The Not Gate (Tom and Alice #1) (20 page)

VALENTINES DAY

Wednesday
14
th
February

T
om pushed the duvet cover from his back, leaned down again and kissed her roughly. All his senses were filled by her and he had forgotten where he was, misplaced all time and consequence. All he needed was the next touch of his fingers to her silken skin. The next gentle rise of her hips to match the exacting flow of his.

He brushed the hair away from her face so he could see her eyes and as they locked onto his, a rush of heat shot to his groin and a possessive male rumble escaped his chest. She too looked so utterly lost in their connection. Her face so beautifully passionate, it was the most perfect thing he had ever seen.

Alice’s fingertips dug into his sides and then his buttocks and she pulled him closer to her. Tom pushed back at her, driving deeper, they were fighting the barrier of skin to become one being. His bed felt hot, the sheets damp and their bodies heavy with it.

Jesus, he had never fucked like this, didn’t even think he could. It felt like they had been like this for hours.

They had shed their clothes the moment they’d made it back to his house. Ran up the stairs, jumped at each other and after that he had no idea? If someone asked him to spell his name right now, he didn’t think he could.

The proud grip he held on his control, coupled with his need to dominate had pretty much disintegrated. No thought was involved right now only an overriding need to keep making love until they both collapsed. Sated, quiet and so totally done for.

This was too much for an innocent girl and he knew it. But would he really change a minute of this? Could he change it? Even for the protection of her heart and his?

‘Tom,’ she moaned.

‘Baby,’ he kissed her again.

‘Please…’ her body shook and she ran her hands over his forearms.

‘Okay, baby...’ he whispered and curled his arms around her back. With their chests touching, nose to nose, eyes fused, he thrust into her again, ‘…let go for me.’

As if his words held some kind of added level of intensity, in a way they never had before with anyone else, Alice let herself go. Confirming to him once more that they really were made only for the other.

Tom walked back up the stairs fifteen minutes later. He was holding water for Alice and tea for himself. His legs felt like he had run a marathon and it was only Wednesday, how was he going to function at school tomorrow, after tonight?

Alice was sat up in bed, the covers pulled over her body coyly. She smiled as he walked back in. He was still totally naked. It wasn’t at all necessary he could of dressed or at least pulled on some jeans. But he knew Alice liked it and he loved to see her happy and still strangely embarrassed by his blatant nakedness.

‘I was just thinking you should pull a sickie tomorrow. You’re going to be in no shape for learning anything,’ he pulled back the covers and got in beside her.

‘Is that right, stud?’ she drank half her glass of water quickly, ‘…even if you do say so yourself, hey?’

‘Yes, it’s an order actually. You’re suspended for Thursday,’ he leaned over and kissed the top of her breast.

‘For what reason, sir?’ she pouted.

‘Back chat,’ Tom moved the duvet down her body a bit more, took a drink from his mug and then kissed her nipple. She shuddered from the warmth of his lips, still hot from the tea.

‘I’m sure you would prefer me bound and gagged, sir? So I can’t back chat you.’

Tom flashed a wayward grin.

Don’t tempt me.

‘See. You probably have handcuffs and stuff, don’t you?’ she looked at him and in her eyes he saw both excitement and fear. It always staggered him that despite her age and apprehension there was a part of her mind and body that was ready and prepared to give him anything.

‘It
is
Valentine’s day,’ he joked and she rolled her eyes.

‘I was thinking a moment ago about a line they always use in my mum’s erotic romance books, that is so true actually and I understand it now.’

‘I can’t believe an intelligent girl, taking A-level English is reading sex books, but go on,’ he kissed her breast again.

‘You’re trying to distract me,’ she breathed.

‘Is it working?’

‘Yes. Look I don’t read them, not really, Stephanie does and makes me read the juicy stuff,’ Alice ruffled his hair,
‘You have ruined me for any other man.’

