Page 19 of Hunted by the Headless Horseman (Roars and Romances #5)

“Belladonna Claire Moore.”

BELLE

Icry and scream all sorts of profanities—ones I have not even heard.

I’m convinced Jackson Elias Moore—my no longer Headless Horseman—is the best kisser of all mankind.

Centuries without his mouth seem to sharpen these moments, intensifying them into a storm of emotion we can’t fathom. His mouth is a long-lost secret revealed. He is pouring those two centuries of longing and restraint into this soul-breaking kiss with endless hunger. But he is so perfectly controlled. God, his kiss shudders me down to my core!

Velvet lips, steel jaw. Even if he’s stealing my breath away, there is a tenderness beneath the intensity. Like he’s rediscovering something primal, but it takes nothing for him to seize it until he’s possessing me with that kiss.

God, this man can kiss! Breathless, I gasp in his mouth as he ignites every nerve in my body. I can’t fathom how all my thoughts have centered around his lips when his beast of a cock is buried inside me.

Jack, you’re everywhere! I feel his lips bowing to rub along my brow. He’s all around me. And I’m still holding his face, too afraid to let him go. Too afraid this will all be a dream. His natural musk surrounds me, the familiar leather, smoky cedar, and earthy vetiver.

From the moment he said he would never be separated from me, I knew it was the truth. And when he penetrated me, I fell apart from that awareness, from him sealing himself to me in a deeper way that transcends the flesh.

“I’ll always be here.”

Holy. Hecate! Is that his voice? His breath whispers across my face. He’s still seated in me, filling all of me, but he isn’t moving yet—not since we last convulsed together. There is something so torturous and intimate about how he can see me, but I cannot see him. Especially when he still wears his tunic and vest while I’m as bare as a willow in winter.

I don’t have to see him to know he is beautiful. A dark, masculine beauty. My breath hitches as he roams his mouth along the bridge of my nose. Closing my eyes, I lift one hand between us to touch my chest, my heart pounding madly. After everything that’s happened, how can I possibly last all night like this?

He’s ripped right through me—buried to the barest hilt.

“Belladonna…”

he murmurs and opens his mouth upon my right cheekbone and then my left, carrying away my warm tears at the same time.

“Belladonna.”

He moves his lips to my jawline.

It’s not just chanting my name. It’s more of a prayer, a prayer of need. Tonight is the first time in two centuries he has uttered any words. He wants my name to reign with absolute sovereignty. Like he’s reclaiming the life he lost, one kiss at a time.

“Belladonna.”

His voice is as deep and velvety as the one in my head, but far more gravel, more desire thickening as the hunger between us swells. I shiver as those lips wander along my jawline, and my pussy squeezes. I’m stretched and burning from his cock, but I’m drowning there, receiving and accepting him with all my being.

He pauses a breath above my lips.

“My beautiful Belle.”

Something in him snaps when he claims my mouth in a searing kiss. He’s slammed through all my walls tonight. No, he scaled them like a roguish conqueror. I summoned him. Tonight, he’s staking his claim—staking so deep, our souls will crash and burn together.

My cheeks burn beneath his bewildering kiss. I don’t stop holding him. My hands don’t stray from his face—high cheekbones, rugged jaw, broken by a dusting of stubble, strong brow. I memorize the facial structure, knowing his brows are deep with hooded eyes. His hair is thick but soft and swept back from his head, falling along his lower neck to brush my throat.

I feel every inch of his highwayman’s head, knowing it will disappear by dawn.

With the strength of his jaw alone, he commands my mouth, forcing my head to tilt, giving him more of me. Ravenous for me. He’s embarking on a slow feast, but it’s no less intense. It’s a thing of beautiful greed and ownership. And neither feminism nor fairy tales can dictate the undeniable power I feel when I choose to be owned by this man. If he is a man possessed, then I will give myself to him until I am a woman possessed with him.

A soft moan escapes my throat, and I steal his groan into my lungs, determined to hold his voice there forever.

Sliding one hand to cup my ass, Jack lifts me while lowering his other to palm my breast.

Then—oh fuck!—he begins to move.

Pleasure shimmers through me as he pistons inside me. My breasts rub his chest, the nipples rasping against the velvety fabric. When the hand at my breast reaches up to capture my chin, I gasp as that pleasure inflames me, radiating through my whole body and gathering in my center most.

“Give me your eyes, my Belle. I can see you, sweet summoner. I want to see you. I need to see you. By all the spirits in heaven, I vow that I never wish to regain my sight unless it is you I am beholding, Belladonna Holloway.”

I gush, breath catching in my chest as he plants one kiss on my lips, then hovers there, making me feel more vulnerable than ever. Pressure intensifies in my core. Heat pulses and throbs and?—

“I want to see everything as I fuck you all night long…until you can no longer walk.”

I convulse. I explode. His words burn a path right through me like a fire at midnight, setting me ablaze like a funeral pyre—because I am utterly overthrown. Yes, my old life is gone. He is my inferno now.

Throwing my head back as the orgasm erupts through me, I don’t just see stars. I feel them weeping inside every vein and shooting through all my nerve endings until I’m clenching harder than ever all around him.

“Thunderation, Belle! Fuck!”

he growls.

“That’s my good girl, falling apart all around me. You fit me so goddamn good. Devil take me…!”

He slams his fist on the wool throws before gripping my hip and sliding out before spearing me, pounding to the very back of my cunt. It only extends my climax until I’m raking my nails down his chest, ripping at his fabric, crying and moaning through the sensual waves of bliss.

