Moore to Lose

by Julie A. Richman

  Mia curled up in bed with her pillow next to her. It was becoming increasingly more difficult to remember what his chest felt like under her cheek. What his lips felt like in her hair when he would kiss the top of her head. Why am I looking for that, she wondered. It wasn’t real. So why is it what I want to feel? And as she fell asleep, she still had no answers a year later, just memories that were quickly fading like photos that had not been properly put into a chemical bath of fixative.

  It took a few minutes to realize the shrill ring of the phone was not part of her dream.

  “Hello,” her alarm clock read 2:20 A.M.

  “Jailbait.”

  “Hey.” Mia took the phone in bed with her and curled up under the covers.

  “I woke you.” She could hear him moving around on his end.

  “Well, yeah — it’s like 2:30 in the morning. Are you drunk dialing me?” She was smiling.

  He laughed, “No. I wish I was. I was grading assignments and I wanted to hear your voice.”

  Mia smiled and remained silent.

  “You know you’re fucking with my head, Jailbait.”

  “Ha. Didn’t quite appear that way to me.” He was so aloof earlier in the evening that she thought kissing him had been a huge, huge mistake. But now hearing his voice in the middle of the night from the warmth of her bed made her ache to be pressed against a brick wall with his hard cock grinding into her.

  “Well, appearances can be deceiving. What did you want me to do? Pull you into my lap with Ryan sitting right there?”

  “For starters.” Mia whispered.

  Tom groaned, “Jailbait, you are so dangerous. You know I can’t touch you.”

  “But you already did.”

  “That, my little friend, was a huge lapse in judgment.” Mia could hear ice in a glass on the other end of the phone.

  “You’re just a big fucking tease.” There was now annoyance in her voice. He gave her a taste of what it was like to feel good again and now he was telling her, sorry not happening. So, why the fuck was he calling her? Mia was tired, cranky, frustrated and starting to get pissed off.

  “Is that what you think I’m doing?” There was surprise in Tom’s tone.

  “I don’t have a fucking clue what you’re doing.” He had called her a lapse in judgment and she was starting to obsess and focus on that one statement.

  Tom let out a long sigh. “I don’t either. I shouldn’t have called. I’m sorry.”

  Mia remained silent. She didn’t want to say goodbye and she certainly didn’t want the conversation to take the turn it had taken.

  After a few moments, he asked, “Are you still there?”

  “I’m here,” her voice was soft.

  “I’m sorry, Mia. I didn’t mean to upset you. Honestly, I’d been thinking about you all night and I just wanted to hear your voice,” he actually sounded contrite.

  “I’m glad you called.” She could hear his smile on the other end of the phone.

  “I wish you were here,” his voice was like silk in her ear.

  “I want to kiss you again.”

  He let out an “mmm” at her words. “Stopping at a kiss is the problem, Mia.”

  “I know,” she giggled. “Do you know how wet I am right now?”

  Tom let out a deep, sexy groan. “Who’s the tease now, Jailbait. Oh man. You. Are. Killing. Me.”

  “Good,” she smiled. “You need to kiss me again.” She pictured him on the other end of the phone touching himself.

  “You think so?”

  “I know so.”

  “You’re right. I do.”

  “Think about me as you fall asleep.” Mia smiled into the phone.

  “That’s a guarantee.”

  “Night, Teach.” Mia whispered.

  “Night, Jailbait,” his voice equally as soft.

  Mia hugged her pillow next to her wondering what Tom’s chest would feel like under her cheek and hoping it wasn’t two weeks before she saw him again.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Still awake, Jailbait?”

  It was two nights later at 12:30 A.M. when she finally heard his voice again. Three little words made her melt into the phone. Forty-eight hours of his invasion into every conscious thought was killing her. Studying had been a joke, and if she masturbated one more time thinking about him she was going to end up with a raging infection. Damn you, Tom Sheehan. You’re. Killing. Me.

  “Yeah, just studying. What are you up to?” Mia invoked cool girl to come to her aid.

  “Thinking about kissing you.”

