Murray yanked his shirt off and threw it to the floor. ‘Then they’re going to get a fucking show,’ he said, and hiked my skirt up.
I would never forget how it felt when he dropped to his knees and put his mouth on me, one hand firm on my thigh, holding me open. I would never forget the sounds he made when he was inside me, the heat of his breath against my throat, the way his hair felt tangled in my hands as I pulled him closer, his teeth sinking into my collarbone as I came apart, as he came apart.
Never, as long as I lived, would I forget a single second of it. I would preserve it, piece by piece, moment by moment, frame by frame.
‘Oh god,’ he gasped into my shoulder afterwards. ‘Oh fuck.’
I tightened my fingers in his hair. He made a growling sound in the back of his throat, and – oh god. Oh god. Oh fuck.
Murray kissed his way up my neck to my face, our noses sliding together, foreheads slipping sweatily against each other. ‘Hi.’
I smiled. ‘Hi.’
He smiled back, then leaned in and kissed me, just once, on the lips.
Everything up until that point had been quick and fast and hot – passionate, aggressive, almost violent. I’d have bruises where his fingers had dug into me. My nails had drawn blood, scraping down his back.
This kiss wasn’t like that. It was tender. Sweet. Gentle.
White-hot panic closed a fist around my heart.
I pulled away, scrambling back as far as I could on the washing machine. ‘Hey, hey, Lily, hey!’ Murray said, blinking, surprised. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing!’ I said. ‘Nothing, nothing!’
‘It’s obviously not nothing! Shit, did I hurt you? I’m so sorry. I’m—’
‘No, no, no, no, you didn’t, you didn’t, don’t worry. Nothing’s wrong. It’s just – oh shit, my lipstick’s all over you.’ I tried unsuccessfully to wipe it off his face.
‘I don’t care.’
He caught my hand in his, and fuck fuckfuckhe still had a tan line where his wedding ring had been, what was I doing what was I doingwhat was I doing?
‘Lily, please! Tell me what’s wrong. You’re scaring me.’
The words came out of me in a rush. ‘You know we can never do this again, right?’
I hadn’t thought about it, not at all, but I knew it was true, felt instinctively deep in my bones it was true, because this was too big, too overwhelming, too much, and I was going to burn up, I was going to explode, I was going to die.
‘This was great,’ I said desperately. ‘This was so great, Murray. Just in case Julia didn’t tell you enough, you are fucking great at sex. Congratulations. But we can’t do it again. Never, ever, ever.’
‘Slow down, Lily.’ He took my face in his hands. ‘Take a breath. Talk to me. Tell me what you mean.’
I wrapped my fingers around his wrists, anchoring him to me and holding him away all at once. ‘I care about you, Murray. I don’t care about most people, but I care about you.’
I was about to cry. Shit, I was about to cry. Inevercried.
‘We can’t ruin this.’ I dug my nails into the tendons in his forearms. ‘What we have – we can’t ruin it with sex.’
‘So let’s not ruin it!’ he said. ‘I care about you too, Lily. So much. What about this felt like we were ruining anything?’
I closed my eyes and leaned into him, pressing my forehead to his. I couldn’t look at him. It was too much, too much, too much.
‘We had to do this once,’ I whispered. ‘We had to get it out of our systems. But if we tried to do this for real, we’d wreck each other. We’d burn each other out.’
‘You don’t know that’s true.’
‘Yes, it is. We’re too similar. That’s why we get each other the way we do. We think the same.’
