“Here, baby, take it.” I have no artful words and I’m grunting like a crazed animal. That’s how into this woman I am. I feel the pressure building and I know she’s going to be full of my come in a matter of moments.
“Yes, do it. Fill me up.” Marisa gasps in surprise and she pushes backward into me. “I’ll come too, Cam. I will.”
That does it. I literally see stars as I shout into the desert and pump my entire load into her. I feel her clench around me, milking my cock. Perfect.
Marisa
Cam was right. I was dripping after we finished. I still am, actually.
It’s not even awkward as Cam hikes up his pants and then reaches into the car for a box of tissues so we can clean up. I can’t believe this just happened. But I trust him. It feels right, no matter what happens next.
“I’m ready when you are,” Cam announces.
I wipe the goofy post-sex grin off my face. In a rush, I remember everything that Cam is facing at the end of this road trip. What he’s dealing with makes my academic indecisions seem trite.
“I’m ready.” I guide us back to the highway, and once we’re back on I-10, I put on some music. Alt rock this time. Cam reaches over for my hand, and I hold it for a few minutes, enjoying the way his fingers feel against mine.
After we let go, he fiddles with his phone for a while. He’s looking at flights; I see a familiar logo in my peripheral vision.
“How long are you going to stay?”
“Not long,” Cam says absently, his finger scrolling the screen. “Shit, maybe four or five days at the most. It depends.”
“I… I don’t need to be anywhere until classes start in a couple of weeks.” I hope he will take the hint. I don’t feel insecure, per se, but I don’t want to overstep either.
“I hope you have a good semester,” he mutters. Then he comes back to earth and sets his phone on the center console. “Sorry, I was figuring out some logistics. You have my full attention now.”
I take a deep breath and lay it out: “I wouldn’t mind, you know, driving you back to Sacramento.”
“Marisa.” I glance over and his face is so full of emotion I have to look away immediately, which is good since I am driving.
“I mean, no pressure,” I add. “But I was thinking of heading up to Phoenix and checking out some of the places I always wanted to see when I was there for the soccer tournaments but never had the time.”
Cam looks out the window, apparently weighing my proposal. “If you’re sure it’s no trouble. I’d really appreciate it,” he says. “But I have a counterproposal.”
“Such as?”
“First, I’m paying you again. For the return trip.”
“But—”
“But nothing. If you’re not comfortable with cash, let me pay your tuition,” he says. “I don’t mean to offend you, but I can easily afford it and would be happy to take that burden off your plate.”
My jaw literally drops. I don’t feel offended. I feel overwhelmed. “Cam, don’t make me cry when I’m driving. It’s not safe.”
“Marisa, I’m literally a millionaire, a few times over. Even without my dad’s inheritance.” He picks up his phone again. “If you have the bursar’s information, I can take care of it right now. You don’t even need to see me again. No strings.”
“No!” I keep a tight grip on the wheel as I force myself to calm down. “I mean, I’ll need to think about your generous offer. And I would like to see you again. But I don’t want the things to be related. The offering and the seeing. Please tell me you understand.”
“Of course I understand.” He sets the phone down again. “Would it make you feel better to know that I make a large annual donation to my alma mater, as well as to several Sacramento-area schools? We’d just be cutting out the middleman.”
I grin, even as tears are still leaking from the corners of my eyes. “Almost like I’m doing you a favor,” I say wryly.
“Exactly.”
He looks happy, like everything is settled, but I need to know. “I’m not ungrateful. But I don’t want to be your… charity case.”
“You’re not,” he says quickly.
Cameron
I hope I haven’t ruined things with Marisa by offering to cover her tuition. It’s true that I can easily spare the money. And that in the past I’ve seen money as power. Her concerns are valid. She doesn’t know that I want her in my life forever, and I don’t want there to be even the slightest chance that she thinks there’s something transactional between us. I want to be fair to her, but it’s too soon to tell her that I’m falling in love with her.
