SleepyHollow2BookBundle (26 page)

Katrina halted in her tracks, her skirts swirling around her ankles. “I – I thought that was a dream.”

“It wasn’t.”
 

They walked in moonlit silence for several moments. “You needn’t see me inside,” Katrina said when they reached the farmhouse’s front door. “I’ll be fine on my own from here, and I don’t wish to wake father.”

“Wave a white kerchief from your bedroom window when you make it safely there,” John suggested.

She nodded, and threw her arms suddenly around his neck. “I’m so glad you’re safe, John.” She kissed him lightly on the cheek, and ended the embrace. “You too, Brom.” She wrapped her arms around him and tenderly kissed his jaw. “Promise me you’ll both go straight to Brom’s home,” she said, fixing them both with an imploring gaze, “and not venture outdoors again until after sunrise.”

“You have my word,” Brom said, stroking her cheek and bidding her goodnight.

A few moments later, she appeared at her bedroom window, waving the promised white kerchief.

“Don’t you think the Jansens will worry?” John asked as they approached Torben, who Brom had tethered to a tree in front of the house.

“Feel free to go straight to them in the morning,” Brom replied, “but you’ll not be leaving my sight tonight. After all, we promised Katrina.”

The forest loomed dark and sinister in the corner of John’s vision, and despite his worries over what the Jansens would think, he couldn’t have been gladder of the promise Katrina had extracted from Brom. Brom probably would have demanded that John stay with him anyway, but at least Katrina’s insistence took the edge off of John’s guilty feelings and eased the constant presence of his fear of discovery just a little. Of course, Katrina might already know… He tried his best not to think of it as he and Brom rode double on Torben, who bore the burden much better than Gunpowder had. In no time at all they’d arrived at Brom’s home, and Brom made quick work of rubbing down and stalling his horse.

Inside, the fire had gone out, leaving the large fireplace’s hearth and the indoor air as cold as the outdoors. Brom struggled with a flint for a quarter of an hour before finally managing to start a fresh fire, kindling it from sparks into a steady flame and feeding it a split log. “It will take a while for the house to heat,” Brom said, “but we can keep each other warm until then.” He cast a meaningful glance down the hall, toward his bedroom.

John followed him gladly there, craving the heat of Brom’s body. His encounter with the horseman had left him dreadfully cold; he could still feel the chill of the specter’s touch deep in his bones. Had Katrina felt it too? The idea that she might be lying in bed alone, hopelessly cold beneath the blankets, made John frown.
 

“Christ, you’re cold as ice,” Brom said when they sank onto the mattress and he touched John’s hand.

“A few moments of the horseman’s touch felt like an entire night spent in a snowstorm,” John said. “I feel as if I may never be warm again.”

“We’ll see about that.” Brom stripped away his own clothes, tossing them aside. He showed no sign of discomfort, though the weak moonlight that filtered in through the window revealed that his nipples had shrunken to tiny pinpoints.
 

John didn’t object when Brom set to work on undoing the buttons of his waistcoat and then divested him of his other garments – he could hardly get any colder. The air seemed to be approximately the same temperature as the blood running in his veins, and thusly his body gave off no heat for his clothing to retain.
 

“They say God created Adam from the soil of the earth, but you might have been carved from ice,” Brom said, running a thumb over John’s cheekbone as if marveling at his frigidness.
 

Brom lowered his hand, letting his fingers trail over John’s chest. “What’s this?”

“Oh. I’d almost forgotten about that. Joshua made it for me when you and I first decided to patrol the road in search of the headless horseman – it’s for protection against evil, he claims.”

Brom held the tiny wooden cross gingerly betwixt two fingers, an odd expression on his face. With his other hand, he touched the spot on John’s chest where the crucifix had lain. “You’ve been burnt.”

CHAPTER 7

“What?” John dropped his chin, peering down at where Brom’s thick finger rested, directly over his breastbone. “Well, I’ll be…” His chest was marked with a pink patch the exact shape and size of the cross, and it did indeed look like a burn.

“Does it hurt?” Brom asked, dragging the pad of his thumb over the irritated skin.

