the door. When he saw that she was crying, and when she looked up with those sweet, caring eyes, his heart dropped. And he quickly stepped into the shower and pulled her into his arms.

For several seconds Roz held Mick as tightly as Mick was holding her and she sobbed in his arms.

"Why do you keep doing this to us?" she cried as he held her. "Why do you keep doing this?"

Mick wanted to tell her that he hadn't done anything to them, but he knew that wasn't entirely true. He just held her.

But when she looked up into his eyes in that way that always broke him, he leaned down and kissed her reassuringly. His words couldn't reassure her, but his body could. And he knew that. Because that reassuring kiss became a passionate kiss and then both of them were caught up in that way that always revealed itself when they needed it most.

Mick lifted Roz up and slammed her back against the wall. Roz wrapped her legs around his big body. And when he lifted her even higher and moved his face between her legs, she ran her fingers through his hair so intentionally that she could feel every contour of his head. Her own head was lifted upward, as the intensity of how he was doing her was taking her to that place of euphoria that provided the antidote to her pain.

When he slid her body down that shower wall, he sucked her breasts hard and unrelenting and with an urgency they both were feeling. But it was when he entered her that he knew, in that moment he thrust into her with a hard, stinging thrust, that she was his again. That they were on the same page again. That nobody was ever going to take her away from him, or him from her.

Slapping sounds were all that could be heard in that shower stall as they made love for what seemed like a full hour. And even after they both came, Mick wasn't done. He carried her out of the shower, dried them both off, and then carried her to his bed where he got on top of her and made love to her again.

Roz was squirming in bed, as those feelings overtook her body again, and her pain and Bella Caine and what Duke felt he was forced to do to protect her honor became faint memories as all she could see and think about and experience was Mick. He had that way of taking her there. And he took her even harder than he took her in the shower. He took control of her body until it wasn't even hers anymore. She belonged to him. And she loved it.

When they came, it was Roz who broke loose first. Her orgasm had her wriggling and arching and squeezing and scratching Mick's back so passionately that Mick came too. And as he poured into her, he began kissing her, which only heightened their passion. They came hard. And for such a long time that it didn't seem possible that they were ever going to stop.

Until they stopped.

Until they were so emptied of every ounce of passion they had within them that there was absolutely nothing left. Leaving it all on the court might have been a basketball phrase, but it was exactly what they had done.

It would take several more minutes before either one of them had the ability to move. And that was when Mick finally pulled out of Roz and laid on his back. That was when Roz cuddled up against him and he placed his arms around her. They remained as they were for several minutes more.

But as the time ticked away, so did their euphoria. And suddenly they were back to reality. Suddenly they were back to who was Patrick and why did Mick have Bella Caine on his arm again.

It was hardest on Roz. She couldn't get over that video image. And the pain she saw, not just on Duke's face, but on Jackie's face too. They loved their parents. It would break their hearts if their parents divorced. Would break Roz's heart too. But she knew it had to be addressed. They were going to slip and fall and break their necks from all the bullshit they swept under rugs.

She wasn't sweeping this one under.

"Mick?"

Mick knew that tone. He steeled himself. "Yes?"

"Did you fuck her?" It was blunt and Roz wasn't going to back down from it. "And if you did," she added, the pain all over her face, "did you use protection?"

Mick felt enraged when she asked him that question. As if he'd do anything to jeopardize her safety. He looked at her. "There was no need for protection," he said to her.

"That's not what I asked you."

Mick's patience, such as it was, left. "That's my answer. Don't ask me a question like that again."

Roz looked at him. "I'll ask you any question I damn well please. Why were you in Paris with Bella Caine? Answer that, motherfucker."

Mick said nothing. To him, he said all that needed to be said.

And that angered Roz even more. "Like I said," she said, "you do you. I'm damn sure gonna start doing me." Then she got her naked body out of that bed, went to the bathroom, and slammed the door.

Mick ran his hands through his hair. You bastard, he said of himself. But he was who he was. And he knew he couldn't change. Because he knew he had to be that bastard to keep his family safe and protected. He had to be that bastard to keep his enemies at bay. And if that bastard ever ceased to be the brutal asshole he was, Mick knew better than anybody alive that he would disintegrate in spectacular fashion, and take Roz and the children straight down with him.