We chat about other things, things we have in common and things we don’t, for the next long stretch of road. I learn that she still plays soccer for fun, just casual games in the park with friends. I love her resilience. What she sees as flightiness, I see as a sense of adventure. She’s not afraid to take risks, and she values being happy. That’s a lesson I could learn.
I force myself to open up to her, offering little details until finally it feels natural to just tell her random things about myself. Who cares if she knows I’m scared of snakes? At least it makes for some decent Indiana Jones jokes.
Over a late lunch in Phoenix, I realize that I’m actually being myself with someone for the first time in a long time. With women, it’s mostly been one and done. With guy friends, mostly surface-level bro stuff. And with business, it’s—business.
My heart clenches at the way Marisa teases me sweetly when I ask for extra cherries in my Shirley Temple, only to turn around and ask for extras in her own Shirley Temple.
“I have a plan.” I’m thinking out loud, but as the idea takes shape in my mind, I know it’s the right one. Marisa deserves time to consider whether she really wants something more with me, and in what form she wants that to take place. And she also deserves a man who isn’t plagued with issues, one of which is just now coming to a head in the form of my father.
“Reveal your plan, sir,” she demands, stabbing a plastic dagger into her last maraschino cherry and popping it into her pretty mouth. As I watch her lips move, I visualize her mouth on mine.
“I told you,” I lean in, my voice gravely with lust and need, “not to call me ‘sir’.”
Her tongue flicks out of her sassy mouth, and now I want it on my cock. I lean back in my seat and adjust myself under the table.
“I am too old for you, Marisa,” I inform her. “But I’m a selfish old man, and I want you. My plan is this: I’ll meet you in Phoenix on New Year’s Day. That gives me a few days to sort through my personal shit and it gives you a few days to think about whether you really want to spend another ten-plus hours in the car with an arrogant, damaged man.”
“Wait, who is this arrogant, damaged man you speak of?” she teases. “Is he hot? A celebrity? I just had really good sex, so I need to know their stats—”
I am so fucking in love with this woman.
“Think about it, Marisa. Think about it seriously. Because this is not a short-term thing for me.” I take a deep breath, hoping I’ve been clear enough to be fair to her, without being so clear that I scare her. Marisa Luna is going to be my wife.
She drops the joking tone. “I want to see you again, Cam. And not just to drive you home.”
“Are you—”
“I’m sure,” she interrupts. “But I agree that we both need some time to think and get things sorted out.”
I reach across the table and take her hand in mine. “Then we’re agreed.”
The next two hours go fast—too fast. The closer we get to my dad’s, I notice that I don’t feel the sense of impending doom that I expected, but a resolve. I need to wrap up shit in my hometown and then get back to Marisa and my life in Sacramento. Our lives.
Marisa
I drop Cam off in Tucson, since he refuses to let me take him all the way to his family’s property. I understand, of course, but I still wish that I could be with him, to offer some small comfort. Even kno
wing him for such a short time, I feel like he’s opened up to me like he hasn’t with anyone else. I hope it helped. But I worry.
Fortunately, the days fly by. In between checking out the places I wanted to go in Phoenix, I pick up a lot of rideshare clients. People are shopping, eating out, and otherwise in need of easy transport. Fortunately, my phone’s mapping software does its thing and I don’t get anybody lost.
Cam and I keep in touch via text, and he sends me a selfie of him with a stuffed horse from his childhood that almost brings tears to my eyes. I immediately save the image to my phone. In another message, he reveals that he’s had two remote sessions with his therapist, and jokes that my friend Lucia has a challenging career in front of her if she gets clients anything like him. He doesn’t mention his father to me at all, and I don’t ask.
I keep my parents in the loop on where I am, but I don’t tell them about Cam. I don’t want them to freak out. They need to hear this wild story in person. We’d actually come within half an hour’s drive from my hometown as we blew down Interstate 5 in California. I’d felt that emotional pull, wanting to stop and see them. My family drives me crazy, but I love them all.
