Friday, May 22, 2015

Kiss and Tell: Spontaneous Smooching!


 
Dr. Love is on the block this fine Friday! And I’ve noticed it’s been a while since we’ve had a kiss-a-thon. I think I’m having withdrawals. You too? Our last Kiss-and-Tell session was a wildly successful scrimmage of fabulous, sweet, steamy, playful, and passionate kissing scenes pulled from your stories. What fun!!!! I mean, come on, who doesn’t crave a kiss scene from page one, right?

OF COURSE, we have to wait and build the tension, ect. But that right there is my current problem. I’m picking through the initial pages of my WIP, setting up the plot, getting acquainted with the characters, establishing their chemistry, and already I’m itching for a lip-lock between the two! I can just picture it! And I want that kiss. Badly!

So, since I’m so incredibly patient by nature, I went ahead and penned a few kisses that are what I like to call spontaneous smooches. These are dreamed up, out of order quips and clips that will hopefully fit into my story as it progresses. In other words, the mood struck, so I wrote. Be a shame to waste a perfectly good make out session but hey it happens. Oh, how I suffer for my art.

Just in case this doesn’t make the cut I thought I’d kick off this Kiss-and-Tell session with a very rough, off-the-cuff kiss scene that I wrote on my phone at about 1 am last week simply because I wanted my characters to get a-smoochin’ and I couldn’t sleep without that goodnight kiss!

And I’ll need full audience participation to make this fun! Post up a past or current kiss scene in any stage of revision. It doesn’t have to be polished or perfectly thought out it just has to include some semblance of a lip-on-lip action! I can hardly wait to read them!

Alright pucker up, people! There’s no better way to kick off the weekend than by getting your kiss on!

MUAH!

 

I’ll be brave and go first… Here’s some banter and a smooch from Livi Lux and Aiden Reid in my WIP Lady Luck

 ...

“Pfft! New Yorkers are always touting their grit but I'm from St. Louis. Serial killers, rioting, the east side. I think I can handle a little island stroll. Besides, I took a class in Krav Maga, last year. I’m basically a butt-kicking machine. Don’t mess with me." Huh. What do you know? The whole ‘I am woman, hear me roar’ thing? Actually quite satisfying.

Satisfying. But perhaps not entirely convincing if Aiden’s amused expression is anything to go by.

"Oh, so you had a face-off with Vivaldi? Took a gander across the Ead's bridge and enjoyed an afternoon tea with the EL6 crew?"

"Don't be condescending. You might be pretty but that dress does nothing for your figure."

"Pretty?" Aiden growls like a sexy-beast, a playful glint in those steely grey eyes. 

I bat my eyes. "Does that wound your masculine pride, sweetiekins? Retraction. Follow-up. Rugged. You look very rugged in your condescending dress."

He laughs, so full and warm and easy I’m shivering. Figure that one out. And then he's shaking his handsome head. "I always seem to be doing that with you."

"What, cross dressing?"

Stepping forward, he traps a lock of my golden-red hair, rubbing the strands between his thumb and forefinger. "Laughing. Smiling."

He leans in, twining the hair around his knuckle and gently tugging me closer, his words a whispered brush of contact. "Kissing."

And then he's doing just that. Kissing. Which somehow seems too simple a word for what he's doing to me.

Dang, it's just... It's... Wow. It's wow and so much more than wow the words may not exist to expound upon it. Surely as a journalist I could find some. But nope, his lip-lock is literally reducing my vocabulary.

Mmm. I hum into the stupefying kiss, fully surrendered, and add a little wow of my own. 

"Wow." He murmurs against my lips, cupping my face and stroking my cheek with his callused thumb.

Yep, still shivering despite the balmy island climate. And before I'm rendered completely inarticulate I echo my agreement. "My thoughts exactly. More wow, please." 
 
