Chapter 29 Blythe
BLYTHE
I can already tell how sore my body is going to be tomorrow as I stretch across the king bed, legs tangling in sheets we didn’t bother peeling off.
“Worth it,” I murmur.
Sam’s warm chuckle answers as he walks back into the room with a tray.
I openly admire him as he sets the tray on the bed while I pull myself back into a seated position against the headboard. His eyes heat when he sees me there, still naked. I thought about putting something on, but why bother? It’ll come off again the minute we’re done eating.
He climbs onto the bed next to me and pulls the tray closer. I want to keep staring at him, but hunger wins, and I drag my gaze away, looking at what he has presented before us.
Sam has put together a mix of things we picked up at the store. Cheese, crackers, strawberries, various meats, and… “Is that?” I lean in closer because my eyes are probably deceiving me. “Branston Pickle?” I say in wonder, looking back at the slightly dishevelled man sitting beside me.
He nods. “It is.”
“But I thought you hated the stuff.”
He shrugs and leans forward, silently preparing a cracker with cheddar and a dollop of the offensive chutney. I expect him to hand it to me, but he sits back, looks at the cracker, takes a couple deep breaths, and pops the entire thing in his mouth, chewing quickly with his eyes closed.
I watch, unsure if I should move away in case he gags and sends bits of partially chewed food in my direction.
He doesn’t though. He swallows, takes a couple more deep breaths, and opens his eyes.
“You didn’t puke,” I praise him. “And you survived.”
“Maybe fifteen years was enough time to get over the aversion,” he says thoughtfully, going back to the tray and assembling another, handing it to me this time.
I accept it and lean back, taking a bite and watching as he makes another for himself.
“You’re going to need to pack some jars before you head home,” I joke.
“Nah, there’s a pretty good British food store down the street from my condo.”
His condo. I chew slowly, studying him as he moves onto the meat.
I’ve never been the type of person who can look at someone and imagine them living somewhere specific.
But when I look at Sam, nothing about him says condo.
Maybe because I know how he feels about peace and quiet.
The thought of him stacked in some high-rise sours the already sour pickle in my mouth.
I want to know what his place looks like.
Has he decorated it with warm and cozy things?
Is it cold and clinical because no matter what he does, it won’t feel like home?
Or maybe he likes it just fine, and I’m pretending I know him better than I do.
Maybe living there makes escaping to places like this more special.
Fingers on my chin make me look away from where my eyes zeroed in on his bicep. “Where’d you go?”
“Nowhere, just loving that you were willing to try the pickle.” It’s not a lie exactly. I do love that he was. But I have a feeling that bringing up home won’t benefit either of us, and I don’t want to jump into that can of worms on day one. It feels like more of a day four conversation.
“Figured if you like it, then it can’t be that bad. What?” he asks in disbelief when he sees me trying not to laugh.
“I’m thinking of all the ways I could wield this ‘if she likes it’ power,” I muse, preparing another cracker.
“However you want, Rosie.” He drops a kiss on my nose when I look back over my shoulder, and I know the giggle that comes from me is all kinds of ridiculous. “But you know what they say about power.”
“It comes with responsibility?” I ask.
“Once you have it, it’s hard to let it go,” he says.
“Fuck yes,” Sam groans as I push harder. “That’s…there…fuck.”
I transfer more weight into my hands, kneading his trapezius. If I thought he was vocal during sex, it’s nothing compared to how loud he is while I’m massaging him.
I’m biting my lip so hard I’m worried my teeth are going to slice through while I desperately try not to laugh. Not that this is supposed to be a sexy massage, but if I lose it in a fit of giggles, I won’t be able to keep it up.
He hadn’t asked me to do this, but he winced after our pre-meal activities, and when I asked if he was okay, he spent three point five seconds trying to tell me he was fine before I called bullshit.
“Does that feel good, baby?” I purr, my lips brushing his ear as I dig deeper into the muscle.
“Mmmmmm,” he hums, relaxing further.
“You like it deep, eh?” I tease, and his body bounces below me as he laughs.
His laugh is dangerous. The kind that floats out of the shadows and beckons you to dark corners. And I’m absolutely going to follow it.
