Worth the Drive

by Mara Jacobs

  Ron was fair, blond and blue-eyed just like herself. The golden couple, people had called them.

  She’d thought they were.

  Darío was smaller than Ron in height, his body more compact, his strength lean and compressed. No bulging biceps that Ron had worked so hard to keep up. She ran her hands up Darío’s arms, as if to prove the difference to herself. She liked the way they felt. There was no denying his strength, it just wasn’t so blatant.

  His hands went to her waist, gently pushing her down to her back, then skimmed her panties off. He knelt between her legs, looking at her. She opened her eyes, knowing what look she’d see on his face. She’d seen it on Ron’s face every time they made love, even in the end. Awe. Reverence.

  She supposed she should like that, but it always unsettled her. She knew she had a great body by society’s standards, and if she’d had to work for it, she’d take more pride in it. But, like her high cheekbones and startling blue eyes, she’d been born with these genes, and her body was no more her doing than the shape of her mouth.

  But Darío’s look was not one of awe or reverence. He did not look at her like she was a prize that he’d won, one he did not deserve. He looked at her with appreciation, sure, but more desire than devotion. More wanting than worshipping. And then he gave her that smile and she knew this would not be anywhere near what she’d experienced with Ron.

  His hand went to her blond curls, fingers probing, separating, searching. He found her wet and swollen. A soft moan escaped her lips, her head fell back.

  “No, Katie, look at me,” he whispered. When she did, he flashed her another smile and began stroking her on her bud which was quickly becoming inflamed. “You feel so good. You are so wet, so ready for me. Do you want me inside of you?”

  She could only nod her head, so swept up in the sensation. “Tell me, Katie.”

  She could barely gasp out the words, he had her so close to the edge now, his fingers circling her clitoris with expert care, quickening his rhythm. “I want…I want… Oh God, that feels so good, don’t stop doing that.” She dropped her head back again, her neck unable to bear the weight.

  “Look at me, Katie, watch while I make you come. Watch my fingers dance on you. Watch what they do to you. What you make happen, Katie.” His smile was gone now, but there was no edge in his voice. He didn’t seem to be playing power games, but more that he just wanted Katie to share this moment with him.

  She raised her head, came up on her elbows and watched as Darío stroked her into oblivion. When the shudders overtook her, her elbows gave out and she flopped, gracelessly back onto the bed. She didn’t care. She only cared that this feeling went on and on. He tried to oblige her, coaxing and teasing more out of her, finally letting her come down.

  When her breathing felt as though it may – someday – return to normal, she looked up at him, expecting to find a self-satisfied smile. He only looked back at her with a heat and desire that took her breath away. “I want you inside me,” she whispered.

  He nodded and removed his hands from her, causing her to moan again. He ran his hands down her legs, leaving a trail of heat, and took hold of her ankles. He brought them up to his body, kissing the soles of both her feet, then placing them over his shoulders. He saw the look of shock in Katie’s eyes. “Trust me, this will be good.”

  It wasn’t as if she and Ron hadn’t tried every position imaginable. But over seventeen years. This man had her doing creative things with him on their first night together.

  Their only night together, she reminded herself, and allowed her legs to relax, his shoulders taking their weight.

  He entered slowly, but without hesitation. “Sí, you are muy dangerous, Gata.”

  It had been so long. To have a man inside of her, to feel his pulse deep within her. To be joined. To belong to someone, if only for a while.

  He began to move, his eyes never leaving hers. He found different rhythms, tried different speeds, teased her with pulling out till she moaned for more. When she was near to another climax, he seemed to know, letting himself go at his natural pace, pounding into her as she’d wanted, grasping her hips as she watched her ankles bounce on his shoulders until they both came in deep, loud gasps.

  It wasn’t love. It wasn’t undying passion. It was physical. It was raw. It was exactly what she needed.

  There was no warmth, but there was definitely heat.

  Heat that caused a thaw in Katie’s soul. She thought of those cold commercials where the person freezes solid and then with the right remedy, the ice around them cracks and they go on with their daily lives. Her body felt like it was cracking, as if something cold was falling away and she could now go on with her daily life. She could live again.