<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3
 
Amy Leigh Simpson is the completely exhausted stay-at-home mama to the two wild-child, tow-headed toddler boys, one pretty little princess baby, and the incredibly blessed wife of her hunky hubby.
She writes Romantic Suspense chalked full of grace that is equally inspiring, nail-biting, and hilarious. And a little saucy! Okay fine, a lot saucy. :) She is an active member of American Christian Fiction Writers, and now uses her Sports Medicine degree to patch up daily boo-boos. Her greatest ambitions are to create stories that inspire hope, raise up her children to be mighty warriors for Christ, invent an all-dessert diet that works, and make up for years of sleep deprivation. 

She is represented by Chip MacGregor of MacGregor Literary, Inc.

19 comments:

Pepper Basham said...

Oh. Sweet. MAMA!!!!
Sigh...what a way to start my day! :-)

Love it, Ames...AS USUAL!
Okay - I'll try. This is a VERY VERY rough draft from my WIP

She shrugged her shoulder, slipping free from his touch with a graceful move. “You're being ridiculous. This whole thing, "she waved her hand between them. "It's ridiculous. You're not thinking clearly."

“I’m quite cognizant of my behavior at present. And certain.” His voice dropped to a deep rasp. “Quite certain.”

She avoided looking at him and instead focused on something over his shoulder, perhaps a means of escape from the growing need to quell this thirst they both had been fighting for much too long.
“I think I heard someone call your name.”

His grin inched crooked. The hall was as silent as a churchyard.
"Catherine."

The fight in her stance died as he whispered her name. And it gave him an awareness of the power he wielded in this newfound and exciting love he had for her. Sweet power. One he’d use to convince her of how beautiful she’d become, inside and out. She was no longer what convicting voices shouted to her.

"Sometimes it's okay to be ridiculous. Especially when ridiculous is right.”

She took a step back. He took a step forward. She narrowed her eyes.

“And sometimes it isn’t right. What if what you feel is only a momentary passion? What if it is the worst decision you ever make?”
He took another step forward. She responded with another step back. Her heel hit the wall behind her.

“But it's not. I don’t make decisions lightly.”

“Passions can lead us down unexpected paths.” Came her quick response, a declaration carved from regret.

He stepped another pace forward, so close her lavender scent invited him closer. In all her previous pursuits, he never imagined she'd run. In her past, she’d been the instigator.
Until now.
Until him.
He couldn't help but feel a little pride in that thought. Drunk with the pure pleasure of knowing exactly what he wanted and how to show her how much he cared, how much she deserve to be loved. “Not this time.”

“How can you be sure?” Her fight resorted to a whimper.

He cupped her cheek. "Trust me, Catherine. Trust me for the both of us."

His whisper or his touch, he wasn't sure which one, broke whatever barrier she placed between them and uncustomary tears welled up in the middle of sapphire hues.

“Don't you understand, If I believe that you could care about me… that you want to be with me.”

He placed his other palm against her cheek, reveling at the softness. "Yes?"

Her breath shivered out. "What I feel for you is…”

His palm slipped behind her neck to cup the back of her head. “Terryfing? Remarkable?”

A small gasp came from those rosy lips and drew him closer. Another desperate tinge of uncertainty linked into her eyes. She reached for her stomach but he stopped her obvious excuse with the tip of his thumb on her lips.

"I'm not stopping this time, Catherine. No matter what excuse you want to make. I am going to kiss you."

Without one more second for her to protest he breached he gap between them. Her mouth, soft and tinted with the salt of tears, welcomed him, as if her body accepted much more than her mind. She drew her deeper into his embrace and after a hitch of reserve, her arms slipped up his to link around his neck. Nothing prepared him for the savage hunger in one taste, quaking his well-honed reserve. He’d expected many things, but not this.

Amy Leigh Simpson said...

Ho-ly smokes!!!! PEPPER! Squeal!!! I am so going to need a copy of this book!!!

Amy Leigh Simpson said...

As in, advanced copy. STAT!

Pepper said...

I'm writing this thing so out of sequence, it's crazy!! I'd LOVE your input on the draft chapters I do have so far, though :)

Catherine West said...

Hmm. I like this game. :) I can't remember what I posted last time around. But who cares. This is a scene from one of my favorite stories to date, Winter's Edge.