Tom looked up his face serious and sad suddenly, ‘I know I have,’ he placed his tea on the bedside table, ‘I have taken an innocent girl and then used every bit of love, lust and experience. Hate, dark fantasy and sexual emotion I’ve been able to accumulate over time and I’ve immersed you within it, totally.’

She only understood this now?

‘Tom…’ she started.

‘No Alice. I have and I’ve done it knowingly and willingly and I am sorry. I have ruined you for any other man. For any relationship that you have in the future. This experience will taint it all because of its complexity. I fucking knew I would. I’m a selfish bastard,’ he sat up and pushed his fingers harshly through his hair.

He was so in love with her he had let all his barriers down and she had given everything to him. They had constructed a situation that neither of them would be able to re-create again and for one so young as Alice, the grief for him was tangible.

Alice sniffed from behind and he looked back over his shoulder at her. He noticed the fat tears rolling down her cheeks, dripping onto her chest.

‘Alice, I’m sorry. Don’t cry. I was just raging at… myself,’ he grabbed her and pulled her to his side. But she pushed at him with her little hands. He held her tighter trying to calm her.

‘Get off me!’ she shouted.

Tom let her go instantly.

‘Future relationship? Are you just playing at this, is that it?’ she shouted at him, her voice filled with raw anguish.

Tom flinched, ‘I didn’t mean it like that, baby. Of course I’m not playing. I love you. I’m so in love with you.’

He wanted to touch her but her face was warning him to stay away.

How stupid that he had totally missed his comments would sound like he didn’t give a shit about what they had. He had just got a bit too consumed by his own guilt for a moment and hadn’t thought it through clearly. She was more likely to get rid of him, not the other way round.

‘Oh you love me, Tom. I don’t doubt that. You just don’t see a future together for us do you?’ she wiped the tears from her cheek, ‘What happened to,
I don’t want anyone else to have you?
’ she mimicked his voice back to him again with perfect accuracy.

‘I don’t,’ Tom ground out the words. Creeping fear took hold now and he struggled to keep from jumping at her and making her understand his mistake was just that. He had to stay calm.

‘You’re a liar. What’s going to happen when you leave soon and start a new job? Going to forget me and look for a nice safe relationship? Been too busy getting laid lately to think about being a respectable teacher?’ she pulled the bed clothes to her chest instinctively in protection.

Tom watched her and felt like his head was on fire, ‘fucking hell Alice that’s enough!’ he shouted, ‘I’m in a relationship with you, the only one I want for the rest of my god damn life… how can you question that?’

‘Okay, you believe that if it makes you feel better. But I think your subconscious is in serious doubt.’

‘No, it isn’t,’ he said. But somewhere in the back of his mind, was she right? He dismissed the thought quickly.

‘I need my clothes,’ she said, averting her gaze from his own hard stare.

‘No, you don’t. You’re not leaving like this,’ he jerked the duvet aggressively from her hands and she looked up at him in disbelief. His eyes roamed over her exposed naked body and his own started to respond.

‘Don’t do this, Tom,’ she whispered.

‘I can’t let you go like this. I won’t,’ he pleaded softly, despite every muscle in his body feeling tense and wired.

‘You can’t stop me.’

‘I can,’ he watched her closely. If he had to he would stop her from leaving, they needed to talk, but he was very aware of the fine line he was walking. If he couldn’t turn this around, then his move would be very dangerous.

‘I’m finishing this now, us, I can’t do it anymore.’

She pulled one leg out of its kneeling position to get off the bed and Tom leapt forward. His hand catching the curve of her hip and stilling her movement. He levelled his face so close to hers and swore he could hear her heart beating.

‘You’re not finishing anything. You’re mine and no other man will so much as touch a hair on your head. Don’t play games with me, saying you want this over, because you don’t. I hurt you by not thinking straight, I understand that and I’m so sorry. But don’t push me, Alice. I would hold you here for as long as it takes if I had to, so help me I would,’ his body was poised, holding her still.

‘I think I should go. We can talk when we’re both calmer,’ she smiled at him sweetly, brushed her fingers over his hand and tried to stand. Tom put a small amount of pressure on her hip, forcing her back down.