  Darío was her remedy.

  He played on, his groove just a little off from what it had been the previous two days, but no one seemed to be making a charge up the leaderboard, so he’d probably be in the final pairing tomorrow.

  “Not quite what it was the last two days, Guv, but no one seems to be making a game of it,” Binky said, echoing Darío’s thoughts.

  “A bit different today, without your good luck charm here, right?” Binky teased.

  He pulled his eyes from the gallery to nod at Binky as they walked to the green on eighteen. He’d watched the crowd today much more than he normally did. He knew Katie wouldn’t be there, that at this moment she was on a plane headed back to Michigan? Perhaps she’d even landed by now. But a small part of him had held out hope that maybe she would change her plans, maybe she’d decide to stay for the weekend.

  He’d seen a flash of blond hair the exact shade as Katie’s when he’d been on the third hole, but had been disappointed. He had an image of Katie below him, her slender ankles hooked over his shoulders. If he was honest with himself, he’d been thinking about her in that position since Barclay had mentioned it on the course Thursday. He was immensely relieved that they were his shoulders and not Barclay’s.

  Bah! He should not let a woman take away his focus on the course like this. It was certainly not the first time he had ended up in bed with a woman he’d met on the course. It wasn’t a regular occurrence, but when you were on the road over thirty weeks a year, sometimes it became a necessity. Still, Darío much preferred bedding a woman he knew and liked rather than one for the physical comfort.

  But Katie was not like those women, of that he was sure. And that was why he was thinking about her rather than possibly winning a golf tournament for the first time in a very, very long time.

  He needed to win this tournament. Winning was important to him. That’s what got him on the cover of magazines and newspapers. The third place finisher didn’t have his name and picture on the front page. And that was important to Darío. There was someone out there he wanted to show that he was a winner.

  Determined to shake Katie from his mind and get back to the task at hand, he asked, “How was the poker game last night, Binky?”

  Binky shrugged as he cleaned off Darío’s four iron he’d just used to knock the ball four feet from the pin. “Same as always. We all thought we had a chance, but Franny walked off with all our money.”

  Darío smiled. He didn’t ask about the game every week, but it seemed that whenever he did the story was the same. Leave it to a woman to walk into a man’s domain and leave him destitute.

  Yes, today, without Katie on the course, even leading the tournament, he felt destitute. He’d felt it when he’d woken to find her gone from his bed, and he’d not been able to shake the feeling all day. Images again rose of Katie, of her long limbs slung over his shoulders, of her body shuddering beneath his. It was a night he would not soon forget.

  It had been wonderful.

  It had been awful.

  Well, not exactly awful, but awkward, different. So unlike what she was used to.

  Different from Ron is what you really mean.

  Her body still tingled in places that Darío had paid close attention to. No, definitely not aw
ful. But very, very different.

  Katie looked out the window of the plane. They were over the heartland, but it looked like one big brown blob to her. She slid down the window shade and leaned her head back, thinking maybe she could catch up on some of the sleep she missed last night.

  “What time did you come into the room? You look so tired, KitKat,” Lizzie asked from the seat next to her.

  Lizzie’d been sound asleep when Katie had crept into the room at six-thirty in the morning. She’d been able to use the bathroom and slide into her bed without waking Lizzie. “I’m not sure, it wasn’t very late. What time did you go to sleep?”

  “I’ve been so tired lately, I fell asleep at ten-thirty, can you believe that? How lame, eh?”

  “Not so lame. It must have been shortly after that when I got in. I was out the minute my head hit the pillow. All that fresh air and walking the course did me in.”

  “So, how was last night? Was I right, did Darío have something more in mind than just dinner?” Lizzie nudged her in the universal “hanky-panky” way, while raising her eyebrows.

  Katie laughed. No, Darío had nothing more than dinner in mind. It was she who’d changed his mind. “Nope. All he was after was dinner. Sorry, no scoop here.”

