Don't just write a sex scene. Write a scene with sex as the setting. For example make the scene be about revenge, betrayal, or a heist and sex is the tool that's used to get these things.
The reason this works is that intimacy without stakes reads as choreography, while intimacy with a hidden agenda reads as story. The reader needs something to root for or dread, and physical description alone can't carry that weight. Give the scene a want and an obstacle and suddenly every touch means something. Picture a heist crew's thief seducing a guard to lift his keycard mid-embrace, counting his breathing to time the swap. The tension isn't the kiss, it's the countdown. The caution is not to let the scheme flatten the humanity out of it. If every intimate moment becomes pure strategy, characters stop feeling like people and start feeling like chess pieces. Let a little real feeling slip through the plan.
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