The Air I Breathe

by K. Renee

  “You can tell me. I won’t judge.” When I don’t say anything, he starts to guess. “Don’t tell me he’s your first.”

  “No,” I whisper.

  “Two.” I still don’t say anything. “Three?” I stay silent still, afraid of him to get the right number. “Four, no five. I’m number five.”

  “Yes.” Squeezing my eyes shut, I try to calm myself down a little. I never even told Alec how many men I slept with before him. Maybe he just never cared enough to ask.

  “Fuck, that’s sexy as shit.” He goes completely silent on the other end of the line, and I have to ask if he’s still there. “Yeah, sorry babe. I was just picturing you right here with me.”

  “Why?” I question, not really getting it. No one has ever said these types of things to me before, and I don’t even know how to process them, let alone respond.

  “Cameo, you’ve been the only fucking thing on my mind since we met in that store. I am craving you.”

  It’s my turn to go completely silent on him. I don’t know what to say to that, and I feel the same way as him, only I can’t admit to it. I can’t tell him the same things because I am engaged to be married to someone else.

  ---

  The sound of the house phone ringing wakes me up a few hours later. Looking over at the clock on the nightstand, I see that it’s after three in the afternoon. Jumping out of bed, I make my way to Alec’s side of the bed and grab the phone off the cradle and hit the answer button.

  “Hello?” I croak out.

  “Hello, darling. Your phone is off. I was trying to get a hold of you all day. Everything okay?” I rub the sleep out of my eyes and sit on the bed.

  “Sorry, it must have died, and I didn’t realize it.” My hand slides through the blankets and over the sheets looking for the phone. When my phone finally hits it, I snag it and check the screen. Sure enough, it’s dead.

  “Are you still in bed?” he asks.

  “Yeah, I didn’t feel well today and thought that I would sleep it off.” I lay back on the bed, thinking about the hours that Sager and I spent on the phone last night talking.

  “Well, I hope you feel better, darling. I just wanted to check on you. I’ll call you tonight. I should be home on Tuesday.” A feeling of dread fills me.

  “Four days? I didn’t think you’d be gone that long. Is everything okay?”

  “Yes, everything is fine. We are acquiring a new business, and it’s taking some extra long nights to get the deal squared away. I’ll be home before you know it.” Someone calls his name and I hear him answer the person quietly.

  “I’m sorry, dear, but I need to get back to work. Have a great day, and I’ll call you later tonight.” Closing my eyes, I tell him that I love him and I’ll talk to him later.

  “I love you too,” he answers.

  The line goes dead, and I hang up the phone. Rolling over to my side of the bed, I put my phone on the charger and wait for it to start back up.

  As the phone turns itself back on, I hear the notifications dinging every few seconds until it’s all caught up. Grabbing it, I look at the screen and see a few missed calls from the women at the country club and a text message from Alec. He said he tried to get ahold of me all day. One time does not count as all day.

  Another set of messages comes through, and I see S as the contact name.

  S: I woke up late for work and it’s your fault. You need to make it up to me.

  S: Missed you this morning for your usual workout. You better not bail on me tonight.

  S: Tell me your number one fantasy.

  I shake my head as I read through the messages from him. He is too much sometimes. I don’t even know what to say back to him, so instead, I make him wait to see if I even show up.

  Who am I kidding, there is no way I’m going to pass up a chance to see him again tonight. Our conversations were intriguing if not satisfying. I loved being able to ask him questions about himself as well as letting him tell me all sorts of random things about himself.

  Now, I am counting down the hours until eight o’clock so I get a chance to see him again. I can’t wait until I get to see him again.

  Checking the time again, I can’t help but grin. Less than five hours to go. Maybe I should… No, I can’t. I shouldn’t be thinking about dressing up for a man that isn’t my fiancé. Lingerie is a little more personal.

  S: I’ll have you on your knees by the end of the night babe, so be ready.

  I squeeze my thighs together just thinking about what he has planned for tonight.

  Eight

  Sager

  It’s been hours since I spoke to her last. A sneaking suspicion that she isn’t going to show up tonight is eating away at me. She just might not show up, but after last night, I have a feeling she just might.

  I look at the clock for about the tenth time in the last few minutes.

  She still isn’t responding to me, and it’s slowly killing me. Grabbing my phone, I type her out one more message before I wait her out.

  Me: Heels, I want you in heels tonight. The sexier, the better.

  Instead of leaving my phone on the desk like I normally do, I shove it in my top drawer and shut it. Getting up from my chair, I make my way out of my office and toward the front desk. Mandy is sitting there still with that damn nail file in her hand.

  “You get bored of waiting for her to appear magically on your dick that you decided on coming up here to torture me?” She flicks her black hair over her shoulder and stares me down like she intimidates me. Little does she know, I came up here to give her the rest of the night off.

  “I mean, I came up here to say that I’d take over the front desk so you can go surprise your man, but never mind. You are free to continue to work.” I hold my hands up as I slowly back away, and she jumps up from her chair, grabbing her bag as she goes.

  “I love you, Sager. If she doesn’t show up tonight, I’ll make you whatever dessert you want tomorrow!” With that, she kisses both of my cheeks before running out of the gym without even looking back.

