The lily’s hidden stamen bends gently toward the shy poppy, who murmurs, “Forsooth, fair sir, with your mockingly curled lip! Brush your golden pollen o’er me!” “With pleasure, my blushing love. With greatest pleasure!”
Both calla lilies and red poppies are also associated with death, but I write romances, so these two will have a happy ending.
Portland is a wordy town, making it a great place for a wordy girl like me. After all, we’re home to Powell’s Books, a spectacular independent bookstore that swallows up an entire city block with multiple stories of stories. And every year, Portland celebrates Wordstock, a week of wordiness.
In the past, I’ve been wary of Wordstock for this reason from their website: “We’ve found that the most dynamic festival readings and presentations come from books of a literary nature.” Literary nature. Uh huh. I think the not-so-sub subtext here is “Genre writers only reluctantly invited.”
But thanks to the success of 50 Shades of Gray, for the first time this year, Wordstock had a “Red Chair District” where they put the 18+ stories.
Naturally, us bodice-ripping romance writers were on it like sex-starved nymphomaniacs on…oh, I don’t know, something phallic.
Rose City Romance Writers (from left): Louisa Kelly, Jessa Slade & Maggie Jaimeson aka sex-starved nymphomaniacs
We had fun. Romance writers always do 
We handed out bookmarks and suggestions to writers suddenly interested in the romance and erotica genres. We ate chocolate. (As romance writers always do.) We had the chance to present our beloved genre to people who might not have otherwise considered it — including a representative from the local daily newspaper and a local documentary filmmaker.
Which isn’t to say that Wordstock completely lacked a sense of humor. Across from our Rose City Romance Writers booth was an book-themed art installation.
Maybe litrachure readers can be converted. A few loyal romance readers also wandered through, and I love love love connecting with them. One of the best quotes of the day, as a reader browsed and was asked if she read romance, she said, “Of course!” Well, yes. Of course 
Romance novels might never be accepted by the litrachure crowds, but I’m fine with sitting in a roped-off wink-and-a-nudge district. I know my reader, and she’ll make her own choices about what is “dynamic” enough to be on her bookshelf.
Caveat: This was my first attempt at a fully fleshed (so to speak) love scene, from years ago. This story — a medieval with slightly fantastical elements — has never been published, but it may someday emerge from beneath the bed. For now, though, the hero and heroine are clearly headed for bed.
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Standing in the emptied tub Everard had used for his bath, Sylvie sluiced enough water over her skin to work up a lather with his discarded soap. It was too dear to waste, she told herself, she was being practical, but she closed her eyes to breathe in the masculine scent of sandalwood.
She crossed her arms over her breasts, skimmed her hands down over her elbows, crossing at her belly, down her thighs. His body, when she had touched him with soapy hands, had been all hard planes and ridged muscle. Where would her soft flesh fit against him?
A tautness at the core of her warmed at the thought. His tumescent manhood had risen toward her, beckoned her. Her gaze had touched but she had been fearful, had restrained her hands to those spans of skin above the lean stretch of his flanks.
She wished she had mustered the nerve for more than a quick peek.
As the memories assailed her, the soft sound of the door opening echoed. A cloth and timber partition screened the tub from the door but the shield would not protect her from anyone stepping too deeply into the chamber.
And she knew well enough whose steps they were.
“Come –” Her throat tightened to a squeak. “Come no farther. I am at my bath.
“My luck has turned.”
Everard. She would have known him without his speaking.
She shuttered her eyes even as she heard him step around the screen. And stop.
She felt every drop of water, ever collapsing bubble on her skin. For all the damp chill, her flesh was hot. Did steam rise from her skin? She could not open her eyes to discover the truth, because then she would see his dark eyes reflecting her nakedness, her arms draped at her sides, framing her body, while her fingers dug into her thighs.
She held her breath and listened, but heard nothing. Had he gone? No. Still there. She sensed him. To break the silence, she made the small noise he would not. Her sigh echoed in the room. He moved then. She felt him coming for her.
“I will wash you.” The deep tenor of his voice expanded in her chest, made her heart treble its beat to fill the space. “A fair trade for my bath yesterday.”
That edge in his words… Did he tease? Or warn. Either way, her feet were rooted in a scant toe’s depth of water. Oh, why had she carried up only two buckets when she might have immersed herself now to escape his perusal. Her skin prickled and not from cool brush of air on her naked skin.
She strained to hear his step, knew she was being stalked. Each heartbeat that he did not touch her, her muscles, her skin, her breath tightened by excruciating degrees.
She edged one hand to cover her breasts, full and tender against her arm. With the other hand, she shielded the curls at the juncture of her thighs. From just behind her, she heard Everard loose a soft breath of laughter. So close he stood. The fine hairs at the back of her neck crested.
“Shall I wash your hair as well?” His low voice thrilled through her like a gust of wind lifted dandelion seeds to the sun.
His fingers pressed against her crown, releasing the braids pinned atop. He raked his fingers through her hair, from crown to temple to the sensitive skin behind her ears. She trembled. Had anyone ever touched her there? His touch was gentle as her own furrowing through freshly seeded soil. Her body warmed with heavy ripeness. What was he seeding in her?
Slowly, he untangled the tresses to lay over her shoulders. His hands smoothed against her back, pressing the ripples from her braids, skin to skin but for the veil of her hair. Her breath caught, stuttered, then matched time with his.
Without doubt, she had never been touched like this.
“Step back toward me.” His tone. “And keep your eyes closed.”
Glad of her resolute blindness, she leaned willingly into his hands.
The warm fragrance of sandalwood engulfed her and she heard the soft suction of the soap bar in Everard’s hands.
