Word-Whores: Exquisite

Exquisite is one of my favorite words.

It's a lyrical word. Sensual. Even sexual.

I use it quite a bit in my work.

Or, at least, I thought so. In fact, I figured I'd just pull a passage from The Mark of the Tala, since that's coming out TWO WEEKS FROM NOW. (How did it get here so fast???) You may expect me to talk of little else in the next few posts. I'm already calculating how to work "farther" and "fate" into this theme.

(By the way - "farther," really?? Whose word was THAT?)

Alas, my clever plan was foiled because I apparently did not use "exquisite" anywhere in The Mark of the Tala. Go figure. (I did, however use "farther" five times, so there's that.) I could have sworn I threw "exquisite" into everything I write, but I guess it didn't fit Andi's voice. It's a powerful word, so I don't use it often. On the other hand, I did use variations on "exquisite" five times in Rogue's Paradise (out in September). Faerie, the setting for that series, lends itself well to exquisite descriptions.

Perhaps the other reason that I thought I'd used "exquisite" in Andi's book was that I have used it in Ursula's story, book 3, The Talon of the Hawk, which I'm writing now. So here's a bit of a snippet from that.

Um, yes - totally using it in a sensual way.

He leaned in. I readied the words on my tongue, but he did nothing more than brush my cheekbone with a kiss, light as a butterfly’s wing. I held my breath, waiting for the awful to rise up.

            But it didn’t.

            He waited too, then, with a deep hum that I felt more than heard, he kissed my other cheek, at the high point just below the temple. Warmer this time, a tingle of heat that filtered into my blood stream.

            “Does this hurt?” He whispered and I realized he meant my bruises. Maybe more.

            “No,” I breathed, surprised to find that was true, that I’d changed my hold so that I no longer held him away, but curled my fingers into his shirt, absorbed in the sweetness of his mouth on my skin.

            “May I kiss you?” He’d already trailed several more soft kisses down my cheek, to line of my jaw, to the corner of my mouth. But he hovered there, waiting for me to decide.

            “All right.” I braced myself and he chuckled, low and deep, running his hands up my back in that sensual, soothing way.

            His mouth feathered against mine, exquisitely gentle, barely there and gone. I sighed out, breath mingling with his and it seemed we created a web that drew our lips together again, lightly caressing, sweet, almost innocent.

            My heart softened, thudding with lulled beats.

            “More?” he asked.

            “Yes. More,” I agreed.

            He changed his angle, careful of my broken nose, and kissed me again. Deeper this time, lips moving over mine with leisurely heat, opening and inviting me to do the same. Vaguely surprised at myself, I wanted to taste more of him. The inner edge of his lips possessed a velvety texture, a contrast to his man’s mouth and the slight scrape of stubble on his face.