What Matters Page 8

  “Whatever.” Sam turned away.

  Eddie grabbed his arm. “What do you need it for? Are you diabetic?”

  “What do you think?”

  Sam glared at her like she was London’s biggest idiot, and for once she agreed with him. Dylan and Mr. Nowak’s cryptic comments now made sense, and so did the state she’d found Sam in. As she watched him shovel back the toast she’d made him, it was obvious that the plate of toast and honey was doing him the world of good. The dull haze faded fast from his usually sharp eyes, and colour returned to his his chiselled cheeks.

  Eddie longed to touch him, to feel the warmth of his blood rushing beneath his smooth skin, and check his temperature had gone down, but something—everything—in Sam’s stance kept her still. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  In answer, Sam dropped his empty plate on the counter and walked away.

  And the silence remained in place for the rest of the day. Sam ignored Eddie’s attempts to break it, and only spoke when he needed her to do something. The lack of communication wasn’t that unusual, but with the scent of Sam still clinging to her skin—in her imagination, at least—Eddie took it to heart, and around mid-morning, she realised that the band of painful tension in her head was because she was fighting tears.

  Eddie never cried, not even when her beloved grandmother had died of a stroke on Christmas Eve. No. She was a fighter, a scrapper, and she’d be damned if she let Sam Nowak dictate every moment of everything that passed between them.

  Resolved, she took a deep, shaky breath, and marched into the kitchen. Sam was at the fridge, retrieving packs of bacon to restock the counter. “Look,” she began. “I’m sorry I jumped on you over something that’s none of my business, but it’s really not fair of you to treat me this way, especially after—”

  “After what?” Sam cut in fiercely. “You think I owe you a conversation, or some shit? Just because I fucked you the other night?”

  The brutal candour was so close to Eddie’s worst fears that she took an instinctive step back. “Just because you fucked me? Is that all it was? An empty hook up?”

  “You tell me.”

  “I’m asking you.”

  “Why?”

  Eddie shook her head in an attempt to clear it. “Why—what? I don’t understand.”

  “Like hell, you don’t.” Sam shut the fridge with a bang. “It ain’t hard, is it? You fancied a bit of rough, and I gave it to you. Now you can go back to your fancy-pants world, and I can stay here in mine, jacking up smack in the kitchen, ’cause that’s what you thought, isn’t it?”

  Eddie couldn’t deny it, and her silence was an open door for Sam to rip her apart.

  He sneered and shook his head. “Yeah, you thought I was scum that first time you laid eyes on me, and nothing’s changed, has it? I can make you come, but I don’t wear enough tweed for anything else.”

  Sam laughed humourlessly and made to brush past Eddie, but she caught his arm, digging her nails into his forearm. “That’s not fair. I don’t care if you’re my boss when your grandfather isn’t here, you don’t get to talk to me like this.”

  “No? Why not? Too up your own arse to hear the truth?”

  “What truth?” Eddie shouted, what was left of her composure evaporating in a cloud of Sam Nowak-themed dust. “I haven’t got a bloody clue what your problem is. You’re the one who left me in bed like some cheap tart you’d picked up down the pub.”

  Sam raised an eyebrow and looked pointedly over Eddie’s shoulder. She followed his smirk and saw that she’d neglected to close the kitchen door behind her and the whole front row of the café was now looking their way with considerable interest.

  Furious, her face hot with humiliation, Eddie released Sam’s arm and slammed the door. “Are you going to tell me what your problem is, or am I just to assume that you’re a complete bastard?”

  “Assume whatever you want,” Sam countered. “Won’t get you nowhere.”

  Eddie shook her head. “Trust me, there’s nowhere I’m going but home. I’ve had enough of this crap for one day.”

  “See you then.”

  “That’s it?”

  Sam shrugged. “Got everything else you wanted, didn’t you?”

  “I did? You—“ Eddie stopped, whatever words she’d had stuck in her throat, because what else was there to say? Sam had played his hand and his position was clear: Eddie had been nothing more than a cheap shag—a crap one, if the cool mocking in his usually molten eyes was anything to go by—and he couldn’t care less if she screamed blue murder in his face, or left without another word.