  Lizzie leaned back, disappointed. “Man, we’re so old, no good scoop after a two-day whirlwind of meeting pro golfers. We needed Alison here to liven things up.”

  Katie thought about how lively things had gotten last night, but kept her mouth shut, only nodding in agreement with Lizzie. She wasn’t sure why she didn’t tell Lizzie about sleeping with Darío. Lizzie wouldn’t think any less of her. In fact, Lizzie and Alison both had been encouraging her for the last couple of months to get back into the dating scene.

  She’d never had a one-night stand before. She supposed she should feel bad about it, but she didn’t. Only one hit and run in her thirty-six years, that wasn’t too bad. She didn’t think they’d be making her wear a scarlet “A” just yet.

  It wasn’t like there was any kind of future with Darío. She’d left his room without waking him to make sure of not having to talk with him. She had been so uncharacteristically clumsy with him she was afraid what a tender goodbye could have turned into. The way she’d been going, blood could possibly have been drawn.

  Funny how clumsy she was with Darío. She’d never been that way before, and certainly not when being intimate with Ron. Well, first times with people can be awkward, she told herself. Even as she did, the memory of her first time with Ron came flooding back.

  He’d gotten a room at a Bed and Breakfast in Saugatuck, a couple of hours from East Lansing. It was a rare Friday night without a hockey game for him. They’d been dating about three weeks and they both knew that going away for the night could only mean one thing.

  The room was quaint, filled with antiques and a white eyelet duvet on the brass bed. They were both fueled by their growing feelings for each other and came together before the B&B keeper had closed the door behind her after showing them their room.

  Candlelight glowed as they took their time undressing each other, paying homage to each other’s bodies. “You’re so beautiful, Katie, the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” he whispered to her.

  She didn’t want to say “you too”, but the fact was Ron was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. Blond hair, a tad long in the back, short over the ears, like every hockey player she’d ever known wore their hair at the time. Blue eyes, so clear, so penetrating when they looked into hers. His nineteen-year-old physique held testament to a daily skating regimen that went above and beyond team practice. The man was a Greek god come to life.

  Come to her life.

  Their lovemaking was long and sweet and they held each other for hours afterward, whispering words of commitment. It was the first time she’d ever told a man she loved him. He said it was the first for him too. “This is only the beginning for us, Katie, we have our whole lives ahead of us,” Ron told her. “Our whole lives to spend making love like this.”

  She’d believed him.

  Chapter Nine

  Sometimes it seems like a man ain’t the master of his own destiny…

  The ball takes a funny little bounce here or a putt takes a funny little turn.

  -Sam Snead, professional golfer

  “I’m pregnant.”

  The three women were at the Commodore. Alison had her head buried in her purse, but she directed her answer to Lizzie seated across from her. “Yes, Lizard, of course you are, you can hardly hide that girth. Besides, why do you think Katie and I brought you along if not to be our designated driver?” She found her lipstick and brought her head up to face Katie and Lizzie on the opposite side of the booth.

  She stopped short as she saw the dropped jaw of Lizzie’s face. “Geez, Lizard, I was just kidding, you’re not that big. And we’d want you here whether you were the DD or not. It’s just awfully nice for us, eh, Kit Kat?”

  Lizzie was shaking her head at Alison “I…I…I didn’t say it.”

  Alison looked confused. “Say what?”

  “I didn’t say ‘I’m pregnant’,” Lizzie said.

  “Well, it’s kind of obvious,” Alison said, motioning to Lizzie’s rounded belly peeking out from behind the table.

  Lizzie continued shaking her head, then turned to stare at Katie.

  “I said it, Al. I’m pregnant,” Katie clarified. She watched as Alison realized her mistake and then both Lizzie and Alison turned on her.

  “Start talking,” Alison said. She had quickly gotten her shock under control, but Lizzie, poor Lizzie, was staring at Katie with huge hazel eyes, her hands instinctively cradling her own belly.

