Page 31 of Bewitched By the Headless Horseman (The Bewitching Hour #1)

“So, what did Adelia say?” Stevie asked Lucia as soon as she answered the phone and put it on speaker for Kit to hear. She’d texted her sister-in-law earlier to let her know Reese still wasn’t at his house and his work was locked up tight.

“No celebration news,” Lucia said. “No luck with even her strongest spell at finding Levi. She’s now made it a mission to contact the council and have them hunt Reese down. Then we trained for a little bit and she brushed me up on a few history secrets.”

“Hopefully the council can locate him quickly.”

“Something beyond fishy is going on for sure.” Lucia sighed.

“Reese might know the jig is up and is keeping a low profile, or Levi has him hidden somewhere with dark magic. I have a few errands to run for Adelia, but on the way, I’ll collect a strand of Reese’s hair from his home and try to locate him. ”

“Let me know what you find out.”

Kit pushed away from the counter after Stevie ended the call. “Your mother’s car just got here, so I’ll search through Sleepy Hollow for Reese.”

He could easily slip through houses and check places that she couldn’t. It would be faster without her tagging along. “Be careful,” Stevie said.

“For you, I will be.” With that, he left toward the back of the house.

Roxy followed Stevie as she pulled out the pasta and two different sauces to start cooking for her mom. While filling the pot with hot water, the doorbell finally rang.

“White or red sauce? That’s the conundrum I’m giving you.” She grinned as she opened the door. “So—”

Stevie’s mom grasped her chest through her blouse, beads of perspiration dotted her brow, and her skin was as pale as snow. “My heart. It just hit me,” she stuttered, her breath ragged. “It’s slowing.”

Stevie’s own heart stilled and she wrapped her arm around her mom’s waist as she collapsed forward. “We have to go to Ginger’s. Let me get you to my car.”

“I’ll be fine,” her mom promised. “Your dad can take me later.”

“There isn’t time for that!” Stevie wouldn’t wait around for the organ to slow further. It had only been inside her mom’s rib cage for half the month.

Her mom didn’t have the strength to argue, and so Stevie helped her into the passenger seat, then called Ginger as she drove toward the witch’s house.

“Hello?” Ginger answered.

“Ginger, are you home? It’s my mom. Something’s going on with her heart,” Stevie said hurriedly.

“I just came back from the apothecary, so you can bring her straight here. I’ll meet you outside.”

“See you in a couple of minutes.” Stevie ended the call and was about to scroll to her dad’s name when her mom’s trembling hand gently pressed to Stevie’s. “Don’t call Jack. You’re already taking me there. No need to worry him just yet.”

Stevie still wanted to call her dad, but she didn’t want to stress her mom out more and make matters worse. She would wait and see how things played out.

For the first time in ages, tears stung Stevie’s eyes, and she blinked them away. Her mom had always been there for her, through tears, heartbreak, holidays, nervousness, excitement. Stevie wouldn’t go down the dark path of possibilities.

As promised, Ginger was waiting on the porch when Stevie arrived.

The witch rushed to help Stevie’s mom out of the car, and Stevie looped her arm around her mom from the other side.

Her mom’s body trembled, her balance wobbly.

Not once when her mom’s heart was due for another had she ever seen her this frail.

“You know where to take her. I’ll retrieve the pig’s heart,” Ginger said after they crossed the threshold.

Stevie walked her mom to the basement door as Ginger fled out the back. They slowly descended the stairs and Stevie led her to a wooden chair near the cauldrons. She then grabbed a smock from a hook on the wall and draped it around her mom.

“Do you need anything else?” Stevie asked after snapping the smock at the back of her neck. “Besides a heart.” She tried for humor, but her tone only came out worried as she knelt in front of her mom and held her shaking hand.

“Tell me about the meeting with the Crowned Witch like you were going to over lunch,” she urged, her breath growing more ragged.

