‘It’s the police.’

‘Crap.’ Henry pulled out and managed with some difficulty to do his jeans back up, over his impressive bulge. He grabbed her jeans from the front of the car and quickly managed to pull them on her, dragging them up to her knees as the car stopped right behind them and a policeman got out. Penny laughed as she tried to force the jeans up the rest of her thighs, lord knows where her pants were, hopefully nowhere in sight. She managed to do the button up on her jeans just as the policeman knocked on the window. Even fully clothed, with their position in the back of the car, it was very clear what they had been doing, or about to do. Henry backed up and shuffled into a sitting position and Penny did too and then Henry opened the back door. The policeman leaned in and Penny was mortified to see it was Bob, one of her dad’s oldest friends.

Bob flushed as soon as he saw her. He quickly addressed his attention to Henry instead, pretending she wasn’t there.

‘Sir, I saw your hazard warning lights flashing as I drove past and I came to see if there was a problem.’

‘No problem, officer,’ Henry said. ‘We were just going to go for a walk, see if we could spot some deer.’

‘Right.’

Bob glanced over to Penny again and he nodded at her. ‘Penny, are you OK?’

‘Yes, Bob, I’m fine. Sorry to worry you, we just stopped to see the sights.’ Her hair was a tangle around her face, her shirt was all ridden up round her stomach, her shoes were off and she knew her skin was flushed; even in the illumination of the interior car light, she knew Bob had spotted all these things. She looked like she had just had the best sex of her life, which unfortunately was not the case. She had never been so embarrassed before.

‘How’s your dad? I was going to call him this weekend actually.’

Oh god, she couldn’t imagine how that conversation was going to go.

‘He’s fine. Italian life suits them.’

Bob nodded and there was an awkward silence. ‘Well, it’s a bit chilly tonight for a walk. There’s talk of snow too so maybe you two should get off home. You don’t want to be driving these roads when they are icy.’

Henry nodded and, after a few more awkward moments, Bob shuffled off, closing the door behind him.

Henry sighed and clambered into the front. Penny giggled as he picked her pants off the steering wheel and passed them to her in the back along with her shoes. She shoved her feet into her shoes and her pants in her pocket and climbed in the front seat with him.

He started the car, turned the lights on and drove up the little service road. Embarrassingly, Bob followed them, clearly escorting them out so they didn’t stop on the way to have more bad sex.

They pulled out onto the main road and Henry reached for her hand. ‘I’m sorry that was absolutely rubbish, though honestly, I don’t see how it could have been anything else. Whenever you hear about people having sex in cars it always seems much sexier than it actually is.’

Penny let out a giggle which then turned into a full-on laugh. ‘It’s been one of the funniest nights I’ve had in a long time.’

Henry frowned. ‘Now that’s a compliment I’ve never had before, the funniest shag I’ve ever had.’

‘We can’t all be Casanova, Henry.’ Penny patted him consolingly.

‘I’ll do better next time.’

‘I should hope so, because that was over way too quick for my liking.’

Henry continued to scowl all the way home.

They pulled up on the drive and Henry gave her a quick kiss goodnight, round the side of the house where they couldn’t be spotted by Daisy, if she was still awake. Then he disappeared into his house.

Penny let herself in through her back door and Bernard gave her a cursory wag of the tail, before trotting out into the garden to relieve himself.

She saw the light go off in Henry’s lounge and watched as his dark shadow disappeared upstairs.

It had been a wonderful night. With Henry’s tactility over dinner, she had caught a fleeting glimpse at what life would be like when they were properly together and she liked the look of it a lot. But beyond that the humorous side of their relationship was something she had never expected when she first met him.

Bernard came back in and threw himself down on the sofa. Penny locked the door and stalled when she saw two plates of cake crumbs and two glasses on the kitchen table. She had said to Daisy that she was welcome to sit with Bernard and watch TV in front of the fire, and to help herself to cake as there was still loads of it, but that didn’t explain why there were two plates instead of one. Had Daisy had a friend round? Feeling slightly confused, she went to bed.

She lay in her room staring at the ceiling, letting her eyes become accustomed to the dark, when suddenly there was a shadow in the room with her.

Her heart leapt into her throat for a brief second before she recognised the sheer bulk of Henry, getting undressed.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘Finishing what we started. Daisy’s fast asleep, nothing will wake her when she’s that deeply asleep,’ Henry said, as he lifted the duvet and climbed in next to her. He was already deliciously naked and she delighted in running her hands over his velvety skin as he quickly undressed her. ‘Besides, I still have that condom we tried to use earlier, I reckon it’s still good.’

Penny burst out laughing, so loud and so hard that she was sure she might wake Daisy up next door. Henry moved on top of her and she could feel his body shaking as he laughed too, though the laugh quickly turned into a groan of pleasure with what he did next.

Chapter Seventeen

Henry was just sitting down to breakfast when Daisy emerged. She was up much earlier than normal but he knew she was a bit nervous about popping into her new school later that afternoon. Her theory was that everyone was breaking up for Christmas and would be in a good mood and probably much more open to having a new girl appear amongst them.

‘Good night last night?’ Daisy asked.

He smiled as he remembered the disaster which was the car sex. ‘Yes, it was fun.’

Daisy sat down and frowned and he wondered what was bothering her. ‘Do you like Penny?’

Oh crap. He didn’t want to lie to her but he didn’t want to allude to anything either.

‘Yes I do.’

‘I don’t know whether I should tell you this or not but I think you should know. I think her date with Fabio last night went very well.’

Henry frowned in confusion and then remembered that Daisy genuinely believed that that was where Penny had gone the night before. He would just tell her they were joking around and that he’d had dinner with her and Maggie and Daniel.

‘I heard her when she came in.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, I heard you come back and go to your room and shortly after she must have come back, with Fabio.’

Henry felt himself go very still.

‘What did you hear?’

‘Dad, I heard her having sex. It was so embarrassing, but it was very obvious she was enjoying herself. And Fabio was grunting away and moaning too.’

Henry stared at her in shock. There had never been a time in his life that he had been more embarrassed than he was now. He had no words with which to fill the silence, there was nothing he could say at all.

‘They were at it for ages and then when they stopped, they started again half hour later, the man has amazing stamina. He clearly is an Italian stallion.’

It couldn’t get any worse. His daughter had heard him having sex. She had heard him groaning, moaning, panting and shouting out when he had orgasmed. Twice.

He stood up and moved to the toaster, putting in her favourite crumpets and then flicking on the kettle so she wouldn’t have to see his face which he was sure was burning red.