She and Gunpowder rode on past the churchyard alone, as they always did, glancing back over her shoulder once they had passed the chapel. The Horseman tarried there, utterly still. He normally turned into the rows of gravestones once she continued, but that night he had paused, like a statue at the edge of the gate, watching as she departed. Watching, despite not having a head with which to do so. There was nothing else in the vicinity to hold his sepulcheric attention — none but her.
She wasn’t sure if it was healthy to be blushing this much in such chilly weather as she ducked her head, feeling an odd swoop low in her belly once she’d straightened in her saddle, the weight of his nonexistent eyes boring into her back. If she were some green girl, a novice at dealing with the opposite sex, she might’ve been perplexed; may have been filled with consternation over the odd feelings within her.
Katrina was neither. The warmth she felt in her chest, which moved up her neck to rosy her cheeks, was the particular flush that came from a pleasing sort of attention. The attention of a suitor. That swoop she felt in her belly, dipping low enough to tighten her core, was arousal. There was no sense in pretending otherwise, not any longer. She squeezed her thighs around the saddle, leaning forward against the pommel until every pebble and rut over which Gunpowder trod was a jolt against the most sensitive part of her sex, and her stomach swooped again. She was pleased by the attention, enjoyed the headless man’s silent company, and was aroused by the notion the ghost might enjoy hers as well. Was aroused byhim.It’s almost like youwantthem to hang you for witchcraft.
She didn’t, not at all. She quite liked the comfortable little niche she had carved out for herself in Sleepy Hollow, and had no intention of disrupting that . . . But once she had stabled Gunpowder for the night, Katrina found herself moving past the barn to the sugarhouse.
Come spring, when the sap was running, the small log outbuilding would be a bustle of activity, but right now it was abandoned and was one of the only places on Jansen’s property where she could find some small measure of privacy. She had no desire to leave her comfortable place there, but now that the baby was to be soon arriving, the two eldest children had been moved into her room. She couldn’t do what needed doing that night with slumbering children beside her, and so she slipped into the small wooden cabin, dropping her head back against the log plank wall as she raised her skirts up over her hips.
She had never seen him unmounted, but the Horseman’s chest was broad and solid. Her fingers delved between her thighs, seeking and finding the slickness she knew was there. The remains of his coat stretched across his wide back and shoulders, and she knew that beneath the tattered, worm-eaten fabric he would be thick with muscle. She gasped, her fingertips carrying the slick moisture from the mouth of her sex up to that little button of nerves, her toes curling as she did so. She didn’t need to see him off his horse to know that he was tall and strapping, for the thighs wrapped around his black mount were thick and sturdy, his legs long.
He was just as large and brawny as Brom Bones, and Katrina had no doubt that his cock would be just as thick and satisfying as the former’s; had no doubt that he would fuck her just as deeply . . . if he were able to fuck her at all.He’s a ghost. Only a ghost.Her hips had begun to cant, chasing the same rhythm she’d achieved on Gunpowder’s back, a steady rocking against that little button of nerves. He was a ghost, but his form grew more solid with each passing night, solid enough to grip her chin, solid enough to press into her, solid enough to make her scream.
It was not the first time she had used the forgotten outbuilding to satisfy the fire beneath her skin. She’d come across a broken handle discarded in a toolbox and forgotten, and had claimed it for herself. She had no idea what its original function had been, for it was as thick as a club, and only slightly longer than the length of her hand. The wood was worn smooth, but still made her nervous, and so she had placed one of her candles in a tin, melting it down until she was able to dip the handle into the liquid beeswax, giving it a smooth finish.
The folds of her cunt were already slick and dripping. Hiking up her skirts further, Katrina positioned herself over the vise-gripped handle, letting it catch at her nether lips, penetrating her shallowly several times before she sunk down upon its width with a small moan. She moved her hips, thrusting against the makeshift cock the same way the Horseman would have her, the same way Brom Bones had fucked her, hard and deep, beginning to pant the closer she got to her release. She began to rub at that little pearl, overcome at the thought of the headless phantom bending her over his own grave marker, taking her on the bridge, fucking her in the dirt in the center of town, right in front of the old Dutch church.
Distressed whinnying came from the barn, but she was too close, teetering on the edge of the darkness that surrounded her and a bright, white light that held its arms out, ready to subsume her. Her back arched, so close that her stomach cramped from the tension, when she heard it.
The horses in the barn whickering in fear as a crazed laughter split the night air. Sheknewthat sound. She had heard it once before, seeming to rise up out of the trees and from the packed dirt road, the night he had chased her. The night he’d nearly ridden her down, before she’d known how badly she wanted him to rideher. Her own voice added to the din as she cried out, feeling a shiver move down her spine, through her shaking legs. She heard the sound of another horse, screaming out in terror from somewhere in town as she peaked, the sound ofhislaughter sending her over the edge.