“It won’t be easy.” I meet his searching eyes again. “I don’t know how long it will be before … before I can fully trust you again. You know that, right?” I break his gaze and study the snow around my feet. I don’t want to make promises. Don’t want to give false hope. It wouldn’t be fair.
“Yes.” Kevin’s hands are cold as they cup my face and force my eyes upward. “I know. But I’ll do whatever it takes to get us there. Whatever you need me to do. Don’t give up on me, Savannah. I promise I won’t let you down this time.”
And I nod, because, somehow, with everything in me, I believe him. “Maybe we can start by being friends again.”
“Friends, huh?” His breath warms my face and I laugh a little. A delicate tingling like tiny butterflies in flight stirs within and takes me by surprise. The fluttering hints that despite my cautious heart, there is hope here. Because I know what I’m feeling⎯that familiar tug, the wanting, the need⎯the very obvious signals that tell me I still desire my husband.
If I’m not mistaken, he’s feeling the same. And there’s a look about him that says the whole friends thing is so not going to fly.
“If that’s what you want.” He raises a brow, eyes glinting a little dangerously. “For us to be friends.”
I don’t remember his voice ever sounding that sexy. Don’t remember ever feeling this kind of anxious anticipation. “I suppose we have to start somewhere.” It’s a lame response and nerves rain like hail against the wall of my stomach.
“We do. Have to …” Kevin angles his head slightly and his lips part in a scandalous smile that slays me. “… start somewhere.” His mouth is mere inches away. Then he brushes his lips over mine in tentative exploration, flirting a little, not quite sure what I’ll do.
When I don’t protest, his hands slide around my head and pull me closer into a smoldering, heart-shattering kiss. One that steps over decorum and stakes its claim quite clearly. The things he’s suddenly doing with his mouth send rivers of molten fire into every part of my trembling body.
We pull back just a bit and stare at each other.
The shiver that rips through me has nothing to do with the cold.
He’s never kissed me like that before. With such desperate, deliberate intent.
There’s a smidge of hesitation in his eyes, like he might have crossed the line. But I meet his lips this time, and chase it away. His mouth is warm, familiar, and suddenly unyielding as he crushes me against him, groans into me and draws me even further into that soul-deep connection I never thought we’d share again.
Kevin breaks the kiss with a guttural moan that implies his need for so much more. “Whoa, Savannah.” He rests his forehead against mine and lets out a shuddering breath. “Sorry.”
“Really?”
“Not in the slightest.”
I giggle like I’ve had one too many glasses of champagne, still trying to steady my breathing. “Well, that was quite a start.”
“Yes, yes it was.” His satisfied smile reaches right through me, pushes aside the hopelessness I’ve clung too for so long and replaces it with something new. “And, uh, I don’t kiss any of my friends like that. Incase you were wondering.”
“Good to know.” I breathe a happy sigh. “Just your wife, huh?”
“Only my wife.”

Amy Leigh Simpson said...

Oh Cathy!!!! Sheesh! This story is gonna be hard for me but whoa! So totally love it! I think I need to read it again! <3

Catherine West said...

It's not contracted. Yet. :) So hopefully … the powers that be will love it as much as I do. It's a really important story I think.

Amy Leigh Simpson said...

I agree, Cathy! It might rip my heart out first but I can't imagine anything you write being less than stellar.

Jeanne Takenaka said...

I'm loving these kissing scenes. I'm hanging my head as I admit I've only written maybe five kissing scenes. Ever. So, I'm taking notes from you amazing writers.

Here's a very rough draft, unedited one from the book I'm working on now.

Tiana looked into Carter’s sapphire blue irises, illuminated by the soft porch light. They still revealed a part of his heart she’d never seen before. “Thank you for bringing me my laptop. I really appreciate it.” She leaned into him to give him a hug. His warmth drew her in as he wrapped his arms around her. His heartbeat pounded against her.

Carter’s face bent close to hers. She raised her eyes. His eyes searched hers. Her heart picked up its pace again. His lips brushed hers, soft, wondering. Heat radiated from that point of contact. She closed her eyes. He brushed again, this time resting on her lips. Somewhere behind Carter, his jacket dropped to the ground.

