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BY THE THIRD time he makes me come, it is out of both of our control, one orgasm crashing into the next, months of pent-up need releasing. And I still want more. I unzip his pants and take off his boxers, I want him inside me. I want him inside me so badly that the wait while he puts on a condom feels unbearable, and the sensation of him sliding into me almost gets me there again. I clutch his body to me, and moan. Oh god, every part of him feels so good. I want to stay like this forever.

Then he turns us over so I’m on top.

‘I want to see you,’ he says, eyes wide and hungry, and then he touches me as we move together, finding a rhythm, one that starts steady but becomes faster as he gets closer, and then as I feel him coming, hearing his moans, I feel the delicious heat rising in my stomach, spreading along my arms, my legs, into my head, as I am flooded with pleasure again.

Afterwards, Xavier falls asleep, but I’m wide awake. I try to hold myself in that place, the I’m-just-a-body-with-physical-needs place, but reality is creeping back. My body is satiated, relaxed, but my brain is wild with thoughts and worries. What does this mean, what will happen now, will we do it again, should we do it again, what if other people find out, what if they don’t and I can never tell anyone about the best sex of my life, what about Lana, how do I compare to Lana—no, that’s awful, don’t think that, and don’t think about how she told him she loved him and minutes later he and I were on the couch—what about Hillary, she was so excited they were getting back together—no, don’t think about either.

When I move a little off the couch, Xavier reaches out and hooks his hand over my hip.

‘Don’t go,’ he says.

‘I’m not,’ I say. A lie. I was about to get a notebook and start writing a flowchart of all my post-sex options.

‘Good,’ he says. His eyes are shut.

I am scared of this feeling blooming in me right now. It feels intense and all-consuming, like all the feelings I’ve had for him over the past few months have been building up, and up, and up, and the barrier I built to hold them back has fallen. His hand on my hip is making me want to snuggle up to him, it’s making me want to kiss him, to say things.

I take a deep breath. Calm down. Compartmentalise. This is just post-sex hormones and dopamine. This is just horniness, loneliness, lust.

I look at him, those long lashes, the stubble, his hair already growing back a little. I can get past this. I just need to get the urge out of my system. One time didn’t do it, but maybe the next time. Probably if I have sex with him one more time, maybe two, that will do it. This time might have been a fluke. The next time probably won’t be as good. We might lose our attraction to each other entirely.

I go to the bathroom and clean up, put on my cutest bathrobe, feeling resolved. I will have sex with him one more time, if he wants to. And I’ll barely try. It will be a low-effort situation. And I’ll go in with a critical eye, I’ll look for problems. I’ll put myself off the whole thing and then we can just put this glitch behind us.

30

UNFORTUNATELY, THE NEXT time, a few hours later, is even better. And despite my resolution to not try, to be a harsh critic, to basically just lie back and do nothing, to really half-arse it, to be the worst, most unappealing partner possible, I accidentally find myself enthusiastically making sure Xavier is enjoying himself. I find myself running my lips over every inch of his body, watching him groan as I take him in my mouth, and it feels so good, it sends such zings of pleasure through my own body, I am taken aback.

So, it turns out I really like listening to him moan my name. Even better, I like when he needs me. When I stop for a moment, he says, ‘Please, Charlotte, oh god, please baby, please keep going.’ Now that’s what I call begging. He’s finally properly learning about begging, and I like it. I like it too much.

We sleep late, tangled together naked in my bed, unable to get enough of each other, my leg between his, his hand around me. Instead of getting him out of my system, he’s in my system like a virus—he has taken over my body, my immune system, my brain. I need to cut myself off from him. Or maybe I need to lean into it. Maybe I need to overindulge on him, pour chocolate sauce on the chocolate ice cream and add chocolate chips, give myself too much of a good thing.

I get out of bed and shower and pull on leggings and an ugly T-shirt, and then vanity gets the best of me and I change to a cute one. He showers after me, and makes coffee, and brings the mugs into the lounge room. He’s naked on top and wearing low-slung trackpants on the bottom, and he puts the mugs on the floor, and gently pushes me back on the couch. My poor couch. It’s not in good enough condition to handle too many sex sessions.

‘But what about the coffee?’ I say.

‘I made it extra hot,’ he says. ‘It can wait. We’ll be quick.’ He leans forward and kisses me.

‘I don’t want to be quick,’ I murmur against his lips. ‘I want to do this all day.’

‘We’ll pause for a coffee break.’

Xavier crawls on top of me, a glint in his eye, sliding his hand up my top, pressing his lips to my neck, and I’m already closing my eyes and revelling in the pleasure of his touch, when I hear knocking and the front door opens.

‘Hello, hello,’ a voice calls out. Shit. It takes me a second to recognise that it’s Graham.

Xavier and I look at each other in horror, and Xavier scrambles up, and I yank my top down seconds before Graham walks into the room. We really need to start locking the front door. And Xavier’s family needs to learn to not barge into a room.

If it was anyone else, they would have noticed the weird energy between Xavier and me, the guilty flushed looks, the fact that Xavier is topless, but Graham is a man entirely focused on his own concerns.

‘Good morning, you two! Any chance of making me one of those coffees Xav?’ Graham says, his eyes falling on our mugs.

‘Sure,’ Xavier says, mouthing sorry at me.

‘How do we think last night’s dinner went?’ Graham asks, rubbing his hands together.

‘How do we think it went?’ Xavier asks, grabbing a T-shirt from a laundry basket and yanking it on as he walks into the kitchen. ‘Well Ettie cried multiple times on her birthday, and it ended with everyone yelling at each other, so I would say it went about as well as our family dinners ever go.’

I slide my hands under the back of my T-shirt to surreptitiously do up my bra.