“Hotter than the depths of hell,”

he says, claiming my throat, scraping his teeth down the curvature.

“I’d go to war with the devil himself if I could stay here forever.”

He lowers his hand to where we are joined, and I tremble. Tremble in the throes of my climax. Tremble from the domineering intimacy of his touch. Tremble from his words mastering me.

“You don’t belong in hell, Jack.”

He pauses at my throat, his breath so heavy and heated. In one crushing, burning kiss, he obliterates the world until all that exists is us.

“Then, take me to heaven with you, my angel.”

He thrusts again. Kissing me deeper. Fucking me deepest. I spread my hips and receive him, softening every edge, every shard, every last piece of myself that existed before. It’s all gone. Because there could never be a me without Jackson Elias Moore. My Headless Horseman.

Bodies pressed against one another, I squeeze my legs around him more, rolling my hips until we find our rhythm. Steady and slow but so powerful. The strength he gives me threatens to overthrow my weak heart. My soaked flesh smolders. I gasp into his mouth, breaths quickening.

And then, Jack grips my chin and purrs, “Breathe, my Belle.”

He touches his other hand to my chest, to my hammering heartbeat.

“Breathe for me, my beautiful summoner.”

Anytime my gasps start to shred, he taps my chest again, steadying me, calming me.

I set him as a seal on my heart and emblazon it into my spirit.

You bear magic within your soul, Belle, I remember his words.

With him still seated in me, rocking slow but deep and hard like the distant rhythm of thunder, I keep one hand on his face and capture the one at my chest.

“Jackson Elias Moore, if I bear magic within my soul, know that it has waited all my life…for you. You hold the magic in my soul.”

He throbs, and I hiss as he impossibly thickens inside me. I squeeze his hand. For the first time, I touch my lips to his cheek, reveling in the muscle ticking in his jaw.

“My Jack, my heart may beat weakly, but it is yours to have and hold…forever. If love and hope are eternal, then no spell, no force in this world could ever separate me from you.”

I kiss his other cheek. He goes utterly still as I breathe across his beautifully masculine face. The bond between us is raw but deep and timeless.

I may be bound to one curse, but I am an utter and willing slave to the spell you have placed upon me.

“If you are under my spell, then I am under yours, my Headless Horseman. I never wish to be parted from you. So, it appears we are stuck together…in every sense of the word!”

A warm ripple purls through me at the literal definition of our current place, but I don’t laugh. Because…

Silence.

His breaths are heavier. All his muscles have bulged with undeniable, unspeakable tension. Oh, god, did I break him or something? I thread our fingers together, whisper his name, and brush my lips against his. He throbs again. I whimper.

“Belladonna Holloway.”

I rise. Suspended in this moment. His face inches from mine. So dark, he is barely a silhouette. Like a phantom making love to me in the night.

“I’m here, Jack. I’ll always be here,”

I say softly, echoing not just his words from the beginning of our fucking and lovemaking but from the beginning when I held him as he grieved for his family.

Grief and love make such a beautiful couple. A mourner and a bride. The tragic romance kindles every manner of deep emotion, and I want to live inside it, live inside Jack.

“Belladonna. Claire. Holloway.”

His grip on me hardens. And then, his hand is coiling around my neck as he takes my mouth, lips crushing and forcing and fucking.

“Something is wrong,”

he growls, kissing me again, hammering into me, ruining me for all others. I can’t contrive a single reason why anything is wrong when he’s ripping a firestorm right through me.

He is thunder. I am the shooting star dancing to his beat.

He is black, punishing leather. I am the soft, pale hand slipping into his, prepared for the punishment.

He is a dark and weathered coat. I am a light and lacy corset ready for him to unravel.

He is the sharpness of a double-edged sword. I am the delicate crystal shimmering with light and manifesting beauty and energy.

He is the Phantom mask. I am…

…I am…the bridal veil he lifts to unveil my face while his true one is lost to me.

How did I end up on my back with his strong hands holding my wrists above my head while he grinds and drives his member so deep in me, it triggers another climax!

I’m swept away, forever longing for his face.

He is something else at this moment. He is the highwayman, the power and the force punishing those who committed the worst crimes of humanity. He unleashes it all into me, pouring all his depravity, all his darkness and demons, and every beautifully broken piece of himself. And I, his demanding vessel.

If I can love without a heart, without a head…Three deep thrusts. He rocks my entire body.

—then let it be said that I loved you, Belladonna Holloway…Two great thrusts. He rattles my heart from its cage, claiming it for his own.

—with all that I am. My long-lost heart. One mighty thrust. Jackson Elias Moore, my Headless Horseman, sweeps in to steal my very soul.

And my soul.

He looks me in the eye. I feel his gaze on me. A man starved. A man thirsting. A highwayman. A thief. A vigilante. A lover. A husband and father. A warrior. I feel him everywhere.

He ejects, his crown poised at my entrance.

“Jack?”

I whisper.

“My Belle.”

I hold my breath, and my heart stops.

“Belladonna Claire Moore.”

“Jack! Jack, did you?—”

He slams inside me.

Yes, a thousand times, yes! I bless every bit of the burning pain as he ravishes me, ravages me, until he haunts me everywhere with his kiss just as he’d vowed.

All night long, he feasts and worships until I know what it feels like to be an angel, a goddess, and a woman.

And I know that every star-crossed lover, every hopeful spirit, and every magical element in the world…shivers from our love.