Page 20 of Hunted by the Headless Horseman (Roars and Romances #5)

JACK

It’s an hour till dawn.

I’ve given Belle brief respites to keep her hydrated, but aside from this, I’ve lived up to my vow.

I still require her to be naked for me, sitting on my lap as I tip the glass to her mouth before reclaiming those swollen, pouty lips.

I cannot be separated from her. She cannot be parted from me. Such a bond transcends the flesh. She is not simply locked inside me. She is a part of my essence, an unstoppable force, carved into my spirit like ancient runes of fate. Woven into my very bone marrow, she is the blood in my veins, the whisper in my mind, and the alchemy of my being.

My cock knows it most. Bloody devil dick won’t go down. She’s broken me. Irreparably. I am enjoying every moment of returning the favor. With Belle, my stamina is endless, the fire in me unquenchable. My addiction and my freedom.

“Jack,”

she murmurs once she finishes the water. Her soft breasts press against my chest from where I’ve draped her across my lap. I tip her jaw back, savoring her whimper as I drag my lips along the porcelain skin I’ve already marked.

“I’m covered in?—”

“You’re covered in me,”

I growl, pick her up, and set her on the vintage butcher block counter…then drive myself inside her sweet, supple flesh, beyond slick for me. She lurches, gasping, then moaning from desire.

“It will stay that way for as long as I choose, Belle.”

She is my beloved bookworm and my wild woman. Beautiful thick curls rendered to a mess of waves, her skin salted by our sweat and my seed, seed she was more than happy to lap up or drink her fill of.

Capturing her lips again, I decorate the inside of her fatigued mouth with my tongue. Her whimpers and soft cries of want only get me harder, stronger.

Nothing short of a beast off his collar has been unleashed within me. The hunger refuses to be satiated. My need for her won’t fade. Every inch of her pleads to be kissed, tongued, and bitten, marked by her hunter. Mine alone to hunt.

I fuck her on the staircase next. Earlier, I’d taken her while sitting in my antique wingback chair, rocking her up and down until I’d filled her with my release and triggered hers.

Her fingers explore my back, caressing my spine, triggering my muscles to clench and fuck her harder. For most of the night, she’s touched my face. As long as she cannot see me, the magic will hold. The diviner was adamant. Whatever summoner would come, she must not be given this sight. The love must be pure and blind, for the deepest bonds are forged in the darkness of our hearts, where sight holds no power. The souls must meet, untainted by the weight of flesh, the superficiality of sight.

I save the bed for last. More hot blood pumps to my cock as I lay her trembling body on the surface. And as much as it kills me, I leave her heated chamber.

“Mmm, what are you?—”

I stop her mouth with one burning kiss, a warning not to question me.

With my staff thickening by the second as I consider what I’m about to do to finish the night, I rush to draw the curtains and extinguish all but one candle. After positioning it in such a way that silhouettes me but casts a heady glow upon her bare skin, I don my gloves. I’d set the scene before the beginning of our coupling, fully intending to save this room for last.

Her eyes grow wider as I collect the first significant item in the top dresser drawer. The tender weight of the ropes encompasses my gloves, familiar and thrilling. Despite how I do not need to chase Belle like a madman possessed as I did my wild wife, no less adrenaline courses through me. No less desire pulses in my blood. No less demand to make her mine in every way a man can for his woman.

“You are breathtaking, Belle,”

I speak the words over her, gliding the back of one gloved hand along the side of her body.

Her breaths quicken, but when I deepen my voice to a dark and seductive command, “Give me your wrists,”

she does not protest. No words or body language to convey anything but utter surrender. Such surrender and submission. She wrecks me. More heat surges to my shaft at her undying trust in me. I will cherish this gift of vulnerability.

I wrap the soft, sturdy rope around her wrists, ensuring it is snug but never too tight, the fibers gently kissing her skin. Each loop is deliberate, a dance of connection, and I find solace in the rhythm of our shared breath.

I still test her. One sharp thrust of her arms above her head where I bind those wrists to the frame. Like the warning signs before the storm I intend to unleash upon her.

I imagine each cord of rope is an invisible tether to my heartstrings. Ones only she may unravel or bind stronger.

“You radiate beauty from your skin to your soul,”

I say darkly, intimately, appreciating her gasp when I grip her ankles and spread-eagle her, coiling the rope sensually around her ankles.

Tension grows with every shallow breath she takes. A deeper connection forms as I finish binding her, a tangible reminder of our shared desires.

