“Annika!”
“I’m not trying to mother you!” The other woman threw up her hands, still laughing. “But for pity’s sake, Katrina, you have to throw me a bone. You’re young and beautiful, you’ve got the most eligible man in the town sniffing ’round your skirts like a stag in heat, and I need a little bit of excitement to take my mind off things.”
The kitchen rang with laughter, and it was several long moments before Katrina was able to compose herself sufficiently to respond. It had been a full month since she’d come to stay with the Van Wees family, and despite their circumstances and the black wool Annika donned, Katrina couldn’t recall a time when she’d laughed nearly as much.
Pieter Van Wees had been laid to rest at the start of the winter, just before the ground had frozen over completely, only several months after she’d begun the nightly instruction of his daughter in their home. Pragmatic in life and pragmatic in death, his wife had chuckled, wiping her tears away.
“I’ve no doubt he’d already priced out what it would cost to keep him until the ground thawed enough for a burial come spring. Likely deemed it an unnecessary expense. ‘Best to get on with it,’ that’s what he always said.”
He had left his wife and daughters a veritable fortune of fertile, well-tilled land, orchards heavy with fruit, a rigorous dairy herd, and the fluffiest sheep Katrina had ever seen. There was no shortage of wool, no shortage of fresh eggs and warm milk, and she’d not slept in such a comfortable bed since she had last stayed with the family, shortly after her arrival in Sleepy Hollow. When she was offered a place in their household to keep her from needing to cross town each evening, Katrina gladly accepted.
“You don’t need to worry about moving on anytime soon,” Annika Van Wees had told her. “The girls love having you here, and I’ll be glad for the company.”
The Jansen’s new baby slept the clock around, and the shoemaker’s young wife was already getting back to her routine. The newly deceased Pieter Van Wees was far too busy overseeing the daily operations to hover too closely to her, unlike Jansen’s first wife. And besides, she’s reminded herself when the offer was made — she had no reason to linger in the center of town after dark, not anymore.
The school session came to a close once the snow began to blow in from the hills, shortening the days. She had no reason to leave the Van Wees’ cozy farmhouse, and so she rarely did. They had everything they needed, after all, and the girls benefited from having her daily instruction right there at the same table where they shared their meals. She nursed her broken heart each evening before the flickering flames of the hearth, trying to determine why it was that she felt so despondent in the first place.
He was a ghost, and a stranger to her at that.He’s not even a very nice ghost. He killed two people, right under your nose!It was true . . . but from what the townsfolk had said about the first young man’s character and what she had witnessed from the drunkard attempting to accost her, she was a bit ashamed to admit she thought that Sleepy Hollow was well rid of both.And besides — look at how he was with you. He never sought to cause you any harm.Right from the beginning, he had been courteous, she reminded herself.Tipping his hat, riding with you to the churchyard. It sounded like excuses even to her ears, but it couldn’t be helped.
Even still, rationality had a way of rearing its ugly, sensible head. He was a ghost. He wouldn’t even remember her come autumn. He was a ghost, and he did not hold memories. She was the only fool in the equation pining for what could not be.
“I suppose Brom might come calling,” she admitted, blushing when Annika crowed. Her eldest students were giddy over the upcoming midwinter celebration at the Van Ansel farmstead, confiding that passage to and from the festivities would necessitate snuggling close with their suitors as their horses pulled sleighs and carriages.
Brom Bones had indeed come ’round calling several times since she had been reinstalled at the Van Wees farm. He entertained the widow and her daughters, all seemingly as taken with him as the rest of the town, before he would take her by the elbow, repairing to the outdoors, for as long as she could stand the chill. They rode together, they walked together . . . and eventually she would allow herself to be led to a warm nook where he would place her palm over the bulge in his breeches and hitch up her skirts.
The first time Katrina had caved to her weakness, she had been above him. Straddled over his wide hips, her thighs stretched until they were burning, impaled on his thick cock. His hands had been tight at her hips, bringing her down on his shaft, pumping up into her in a way that made her squeak on every thrust. He’d seemed surprised when she’d pushed him to his back, a pleased smile making his dark eyes glimmer as she pulled herself into position, not unlike hoisting herself into Gunpowder’s stirrups.
She knew what she was doing, after all, having been in the same position only weeks earlier, stretched across another man’s hips, before November ushered in an icy wind. The position she’d taken had been the only similarity in the experiences, and nothing she did with Brom Bones could ever compare.
Gunpowder had been cropping at the grass in front of the church when she’d found him that first night when she’d been had by the Horseman, an hour or two before sunrise, finally slipping out of the churchyard gates. Jansen’s dead wife had been the only one awake to cast judgment when she slipped into the house in those wee hours, deciding it would be easier to put coffee on the stove and simply pretend she was waking early.
