Take My Breath Away

Even though Blair was struggling quite a bit, Wesley ignored that resistance and carried her out of the car.

"Humph!" With a gruff mumble, she straightened her clothes and then made her way towards the elevator as soon as he put her down. She didn't even seem to be in a mood to wait for him.

However, she couldn't get rid of him so easily. Wesley caught up to her and grabbed her arm.

"What!" she almost roared, turning around.

"You seem really short-tempered and hold in too many feelings. That's not good for your health. You know what? Let's take the stairs. The exercise is good for venting out some anger." She could be as troublesome as she wanted to be, but he was an expert in taming people.

"No! I'm so not taking the stairs! You take the stairs! Let go of me, you jerk!" No matter how much she despised wasting energy on the stairs, she was taken to them anyway.

'Twenty-one floors! Forty-two flights of stairs! Damn this heartless, cold-blooded, overbearing tyrant!' Her legs started shaking at the very thought. "Wesley, if you really want to climb the stairs, go ahead and knock yourself out; but I don't want to. I'm not a masochist. I want to ride the elevator. Let me go!"

Wesley must have had some plan in his head because he stopped at the bottom of the stairs to give her a chance to soften her tone before starting climbing. "What do you plan to do tomorrow?" he asked again.

"Sleeping!" She was still fuming. 'He is the devil.'

That was it! The anger still hadn't gone away! Holding her arm, Wesley started ascending the stairs. Blair shouted behind him, "Wesley, it serves you right that you've been single for so many years. No wonder not a single girl likes you. You don't deserve one! You don't even know how to treat a girl!"

Wesley turned around and asked her in a simple tone, "Aren't you a girl?"

Caught up in her fury, Blair didn't understand where his question was coming from. She had forgotten that she liked Wesley once upon a time. But still she retorted, "What a stupid question! Of course I am!"

Wesley didn't press further, but he seemed satisfied.

When they reached the third floor, Blair finally realized what he had meant. Panting, she tried to argue with him. "Nuh-uh, nice try! But I told you I was over you. Tomorrow, I'll bring home a boyfriend to prove it to you. And he's going to be much more handsome, taller, stronger, more thoughtful, and more successful than you are. He is going to be perfect!" Even she had no idea what she was saying.

"Okay," Wesley nodded calmly. To be honest, he would be really happy for her if she could find someone like that; if such a someone existed at all!

When they reached the sixth floor, Blair felt like she couldn't breathe anymore, but she still couldn't convince Wesley to let her go. And the fact that she had trouble breathing did not help her cause in any way since she could not speak.

'Boo...hoo... this evil man. How can he torture me like this?' she thought sadly. The fury was slowly turning into sadness now.

She let out a low sob, trying to hold back her tears. Wesley turned around and saw that her eyes were red. "What do you plan to do tomorrow?" he asked once again.

Blair finally lost it all and yelled, "Wesley Li, if you keep forcing me to climb the stairs, I am not even going to go to paradise with you, even if you beg me!"

Wesley ignored the roar and turned around to continue climbing.

Four more floors up, when Blair felt like she was going to fall down, his phone vibrated. Blair heard it too.

"Hi, Mom," he greeted Cecelia in his usual two-word sentence.

"Wes, I hear that you're off-duty tomorrow. Is that right?" Cecelia's voice was loud enough to reach Blair's ears.

"Yes," Wesley answered. But before the matter could continue further, Blair's eyes gleamed!

'It's Cecelia! I'm saved, ' she thought. After taking a deep breath, she climbed up the three steps between them to quickly snatch his phone. Even though he wouldn't give it to her, Blair managed to get her voice through by shouting out loud, "Aunt Cecelia, help me! Your son is being cruel to me!"

Wesley was speechless. He had no idea Blair was going to play this card!

Cecelia's eyes lit up when she heard Blair's voice, even though her sentence wasn't clear. "Son, is that Blair? Are you with her? Put her on the phone. I want to speak to her. Hurry now."

Wesley had no choice now. He had to hand his cell over to Blair, who was gloating in glee now.

Once Blair had the phone in her hand, she felt like she could finally get justice for the torture she had been facing and started telling on Wesley. "Aunt Cecelia, I don't know what I did wrong, but Wesley is punishing me for some random reason by making me climb to the 21st floor. On stairs! And he didn't even let me eat. He also yelled at me."

Wesley listened on with a poker face while Blair made some false and some true accusations against him. She was taking full advantage.

