No heroine she, but I rather liked the expression on Joseph’s face as he tries to reject Potiphar’s wife.
Well, maybe not seduction, precisely, because some of us write heroes and heroines who are far too well behaved to get up to that kind of mischief, at least on our pages.
But this week, I’m looking for excerpts that show one character being aware of their physical attraction to the other, especially if they act on it.
Mine is from A Raging Madness. My heroine has not just been compromised, but assaulted, and only the quick thinking of Alex’s father has saved her. Marriage to Alex is the best way to keep her safe, but her previous marriage has left her with bad memories. Never a woman to back away from her fears, she goes to see Alex in his room.
“Is something wrong, Ella? Can I help?”
She wore an ankle-length nightrail, and as she passed in front of the fire, he could see her legs outlined through the fine material. She dropped the shawl she wore and his mouth instantly dried.
“Show me I am not cold, Alex.”
His brain had emptied, too. Surely she could not mean…? Suddenly, he realised that he was naked, and the sheets were down by his hips. He shifted to pull them up and stopped. Too late. She had seen his scarred torso and had not run screaming from the room. That was good, surely?
She was flushing; shifting from one foot to another. “You do not have to if you do not wish to, Alex.”
She thought he was rejecting her? Without stopping to think about it, he threw back the sheets, disclosing his very male reaction to her suggestion, and her eyes riveted on it.
“Someone salutes the idea,” she said, with an entirely feminine smirk. Then her uncertainty returned. “If we do this, I want you to know… If it doesn’t work, if I cannot… I will go away, Alex. I will not burden you with a wife who cannot please you.”
That raised the stakes to a whole new level.
“You will please me, Ella. You please me very much. I thought to wait out of respect to the woman who will be my wife.” He gave her his best roguish grin. “But it occurs to me that bedding you might be the best way to make sure you don’t wriggle out of this, Ella. You really are the most elusive woman! Come here.” He held out his hand, and she took one hesitant step towards him, then another until her hand was in his and he could draw her to the side of the bed. Her colour had deepened as she walked, but he could not keep his eyes on her face with her dark aureole showing through the thin fabric of the nightrail.
Almost without volition, his other hand came up to shape one breast, to linger lovingly over a nipple that tightened and peaked as he touched it.
She trembled and sucked a breath sharply through her mouth, and he looked up into her wary eyes.
“Come here,” he said again, shifting sideways in the bed to make room for her.
She allowed him to help her up on the bed, sitting beside him, upright and tense.