Schooner just smiled at Mia who was painting a picture for him of memories with her that they were yet to create, but that he could see vividly. He could see the late afternoon sun on her sunburned, freckled cheeks, smell the salt on the breeze, hear the tide lapping against the shore, feel the salt water dried in her curls.
“I love you, Mia and I really don’t want to be away from you this summer. I will find a job there. I can teach tennis, lifeguard, bus tables — I don’t care. If your parents are cool with me staying, I really want to spend the summer with you in New York.”
“My parents loved you, Schooner — and they have plenty of room, so I don’t think it’s going to be a problem.”
He pulled her close to kiss her some more. “Mmmm, I feel that.” She was referring to his hard-on that he was trying desperately not to press into her. He inched the lower half of his body away from her, hoping he wasn’t making her fearful or uncomfortable.
“Mmm-mmm,” she shook her head “no” while continuing to kiss him and slung a leg over him and used it to pull him closer to her, his cock now pressed up hard against her.
He pulled away from their kiss to search her face. She smiled and touched his cheek. “It feels good,” she whispered and he moaned just hearing her say that.
“Tell me what you want, Baby Girl. You have to call the shots here.”
She gave him a shy smile and cast her eyes down for a moment before returning his intense gaze. “I’m ready, Schooner. I really am. I don’t think I can wait another day. I don’t want to wait another day.”
“You sure?”
And she nodded.
His deep kiss was soft as he said against her lips, “I love you so much, Baby Girl, but I’m so afraid I’m going to hurt you.”
Mia pulled back to look at Schooner, pushing fallen blonde locks from his forehead and smiled. “Hurt me? Schooner, you have been my protector, you watch out for me, take care of me. You keep me safe. I know you’re not going to hurt me.”
“You know we’re the real deal, Mia,” he watched the smile from her lips reach her eyes. She nodded.
Pulling her underneath him, with arms on both sides of her head, he kissed her lips softly, exploring her mouth, pulling back to look at her and smile and then kiss her some more. He was used to being turned on and feeling the heady rush of sex, but he wasn’t used to feeling his heart brim and overflow. He wasn’t used to caring or wanting the experience to be amazing for his partner. He had never really thought about what it was like for the other person. In the past, it had been about his own physical release and need for control. It had been about the hunt and the victor, but as he looked down at Mia’s sweet face, he realized the only thing he cared about was that this was wonderful for her, that she knew how much he loved her, that this was the ultimate expression of his love for her.
He pulled his shirt off over his head and her hands went to his shoulders, gently moving down his arms, reverently. He watched her face as she explored him, loving that she was enjoying his body. Schooner tugged her tee-shirt and pulled it over her head, swinging it like a lasso before tossing it off into the room. They both laughed. His eyes were smoldering like pale sapphires. He had never felt so turned on. Pushing the shoulder straps from her bra down, he lifted her gorgeous tits out of her bra. He rimmed one nipple with his tongue and she moaned. He grazed it in his teeth, before saying, “You absolutely have the most gorgeous tits on campus.”
“Oh, do I?”
“Without a doubt,” and between sucks, “The day we met, I noticed your gorgeous eyes and smile and this damn fine rack.” She giggled and he bit down on her nipple, causing a yelp. “My damn fine rack. Mine.” He staked ownership.
Her fingers threaded through his thick blonde locks as his sucking and pinching drove her wild. She wrapped her legs around him, moaning. “You have such sensitive nipples. I love that,” he marveled, as he moved back up to her mouth, kissing her deeply. She pulled at his hair and he ravaged her mouth without restraint. He felt her hand reaching for him and he curled into her so that she could grasp him, gasping into her mouth, when her little hand encircled his throbbing cock.
She gently ran her fingernails over his balls and he shivered. “Feel good?” she asked.
“Oh yeah,” he breathed into her neck.
“And this?” She gently kneaded his balls in her hand. He knew his cock felt like steel. It was so hard, it hurt.