On New Year’s Eve, I rack up so many cash tips from drunk revelers that it’s totally worth what I pay to have my car cleaned the next morning. When I’d checked my phone around midnight, there was a text from Cam telling him where he wanted to meet.
I’m waiting at the appointed location, the Desert Botanical Garden, wearing a new outfit that was a bit of a splurge at the Scottsdale mall: slim-fit jeans, a peasant blouse, and tall boots. I usually thrift, so I feel extravagant and excited.
Another rideshare driver drops Cam off, and I’m thinking of ways to tease him about playing the field, but as he gets closer, he’s so good-looking that it takes my breath away. He hasn’t shaved, but he wears the scruff well. He’s ditched the business suit and is wearing jeans and a plaid shirt.
“You look happy,” he calls out, as if that’s the most important thing in the world.
I must be grinning from ear to ear. To hell with it. I rush the few steps toward Cam and throw my arms around him. “I am happy.” I nuzzle a place under his ear I’d memorized. “You’re here.”
“Oh, Marisa.” He pulls back, and this time, he’s the one with tears in his eyes. “Knowing that I would see you again helped me get through the last few days.”
Immediately, I’m overcome with concern. “Are you okay? Is your father—”
He shrugs. “He died. Two days ago. I listened to what he had to say, thanked him kindly for his opinion, and spent the rest of the time in meetings with lawyers. I had my attorneys draw up an agreement giving everything I would have inherited to Caroline.”
“Cam, that was generous of you.”
“Believe me, she deserves it after putting up with that man,” he says. “She’s actually a very nice woman. Deserved better than Sebastian. But she’s young. And now she’ll have a decent amount of money. I packed up the few things in the house that I cared about and had them shipped back to Sacramento. I’m done with my father and I’m done with Tucson.”
“Poor Tucson,” I can’t help saying.
“I know,” he sighs. “It’s not Tucson’s fault. Speaking of which, thanks for driving this far out. I’ve always wanted to see these gardens.”
“You grew up in Arizona and have never been?” Even my busy soccer team had come out here one year.
“Nope. My father kept me on a tight leash.” Cam leads me toward the entrance, and already I can see all kinds of cacti and desert plants. “And as soon as I left for college, I didn’t want to come back. Now, though, with you, I want to check it out. If you don’t mind.”
“Of course I don’t mind.” I roll my eyes. “I’ve got new walking boots and everything.”
We’re almost in the ticket line, but Cam stops short and whispers in my ear. “Speaking of which, I’d love to fuck you in those boots. You look gorgeous.”
Instantly, moisture gathers between my legs. I cross them to ease the ache he’s put there.
Cameron
We’d planned on getting a few hundred miles behind us before stopping for the night, but at some point I realize that it’s a holiday, GeoCam Data has been doing just fine without me for a week, and I can’t go any longer without getting my mouth between Marisa’s legs.
She leaves the boots on, because I ask her to and because she’s amazing.
“Happy New Year,” I say as I kiss my way up and down her body.
“Calendar dates,” she gasps, “are arbitrary.”
“Don’t fucking care, baby,” I argue as I lean down to lick each of her pebbled nipples. “Still made some resolutions. First one is to make you come all over my face.”
“I’d love to see the vision board on that.” Her humor is strained because she’s trying to not to cry out with pleasure. I’ve just thought of another resolution.
After I make Marisa come with my mouth, I position my cock and sink into her. It’s a long, slow stroke I hope shows her just how much I need this. Need her.
“Watch me. Watch us,” I tell her. My sweetheart, my future, my love opens her eyes and looks at where we are joined. I hear her gasp and feel her pussy clench around my flesh. Heaven.
“It’s so good,” she exclaims, and the wonderment in her voice makes me chuckle.
“Are you laughing at me?” she accuses, playfully arching upward. My cock is shiny with her wetness and I’m dying to pound into her.