I wake in the dark to fingers skating lazily across my upper back but I don’t move, enjoying the feel of it too much. Sam’s heartbeat is steady beneath my hand, his breath slow and quiet.
“I can feel you thinking,” I whisper, and his hand stops. Dammit.
He rolls to face me, his left hand curling around my hip before he drags me closer. “I do my best thinking in the middle of the night.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Mmmhmm,” his fingertips ghost across my chin, and then his lips are on mine. I expect things to heat, but he drops his hand and inhales. “I’m sorry if I woke you.”
“You didn’t,” I assure him. “I don’t know what did, but it wasn’t you.” I snuggle against him, soaking up as much man pillow time as I can get while I can.
When I wake again, I’m alone in bed. I run my hand over Sam’s side of the bed to check the temperature. It’s cold, which means he’s been gone for a while.
I slip out of bed and head toward the bathroom, where I can hear the shower. Standing outside the door with my hand resting on the knob, I wonder if I should go in or not. But before I make up my mind, the water shuts off.
I panic, spinning right then left, unsure what to do. Jump back into bed? Put on some pyjamas and start breakfast? Jump him the minute he walks out?
Opting for pyjamas I race to my bag and start throwing things around until I find shorts and an old rugby shirt of Eric’s that I declared a bed shirt six years ago.
I’ve just gotten the shirt over my head when the door to the bathroom opens, and I look up to see Sam standing there, a towel mouthwateringly low on his hips.
He raises his hands to the top of the door and leans forward, every muscle in his body on full display as he stretches. The grin on his face reveals he knows exactly what he’s doing. I need to pay him back for this at some point, but I have no idea how.
His eyes trail down my body, and despite the fact I am now wearing clothes, I feel naked.
“I’m going to start some coffee,” I stammer, skirting around the bed and out the door before he has a chance to do anything else that turns my brain to mush.
“I’ll be out soon,” he calls after me, followed by a chuckle.
True to his word, he joins me in less than two minutes, hair damp, t-shirt clinging to his body, and sweats doing that thing they do when adorning the lower half of a man.
We move around the kitchen quietly. His hands land on my hips when he switches between cutting fruit and popping more bread into the toaster. I feel almost useless manning the Moka pot while he seems to have everything else under control.
When you live alone with a child, it’s an anomaly to have someone else doing most things in the kitchen. So while I feel like I should be, or at the very least could be, doing more, I can’t say I hate standing back and letting Sam handle most of the prep.
It’s overcast this morning, but that doesn’t stop Sam from throwing the accordion door in the conservatory wide as we sit at the little cafe set and enjoy our breakfast with some fresh Highland air.
Conversation is light while we navigate life away from the bedroom and with no Maggi. As much as I had been looking forward to all the bedroom stuff, I hoped for moments like this. A different kind of adult time.
Sam’s eyes are on me more often than not. I catch him looking at my jersey and can’t tell if he’s happy or mad about it. Maybe he hates the player whose name is across the back. A little thrill runs through me at the thought of him being upset that I’m wearing another man’s jersey.
“So,” he breaks a ten-minute-long silence where the only sound was a crow off in the distance. “I was considering going on a hike today. Maybe packing a light lunch to eat out in the middle of nowhere.”
I snort at his description, considering we are currently very much in the middle of nowhere.
“Are you telling me because you’d like me to join you or because you want to let me know I’ll have to find my own activity for the day?”
He stares back at me like I’ve sprouted a second head. “Why wouldn’t I want you to come with me?”
I shrug. “Because you like your alone time. Because despite asking me to join you on this getaway, you may find yourself needing that time. And for the record, I’m okay with that.”
Setting down his coffee, he leans against the table and levels me with a look so hard that I feel the need to crawl under the table to escape whatever it is he’s about to say.
“So you thought I brought you along for a fuck when I felt like it?”
My jaw drops at his crass description of what I most definitely considered that this may be. “Am I out of line thinking that?”
“Rosie, I like your company in and out of the bedroom.” I’m about to point out that sex doesn’t have to be confined to the bedroom, but he continues. “I like my alone time, but one other person who I happen to really like isn’t going to ruin it. You’re definitely an enhancement.”
Well, damn.