One, I hope you’ll enjoy the title I came up for this request. Two, this one came from our own Catherine and Sneezy:
Catherine: So Sneezy and I were watching Eurovision 1956 and one thing led to another and now we are wondering about a rec league for smutty closet/wardrobe action…
Amanda: I’m sure we’re all curious about what led to this!
Sarah: I’m sorry what action?
Sneezy: Smut actions!
In closets!
Sarah: So books with boning inside a closet.
A journey to bonetown in the clothes cupboard?
Catherine: Say Yes to the Duke by Eloisa James definitely has hot closet action.
There’s a Take Me To Narnia scene in one of Celeste Bradley’s Liar’s Club books, too. I can’t for the life of me work out which one, though. Maybe The Charmer?
Anne Gracie has implied Narnia action in The Perfect Waltz, but it’s closed door. Always best to close the door when having sexytimes in a wardrobe.
Ooh! Contemporary closet sexytimes in The Mistake by Elle Kennedy ( A | BN | K | AB | Au ). That wasn’t the mistake in question, either.
Carrie: Faking It by Jennifer Crusie ( A | BN | K | G | AB )
Sneezy: Moira Rogers has a novella that’s just closet fun times, but I haven’t found it yet!!
Amanda: For some reason, my brain read that as Moira Rose and I was doubly intrigued.
Catherine: Why romance novel closet sex is awesome.
- You have the whole ‘what if we get caught, we must be super quiet!’ trope. This is hot!
- Sex in closets usually implies spontaneity and also extreme horniness. Nobody plans for sex in a closet. It’s shorthand for ‘hero and heroine absolutely cannot keep their hands off each other. This is also hot!
- Sex in closets almost always happens because we are spying on someone or breaking into someone’s house or otherwise up to hijinks and overhearing interesting things. So we have an element of danger, and also an element of ‘what are they thinking?’ because who takes time out in the middle of a burglary or important spy mission to boink? Romance novel protagonists, that’s who! But obviously this is because they can’t resist each other which, again, super hot.
- Also, I always have to wonder about the logistics. There isn’t a lot of space in closets, and romance heroes tend to have broad shoulders. And so, like a virgin heroine in a regency romance, one is left wondering whether it could possibly fit…
In conclusion, all romance novels should have wardrobe sex in them.
Which romances have a sexy closet scene? Let us know!
There’s a great smexy times in a wardrobe scene (in the middle of a game of hide and seek!) in _Goddess of the Hunt_ by Tessa Dare.
There’s also a hide and seek turns into sex in the closet scene in _Off the Clock_ by Roni Loren.
I want to say Tom Paoletti and Kelly have a closet sex scene in the Troubleshooters Series and it is in the first book THE UNSUNG HERO, but I’m not 100% confident it’s that one b/c the characters do overlap after a a while.
I think SAY YES TO THE DUKE by Eloisa James has one too, but that one was done in a way that stretched credibility, just my 2 cents.
Jay Northcote’s A Family for Christmas has sexytimes in “a large walk-on cupboard used for storing coats and boots,” so I think that counts. It’s during a game of sardines, but happily the h/h are well hidden. (This is one of my favorite holiday romances, I want an invitation to the family’s next Christmas.)
It’s been a while since I read it, but I’m pretty sure Alisha Rai’s A GENTLEMAN IN THE STREET has a hot m/m/f threesome in a closet. (The whole book is super steamy/probably classified as erotic romance.)
Joanna Shupe’s The Heiress Hunt has some consensual groping while hiding in a sauna, also during a game of sardines.
When I was a teen attending an evangelical church, our youth group was always playing sardines in the dark. During lock-ins. I do wonder what on earth the leaders were thinking: ABSTINENCE ONLY, KIDS, and now go and press up excitingly close to each other in dark unsupervised places! You got alllll night!
Penny Reid’s Elements of Chemistry has a very satisfying closet scene; however, it’s a trilogy and you’ll have to read the whole thing.
Sweethand by N H Peltier (m/f bi romance set in Trinidad) has at least one closet scene, maybe two. The h/h are the best man / maid of honor in an upcoming fancy wedding and there’s a lot of hanky panky while helping to plan the engagement party.
I’ve also read a couple sex scenes during hide and seek but don’t remember the books.
I know there is sex in a closet in one,and I think two, of Lily Morton’s Finding Home trilogy. I’m pretty sure one of them is in Oz. The other one might be in Milo. The scenes were in a coat closet, and quite funny.
@Tam
OMG the frenzied sexual excitement of CHURCH LOCK-INS! We gave each other shoulder rubs and watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
The Ex Hex by Erin Sterling has some hot closet action, though not a full on sex scene, I believe.
Although swoon-worthy walk-in closets the size of a small apartment, always full of the most upscale fashionable clothing, are a fixture of many dark romances (often thinly-disguised capitalist rescue fantasies) and sex (or at least foreplay) often takes place in them, the one recent “closet scene” that has stuck in my mind is both bittersweet and cw/tw for abusive behavior, so I’m putting it in a spoiler box:
I defy anyone to read that scene without tearing up.
@DiscoDollyDeb – that sounds really good.
@Tam and EJ – you’ve both reminded me of so many memories of church youth events and church camp. The back rub chains. The weird movie choices. The subtle maneuvering to stand next to one’s secret crush you can hold hands during the prayer circle. The heady combination of relative freedom and carbonated hormones.
@Tam/EJ/cleo ahhh church youth events. Where I was introduced to 80’s new wave music, had my first crush and eventually first kiss, and learned how to smoke cigarettes. Somehow I don’t think that was what my parents thought was happening when they signed me up!
