25 NSFW Sex Scenes From Romance Novels That Leave You Begging for More

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Sometimes all you need to get turned on is a super sexy intimate scene from a romance novel and an imagination that can do the rest.

Whether you’ve only dipped your toe in 50 Shades of Grey or you’re a longtime connoisseur of bodice-rippers, it’s never a bad time to dive back in to your favorite romance novels — or even just replay your favorite scenes.

And if you’re new to erotica, welcome! Romance novels are an often-overlooked category of literature, but it won’t take you more than a few chapters to realize engaging characters and a page-turning plot can exist right alongside sex scenes so raunchy and explicit they have you reaching for your favorite vibrator.

Between erotic Anne Rice classics, millennial rom-com romance novels by Jasmine Guillory, Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series and so, so much more, there’s enough material here to keep you reading under the covers well beyond lockdown. And if you don’t know where to start, check out these extremely NSFW sex scene excerpts below.

The Right Swipe by Alisha Rai

“He pushed her leg aside and sank inside her. She groaned and arched, forcing him to speed up to a faster pace. His fingers clenched over her thigh and he moved harder, deeper, shafting her in long, fast strokes. Delicious. 

She slid her hands down over his back, slick with sweat, and grasped his pumping buttocks. He pressed his mouth against her neck and kissed her, his tongue working over her sensitive skin. 

‘Fuck,’ he mumbled.”

Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow

“‘Lie down.’ Evelyn sat down on the bed and looked at what was coming out of the black bag. On your stomach, Goldman said. She was holding a bottle and tilting the contents of the bottle into her cupped hand. Evelyn lay down on her stomach and Goldman applied the liquid where the marks of the stays reddened the flesh. Ow, Evelyn cried. It stings!

This is an astringent – the first thing is to restore circulation, Goldman explained as she rubbed Evelyn’s back and buttocks and thighs. Evelyn was squirming and her flesh cringing with each application. She buried her face in the pillow to smother her cries. I know, I know, Goldman said. But you will thank me. Under Goldman’s vigorous rubbing Evelyn’s flesh seemed to spring into its fullest conformations. She was shivering now and her buttocks were clenched against the invigorating chill of the astringent. Her legs squeezed together. Goldman now took from her bag a bottle of massage oil and began to knead Evelyn’s neck and shoulders and back, her thighs and calves and the soles of her feet.

Gradually Evelyn relaxed and her flesh shook and quivered under the emphatic skill of Goldman’s hands. Goldman rubbed the oil into her skin until her body found its own natural rosy white being and began to stir with self-perception. Turn over, Goldman commanded. Evelyn’s hair was now undone and lay on the pillow about her face. Her eyes were closed and her lips stretched in an involuntary smile as Goldman massaged her breasts, her stomach, her legs. Yes, even this, Emma Goldman said, briskly passing her hand over the mons. You must have the courage to live. The bedside lamp seemed to dim for a moment.

Evelyn put her own hands on her breasts and her palms rotated the nipples. Her hands swam down along her flanks. She rubbed her hips. Her feet pointed like dancer’s and her toes curled. Her pelvis rose from the bed as if seeking something in the air. Goldman was now at the bureau, capping her bottled emollient, her back to Evelyn as the younger woman began to ripple on the bed like a wave on the sea. At this moment a hoarse unearthly cry issued from the walls, the closet door flew open and Mother’s Younger Brother fell into the room, his face twisted in a paroxysm of saintly mortification. He was clutching in his hands, as if trying to choke it, a rampant penis which, scornful of his intentions, whipped him about the floor, launching to his cries of ecstasy or despair, great filamented spurts of jism that traced the air like bullets and then settled slowly over Evelyn in her bed like falling ticker tape.”

A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas

“I moaned then, tilting my head back to give him better access. His hands clamped on my waist, then moved—one going to cup my rear, the other sliding between us.

This—this moment, when it was him and me and nothing between our bodies… His tongue scraped the roof of my mouth as he dragged a finger down the center of me, and I gasped, my back arching. ‘Feyre,’ he said against my lips, my name like a prayer more devout than any Ianthe had offered up to the Cauldron on that dark solstice morning.

His tongue swept my mouth again, in time to the finger that he slipped inside of me. My hips undulated, demanding more, craving the fullness of him, and his growl reverberated in my chest as he added another finger.

I moved on him. Lightning lashed through my veins, and my focus narrowed to his fingers, his mouth, his body on mine. His palm pushed against the bundle of nerves at the apex of my thighs, and I groaned his name as I shattered.”

Happy Endings by Thien-Kim Lam

“‘This bad boy is designed for both inner and outer play. The rabbit ears tuck around your clit, while the other part—let me show you.’ Without taking her eyes off the women, she pressed a button and the beads inside the toy’s base began to rotate. Jack’s shaft twirled clockwise, then, with the press of another button, twirled counterclockwise. Everyone gasped in amazement. ‘Hell, Jack can load me up anytime!’ shouted out the tipsy bride-to-be.”