The woodsy scent of his cologne wrapped* around them like a blanket. She breathed in his woodsy scent. He pulled her closer into his arms. She molded against his body, savoring the taste of the chocolate chips cookies he’d eaten earlier.
His hand circled around to her neck, his finger drawing little circles there. She lost herself in the essence of kissing him.

Carter stepped back, breaking the moment.
She opened her eyes, searched his eyes. Her cloudy mind spun. She couldn’t get a clear thought to form.

“Th—“ she broke off. “Thank you for coming tonight.” Heat flamed her cheeks. Was that the best she could do?

Any tips are welcome! :)

Amy Leigh Simpson said...

Jeanne! I'm so happy you shared! Such a great start! The bones there are excellent though in a way it readlike a list. I'm out and about with the kiddos but I'll get back with a few tiny tips during naptime.

Amy Leigh Simpson said...

Alright, Jeanne dear! The thing I love about this is that I can clearly visualize the choreography of the kiss here! So many writers leave you to wonder about that. Very nicely laid out. Where I think it might benefit from some fine tuning is that I couldn't really FEEL the kiss, meaning I couldn't grasp the emotionality behind it. It read a bit more like a series of events. And instead of feeling like I was experiencing the kiss I felt like a spectator. Try varying the action sentences and splicing in bits of insight into what the characters are feeling in sync with what is happening. Her pulse is pounding, yes, but is that nerves, excitement, is her heart full to bursting from the longing for this moment? Try splicing in some feeling, some internal insight, and I think it will be spectacular!!! Muah!!!

Jeanne Takenaka said...

Thanks so much for your input, Amy! The good thing is that this is the first draft, and I'll be editing it soon. So, I'm looking forward to incorporating your suggestions. THANK YOU!!!!! :)

Unknown said...

Hi, ladies. Friday night fun--writers' style. Neat. I love all the scenes.

I read you all always. I post never. I'm super shy. But here it goes. I hope the format is alright. I know I lost some italics. This is from before I discovered deep POV.

“Ana!” the artistic director shouted, interrupting the rehearsal and stopping the orchestra. “What are you doing? You’re supposed to touch your cheek, where he just touched you. You’d started so strong. Wake up,” he said snapping his fingers multiple times. “Let’s do it again. Focus. One hundred percent. Here. Now.”
“Great. Now I’m getting in trouble because of him. That’s just great,” I mumbled, as I walked up to the wobbly gray balcony again, thankful my cheeks were already red from the physical exertion.
“Fine. Focus.” What if he told me he was divorced and that he’d come for me? Shh. Stop. “Here. Now.”
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. I need to get this right. This is the chance of a lifetime. Next is the Met. I can do this.
“It’s okay. It’s allowed,” I whispered to myself, while taking slow, rhythmic breaths to gain control.
As the conductor lifted his baton and the musicians prepared, I felt centered and calm. The orchestra started. Slowly. Softly. The melody church-like as I paced my balcony dreaming of my Romeo.
A “ta-da” in the music interrupted the melody, startling Juliet and announcing Romeo’s arrival in the shadows of the night of old Verona. “Ta-da-da.” Between the dry ice mist and the spotlight, I couldn’t see Claus at first, and the staccato of the music reflected Juliet’s confusion.
But then—magic. The fog dissipated slowly, as if it too wanted to announce Romeo’s presence. The music softened, pulsating like a heartbeat. And there he was. My Romeo. Oh, and what a vision he was. His sand-blond hair was kept a little longer now, wavy and just below the collar of Romeo’s puffy cream blouse. His baby face frozen at the sight of Lady Juliet. His royal blue eyes were filled with expectation, as he looked up at me. I ran down to him. The melody was now fully established. Luminous. Exalted. Beautiful. We locked eyes. We locked hands. We locked hearts. And then we danced.
I was in the moment, and this time I was able to stay in the moment, wrapped in the red cloak of desire, allowing Romeo to seduce Juliet completely.
Claus held my hands passionately and lifted me in the air like an ethereal being. Our connection was tender. He was attentive, and I was receptive. Time and again he begged me to stay. He wanted me to stay. He wanted to show his love. Oh, that was everything I dreamt of as a young girl.
Romeo kissed Juliet adoringly, and lost in the moment, I melted in his arms, aware only of his strong body pressed against my small frame.
I didn’t want to stop kissing, but Juliet had to run up to the balcony. Oh Juliet, Juliet… Why? You should have stayed. I rushed back to the balcony, wishing I could remember the words of Shakespeare. What does Juliet say after the kiss? You would think I would know. Whatever she says, she should have stayed.
“Bravo!” someone in the crowd of families and dancers shouted amid claps, whistles, and more shouts.
So this is what it feels like.
“Bravo!”

