Feel My Pain (Curse Bound 1)

Roach stared at him with infinite frustration. He did want to get the fuck away from Zane, because the guy was toxic like the waste management plant where Roach used to dump bodies in another life. The bastard hated his guts, but kept pulling him into sex. Put him down, but then gave the most arousing offhand compliments. He couldn’t kill him, so he was dead set on making Roach’s life hell.

Roach couldn’t find the words to express how all this made him feel. Zane must have seen Roach’s walls crumbling, because he offered him that sexy smirk that would from now on feature in all of Roach’s erotic dreams. Until the day he died.

He stood close, smelling of citrus and sandalwood as if he used the real thing to perfume his long mane, Zane knew he’d won already. “Please? I promise to fuck you at least one more time before I kill you.”

“You’re the worst human being. I wish I'd never met you,” He’d take what he could get though, and stepped closer. “Kiss me.”

Zane’s cherry mouth went slack in surprise, his eyes widened, but before Roach could have walked off to the motorcycle, Zane put his hands on Roach’s hips and leaned in so their mouths aligned. Roach delved in with ferocious hunger. Unlike Zane, he didn’t care whether Karla saw them. If she chose to come back now, and proceeded to kick them off her property for indecent behavior and lies, so be it.

Roach slid his fingers into the luscious hair and forgot all about the ugly personality, focusing solely on the hot tongue, soft lips, and Zane’s intoxicating scent.

The maddening mouth that had swallowed his cum just two hours ago was now not only hot but oddly sweet with the ridiculous bubblegum toothpaste Zane used, and so addictive Roach found himself pushing Zane against the wall. But Zane wasn’t passive and rolled his tongue against Roach’s, pulling him in, as if he were a merman trying to lure him into the underwater abyss.

Zane pulled away when they heard footsteps inside the house, smiling as if he hadn’t been making promises of death just minutes ago. He brushed invisible dust off Roach’s lapel.

“Did I mention you look hot in a suit?” he asked, leaving Roach with his mouth open when Karla came back.

Her thin, stick-like frame was wrapped in two sweaters, one of which was a regular purple turtleneck, and the other—a knee-length oversized coat made of dense pea-green wool. Her slippers had cat eyes and little ears. And this person was to lift a curse they lived with for two years? Roach had his doubts.

“Thank you so much for making time for us. I am so worried my poor Shelly has some unfinished business and is stuck in between worlds. I need to help her.” Zane shook Karla’s hand.

Karla’s skin seemed thin, like a latex sheet and wrinkled easily whenever she smiled, but she also seemed oddly youthful, and Roach had a hard time estimating her age. “Loved ones often keep watch over us, so it’s possible she wants to warn you about something. You must have shared a deep bond,” she said, gulping down the bait.

Karla took them to the lit room on the right, which somehow managed to look both traditional and magical. The walls were white with the exception of a border pattern of stars on a dark blue background just below the ceiling. The thick rug under the dining table followed that theme, as it featured the solar system, and twin display cabinets on either side of an entryway into the kitchen were filled with figurines depicting unicorns, fairies, and other fantastical creatures. All that coupled with a hardwood floor and antique flowery furniture created a cozy yet quirky interior. But not witchy. Not at all.

“Would you like some tea? Cocoa? I also have fresh peanut butter cookies,” Karla said, showing them to the table.

Roach cleared his throat. “I’d like some cookies.”

Zane glared at him as if Roach had killed his dog or something. She was offering. Why not take some goddamn cookies if he was paying for this?

Karla smiled and walked into her rustic kitchen. “Someone wants to talk to you as well, Mr. Denver. Male. Very strong and tall,” she said, plating the cookies.

Roach stilled, his appetite extinguished by those few words. “It’s really not necessary.” All of a sudden, the quirky interior felt oppressive. Every moon and star was out to get him, and he could sense the energy of the room spiral toward unwanted territories, even though he was no medium.

The cookies looked delicious, plump yet crispy, with a pretty criss-crossed pattern on top, but they couldn’t sweeten the bitterness climbing up Roach’s gullet.

Karla exhaled and removed a large wooden box out of a cupboard. It also featured carvings of celestial bodies, but Roach didn’t get to see much of them before she opened it, revealing laminated paper, pieces of wood, stones and… bone fragments?