Christmas at Lilac Cottage - Holly Martin Page 0,82

doesn’t know me. I’m hoping it won’t come to that.’

‘What did you say?’

‘I told her if she tried to blackmail me into sleeping with her again, I would slap a sexual harassment suit on the company so fast and sue them for every penny they had.’

Daniel went very pale. ‘You did what? You threatened her?’

Henry ran his fingers through his hair. ‘It probably wasn’t my best move. She just pissed me off. I honestly don’t know whether I’ll have a job to return to after Christmas and Daisy and I have only just arrived down here. If I lose my job, I don’t think I can afford to stay.’

‘What else could you have done? You can’t let her blackmail you like that. And if you had slept with her, it would have ended very badly if Edward found out. Oh mate, I don’t know what to suggest.’

Henry sighed. Everything had seemed so perfect for a few days and now this had ruined everything.

But as Penny walked in with Maggie and he pulled her down by his side, he knew there was no way he could leave White Cliff Bay now.

* * *

Penny smiled as Henry took her hand and they walked down the driveway towards his car. He had been very tactile all night, sitting next to her, holding her hand at the table, sitting with his arm round her as they chatted to Maggie and Daniel. His affection for her came so naturally and she loved it.

She was worried though. Something had happened at his work today to upset him. The fact that he had kept it to himself worried her too. Despite his smiles and easiness around her friends, there was something eating at him, she could tell that, and somehow she knew it had to do with Clara.

He opened the car door for her and she slid into the passenger seat as he walked round to the driver’s side.

As soon as he closed his door, he leaned across towards her, cupping the back of her head with his large hands and planting a soft, sweet kiss on her lips.

‘I’ve been wanting to do that all night,’ he said, against her mouth. He started to pull away but she grabbed his shirt and pulled him back, kissing him again.

God, his kisses were so addictive and very quickly the kiss turned into the prelude to something else, her hands were in his hair, his were wandering over her body. She reluctantly pulled away before she got too carried away right there on her friend’s driveway. Henry groaned with disappointment. Frustratingly they probably couldn’t even finish off the kiss when they got home.

Henry sat back in his seat, gripping the steering wheel tightly, clearly equally frustrated by their inability to finish the kiss.

He started the car and pulled out their drive.

‘We, erm… don’t have to go straight home,’ Henry said.

She looked at him and laughed. ‘What were you thinking, we find a secluded layby somewhere in the middle of the woods and have sex in the back of the car?’

‘That’s exactly what I’m thinking.’

She stared at him in shock, there were no words in her head. It wasn’t exactly the sweet, gorgeously romantic experience they’d had the first time they made love but she couldn’t deny that the possibility really excited her.

‘I’ve never had sex in a car before,’ Penny said.

‘Me neither.’

‘Really? Isn’t that a rite of passage for most teenage boys?’

‘Remember my later teenage years were spent raising a baby, there wasn’t a lot of time for shagging in cars. Tina was the first girl I slept with, a drunken fumble at a party. There wasn’t anybody else then for years.’

Henry drove through the town.

‘That must have been so hard for you.’

He shrugged. ‘Daisy was my priority. Women just didn’t register on my radar for a long time. I was too exhausted to think about anything else. Night feeds almost killed me.’

‘So no wild sex in weird and wonderful places?’

Henry clearly thought about this for a moment. If there was any weird sex or sex in unusual places, none obviously came to mind. It made Penny feel a lot better about her complete lack of sexual experience. ‘I guess I’ve been quite sensible. I’ve done the usual places, like in the shower, on the table, on the couch, on a pool table, in a garden, on a sun lounger…’

‘Those are usual places?’ Penny blushed.

‘Well, yes. They’re not weird places. One of my friends had sex in a graveyard, now