I enjoy a good sex scene as much as the next romance reader, but do you know what I enjoy even more than the glorious pay-off of The Deed? The scene after the sex scene.
Sometimes, this moment gets short shrift. The couple might be interrupted and have to scoot off without unpacking what they’ve done together. Or the story will skip ahead to the next day. Or the lovers simply snuggle and fall asleep without anyone needing to deal with the literal mess they have presumably created. Boo! Hiss! Sex is great, but the aftermath of sex is when the characters have a golden opportunity to grow. It forces them to make themselves emotionally vulnerable now that they have made themselves physically vulnerable to each other. As Mercy puts it in The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy:
It was one thing to have spontaneous sex with a man she barely knew; it was quite another for him to get an eyeful of her naked body after the lust goggles had been removed.
The pages following Hart and Mercy’s first sexual encounter are some of my favorite in the book. The scene begins with Mercy snatching her pajamas out of her dresser and heading to the bathroom (because sex is messy, and post-sex peeing is A Universally Accepted Thing). She wonders what she will find when she returns to the bedroom, predicting that Hart is going to be fully dressed and poised to head out the door. Instead, she finds him in his undershirt and boxers, sitting on the edge of her bed, every bit as unsure as she is. So begins the tricky navigation of the questions that often follow sex:
- Do you want to stay?
- Do you want me to stay? (Spoiler: He stays.)
- Do we cuddle?
- How do I breathe without making noise or exhaling on the other person in a way that isn’t weird or gross?
- Do we talk?
- What do we talk about?
As they answer each question, they become more comfortable with each other and more sure of themselves. The post-sex interaction evolves from “Wow, your mattress is comfortable” to “This is a glimpse at who I am and how I got here.” And what’s more romantic than that?
The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy is available from Amazon and Bookshop.