Page 14 of Hunted by the Headless Horseman (Roars and Romances #5)

JACK

Enough, you greedy guts of a dirty girl! I command, ripping my manhood from Belle before she may mutilate the poor equipage.

“Sorry,”

she giggles, but she is not apologetic in any sense of the word.

“At least I won’t need any dinner.”

I grunt and stuff my overly contented length back in my drawers, then secure my breeches and suspenders before donning my waistcoat and overcoat again. Naughty Belle. I’ll need to punish you later.

“Definitely later.”

She touches her palms to my chest, leans in, and kisses the side of the pumpkin head. I may not be able to feel it, but I sense it, and I hear enough to know it was a kiss.

“There’s one last attraction for the day. Well, it’s night now.”

Bonfire mayhaps?

“Better.”

I hear the mischievous smile in her voice. Whatever is she up to now?

I am hard-pressed to understand how a glorified playground for the easily spooked with a transparent “ruse”

to prey upon the willing gullible and separate them from their coin is superior to sharing a wool blanket and cuddling before a roaring fire.

A cold wind laces the air, cracking the tree branches and carrying the scent of the fir trees and the distant wood smoke of bonfires.

“Oh.”

Belle pauses, her hand still threaded through my glove.

“Do you want to leave?”

I heave a sigh, turning toward her and rubbing my other knuckles along one cheek. If this pleases you, my Belle, of course not. I may not understand it, but any good relationship is founded on compromise. I was married for six years to understand this.

“True, but it’s not like I’m your wife. You don’t have to?—”

You’re mine, I growl, seizing the side of her neck and wrenching her against me. A gasp loosens from her mouth, and I sense the quickening of her pulse. A grimness overcomes me, and I strengthen my hold upon her. I trust your fear of this moment will not inconvenience you, Belladonna. Or cast a blot upon our budding romance. For I cannot apologize for it. The lengths I will go to possess you are unparalleled. To protect and pleasure you will be the greatest honor in my miserable existence.

“I like your type of fear, Jack. Never doubt that. It will be an equal honor to be protected by you.”

She embraces me, this wondrous woman I do not deserve.

“But my only true fear is that you will regret it, regret everything because the demons in my past will inconvenience you too much.”

Her voice cracks with her emotion.

“I bury them deep and eclipse them with all the passions I love, like my bookshop. But every night, I revisit them in my dreams. And many times, I take them out and study them like they are notes in a book. Sometimes, I play with them. Sometimes, I stab them like they’re voodoo dolls. Regardless, I feel them every day. But…”

She lifts her head and the hand still clutching mine. Shifting her fingers, she flattens her palm against mine, a pale white against the black of my glove.

“The last thing I want is for my ghosts to haunt you more than yours already do.”

Dear, sweet, beautiful Belladonna…I urge her head to fall upon my shoulder. After 200 years of a solitary existence that rendered me in a chronic suicidal state, you summoning me has brought me such strength and life. Moreover, every facet of your heart has given me a long-awaited hope. So, speak the word, my Belle, and I will take all your ghosts and demons. Perhaps they will find a home with mine. And then, we may play with them together, stab them together, or conquer them. Everything…together.

“Well then, let’s start with this haunted forest.”

She squeezes my hand, and I progress with her, gripping my cane with a firm, guarded control, my spine locked and alert for predators. I must remember how the predators of this forest walk are false ones. It will take all my resolve to resist the urge to knock my cane against their heads and swipe their legs out from under them.

The forest looms before us like a yawning mouth and jaws ready to snap. A familiar energy that has haunted my steps for over two centuries. Twisted branches brush the sides of the pumpkin head, and tangled undergrowth crunches beneath my boots.

Belle’s curiosity and excitement are potent from how she clings tighter to my arm, but there is a skip in her stride, her breath quickening.

“Jack,”

she whispers.

“I just want you to know, I’ve never felt safer on this walk. I can let go and just be. I can enjoy the moment. Because you’re with me.”

Fuck. She just transformed this experience, turning it on its head for me.

Her footsteps are light as she leads me down the gravel path that winds through this so-called haunted forest. While annoyance still prickles me with the reminder of how this charade is beneath me when I’ve faced the true chills and spirits of this world, I could not be more obliged than to serve as her metaphorical protector.

As we step off the gravel path and into the forest, a pretentious air of dread defines our surroundings. She describes it, setting the scene.

Fake cobwebs cling to the trees, their dusty, synthetic threads curling in the wind. She mentions the occasional plastic skeleton with glowing eyes that dangles from a branch or leans menacingly against a tree trunk. Such pale imitations of the real haunt that lies deeper in the woods, the true macabre of three gravestones on my land.

Belle tells me of the luminaries lining the path, how they cast an eerie but also whimsical aura.

I can’t ignore the cacophony of sounds designed to unsettle: a distant howl of a mechanical wolf, a shuffling noise that could only be produced by someone in an ill-fitting zombie costume. It’s all so contrived, so painfully obvious in its attempts to frighten.