There is a VERY HOT closet scene in Kennedy Ryan’s LONG SHOT but please know that the book overall is not for everyone, and many trigger warnings apply. For serious. I believe there is also a closet scene in Sarah MacLean’s latest, BOMBSHELL, but I don’t think they go all the way.
There are sexy times in a “small, unused linen closet” in Samantha Kane’s Love’s Surrender. Which must not have been that small since there were three people in there.
Simon and Annabelle have sex in a hotel closet in Lisa Kleypas’s Secrets of a Summer Night.
Joanna Shupe must have a thing for closets because there is also a hot closet scene in THE PRINCE OF BROADWAY, I think.
Definitely in Oz by Lily Morton – while touring one of Cornwall’s grand houses.
The epilogue of Made Mine by Lucy Lennox (spoiler) has closet sex in a linen closet at a winery/hotel one MC’s family owns, just before someone else’s wedding. Note that this is a crossover with one of Sloane Kennedy’s series. It might work as a standalone but probably best enjoyed as part of the Made Marian series.
Faking It (Jennifer Crusie) has some great sexual tension and kissing in a closet and more later, but I can’t remember if there’s full on sex. Fun read with lots of characters, plot, mystery, and multiple romances
The corrupt comte by Edie Harris has a closet scene AND possibly my most favorite H’s of all time!! She stutters and he’s a closet HETEROsexual! So many closets!
Jen again – so I just googled Edie Harris because I could no longer access any of her books on Amazon and apparently she has retired from writing and taken her books with her! I had no idea this was a thing. I’m glad I still have my digital copy.
Ooh I recently read Witches Get Stitches by Juliette Cross, and it has a GREAT scene in a supply closet. Argument between the two leads with friends-to-lovers tension boiling over. It is third in a series following a family of witch sisters in New Orleans, and would probably benefit from having read the first two books, although you could get by without reading them.
Tessa Dare’s Goddess of the Hunt has kissing in a closet/wardrobe.
I feel like there is one in The Demon Lover by Juliet Dark?
actually, I feel like I’ve read a lot of these, but many have already been listed!
I’d not known of sardines other than the fishy variety. Anyone care to explain?
I think there is a good one in a Christine Feehan Ghostwalker’s book.I found it! It is the first one: Shadow Game.
@Kareni, as it was explained to me years ago it’s reverse hide and seek. One person hides, people go off to seek them, when someone finds the hider they have to squeeze in with that person and other people join in as they find the hiders. It sounds like fun, but hard to pull off in practice. Maybe someone who has actually played it should weigh in.
Jane Feather had a sexy closet scene – I think it was in the Wedding Game.
Elizabeth Hoyt novella Once Upon a Christmas Eve has a good scene
There’s a historical with a linen closet…drawing a blank. Maybe one of Shana Galen’s survivor’s books?
Hating Game has sexy closet times but not consummation
One of the last scenes of The Pursuit of Love series on Prime (based on Nancy Mitford’s wonderful books) is implied closet sex in a linen “cupboard” that is bigger than most NYC apartments…
@Tam etal: Another evangelical childhood. We couldn’t do anything fun because it was sinful, or exposed us to sinful people. (Movies, nope because sex and bad language. Even Disney because magic/witchcraft. Beaches with people of the opposite sex in skimpy clothes, nope. Bowling, nope because they served alcohol. School dances – going straight to hell.) So what happened? Half the teenagers in the church ended up getting the other half pregnant for lack of anything better to do.
@Jill Q.: Thank you! I guess that a big hiding spot would prove useful.
In Julia Kent’s Shopping for a CEO series, Amanda and Andrew keep finding themselves in closets to the point where other characters block them from rooms with closets.
I’m pretty sure there’s an old Jayne Ann Krentz historical (Victorian?) that had a sexualized scene in a wardrobe. And there’s a Jordan Hawk m/m that has the two in a wardrobe but no actual sex (although they think about it). The Jennifer Crusie, Faking It, does have actual sex later, outside the closet. And I have a vague memory of which book it was has a sex scene in a linen closet. If I remember correctly, closets as separate from rooms got a start in the early 20th century, if I remember correctly; wardrobes, armoires and such were for clothes.)
Lisa Kleypas Secrets of a Summer Night has a fun scene in a linen closet.
It’s been forever since I’ve read it, but I believe there is a dressing room scene in To Catch a Cheat by Kelley St. John. Dressing rooms count as closets right?
I remember this book being so good! Phew… *fans self*
I think one of the sex scenes in Elizabeth Hoyt’s To Taste Temptation is in a closet (or small room off a hallway).
And in Tessa Dare’s Do You Want to Start a Scandal?, the mystery of who the secret lovers are (not the main characters) is revealed as strange noises are heard coming from a closet, and the pair comes tumbling out, to humourous effect. (So, not a sexy scene in a closet, but sex in a closet nonetheless!)
“Her Christmas Earl” by Anna Campbell is a favorite holiday novella for me, I’ve reread it several times. Most of it takes place inside a small dressing room, where the H&h accidentally get locked in together. The author says she wrote it in response to a prompt for a Christmas Eve wardrobe malfunction!
_The Royal Treatment_ by MaryJanice Davidson has several funny, steamy scenes in closets.
Not quite the full, actually going all out sexy times, but the ones I immediate thought of were… The Earl I Ruined by Scarlett by Scarlett Peckham has a makeout scene in a closet and then I am pretty sure Telling Tales by Charlotte Stein has an oral sex scene in a closet. Although since it’s an erotica, that whole book is ridiculously hot.