  The waitress appeared and Alison held her hand up to stop Katie from beginning her saga. “Hang on, Kat, I gotta have some alcohol to hear about this.” She ordered one of the Commodore’s famed Fishbowl drinks – a Long Island Iced Tea in a huge brandy snifter. Katie and Lizzie both ordered waters. “Jesus, I can see you two are going to be a barrel of laughs for the next few months,” Alison said, indicating their tame orders.

  “Okay, spill,” Alison said and she sat back, her arms across her chest, as if she wasn’t going to believe what Katie had to say.

  Katie could hardly believe it herself. “I’m pregnant,” she repeated.

  “I got that much. A few details, please. When? Where? And most importantly, with whom?” Alison said.

  Katie took a small sip of her water when it arrived. Alison took a large gulp of her drink, then sat back again, arms crossed once more. Lizzie stared at Alison’s glass with envy, but sipped at her water as well. Katie knew how Lizzie felt. She could really use some Dutch courage to tell her friends about her miracle.

  “I’m two months along. Really too soon to tell anyone, but…”

  “We’re not just anyone,” Lizzie said, laying her hand on Katie’s.

  Katie smiled. “Exactly. And the doctor said there was no reason to think that I can’t carry to full-term without any problems. It was the getting pregnant part that was the problem, not necessarily the staying pregnant part.”

  “Which leads us to the getting pregnant part,” Alison prodded.

  Katie flushed remembering her night with Darío. She wasn’t quite ready to tell that part first. She’d get to it. There was no way Alison – or Lizzie for that matter – was going to let her out of here without all the details. But first, she’d start with the stuff that she could put into words. “At first I thought I was sick. I mean really sick. Like cancer or something. I was tired, a little nauseous, had missed my period, and you know how regular I am.”

  The other women nodded. They had absolutely no secrets from each other since before puberty, and certainly none after.

  “Typical signs of pregnancy,” Lizzie said, having recently gone through them all herself.

  “Yes. But of course, that thought never occurred to me, for obvious reasons. I thought maybe the infertility had brought on something else. Somet
hing…I don’t know… I was thinking ovarian cancer.” At the look of fear that crossed Lizzie’s face, Katie quickly added, “I’m fine. Fine. Just… pregnant.”

  “Are we talking Immaculate Conception here, or is there a little something you’ve left out?” Alison asked.

  Lizzie gasped. “Oh God, it isn’t Ron is it? He didn’t show up one night and you went at it for old time’s sake did he?”

  “Jesus, Lizard, she wouldn’t be that stupid,” Alison chided their friend. Her eyes turned to Katie. “Would you?”

  “No. Of course not.” Katie said, though her voice lacked the conviction she knew Alison sought. Truth was, if she knew a pregnancy would result, she didn’t know if she’d turn Ron away or not. She was immensely grateful that it had not been an option. “It’s funny though, that was the first thought in my head when the doctor told me. I thought, ‘I can’t wait to tell Ron’. It took me a few seconds to remember he’d left me and that there was no way the baby could possibly be his. Isn’t that pathetic?”

  Lizzie and Alison gave sympathetic looks, but said nothing. Probably because they thought it was pathetic, too.

  “How does this happen after years of infertility? Were the doctors all wrong?” Lizzie asked.

  “Well, the doctors had always said they couldn’t find anything physically wrong with either of us. Ron did have a low sperm count, but not so low that it would keep us from conceiving. That’s why they hesitated to do IVF, why they tried artificial insemination first. But I kept saving money for in vitro, figuring we’d have that as a last option.”

  “The money for that can be seen driving down the main street of Hancock everyday at three-thirty in the afternoon, the second school’s out,” Alison said. At Katie’s look of hurt over remembering the Hummer and how it symbolized the beginning of the end of their marriage, Alison backpedaled. “I’m sorry, Kat, but that whole Hummer thing still pisses me off,” she said.

  Katie gave a small smile. “That’s okay, it still ticks me off too. First, that he did it. Second, that I didn’t see the huge red flag it turned out to be.” She shrugged. “Enough about Ron. I’m happy to say, that the doctors were right about one thing. Our problems in conceiving were probably due to his sperm and my eggs not being compatible, which was another thing they mentioned as a possibility.”