Callum was not the sort to be easily swayed by a beautiful woman, but something about this one captivated him. He followed her into a room bright with firelight and voices. She wafted through the room, breeze-like, drawing glances in her wake like dry leaves, and disappeared into a shadowy alcove.

Following her, he drew aside the beaded curtain and stepped inside. A trysting couch stood against the wall, a knotted silk scarf abandoned on the cushions. The air was heavy and close. He felt a sudden warmth at his back as the woman slid her arms around him. He turned, startled, to look her full in the face.

Later he would recall those too-dark eyes and the languor of her movements. He would wonder what she had taken tonight, and what she was called, and he would seek her out with greater forethought. At the moment, though, the scent of apples filled his breath, and he found himself unable to think of anything at all.

She reached up one hand to release a golden cascade of curls. The other trailed down his chest, chill against his skin. When had he unlaced his shirt? His throat was dry, and the knots in the scarf dug into the flesh of his hip. When had they fallen to the couch? Her perfume saturated every pore of him.

He struggled to remember why he was there. “We were looking for you, my sister and I.” The words seemed to come from someone else’s mouth.

A rustle of skirts, and a clatter of beads. A gentle gust of wind sent chills running up and down his skin. His hands, like bare branches, clutched at empty air.

This story is a response to this week’s Trifecta Writing Challenge, to write a love story in less than 333 words that limits the use of explicit language, and without using any of these thirty-three words (or their variations) from this list:

If you have kids, you know what a challenge it is to write at all, let alone try to write a love scene in those briefs spaces between tantrums, cuddles and lunch. I managed to squeak this one in with 20 minutes to spare, mostly because I let the 3-year-old have the iPad for the last half-hour.