Feel My Pain (Curse Bound 1)

Elizabeth pursed her lips. “Fantasy books?”

Zane frowned. What kind of goth was she? A discount one, that’s for sure. “No, like the Satanic Bible.”

Her eyes widened, but she offered them a quick nod. “We don’t have much on the occult, but there’s a witchcraft section. What’s it for? Music inspiration?” She scribbled something on a piece of paper and handed it to Zane.

“Yes. I’m always looking for good metaphors and shit,” he said and took it from her dainty hand.

It was a string of digits that in no way resembled a phone number.

What the hell was he supposed to do with it?

She smiled, happy she could help an artist find new ideas, but there was expectation in her gaze. She was waiting for him to acknowledge the message, and he had no fucking idea what the code was.

Roach took a glance at it and pulled on Zane’s arm. “Thanks.”

“No problem, and Zane? Let me know about the gig if you stay here for a bit.”

“I will,” he shouted back, but when two older ladies seated on either side of a table that was surely a relic from the 1970s looked up, he knew he hadn’t quite grasped what the correct volume level was. He pushed the piece of paper into Roach’s hand, frowning at the cards attached to the sides of shelving units.

“It’s your library. Where are those books?”

Roach groaned. “I haven’t been here in years. Gimme a sec.” He walked along the rows at a languid pace, checking the numbers on the shelves.

Zane was sweating just thinking about having to navigate those himself.

He wasn’t stupid. He didn’t get this kind of thing—numbers and what they signified—but people were ignorant and always put the idiot label on him as soon as they found out.

He would not let Roach know.

“Yeah, this system’s clearly very complex.”

Roach put his hand over his face, but flinched, as did Zane, when he must have touched the cut on the cheek. “Stop being a shit if you’re not helping.”

“Just go and ask her if you can’t work it out.”

“I can work it out.” Roach growled, and made an abrupt turn to the left.

Zane’s gaze stuck to Roach’s ass, which surely still felt tender after the fuck and the ride. Did people other than him have sex in libraries?

“Are you like… bi?”

“What?” Roach stared back with that sexy frown. It made his thick dark eyebrows scrunch and gave him a dangerous vibe Zane was eating up even though he should have learned better.

“Because you got some girl pregnant,” Zane added, slapping Roach’s butt just because he could.

Roach instantly looked around as if they were under siege and SWAT were about to zip wire into the building. “Don’t do that. I… no, I don’t think I’m bi, but I tried, I guess. Tried very hard.”

“So hard you almost got a baby out of it?” Zane asked, stepping past Roach to face him and his chest.

With those pecs and ass, he could have been a stripper if he had a tiny bit of initiative and moved someplace else.

Roach gave a long, tortured sigh. “Why do you care? It doesn’t matter, since she decided she wasn’t ready, especially not with me, and she’s chosen well.”

“Because you’re gay,” Zane pushed, blocking Roach’s way. His cheeks tickled as he watched the other man, ready to drink up all the information he could.

Roach smirked, but unlike the long-suffering expression, this seemed like a facade. “Because I’m a dirtbag. You know this.”

Zane kind of wanted to mock him, but seeing hurt flash in the forest green eyes was already getting old, and it’s been only a day.

“I’ve never been with a girl.”

Roach cocked his head. “No? You just knew?”

Zane smirked, pushing his chest forward as if his gay gold star was prominently pinned to it. “Since I gave my first hand job at thirteen. But I had suspicions before that.”

Roach’s face went tense, and he lowered his voice. “Yeah, I’m gay too. No amount of pussy could change that.”

Zane licked his lips, and the dusty scent of the books felt weirdly attractive. It reminded him of a much easier time in life. There was no one about, just Elizabeth and the two old ladies, but they were at the front of this vast space, far away from here.

“I actually did that at school. In our library,” he whispered, gaze locked on the depths of green in Roach’s face.

“You weren’t afraid to get caught?”

“I was so quiet I’d have heard someone approaching,” Zane whispered, stepping toward Roach, whose back hit a pillar in a section filled with books on gardening. Roach wasn’t looking away, his gaze a leash pulling Zane in until his hand met the cold metal of Roach’s belt buckle. “I touched him like this, and then opened his pants.”

“No, you’re insane. Someone’s gonna come. That way.” Red in the face, Roach slipped out of Zane’s grasp and trotted away, as if the touch had burned him.