“Stings a bit, but it doesn’t seem to be anything serious. Only…”

“What?”

“When the horseman gripped my neck, I was sure he was going to break it, and that I would die. At the last moment, just when my bones were about to snap, I felt something burn hot against my chest, and he let go. I didn’t know what it was.” John plucked the crucifix from Brom’s hand and held it aloft, scrutinizing the crude object. Neither the wood nor the horsehair bindings were scorched. “By God, I think it worked.”

John half expected Brom to snort in derision, but he was silent, dark eyes fixed on the cross. “Remind me to thank young Joshua next time I see him, will you?”

John nodded mutely, his thoughts reduced to a sort of muddled wonderment by the apparent fact that a boy’s little wooden crucifix had preserved him from a hellish death.

Brom took the cross again, holding it in the palm of his hand. “To think that this is all that stood between you and that thing…” He let it drop and reached out to touch John instead, letting his fingers trail over the vertebrae at the back of his neck, beneath his hair. A shiver ran down John’s spine as Brom’s fingers traveled slowly over each bone, one-by-one.

“It is rather incredible, isn’t it?”

Brom cupped the back of John’s skull and pulled him close, so that their lips brushed. Brom’s breath smelled pleasantly of the pie they’d had before leaving, and the thoroughly ordinary scent made the night’s ghastly events seem far away. John pressed his lips against Brom’s, abandoning himself to the familiar feel of the other man’s mouth.

The kiss ended sooner than John had expected, and Brom drew him close, holding him as tightly as John had held Katrina when they’d been mounted on their panicking horse, trapped by the horseman’s unearthly fog. They were safe in bed; there was nowhere John could have fallen, but he remained still in Brom’s arms anyway, and the ice in his veins slowly melted. After several long minutes, he felt human again. The rekindled awareness of his humanity gripped him in a visceral way, causing his body to tingle with fierce energy and sudden desires. He pressed his mouth hard against Brom’s, demanding that he respond, that he move.

Brom slipped his tongue past John’s lips and leaned against him, pushing him down onto the mattress and settling on top of him. The heat of his muscles set fire to John’s heightened senses and quelled the very last of the shivers he’d been fighting since the incident on the road. He parted his lips, welcoming Brom’s tongue deep into his mouth. Brom’s body was so warm compared to his own that it seemed the heat would consume him. As Brom laid a hand on John’s bare hip, John’s cock came back to life for the first time since they’d touched on the trail. As it grew hard against his belly, Brom reached between their bodies and gripped it, wrapping his fingers snugly around the shaft.

John shuddered, though not from cold. The chill had truly left him, leaving a desire so strong that it burnt, smoldering in the pit of his belly and causing his cock to throb in Brom’s hand. Brom stroked him, pushing his hand to the base of his cock in one sure movement, then back up, only to repeat the motion. John closed his eyes and became lost in the sensation, in the immediate surge of longing for instant gratification and the more prudent desire to hold back, to ride the almost-ecstasy for as long as possible because it left him powerless to think about anything else. It was a delightfully torturous ebb and flow, but he couldn’t hold out forever.

Brom stopped just in time to keep John from coming, relinquishing his hold on John’s cock and finally ending their kiss.

John wrapped his hand around Brom’s shaft, running his thumb over the smooth tip as he met Brom’s eyes. Dark as they were, they gleamed nonetheless, even in the dull moonlight. Brom’s cock was hard as a rock, and he flexed his hips, forcing it deeper into John’s hand so that his knuckles met the wiry hair at its base. “Why did you stop?” John’s erection was throbbing in protest, his balls tight and aching below. He thrust his hand down Brom’s shaft again, giving him the same attention he craved for himself.

“This may be the only time I’ll ever have you here for the night. I intend to make this last until dawn.” He reached between John’s legs and cupped his balls, making him moan.

“That’s quite an ambition,” John gasped, his cock throbbing harder at the thought of it.