“Feels damn good,” he looked at her face to see her satisfied little smile.
“I love getting you hard,” she smiled at him.
“You have quite the knack for it,” he was gasping. He gave her a hard kiss and her arms went around his neck. “Are you ready for this?”
She nodded and he got off the bed, rustled through his duffle bag and came up with a condom packet. He sat down on the edge of the bed. She looked at him wide-eyed. “I don’t want you to feel like we have to do this.”
She was shaking her head. “I want to do this. I want to do this with you.” The look in her eyes was pleading and he realized that she needed this to wipe away the nightmare and replace it with something wonderful. He leaned forward and kissed her. Schooner was honored to help make wonderful memories with her.
“Want to help me with his?” he asked, opening the condom packet. Starting the condom, he took her hands in his and hand over hand had her roll it down over him. He wanted to make it “their” experience. And what she didn’t realize was that everything that was happening was new ground, with new emotions for him, too. He loved the touch of her rolling the condom onto him and smoothing it out, with such care. She looked pleased at her “handiwork”.
He pulled her beneath him and kissed her as the head of his cock starting to sink into her. “You ready?” He searched her eyes. She nodded her assent and with his eyes locked onto hers, he mouthed, “I love you”. She mouthed “I love you” back and with a quick thrust he was inside of her.
She gasped, but was still smiling. He realized he was smiling too and just took a moment to enjoy how tight she was around him before he began driving into her. He bent down to kiss her, thrusting into her deeper, quicker, harder. She returned his kiss passionately and he lost himself in the sensation… she was so tight around his cock, she felt so damn good. He pulled his face back to look at her. Her eyes were closed and he could tell she was coming undone.
“Mia,” his voice was hoarse, “look at me.” Mia opened her eyes. He wanted to watch her as she came, but he also wanted to make sure she was ok and didn’t go anyplace dark. “You are so beautiful.” She smiled at him and he rammed into her hard. “So, so beautiful.” Harder. “You. Are. My. Baby Girl.” Harder and faster. “Come. For. Me. Baby Girl.” And those were the magic words. Her eyes widened and her muscles clamped down and spasmed around him, milking his cock. He could hear both their moans in his ears and “Oh God, Schooner,” which totally pushed him over the edge.
He collapsed on top of her, forehead to forehead, both panting. Pushing her curls from her face, he smiled down at her. She smiled back at him and his heart relaxed. She was ok.
“Wow,” she was rendered speechless.
“Wow is right.” Schooner laughed.
“Is that what it is always like?”
He shook his head “no”. “I have never experienced anything like that before,” and he wasn’t lying.
There was a self-satisfied smirk on Mia’s face. Schooner kissed her softly. He had still not pulled out of her and started to gently grind into her. Her eyes grew wide and he laughed, “Figured that would wipe that self-satisfied smirk off your face.”
“Oh, did you now?” She squeezed his cock hard with her muscles and his eyes flew open. “Two can play that game.”
“Yes, two can… and two is going to need to help me with another condom if she keeps this up.” He ground into her clockwise.
They kissed and laughed and made love again and all of Schooner’s protective instincts were satisfied for one night.
&nbs
p; He had made good on his promise. He promised her that he would be the first person to make love to her. And he was. Seeing the way she responded to their lovemaking and her happiness in the aftermath was a heady, powerful feeling for him. He had given this to her. And she had given herself to him. She was his.
CHAPTER 31
Finals and packing and goodbyes and the last tennis matches, the days were winding down quickly and if Schooner had an extra second to just stand still and feel, he would have recognized his mounting ambivalence. He was ready for the semester to end and for finals to be over, but the last month with Mia was a moment in time that he forever wanted to hold onto.
Schooner shoved the last of his belongings into his duffle bag as Mia and Caroline continued to pack and tape their boxes.