  And so she left, grabbing her coat and bag and storming out of the café with her apron still tied around her waist. She was on the bus to orchestra rehearsals by the time she remembered she’d left something vital behind.

  I hate him.

  Cursing the day she’d laid eyes on Sam Nowak, and his wonderful gruff and kind grandfather, Eddie jumped off the bus at the next step and ran the half mile back to the café.

  Sam was at the counter. He glanced up as she barged through the door and pointed to the ceiling. “Key’s under the box of napkins. Your shit is on my couch.”

  Eddie stalked past him to the door that led upstairs, and on the second floor of the building, found a landing crowded with boxes of café paraphernalia. She found the one labelled “napkins” and retrieved the key to the locked door on the other side of the hall.

  It felt a little odd to let herself into Sam’s flat while they were on such bad terms, but despite her hurry to grab the Stradivarius and get to rehearsals, Eddie couldn’t contain her curiosity as she glanced around the neat and tidy space that Sam called home. There wasn’t much to it—just a living room with a sofa-bed, a tiny kitchen, and a closed door that she assumed was the bathroom, but it smelled amazing—it smelled of Sam.

  Eddie started to smile, but then her gaze fell on a small bag of medical supplies on the table and choking tears once again caught in her chest. It’s not all his fault, remember? You messed up too.

  She couldn’t deny it, nor the guilt as it burned in her chest. She grabbed the Stradivarius with shaking hands and fled the flat.

  It was her intention to slip out of the back door, but Sam was in the small yard outside, heaving a bag of rubbish into the giant red bin.

  Eddie steeled herself and approached him, silencing her phone as Martha’s ringtone—“The Nutcracker”—blared from her pocket. “Look, I’m sorry about today, all right? I didn’t know you were diabetic, and you’re right—I made assumptions about you that I should’ve have. Perhaps that makes me all the things you say I am, but that doesn’t mean I deserve the way you spoke to me.”

  And this time she walked away with her head held high.

  Chapter Nine

  Eddie slid her bow into its protective sleeve and packed it away in her case. Rehearsals had gone well—really well—and despite her dreadful morning, she was flying.

  Martha appeared at her side and nudged. “Oh my God, you smashed that solo. If you don’t get a first chair now, there’s something seriously wrong with the world.”

  Eddie could think of plenty of things that were wrong in her world, but in this she had to agree with Martha. She had smashed it, and the nod from the orchestra director had solidified her joy as the rehearsal had come to an end. Still, counting her chickens was terrifying, given her current situation. “Do you really think I’ll get a chair?”

  “Of course,” Martha said. “You’re the best of the seconds, and there’s two places up for grabs. If you don’t, I’ll start a protest.”

  Eddie giggled. “You’re such a goob. Thanks, girlie.”

  “Don’t thank me yet. I’m about to drag you home to finish your loan applications.”

  Eddie groaned. “Really? But I’m so tired. I worked all morning.”

  “You’ll be even more tired if you have to quit uni and work in that hell hole full time.”

  “It’s not a hell hole,” Eddie protested, tho
ugh the café had felt like one this morning, and the thought of spending the rest of her natural life there was enough to make her shudder. “How long will the applications take?”

  “No idea,” Martha said cheerfully. “But I’ve started them for you. We just have to fill in the technical bits I didn’t know.”

  “I love you. You know that, right?”

  “Yup. Now let’s go. I don’t want to be up all night.”

  Not wanting to be up all night turned out to be wishful thinking on Martha’s part, as it was well past midnight by the time Eddie’s collection of loan and grant applications were complete and submitted.

  Martha sloped off to bed, muttering something about a lifetime supply of Yankee Candles when Eddie hit the big time, while Eddie shut down her laptop and took a much needed shower, hoping it would soothe her wired brain enough for her to sleep.

  And as ever, when her thoughts were unguarded, as the hot spray eased her tired body, her mind turned to Sam. Her parting words to him had been more than justified, but she couldn’t hide from the guilt that burned a path from her gut to her soul. Sam had a lifelong condition, a disease that likely affected him each and every day, and she’d practically called him a no-good junkie.

