The Seduction of Dylan Acosta

by Nia Forrester

  “Your career back,” Dylan said. “Your life back.”

  “Dylan, you’re my life. You.”

  She stared at him dumbfounded. Did men even say things like that, really? And mean it?

  Mark always had. From the night they met, when he said they were “kindred” this was the kind of thing he said. The kind of thing women fantasized about hearing from a man.

  And she had a man who said them all the time, but Dylan had never been able to make herself believe it, accept that she was worth that. No matter how many times he told her how important she was to him, it just never, couldn’t seem to, penetrate. Even now as her heart leapt out of her chest, wanting to grab onto his words and hold them close, she doubted.

  Mark seemed to read her mind, and sighed.

  “I have to head over to the ballpark,” he said. “Go back home, Dylan. Go to my parents’ house. Stay there until I come home on Friday. Don’t spend any time thinking about all this.”

  “How can you say that?”

  “Because now I know everything,” Mark said reaching up to touch the side of her face, then dropping his hand to her stomach. “That my wife is pregnant with our baby, and that she did something foolish and misguided to try to save my career. Those are facts I can live with. All of that stuff in the papers? That’s just noise, Dylan. It’s someone else’s alternate reality; we don’t have to make it ours.”

  21

  Dylan idly stroked her naked belly, as was her habit lately when she was in a moment of contemplation. Today had been the season’s final game and a bittersweet occasion for the Mets. They had the best numbers they’d had in almost seven seasons and everyone acknowledged—some of them grudgingly—that Mark Acosta was a huge part of the reason. Still, the rumbling among the fans and sports press was that had he not been distracted by his personal life, the team would have done much better.

  A reporter even had the temerity to ask him to his face whether he thought his marital difficulties may have been a factor in where the team wound up.

  Mark had laughed good-naturedly at the question and shook his head. Where the Mets ended up, he said, was better than where the team’s ended up in almost a decade. So if my so-called marital difficulties had something to do with that, maybe a divorce will put us in the World Series.

  The room had erupted in laughter, signaling their approval of the way he had cleverly put an end to questions about his personal life. But press conferences were one thing. It was quite another to try to silence the tabloids. It was now well into the fall, and they had not tired of documenting with painstaking detail, Dylan’s growing midsection and every single trip to her OB’s office, making much of the time when she was without her wedding and engagement rings, and similarly speculating about when Mark was with her and when he was not.

  Now, as Dylan watched the silhouette of her husband walk naked toward their bed, her admiration was not just for his physical beauty but for the man he was. He had weathered it all with such equanimity, it was incredible to witness. She aspired to his self-confidence, his certainty.

  Mark lowered himself on the bed next to her and turned on the light next to the bed. Dylan had recently put in a very low wattage light bulb because her husband had begun to do the opposite of everyone else in the world and wanted the lights on when he came to bed, enjoying the ritual of falling asleep while looking at and stroking her pregnant belly.

  She was just past the five-month mark and her stomach was taut and solid to the touch, a fact Mark found endlessly fascinating. He pressed it tentatively, rubbed it with the heel of his hand or smoothed his cheek against it. Dylan was fascinated with his fascination and stared down at the top of his head as he fidgeted with her new body, smiling to herself.

  Tonight he kissed her stomach, a kiss so feather-light it caused goosebumps to rise on the surface of her skin, and without a word, he looped an arm just beneath her abdomen and turning her on her side, pulled her back against him. Immediately, Dylan felt her body soften in anticipation. This was the position in which they most frequently made love. Mark had admitted to not wanting to risk any physical configuration that had him hovering above her, or penetrating too far, too hard, or too deep.

  Frustrated that she could not feel all of him, Dylan had taken to the internet, looking for visual depictions of safe for pregnancy sexual positions. She had stifled her smile while he looked them over with all the seriousness of someone studying the dimensions of an atom under a microscope.

