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He didn’t stir, so she shook him gently.
He opened his eyes blearily and suddenly smiled, ru
She was here, in his bedroom. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her as he fell asleep earlier and now she was here. He was dreaming but she sure felt real, her skin was so soft. She wasn’t dressed in the sexy lingerie the women of his dreams were normally wearing, but she still looked heavenly dressed in cute snowflake pyjama bottoms and an oversized t-shirt. He wanted to pull her into bed with him and see the gorgeous body she hid underneath these big clothes.
He slid his hand down to her fingers and entwined them with his own. He shifted back into the bed a bit and pulled her gently towards him. For one wonderful moment, she came willingly, before she stopped and pulled her hand from his.
‘Henry, it’s me, it’s Pe
He was well aware who she was. Although as he became more awake it was very obvious she hadn’t pitched up in his bedroom for a night of hot sex.
He cleared his throat and rubbed his face to try to dispel the images that were playing through his mind.
‘Are you OK?’ he said as he sat up and looked at her.
‘Daisy’s having a nightmare.’
He shot out of bed, all thoughts of passionate sex vanishing. ‘Where is she?’
‘In my front room. I didn’t want to wake her in case I scared her.’
He raced downstairs. Why was Daisy in Pe
Pe
She wondered briefly if she should follow him but Henry knew how to deal with it; she would only be in his way.
Sleep was a long way off now, especially after what had passed between them in the bedroom.
He had tried to pull her into bed with him and for a moment, maybe a few seconds, she had nearly done just that. What would he have done when he woke properly to find her in bed with him and not some gorgeous model that he had been imagining?
She was pouring some milk in a saucepan to make a hot chocolate, when suddenly there was a noise behind her. She turned to see Henry standing in her kitchen, looking incredible still only dressed in a pair of tight boxer briefs. He had his robe in his hand but he hadn’t bothered to put it on. She quickly looked away.
‘Is she OK?’
‘Yes, she’s fast asleep, and the nightmare seems to have passed.’ He sighed heavily and Pe
‘Does it happen a lot?’
‘More often than I would like, but a lot less now she’s older than when she was a child.’
Pe
‘Mainly they revolve around her being abandoned or rejected, despite me doing everything in my power to reassure her that I would never leave her. She had attachment issues for the first ten years of her life, I couldn't leave her with anyone but my parents or A
‘It’s OK, I won’t say anything, to her or to anyone else. But her nightmares don’t reflect badly on you.’
‘Of course they do. She has nightmares because she thinks I’m going to leave her.’
‘You stood by her when no one else did. You raised her when you were no more than a child yourself and you should be incredibly proud of that and of the wonderful girl she is because of you. You put her first above everything else. Don’t ever doubt your parenting skills – you gave her love and she can’t ask for anything more than that.’
He smiled at her. ‘Thank you.’
She watched him, unable to take her eyes off him and he stared right back, the tension fizzing between them like lightning about to strike. She looked away, focussing on the task of making the hot chocolate.
‘I’m sorry she was in your house, I have no idea what she was doing here. I’ll speak to her tomorrow.’
She felt him move behind her, her body embarrassingly erupting in goosebumps at his proximity. Why was she so attracted to this man? Sure, he was good-looking, any idiot could see that, but there were lots of good-looking men in the town and she’d never reacted like this around them before. Was it the way he stared at her, as if he saw deep inside her? Was it having him in her home, the one place she always felt safe, and she just felt nervous about him being in her space? He wouldn’t hurt her, she knew that, well not physically, but he was exactly the sort of man who would ruin her. She feared for that.
‘You’re cold. Here, put this on,’ Henry said, draping his soft towelling robe round her shoulders. The scent of him washed over her, sweet, intoxicatingly spicy. She pushed her arms through the sleeves. The warmth of the robe did nothing to dispel the goosebumps.
‘I’m sorry she woke you.’
She turned round to face him, determinedly looking at his eyes and not at those abs that she just wanted to reach out and touch.
‘It’s no problem at all.’
He stared at her. What was with all the staring, that solid, unblinking, grey gaze? It made her want to run away and hide from it.
‘I’m sorry about…’ he gestured vaguely to upstairs and his bedroom. ‘I’d just woken up and thought I was dreaming.’
She smiled, wanting to tease him to break the tension between them. ‘I gathered you were dreaming when you tried to pull me into bed with you. Who did you think I was, Angelina Jolie or Keira Knightley? I had a dream once that I was in bed with Brad Pitt and when I woke up I was cuddled up to poor Bernard.’
He frowned. ‘I was dreaming about you and then I woke up and you were there.’
There were no words in Pe
Henry stepped a bit closer and pulled the robe tighter around her, fastening it with the belt. ‘Best dream I’ve ever had.’
Part of her felt euphoric at the attention he was giving her but part of her was a
He moved in, he was so close she could feel his warmth, feel his breath on her face, but he didn’t touch her, just leaned round her to pick the saucepan off the stove.
‘Your milk is boiling over.’ He poured the milk into the mug filled with the drinking chocolate and gave it a good stir, then pushed the mug into her hands. ‘Now drink this and get back to bed.’