When you're planning your books, what do you think about first: the plot, or the erotic scenes?

It's a happy medium. If a book is just sex, then it could be classed as porn, so it needs to have a story behind it. Whether it's love-making or sex with a bit of dirty thrown in there, there's always a scenario. They're never just bonking.

How do you think of the sex scenes – do you ask friends for advice?

Everything I write, I write for me. I don't get mixed up in what I think people want to read. When I wrote This Man I was putting my soul, my fantasies, my ideal love story on paper – the thought of someone reading it and getting into my mind made me very nervous.

Do you hope these fantasies will resonate with other women?

Yes, absolutely. Everyone has different tastes and I'm not going to please everyone, so I can only go by what feedback I get from my readers, and it's mostly positive.

Music, from Massive Attack to John Legend, features in many of your sex scenes.

I think certain tracks can really build on a scene, so if there's a scene with thrust and flow, there's powerful music that can really make a reader feel exactly how you want them to feel. If there's more of a frantic sex scene, more hard and unforgiving, then there's music that's going to show that in a better light, too.

What have you learned about writing about sex?

One of the first sex scenes in This Man was anal, which was very risqué, but I went all out because I didn't think anyone would read it. Now I'm more mindful that you've got to break the reader in a bit before you hit them with such a harsh sex scene.

You'd started writing before Fifty Shades of Grey came out. Obviously that was a big moment for erotic fiction.

It definitely opened my eyes a bit, because before it was published I was thinking: "God, I can't let anyone read this." But then with the explosion of Fifty Shades I thought: "Well, maybe I can!" The number of women who've said that book was their first experience with erotic fiction, and the amount of erotica they've read since that, they're almost addicted. There's no denying that women like to read about sex.

Erotica is more popular with women, while porn is more popular with men. Why do you think that is?

Well, men are visual creatures, aren't they? They like to see, whereas women like emotion and imagine more. I think a woman desires a man's desire. Jesse [the male protagonist in This Man] fiercely loves Ava and it makes his behaviour erratic and crazy. To know you have that impact on a man, that he wants you that much, is a feelgood thing for a woman.

What is the cliche to be avoided when writing erotica?

There are certain words that I just don't find attractive. I can't bear the c-word – I can't even say it, it makes my skin crawl. There are far more attractive words for a woman's parts than that. If I read a book, and it's referred to as that, then straight away, I think: this is porn.

One of the scenes in This Man involves Jesse and Ava having sex on a rowing machine. Has anyone ever tried to recreate one of your sex scenes?

I've certainly had women tell me they can't look at a rowing machine the same way any more, but no one's ever told me they've tried to recreate any of the sex scenes. A few of my American readers have got their husbands to talk to them in a British accent, which cracks me up. American women are a sucker for a British man.

You were a success in America before you were here ...

Yes, because they like the Britishness: knickers rather than panties, tights rather than pantyhose, and the amount of emails I get asking me what a jumper is… it's ridiculous! Jesse is the epitome of the ideal British man in the way he speaks and has a manor in the English countryside, so it's all very quintessentially English – except it's not, because it's a sex manor.

Do your fans ever open up to you about their sex lives?

I've had emails and seen women at signings who have said that reading erotic literature has opened their minds and massively improved their sex lives. When you're in a marriage for a long time you get regimented sex – you go to bed, he does this, you do that – and it gets boring. Reading erotica can certainly give women inspiration, and many of them have come back to me very pleased. A lot of men are thanking the explosion of erotic literature. I get loads of emails from happy husbands.