‘If we talk when we’re calm things would have changed between us. You won’t trust me and I’ll hate myself for screwing up, it’ll feel weird like we don’t really know each other, but we know each other, baby.’

He pulled her body beneath his own with one hand and lowered his chest slightly so she couldn’t wriggle out of his grasp. She pushed at him but not hard enough to make him worried that she was totally opposed to his restraining her.

‘What we need to do is fuck and forget this shit… please.’

‘No,’ Alice’s breathing quickened giving her away.

Tom repressed the urge to smile he wasn’t that arrogant. He forced one of his legs between hers and she struggled weakly, he moved the other and spread her knees with his own.

‘No, Tom,’ she moaned as he kissed her neck. But her hand was in his hair moments later. He did feel slightly ashamed that he was using sex as a weapon against her right now, but he seriously didn’t want her to leave hurt and angry and thinking he didn’t love her with everything that he was.

‘Do you want me to stop?’ he asked seriously now.

‘No,’ her eyes filled up again, she felt weak and he could see it.

‘If I was man enough to cry in front of you, I would be, right now. I love you so damn much, please don’t scare me like that again.’

‘Sorry,’ she whispered.

‘I’m sorry… and I’m sorry for the bullyboy tactics.’

‘I wouldn’t expect anything else from a street fighter like you,’ she smiled.

‘Can I do it?’ Tom motioned with his head to the area between their bodies that was not yet joined physically.

Alice nodded, and with that small motion Tom wanted to run around punching the air like an idiot.

He entered her slowly and froze…

Shit, no condom.

‘It’s okay Tom. I started taking the pill a month ago,’ Alice looked away embarrassed.

‘Really?’ he pulled her face back to his, ‘why didn’t you tell me?’ Tom moved inside her again. It felt so good.

‘Surprise?’ she muttered.

‘Thank you,’ he kissed her hard on the mouth.

This was going to be a really long night and she wasn’t the only one that might have to pull a sickie tomorrow.

NO MAN IS AN ISLAND

Saturday
2
nd
March

T
om quickly tied his trainers and threw on his burgundy Umbro sweat top, ran his hands through his hair and looked around for his CD Walkman.

Where the hell is it?

He poked his head round the kitchen door and found Neil with his head in the fridge.

‘What’re you eating?’ he raised his hands in despair.

Neil chewed sheepishly, ‘Twix,’ he grinned.

‘You’re the one always complaining about having no abs, how is that going to help?’

‘Sorry He-Man just the thought of going running with you makes me turn to chocolate for comfort,’ he laughed back sarcastically.

‘Dork,’ Tom opened the kitchen junk drawer and continued looking.

‘The Twix was in your fridge anyway,’ Neil laughed.

Tom ignored him, ‘have you seen my Walkman?’

‘No. Did you lend it to Matt for his flight?’ he asked.

‘I’d never get it back! I’ll check the bedroom again. Will you check the car for me? The keys are on the sideboard,’ he said running up the stairs.

‘Yep. Do you really need it that much anyway?’ Neil called.

‘Can’t put any serious miles away without music, dude,’ Tom shouted down the stairs.

Neil grabbed the car keys, ‘oh joy, oh rapture,’ he muttered to himself.

A few minutes later with no luck in the bedroom, Tom found Neil in the living room with his back to him looking at something in his hand.

‘Was it in the car?’ he asked.

‘No, I didn’t find it,’ his voice sounded strangely low and concerned.

‘What?’

He turned slowly to face Tom. His features were oddly hard and as Neil was nearly always smiling, Tom felt a sudden shiver of apprehension dance over his shoulders.

‘No Walkman. Just these.’

Neil held his hand out and in it he was holding a small piece of paper about four inches long and two inches wide.

‘I don’t get it, what’s up?’ Tom questioned.

‘Look at it,’ Neil demanded. Tom took the slip of paper from his friend’s hand and turned it over.

