An excerpt from the novella Songs You Know by Heart, Book 1 of the Wine & Song series.
The cherry trees were in bloom, thick as snow along the boughs. David passed into their shadow and stopped to look up at the glow of blossoms in the dark.
From just behind him came a voice: “Don’t move.”
David started to turn automatically, but a hard shove sent him to his knees, pieces of gravel and bark stinging his palms. Something sharp and cold pricked at the back of his neck, and he froze.
“Up,” the man said.
David rose unsteadily and rubbed his palms over his thighs. He glanced back but saw the man behind him only as a dark shape in tight jeans. Long hair and poor light obscured his face.
He got another shove, this time against a tree. “Money,” the man said. “Where are the fucking pockets in these pants?”
“Breeches don’t have pockets,” David said, with enunciation careful enough to compensate for the vodka. “That is why I don’t have money.”
“You don’t – fuck. Like hell you don’t.” The man crowded in close behind him, holding him in place with his body. “You must have something. Give it to me, or – or I’ll cut you. I will.”
David could hear the man’s quick breaths. His heartbeat thudded against David’s back. The knife was so sharp that David could barely feel the edge. David tried to concentrate on that instead of the man’s solid warmth, his hard thighs, his hair brushing David’s neck. Knives didn’t usually do it for him.
“I don’t,” he said, voice just a little unsteady. He swallowed hard. “I promise.” And then, unable to help himself: “Search me.”
“I will,” the man growled. “Don’t fucking move.”
One hand groped up David’s sides, over his chest and his hips. A rough, hard grip on his ass seemed to linger a little too long and pulled a shaky gasp from him.
“Quiet.”
The side of the man’s hand covered David’s mouth, and the knife lay flat against his cheek. The other hand slid slowly and thoroughly over the curve of his ass and down his thigh. David tried not to squirm. Or to push back into the touch. He’d done stupider things, but he tried not to add to that list these days.
The man slammed a hand against the tree. David jumped. The blade was back at his throat, and it caught against his Adam’s apple. His heartbeat picked up, and he felt his cock stir. He might need to rethink his position on knives. And his sanity.
“You gotta have something. Twenty bucks. Come on. Rich assholes like you don’t walk around with nothing.”
“We do when we don’t have any pockets.”
“Are you laughing at me, fuckface? Fine. Get out of this, take it off.”
He yanked at David’s jacket hard enough to make him stagger. A seam gave way. David struggled out of it, hands shaky.
The knife point drew a sharp line between his shoulder blades. “Shirt too.”
David worked at the buttons, but not fast enough to keep the man from slicing his shirt up the back. A few more seconds and it lay on the ground, certainly in no fit state to be returned to the costume shop.
The man grabbed his shoulder, turned him, and shoved him back against the tree. He planted a hand on David’s chest. He was close enough that David could see his eyes, gray and sharp, the color of dawn.
“You want to lose the pants too? Come on. Cough up the cash.”
David curled his fingers against the trunk. He could feel his cock stiffening despite his best efforts to think about anything else. Breeches hid nothing, and he held his breath as the man’s eyes traveled down his body.
“Are you getting off on this? What the fuck is wrong with you?” He sounded more confused than angry, and he was still staring.
“I really don’t have any money.” David swallowed. He tried once again to keep his mouth shut, but he’d never been particularly good at that. “Maybe you’d like something else.”
The man frowned at him, like he didn’t understand what David was offering, and then his mouth sagged open as he got it. He surged forward, pinning David hard with his body, knife tight against his throat again.
“I don’t like being laughed at, asshole. I thought I made that pretty fucking clear.”
Maybe not, but he liked something about the situation. David could feel his cock pressed against his thigh, and it wasn’t entirely soft. He seemed to realize that at the same time David did. A moment of stillness stretched between them, and then the man took a step back.
“Fuck you, man. You’re nuts. Just – get out of here. And don’t tell anyone. Or I’ll find you.” His voice wavered on the last sentence, and then he took off running into the dark.