  “Mmmm,” the emphatic sound emerged before Mia could suppress it. Cool girl, you suck!

  “That is exactly what I needed to hear.”

  She could picture his pure sex smile and his dark unruly locks cascading down his forehead. “Where are you?”

  “I’m on campus. At my office,” he paused. “I don’t want you coming here. I don’t want you walking across campus alone at night.”

  “Then come to me.” Is that my voice? Mia wondered, who was this whispering seductress?

  “That’s probably not safe, Mia.”

  She hated listening to a voice of reason when all she wanted was to feel him, taste him, devour him. “Do you happen to have a baseball cap in your office?

  Laughing, “As a matter of fact, I do.”

  “Put it on and come here. I’ll wait in the hall so that you don’t have to knock on my suite door. I’m 121 — it’s a right turn through the front doors.” She hung up before he could say no and quickly changed out of sweats into jeans, put on fresh underwear, brushed her teeth and fluffed out her curls.

  Ten minutes later he was walking down the hall toward her. In jeans, a Cornell t-shirt (where he had earned his MFA in creative writing) and baseball cap, Tom looked like any other student on campus.

  Mia couldn’t help the smile on her face as he neared. He was so damn good looking in a bad boy, break your heart kind of way. There was only one way a relationship with this man would end … and happily ever after were not three of the words in the sentence.

  His smile grew as he walked down the hall.

  He’s happy to see me, thought Mia. With a devil smile, she put her finger to her lips and said, “shhh,” as he approached. Silently, they entered her suite and he followed her into her room, where she quietly closed the door.

  Tom took her face in both of his hands, “Is this what you wanted?” His eyes were smoldering as his lips softly grazed Mia’s.

  Smiling, she nodded yes, as he softly kissed her lips.

  Pulling her head back by her hair, the look in his eyes was incendiary. He kissed her a little harder, “Is this want you wanted?”

  Locked in on his dark eyes, she asked, “Is it what you wanted?”

  “More than you can imagine, Jailbait,” and his lips were on hers again, his tongue exploring, slowly, sensually, spontaneously. He pulled away and looked at her, “It is torture staying away from you and you don’t make it easier — saying things to me like you’re wet.”

  Mia smiled, “Your kiss does that to me. Thinking about your kiss does that to me. Right now, if you put your hand down my jeans … ”

  “No, no, no, Jailbait,” he shook his head no, but his handsome bad boy smile looked like it was still a consideration.

  Mia took Tom’s hand and placed it between her legs on the outside of her jeans.

  Without breaking eye contact, he started caressing her softly through her jeans. “I can feel the heat,” he whispered.

  Mia laid her head down on his shoulder, letting her lips gently graze his neck. She was so excited and she knew with a few more strokes she would explode. It had been so long (well, that someone else was actually in the room with her) and as much as she wanted to let go, that would be giving him too much control, too soon. And he was already ten leagues ahead of her in knowing how to play the game.

  Taking his hand from between her legs, Mia led Tom over to her bed.

  “You know we
can’t.”

  Mia nodded, “I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to do.” How odd that I’m the one saying that, she mused.

  Her words brought a bad boy smile to Tom’s face and he tenderly ran a hand softly down her cheek. “Jailbait, that’s the crux of the problem, there isn’t anything I don’t want to do to you. I want to fuck you in ways you never dreamed existed. I want to watch your face as you explode and lose control, knowing I’m doing that to you. I want to sit between your legs and watch you make yourself come for me. I want to push you up against that building where I kissed you and have you wear a dress,” he paused and smiled remembering their first conversation about the California girls in dresses, “no underwear and fuck you up against that brick wall, pulling out of you just as campus security drives up. I want to fuck you in my office right before class and have you sitting in my class with my come dripping out of you and only you and I know that.”