  What the hell is wrong with me? Eddie turned her face to the water, like it could cleanse her brain of the privileged life and mindset she’d enjoyed until a few weeks ago. Was she really that judgemental and shallow? Because if she was, then she deserved most of the anger Sam had thrown her way.

  Most, because there was no way that the deep yearning she felt for him was a simple crush on a man who represented everything her life had been missing. No. Her attraction to Sam was real, even if it was highly likely that they’d never again share a civil word—a fact that despite her own regrets was definitely not all her fault. And it wasn’t like this was the first time that Sam had been a complete dick.

  Sighing, she turned off the shower, wrapped herself in a towel, and padded to her bedroom. The flat was dark and quiet, but the urge to lock herself in the spare room and toil away on her violin was strong—so strong that she actually dressed in loose pyjama bottoms and a camisole, before she remembered that it was one o’clock in the morning and Martha was sleeping.

  Damn it. Eddie threw herself on her bed and stared at the ceiling. This was the kind of night when she usually wound up calling Ian and heading out into the night for a glass of dreadful wine and some bad sex, but she’d shut that door now, and she had no regrets.

  Just a tingle between her legs and brain that wouldn’t quit reminding her of the one time she’d been sexually satisfied.

  Sexually satisfied? Eddie giggled out loud. That was one way of describing the earth-shattering orgasm Sam had brought her to, and the memory of it went some way to easing the hurt that her encounter with him today had left behind. Unbidden, her hand drifted to her waistband—

  Something clattered against her bedroom window. Eddie jumped a mile. Shit. What was that? Likely a bird, or the wind, but Eddie’s heart struck up a tattoo anyway, her hand frozen guiltily in place, her body tense.

  Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.

  In a flash, Eddie was up. She wrapped the blanket from her bed around her shoulders and dashed to the front door, ignoring her father’s warnings about wandering the city in the middle of the night.

  She ran out into the street, and there was Sam, sitting on the pavement by her bedroom window, flicking tiny stones at the glass. “What are you doing here?”

  “I brought your wages,” Sam said flatly. “I was going to post them through the letterbox, but I figured I’d find out if your toff boyfriend was man enough to come out here and see what all the noise was.”

  “My what?”

  Sam laughed in the humourless way Eddie hated so much. “Your blond hunk of Harrods. What’s he doing? Sleeping off his Dom Perignon buzz?”

  “…blond hunk of Harrods…” Eddie searched her brain. “Oh God, are you talking about Ian?”

  “That his name, is it?” Sam stood and held out a small brown envelope. “Figured it would be Cuthbert, or some shit.”

  “Stop it,” Eddie snapped. “Ian’s not my boyfriend, and he never was. Besides, I’m not seeing him anymore, not that it’s any of your business.”

  “Dumped you, did he? Was that before or after you had him in your bed a few hours after me?”

  The pieces of Eddie’s Sam-shaped puzzle suddenly clicked into place. She pictured the moment Ian had left her flat the morning after she’d slept with Sam, and it all made sense. “Did you come back here the morning after, um—”

  “The morning after I fucked you? Yeah, I did, but I didn’t get very far. Your boyfriend was already here.”

  “He’s not my boyfriend.”

  “Sure looked like it.”

  “I’m sure you looked like my boyfriend too, to anyone who looked through my window that night.”

  “Fucked him too, did you?”

  “No.”

  “But you have.”

  It wasn’t a question, but Eddie nodded anyway. “Yes, on and off for nearly a year, but I told you. I’m not seeing him anymore. That’s what I was doing that morning, breaking things off.”

  “Why?”

  It was hard to tell if Sam cared about Eddie’s answer. She stepped closer to him in the darkness and took the envelope from his outstretched hand. “Because I wanted to. Things were never right between him and me—the company, the sex, it was all bad, and I’d finally had enough. If that makes me some kind of tart in your eyes, fine.”