  Finally he “approved” two other positions, but this remained his favorite, and Dylan had to admit, there was something sexy about the slower, sensuous and more restrained movement that it made necessary. Still, she was sure that as soon as she’d given birth and had the go-ahead from her OB, she was going to attack him like a wild woman. She missed the kind of sex they’d had that left her aching for days afterward.

  Mark’s hand came around and he lifted her leg pulling it back so that it rested on his and she was open to him, and cupping her breast, gently because they were already fuller and much more sensitive. Dylan felt him press against her and heard him inhale between clenched teeth when he realized she was already wet, ready for him even without foreplay. It had been like this for about a month now, now that the morning sickness was over with. She seemed to be always ready. If Mark so much as looked at her in a certain way . . .

  As he slipped inside her, Dylan pushed back against him, flexing her leg that was hooked over his, using it to pull him even closer.

  “Okay?” he breathed. “Is this okay?”

  “Yes, Mark . . .” Dylan reached back, gripping his buttock, pulling him towards her, wanting him to take her harder, the way he used to, knowing that he wouldn’t.

  But this still felt good, so, so good.

  Everything was so much more sensitive since her pregnancy. All he had to do was put a finger in that magic spot between her legs and she would explode so she shoved his hand away when he tried now, wanting it to last, this delicious silken feeling of him stroking the deepest parts of her as he moved slowly back and forth. Dylan threw her head back and angled it so he could kiss her, craning to reach his tongue.

  “Dios mío,” he gasped into her mouth. “You’re . . . so much softer, so much hotter . . .”

  His hand on her breast moved so he was holding a nipple which he squeezed between two fingers and that quickly, damn him, she was coming, one wave after the next, after the next and Mark tensed, feeling her tighten about him.

  “Shit,” he said. “Coño. I can’t . . . I can’t . . .”

  While she was still on the wave, feeling it roll over and throughout her, Mark had pulled away and spread her legs, lowering his mouth over her, probing with his tongue, kissing her the way her did her mouth, tasting her, drinking her, owning her.

  “That’s . . . that’s cheating,” Dylan managed over her moans. “Come back inside me . . . oh god, Mark . . .”

  And so she was gone again, pulled under by the force of yet another orgasm, her senses splintering into a million incoherent tiny pieces. When she opened her eyes and felt like she might be able to make sense of her surroundings once again she realized that Mark was kneeling between her legs, sitting back on his heels. He pulled her up toward him so Dylan was arched backward her buttocks resting on his thighs, and drove into her. The angle caused him to strike a spot inside her that was sensitive almost to the point of being painful and she panted, acclimating herself to newness of the sensation.

  Mark pulled her back and forth, simultaneously swirling his hips and then he pressed his thumb against her clitoris and she exploded yet again, screaming this time, not sure she could take anymore. He removed his hand, placing it instead on her stomach, making gentle circles, caressing her, almost soothing her as though to reassure himself that their energetic lovemaking would bring no harm to their baby. Touched by the gesture, Dylan forced herself to open her eyes and they met his which were unfocused and heavy-lidded.

  “I love you,” she b
reathed.

  And it was as though her words had pulled a trigger inside him because that was when Mark began to spasm, and she felt his release deep inside her, filling her, making her whole.

  They were both still for a few moments until he slowly, almost carefully pulled out, collapsing beside her and locking an arm just beneath her breasts at her ribcage pulled her close against him.

  “Okay?” he asked, his breathing still uneven.

  “Yes. Perfect,” she said.

  Dylan felt softly content, like someone floating away on a cloud. She stroked the smooth hair on his forearm. If she were a cat, this is when she might purr. Mark reached around and down between her legs, pressing two fingers gently into her and then holding them up to look at them.

  Dylan laughed softly. “Every time we have sex lately you do that. What are you doing? Checking your semen for proper consistency?”

  “No, the baby . . .” Mark said holding her close again. “Checking for blood. Making sure I didn’t . . .”