  Mia couldn’t breathe just listening to his words. How fucking hot is that, she thought. She was speechless. He was on a totally different level than she and Schooner had been. He was a sexy man. A twenty-seven year old man. Worldly. Urbane. Sexy. And he was a player. Heartbreak on a stick, just waiting to happen. But right now he wanted her. She was his obscure object of desire. His distraction. And for as long as it lasted, she was going to let him be her distraction. Being desired by this hot, sexy, smart man was a fucking godsend after the last year of her life. Schooner was fucking CJ, so why shouldn’t she be happy? Why shouldn’t she be fucking her writing professor? Go away, Schooner, she silently screamed. Get the fuck out of my head. Get the fuck out of this room.

  Tom softly caressed her cheek, “Hey, where’d you go?”

  Mia could feel her eyes fill with tears, “No place good.”

  “I upset you.” Genuine concern clouded his handsome face, “I shouldn’t have said those things to you.”

  Mia leaned her face into Tom’s hand and shook her head no. “I loved what you just said to me. Every fucking last word of it.”

  And then he did something she did not expect. Tom Sheehan enveloped Mia in his arms and pulled her in for a tight hug. “Someday maybe you’ll tell me about it. And I know I don’t act like it sometimes, but I’m glad you have Ryan to confide in. I’m glad he’s there for you. I just want it to be me that you tell.”

  “I’m such a buzz kill. Do I know how to kill a mood or what?” Mia’s smile was wry. Stay out of my head, Moore. Go back to Malibu Barbie where you belong and stay the fuck out of my head.

  Tom threaded his fingers through Mia’s curls and tipped her head back so that she had to look into his eyes.

  What she saw was warm and caring.

  “Jailbait, you are so different and so special and to tell you I want you does not remotely express what I have been feeling for a very long time — maybe even going as far back as being on my knees in the wet grass looking through your camera lens at wildflowers,” his voice lowered to a whisper, “I don’t want to scare you.”

  Mia shook her head, “You don’t scare me, Teach. It’s just,” she paused to gather her thoughts, “it’s just that I haven’t been with anyone in a long time and I’m trying not to let the ghosts take control. I don’t even want them here, near us. Does that make sense?”

  Nodding, Tom smoothed back Mia’s hair from her face. “Then don’t let them.” He was giving her that look, and she could hear the witch from The Wizard of Oz in her head saying “I’m melting.”

  “You’re making me melt, Teach.”

  He just continued to smooth back her hair and smile at her, the hotter than Miami on a summer’s day look in his eyes, and then there were those greedy lips on hers again, soft and demanding, and Mia wanted to devour him but he was already devouring her.

  “Jailbait,” Mia gazed up from Tom’s fully clothed chest, where her head lay. They were both still fully clothed. “Morning,” he smiled, “it’s still really early and I think I should get out of here now before people start milling about.”

  Mia moved from his chest, her head ached from lack of sleep. “Ok.” She felt suddenly bereft, not wanting him to leave, to sneak off into the night.

  “You ok?” His dark brows knit questioningly.

  “Yeah, I just don’t want you to leave.”

  “I like that, Jailbait.” And he laid his head back down on the pillow next to hers.

  “And just think, you are leaving here as pure as you arrived.” Tom threw his head back with laughter and Mia continued, “See, I told you I wouldn’t make you do anything you didn’t want to do.”

  “But I do want to.” Tom pulled Mia against him. She dropped her hand down between them, grazing the front of his faded out, ass-hugging Levi’s.

  “Ohhhh yeah, you do,” her eyes wide with excitement as she outlined the hardening bulge in his jeans with her fingernails. As he hardened beneath her fingers, Mia’s devil smile grew wider and wider.

  “You’re incorrigible.”

  Mia looked at him with her “You didn’t just figure that out now, did you?” look and he laughed.

  She could feel his erection straining against his jeans and she wanted to take it out probably as much as he did. With a quick kiss on the lips, she ducked her head down the bed. Tom started to protest and Mia looked up at him and put her finger to her lips, “Shhhh.”

  And then she did what he did not expect. She did not undo the top button of his jeans, she did not unzip his fly, she did not reach inside his jeans to pull him out and fondle him (even though she was dying to). With her teeth, Mia outlined Tom’s cock through his jeans. As she moved from base to tip at an excruciatingly slow pace, she opened her mouth so that her top teeth were on one side, her bottom teeth on the other.

