As a writer of romance novels for over a decade, I can happily confirm that your fascination with the reality of our real-life sex lives is entirely justified. I understand the fascination – are we living out our every fantasy in search of source material? Or are we all secretly sex-starved virgins holed up behind keyboards in our pajamas? Either way, do we get as wet writing this stuff as you do reading it?
I may not be able to answer for all my romance novel colleagues, but I can assure you My my sex life was definitely not boring. Especially not when my husband of ten years, Drew*, looks like he stepped straight out of a BookTok fantasy. I’m 6’6″ with dark wavy hair and stubble to match, and I was certainly not the first woman to fall for his charms. It doesn’t hurt that he’s hilarious and blessed with a tongue that’s good for more than just witty remarks.
But while sex with Drew might fulfill every fantasy I had, everything that happened in our bed happened in its own world, a world completely separate from the one I created in a Word document. My work was worknecessary for the fulfillment of the character and not always my own. So I enjoyed the best of both worlds – two sex lives that never really collided. One was serious sexual work, the other was playful, personal pleasure.
But separate lives do not always remain separate.
With my last book, I did my usual dig at Drew about the process and used the usual pillow talk time to complain when I was stuck or to be happy when things were going well.
Heroine Charlotte took no nonsense, while hero and nerdy accountant Rich (justice for sexy nerds) wasn’t exactly the sensitive type she usually turned down so easily.
“Do you think there’s a bit of yourself in there?” Drew asked one evening after I told him the story of how my protagonists first met.
“Forgiveness?”
He kissed me on the forehead. “You know, always wanting to be in charge.”
I scoffed. Me? Sure, I had that Aries tendency to need control – but I could let it go if I wanted to, couldn’t I? I could be a certified pillow princess if I wanted to (even if it was only on my own terms). So no, Charlotte wasn’t me.
I pushed Drew’s suggestion aside as the writing process progressed. From emails to meet-cutes, I wrote everything from my desk overlooking our garden. And as the English weather outside the window changed from sunny to grey and back again, I got lost in other people’s sex lives.
Charlotte’s first time with Rich was supposed to be a normal sexual encounter that would satisfy the reader and move the story forward. But sometimes husbands and even characters you created yourself can surprise you. Just as Drew predicted, Charlotte’s tough facade wasn’t without a crack that her hero could (and would) break through.
The scene seemed to flow from my fingers as I placed my characters in an unexpected position. It seemed Rich wasn’t going to embrace any of Charlotte’s avoidance tendencies today. I wrote about how he managed to silence her with a look, applying gentle pressure to her neck, telling her what a good girl she was for giving in to the pleasure he was giving her. I felt barely any level of control over every dirty word of praise he whispered in her ear, every drop of sweat that broke out on her skin as he slid a finger inside her, every bite of her lower lip that tried to silence her moans.
Finally, Charlotte came and couldn’t believe what she had allowed herself to do: she had given the reins to someone else and given up control.
I was just trying to calm my racing heart when Drew came home from work. He’s not an accountant, but he was still wearing his usual polo shirt and lanyard.
“What are you doing?” he asked when he came in and found me trying to clean up the snack wrappers that had found their way onto my desk while I was spending my afternoon doing some almost out-of-body sex writing.
“Nothing, why?”
“You look guilty.”
I have?
I gestured vaguely toward my computer screen. “Things might have gotten a little X-rated between those two,” I admitted.
His expression barely changed as he dropped his bag and stepped behind me to look at the screen.
I felt the air in the room thicken, as it often does when I’m around this man and thinking about sex. I looked up and saw the dark hair on his chin, so different from the clean-shaven man I’d written on the page.
What was he reading? Maybe the part where Rich wouldn’t let Charlotte go until she gave him control. Maybe the parts where he whispered words of praise in her ear.
He cleared his throat. “Did you enjoy writing it?”
I couldn’t suppress my nervous laughter. “It was okay.”
His voice dropped to my ear. “Because your cheeks are a little pink.”
A familiar hand touched my flushed face and my whole body tensed.
I stood up, but he didn’t give me any room to move. My breath caught in my throat as he looked at me in a way I knew all too well, and my warm thighs hit the table.
“Are you willing to admit that she looks a little like you?”
With my dry throat and wet shorts, I didn’t know how to react.
“Does that make you like him?” I asked, leaving the subliminal impression that ready to take control? somewhere unspoken in the thickening air between us.
I barely had time to look between his eyes and lips before my body knew what to do. Suddenly, a polo shirt and lanyard had never been sexier as I grabbed his collar and kissed him like it was the first time.
I clung to him in breathless anticipation, knowing that those big hands gripping my hips and searching for bare skin beneath the hem of my t-shirt were capable of making it as fast or as painful as they wanted.
“Go upstairs.”
I could barely hear his demand because of my own desire, but I obeyed as if instinctively.
By the time we got to our bed, most of our clothes were gone, but it looked like Drew had taken everything he’d read on the screen to heart and was going to make me work for it. It felt like he kept me waiting for what felt like an eternity before he finally gave in and touched me.
His sudden dominance left me unaware of what my body wanted to do at first. When he buried his face between my breasts, sending me into a frenzy, I wrapped my legs around his waist to hold myself in place. Dominant hands applied gentle pressure to either side of my neck and I arched instinctively, every wet spot south of my hips rubbing against him.
I felt his grin on my chest as he pinched my skin between his teeth and I suddenly realized I was losing. This was exactly what he had wanted, exactly what I had spent the afternoon writing about.
Although I had never said no when I was showered with pleasure, it was usually on my terms. Now, just like Charlotte, I was no longer in control. As much as I wanted to give in, part of me wanted to resist. To see how far I could go.
My nails found his back – his weakness, as he knew all mine. The moan that escaped his lips as I dug my fingers into his ass and dragged them across his skin made my eyes roll. I dug myself hard into him again, the sound rippling through me like an orgasm.
That was a game I wasn’t going to win.
All I could do was wrap my legs around his waist and hold on for dear life while he nibbled on my ear and praised me for finally giving in.
I had lost control of exactly what was touching me where, all the sensations blending together until all I could hear was my own gasps. Our skin was stuck together, I was more filled than ever before. Fingers, a cock – I had reached the point where I didn’t care.
Thankfully, I didn’t have to concentrate as Drew continued to take control, tilting my head back and placing a thumb under my chin so he had just the right angle to whisper in my ear, telling me how good I was doing. He took what he’d read on the page and put it into action until I let myself go and came violently under his total control.
With what strength I had left, I coaxed a few more moans from him and filed them away in my memory for later. Each one left me gasping for air over and over as I held him tightly between my thighs.
Finally, he came too, with a groan that echoed between our kisses. A sudden wave of fulfillment washed over me—a feeling of sexual satisfaction that came not from an orgasm, but from the realization that I had given him what he wanted. Drew had been right all along—it turns out I was a little like Charlotte after all. And being proved wrong had never felt more right than it did.
*Name has been changed.
