In Distress and Trope Flipping by Katey Hawthorne

 

One of the best things about writing romance is playing with old tropes. As in flipping them onto their heads.

 

Sometimes, it’s fun to be the one in the story who needs a rescue. Princesses in towers are always pretty desirable, right? Yeah, that’s what Eddie Kim, hero of In Distress thinks, too. No shame in that fantasy, as far as he’s concerned, and all his friends know it’s his favorite.

 

Eddie Kim by Astro

 

And then he meets Callum Race, a guy who’s in a little distress of his own… and happens to have icy superpowers. And everything changes.

EXCERPT:

 

“This could all be a lie,” he insisted. “I could be some kind of…of nutjob, just coming in here with wild stories to—”

“Well, the superpowers are real, and that’s the nuttiest part.” I tapped his frosty glass.

“No,” he said again, this time drawn out and fixing me with that intense, cold look again.

On impulse, I reached out and touched his cheek. Cold, but not as much as I expected. His skin was soft and pale against mine, and his jaw tightened slightly beneath my fingers. “Why?” I asked, brushing back toward his ear. “What are they going to do? Kill me?”

His eyes had gone wide with surprise, his mouth hanging open just a little. He licked his lips and looked at mine. “I don’t know. I wouldn’t put it past them, though. That’s why—”

But there comes a certain point in a conversation when you realize you’re just chasing each other’s tails round and round. His mouth looked so good like that, all wet and open and delicious. I’d had just enough to drink to lean in and press mine against it.

That, at least, did not seem to surprise him. I could’ve sworn he even leaned in a little to meet me, and he definitely tilted his head before we made it to the kiss. This time I paid better attention; his lips were cold on the outside but warmed quickly against mine, and when I slipped my tongue past his teeth, he was hot inside.

I was buzzing on him, not the bourbon, but he closed it off gently. “This is crazy,” he whispered. “I know this is crazy. I’m so sorry.”

“Just shut up, okay?” I kissed him again, this time more deliberately. Then, into his mouth, “Shut up, and make out with me for like a half hour, and then you can talk all you want.”

“You…you don’t owe me anything.”

I moved nearer, pressing him into the back of the couch and turning to face him completely, so one leg was thrown over his lap and the other was curled up beneath me. “Protip: Don’t insult the guy who’s kissing you, okay? You liked kissing me. I liked kissing you. You’ve been looking at me like you just crawled out of a desert and I’m a glass of water. I’ve thought about it for weeks now. I want to do it again. Do you?” I leaned forward and pressed my lips into the soft spot just beneath his jaw, felt his pulse. Now he was warm. Not as much as me, but getting there.

His breath caught when my teeth gave a little scrape. He said, “Y-yeah.”

I kissed him hard enough that my upper lip squashed into my teeth and hurt a little—and it was a thrill. I threaded my arm around his shoulders and scratched my fingertips through the short hair at the back of his head, then tickled down his neck before starting it all over again. He made a small sound, something like surprise and relief tangled up in his throat. It was hard to say if his temperature was finally rising or if it was just mine; my blood was definitely feeling hot, though, that fast.

Nothing was working out how it was supposed to. I’d just wanted to find my white knight and live happily ever after, but instead I’d ratted him out to the bad guys. Either that, or I was making out with a delusional psychopath—and I was delusional too because, well, superpowers.

But all of that was out of my control now. Not this. This, I could do. It was going to be perfect, the best make-out session ever, and we were going to forget everything for a little while and just enjoy it. And he was going to love it so much that afterward, he’d be talked into letting me help make things right.

 

 

And that’s the deal with my offering for Loose Id’s current Missed Connections collection, In Distress. A flipping of the typical “damsel in distress” trope. Genderfluidity, savior and saved, fantasy and reality… and the human without the superpowers becoming the hero, while we’re at it.

 

Blurb:

Hopeless romantic Eddie Kim acts out his favorite ‘rescued by the white knight’ fantasies through weekly D&D campaigns, but had almost given up hope of ever getting a real one. Then Callum, a mysterious red-head with freezing superpowers and a memorable kiss, saves him from a house but disappears without a trace. Taking pity on him, Eddie’s friends look to craiglist to relocate his hero.

Unfortunately, the publicity brings down the kind of attention Callum Race been trying to avoid; he’s in town to try and clear his family name, and now the dangerous superpowered organization he needs to thwart know he’s come home again. Still, he can’t help following up with Eddie.

The heat between Callum and Eddie flares instantly, and Eddie insists on helping to undo the damage his romantic notions have done. The problem: that will mean becoming embroiled in a nefarious plot, not to mention a superpowered world Eddie didn’t even know existed a week ago. The ‘bad guys’ will try to trick and use him, and in the meantime he has to convince Cal to trust him enough to be the white knight for once–and for real–instead of the perpetual damsel in distress

 

 

 

You can check it out here, at my site, if you want to see more. In Distress is part of the Superpowered Love series, but it stands alone, as they all do, and they can be read in any order.

Buy Links: Loose Id, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and ARe. 

Author Bio:

Katey Hawthorne is an avid reader and writer of superpowered romance, even though the only degree she holds is in the history of art. (Or, possibly, because the only degree she holds is in the history of art.) Originally from the Appalachian foothills of West Virginia, she currently lives in Ohio. In her spare time she enjoys comic books, B-movies, loud music, Epiphones, and Bushmills.

 

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