“Not laughing.” I look her straight in the eyes. “Just loving.”
“Cam!” She moves with me, and it’s not long before she comes again, and I finally release everything I have into her.
Afterward, we’re lying in bed both naked, not even boots.
“Did you give any thought to my tuition offer?”
Marisa sits up, flushed and triumphant. “I did and then I didn’t,” she says mischievously. “I appreciate you more than you’ll ever know, Cam. But after I dropped you off and got back to Phoenix, I called the financial aid office at Valley University. I’d filed an appeal earlier but had little hope. They ended up letting me keep a portion of my scholarship. So, combined with what you paid me for the ride down, and what I earned driving in Phoenix during the last few days, I’m able to cover it. For this semester, at least.”
“That’s excellent news. Can I say that I’m proud of you? Does that make it awkward?”
“Nope, it’s not awkward.” She trails a hand down my chest, which wakes up my dick. “Plus, haven’t we already proven that we can make it through ‘awkward’?”
I roll her body toward mine and kiss her. My heart is so damn full. I don’t even feel like the same person who I was before I met Marisa. Hell, how was that only a week ago? I can’t go back to being the person I was before I met her: bitter and angry and driven to prove that money makes the man.
“Like I said, I’m so proud of you. And I know you can do whatever you set your mind to.” I have to kiss her a few more times before continuing. “But I want you to know that if you need anything at all, whether it’s funds for your education, or just my company, I’m here for you.”
“You can’t just show up out of nowhere and…” She swallows a sob. “… change my life.”
I lift her chin tenderly. “Why not, Marisa? You changed mine.”
“Cam.” She looks at me with so much trust in her eyes that in that moment I make it my sole annual and lifetime resolution never to disappoint her. “In an unrelated matter, I think I love you.”
“Marisa.” I move my body to cover hers. “I know I love you.”
Epilogue #1: Cameron
Applause rings through the regional theater. The venue usually hosts traveling Broadway shows, but this production features my very own wife, Marisa Luna Cole. Yes, that’s her name, listed right there in the Playbill. I still can’t believe she’s mine.
Usually, she’s behind the scenes, working tech, a position that combines h
er engineering skills with her artistic mind. But for this play, she’s been cast in a supporting role on stage and is loving every minute of it.
What none of them know is that under that costume is our future. Marisa is glowing. Her breasts are higher and fuller. I can see from my seat in the third row. Fuck, I want to jump up on stage and claim her. Lay my hand over the skirt of her empire-waist dress and spread my fingers wide across her growing belly. I can’t believe we’ve been together three years.
I sit back and smile as the curtain falls. She’ll tell them at the cast party, and I will crow like the proud dad-to-be that I am. Her parents will be so thrilled. Their first grandbaby.
I was nervous as hell when I met her parents on the drive back from Arizona. She’d insisted that it would be fine, introducing me as her very new boyfriend.
“My parents are nice,” she’d said, a tacit reference to my own mother and father. “You can have them.”
“They won’t…” I’d trail off. Why would the parents she described, a couple who sacrificed and supported their daughter in everything, want her with a bitter man twelve years her senior?
But she held my hand in her parents’ living room and claimed me as if I was someone to be proud of. I’ve done my best to live up to her faith in me ever since.
After the cast party, which included many toasts and cheers, I help Marisa into the passenger side of our brand new luxury SUV.
“I can’t believe we bought this monstrosity.” I’m pretty sure she’s rolling her eyes as she says it.
“It’s safe.” That’s all that matters to me. I didn’t present the SUV with a giant bow in the driveway, because I knew she’d kill me for not consulting her first. Never mind what my company cleared in assets this year. GeoCam Data has expanded to offices in Oakland and Los Angeles. Phoenix, Arizona may be next. Yep. The state I thought I never wanted to go back to. It turns out, Marisa made me see a lot of things differently.
His Driver: An Instalove Road Trip Romance Page 8