Alice’s enchantingly beautiful, innocent face smiled back at him. Her small head perched lightly on his broad shoulder. And him half-smiling too. Looking so mature, old and different.

Shit.

Then the next picture. All you could see was the sides of their heads, his large hands pushed into her hair, holding her forcefully as they kissed. Alice’s eyes were closed and she looked like a blonde angel. He, he looked like a thirty something, male teacher kissing his student in the most inappropriate way imaginable.

His hand was shaking. He’d not even seen the photos before now. She must have torn them into two pieces and left them in his car for him to find.

‘Don’t say, it’s not what it looks like,’ Neil’s voice cut into his thoughts.

Tom looked up, ‘I wasn’t going to.’

‘Who is she, Tom? You didn’t mention you were seeing someone. It looks serious,’ Neil questioned never taking his eyes from Tom’s face.

‘Just a girl, you don’t know her,’ Tom shrugged looking down at the pictures again. He was never going to be able to pull this off.

‘You’re fucking right, mate she is just a girl!’ his friend’s words hit hard and he inwardly flinched.

‘Please Neil, let me explain.’

‘How old is she?’

‘Seventeen,’ he mumbled stuffing the photos into the pocket of his shorts.

Neil coughed, spluttered even, ‘seventeen?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well I suppose that’s something, she looks younger. Seventeen… when were you going to tell me?’

‘I don’t know. It’s tricky, her parents don’t know, no one does,’ Tom wanted the ground to open up.

‘How did you meet her? The gym? She’s stunning by the way. I can see the attraction. But seventeen, that’s a bit weird even if she is hot, Tom.’

Tom felt the familiar pang of jealousy as soon as Neil said the words. Normally he would joke around talking about woman, who they found attractive and so on, but he couldn’t do that with Alice, she was his.

‘Yes, she’s stunning,’ he levelled his eyes with Neil’s now.

Neil flung himself on the sofa in a dramatic fashion and patted the seat next to him like an old woman, ‘you gonna talk to me then?’

‘This is really hard for me, okay. You need to listen before you just accept this like it’s cool with you. This isn’t cool,’ Tom sat on the leather chair opposite him, ‘there is no easy way to say this.’

‘Go on,’ Neil prompted.

‘I didn’t meet Alice at the gym,’ he paused, ‘I meet her at school. I teach her English.’

Neil’s hand flew to cover his mouth. He began shaking his head back and forth and moments later let out a low long whistle, ‘that is messed up, man.’

‘Very.’

‘But we’ve talked about hot school girls before. You were always so passionate about your career and how teachers just don’t ever look at students that way. You’re the last person I thought would do this,’ Neil was staring at him now and demanding answers that Tom didn’t have.

‘I thought I was too, but when I started at the school and first saw her something just hit me. I couldn’t control it, and she was suddenly everywhere I looked, in my head twenty-four seven. It was like I didn’t exist anymore outside of how she made me feel,’ Tom wiped his face with the arm of his sweat top.

‘Like
The
Godfather
thunderbolt?’ Neil asked.

‘Yes, just like that. I don’t know what to do? Everything is so screwed up. I want to be with her so badly, but if anyone else found out it would be curtains to teaching and now I get a look at these photos. Which I haven’t seen before by the way, and it just looks… wrong. When we’re together I just see her, I forget that I’m older. In my head I’m still eighteen.’

Neil blew out a slow breath, ‘you know it’s wrong though don’t you? I don’t mean ‘abuser’ wrong, because I don’t think for a moment that’s what you are. So you don’t need to kick my arse! Just wrong on the teaching side. This isn’t you, you’re a great teacher, don’t mess it up because of some attempt to rekindle your teenage years. It could be just a blip.’

‘It’s not a
blip,
Neil. But I do get what you’re saying about teaching. You know that I’m leaving the school anyway, it would make it easier to continue seeing her then,’ Tom’s hands had finally stopped shaking. Thank god Neil was such a good guy and he was actually talking to him about it.

‘I don’t think it’s that clear cut do you?’