Story of O by Pauline Réage

“They turned her around, and the heat of the fire was against her back. A hand seized one of her breasts, a mouth fastened on the tip of the other. But suddenly she lost her balance and fell backward (supported by whose arms?), while they opened her legs and gently spread her lips. Hair grazed the insides of her thighs.

She heard them saying that they would have to make her kneel down. This they did. She was extremely uncomfortable in this position, especially because they forbade her to bring her knees together and because her arms pinioned behind her forced her to lean forward. Then they let her rock back a bit, so that she was half-sitting on her heels, as nuns are wont to do.”

Bridgerton: The Duke and I by Julia Quinn

“Simon stopped breathing until her forefinger touched his nipple, and then his hand shot up to cover hers. ‘I want you,’ he said. Her eyes flicked downward, and her lips curved ever so slightly. ‘I know.'”

Ugly Love by Colleen Hoover

“He focuses on my mouth, then back to my eyes again, then back to my mouth. ‘Tate,’ he whispers. He says my name so softly I’m not even sure if his mouth moves. I don’t have time to respond. His hand leaves the button of my shirt and slides through my hair at the same moment as his lips connect fiercely with mine. He slides his body on top of me, and his kiss instantly becomes intense. Deep. Dominating. His kiss is full of something that’s never been there before. Full of feeling. Full of hope.”

You Had Me at Hola by Alexis Daria

“‘Just touch me,’ she whined, arching impatiently against his hand. He couldn’t make either of them wait any longer. Slowly, he brought his middle finger down and slid it gently over her folds. Jasmine threw her head back. ‘God, yes. Keep going.’ He did it again, this time his fingertip slipping between and gathering her wetness. He parted her with two fingers and found her clit, rubbing it in small circles. She cried out against his lips, and was lost. The taste of her, the smell of her, the feel of her so close against him, skin to skin. Time and space had no meaning anymore. There was only her.”

Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibber

“He found the strip of condoms he’d packed, ripped one open, managed to roll it on with gritted teeth. Maybe she would’ve done it for him, and maybe that would’ve been hot as hell, but since he wanted to actually get inside her before he went off like a gunshot, he needed to keep touching to a minimum.

Of course, as soon as he thought that, she grabbed his hair and dragged him down, pressing all her soft, lush curves against his body. Her skin was hot and damp from the exertion of her orgasm. Her pussy was wet and open, ready for him, begging for him as she spread her legs and reached down to grasp his erection. In his ear, she whispered, ‘Hard, please.’”

Who Do You Love by Jennifer Weiner

“He felt her slip down the bed. She unfastened his pants, eased his briefs over his hips, and brushed the length of his cock with her palm before taking him in her mouth. He sighed, eyes shut, thinking about how unbelievably good it felt, when Rachel gave a throaty moan, then rolled her mouth from base to tip and whispered, ‘Look at me’…

…’Shh,’ he said, pulling her up so they were face-to-face again. He slid his hands between her legs, positioning fingers and thumb the way she’d taught him. Except that wasn’t right. She hadn’t taught him. They’d figured it out together, how to make her come. He nuzzled against her, his lips on her neck, nibbling and kissing his way up to her earlobe, where she’d always been ticklish. ‘Ooh,’ she whispered. ‘Ooh! Oh, oh, oh,’ she sighed, as he worked his fingers against the slick seam… and then she forgot to pose, forgot about trying to look good, and lost herself inside her own pleasure. Andy watched her squeeze her eyes shut as she clamped her thighs against his wrist and snapped her hips up, once, twice, three times before she froze, all the muscles in her thighs and belly and bottom tense and quivering, and he felt her contract against his fingers.

Before she could recover, he’d rolled her onto her back and slipped inside her. After the first thrust he had to hold still, knowing that if he kept moving, if he gave himself up to the exquisite tightness, the heat, he would explode.”

The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang

“Two fingers worked into her, and her eyes rolled back into her head. He began a steady rhythm as his tongue flickered over her, and she couldn’t prevent her hips from rising to meet his thrusts. Oh God, she was riding his hand, smothering his face with her sex. That had to be bad. She told herself to stop. She couldn’t. Somehow, she found her hands tangled in his short hair. Her body was coiled tighter, grasping at his fingers, so wet now she could hear the slippery sounds every time he drove back into her.”

The Wedding Date by Jasmine Guillory

“Making out with him in bed was even better than it had been against the door. Now he knew what she liked, the moves that made her moan and gasp and sink her fingers into her shoulders.