  Dylan turned so she was facing him, feeling one of those scary-strong waves of love that sometimes hit so hard they left her breathless.

  “Didn’t what?” she asked, kissing him. “Break something?”

  “Yeah,” he said seriously, his voice hoarse.

  “Mark . . .”

  Dylan’s heart swelled. Sometimes he just rendered her speechless. All she could do was burrow close, burying her face in his neck.

  As she lay in bed, windows open, trying to get comfortable for a nap with the increasing pressure and weight of her distended belly, and hoping to catch some of the ocean breeze, Dylan could hear Mark and his cousins, noisy and boisterous, arguing over yet another card game. And amidst all the male voices, Ava’s higher pitch. The entire family was back at the same villa in La Romana where they’d stayed in last Christmas, but this time, Dylan insisted that her friend come along, telling her that she would never forgive her if somehow she went into early labor in the Dominican Republic and Ava was not there to see her goddaughter born.

  But in truth, Dylan was very unlikely to go into labor. She was only eight months along and her OB said everything was progressing nicely, even though he’d advised against the plane ride to a foreign country. Dylan had neglected to share that particular bit of information with Mark who had thankfully missed the doctor’s appointment that day—a highly unusual occurrence—because he was helping Miri move into her new apartment near the university.

  Finally giving in to the knowledge that she would never get to sleep with all the racket outside, and the unrelenting heat in the room, Dylan forced herself up into a sitting position and grabbed the remote, switching the television on, not much caring what she watched. The overhead fan was producing what seemed like a strong enough gust but these days she seemed to be hot all the time, no matter whether no one else was.

  Even now, she was wearing the thinnest of thin cotton tanks and boy-shorts and she still felt as though the room was sweltering. They’d been in the DR for five days and for most of that time, all Dylan wanted to do was sleep, and even that she didn’t do too well. Now she would give anything to be able to go to sleep on her stomach. After this pregnancy, she was pretty sure she would never, ever want to go to sleep on her back again. As if to rebuke her for her complaining thoughts, the baby squirmed inside her, shifting enough that Dylan could make out what looked like an elbow or a knee rising on the surface of her abdomen. Smiling, she propped herself up to witness it.

  The first time he’d seen the baby move, Mark’s eyes had grown wide in wonder and for the next several weeks, he tried various tricks to get it to happen over and over again just so he could watch. From feeding Dylan spicy and sugary foods to playing music with headphones pressed to her stomach, he was relentless until Dylan began swatting him away. Even more than she was, he was eager for her to give birth and speculated endlessly about who their baby daughter would look like.

  A familiar voice and face onscreen caused Dylan to turn her focus back to the television and sit up. Ray Hernandez. She hadn’t thought about him in ages. The television was tuned to ESPN because it was the first and last channel Mark watched each day. Ray was being interviewed in what looked like the living room of his New York apartment. The apartment Dylan had first visited when Cindy invited her over just after Mark left for his first spring training.

  Did that mean he and Cindy were back together?

  That question was promptly answered when the camera frame widened and Cindy came into view. She was sitting next to Ray and their hands were clasped together. Dylan’s eyebrows shot up and she reached for the remote, turning up the volume.

  . . . to lose perspective, Ray said, finishing a thought.

  And what about you Cindy? the interviewer, who was out of view asked.

  I would echo what my husband said. She nodded, looking at Ray who smiled back at her, his eyes earnestly affectionate. We’ve had quite a time of it, but I think it was all for the best in the end.

  Dylan studied them, these two people whose lives she had become so intimately familiar with, and realized that she still had no idea whether the sentiments they expressed were genuine.

  “Hey, do you want . . ?”

  Miri had come walking in and stopped in her tracks when she saw Ray Hernandez on the television screen. She kicked off her flip flops and folding her legs beneath her, settled on the bed next to Dylan, leaning back against the headboard.

