Bethany Larson

Hiiiii.

This week, Ginger at GReadsBooks has asked:

Hi friends.

Let’s chat about Ryan Adams.

I LOVE HIM.

I think he’s such a crazy-brilliant writer and he is crazy talented and he’s married to Mandy Moore and I like all of those things about him.

And he has a new album coming out soon.

And he has released a new single and it is INCREDIBLE.

Here! Listen!

Mmmmm Ryan Adams. 🙂

Tune In Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by Ginger at GReadsBooks.

Earlier today I polled some of y’all about a sexy times scene I’ve been writing for one of my book projects. EVERYONE said I should spice it up.

So I did.

And here is the (much) spicier, smuttier version of the scene, plus a little of what comes before it, for reference. 🙂 Check it out and let me know what you think!

“Ok, so tell me about Willa so I don’t Internet stalk every girl named Willa I can find while you’re gone all week,” she said.  

 That caught me off guard. I really didn’t want to tell Sophie anything about Willa, and definitely didn’t understand the compulsion to Internet stalk. “Well, what do you want to know?”  

“Where she’s from, her age, what she’s like, whether or not you want to sleep with her. You know. Those sorts of things,” Sophie said in her machine gun style, but with a mischievous smile. It didn’t quite hide her insecurity.  

“She lives in New York City. She’s our age. She’s, um . . .” The ‘what she’s like’ threw me off. I wanted to be honest, but I didn’t want to make Sophie feel any weirder about the situation. I realized I’d been quiet for about thirty seconds and Sophie was looking at me expectantly. Grasping for words that were diplomatic I said, “She’s loud. Opinionated. Very New York.”  

That should do it.  

“You didn’t answer the last part,” Sophie said, not letting me off the hook.  

This one was going to be trickier to get out of. But in a stroke of genius that I can only attribute to my viewing of shows on The CW I automatically said, “Now why would I want to sleep with Willa when I have you?”  

Sophie’s eyes lit up then and then she, quite literally, jumped on me. Her kisses were  fierce and feverish. Her hands were under my shirt,  moving down toward the band of my jeans. But instead of unbuttoning them, she slipped her hands underneath my jeans and boxers and ran her cool fingers across the sensitive skin near my hip bones.  

I had to have her. 

As if she could sense my impatience, she finally unbuttoned my jeans and shimmied them down my legs while I pulled my shirt off over my head. Sophie’s eyes met mine.   

“Come here,” I said softly. Without a word, she obliged, straddling my hips and clasping her hands behind my neck.   

“You’re still fully dressed,” I observed.   

“Mhmm,” she purred.   

“I don’t think that’s fair,” I countered before gently kissing her neck, just below her ear, and then working my lips down to her collarbone. She gave a little moan that only added fuel to my already blazing fire. I gruffly pulled her shirt off and ran my hands down the curvy sides of her body, undoing the button of her shorts. She responded by kissing me deeply and leaning forward, guiding my body back toward the bed. 

Just as I was reaching into the drawer of my nightstand, I heard “Paper Planes.” I knew I shouldn’t answer the phone, but I really wanted to. I hesitated long enough that Sophie said, “Everything ok?” 

“Yeah, everything’s fine,” I said, grabbing a condom and then rolling back toward her on my bed. “More than fine actually.” We started making out again, ignoring the fact that I was fumbling with the wrapper. When I finally got the damn thing open, “Paper Planes” emanated from my phone again. 

I couldn’t help but grin—Willa was unknowingly cock-blocking me. At least, I hoped it was unknowingly. She couldn’t know I was about to have sex, right? It’s not like she was some sort of X-Man whose superpower was sensing lust. I mean, the only way that would come in handy is if Sophie were a succubus. But I think if she were, I’d know that by now. 

So, this week I am struggling with a certain not-so-taboo-but-still-kind-of-taboo subject: teenage sex.

Like I told y’all last week, I’m sort of in the middle of a bunch of different book projects. The one I’m obsessed with writing right now is a contemp romance about two teens—Dan and Willa—who have met up once a month during their planned layovers in an airport for the past three years. Now they’re in the summer before senior year and suddenly find themselves with feelings for each other. So they have to figure out what to do (or not to do)  about a long distance relationship, all while on the precipice of starting their senior year of high school and planning for college and so on and so forth. (I know, it’s a bit involved, but I think [read: hope] it works.)

Anyway, Dan is, um, quite sexually active and I’m writing a chapter from his perspective (writing a sex scene as a guy? HARD. No pun intended. Ok, maybe a little intended.)  . . . and I’m kind of happy with it. I think it’s rather tame and JUST FINE as is. [Well, this is still a pretty rough draft, so obvs there will be some editing/re-writing. But in theory, it’s just fine.]

But then again, it’s my writing. So, OF COURSE I think it’s fine.

I sent it to my mom (who is my first reader on basically everything) and she straight up hates the scene for her own reasons. But she is not an obsessive YA reader. So! I’m going to share the scene with y’all, and then you can take a happy little poll and tell me whether it’s too much, too weird, not enough, or if I should just delete and re-write.

Here’s the scene:

Sophie’s eyes lit up then and then she, quite literally, jumped on me. We immediately started moving back toward the pillows, making out and shedding clothes as we went. What I like about hooking up with Sophie is that it just feels comfortable. Even the first time, there was a measure of comfort in how awkward we both were. But now that we’d had more time to really become accustomed to each other’s bodies, things were much more smooth. There was no stopping to nervously ask the other person if they were ok or if we should stop. Now that we knew what we were doing, things had become, well, more exciting.  

Just as I was reaching into the drawer of my nightstand I heard “Paper Planes.” [NOTE: It’s previously established that this is Willa’s ringtone.] I knew I shouldn’t answer the phone, but I really wanted to. I hesitated long enough that Sophie said, “Everything ok?”   

“Yeah, everything’s fine,” I said, grabbing a condom and then rolling back toward her on my bed. We started making out again, ignoring the fact that I was fumbling with the wrapper. When I finally got the damn thing open, “Paper Planes” emanated from my phone again.

I couldn’t help but grin—Willa was unknowingly cock-blocking me. At least, I hoped it was unknowingly. She couldn’t know I was about to have sex, right? It’s not like she’s some sort of X-Man whose superpower is sensing lust. I mean, the only way that would come in handy is if Sophie were a succubus. But I think if she were, I’d know that by now. 

And here’s the poll!