He sat up and smiled down at her, his eyes on her bright red panties. She mentally thanked Maddie for ordering her to wear a matching bra and panty set. Then all thought s of Maddie and anyone else left her mind. He moved like a flash down her body, pulling those panties off as he went and throwing them across the room. And then he set about doing things to her with his fingers and his mouth that almost made her black out.”

The Sleeping Beauty Trilogy by Anne Rice

But even as he smiled, he felt the hot fluid between her legs for the first time, the real fluid which had not come before with her innocent blood. “That’s it, that’s it, my darling,” he said. “And you mustn’t resist your Lord and master, hmmmm?”

Now he opened his clothing and took out his hard, eager sex, and mounting her he let it rest against her thigh as he continued to stroke her and work her.

She was twisting from one side to the other, her hands gathering up the soft sheets at her sides into knots, and it seemed her whole body grew pink, and the nipples of her breasts looked as hard as if they were tiny stones. He could not resist them.

He bit at them with his teeth, playfully, not hurting her. He licked them with his tongue, and then he licked her sex, too, and as she struggled, and blushed and moaned beneath him, he mounted her, slowly.

Again she arched her back. Her breasts were suffused with red. And as he drove his organ into her, he felt her shudder violently with unwilling pleasure.

An awful cry was muffled by the hand over her mouth; she was shuddering so violently it seemed she all but lifted him on top of her.

Bared To You by Sylvia Day

“My head thudded against the glass, heat pulsing through my blood from the point where his tongue was driving me mad. My leg flexed against his back, urging him closer, my hands cupping his head to hold him still as I rocked into him. Feeling the rough satin strands of his hair against my sensitive inner thighs was its own provocation, heightening my awareness of everything around me…”

The Powerbook by Jeanette Winterson

“‘Take off your trousers and let me see you.’ So this was the moment. All would be revealed. I no longer cared. Come death, come life, there is a part to play and that is all. Hesitatingly, I let down the blue and gold of my trousers. There was a silence. then the princess said… 

‘I have never seen a man before.’ (You’re not seeing one now.)

‘The stories I have heard… the fleshiness, the swelling… but you are like a flower.’ (This was true.)

She touched my bulbs.

‘They are like sweet chestnuts.’ (Tulips, my darling, tulips.)

She stroked the waxy coating I kept fresh to protect them. The tips of her fingers glistened.

‘What do you call these?’

‘This one is key of pleasure, and this one is lover’s dream.’ I said this quite sincerely because it was so.

‘And what do you call this?’

Her fingers had reached the centre now. I had to think fast.

‘I call it my stem of spring.’

She laughed delightedly and kissed the red flower, its petals fastened tight into a head. Fortunately my mother had made it quite secure and the princess could play with it all she liked. Then a strange thing began to happen. As the princess kissed and petted my tulip, my own sensations grew exquisite, but as yet no stronger than my astonishment, as I felt my disguise come to life. the tulip began to stand.

I looked down. There it was, making a bridge from my body to hers.

I was still wearing my tunic and the princess could not see the leather belt that carried everything with it. All she could see, all she could feel, was the eagerness of my bulbs and stem. I kneeled down, the tulip waving at me as it had done on the hillside that afternoon I cut it down.

Very gently the princess lowered herself across my knees and I felt the firm red head and pale shaft plant itself in her body. A delicate green-tinted sap dribbled down her brown thighs.”

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

“You’re mine, mo duinne,” he said softly, pressing himself into my depths. “Mine alone, now and forever. Mine, whether ye will it or no.” I pulled against his grip, and sucked in my breath with a faint “ah” as he pressed even deeper. “Aye, I mean to use ye hard, my Sassenach,” he whispered. “I want to own you, to possess you, body and soul.”

50 Shades of Grey by E.L. James

“He leans down and kisses me, his fingers still moving rhythmically inside me, his thumb circling and pressing. His other hand scoops my hair off my head and holds my head in place. His tongue mirrors the actions of his fingers, claiming me. My legs begin to stiffen as I push against his hand. He gentles his hand, so I’m brought back from the brink … I come instantly again and again, falling apart beneath him … then I’m building again … I climax anew, calling out his name.”

Vox by Nicholson Baker

“I run my fingers just down the long place where the insides of your thighs touch, all the way to your knees, and then I’d let go of your legs, and they’d fall slightly apart, and as my hands started to move up inside them, with my fingers splayed wide, they’d move farther and farther apart, and then I’d lift your knees and hook them over the arms of the armchair, so that you were wide open for me, and in the darkness your bush would still be indistinct, and I’d look up at you, and I’d move on my knees so I’m closer, so I could slide my cock in you if I wanted, and I touch your shoulders with my hands, and pass my fingertips all the way down over your breasts and over your stomach and just lightly over your bush, just to feel the hair, and then say, ‘I’m going to lick you now,’ and I lick both your nipples once very briefly good-bye, and I breathe my way down, and I pass over your bush this time with my mouth, and I see where the tan stops, and where the hair begins, and I keep going, and your legs are spread wide, and so I kiss inside one knee, and then across to the other, and up, back and forth, and at the end of each kiss I give a little upward lick with my tongue, up lick, lick, lick, back and forth, moving closer and closer to where your thighs meet.”

