The Gulfstream G650, Mick’s luxurious private jet, had been in the air for two-plus hours of the seven-hour flight, a flight from Philly to Maine, and Mick and Roz had showered together, and were now in bed together.

Roz snuggled closer against Mick.  She was on her side, and he was on his back, and both were naked, exhausted, and ready for this nightmare to be over.  After nearly thirty minutes of quiet rest, Mick turned onto his side, too, and put his arm around Roz.  His hand rubbed her bare back, and moved further down until he was rubbing her bare ass.

 Roz smiled.  Mick smiled too.  “You like?” he asked.

“Feels good,” Roz said.  “This would have been a nice break from the hustle and bustle of Philly, if we were going for a different reason.  A very different reason.”

Mick knew it, too.

“Why didn’t you call your brother,” she asked, “and let him know we’re coming?”

“I don’t want to alarm him unnecessarily.  It’ll be the middle of the night when we arrive there.  Arianna still has to believe that we’re her target.  My brother may be next on her shit list, but right now I need her focused on me.  I’ll look out for Charles.”

Roz smiled.  “If Big Daddy was here, he’d say it’s the other way around.”

Mick laughed.  “He would say that, wouldn’t he?”

But then Roz turned serious.  “Were you close to her, Mick?”

“Arianna?” he asked.  “No.  I never met the woman.  I just knew about her through my surveillance work.”

“I meant Natalie Vichy,” Roz said.

A sad look appeared in Mick’s eyes.  “We were never close.  But we went way back.  So yeah, it was unfortunate.  But you can’t leave these fuckers alive, Rosalind.  They’ll come back to bite you in the ass every time.”  He squeezed her ass.

Roz nodded.  “I know that’s true.  You taught me that, too.”

“I learned the hard way,” Mick said.  “But I learned.”

Mick took her chin, and lifted it to his face.  Her chocolate-brown eyes mesmerized him.  “When I go to confront Arianna,” he said, “I need you to understand something.”

Roz stared into his stark, green eyes.  “What?”

“I will not allow you to come with me.”

Roz was surprised to hear it.  “Then why did you bring me along if I can’t be there?”

Mick stared at her.  He hated to admit it, but he knew he had to.  “I didn’t want to . . . I couldn’t . . ..”  He paused.  His look was serious, and cautious.  “After what happened at your office,” he continued, “I couldn’t bear the thought of being in another state without you.  For some crazy reason, I feel as if I’m the only one who can protect you properly.  I don’t feel that way about anybody else.  I know the twins and Gloria are in excellent hands with Ted and Joey.  Nothing will happen to them; their brothers will see to that.  And if they don’t, Deuce will.  But I feel a different weight, a different responsibility, when it comes to you.”

Roz studied him.  She knew he was riddled with guilt about the dangerous situations she found herself in during the course of their marriage, but he rarely verbalized those feelings.  They rarely talked about it.  Maybe he’d open up to her this time?  “But why, Mick?” she asked him, to see if he would.  “Why do you feel such an extra weight when it comes to me?”

Mick continued to rub her small butt and stare into her eyes.  It was love, and he knew it.  It was that can’t live without you; you hold the key to my heart kind of love he swore up and down he’d never have for anybody.  But that was the kind of love he had for Rosalind.

He turned onto his back again, and lifted her on top of him.  Then he kissed her.  And Roz knew what that meant.  Once again, he was not going to tell her.  Once again, he was going to show her, instead.

He continued to kiss her, and rub her, as he held her in his arms.  And when they stopped kissing, and his hands moved between her legs, massaging her clit and rubbing her folds, she laid her head on his shoulder.

From the window in the plane’s bedroom, Roz could see the clouds.  When she was a struggling actress in New York, and trying with all she had to break through the noise and rejection and disappointments, Mick came along.  She turned him down.  She never in a million years wanted a ladies’ man like him anywhere near her life.  She’d had too many bedhopping boyfriends in the past, and she wasn’t going to settle like that.

But she gave love a chance.  She gave Mick a chance at bat.  And other than a few hiccups, like his penchant for staying out all night when he needed to handle business, while not bothering to phone and let her know, he hit it out of the park.

And he was about to do so again, in the bedroom sense, Roz thought, as he lifted her body again, and began sucking her breasts.

Mick had a thing for Roz’s breasts.  They were ample, but not super-big like some women he’d slept with in the past.  But it wasn’t the size for him.  It was the way sucking her made him feel.  He always expanded when he sucked her: often to a point where he had to make a move.

But he held back.  He had a gift for slowing it down, too.  Because he wanted more of her.

And he got it when he moved her further up and his mouth moved down her sleek, dark body.  He was kissing her as he made his way down, until she was hovering over his face and his mouth was between her legs, sucking the shit out of her.

Roz held onto the headboard as his mouth made long love to her.  She jerked her head back, with her long hair rolling down her back, and closed her eyes.  Her breasts were still wet and inflamed from what his mouth did to them just moments before.  Now it was her vagina’s time.  Now her vagina was feeling the heat, too.

Mick mouth-fucked Roz longer than usual.  Because it wasn’t just about getting off.  It was never just about that when he was with her.  But it was even more than mere love, too.  He needed to show her what he meant by that added weight he carried for her.  He wanted to show her all about that can’t live without you, weak-kneed love that he’d never admit out loud, but needed her to know all the same.

And when he moved Roz back down on top of his naked body, and entered her, she knew it as sure as she knew her name.  No man could put it on her the way Mick put it on her without loving her in a very special way.

And he wasn’t letting up.  He was fucking her so hard she felt sparks of fire inside of her.  He held her down, and gyrated in her pussy so long and so hard that Roz had not one, but two major orgasms in a row.  And she was working on a third. . .

Mick was cumming, too, in one, big wad shot that caused him to let out a grunt that they both knew every member of their flight crew had to have heard.

But Mick didn’t give a fuck.  He couldn’t control these kinds of feelings.  He couldn’t pretend this was just another woman on top of him, and all he wanted from her was to get his rocks off.  He wanted her heart, more than her body.  He wanted her love, more than her sex.  He wanted Rosalind above any other woman.  And he had to let her know.

When he finally had no liquid left to pour inside of Roz, his arms fell from around her and laid on the bed.  He was too weak to even hold his wife.

Roz looked at him and smiled.  She was weak, too: she was weak for him.

“I know what you mean now,” she assured him, “about that extra weight.”

Mick looked at her with loving eyes.  He was pleased that she got it; that Rosalind always got it.  And he found the strength, despite the impossibility, to hold her anyway.