  There had to have been a seminal moment, a time when it all came together for you, the interviewer said. For each of you. Ray, you want to go first and tell me what yours was?

  Ray looked at Cindy who Dylan now noticed seemed to be less carefully put-together than she normally was. She looked less severely ‘constructed’ and more like a woman who had the means to take care of herself and did. Her hair was darker, and she wore less make-up. She looked almost pretty.

  For me it was when I had to go to my lawyer’s office and I saw the stack of papers that would dissolve my marriage, Ray said, shaking his head. And I thought, my family, my life means more to me than this. This stack of papers couldn’t be all I let it come down to. That’s all I kept thinking.

  But there had to be more to it than that, the interviewer probed. To make you and your wife reconcile, I mean. After all, there were some pretty serious allegations out there . . .

  Dylan held her breath, knowing what was coming.

  . . . that you were engaged in an affair with a teammate’s—Mark Acosta’s—wife and that the affair had produced a pregnancy.

  At this question, Ray turned to Cindy who straightened in her seat and pursed her lips for a moment.

  Dylan waited and felt Miri’s hand on hers.

  On the television screen Cindy took a deep breath.

  One of the most regretful things about this whole period, she said, for me at least is that there was so much collateral damage. There was never an inappropriate relationship between my husband and Mark Acosta’s wife. She’s a friend and someone who was hurt . . .

  But those pictures that surfaced, the interviewer said, sounding skeptical.

  Were taken entirely out of context, Ray interjected. We were all in Palm Springs. My wife was there as well . . . He looked at Cindy who nodded. And we were going through a tough time. Dylan Acosta was a friend. To both of us.

  Dylan exhaled and looked at Miri who was smiling. But it was strange. She was supposed to be feeling more . . . vindicated. And she did feel that, but not with the intensity she might have expected.

  Even after she was content that Mark and his family did not and could not believe about her all the things the tabloids and sports rags were saying, Dylan convinced herself it was important “to set the record straight” for the public. Corey had tried for a time to convince Mark that they should do an interview, much like the one she was watching right now, that would clear the air; and Dylan had supported the idea. But Mark had been adamant.

  Dylan, he’d said. No. They don’t get to
have that much of us. We’re not going to give them that.

  And she’d tried to understand what he meant even while she didn’t entirely agree with it. After everything that had been said, she wondered, how could he not want people to know it was untrue? Especially since it was said about his wife.

  But now, watching Ray and Cindy, submitting their marriage for public analysis and inspection, Dylan understood Mark’s misgivings. Having to sit there and explain their struggles, justify them, somehow cheapened those very struggles, reduced them to something just short of a reality show spectacle. Dylan could not imagine wanting to do that to what she had with Mark. Her life with him and their family, their soon-to-be born baby—that was all too precious to expose to strangers who at the end of the day still would not believe . . .

  And as if to underscore her point, onscreen the interviewer’s face came into view. He was a brisk young man with rigid television hair, clear blue eyes and a face practiced in fake empathy.

  Well Ray, you do know there will be doubters, he said. You’ve had quite the reputation over the years . . .

  Much of it deserved, Ray acknowledged. I’m not a perfect man.

  No man is, Cindy said, smiling at her husband.

  At that moment, Mark came walking in. He was shirtless and barefoot, wearing wrinkled white linen shorts that hung on his hips, his skin dark from hours on the beach, with a hint of sunburn on his shoulders and nose. Over the past five days he hadn’t bothered shaving and had a shadow across his face that made him even sexier as far as Dylan was concerned.

  Seeing his sister and wife reclining on the bed, he came toward them smiling, his face relaxed and happy. Dylan smiled back at him. He threw himself on the huge bed, between Miri and Dylan.

  “Mark, be careful!” Miri said, protectively reaching out to shield Dylan’s abdomen.

  Mark moved up to place a hand on his wife’s stomach, replacing it with his lips, pressing a kiss into the fabric of her tank top and then gently resting his head there.