Anonymous's line edit

I'm not sure who this is, but Anon, this bud's for you. :)

Causing a maelstrom of thrilling sensations that ignited her heart to race and her eyes to close and head to fall back against the mattress. Neck arching... stretching and straining, while her fingers dug into the sheets, seeking and clenching, crumpling the soft threads of the linen in the grasp of her brutal surrender. Desire, hot and fierce, concentrated almost painfully, sweetly, between her thighs. “I...can’t...I can’t--,”

‘You can breathe, Baby. I’m here. I’ve always been here ready to catch you as you fall for me.’

I am always having to delete ellipses. My own great vice is dashes. But Theresa is down on ellipses, so as I edit, I hit on those two. Of course, a few strewn throughout a book might work, but if you have more than a few, well, think about how they "feel" as your reader reads. An ellipsis (...) means fading out. A dash means an interruption. They shouldn't be a default, but rather used specifically in those instances only, and you know, you ought to go back and try a period or comma and see if it makes much difference. All publishers these days are trending more an more to typographic simplicity, so if you can, go with the usual punctuation. :)
Causing a maelstrom of thrilling sensations that ignited her heart to race and her eyes to close and head to fall back against the mattress.
Well, you know I'm going to point out that this is a fragment, and the annoying participle kind (Causing). :) What is causing? If you want to go with a fragment, you still need to have the antecedent there somewhere in the paragraph (before the fragment, that is). Your editor is going to change that to a sentence, so why not do it yourself and maintain control?

His touch caused...
His voice caused...
Her fear caused....
Her mother caused...
The earthquake caused....

I like the word "maelstrom". It's one of my favorite words, actually. Yes, I have favorite words. (Lilting. Stormy. Whimsy. Alternate. Traitorous.)

The cause of an event does matter!

Also, you're overmodifying here. There's sort of a tipping point for modifiers, after which each one detracts from all the others. Maybe two? In this case, you have a strong verb (ignite), so don't diminish that by piling on the adverbs and adjectives. Also you have "ignite her heart to race". I think you could INCITE the heart to race, but "ignite" means to set on fire, so "ignite her heart" is about it-- nothing on fire is going to race. You're imbedding a metaphor in that verb (I like metaphors imbedded in verbs), but a verb metaphor has the same rule as other metaphors-- you have to honor the symbol there. "Ignite" means fire, not race. So keep the rest of the image coherent with that metaphor, or change the metaphor to fit. So:
The something or other caused a maelstrom of sensations that ignited her heart. Her eyes closed and and her head fell back against the mattress as (something happened).
You can have both the poetic rush towards sensation and sentences that make sense. Really. Why not try first the sense-way, and then modify it to make it more exciting? There's a lot you can do within the rules, so try to do that, and then do the modification to achieve the additional effect you want.

Neck arching... stretching and straining, while her fingers dug into the sheets, seeking and clenching, crumpling the soft threads of the linen in the grasp of her brutal surrender.

Again, how much is lost when you put in the little bit that makes this a sentence? Your editor probably is going to do it. :)

Here you have a lot of verbals, which is interesting because verbs imply action. Too often in emotional or erotic scenes, writers descend into nouns and adjectives-- concrete visuals. But of course, verbals have more of a motion there, and can be fun.

I think you might be overdoing, but erotic scenes often tend towards the excessive. Notice that you are OUTSIDE her, not inside her. I mean, if you had a camera in there, all this would be recorded-- because this is her action, what her body is doing in response to the feeling. I'm just pointing that out. I don't know what you're going after. You are describing what her body is doing in reaction, not what the lover's body is doing in action. Just pointing that out.

Now let's try it as an intact sentence, and minus the ellipses:
Her neck arched, stretching and straining, while her fingers dug into the sheets, seeking and clenching, crumpling the soft threads of the linen in the grasp of her brutal surrender.

I'm not in love with the doubled participles (stretching and straining-- sort of redundant). And is her neck doing that? I don't much like the rhythm of all those participles. I do like "brutal surrender," because the oxymoron is illustrative. All those strong verbals, however, detract from each other-- arching and stretching and straining and dug and seeking and clenching and crumpling and grasp and surrender (neither a verb here, but a verb word). What are the important words there? If you couldn't keep them all, which would you get rid of? I'd get rid of "stretching and straining" as they add nothing but a bit of alliteration- after all, if a neck arches, it's also stretching and straining.

I think long sentences tend to work well in an erotic scene, btw, but think of the rhythm of lovemaking... you might put a short sentence in there too, to mimic the rhythm.
Desire, hot and fierce, concentrated almost painfully, sweetly, between her thighs. “I...can’t...I can’t--,”

I like that "painfully, sweetly," but that's getting lost in all the rest. How about getting rid of the hot and fierce? Or put them in front of the noun? Less is more. Think about what conveys what you want to convey, and don't bury it.

As for the ellipsis, well. Please not after "I". And a dash is a terminal punctuation mark like a period, so no comma after that.

‘You can breathe, Baby. I’m here. I’ve always been here ready to catch you as you fall for me.’

Couple quick fixes. Go consistent with quote marks-- you have American in the sentence before (double marks) and British here (single). Go with what the publisher goes with. If you're submitting to a US house, that's double marks.

And "baby" isn't capped unless it's her name or nickname-- we don't cap endearments.

I like that "catch you". The sentence feels too long, however. I've always been ready? See if you can trim it. That "as you fall for me" is interesting, but "as" implies a longer time period, and you are talking about a moment-- she falls, he catches. So see if "when" works there. I don't know.

I like the "I'm here," but I think if you have that, you need a comma in the next sentence (if you keep "here"). That might get rid of the sense that it's too long:
"You can breathe, baby. I’m here. I’ve always been here, ready to catch you as you fall for me.’"

I don't much like unattributed dialogue unless it's in a paragraph with the speaker doing action (as in the first paragraph). There's something unhinged about dialogue without attribution. It's fine in a passage of dialogue, but to me, a single line of dialogue just hanging there feels sort of incomplete. So I hope you have "he" (or "she"-- her lover could be a woman, of course!) in the next line or paragraph.

Alicia