A Writer’s Corner – Writing Love Scenes

The love scenes are the most difficult scenes to write. In my books, I thought I handled the emotional part of desire very well but did not handle the Instalove and obsession well at all. This is so much a part of the romance genre, and it has always felt very unconvincing to me. It is very juvenile, yet it is so popular.
My characters are more ‘mature’ in that they don’t fall in love immediately. They are attracted, intrigued, and often baffled by this. There is a lot of wariness and uncertainty until the very end.
It’s hard to identify the moment when real love happens. We don’t even see when that happens in real life, so how can we capture that moment in a novel?
There’s a scene in my most recent novel, Marry Me, Duke, where the female main character all but begs her new husband to make love to her. That was such an enjoyable scene to write. For one, you don’t often see this in historical romance novels. Her lust and curiosity seem very real to me—as is his rejection. When they finally do make love, she takes the lead at first. And after that point, he gradually falls in love with her. That, to me, felt more realistic than Instalove/lust would have.