  Eddie started to turn away. Sam grabbed her arm, his fingers closing around her wrist in a bruising grip. “Why then? Why now? If you’ve been seeing him all this time?”

  Eddie shrugged. “What do you want me to say? That…fucking you showed me the light? That I hadn’t had a real man until you made me come?”

  “If that’s the truth, yes.”

  Eddie gazed up at Sam, lost instantly in his eyes now the harsh edge that made her heart shudder had eased a touch. “You made me feel like I deserved better, that I deserved to feel, even if you never touched me again, so yes, Sam. You showed me the light. Now, are you going to let me go, or are you coming in?”

  Leading Sam to her bedroom was nothing like it had been the first time around. The heat was still there, but the urgency had faded to a dull roar.

  Eddie sat on the edge of her bed as Sam leaned against the closed door. “Do you want something to drink? To eat?”

  Sam shook his head. “I’m good.”

  Eddie nodded and leaned back. It was a subconscious invitation, and Sam took it, crossing the small room with two silent strides and covering her with his body, pressing his forehead to hers.

  “I don’t like you.”

  Eddie smiled. “I don’t like you either.”

  “So why am I here?”

  “You tell me.”

  In answer, Sam kissed her, his lips a mind-bending contradiction of hard and sweet, his hands rough, and yet conversely gentle.

  Eddie melted into his embrace, arching her back, and hitching her leg over his hip, clawing at his chest, tugging at his hair, desperate for whatever he had to give.

  Sam slid his heated palms over her belly and up beneath her camisole, cupping her breasts—kneading, squeezing, brushing her nipples to hardness with his calloused thumbs.

  Eddie shivered, her body instantly and wonderful alive in a way she’d only ever felt with Sam. She broke their kiss and sank her teeth into his neck, drowning in his scent, bewitched by his answering groan as he bore down on her.

  Sam released Eddie’s breasts and pulled her camisole over her head. His eyes darkened, and he licked his lips. “Been dreaming about your tits.”

  He said with a smile that softened words that might otherwise have felt crass to Eddie’s sheltered ears. She brought her own hands to her breasts and squeezed them, pinching her nipples and arching her back. It was perhaps the moment to tell Sam that she’d been dreaming of his cock, b
ut she didn’t.

  Instead, with her gaze still locked on him, she hooked her thumbs in the waistband of her pyjama bottoms and pulled them down. Sam’s eyes widened as he apparently absorbed her brazenness, and then they flashed with an emotion Eddie couldn’t decipher as he ripped her pyjama bottoms down her legs and tossed them aside.

  He grabbed her ankles and yanked her to the edge of the bed. “You wanna come again?”

  At his mercy, Eddie nodded. “Yes.”

  Sam grinned, and then dropped to his knees, burying his face between Eddie’s legs.

  “Oh!” Eddie cried out, rearing up from the bed as Sam’s tongue found her clit and swirled around it, sending heat roaring through her before she had time to comprehend what he was doing. Oh God, oh God, he’s going down on me.

  No one had ever gone down on Eddie, not even Ian—especially not Ian—and now she knew why she’d never bothered to ask, because there was no way another man could make her feel the way Sam was now. His lips, his tongue, the oh-so-light scrape of his teeth. She sobbed with the intensity of it, only her fist in her mouth muffling her screams.

  She came quickly, convulsing as orgasm rushed through her, her legs wrapping in a vice around Sam’s head, pinning him in place as wave after wave crashed over her until she was finally spent.

  But Sam was apparently far from done with her. He broke the stranglehold Eddie’s legs had on his neck and stood, quickly shedding his clothes, leaving only the metal pendant that was now so obviously a medical ID that Eddie wanted to cry.

  His cock distracted her, as magnificent as she remembered, long and thick and hard, and the desperate craving to take him in her mouth returned full force, but Sam was too quick for her. He grabbed her ankles again and pinned her legs above her head, plunging inside her before she’d caught her breath.

  For a moment he held wonderfully still, giving her time to adjust to his size, and then he began to move, slowly at first, teasing her with each thrust, until she dug her nails into his chest and silently demanded more.