Stevie nodded and told her everything, and instead of becoming distressed, her mom only nodded. “You like him.” Concern slipped out in her tone. “The Horseman.”

“Are you worried because he’s centuries older than the both of us?” Stevie drawled with a small smile. “Because really, he’ll still look young. I’ve seen his head, remember?”

Her mom frowned. “I don’t care about that. I just care about you getting hurt if you can’t save him.”

Stevie’s smile faltered, but before she could reply, the basement door creaked open and Ginger’s footsteps pounded down the steps.

Blood smeared her hands, and a few drops spilled to the floor.

“We don’t have time to be nice and tidy.

Grab the yellow powder just above the jar of bat eyes over there, then sprinkle it on the heart for me.

” Ginger pointed to the shelf in the corner.

Stevie fumbled through a few glass jars until she found the necessary one. She unscrewed the lid and sprinkled the powder on top of the bloody organ. Ginger then chanted a low incantation, the heart rising and falling as it beat in the witch’s hand, before holding it out to Stevie’s mom.

Shakily reaching out, her mom grasped the organ. Her lips parted, her jaw stretched, and her mouth opened wider and unnaturally wider. Every instance she’d ever seen her mom do this, it wasn’t horror that coursed through Stevie but awe.

Her mom placed the beating heart inside her mouth, swallowing it whole, the squelching sound echoing throughout the basement. Stevie watched her mom’s throat bulge as the organ slid down to replace the dying heart.

“I hate that you had to see me like this,” her mom said, catching her breath, her blood-splotched hand on her chest. Already color returned to her pale face, her posture straightening.

As tears streaked Stevie’s cheeks, she folded her arms around her mom. “I’ll take you any way I can. It’s part of you, and I love you.”

Stevie drove to her parents’ house even though her mom said she was fine to take the car home.

But just in case. She called her dad and Gideon, and her brother said he would bring their mom’s car later.

Once her dad walked through the door, his face more worried than she’d ever seen him, he sank to his knees beside Stevie’s mom.

Stevie stayed a little longer before letting her parents have some alone time together.

Near the apothecary, a familiar white form, that she could easily spot anywhere, and no, not only because of his missing head, but by the way Kit sauntered down the sidewalk, assured in his movements as if he owned up to his name the Headless Horseman.

She slowed the car into a parking space along the curb and rolled down the window.

“Need a ride, stranger?” she called, making her accent come out deeply Southern.

“I think you know these parts better than I do.”

Kit’s steps halted and his shoulders racked with laughter as he whirled to face her. But then he stilled, coming to her car in three long strides. “What happened? You’ve been crying.”

Stevie knew her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, and as the image of her mom collapsing on her porch came again, she wiped a loose tear away.

“It’s nothing,” she lied after he sat in the passenger seat.

“Cauldron’s teeth, I can’t keep this bottled up.

It’s my mom. When she came for lunch, her heart was slowing rapidly.

Ginger said she’ll need two a month going forward.

But what if that doesn’t work next time? What if nothing does?” she sobbed.

“Close your eyes,” Kit said gently, inching closer, his hand falling through hers.

Taking a deep breath, she shut them, and his arms folded around her, strong and grounding as he held her.

It was something she didn’t know she needed, something as simple as a hug, and she relaxed against him.

“Thank you,” she whispered. The unease and anxiousness wouldn’t grow wings and fly away completely, but the gesture lessened it.

Stevie didn’t know how many minutes they sat like that, and she didn’t care who crept by, gawking at her hugging air, but she finally shifted back from his cool comfort to drive home.

She kept quiet on the ride, having to come to terms that her mom would just need an extra heart, and that Ginger believed it would hold her over for a while.

As soon as they walked through the door, Kit went straight to the kitchen and poured her a glass of milk. Stevie’s heart fluttered at such a simple thing. Which could end in a classic heartbreak, but to Hollow with it.