He was waiting for her the following night. Melting out of the trees as she rode back to town, joining her on the road in companionable silence. Katrina told him of the previous places she’d lived, the families she’s stayed with, where she might go if forced to leave Sleepy Hollow. She imagined leaving together, building a permanent home somewhere, at the edge of a lush valley like this one, putting down roots and flourishing. In her fantasies, he had a head. She couldn’t see his face clearly in her mind, having no details upon which she could model her imaginings, but his hands were gentle and strong throughout.
Gunpowder only offered the briefest resistance when she’d directed him off the road, through the trees to a small clearing, feeling the phantom horse and its rider following close behind.
Long, gloved fingers pushed through her hair when she led his cock tip to her lips, darting her tongue out to run along the flared edge of his head. She would not drop to her knees for the Hans Van Rippers of the world, but as she would quite happily suckthiscock every day, regardless of what sat upon its owner’s shoulders. Giving head to the headless seemed like the most altruistic thing she could possibly do. She imagined his groan as he pushed into her mouth, her tongue flattening to stroke his shaft.
Another odd ripple of déjà vu had moved through her as she sucked the Horseman’s fat cock into her mouth. Brom Bones had led his erection to her lips the last time they’d been together, and her jaw had stretched in the exact same way as it did then, her tongue moving over him in the same fashion, her mouth equally as stuffed full. Katrina pushed away the comparison. Pulling his heavy testicles out of the tightly fitted riding pants, she squeezed and rolled as she sucked.
She wondered how he might react if she pulled her little trick, the one she’d learned from the ancient Greeks. He bucked against her lips when she pressed a knuckle behind his sac, each time she repeated the action eliciting the same surging response. He palmed her head easily with both hands, thrusting shallowly against her, and Katrina had been positive she could hear the echo of his pleasured moan.
He had taken her on hands and knees once more, his cock thumping into her solidly from behind with a hand pressed to her clit. He’d not gone riding that night, she told herself, as his balls slapped against her skin with a volume she thought might attract the ear of every person in town. He’d ridden her instead, his hunger for her cunt outrunning his hunger for blood, and the entire valley owed her a debt, quite frankly.
When he’d moved to roll her to her back, his cock still hard, still unsatisfied, shehad reversed their positions, had been the one to climb atophim. His cock had still been engorged, flush to his belly, alive andhotin her hands. Gripping his shaft and leading his swollen cockhead to her dripping folds, she’d wheezed, sinking down slowly. Riding the Horseman, making him her mount; she had scarcely been in such a position of control before.
Her hips rolled and her eyes closed, and she’d tried to imagine what he may have looked like, how different her life might be if she had arrived in Sleepy Hollow meeting him as a flesh and blood man and not a specter on the road, another ghost she saw. His hands were firm at her hips as she’d ridden him — firm, but still gentle. She tried to imagine being atop him in a bed, herownbed, not some borrowed space in a temporary home. A true home, one they would share together, where he could kiss her with his mouth, and she could bury her fingers in his hair. She’d shaken apart on top of him, squeezing his cock from root to tip in the confines of her body, wondering what she was to do with herself come sunrise.
She received her answer two mornings hence.
The night of Hallows had passed, the day of saints, the day of souls, and their time together, she knew, had come to an end. He sat beside her on the hillside, in between the crooked headstones, looking out on the valley below. November meant the coming snow, darkening days and endless nights, and there would be no one there to warm her. His hand, when she took it up, had already grown cold once more. Her mouth opened to speak, but her throat came up empty. There was nothing to be said.
“I-I’ll be here. I’ll be waiting. Next year I mean. When the leaves fall again.”
The silence that emanated beside her seemed complete, a tremor moving up her spine as he stroked each of her fingers, before gripping her chin. Her eyes fluttered closed as he mapped her features with the pad of his thumb — a gentle pressure down her nose and over her cheekbone, carrying away her tears. Tracing over the curve of her lips, around and around . . . When she opened her eyes, she sat alone on the hillside, the first muted light of the sun breaking over the tree line. He was gone.
Weeks later, she had laid her hands flat against Brom Bones’s broad chest. Her heart had been heavy with grief, an asinine bereavement, she reminded herself, seeking out a familiar diversion to take her mind off the empty shape that had taken up residence in her chest. He wasn’t who she wanted, but he was hot andalive, strong and solid and present.
She focused on the rub of his cock head within her, sneaking a hand down her front to rub at that little pearl, the same way the Horseman had that night in the graveyard. She’d pinned him beneath her cloak, dropping it over his face and leaning forward to hold the fabric down, giving him the same impression of headlessness. He had struggled beneath her, but by then it was too late. Something within her twisted, some rushing force that left her breathless with its clarity, crystallizing in an aching pleasure that radiated from her clit, tightening around him for the first time. He’d whipped the cloak off of his head with his eyebrows drawn together, but she was already wheezing as she came, tightening around his cock, her body going boneless after cresting that wave of pleasure, once more pretending he was someone else.
