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We romance authors love a good love scene. We know how important they are to a romance, whether they are tender, erotic, rawly physical, sublimely emotional, a fabulous yearning kiss or something far more graphic, we adore love scenes. And, yes, we get teased about our favorite books falling open to those pertinent pages and, of course, we hope that some of our books in your possession also fall open to those palpitation producing pages. If not...well, we’re here to help you. Because we care. And we share. That’s the way we roll.

So...all the squawkers have picked out their two favorite love scenes from books they’ve written and are here to tell you on what pages they start. Happy reading!
And remember, this is SQUAWK RADIO’S ANIVERSARY CELEBRATION WEEK TWO so for today’s contest we will once more be giving away six signed books to six different winners (and I’m guessing some of those books will be ones mentioned in this blog!)

CONNIE says a little bondage never hurt anyone! First up, a mega-rogue male, control-freak finds himself being, er, handled by a woman who matches his ardor and torment. Jack Seward and Ann Wilder from ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT, recommending that special attention be paid to page 161 on…

My second offering is of a subtler sort, the seduction of words when a ne’er-do-well hero finally gives a voice to the passionate feelings he has never spoken of before. On page 115, Harry Braxton puts every flower toting hero to shame with his ardent words to Desdemona Carlisle AS YOU DESIRE and a short while later Dizzy returns the favor with an emphasis on the physical on page 157. Okay I cheated. Sue me.

TERESA says, “So much love, so little time!” Actually, I didn’t have to go very far in my time travel machine to find one of my very favorite love scenes.  Writing the love scene on pp. 266-289 of THE VAMPIRE WHO LOVED ME was a revelation not just for the characters, but for me.  In AFTER MIDNIGHT, Julian and Portia were locked in a crypt by the villain but they both refused to talk about what happened between them during those dark and dangerous hours.  They even refused to talk to me about it until I started writing their love scene in VAMPIRE.  (Picture me jumping up from the computer and shouting, ”Holy crap!” at the top of my lungs when I discovered the provocative secret they had been hiding.) This made for a beautifully layered love scene with a lot of delicious erotic tension because we’re living their current encounter with them plus we’re reliving the encounter that took place five years ago through their dialogue and memories.  You get twice the bang for your buck.  (Get your mind out of the gutter, Xtina.  It’s just an expression!) To add to the physical and emotional resonance of the scene, Julian is also making every effort to atone for their earlier encounter by restraining his insatiable nature and being deliciously tender with Portia until she embraces his primal nature and basically tells him to, “Bring it on!”

TERESA’S HONORABLE MENTIONS
BREATH OF MAGIC p. 288-295 – Move over Mr. Bubbles!  The scene with Arian and Tristan in the shower and hot tub proves that getting down and dirty has never been such good clean fun!  And it’s even their wedding night so it’s all legal!  (Well, in most states.)
NOBODY’S DARLING p. 280-282 – My own sweet cowboy Billy Darling, a moonlit night, a faded quilt, a rocking chair, sigh…

ELOISA thinks there’s nothing sexier than a man who finally—finally!—gets it right.  In the pantheon of my clueless heros, Rees, the Earl Godwin, takes the cake.  He’s the original five-minute-man who sees the whole act as made for his own pleasure (my observation:  lotta men like him out there!).  Anyway, he’s married, but he and his wife parted ways years ago.  Until they find themselves back together and making love.  Of course, it’s only for the purposes of procreation, but still, somewhere down in his primitive caveman brain, little synapses start firing.  Because he’s really in love, though he doesn’t know it.  So there they are in a forest glade (I do love a good outdoors sex scene), on a bed of flowers, yet, and… well… Start at 218!

When Connie came up with the idea for this blog, Christina was thrilled because I enjoy my love scenes and love to talk about them. Then I realized I had to limit the number to two. How, out of all the love scenes I’ve written, did I narrow my blog down to two? I finally zeroed in on the love scene that marked a change in my career, and another that worked for its brevity and intensity.

My first nine books I wrote for HarperCollins under the skilled direction of my first editor. She was very conservative about sexuality, so although I wrote hot love scenes, they were cut before publication. Then I changed publishers, and my new editor published my love scenes as they were written. The book was A WELL PLEASURED LADY, the famous, or infamous, scene was long — chapter 17 and part of chapter 18, pages 241-264. As soon as the book hit the shelves, a debate raged across the internet as to whether I’d written a forced seduction or rape. I still get sternly-worded emails about that scene, yet A WELL PLEASURED LADY remains one of my bestselling novels.