  Chuckling to myself, I take a seat at her desk and pull up a web browser. Typing in her name, I wait for the results to pull up. A Facebook page shows up, and when I click on it, it doesn’t give me much to go on.

  There aren’t many photos of her on there, and it doesn’t mention his name anywhere. I click the add friend button, and it forces me to log in to my account and look through her profile pictures.

  Going back to the search engine, I click on the wedding announcement that was in the paper earlier this year. The picture that’s attached to it is painful to look at. Alec Manga doesn’t even have a smile on his face, and Cameo looks like her smile is forced. Maybe they don’t really love each other. Maybe this is just another forced marriage that is all for show.

  Alec Micheal Manga announces his engagement to Cameo Tania Hartley.

  Instead of reading the whole article, I skim through it and see that he works as some CEO at Martin House. I’ve heard of them before, but I can’t put my finger on where I’ve heard of them. Opening up a separate tab, I search his name and scan through a few of the pages, but nothing catches my eye. There’s a picture on the Martin House website, but nothing more than that. He looks like a tool. A pretty boy tool that wouldn’t know how to truly please a woman if he tried. I bet he only gets himself off before he pulls out and falls asleep next to her.

  “Well, don’t you look cute?” Her voice brings my head up, and a grin creeps over my lips. “Since when are you the check in person?”

  “Since I gave Mandy the rest of the night off.” I grin at her and motion for her to come over to my side of the desk. Closing all the windows that are open on the screen, I grab the second chair and pull it out for her.

  “If I knew you’d be early, I would have forced Mandy to stay longer.”

  “Oh please, you would have still done the same thing.” I grin at her as she takes a seat next to me. She isn’t wearing workout clothes tonight, and she’s
got on a pair of heels that make her a little closer to my height but still never tall enough.

  “Probably. Mandy is dating one of my best friends from childhood. G is a lucky man and tonight he is going to get one hell of a surprise.”

  She giggles as she sets her purse down on the ground next to our feet. “G? Does he have an actual name?”

  I grin at her. “If I told you it, he’d kill me. He has hated it all his life.”

  “When will he ever find out that I know?” I shrug my shoulders. I know that she thinks we won’t be anything more than this. Purely sex.

  “He’ll just know.” She rolls her eyes at me, and I reach over to pull her chair closer to mine. One of my hands slides up her thighs, and her breath catches and her lips part.

  “Gerald will find out I told you and even though I just said his name, I’ll make sure the only name you remember is mine.”

  She surprises the hell out of me by grabbing my shirt and pulling me to her. My other hand cups the side of her neck and I lean in. When my lips touch hers all thoughts leave and the only thing that I can focus on is her.

  “Are you sure?” Her lips barely brush against mine as she speaks.

  “Positive. I’ll have you crying out my name once this place closes.” Before I can kiss her any more, she pulls away and stands up grabbing her bag as she goes.

  As she walks away from me, I have to bite the inside of my cheek. Her ass sways from side to side as she makes her way toward my office. Once she gets through the door, Jenner comes out from somewhere in the back of the gym.

  “Where’d you find that hot little piece of ass?” he asks motioning toward my office.

  “Fuck, I don’t even know. Just fucking glad I was the one who found her.” He grins as he leans against the counter.

  “Yet, you are still sitting behind this desk while she’s looking hot as fuck in your office all alone.” I run my hand over my face and lean back in my chair slightly.

  “Yeah, I sent Mandy home to G earlier than normal tonight. Now I get to man the desk and that sexy woman in my office showed up an hour early.”

  He grins and shakes his head at me. “Go. I don’t have another client tonight. I’ll close up for you and get everyone out of the building so you can fuck her brains out.”

  I stand up and slap him on the back. “You are a lifesaver. I owe you one.” He just grins as I make my way out from behind the desk, practically running toward my office.

  Once I get through the door, I see her sitting behind my desk, eyes pointing toward the desk and where her phone is sitting.

  “How much longer are you manning the front desk?” she questions, finally looking up at me.

  “I’m free. Jenner is going to be closing up for me.” I stalk toward her. Putting a hand on each of the armrests, I lean down so I’m right in her face. “Now, I’m taking you to my place. I have some plans for you and your pussy, baby.”

  She adjusts herself on the chair, and I see her squeeze her legs together. “I should say no.”

  “Yeah, but you won’t. You want me to take you right now, but I am going to take my time with you tonight after everything we talked about last night.”

  “Why are you so certain that I’ll do what you want?”

  I reach out, wrapping my hand around the back of her neck and pulling her mouth to mine.

  “Because even though you want to fight whatever it is we have between us, you are just as curious about it as me.” As soon as our mouths touch, she slightly opens hers, and I take advantage of it. My tongue invades her mouth, and it doesn’t take her long to give into me. Her tongue glides against mine, and her hands grip my forearms.

  When I finally break the kiss, her eyes are dazed, and she is breathing heavily.

  “Let me take you home with me. You can even drive over there on your own if you want.” I give her the option because I don’t want her to say no. I want her to want to come with me on her own free will.

  “Okay.”