Lick by Kylie Scott

“‘God, David.’ I arched against him when he moved to my other breast. Two fingers worked inside me, a little uncomfortable but nothing I couldn’t handle. Not so long as he kept his mouth on me, lavishing my breasts with attention. His thumb rubbed around a sweet spot and my eyes rolled back into my head. So close. The strength of what was building was staggering. Mind-blowing. My body was going to be blown to dust, atoms, when this hit. If he stopped, I’d cry. Cry, and beg. And maybe kill… I came, groaning, every muscle drawn taut. It was almost too much. Almost.”

Night After Night by Lauren Blakely

“He drove his tongue inside her, setting off another shattering moan that was music to his ears. She was quite an instrument to play, so finely tuned, and if he touched her right, she made the most glorious sounds — raw, intense, absolutely delicious noises of pleasure as he plundered her with his tongue. She grabbed his hair, yanked and pulled him closer as he’d told her to do. He thrust one finger inside her, crooking it and hitting her in the spot that turned her moans into one long, high-pitched orgasm. She shuddered against him, her legs quaking, and when he finally slowed to look up at her, he saw her hair was a wild tumble, and her face was glowing.”

The Rogue Not Taken by Sarah MacLean

“He spread her wide and she closed her eyes at the touch, lewd and lascivious and lovely, at once thankful for the darkness and quite desperate for the light. ‘Did you touch yourself?’

“She shook her head, her hands searching for him. Finding his soft hair. ‘No.’ He stopped again and her fingers curled against him. ‘It’s true. I didn’t. But …’

“He blew softly on the exposed center of her. ‘But?’

“She inhaled, the breath ragged and not enough, and though it was he who knelt, it was she who confessed.’But I wanted to.’

“He rewarded her honesty with his mouth, consuming her like fire, his tongue stroking in long, slow licks, curling in a slick promise at the hard center of her pleasure, and she lifted her hips to meet his remarkable mouth, not caring that the action could be called nothing but wanton. She did want. She needed.”

The Match of the Century by Cathy Maxwell

“He kissed her ear, as he said, ‘I don’t want either of us to ever forget this night.’

“She answered by plastering her mouth on his and kissing him in a way she’d never thought possible, her hips moving against him, knowing there must be more. Ben settled himself between her legs. She cradled his hips with her thighs. And then he was at the portal. The sharp pain she had once endured was a distant memory, and nothing, absolutely nothing in this world, felt as good as the sensation of him slowly sliding into her.

“‘Are you all right?’ he asked. He sounded as if he was holding himself in check, as if it took all of his will to do so.

“Elin arched and stretched beneath him. Her movements sent him deeper, and she liked that. ‘I’ve never been better,’ she practically purred.”

The Surrender Gate by Christopher Rice

“The sudden, delicious sense that Jonathan is hers, for now, entirely and completely hers, fills her with as much force and speed as his hard cock. As his thrusts gain a steady tempo, she brings her hands to his pecs, his nipples, down his abs, clamping her legs around his waist, driving him further into her until their sweat-slick bodies are sliding together, and he’s whispering in her ear, ‘I never knew you were such a dirty girl, Emily Blaine.'”

Enchanted by Nancy Madore

“When at last I entered his chamber, I was positively quivering with excitement. The Beast was sitting in a chair in a remote corner of the darkened room. Removing my robe, I positioned myself on the edge of the bed in just the way he liked best, as was my habit. Within seconds I was soaking wet and aching for him. That’s the way it was for me with the Beast. It was enough just to wait there, trembling and poised on my hands and knees, anticipating what was to come, to bring about that kind of response in me.

“I had not even heard him move when suddenly I felt his crude hands caressing my soft skin. ‘Turn around,’ he said suddenly in a gruff whisper.

“I paused for a moment, stunned.

“‘I want to see your face tonight,’ he said simply.”

The Juliette Society by Sasha Grey

“He starts to kiss me, softly, sweetly, tugging at my lips with his.

“He cups my breast, brushes the nipple with his thumb.

“I reach down and stroke myself where all the sweat gathers, where the smell of my sex is strongest. I stroke it and then lick my fingers and stroke it some more.

“He gently bites my top lip, sucks it. Tugs at my nipple, rolling it between his thumb and forefinger.

“I feel it harden.

“I feel him harden.”

A version of this article was originally published in April 2014.