Amy Leigh Simpson said...

Patricia! So so glad you came out of the shadows! Love it! Truly fabulous!

Unknown said...

"Fabulous?" If you say so... Thank you for the kind words, Amy :) I will try to come out of the shadows from time to time.

Gail H. said...

Pepper, I'm going to slather my body in my lavender lotion and just breathe it in until I get a copy of this next novel with Catherine and David. So excited! Hurry up girl.....

Nicole Deese said...

What a fun blog!
I've loved reading these juicy kisses. Here's a little kiss scene from my upcoming summer novella, Just One Summer. (Releases on June 10th!)
Meet Joss Sanders and Drew Culver. It's the 4th of July and they've been put in charge of driving a rather festive float. Enjoy:)


One last time, I reach into the bucket as Drew nears the last corner of the parade route. I toss a hefty handful of candy to a couple of knee-height toddlers waving their miniature flags. They aren’t quite old enough to collect the treats that tumble over the curb onto the pavement, so I aim the candy at their feet. The festively dressed woman next to them waves at me, thankfulness in her smile.
Satisfied, I sigh and fall back into the cab. Drew slides his hand onto mine and flips my palm over to intertwine our fingers. Two tiny shivers dance up my spine at the contact of his skin on mine. I could melt into this touch.
“How did I get lucky enough to have a pro candy thrower as my co-captain?”
I lean my head against the seat, the sun’s rays kissing my face. “You were the expert parade driver. I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“Five miles an hour isn’t exactly expert-level driving.” He slows the truck to a stop and parks under the leafy branches of an oak tree. “I could have fallen asleep at the wheel and no one would’ve noticed.”
As if intoxicated by sunshine, sweets, and celebratory happiness, I rotate in my seat to face him. The words slip through my lips without hesitation. “I would have noticed.”
Drew’s prominent boy-next-door grin, the one he’s worn since my first night on the island, no longer feels innocent. A prickly heat fills my chest.
His eyes linger on mine, a stretching silence that spans the distance of our shared bench seat and pushes us closer, pulls us together. There’s no first move, no grand gesture, no spoken invitation. We simply answer the silence.
Our lips meet.
The bright, cloudless sky might prevent the visibility of fireworks until nightfall, but within the depth of Drew’s kiss, an explosion of fiery color extends from my head to my toes.
Under heavily lidded eyes and through raspy, uneven breaths, Drew presses his forehead to mine. “Joss.”
There’s an ache in his voice I’ve come to recognize. The same desperate plea that’s taken a hold on my heart. A tone that carries with it a kind of pleasurable pain that plagues as much as it pacifies.
“I know,” is what I want to say, “I’m falling for you, too.”
But, instead, my words are lost to a kiss I hope will last until the real fireworks begin.

Amy Leigh Simpson said...

Oh Nicole!!!! This line... "There’s an ache in his voice I’ve come to recognize. The same desperate plea that’s taken a hold on my heart. A tone that carries with it a kind of pleasurable pain that plagues as much as it pacifies." Oh sweet Moses! I'm inspired! I need to go write! Perfect!!!

Nicole Deese said...

I loved yours too, Amy! So flirty and fun!
Thanks, girl :) Though this wasn't a very detailed kiss, it was a fun scene to write given where it sits in the story. xoxo!