Kiss Me and Run

Today, (no this is not an MLIA) I wrote a more romantic lovey-dovey scene than I've ever prepared for a book I intend to publish. I must admit, it was a bit odd. Trying to describe the emotions and thoughts associated with a very distinctly important kiss is... well, interesting. I spent a great deal of time staring out the window and imagining myself being kissed. Yes, putting yourself in the place of the protagonist does help at times. 

However, I managed to write a good paragraph on it that I was decently happy with. Now the problem is, how do you continue from there? The best place for a kiss is at the end of a chapter in my opinion. Right where you don't have to tell about the awkward happenings that follow it. Sadly, that won't work for this one. If you were just kissed, what would you say? "So what's for dessert?" Not likely.

The Almost-Kiss

Today I did something I had not yet done in my true novels (granted I have done more in my short stories and random chronicles). I wrote an almost-kiss. By saying I've done more, I mean I've written plenty of kisses. But those were in stories that didn't matter because no one besides me would ever read them, so I was allowed to be shallow. In my second novel, I have to be deep because I am aiming for publication.
You would never guess how hard it is to write an almost-kiss without being mushy or blatant. For example, I could go for the romance novel for adults angle and say something like, "A hungry look filled his eyes as they dropped down to gaze at her mouth. He swallowed hard and leaned intimately towards her until reality seemed to infiltrate his mind, causing him to step away."
Or I could have done the cheesy, unrealistic, this-is-a-worldly-novel-written-by-a-shallow-author take on it, like this: "He stepped closer to her and leaned down. Her heart skipped a beat; was he going to kiss her? But no, a second thought turned him away an instant later, leaving her with only a memory of the would-have-been kiss."
Is it just me, or do both of those ways seem incredibly blah. So I decided my readers are going to be smarter than I usually assume they are (I like to think everyone in the world is less perceptive than myself for some reason) and went with a simple implication. I believe it ended up something like this. "She wiped moisture from her eyes, then looked up at him. He was still staring at her; there was a sort of hunger in his eyes. He leaned towards her, paused, then stepped away, rubbing a hand over his face."
Simple, well-put (if I do say so myself) and enough for any smart girl to know that he was about to kiss her. Now, I'm not really sure about guys... but they can ask their sisters.