The Other Man (The Other Man Series Book 1) (8 page)

He moved it slowly, edging in and out of my hole in sync with his mouth. My orgasm didn’t build, it destroyed. Frozen in place, I squeezed my eyelids together and clung to the door frame as the pleasure ripped through me, leaving my body devastated and liquid. Zach soothed his hand against my thigh, waiting for my breathing to calm.

“Respira, Blake,” he whispered. “No hay nada mejor en este mundo, que el sabor de su orgasmo.”

Breath, Blake. There is nothing better in this world, than the taste of your orgasm.

Unable to hold myself up anymore, I slid down the wall, bending my knees and collapsing on to the sterile tile floor.

“Fuck,” I cursed. “How...how…”

I stuttered, not able to form the question I needed to ask. He knew what I was trying to say.

“Because the way to reacted to Carlie’s foreign words the other night and the way you reacted to mine. It’s your trigger, it makes you weak in the knees,” he shrugged one shoulder. “I was brought up using both languages because my dad used to own a place out in Mallorca.”

A glimpse into his life. Something that I wasn’t sure I wanted but it somehow felt good to know. Ridiculous. Fucked up. My mind was more jumbled than before.

I would never be the same, I felt it in my soul.

I managed to drag myself off the floor and fasten the buttons on my trousers when his hand came to the back of my head and he forced my eyes away from the floor, to him.

The man was an enigma. So confident, so cocky, so damn egotistical.

Yet, soft. His movements, the way he touched, the way he protected. A contradiction. A puzzle that I somehow knew I would have to figure out.

“Don’t overthink things. It is what it is and we both enjoyed it. Go home, Blake. Go home to your wife and life just goes on. Simple,” I nodded at him and turned to leave. With my hand on the doorknob, he called, “Oh, but, Blake?”

I looked back over my shoulder to see his eyes darken and he grinned.

“Next time, it’s my turn.”

Seeing the lust in his eyes, I sucked in a breath and took a second to think about how I’d feel with that. I realised that the idea turned me on a lot more than it should. Life was getting complicated. Zach smiled and flicked his hand to the door, probably knowing that I needed to escape. So I fled the building, ignoring the receptionist’s look of knowing, and headed back to the station.

I may have escaped his presence physically.

But with the way his lust filled gaze was with me every which way I turned, I couldn’t escape him in my mind.

He was a mistake. More than a mistake.

Yet it felt like the best mistake I’d ever made.

I returned home just before seven, after taking a shower back at the station.

If anything, I was feeling more confused and shaken than I had been hours before. I was certain that I would walk through the front door and be bombarded with accusations and insults. That didn’t happen. In fact, nothing did. Carlie was curled up asleep on the sofa, her knees tucked to her chest and her head rested on one hand.

I pulled the blanket from the back and laid it over her, smiling when she mumbled in her sleep.

Then I paused.

When did I become the sort of person that would cheat on his wife? How could I pretend?

I felt sick at my actions. I never claimed to be the best liar but I was convinced that I could hide it from her until the day I died. I made my mind up. My fascination with Zach was just that, a fascination. It was done with. I couldn’t hurt Carlie like that, even if I already had.

Then Zach’s whispered vow before I left his office filtered through my brain and I couldn’t clear it from my mind. Repeating, over and over and over.

Next time, it’s my turn.

Next time. He wasn’t joking, and he wasn’t saying it like a suggestion. It was a stone vow. Like he was one hundred percent sure that there would be a next time and from the heat in his eyes I knew he was already thinking about it.

Admittedly...so was I.

An endless cycle of pornographic images, plaguing my thoughts.

I couldn’t live like that.

Scrubbing my hands roughly across my face, I sighed in confusion. I needed time to think and space away from everything. My life had turned upside down in the span of a couple of weeks, yet I seemed to have no control over it. My actions were unforgivable, but unpreventable. I didn’t make the choice to go to Zach. I didn’t make the choice to watch with passion and desire clouding my vision, as he tongued my cock and made me come. The decision was made for me and I was driven by a force that I couldn’t understand.

It wasn’t natural. But it also didn’t feel altogether
unnatural
either.

A mind-fuck.

Bringing myself back to reality, I stroked Carlie’s forehead, pushing her hair to one side.

“Carlie? Honey, wake up,” I coaxed, waiting until her eyes blinked open. “Get yourself off to bed, you’ll get neck ache sleeping like that.”