“I’ll gladly drink that.” A small smile spread her lips as she sat on the counter and polished off the glass. She leaned back against the cabinets and sighed.

Kit stood before her, placing his hands on either side of her thighs. “Do you need anything else?”

“Lots of things.” Stevie shrugged. “To find your head for one. A kiss for two.”

He leaned closer and whispered like he was revealing a secret, “I do believe I don’t need my head to kiss you.”

“That’s one good thing then, isn’t it?” Stevie closed her eyes and hoped he wouldn’t think she wanted his mouth for a temporary escape. She just liked the way he felt against her. But he gave her what she wanted and pressed his lips to hers, and she kissed him back, bringing him closer.

“I want my head for one very important reason,” he drawled.

“And why is that?” she murmured.

Kit’s hand skimmed down to her backside and he settled between her legs as he drew her against him. He sucked her bottom lip between his teeth. “I want to see your expression when you moan because of me. I want to see how you arch when I taste you to orgasm. I want to see you bare. All of you.”

Heat dipped to her center, and she kissed up his jawline. “The bare part is easy peasy.” She grinned, reaching for the top button of his collar. “We just have to remove each other’s clothing first.”

“Keep unfastening each one with those pretty little fingers of yours, then it will be my turn,” he rasped.

Stevie’s smile grew wider as she finished loosening the buttons to peel the shirt from his taut chest and broad shoulders.

She ran her hands up his cool flesh while he tugged down her skirt.

As if the Hollow would open in the next three seconds, they threw one another’s clothing to the floor in between desperate kisses.

“On the count of three, we’ll look,” Stevie said, and he stepped backward. “One, two, three.” Flicking her eyes open, she laughed when she noticed his fingers stroking his invisible face. “You cheated and looked first, didn’t you?”

“I couldn’t help it,” Kit said innocently.

Her laughter faded as her gaze swept up his naked form, his hard length. Because of his white ethereal skin, it was like he was sculpted from marble.

“I’m no Aphrodite,” she whispered, her body much softer than his, not as curvy as Clara’s.

“You are more perfect than Aphrodite,” he said gruffly. “Now shut your eyes for me.”

Stevie couldn’t argue with that, and though she anticipated his lips coming to hers, they didn’t.

Instead, his hands skated up her thighs to her backside, his head slipping between her legs.

She gasped when his tongue tasted up her center, deftly, epically.

Threading her fingers in his hair, she gripped the locks tighter while moaning.

She opened her legs wider as he thoroughly tasted her to the point where she couldn’t hold back another moan, her body quaking.

Then his mouth was on hers, and she could feel his satisfied smile, knowing he’d gotten her to come for him. She reached between them, gripping his cock, and she stroked him until he grazed his teeth up her neck and whispered gruffly in her ear, “Let me inside you. Let me pleasure you fully.”

“Do come in then. The door is wide open.” She grinned.

“I won’t deny you.” Kit grasped her by the waist and slid into her with one deep thrust. “You feel splendid,” he growled.

“Gentleman words and animal movements. You can’t get much better than that.”

Kit cut off her words with a fierce kiss, his hips rolling into hers, their pants and groans filling the kitchen. “Deeper,” he ground out, carrying Stevie from the counter to the kitchen table.

“If the table breaks, don’t you dare stop,” she chided.

“I wouldn’t dare,” he said, trailing kisses up her stomach, then taking a peaked nipple between his teeth. He gave it a gentle bite and soft flick of the tongue before burying himself back inside her.

They worked themselves into a frenzy, her legs tight around his waist, her fingers digging into his back.

As her orgasm took root, licking its own magical spell through her, she swore it shook not only her but all of Sleepy Hollow.

Kit’s pace picked up, thrusting harder until he released a deep and guttural groan.

Stevie pressed her palm against Kit’s chest, where his heart should be, wishing that before the end of the new moon, she would feel its wild beat.

“Keep your eyes closed,” he instructed. “We have more to discover.”