Over on Twitter I’ve been talking about some erotic fantasy that I’ve been writing for the past week and change. I’ve decided to provide a relatively safe for work snippet of the story so far as motivation for myself and to see if it sounds interesting to readers.

When this is done, it’ll be a sexy story about a mage who works in retail and the two pretty preternaturals that wander into her job one rainy night. One’s a big cat shifter and the other is a genderqueer sex demon (a concubus). I’m hopefully going to be able to get this published somewhere (or self published) but we’ll see.

Anyway, here’s a brief (safe for work) snippet from “My Favorite Kind of Night”:

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“Excuse me?”

Mahreen opens her eyes and comes face to face with a pair of luminous silver eyes in a dark face. She squeaks and jumps backward, nearly toppling right over the box for a Sybian that they’ve been holding for a customer that’s out of town. She catches herself on the barstool behind the counter and then, with her dignity in tatters, she pushes herself back up to her feet.

“Sorry about that,” Mahreen says with a smile that feels a little tense around the edges at the intensity of the stare directed at her. Up close, she catches a glimpse of a shimmering silver and black collar looped around the customer’s slender neck and bright patterns of pale scales that stand out against dark brown skin. “Now… how can I help you?”

The demon – a concubus if Mahreen remembers her demonology elective correctly – smiles widely, displaying sharp teeth, and then taps their fingers across the counter.

“My partner and I were passing by when we felt a brief surge of magic,” the concubus says, still holding Mahreen’s gaze. “We weren’t expecting –”

The concubus pauses, a surprisingly hungry expression settling on their lean face as they look Mahreen over from head to – just about hip level where the counter hits her. The concubus’ nostrils flare with deep inhale and when they sigh, Mahreen finds herself pressing against the counter as heat awakens in her body.

“Hush, Vilu.”

Suddenly, the concubus’ partner steps forward to stand beside them at the counter.

He’s –

Huge.

Taller than Mahreen by a good five or six inches and with a body that looks powerful enough to carry Mahreen and his silver-eyed companion without breaking a sweat, the man standing in front of Mahreen reminds her of a lion or some other kind of predator. When she glances up at his face, the amber color of his eyes and the intensity of the heat within them nearly takes her breath away.

“What ze is trying to say is that we weren’t expecting to find an actual practitioner on this side of the city,” he says, his voice deep and rumbling out of his wide chest. He inclines his head in a brief nod that sends wavy black hair swinging in front of his face. “We didn’t know that there were any in San Sirena that didn’t work for one of the covens.”

Mahreen can feel her face scrunch up with a frown. Mentioning the covens that close their ranks at the slightest sign of an outsider is the best way to remind her of what could’ve been.

“Well, there are and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone,” she says. She looks at Vilu instead of zir companion. “Now seriously, what can I help you with?”

Vilu’s eyes brighten. “What exactly do you do here?”

The concubus leans over the counter a little, arching zir back like a cat would. The motion gives Mahreen a glance at a swinging black and silver tail poking out above the waistband of a pair of low-slung jeans.

Mahreen’s mouth goes dry.