TITLE: Kitsune
GENRE: Science Fiction
Strange guy sneaks into the MC's hotel room. This is how she retaliates.
Our eyes met. His breath caught, as did mine. A thin black cloth covered the lower half of his face. What the hell was another Scorpio doing here? Was he here to terminate me?
For a Scorpio sneaking about in other people's rooms, he was not what I expected. Instead of the form-fitting black Scorpio suit, he wore black cargo pants and a button up white shirt with the top buttons undone and the sleeves rolled up. Still, he had to be hot. I was, and I was wearing shorts and a camisole.
God, did I want him.
Scorpio or not, I wasn't going down without a fight.
Without breaking eye contact, I punched. He returned the favor. So I pulled him into a roundkick.
I was about to smash my knee into his face when he shifted his weight and tripped us. I rolled us over, straddled him. As I pulled my fist back to punch again, he lowered his mask.
He's not Scorpio? Then who does he work for? How the hell did he find me?
No one even knew where I was, except Scorpio. But there was no getting around the subcutaneous microchip between my shoulder blades, compliments of the Scorpio school system. When we were trained to disguise ourselves so well, not even our families or loved ones could identify us, Scorpio needed a way to keep track of us.
Yet somehow this masked non-Scorpio had found me. Which meant he was skilled enough to hack the Scorpio database. Or knew someone that was.
F***.
The sexy man flipped us and pinned me to the floor. Focus. I was about to shove him off again. Then his lips were on mine and I was kissing him more passionately than I had kissed anyone, simply because I wanted to.
It's funny; I recently read this quote by agent Kristen Nelson recently:
ReplyDelete"I can’t stand this scenario: A woman is awakened to find a strange man in her bedroom—and then automatically finds him attractive. I’m sorry, but if I awoke to a strange man in my bedroom, I’d be reaching for a weapon—not admiring the view.”
I'm inclined to agree with her on this one. The situation seems a bit unbelievable. But then, I may not know the context.
As for the exercept itself, I felt like there was too much time spent in her head thinking about Scorpio. There's so much back and forth of 'Is he scorpio?' 'Is he not scorpio?' that we we lose sight of what's going on and how this guy's appearance is affecting her. The paragraph starting with 'No one even knew where I was...' felt very data-dumpy to me. Maybe trim back a bit on the inner thoughts, especially in what I expect is a fast-paced scene.
Hear, hear! I was instantly confused when she said she wanted him. If your MC is a strong woman, a fighter, I have a hard time believing that she's going to turn to jelly because of one hot guy, especially a hot guy who just broke into her room and is trying to kill her!
ReplyDeleteI do think rolling an action scene into a hot and heavy scene can be very effective, but I'm not sure it works here. If she's going to kiss him, she should be doing it to then immediately kick him in the nads (or something less awful) and disable him so she can interrogate him and find out who he is and what he wants. "Because she wants to" isn't a good enough reason to kiss him if he's a complete and total stranger. You obviously have an interesting world and premise here. I want to know more about that!
Yeah, it wasn't clear why she was attracted to a stranger. I'm not sure if there's something revealed elsewhere that you weren't able to include in this section. It reads as if she's in heat and will sleep with another who isn't a Scorpio.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I'm basing this solely on this excerpt, mind, but you might want to consider calling the organization and the operatives by 2 different names. You use the word Scorpio a million times, yet you aren't always referring to the same thing.
For instance Scorpios could work for Scorpion Prime or something. You also switch between calling them Scorpio and a Scorpio. I don't know if you want to make that uniform. Maybe it isn't that important. Am I Hispanic or am I a Hispanic? I'd have to ask the others.
I did get tripped up at "He's not Scorpio," b/c without the "a" I asked -- uh, is Scorpio a persona's name?
Also, you don't say why when he lowered his mask she automatically knew he wasn't a Scorpio.
I concur with all of the above, particularly why she would want to bone the guy who just busted into her hotel room, and why she would know he was not the enemy when he lowered his mask.
ReplyDeleteDitto to all the above. Love the hints of world-building though. I'm totally intrigued!
ReplyDeleteAs for the kiss, I kind of want her to get into and then slam him in the side of the head with sonething she finds on the floor. She seems like a fighter so yes, strange dude kissing her should set her off. :)
Ah, not much to add to these statements, I agree with them all. One thing you might want to look at as well was how many times you said Scorpio in this (I counted TEN), which makes me wonder about the rest of the manuscript and how liberally it's peppered there.
ReplyDeleteThe writing is pretty good, but she's not reacting as if her life's in jeopardy. FIRST disarm the guy trying to kill you, THEN think about the microchip in your shoulders compliments of the school system and the disguise training and the rationale for the disguises. After the guy is tied up or dead, that's the time to think, "Wow, he must have been a great hacker to get into the database." :-)
ReplyDeleteBut as I said, the writing is good even though I found the thought processes a little hard to believe (let alone the sexual attraction to someone who wants to kill you.) I think the pacing was right and the scene wasn't overwritten.