David took a few seconds to lean against the tree and breathe and cup his dick. He gathered up his clothes. The shirt wasn’t even worth putting back on, so he slid his arms into the frock coat instead and buttoned it up.
The vodka seemed to have been burned out of him. His steps were steady, and his mind was clear as he walked toward his house.
He didn’t call the police. Up in his bedroom, he took off the costume and set it aside for cleaning. He stood under the shower until the smoke and perfume of the party washed away, but the feel of large hands on his chest and ass and thighs remained.
In his mind, the man shoved him face-first into the tree and yanked his breeches down, fucked him with a knife at his throat, told him he’d better come quick or he wouldn’t get to come at all. David heard his breath echo off the shower walls and fisted his cock hard and fast. He came in a tingling rush with his face against the shower wall and water streaming down his back.
*
His phone woke him the next morning. He groped for it blindly, pressed the button to answer it, and said nothing. Whoever it was, he didn’t want to encourage them.
Unfortunately, it was Angie. She knew that trick and needed no encouragement.
“Did you actually go to that thing last night?” she asked. “You said you weren’t going.”
“I had the costume,” David mumbled. He rolled onto his side and sat up enough to see the clock across the room. Almost eight. It had been one when he got back. That was enough sleep. He had no right to feel this dead.
“How was it?” Angie asked.
“Terrible.”
“You said it would be terrible.”
“I didn’t.”
“You said Ian was a classless whore.”
“He is.”
“Seems harsh.”
“You haven’t met him. With luck, you never will. I just woke up. Do you have a point?”
“Yeah, I’ve got those reports you wanted on the vineyard in Switzerland. Do you want them sent over, or will you wait until Monday like a sane person who has a life outside of work?”
“Guess.”
“I’ll send them over.”
“Great.”
“In the afternoon. Get some more sleep. You sound like shit.” She hung up on him.
More sleep would’ve been nice, but he had a nagging headache, not quite a hangover, and he’d fallen asleep with his hair wet the night before, so it undoubtedly looked like something had nested in it. A shower would fix both problems.
By the time he’d showered, shaved, and had his first cup of coffee, he did feel less dead, if not substantially more awake. The second cup helped. Thinking about his near-mugging last night did not, but he couldn’t stop.
Maybe he could go to the club tonight and find someone. That was, after all, why he’d joined. In an effort to keep himself from being any stupider than he had to be, to keep from getting himself into serious trouble.
Last night could’ve been serious trouble.
Maybe you’d like something else.
He could’ve gotten himself killed with that line.
He passed a hand over his eyes and got up to make toast. He could still feel the knife at his throat, the hard body holding him down. He leaned against the counter with his eyes closed and palmed his cock through his sweatpants.
What if the man had taken him up on his offer? What if he’d let David suck him right there? Made him do it. Pushed him down and fucked his mouth.
The toast popped up and startled David so badly that he dropped the butter knife on the floor and had to get out another. He spread butter on the toast viciously in retaliation. He needed those files sooner rather than later so he’d have better things to think about than a failed mugging under the cherry blossoms.
*
Four days later, David had thought about it often enough that he needed to buy more lube.
He walked home from the drugstore with the bag swinging from his wrist. The shortest way home was across the park. He hesitated near the little fountain with its spouting stone dog, but obviously nothing was going to happen. Regardless of whether he wanted it to or not.
He ducked off the gravel path and into the dusk that had arrived a little earlier under the cherry trees.
A shadow moved behind him.
The knife at his neck made him stiffen immediately, and that same half-desperate voice spoke in his ear. “Take out your wallet and drop it on the ground.”
David couldn’t help himself. “You’ve refined your technique, I see,” he said.
A long pause. “Fuck,” the man said. “I don’t believe this.”
There’s also an omnibus edition of the first three books in the series that you can find at the Wine & Song series link below.