  Grinning, I kiss her again before pulling her up and out of the chair. “Come on.” All but dragging her out of my office, ignoring Jenner as we walk by. I lead her to her car, but she pushes me away from it. I stop and stare at her for a second. “You drive.” A huge grin spreads across my face, and I grab her hand, taking her to my car.

  Opening the passenger door, I help her in before shutting the door and move to the other side of the car. As I get in, I look over at her, and she’s chewing on her lip.

  “Cameo?”

  She looks over at me, but I can’t read her expression.

  “Just go.” Her voice is steady, and the look in her eyes goes straight through me.

  Once I start my car, I grin at her and put it in reverse. As we leave the parking lot, she goes back to looking out her window.

  “Cameo, you are beautiful.” The blush travels up her neck like it did that first time I complimented her. I don’t think her fiancé has ever told her how beautiful she is. That is one thing I vow to change. I’m going to make sure she knows how beautiful she is every day even if she doesn’t want to hear it. I want her to know how much I want her, even when she’s back with him.

  “You don’t have to compliment me,” she folds her hands in her lap as she continues to stare out the window. “I am already here in your car going to your place, I don’t need the buttering up.”

  Pulling over to the side of the road, I put the car in park and turn to face her. “You really think that I am buttering you up just to sleep with you?” She nods her head but doesn’t say anything else. “Trust me Cameo, if that was all I wanted I would have fucked you and never thought about you again. Just like every other woman I’ve ever been with.”

  She still doesn’t look at me, and she doesn’t say another thing about it. Instead of saying anything else, I turn back toward the road and drive back toward the gym. If she really thinks that all I want from her is sex, then I would rather just cut ties now.

  She won’t have to feel so terrible about cheating on that tool she’s engaged to. She can just say that it was a last hoorah or whatever.

  “What are you doing?” she asks when I pull into the parking lot by her car. I don’t bother putting it in park this time because I’m not sticking around once she gets out.

  “You think I’m just using you and that you don’t matter enough to even get a simple compliment. You are way more than you think and I just wish like hell you’d realize that.” I don’t say anything else, and after a few minutes of silence she gets out of my car and gets into hers.

  I watch her for a second before I take off, not looking back.

  Nine

  Cameo

  My mind is racing. I don’t know how to process what just happened. He walked away, or drove away actually.

  Watching him drive away, I decide on following him. I don’t want to lose whatever this is, no matter how wrong it is. I follow him for the most part until he pulls into a driveway. Parking a few houses down, I watch him as he gets out and shuts the car door.

  He slams his hand down on the top of the car before running his hands down his face. Sager starts toward the house when he stops and pulls his phone out of his pocket. I watch him put it to his ear as he answers it. He looks to his front door before walking back to his car, getting in and pulling out of the driveway.

  I watch his car as it disappears into the distance and I think about what I did. If I were with him right now, maybe he wouldn’t have left. Maybe he would have stayed with me.

  Sitting here for far longer than I should, I decide on waiting for him to come back. I don’t want to end things the way we did, and even though I don’t know when he might possibly show back up, I wait.

  It’s almost ten o’clock before I decide on heading home. Alec called me two hours ago so I talked to him a little and I even spent a little time reading a book on my phone.

  Before I can start my car, there is a tap on my passenger window. Startled, I put my hand to my chest and look over to see S
ager leaning down to look in. He motions for me to unlock the door. Pressing the unlock button, I watch him as he slides into my passenger seat and shuts the door.

  “Why are you parked outside my neighbor’s house?”

  I shrug even though I know he can barely see me since we are nowhere near a streetlight.

  “Did you follow me earlier?”

  “Yes. I wanted to tell you that I was sorry, but before I could get the nerve, you left.”

  His sigh fills the otherwise silent car. “Come inside.”

  I start to fidget my hands and take a deep breath. “Okay.”

  He gets out of the car, and I follow his lead. Once the doors are shut, I hit the lock button on my keyring,

  I watch his backside as he walks toward his house and I don’t know if I’m making the right decision. When I talked with Alec earlier, he sounded disinterested in everything I said. Almost like he was distracted or ignoring me or something.

  Sager opens his front door and motions for me to enter first. Walking through his front door, I go inside and wait for him to turn on a light or something. I can barely see anything in the entryway until he finally shuts the door and turns on a light.

  “You want something to drink?” He moves past me, this time he doesn’t put his hands on me like he normally would.

  “No. I didn’t come for a drink.”

  Sager pauses where he is and turns toward me.

  “Then why are you here Cameo? Why follow me home and wait three hours?”

  As I think of what to say to him, I watch him. I stand near the door watching his every move.

  “You know why,” I finally whisper.

  “No, I need you to tell me, Cameo. Tell me what you want from me. Clearly you think I just want you for sex, so you need to tell me what you want.”

  I watch him move toward a large chair in the middle of his living room and take a seat there. I come to stand in front of him, setting my purse on the ground at my feet. The closer I get to him, the more nervous I become.

  Putting my hands on either side of his chair, I lean closer to him. His eyes take me in, but he never moves from his position. As I get a little braver, I go to straddle his lap. His breathing changes as I lower myself onto him.