A How-To on Hot Kisses
By Carrie Lofty
To me, the most important thing about writing a kiss that’ll curl toes is to get deep down into a character’s point of view. The last thing you want is to make the reader feel as if she’s looking at a lovely painting. Be the paint! Be the harshness and need and sweat! Think of it more as an experiment in how much sensation you can describe in one sitting, rather than who touched what where. Sensation is the key to seducing the reader with a kiss.
Let’s take the example of William and Catrin from my $.99 novella from Pocket, “A Little More Scandal.” They’ve just had an argument, and argument kisses are a lot different from other, sweeter, more measured or intentional kisses. These can be the most powerful and demanding physical scenes to write, outside of describing a fully intimate encounter, because they can also reveal tumultuous thoughts that a more logical, measured mind might not dare think.
Here’s William:
Their mouths did not meld; they dueled. She fought back as much as she acquiesced, with her tongue a weapon at turns defending and assaulting. He pushed deeper into her wet warmth, where her maddening ideas—she was so bloody quick of mind—found voice. Those lips. God, he could kiss them for the rest of time. She felt that good, that right.
Ooops. He had thoughts about her specialness! Let’s do continue, shall we?
“You silly, stupid girl,” he rasped against her throat. Her hands slipped up his forearms, his biceps, to the sharp tension between his shoulders and his neck. A brief squeeze. He nearly groaned. Then her clever fingers untied his cravat and slid down his nape, as if searching for even more of him—more forbidden places. “You have no idea what it is to be married to me.”
If you like, add in a dash of humor to keep the reader smiling as she’s melting into a puddle of romance goo.
“Surely it involves more of this,” Catrin said.
But of course, a hero bested by such a quick wit may feel the need to retaliate—in the best, tastiest sense.
William growled into her mouth. He kissed her with the abandon he rarely felt, always constrained by his ambitions and concern about how he should appear and behave to achieve them. Catrin upended those expectations. He dragged a huge breath into his chest. The burn of holding it in while he plunged his tongue between her lips was a quiet torture and a means of staying sane. He wanted to take her, to rip her clothes, tug her hair, make her scream.
Bloody hell. How dare she be so contrary to what he had planned?
Another ooops. All those pesky plans suddenly in disarray—probably like her hair and their clothes will be once they finally come up for air.
So remember. Lots of sensation. Thoughts that move the romantic plot along. A sprinkle of humor. And a hero and heroine who aren’t above demanding what they really crave. More, more, more…
“A Little More Scandal”
Flawless
The Christies #1
A passion this seductive is more precious than diamonds…Sir William Christie, ruthless tycoon and notorious ladies’ man, is dead. Now his four grown children have gathered for the reading of his will. What lies in store for stepsiblings Vivienne, Alexander, and twins Gareth and Gwyneth? Stunning challenges that will test their fortitude across a royal empire…and lead them to the marvelously passionate adventures of their lives.
Lady Vivienne Bancroft fled England for New York, hoping to shed the confines of her arranged marriage to unrepentant rogue Miles Durham, Viscount Bancroft—though she never forgot the fiery desire he unleashed with his slightest touch. And when the gambling man arrives on her doorstep for a little sensual revenge for her desertion, he is met with Vivienne’s dilemma: She must earn her father’s inheritance by profitably running a diamond business worth millions in colonial South Africa.
Swept together in an exotic undertaking filled with heated passion and hungry temptation, will Vivienne and Miles discover that the marriage vows they once made are the greatest snare—or the most treasured reward?
A Little More Scandal
The Christies #1.5
May 29, 2012
Digital Novella
Welsh minister’s daughter Catrin Jones is the talk of Britain. Many women served as nurses in the Crimean War, skirting the edge of propriety to tend lonely soldiers’ wounds, but only Catrin survived a shipwreck on her return voyage. Suddenly, like a circus curiosity, everyone wants a glimpse of the scandalous Miss Jones. Scarred, opinionated, and adjusting to a rush of fame so very different from far-away battlefields, she’s not the sort of woman Scottish robber baron William Christie aspires to marry.
Following a decade of brilliant business maneuvers, William is on the verge of securing a key railroad contract. But his aristocratic wife’s death during childbirth meant the loss of considerable influence. Few in Society have forgiven his up-from-the-gutters youth. With respectability, wealth, and his two-year-old son finally his to claim, William must decide whether an extraordinary nurse is worth embracing just a little more scandal….
Starlight
The Christies #2
June 26th 2012
Passion sparkles forever . . . in the shining eyes of a true love.An esteemed astronomer, Alex Christie, the eldest and most steadfast of the Christie siblings, has never possessed his late father’s ruthless business drive. But to protect his frail infant son from his cruel father-in-law’s bid for custody, the young widower must undertake Sir William Christie’s posthumous million-dollar challenge: to make a Glasgow cotton mill profitable. At sea in an industrial world of sabotage and union agitation, Alex meets Polly Gowan, daughter of a famed union leader, who hopes to seize a mysterious saboteur without involving the police.
Because a sympathetic mill master would aid her cause, Polly becomes Alex’s guide to urban Scotland. From soccer games to pub brawls, Alex sees another side of life, and feels free for the first time to reveal the man—vital and strong—behind his intellectual exterior. Polly is utterly seduced. Their ambitions, however, remain at odds: Alex vows to earn the mill bonus to save his child, while Polly fights for the needs of her people. Is there strength enough in their sparkling passion to bind them together in their quests—and in a lasting love that conquers all?
GIVEAWAY TIME
I’d love to give away a print copy of FLAWLESS, the first of the Christies series from Pocket. (“A Little More Scandal” is a tie-in novella.) I’ll ship anywhere.
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