Cecelia felt bad when she heard Blair's sad voice, and she wasn't happy about the way Wesley treated Blair either. In fact, from what she was hearing, he was being cruel. True it wasn't easy for him to like someone, but now that he had feelings for Blair, he definitely needed to treat her better. "There, there. Don't be so sad, Blair. Don't cry! I am here, and I am going to give Wes a good tongue-lashing. You go take the elevator."

"But I am scared, Aunt. And he won't allow me to do that," Blair continued in a timid tone, even though she was smirking much more gladly at Wesley now, with her left hand on her waist. He looked at her in disbelief. This woman was unbelievable!

"It's okay. He will. Give the phone to him and I'll talk some sense into the man!"

"Okay. Thank you, Aunt Cecelia." Blair returned the phone to Wesley with a happy expression that was in total contrast to her timid tone.

"Wes, what's going on? How can you treat a girl like that? How do you even dare? Maybe you can easily climb so many stairs, but Blair is a girl. Girls are delicate. They should be treated gently. That's twenty-one floors. How can you make her do that?"

Though her words weren't so harsh, Cecelia sounded angry. As he was being scolded, Wesley didn't explain. He didn't even say a single word but merely kept on staring at Blair.

The trouble was, there was only one apartment on each floor in this building. What was more, for some reason, the elevator on each floor was exclusive to the person who lived there. This meant that Blair couldn't use the elevator on the tenth floor. Either she continued climbing or she would have to go all the way down!

After listening to Cecelia's scolding for a while, Wesley finally spoke and assured her, "Okay, Mom! I'll carry her upstairs now."

Cecelia was relieved. "That'll do just fine. Remember, be gentle and thoughtful around girls. You need to take care of them and love them. Or you might end up being single your whole life."

"No problem, Mom. That is exactly what I want. Bye!" Tired of Cecelia's nagging, Wesley hung up the phone.

He and Blair stared at each other. Suddenly, it dawned on her what he had meant by "carry." 'Aww hell no!' She couldn't help shuddering. "If you carry me up on your shoulder, I'll tell on you again!" she warned.

Wesley sneered in response. He wasn't afraid of his mom. What could she do once the deed was done?

Despite Blair's screams and tantrum, he threw her on her shoulder and moved on.

This wasn't what she had been expecting. It was weird, awkward, and uncomfortable! When she had gotten drunk last time, he had carried her in his arms, not like this.

Her head was swimming. But it latched onto one creative idea. "Put me down right now! Or I'll make you sleep in my bed again tonight! I mean it! If you don't sleep in my bed tonight, I'll go out and get drunk again!" she threatened. That seemed to work; after all, Wesley had to suffer deeply the last time such a thing had happened.

The next second, she was put down.

'Eh? My threat is working!' Blair let out of a sigh of relief and tried not to puke. Grabbing the handrail to steady herself, she looked at Wesley miserably and told him, "Leave! I don't want to see you right now."

Ignoring what she was saying, he turned around and squatted down. "Fine! Come on up!" he demanded. Come to think about it, every time when he wanted to punish her, he had ended up coaxing her into doing something SHE wanted. It was baffling! Like how did she manage to do that? Even a soldier like him was unable to tame this woman!

Blair climbed onto his back. "I have to say you asked for this. It was your idea to climb the stairs, and now it is you giving me a piggyback ride all the way up to the twenty-first floor." In retrospect, it was rather ironic!

She also had to confess to herself that the man had incredible stamina. He carried her up from the tenth floor to the twenty-first without stopping for a breather.

Deciding that she would give him a break, Blair had even suggested that she could climb the last four sets of stairs when they reached the nineteenth floor, but Wesley had objected. "I said that I would carry you upstairs, and carry you upstairs I will," was his response.

Finally, when they were back in their apartment, Blair all but ran into the kitchen, grabbed a bottle of mineral water from the shelf and handed it to Wesley. "Here, drink some water. Do you want it to be boiled?" As far as she recalled, he never had mineral water boiled. By habit, he merely unscrewed the lid and gulped it down.

Wesley looked at the bottle in her hand and took it with a slight smile, his first one in a long while. "No need. But I can see that you're a pretty good liar."

"What?" Blair was confused.

Wesley took another huge gulp of water without responding to her words. He didn't want to embarrass her further.

Then she remembered that she had told him earlier there was no mineral water left in their home. Damn! "This is the last bottle," she said, trying to save face with an embarrassed smile.