For the second scene, two words. The. Elevator.
TROUBLE IN HIGH HEELS, pages 286-287.

Lisa and her “Forbidden Fruit”
When I was writing Suddenly You, a younger man/older woman story, I thought it would be funny and sexy to start it off with a spinster who orders herself an unusual thirtieth birthday present. She hires a male prostitute to provide her with one night of passion. So naturally when a gorgeous young hunk shows up on her doorstep, she assumes he’s her present . . . only to discover later in the evening that he’s her new boss.

There’s a love scene in this book that is by far the most often mentioned one of my entire career . . . the infamous raspberry scene. (In which Jack, the hero, turns Amanda into dessert. )I had no idea it would provoke such a reaction in readers. Most seem to have fun with it, a few are taken aback, and a few are negative . . . but so far no one’s ever told me they skipped over it!

When I went on my Spanish book tour in ’05, the most delightful and generous group of Spanish readers gave me many beautiful and thoughtful presents, and they caused me to howl with laughter when someone brought me yet another gift after I’d made a speech. It was a box of raspberries.

Check out page 364 of Suddenly You . . . if you dare. Muhahahaha.

One of the trickiest love scenes I’ve ever written was the first one in Devil In Winter. St. Vincent, the hero, starts out as a selfish and manipulative guy who is a renowned lover of women. He elopes to Gretna Green at the invitation of a rich heiress, Evie Jenner. She needs his protection and his name, he needs her money. From the moment these two got together, I felt the electricity as I was writing.

However, the consummation of their marriage at Gretna Green presented a couple of problems. Since they were still essentially strangers, I was concerned that the sex might turn out to be impersonal and unromantic. And St. Vincent had been so evil in the previous wallflower novel, that the idea of putting such a villain in bed with poor innocent Evie was almost startling. But between the two of them, they work it all out, and it turned out to be one of my favorite love scenes.

Here’s why I think it works: St. Vincent, more than any of my other heroes, loves to kiss. As I mention at one point in the book, he loves kissing “even more than the act itself.” To me that seems like a clue that St. Vincent is searching for some flicker of emotional connection during sex, and he finally finds it with Evie. Check out p.60 for the fun!

LIZ Enjoys It Most when Things Pop Up Unexpectedly (Ahem)

A little sexual tension can go a long way as far as I’m concerned. And since love scenes take me longer to write than any other part of the book (because, like the First Time, I want everything to be PERFECT), it helps me if the characters have been strung along for a while, battling an obvious attraction for whatever reason, and then, suddenly, BOOM.  They just can’t battle it anymore.  Such is the case for Ruby and Keaton in TAKE ME, I’M YOURS. I think the characters in this book took longer to get around to making love than any other book I’ve written, so it’s no surprise that when they finally, ah, capitulate, they REALLY capitulate.  In fact, when I got the line edits from my Avon editor for this book, at the conclusion of the love scene that begins on page 282, she penned the note, “Congratulations, Liz.  I think you just broke the Stephanie Laurens record for longest love scene ever written for Avon Books.” The fact that they’re making love in a rainforest is just bonus.

Avery and Dixon may not have taken quite as long as Ruby and Keaton to get around to, ah, capitulating, but when they did, it was so sudden, and so unexpected, and so HOT, that the scene about melted my computer.  What generated the action was Avery’s participation in a sexually explicit IM exchange with a man she’d thought was a man in love with her, but who turned out to be a criminal instead.  As federal agent Dixon is literally looking over her shoulder while she tries to lure the bad guy out in a way that once would have turned her on, she instead imagines she’s making the exchange with Dixon.  Ultimately, both of them become thoroughly aroused, to the point where he yanks the plug out of the computer so that the two of them can do what they both so desperately want to do. And where, as I said, my love scenes tend to take a long time to write, the one that begins on page 208 in YOU’VE GOT MALE flowed so quickly, thanks to the characters’ needs, that it was almost a breeze to write.

So what are some other favorite love scenes from favorite books? We at Squawk Radio do so love those trips down memory lane.  And we love even more discovering books and characters and scenes we may have missed.