“It’s not such a farfetched idea – the night is halfway gone.” He continued to fondle John’s balls, reaching below to let his fingertips skim the lower curves of his ass, then between them, touching John where he still ached from the night before, when they’d fucked in an empty stall in the Jansens’ barn, as had become their habit after each patrol.
 

John’s insides clenched in memory, and he tightened his grip on Brom’s cock, so thick and rigid, unforgivingly hard. God, the thought of it pushing inside him, of Brom claiming him with every inch of it, was almost enough to make him come. If Brom really intended to go the whole night, John would doubtlessly be milked dry and left half-dead with exhaustion by the end of it. It wasn’t an unappealing thought – he craved such absolute release, and the fatigue it would bring, strong enough to let him sleep without feeling the cold death-grip of a phantom’s hand around his neck.

“Perhaps if you’d stop tempting death, I wouldn’t need to have you so often,” Brom said, rising from the bed and retrieving a vial of oil from a nearby drawer, moistening his erection from tip to root. “I get this horrible feeling that each time I do may be the last, and so I never want to stop. The fear of losing you makes me want all of you, all the time.”
 

When Brom was done, his erection gleamed faintly in the dull moonlight. John admired it for a moment, then Brom descended on him, supporting himself with his elbows on the mattress by John’s shoulders. Their hips met and their cocks touched, gliding easily against one another, thanks to the fact that Brom’s was slippery. John arched against the bed, relishing the ball-tightening sensation of Brom’s shaft against his. God, but the man was hard.

“It wasn’t intentional,” he finally replied. “What happened tonight, I mean.”

“No,” Brom said, “but that doesn’t change a thing about the way I feel. Until dawn. I mean it.” He gripped his cock and angled it against John’s entrance, flexing his hips just enough to press the head inside. John sucked in a breath, overcome by the dual pleasure and pain of being entered, of becoming one with Brom. Slowly, Brom pushed into him, burying himself to the root.
 

“My God…” John breathed, frozen beneath his lover, overwhelmed by burning pain and lust alike.

Brom flexed his hips a little more, going deeper as he lowered his head and took John’s mouth, kissing him fiercely.

John gasped, and Brom took advantage of his parted lips, shoving his tongue inside and exploring the deep hollow of John’s mouth, swallowing his involuntary moan. After a few panting, muffled gasps, John caught up and stroked Brom’s tongue with his, shoving back, eager to taste more of him. Meanwhile, Brom flexed his hips below, claiming John with another deep thrust.

The immediate, all-consuming pleasure of it was ecstasy. John writhed, and Brom shifted deep inside him, applying exquisite pressure to just the right spot. It wouldn’t be much longer – John could scarcely take much more of it. He was teetering on the brink of climax when Brom reached between their bodies and grasped his erection, sending him over the edge. Liquid warmth coated his belly as Brom released John’s pent-up passion in a few deft strokes. He cried out, knowing there was no one else to hear, and his passage tightened around Brom’s thick cock, urging him to come too.

Brom withstood it, and John finally lay spent and gasping beneath him. When he started moving again, his thrusts were slow, deliberate and intentionally deep, each one hitting that same sweet spot inside John. He was tired, and his body still tingled with the complacent pleasure of fulfilled yearning, but eventually, as Brom continued to make love to him, his desire was rekindled. He pressed his palms against Brom’s chest and closed his eyes, feeling Brom’s muscles shift as he drove himself into him again and again, his powerful body working tirelessly to bring John back to the point of desperate longing.

Brom reached his limit first, apparently; the muscles in his arms tensed, going rigid against John’s shoulders. John ran his hands over Brom’s back, his fingers gliding over smooth muscle until they reached the firm planes of Brom’s ass. He gripped it, holding on tightly as Brom flexed his hips vigorously. He groaned when John squeezed, and the sound sent a jolt of sensation straight to John’s groin. He purposely tightened his passage around Brom’s cock, and Brom cried out loud and wordlessly, tossing back his head. He rammed into John with firm strokes, and John’s revived erection grew a little harder with each one. Soon, he was gasping too, as much from the pleasure as the force of it. Several thrusting, breathless moments later, Brom was still, his enduring erection a solid presence in John’s body.