Roach shook his head. “Fucking Christ. So wrong, so wrong,” he muttered and grabbed a doily from under a dusty flowerpot. As soon as he wiped his hand on it, he stuffed it behind a row of books and tucked his cock back into his pants.
His discomfort was hilarious, and Zane didn’t try to hide how much it amused him. “You’re so skittish,” he said and sucked his index finger all the way to the knuckle. He loved that it made Roach pause and stare.
“I’m not out, and this is a small town. I can’t believe I did that.” Red-faced, and still panting, Roach fled to the shelf he’d pointed to earlier.
There was a number under it, maybe the same one as on the piece of paper, but how Roach managed to find it didn’t matter. The selection was poor anyway. A handful of books sharing space with folk tales wasn’t what Zane had expected when he’d decided to come all the way here from the motel.
“You’ll get used to it,” Zane said and picked up the first book, Voices from the Other World by one Karla von Ecker. The cover featured a rather ugly surrealist image based on Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam, only featuring a woman in a black dress and strange stick figures instead of Adam and God. It looked like something the author painted themselves or had a ‘computer-savvy’ nephew do for them.
Zane felt as if he’d just entered the Twilight Zone.
"Get used to what? Fucking you?" Roach was still twitchy and kept glancing over his shoulder. Was that hope Zane recognized in his voice?
Zane faced him, showing off the stupid cover image. “Yeah. I’m gonna torture you until I can kill you. Did you talk to any voices when we last met?”
Roach made an unhappy pout, and wouldn’t focus on the cover. “What voices?”
Zane exhaled, patting himself with the book as frustration drizzled all the way down his body. “I don’t know! It’s you who cursed us. Think!”
“Me? Why me?”
“‘Cause you clearly wanna trap me with you. I’m the best piece of ass you’ll ever get, and you know it. On the night we met, you got pissed off I wouldn’t stay with you. So you cursed us.”
Roach stared at Zane with a growing scowl. “You’ve got no idea what you’re talking about.”
Playing the innocent—unbelievable!
“Who else could it have been? I have no desire whatsoever to be tied like two copulating dogs. To you or anyone else. There’s great things waiting for me, and I can’t be stuck like this.”
The bastard actually snorted with laughter. “You’re the one who keeps pulling me into sex. Maybe it’s you who can’t do any better.”
Jolts of electricity curled Zane’s hand into a fist, and he stepped closer, jaw tense as he spoke. “You’re a sex-starved puppy. I’m letting you see how it is when someone actually wants to give you the time of day, so I can see you cry later!”
Roach took a step back, only confirming what Zane had said by looking like a scolded dog. “You’re right. I might shed a tear when I stab you in the gut and watch you die.”
Zane already felt a stab deep in his chest, as if Roach had punched his way through Zane’s breastbone and was now about to finish the job by crushing his heart.
“You already have,” he whispered, unable to speak any louder when his throat tightened.
Elizabeth cleared her throat at the end of the aisle. “Um, excuse me? Could you guys please keep it down?”
At least she hadn’t arrived when they’d been fucking.
Zane opened the book he’d been holding on the page that held Karla von Ecker’s business address and ripped it out. “We were leaving anyway.”
Both Elizabeth and Roach gasped, staring at the page in Zane’s hand, but he didn’t fucking care.
Chapter 8 – Roach
“And don’t come back until you learn how to behave in a library!” Elizabeth’s cheeks were flushed as she escorted them out of the door while other patrons shook their heads at thirty-something youths who broke all rules.
It could have been worse. They could have been caught jerking off between bookshelves. Coming here had been such a profoundly bad idea.
“Sorry, he’s not right in the head.” Roach pointed to Zane, who sucked in air in honest-to-God rage.
“I did nothing wrong! I’m literally the only person who will ever have any interest in this crappy page!”
Elizabeth wouldn’t discuss it and slammed the door in their faces.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Roach yelled, spreading his arms.
Zane mirrored the gesture, eyes bright as they stood in the shadow of the roofing while the rain hummed just beyond. “I got us a contact with the medium or whatever! What did you do?”
Roach was on the verge of telling Zane he'd given him an orgasm, but he wouldn’t stoop so low. “That’s what the copy machine is for! Or the camera on your phone. You’re so damn handsome, but you’re dumb as a sack of rocks.”