Their dorm RA, Dawn, poked her head into to the room to remind the girls that all cartons being shipped needed to be packed, sealed and addressed and out in the hall by 9 P.M.
“I’ll walk you out.” Mia grabbed her keys.
“Have a great summer, Caroline.” Schooner gave Mia’s very accommodating roommate a hug goodbye.
They stopped by Rosie’s room. She was just about finished packing. “Eight A.M. final and I am outta here!”
One more stop for Schooner to say goodbye to Henry, but he was nowhere to be found.
Mia and Schooner walked out of the dorm and stood on the front steps.
“Stop pouting,” he said to her, “you’re killing me.”
“I’m not used to spending the night without you. I miss you already.”
“C’mere, Baby Girl.” He sat down on the stone balustrade railing and pulled her between his legs. Her arms immediately went around his neck and they got lost in a kiss. “I’ll be by right after my final. We’ll have at least an hour before the limo comes for you.” She continued to pout. “You’d better put that lip away or I’m going to bite it,” he threatened.
They stayed that way for a long while, with Mia standing between Schooner’s legs, arms wrapped around his neck, foreheads together.
“Tell me again, what’s the place we have to get to by boat?”
“That’s Fire Island. We’ll take the ferry over and there’s no cars. Just little red wagons to cart groceries with and bicycles. No streets, just boardwalks. Ocean on one side, the Great South Bay on the other side.”
He smiled and kissed her, “And that’s where you want to spend your birthday?”
She nodded, smiling.
“Ok, your birthday on Fire Island. I just can’t wait to see these places you talk about. They just sound so idyllic.”
“That, they are!”
“Do you want me to bring you anything from here when I come?”
“Certainly not pizza and bagels,” she laughed, “just bring you, that’s all I need.”
He took her face in his hands and kissed her deeply. “I’d better go study. Flunking out of school will not go over well with my parents. I’m thinking I should probably finish my test between 11:30 and 12:00 and I’ll come right over, ok.”
He squeezed her hand and they held hands until he was down the steps and their fingers finally broke contact.
Schooner turned around, “Hey,” he yelled, “those pizza and bagels better be as good as you’ve been bragging about.”
Mia just stood on the steps smiling at him, watching him go.
It was dusk when he reached his dorm on the other side of campus. As he crossed the lobby, he got a lot of ribbing from the guys hanging out.
“Hey, do we know this guy?”
“I remember him… vaguely.”
“Ah, the Prodigal Son returns.”
Beau was in their room studying for a Chemistry final. He looked up when Schooner walked in, “Oh hey, did you see CJ?”
“No, why?” Schooner pulled his books out of his duffle bag to study.
“She just left a few minutes ago. She was looking for you.” He punched some numbers into his calculator.
“Did she say what she wanted?”
Beau just shook his head. “No. I just assumed it was to say goodbye. She hung out for a little bit waiting for you and then finally left.”
CHAPTER 32
Schooner filled in the last of his answers and took a run back through the test to see if he’d missed anything. There were four questions that he’d put checks near to flag that he needed to go back and relook at them. He looked at his watch. 11:25 A.M. He was still in good shape to finish up and have some time to spend alone with Mia before she left. He went back to concentrating on his final. At 11:38, Schooner handed his test booklet into the professor and wished him a good summer.
Crossing The Quad, heading toward Mia’s dorm, Schooner felt that joy of freedom experience that hits once every spring when school is over and summer officially begins. What a year! So much had happened. As he walked past Brewster Hall, he smiled thinking about the first time he’d laid eyes on her. His first impression was that she didn’t belong here. He also thought that he fit in perfectly. He was wrong on both accounts.
Walking into Mia’s dorm, it was already starting to resemble a ghost town. Doors to dorm rooms were open and the rooms were bare, just institutional mattresses on frames, dressers, desks and chairs still in the rooms. All the posters were off the walls, books were gone, green plants taken home for the summer, all cartons for shipping had been removed from the hall. Schooner headed up the stairwell and down the hall toward Mia’s room.