  The sound of his moan and the feel of his fingers in her hair, made Mia ache to have him inside of her. She nibbled the soft head of his cock through the coarse fabric.

  “Oh God, Mia.” Tom reached down and pulled Mia on top of him so that they were lying face to face. Both panting, he took her face in his hands and pulled her lips down to his, kissing her roughly.

  She could feel his cock between her legs and pressed down, “I want you,” she said into his mouth, rubbing along the length of him, slowly clockwise and then lifting her mouth off of his slightly to smile and changing her grinding to counterclockwise.

  Grabbing her ass and pressing her tightly against him, Tom lifted his hips in sharp stabbing motions. Mia gasped into his mouth. “Yeah. That’s what I want to do to you — make you gasp.” He kept up the relentless stabbing while holding her firmly against him. The seam of her jeans was rubbing harshly against her clit, increasing sensitivity with each stab. Mia’s eyes were wide, her breathing ragged. “Let go, Mia.”

  Mia shook her head no.

  “Mia, let go.” Tom demanded, pressing her into him with more force.

  “No,” she whimpered.

  “I said let go,” his voice was harsh, his eyes demanding. “Let go, Mia.”

  And then it was out of her control as she began to quake. Staring into his eyes and hearing her own sounds in her ears, feeling vulnerable and powerful, scared and excited, exhilarated and spent.

  Tom pulled her face into his neck, hugging her to him tightly. “That was brilliant,” he whispered in her ear, “That was by far the hottest thing I have ever done with my clothes on.” Tom pulled her face close to his, looking into her eyes and smiling at her.

  “What’s that look?”

  “I have a feeling you are going to be surprise after surprise, Jailbait. Now, get some sleep.” Tom got out of bed and grabbed his baseball cap, pulling it down low over his eyes. Taking Mia’s chin in hand, he softly kissed her lips.

  As he reached the door, Mia asked, “Hey, am I getting an A?”

  “You’re getting better than that. You’re getting me.” And with a sexy smile, he was gone.

  Well, that makes it a “fuckin’ A,” Mia thought, amusing herself. As she dozed back off to sleep, the smi
le remained on her face as the fresh memory of what his chest (albeit clothed) felt like against her cheek.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Mia and Joni searched the sea of black caps and gowns unsuccessfully trying to identify Rob.

  “I’m nervous about meeting his father and sister today.” Joni confided. “I hope they like me. Rob said they won’t be here for the ceremony. They are not coming until later.”

  “At least we’re here for him. I’m nervous about meeting his father, too.” Mia admitted. “I’m just afraid I’ll go off on the man.”

  Mia scanned the stage for Tom. The last time she saw him was the night she and Rob turned in their final assignment and the three had quite the drunk fest. Tom convinced Rob to take grad level writing courses in the fall (even if it was at night) and to start applying to full time MFA programs. He then totally shocked Rob (and Mia) by offering to intervene at Cornell, if that was one of Rob’s choices.

  Sitting on an inside bench of a half-booth next to Tom, their thighs remained pressed against one another, the heat through their jeans overwhelmingly distracting. A few times, Tom’s hand wandered off of his thigh under the table to Mia’s, gently stroking it. Just his slight touch was overwhelming — her satin bikini panties getting wetter and wetter with each caress.

  As a semi-drunk Rob got up to hit the men’s room, Tom waited for him to be out of sight of the table and grabbed Mia’s chin and planted a hard kiss smack on her lips. Mia sat wide-eyed with a bemused expression at his public display of affection.

  “I’m dying without you, Jailbait.”

  The smile that permeated Mia’s eyes was immediately reflected in Tom’s face. I’m dying without you. What amazing words to hear. I’m dying without you. This hot, dark, sexy man admitted, I’m dying without you. Four words that were music to Mia’s heart and soul. I’m dying without you. Not “you’re a charity case.” Not “he feels sorry for you.” Not “he can’t wait for this semester to be over so he can stop pretending.” Not “do you know how big a burden you are?” I’m dying without you. I’m dying without you. He’s dying without me — so go fuck yourself.