‘No. I thought it was until… this,’ he pulled out the pictures again and stared at himself.

‘It’s pretty stark,’ Neil smiled supportively.

‘I can’t finish it with her,’ Tom felt tears threaten to fall and wiped his face again.

‘Do you want a whiskey?’ Neil pushed himself off the sofa and fixed two drinks in the kitchen, walked back in with the bottle and handed one to Tom. Who drank it quickly.

They sat in silence for nearly ten minutes then Neil looked up, ‘You’re fucking her? If that picture is anything to go by, you must be.’

Tom nodded slowly.

‘Shit man, you’re a crazy Irish bastard. She’s not some nymphet,
Lolita
type is she? Just taking you for a ride for kicks,’ he mused.

‘She… she was a virgin,’ Tom hung his head in shame as he said the words.

‘Crazy. You need to decide what to do. Not just for you, but you have to think for her too. What is best for a seventeen-year-old girl? I’m pretty sure it’s not getting banged by her teacher, despite what she may think she wants.’

‘That’s what I pretty much said to her at the start, and then we kissed and after that… well,’ Tom fixed himself another whiskey and downed that one too.

‘You were no longer thinking then,’ Neil said.

‘No. I guess not. I love her you know, the first person I have loved properly, Neil. How can I give that up?’

‘Do you?’ he questioned awkwardly.

‘Yes. I do.’

God, he loved her so much. All he wanted was her here now, so they could run off together and in a perfect world, have kids and grow old together. But this was reality and Neil was right. How was any of this good for Alice? Did she really know what she wanted?

As soul destroying and awful giving her up would be, she could move on and eventually forget him. Find someone her own age, be free to love and be loved without all the fucking secrets… for him though he doubted it would ever be that easy.

‘Then I’m in no position to tell you what to do. But as your best friend, who loves you, I just don’t want to see you throw your whole life away on something that has really low odds on becoming happily ever after, you know?’ Neil walked over now and held out his arms.

‘I know. Thank you for being so… you, I guess,’ Tom smiled at Neil and hugged him tightly.

‘You’re welcome big guy. I just didn’t ever think I’d be having this conversation with you, one of the others, maybe.’

‘What am I going to?’ Tom begged for an answer now.

‘At the very least you need to put some distance between you. Where have you had offers from now, that school you’re not keen on in Banbury, anywhere else?’ he asked.

‘Yes, a head of department in Chipping Norton, quite a small school though…’

‘Go on?’

‘This is what I wasn’t going to tell you yet. The school I applied to at the same time as Claude Bennett, the private one back home in Wicklow has been in touch. You remember I went for the interview but they gave it to someone else? The person they took on hasn’t worked out and they want me to call them. Looks like I was second on their list. I wasn’t going to even mention it and had dismissed it with Alice being here and you, everything really,’ Tom opened the drawer in the sideboard and handed him the letter he had received days ago.

‘Wow, head of department, brilliant salary, prestigious school. That’s what you wanted, didn’t you?’ Neil said scanning the letter.

Tom nodded.

‘I’m not one for fate or anything but if you wanted to have some time away to think things through this would be the ideal opportunity and a fantastic career progression. As much as I would miss you, you need this. It’s only an hour or so on the plane,’ he handed the letter back and smiled sympathetically.

‘What about Alice? How could I do that to her and to myself? Fuck!’ he cursed loudly and felt like hitting something, ‘How the hell did I get myself into this?’

‘Do you really want me to answer that? I think your head was somewhere else.’

‘It wasn’t like that. It isn’t like that,’ he replied angrily, ‘what would she do if I ended it? How could I go on without her?’ Tom sank back onto the sofa.

‘You’ve got it bad, Tom,’ Neil stated.

‘Worse than that,’ Tom shook his head and roughly elbowed the soft cushion behind him.

‘Ever heard the expression… pulling the plaster
off quickly?’ Neil whispered under his breath.

‘Yes…’ Tom paused, ‘but it fucking stings.’