The door was ajar, so he walked in. He didn’t immediately process that the room was completely empty. Nothing was in the room. No one was in the room. No Mia. No luggage. He looked at his watch. It was 11:55 A.M. Mia wasn’t supposed to be picked up until 1 P.M.
“Mia,” he called out. He ran down the hall to Rosie’s room. It was empty, too.
Maybe she’s waiting in Henry’s room, he thought and ran down the stairwell. He could feel panic beginning to rise. Something was not right. What the hell was going on? He knocked on Henry’s door. His roommate answered. Henry had left hours ago. And no, he hadn’t seen Mia.
He ran down the hall checking rooms, maybe someone knew where she was. He checked the lobby again. She wasn’t anywhere. He went back up to her room. That’s where she would look for him. She knew approximately what time he was going to be there. She’d meet him at the room. Maybe she was just saying goodbye to someone.
He got back up to her room. Still no Mia. No luggage. Nothing. He paced around her room. 12:15. 12:20. 12:25. What the fuck happened? Maybe the limo came early. Maybe she left a note. He searched her desk. Nothing. All the drawers. Nothing. Her dresser. Nothing. Under her pillow. Nothing. He got on his knees and looked under the bed, under the desk, under the dresser. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. He checked her closet. Nothing.
He heard a key in a door down the hall and went running from the room. It was Dawn, the RA.
“Dawn”
“Hey Schooner,” she looked surprised to see him.
“Have you seen Mia?” He searched her face.
She looked confused. “Schooner, Mia left hours ago.”
“Hours ago?” He repeated, emptily, “Mia left hours ago?”
She nodded. A look on her face saying “sorry” — like she was sorry to deliver bad news and he also saw something more on her face, something that said sorry this is happening to you. And then she locked her door and headed down the hall to leave for the summer.
He turned and started to walk down the hall. What the fuck? Why had she left like this? Was she ok? Was everything ok? Surely she would have left him a note or had someone get a message to him. And that’s when it dawned on him that he didn’t even have her number. He was going to get all that info before she left and give her his. And now she was gone. Just gone. And he had no way to find her. No way to find out what had happened. No way to find out why she had left him. When they said goodbye last night, everything was fine. They were going to spend her birthday on Fire Island… together. And now she was gone, without a trac
e.
He felt like his brimming heart was rapidly deflating and the pain from it was like being knifed with a shredding blade. His handsome face was contorted with anguish as he yelled out in the empty hallway, “Why Mia? Why did you leave me?” and took the side of his closed fist and slammed it into the institutional green cinder-block cement wall. The sound of bones breaking was deafening, but he neither heard the sound nor felt the pain radiating up his arm because the pain in his heart eclipsed anything he felt physically.
One week earlier, after the last match of the season, Coach Boland had predicted to his staff that Schooner Moore would lead their highly regarded tennis program to a National Championship and be the top ranked NCAA player in the United States within two years.
Three surgeries. Six months in a cast.
Schooner Moore’s promising tennis career came to a shattering conclusion in a dormitory hallway on the last day of his freshman year.
CHAPTER 33
Dr. Malcolm Faulkes was a golf buddy of Gavin Moore’s. He was also an orthopedic surgeon who specialized in Sports Medicine and had a client roster that was a Who’s Who of LA sports teams. He had seen Schooner play tennis many times over the years and had been following his impressive first college season.
When Gavin called to say that Schooner’s right hand suffered an injury, Dr. Faulkes met them at his office after hours. The x-rays showed multiple fractures and Faulkes performed the first of what would be three surgeries that very evening. He admitted Schooner to the hospital where he stayed for three days heavily drugged with his hand immobilized.
A week later, Schooner was back at Dr. Faulkes office. Malcolm asked Dee to stay out in the waiting room while he spoke to Schooner alone.
Searching for Moore Page 11