Her eyes flicked around the room for a few beats like she couldn’t remember where she was, then she blinked and smiled through a yawn.

“Hey! How long have you been home?”

“Not long, have you eaten?” She shook her head.

“Alright, want me to order in? Chinese? Pizza?”

Her lips pursed. Between the gym and her obsession with looking incredible, she wasn’t a huge fan of takeaway food, or any high-calorie food at all. It had always been that way. Honestly, I thought it was something she would just ease up about as she got older, but if anything, it had been getting worse.

“One Chow Mein isn’t going to kill you, Carlie. Hell, let’s go wild, I’ll order some chicken rolls and prawn crackers while I’m at it,” I joked. Her face went pale. “Bloody hell, I’m getting food. If you want to go eat rabbit food then I’m not going to stop you.”

I hadn’t meant to snap at her but I’d been saying for months that she needed to see a therapist or something. It wasn’t an eating disorder as such because she was healthy and she did eat. It was just an obsession with being perfect. I googled it once and convinced myself that she had body dysmorphia. Turns out, it’s not the best idea to tell her that though. I think that was the one time I’ve ever been genuinely a little terrified of my own wife.

The food came half an hour later. Carlie hadn’t spoken to me but I’d ordered enough for her anyway. I laid the cartons out on the table and starting picking at the noodles. I suddenly felt like my stomach was tied in knots and couldn’t force the food down fast enough. Something that should be a normal, essential everyday task like eating; felt like it was taking all my strength.

I stacked the half-empty containers on the work surface, not bothering to clean up properly and stalked up the stairs. I just wanted to crawl into bed and forget the day ever happened.

Funny how the second I lay down, memories assaulted my brain.

I closed my eyes and let the visions play out. Zach on his knees, the feel of his tongue in my mouth, the way he ran his fingers across my chin, the smell of his aftershave filling my senses. My cock jumped and I stifled a groan. Carlie shuffled closer to me and wrapped her arm around my waist. I bent one leg at the knee to hide my stiffening member. I wouldn’t be able to make love to my wife with the thoughts of another person in my head.

It was so, so wrong.

My phone buzzed on the bedside table, an unknown number.

“Your cock. My mouth. Have you managed to stop thinking about it yet?”

I quickly shut it down and threw it back, praying Carlie hadn’t seen anything.

Was it just a fascination?

Because with the way my palms were sweating and my fingers were trembling, I felt like an addict. Like I was having withdrawal symptoms from a man I’d known less than two weeks, and who I’d only
had
, three times.

“I love you, Blake,” Carlie whispered in the darkness.

“Te quiero, Carlie,” I replied, using one of the only phrases I knew.

And I wasn’t lying. I did love her. It was quickly becoming apparent to though, that maybe I wasn’t
in
love with her anymore. I just wished I knew what to do about it or how to fix it.

The bed sheets felt too rough on my skin, Carlie felt too warm and clammy against me. I gave up on staying in our bed, and stomped back down the stairs like an angry bull. I pulled the blanket over me on the sofa and closed my eyes.

Fuck Zack and his ability to invade my life.

I would never give up on my marriage or my wife, even if my heart already had already begun to switch off. Couples fight through problems every day and come out stronger, I wanted that to happen with us.

My final thought as I drifted off to sleep was that, if I could convince myself I was being honest, maybe I could convince the rest of the world too.

Somehow, it didn’t feel as easy as it sounded.

Morning came before I was ready for it. Carlie had already gone, leaving a note on the lounge table about hitting the gym before work. I scowled, then rolled my eyes at my own actions. Being jealous that she was at the one place I could never go again was ridiculous and it was
those
thoughts that I was going to have to battle.

By the time I got to work, I was feeling ready to take on the day. I was a thirty-five year old man for fuck sake and it was time I started acting like it. No more. I’d had multiple texts from Carlie throughout the morning, just checking in. It was something she never did before, but it felt...I don’t know, necessary, that day for some unknown reason.

My office walls actually seemed like they were cocooning me. Keeping me safe inside from anything that was willing to attempt to get in. The thought was ridiculous, but it was there all the same. It felt like a dark day. Like yet
another
something that I couldn’t control was about to happen. So yeah, my office became my safe place to hide from the rest of the world.

