‘And Django, whom I’ve yet to meet?’

‘Django, who’s desperate to meet you, is fine. You’ll meet at New Year. We all had a fabulous weekend up in Derbyshire. You’re going to love it. Are we there yet? Soon?’

‘Here’s rue de Buci. And Josh and Alex?’ Ben asks. ‘What’s their news?’

‘Can we talk about them later?’ Cat requests, already heading towards reception.

Both Cat and Ben had survived the previous few days on a frequent, semi-sustaining diet of envisaging lengthy foreplay and meaningful looks and long, leisurely lovemaking. However, because both had subsisted the last three weeks on memories of their past couplings and prophecies of those future; because they had frequently gone to bed alone craving each other and masturbating in honour of each other, now in Paris, in their hotel room, they all but tore their clothing off and fell to the bed, kissing wildly, their eyes closed with the exquisite pleasure of it all. Running hands just the once up and over one another’s bodies was enough to have Ben as hard as he’d ever be and Cat as juiced and expectant likewise.

‘Stop, stop, stop,’ Ben gasped trying to still Cat’s hips from gyrating him to premature orgasm. He flipped her over, pulling her on top and she sat astride him; only he had to close his eyes because the very sight of her could make him come against his wishes. They didn’t stay in one position for very long because they were desperate to re-explore each other from every angle imagined and imaginable.

Lying on their sides with Ben taking her from behind, it was suddenly Cat imploring Ben to stop, stop, stop. They lay motionless, Ben feeling the vivid pulsations of Cat’s sex sucking his cock deep into her, immensely turned on by hearing her gasp, her voice breaking through. He rolled her on to her stomach and lay himself on top of her, bucking up inside her deep and strong. He took his hands underneath her, burrowing his fingers between the lips of her sex to rub and twitch her clitoris. Cat was climaxing again and soon enough Ben was coming with her. He’d been on the point of orgasm since first entering her and it welled from the pit of his stomach before shifting down to the centre of his balls, zooming up his cock and firing out into the musky, hot welcoming darkness of deep inside Cat. It was a taste in his mouth, a scent in his nose. It was explosive. He could have passed out. Instead, they went out for a light supper and light conversation, drank much red wine and returned to their room to make love leisurely as they’d long envisaged.

‘I do so love you,’ Ben murmured to her, having locked eyes with her the whole session through.

‘And I do you,’ Cat responded.

‘I love it that sex between us can be either romantic lovemaking, all sensitive and sensual, or else we fuck each other’s brains out,’ Ben defines. ‘It’s good to feel so comfortable with someone.’