A little taste of honey…

Happy Caturday!

This week’s snippet is from a new-ish story that began with a combination of prompts: a line from Siobhan Muir’s Thursday Threads flash fiction challenge and the picture above. It’s about a gambler who’s run afoul of the host of an illegal poker game (the “I”), and the guy said host sends to escort him to a “meeting” (the “he”). I think that’s enough setup for now. I’m hoping to submit it to Dreamspinner’s A Taste of Honey (a print antho!), but it might end up running a bit long (the ceiling is 12K and it’s already at 11).

Oh, one more thing, the gambler is a witch.

He grabbed me before I made it out of the kitchen and pinned both arms to my sides. It wouldn’t work, I knew that, but I still tried to burn his hands; all I needed was enough time to—fuck, is he laughing?

“Give it up, pretty boy, you’re blocked.”

The big man pushed me against the wall face-first and pulled both hands behind my back.

“Hey, wait a sec, big guy, let’s talk about this, I—”

He pushed me flat against the wall and the rest of that sentence disappeared in the rush of air he squeezed from my lungs. I couldn’t keep from being turned on, even though pain and domination usually aren’t my thing—neither are bears but underneath the padding he felt pretty solid, leaning against me like that. He tightened a plastic zip-tie around my wrists with shaking hands, and then he just held me there.

Thanks for reading!

Don’t forget to hop around and check out more snippets! You know the drill, starting Saturday chase the rainbow with Seductive Studs & Sirens, and beginning on Sundays there’s also Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday!

Oh, and if you see the title-fairy anywhere do me a favor and send her my way? This story is resisting all attempts to slap a title on it.