Her cunt spasmed and she tightened around the handle, jolting at the shout of a strange man’s voice, a guttural scream that ended abruptly. She was freezing with cold and with fear, but her blood boiled, heart pounding as she shook with her release, as she imagined the way he would fuck her, just as well as Brom Bones had done, his cock just as big. She fancied she could hear the pounding of hooves, and then more of that blood-chilling, unhinged laughter. Katrina cried out again, gasping, practically able to feel the way he would fill her, stretching her walls as she came undone, and then — nothing.
Her thighs were soaked and the night was silent.
She slumped against the wall of the sugarhouse once she had pulled off the handle with a wet squelch, uncertain if she had imagined the entire thing. She hadnotimagined her own actions and arousal, for after she left the dark outbuilding, moving past the barn like a shadow, back to the main house, she felt a tingle between her thighs, the aftereffects of her pleasure.
She would have let him have her again, if he had wanted, if he were able, would have let him have her twice more that night alone. She imagined them both, Brom Bones and the Horseman, life and death, both broad and strong. They could take turns having her, one after the other, rutting her into the dirt until she was dizzy and exhausted and they were spent, her cunt holding the shape of their cocks. The mere thought made her reel. Katrina still felt trapped in her skin, shifting beneath the covers once she had climbed into bed, still able to hear the echo of that maniacal laughter and feel the phantom stretch of him within her.
It was going to be a very long day without traveling to and from the Van Wees farm. Katrina shut her eyes and attempted to remind herself, as she squeezed her thighs together rhythmically, that there were children in the bed beside her, and that she would have much to atone for the following day in church.
“Whydon’tyouletme take you to the party at Van Dekker’s tonight.” Huge hands dropped to her waist rather insistently, holding her in place, leaving her unable to turn.
Katrina stiffened, annoyed at the liberties he was taking.
“I don’t want to go to any party. I’m not in the mood for celebrations. Neither should be the rest of you.” Above her, Brom scowled, although he did not loosen his grip.
It had been a mistake, going to him again. She had known it the second it was done, but by then it had been too late. He was mountainous and predictable, but she desperately needed to beseen, and his predictability had been a comfort.
His chest was broad and solid, his arms long and heavy, and as she pressed against him, she had tried to imagine he was someone else. If she kept her eyes closed, Katrina learned, it helped the illusion. The drag of his thick fingers against her skin made her back arch, never mind that they weren’t as gentle as they were in her imagination. His mouth on her neck and down her breasts washotand hungry, and she had bit her lip, swallowing down her moan as unwanted and unwelcome tears burned at her eyes.
Church the morning after her sojourn to the sugarhouse had been a somber affair. The body of the young man had been found in the early hours before dawn, pitched into the brook that ran beneath the Major’s bridge, absent his head. A smashed pumpkin was the only thing left behind by the murderer.
There was much speculation as to what might have happened. He was one of Brom Bones’s gang of tricksters, and she’d heard it told that he was no stranger to the alehouse and the gambling house both. Whispers said that he had taken up with someone else’s wife, a merchant in Tarrytown, and this was the payment. There was the normal speculation that it might be the work of the Horseman, for it was not the first headless corpse to be found in Sleepy Hollow, but that hadn’t happened in years and her neighbors, despite their superstitious ways, were more apt to believe the stories of the young man’s wrongdoing.
Katrina knew better.
She had left him wishing for a mouth, had let him touch hers, and he had gone seeking that which he was missing.He rides seeking his head. This young man’s blood was on her hands, made worse by the knowledge that she had been pleasuring herself to the thought of his killer as the terrible crime had happened, hadheardit! She was responsible, life tethered to death. She was responsible, and so she had stayed away.
Stayed away until she’d felt ready to climb out of her skin, as if it were no more than a pair of woolen stockings — binding her, itching, keeping her a prisoner from her desires. She’d gone seeking Brom Bones instead and allowed herself to be buried beneath his warmth, using his body to soothe the ache in chest. It was easy to forget when he was inside her, easier still to pretend that the wide back she raked with her nails belonged to another, easy to imagine the cock she lowered herself upon belonged to someone with gentler, colder hands.
If only he had a mouth.
There were ways to communicate with those who were unable to hear and speak, of course, but she did not think she would accomplish much teaching on the short journey from the bridge to the churchyard, not even considering that her student would be an undead soldier. If onlyhehad a mouth to kiss her in such a way. Brom’s mouth had been a trail of fire across her skin, buthislips would be cool, an icy whisper moving over her, raising gooseflesh and tightening her nipples.
She’d kept her eyes closed when Brom Bones settled over her, and she had been able to pretend it was someone else — that her thighs wrapped around a different man’s hips, and that the thick club of a cock that pressed against her belonged to someone else entirely. Her head dropped back when he began to move within her, the meat of his shaft rubbing against her inner walls with every thrust of his hips, each one hard and deep. Her head was heavy and cloudy, and it was all she could do to dig her fingers into the lawn cotton stretched across his broad back and hold on for dear life as he rutted against her, allowing herself to be swept away. Fucked senseless, able to think clearly. It had been a mistake letting him fuck her again, but it had been what she had needed to soothe her broken spirits and wipe clean her mind.
“I’m not in the mood for any celebrations . . . perhaps the next one, though.”
