In the BDSM romance novel I’m working on, the focus is more about the characters than the actions. Oh, there’ll be BDSM scenes, and sex scenes, but this is the first time I’ve waited until Chapter 7 to show it. I mean, yes, Lauri had sex with the bad guy, but I didn’t focus too much on it.

Here, she has sex with the good guy:

He paid attention. That was the whole of it, the entire universe of it. He watched her the way he’d watched her shoulder on a workshop floor — reading every breath, every tell, every small, involuntary yes or no. Then he adjusted to exactly that and not an ounce more. Where Gabriel had run a sequence on the surface of her, Benjamin seemed to be conducting an unhurried investigation whose only subject was what she wanted, and he ran it with a calm, attentive confidence that made her feel, for the first time in longer than she could stand to count, that she did not have to do a single thing except be there. He took the lead — unmistakably, decisively, sure, his — but every inch of the leading was bent toward her, was about her, was the strength she’d named point entirely at her pleasure like a warm spotlight. She didn’t have to steer. She didn’t have to manage. She didn’t have to monitor his mood or guide him or hold up both ends. For once, for once in her whole capable exhausting life, she got to set the weight down.

The astonishing thing, the thing that undid her completely, was that when she finally let go, when she stopped bracing and simply trusted and fell, he was there. He caught her. He’d been watching the whole time, waiting for exactly that, and when it came, he met it.

And [echo] it was glorious, and it was delightful, and it was everything sex with Gabriel and Greg had not been: he touched, he tasted, he filled her up with delight [echo?], and when it was time for the moment, the moment where he would join his body to hers, he produced a condom from somewhere and, without being asked, rolled it on. Gabriel had seen condoms as a necessary evil, had pushed back before acquiescing, but with Benjamin it was just a thing people did to keep each other safe.

Like Gabriel, Benjamin moved her, but it wasn’t with an eye toward his own pleasure; it was all about hers, about adjusting the cant of her hips, the position of her legs, until he was hitting the perfect spot with what seemed like no effort at all. Her orgasm built, and built, and then washed over her; she cried out and clutched at his arms and he didn’t stop and neither did she, not for a while, not until her ankles were locked around his hips and his back arched and he let out a low groan that made her shudder.

Please ignore the [square brackets]; I have to go back and make sure I’m not using the same words over and over. I do feel like I’ve been using “and” too much in this book, which is a little worrying because it’s such an important word. I guess I’ll have to see about that next time around.

Is seven chapters too long to wait for the good sex scene? Or does it all depend upon the story and the way it’s told? What do you think?

(That’s a real worry, by the way.)