Then his hands were on her.
The lather skimmed flesh over flesh, up her spine and over her shoulders and down through her hair. She struggled for a moment to stiffen against the molding of his hands. Then she gave herself over to the rhythm, breathing with each stroke until a fire stoked inside her.
She could not restrain a little groan. Her hand covering her breasts dropped to her side.
He caught her back against his chest. His soapy fingers skimmed down over the tops of her breasts, and her unease returned three-fold. She started, pulling forward away from him.
His hands, riding a film of soap, slipped down. She gasped at the passing friction over her nipples, taut and expectant beyond her ken.
In a heartbeat, her languor and tension melded, fused by the heat of his hands. He followed her forward, his chest against her back. His palms skimmed lower, along the ridge of her hips, her thighs. The long muscles there leapt to his command, and she dragged in a shuddering breath that fed the heat within her.
She gave herself over to the dream.
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Discussion question: How much did you cringe when you read “tumescent manhood”?
Read more Sex Scene Saturday snippets here:
Diana Castilleja / Diana DeRicci
Jenn LeBlanc
Stella Price
Jae Lynne Davies
Bridget Midway
Sascha Illyvich
They said fairy godmothers
would grant all our wishes.
They said Tinkerbell would die
if we didn’t believe.
They said magic was just pretend.
They lied.
Once upon a time (in the original, more ominous inflection of the phrase) eldritch creatures stalked the world. They ranged across mountains and deserts and waterways—even the heavens—in a glory of guises. Some of the phaedrealii court were beautiful; some horrific. Some lived in harmony with humans; some…did not. Eventually, the chaos human passions—fear and hatred, joy and desire—drove too many phae to acts of madness. With deadly iron, humans forced the phae to retreat to hollow hills and storybooks.
Then the humans forgot.
But the phae never did.
Welcome to the world of the steel-born phae…
_________________
“I want to see you,” he emphasized. “To be sure…”
“This is what I want.” She spread her wings to either side, making a lure of her own, an irresistible soft landing. “I want you.”
Supporting himself on one arm, he cupped her jaw and leaned in for a long, lingering kiss.
“I want that,” she whispered against his mouth. “And more.”
With a sudden flex of her wings, she rolled them.
He caught the edge of the mattress before they fell. “There’s more where that came from. Much more.” With both his hands free, he roamed her body, reshaping her flesh with each stroke of his fingers, each lap of his tongue.
And somehow, through her skin, he loosened her spirit too, made her soar where her wings had never taken her, urging her toward an elemental release unlike any of the magics she’d known.
But when she looked down, his face was as severe and remote as that brief moment on the beach when he had frightened her. He was holding something back. But why?She gasped, her whole body flush with sensation. Her breasts plumped for his caress, and her nipples drew almost painfully erect. The tingling that rang like silent bells through her depths echoed the ache until her hidden folds wept for his attention.
She touched the chiseled edge of his cheekbone. “Don’t worry,” she whispered. “No consequences, remember? The perfect one-night stand.”
“What if I wanted more?”
When she tried to draw back, he tangled his fist in the pendant. The chain tightened at the back of her neck, not biting—not yet—but a tightening snare. “I don’t have anything more. I am nothing more. Just a dream, gone with the morning light.”
His jaw clenched, the muscle flexing against her palm. “That sounds like something a fairy would say as a tease.”
“It is not a tease. It’s only the truth. See? I’m touching you.” She eased
down against his chest, loosening the pendant’s restriction. The brush of her thighs over his didn’t smooth his expression, though. If anything, he clenched harder, all over.
She brushed her cleft down that most rigid of muscles at his center. The jerk of his hips was a truth too, despite the furious set of his mouth. She dipped her head and nibbled at his lower lip. “We have to take what we can, while we can.”
“Definitely spoken like a fairy. La bella dame sans merci.”
A cold draft of disquiet swept through her. From the chill of his words, he seemed almost too familiar with the transgressions of her kin, and the haunting words of Keats’s poem felt uncomfortably close to the truth. “I didn’t mean—”
“You did mean it. You were touching me, remember?” In one powerful heave, he flipped them again so he was on top, pinning her with his knees between her thighs. “Take it then. Take what you want.”
“Vaile…” Despite her weak protest, she wound her legs behind him. The nudge of his erection made the trailing edges of her wings curl inward as
every part of her body made a welcoming nest for him.
His hand worked between them to part her folds, slick with wanting him. The play of his touch made her arch and gasp, and still he held back, making her want and want and want until she thought she would unravel.
She clutched at his biceps, her knees drawn high, while he slid first one finger then two inside her. She writhed against him, a cry caught between
her teeth. This is what it must be to come Undone.
He tilted his head back, the pulse of anger in his throat lost beneath the maddening acceleration of his heartbeat. She felt the tidal pull of his blood, his desire, and still he held himself apart while the whirlpool in her belly and thighs circled ever closer to the verge. Unwilling to go alone—not tonight—she pulled herself up with her hands anchored on the bunched muscles in his shoulders and ducked to bite his nipple. The thud of his heart almost deafened her, and he gasped out her name as he buried himself in one thrust.
Pre-order now at Amazon | Barnes & Noble
Y’all are the first to see the first cover for my new Steel Born series. Although the art depicts Vaile and Imogene going hot and heavy in a dark alley, the scene above takes place in a dark forest cabin. Where’s the “best” place you’ve ever made out?
And don’t forget to read more from Sex Scene Saturday!
Sascha Illyvich | Jenn LeBlanc | Stacey Kennedy
Jae Lynn Davies | Tilly Greene