I rub my mouth along the marks I have already wrought on her skin. Her hands flex, and I know how much she longs to touch me.

I’ve eaten her out so many times tonight, drinking my fill of the warm elixir of her sex, her pussy. But I’m drunk on her, hopelessly and eternally addicted. This time, I go deeper, angling my head and stabbing my tongue into the core of her womanhood. She rolls her hips, my good girl, but I control her pleasure.

She is sweet as the cinnamon tea I gave her an hour ago. I kiss her cunt, mouth diving as deep between her heavenly labia as I edge one finger inside her, nudging my tongue. Those hands tighten on my strands, fisting with her need.

“Jackson Elias Moore, bloody pumpkins, stop tortur?—”

I give each thigh a strong slap, chuckling darkly.

Finally, I tie a blindfold around her eyes. It’s the first time she snaps her teeth at me. A weak snap. Too adorable to be an attack. But her feminine snarl is more adorable.

She opens her mouth, but I softly slap her breasts from one swell to the next, loving how they knock against one another. She blushes deeper, and I cock my head at the little whimper that leaves her throat. Any words have perished on her lips as she arches her back and softly thrusts out her chest.

Leaning in, I suckle the swell of one breast, watching every response, testing, testing, testing. Another soft strike, but I follow with kneading the mound and giving the bud a proper pinch. I trace my tongue around her areola and flick her nipple with the tip. Longing moans. Sweet whimpers.

It seems as though I’ve discovered one of her many kinks, a stronger one. Her nipples are a deep pink, taut, with the faint imprint of my teeth marks around the areola.

The fool of her former husband, who must have mistreated such beauty, deserves to be castrated. And hung on a proper gallows for her to watch his bleeding body swinging in the wind. The last thing his eyes would see is how a real man can pleasure this woman and fuck her until she screams her euphoria.

I return to the heaven between her thighs. Kissing, suckling, drinking, and eating my fill of her. She trembles beneath my mouth, her gasps and cries a symphony that will play in my mind once my head is gone. It’s taking all I have not to rut her like a starved beast.

“Jack, please…don’t stop!”

She releases a shrill but oh-so-pretty screech, her inner muscles squeezing around the two fingers I’ve slid to the knuckle. Thunderation, she’s so wet, her inner flesh soaked to the core with molten cream. I circle her plump clit with my tongue, then flick it back and forth.

Her inner muscles start to flutter. I retrieve my fingers and pinch her pearl.

“Not yet, beloved Belle.”

“Jack fucking Moore!”

She tries to buck, and I laugh at her writhing, greedy body.

“Fuck you, you Jackanapes!”

she spits out.

“Someone has been doing more ‘19th-century insults’ research.”

I rub one leather-clad finger along those wet petals. I fully intend to see her flesh in the full light of dawn before my head disappears.

“I need?—”

“I know what my woman needs,”

I tell her sternly, scolding her and smirking at how she sinks back into the sheets. Yes, there is my good girl responding to the command of her master.

“Yes, Sir,”

she says, softening, trusting, knowing I am the only one who can give her the rapture she seeks—and the delicious sin dredged right from the lustful pits of hell.

After retrieving my crop, I take a moment to admire her. Her body silhouetted against the soft bedding, the ropes framing her like a work of art. For these moments, I let in her past…and mine. Rage and fury and bloodshed for the man who abused such a woman, so exquisite in her authenticity. Aged grief from all I have lost and the pain of broken legs and heavy limbs as I tucked three bodies into their eternal beds in the earth.

I let it all in.

Belle shifts her head to the left where I stand, aware of my body heat, our breaths synchronized. Every muscle in my body bulges with unquenchable fire. Not being inside her is torture, but it’s a necessary torture.

“Tell me, Belladonna,”

I say, my voice darker, offering the control. It lies within her command.

“Beg me now. Or I will untether you and make love to you as the gentleman before the dawn’s light. Who do you want? The gentleman or the highwayman?”

She purses her lips. My soul hangs a thread above them. Please don’t say the gentleman, my Belle, I plead silently, distantly, but giving her the ultimate authority as my lover, my lady, my queen.

Her breath hitches. She parts her lips.

“Take everything, Jack. And give me all of you. Give me everything.”

Thank all fucking gods, angels, and demons!

There is precious little time before dawn. But I still drag the end of the crop along her belly, memorizing every curve and every contour. It’s unfathomable that I am here. My need to mark her is stronger than ever. When my head is gone, I will touch her, tracing every delicious mark of my possession. They will confirm this is not simply a dream. She is not a dream.