I internally roll my eyes as we pass a particularly gruesome display. Her words convey a gory tableau with fake blood splattered across the scene, the fake body parts strewn about in a grotesque parody of horror.

I’m hardly impressed.

Then, there are the people. Oh, the people. I’m forced to endure the sounds of individuals in ludicrous costumes lurking behind trees.

Belle jumps and squeals at all the right times, startled by a thrilling fear from the masked faces and histrionic creatures. More squeals and shrieks echo through the night as the actors jump out at unsuspecting walkers, their theatrics as predictable. A loud, exaggerated moan resounds in the air off to our left, one belonging to a “ghoul”

as Belle relays. She gasps, clutching my arm with a mixture of fright and amusement. I barely suppress an internal muttering.

The whole thing feels like a mockery of real fear, an insult to the very notion of the real hell that I’ve experienced. The forest’s attempt at a haunt is so superficial that it’s almost laughable. What should be a chilling exploration of the dark and unknown is a slapdash collection of horror clichés instead. A charade and a parade.

Belle’s enthusiasm is the only redeeming aspect of this farce. She’s utterly captivated by the spectacle, her delight evident in every intonation leaving her lips.

I attempt to share in her enjoyment, but my patience is wearing thin. The sudden screams, the poor attempt of a growl or a snarl or howl, irritate my nerves. I can even feel the artificial mist curling around my legs from fog machines.

We reach a clearing where the forest’s attempts at spookiness culminate in a grand finale of flashing lights and a booming sound system playing eerie, distorted music. The forest seems to groan and shift in rhythm with the soundtrack, adding an extra layer of theatricality to the already excessive display.

With Belle so fully immersed in the experience, I begrudgingly admire her ability to find joy in such cheesy costumery and deception.

With a resigned sigh, I follow her deeper into the forest. The majority of spectators move in the opposite direction, but Belle is tugging me along, leading me off the beaten path. The sounds of the haunted walk fade in the distance as we trod upon high grass, thickets, and war with thick branches.

Wherever are you going, dear Belle?

“Out of sight,”

she whispers.

Why?

“You’ll see.”

I assure you I will not.

Her snort is very un-ladylike. I look forward to taking a cane to her naughty bottom. Perhaps over my desk or dining table. A sight I truly long for.

A few minutes later, we are standing amid a circle of trees. Their fir needles brush against my back. But all I may focus on is Belle as she rises on her tiptoes and presses a tender kiss to my neck. A vein throbs there.

“Okay, here goes.”

She takes a deep breath, takes one hand in hers, couples our fingers, and leans closer till she lays both our hands on my chest where my beating heart should be.

“I know it’s been just one week, but I feel like I’ve known you forever. It sounds cliche, and maybe it is just this blood tether. But like I said, I am not letting you go, Jackson Elias Moore. I want to keep you. Everything about you. The gentleman and the rogue.

“You are the man who cleans my bookshop with me. The man my cat loves, and cats have very fine opinions about people. The man who hunts me at night and helps me with my farmer’s market finds. My Heathcliff with a tragic past.”

She lets go of one hand to cup my neck in her dainty palm. Oh, that I could but kiss that palm.

“I will do everything in my power to help you, Jack. Even if it takes a lifetime, even if you are headless the whole time, I won’t want anyone at my side but you. So, yes, my Headless Horseman. Tomorrow evening, I want to be yours—in every definition of the word.”

Heated blood surges to my manhood while a profound sense of gratitude to the spirits overcomes me for this wonder of a woman.

Belladonna Holloway, are you asking me to fuck you tomorrow night?

“Fuck me. Take me. Love me. Everything, Jack. I’m yours.”

Her heart pounds against my chest.

My beautiful Belle…I rub my knuckles along her cheek, imagining the feeling of her soft, pouty lips bowing for me, the first kiss we shall share after I drive myself into her. A hard-driven coupling first. I will fuck her first. Then, once I regain my head, which she will not see, I will worship her with my mouth, my tongue, my teeth. I will memorize every blessed inch of her flesh. I will feast as I have never feasted.

“Jack?”

She wrenches me from my reverie, poking my sides.

“Did I break you or something?”

No, my beloved. I was simply envisioning when I will finally look upon every inch of you tomorrow evening and the infinite number of places I will kiss through whatever forever we may spend together.

“And I might be looking forward to testing other flavors of your cock.”

By thunder! I must have committed some grand deed in a past life to have this remarkable young woman.

“We should be getting back now. But I have to um…relieve myself first. Stay right here, I’ll be back soon. Don’t look at—oh, never mind!”

I chuckle to myself. She has no qualms about undressing before me in the solitude of her bedroom, but a pit stop in the woods seems too scandalous for her.

A minute passes by. Then another. I grip my cane handle, biding my time, working to be patient and not to let my unease lead me to invade her space.

The bloodcurdling scream echoing sets every last nerve aflame.

“Ja—!”

The end of her speech is muffled by something.

Following the direction of that scream, I charge for her like a rampaging monster, careless of anything or anyone that gets in my way. Whatever beast or man will rue the day they ever laid a finger on Belladonna Holloway.

I’m coming, Belle.