Until it wasn’t anymore

“Hey, Bossman?” Marc poked his head around the office door a few hours later.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“I was just wondering if it’s alright for me to take a longer lunch today.”

Considering we had a canteen at the station, they only had half an hour and the guys didn’t usually leave the building for lunch, it was an odd request. I frowned.

“Why? I mean, as long as you’re back within an hour then I don’t have a problem with it, but why?”

He actually blushed and if he hadn’t look so nervous, I would have made some comment about him needing to grow a pair. Ha! Like I could talk. Pot, meet kettle, it’s black.

“I’m meeting my girl’s sister in town. I’m going to ask her to marry me, so I wanted her help choosing the ring,” he explained.

“You’re going to ask your girl’s sister to marry you?” I teased.

“What? No, no! I just meant...”

His stuttering made me take pity on him and I interrupted him with a laugh, “I know what you meant. It’s no problem you can…”

The printer in the main room clicked and started to print, setting everyone in action. The tip-sheet came through and the sirens blared. Everyone threw their cards down from the game they’d been playing and immediately started suiting up.

I turned to Marc, who was already six feet away, moving towards his locker. I stood back and watched, ignoring that familiar pang in my chest that happened every time they left without me.

The dispatcher started to speak.

“All engines required. Large building fire, Pro-Weight’s gym. Multiple persons suspected to be inside,” squawked across the tannoy. “Code blue. Urgent response required, stat.”

“Guess shopping will have to wait, Marc,” he waved me off. That’s the thing about the job, when you’re needed, nothing else matters.

Then my heart just stopped beating, grabbing hold of the person nearest to me as he walked past, his face blurred as I attempted to hold myself up, “Did that say Pro-Weight’s gym?”

Matt’s concerned face came into view, “Yeah. Are you alright?”

Without thought, I scrambled towards my locker and grabbed my gear, throwing it on and suiting up within milliseconds. My body was on autopilot, my brain switched to protection mode.

“Blake!” Matt called.

“This is all hands on deck, guys. You’re going to need everyone, that includes me,” I explained, which was actually true, regardless of the fact that my insides were crippled with panic.

Within seconds, we were packed into the engines and racing towards our target. My hands were trembling and I knew more than one of the guys had noticed. Their faces were worried, and not about the fire, that was their job. No, that worry was all about my reaction. I had to pull myself together quickly before my nerves affected my job.

I could smell the smoke before I saw the building, it was a hauntingly familiar smell. For the first time in my life, I had a
personal
reason to be there and that should have been my first warning that I was doing the wrong thing. I quickly scanned the waiting faces, some openly shocked, some weirdly curious...all of them were worried.

None of them were Zach.

Seeing as I was the highest ranked there, I started barking orders as soon as the engine stopped.

“Matt, Marc, you two take the ladders and see if you can get in anywhere up there,” I pointed to the broken fire escape. “Dave, you come with me and we’ll go in from the back and see if we can get anyone out through there. Harry, man the hose and be on alert in case engine two needs you.”

I didn’t stop to check if they understood, this wasn’t our first rodeo. I launched myself from the vehicle and pushed my legs to fight through my sudden onset of nerves. Smoke billowed from the roof of the building and I could see the flames dancing through open windows on the top floor. Never a good sign.

The back door gave way easily under a swift kick to the lock. I shook my head, yet another reason to kick Zach’s ass when I saw him again.
If
I ever saw him alive again.

Fuck. My heart spasmed in my chest.

The smoke was thick, but the heat wasn’t too bad which told me two things. The good, the fire was far enough away from that part of the building, we had enough time to get people out. The bad, it was burning bad enough elsewhere that no one would survive the smoke inhalation anywhere close to it.

Not wanting to waste any time, I shouted over to Dave, “You take those two side rooms, I’ll see if there’s any access up those stairs.”

“Boss?” I knew why he was questioning me, we didn’t split up, but damn it! Someone I cared about was inside that building and I wasn’t waiting around.

Losing my temper, I snapped at him.

“Just fucking do it!” And as an afterthought, “but be careful!”

With a split-second hesitation, he moved and I made my way towards the stairs. A flickering orange glow kissing the top step told me I was getting close, too close. I was screaming Zach’s name under my mask, praying that he wasn’t hurt. My eyes took a few beats to adjust to the darkness of the top floor, the torch on my helmet barely helping at all through the smoke. The heat became almost unbearable and I could feel the sweat pouring down my forehead.