They will make it raw. And real. This must be real. She must be real.

I stroke the crop along the curvature of her throat. I give her no warning. The moment she begins to arch, I bring the crop down, landing an even strike upon the soft upper flesh of her right breast. She hisses, then arches her back, her desire on full display before her whole body softens against the sheets.

Fuck!—this woman was made for me. Her utter trust surges more blood to my cock along with the sight of her pink, swollen quim.

I reward her with a strong suckle upon her breast and a tracing of my tongue along her lips.

Strike!

Belle leans her head slightly to the origin of my last strike. She’s searching for me. No, she’s hunting me, as blind to me as I was when she uttered the blood summons. By thunder!

Grinding my hand around the crop handle and cracking the leather of my glove, I lift the crop high—she shivers—and masterfully land a sharp lashing on her left tit. A gasp leaves her mouth.

I love her responses, how she rocks her hips, straining with the ropes, then softening and settling. Like watching a flower open its soft petals and submit to the punishing pleasure.

I give her that punishment…rain down blow after blow upon her, careful not to break the skin or swell the flesh too much, I slap her stomach, slam the crop upon her thighs, and strike her breasts until the buds are hard and red as rubies.

Belladonna Holloway wears my marks with such beauty and honor. She breathes through the pain or keens from it, relaxes all her muscles, and performs again like the beating of a heart. Her heart. My…

I swing the flogger, slapping it against her nether folds. The feminine scream she unleashes gets me harder. My cock is throbbing with my control, my balls begging to explode in her. My blood burns.

Another strike upon her most sensitive nerves. Tears stream down her cheeks.

“Jack!”

Her whisper is a prayer. “Sir!”

I throw the crop and undo the rope hold on her wrists. I sink my fingers into the soft, plump flesh of her thighs and lick her one last time. Her screams of bliss and tender hands tangling in my hair nearly have me losing control. I have but a thread of control left. So sweet. Sweet torture as I breathe in her scent and taste her one last time.

The hope of times to come.

Sweat coats her skin with a shimmery sheen as the gray light of pre-dawn creeps through the slit in the curtains.

I rip the very curtains down!

Returning to Belle, I grip her hair, claim her mouth, and spear my tongue inside, taking what is mine. Her swollen lips yield to my every gesture, kissing me with desperation between her erratic breaths—because all this will soon disappear.

Mouth sealed to hers, I line up my crown with her entrance and slam my staff hard. A deep and brutal thrust that sends tremors down her legs. Convulsions erupt inside her pussy. Good God almighty!—her sex sucks me in deeper, tightening. The hot pressure shreds my last nerve.

I fuck her through our conjoined release and beyond. I fuck her to the next quake following the last until her screams must reach the ears of every ghost in the mountains. I tilt my jaw, holding her here, holding onto her taste, the touch of her tongue, the plumping of her supple, pouty lips.

I fuck her raw. I fuck her real.

I let it die. I let it all die as I rise stronger, no longer shackled to the chains of my past. I bound her. She freed me. What more perfect power exchange could exist?

Her nails rake down my back, hard. My summoner is making her own marks now, holding me here in only the beautiful way Belladonna Moore could. Damn any reservations to bloody hell. She is mine.

A deep growl of protection, possession, and ownership. I’ve done more than claim her. I’ve driven the stake so deep into the goddamn ground that no other man may claim it. No other man will. I’ll fucking destroy them.

“I love you, Jack.”

When she shatters before me and all around me, screaming my name from the pleasure spiral, a golden beam of sunlight splinters through the window, illuminating her form for a blessed few seconds. The sheer perfection of her body, marked by her lord and master. The hot, wet grip of her pussy and the inflamed, rosy flesh stretched around my staff.

For a few blessed seconds, nature grants me the vision of my Belle in the throes of her elation. Unmatched by any other, this vision is the most breathtaking.

I slam balls deep inside her, shooting my seed into her, marrying us in spirit.

This truth is engraved into my very soul: I love her. Fiercely. Viciously. Monstrously. For the curse renders me a monster, a horrid, headless beast.

And this beauty is my summoner, my savior. She is the huntress of my heart. May all the spirits gift her with the fate to find it.

Transformed, rebirthed with her—my touchstone, the center of my existence—I take her in my arms. And though my head is gone with the morning light, I have never felt more whole.