The Cursed Hollow (Return to Sleepy Hollow Book 1)

by Candace Wondrak

  Neither of us moved for the longest while. I didn’t know where to look. When one didn’t have a head, where the fuck did you look? Definitely rude to gaze steadily anywhere below his waistline, but it just felt weird staring at his chest, at the black, ancient uniform clinging to his body.

  My chest felt funny, almost like I could feel him staring at me—which was ten different kinds of stupid, considering he didn’t have a head. “No,” I said again, this time less confident, more unsure. I was unsure mostly because I couldn’t get over how solid he felt beneath my hand. More muscular than Bones, definitely. Like a mountain shaped into a man.

  Was it wrong to be sexually attracted to a body without a head?

  “He’s with me,” I said, my voice nothing but a squeak. “You won’t hurt him.”

  Behind me, Bones was busy muttering a string of colorful swearwords I didn’t know he was capable of. The Horseman’s ax faded away, and under my hand, his chest rose and fell with a single large breath.

  Charged. My body felt charged, electricity zipping through my palm and up my arm. I was near motionless as the Horseman sluggishly reached for the hand on his lower chest, setting his own gloved one right on top. Didn’t try to move me, didn’t pull away. Just stood there, with his hand above mine, as if he accepted it.

  “Thank you,” I whispered. The energy coursing around the Horseman had long since faded; the man was calm and I…I was so confused. Confused, bewildered, flabbergasted. All that good stuff.

  What was going on here? This man, this spirit, was making me feel such strange, inexplicable things. Emotions I couldn’t describe. I’d never felt like this before, had I? It was hard for me to say. Hard, just like the fucking chest I still touched.

  “Kat,” Bones broke into my confused reverie, drawing me back to reality. This wasn’t a twisted love story between a girl and her headless boyfriend. This was a ghost story—er, a spirit story—and people were dead. Nobody else was going to die, not if I could help it, and if that involved using the Headless Horseman like a pawn in a chess game, so be it.

  Sorry, buddy.

  I slowly pulled my hand away from the Headless Horseman, feeling a strange coldness where I’d held my palm against him. Turning to Bones, I said, “Let’s go inside. There’s a lot we have to talk about.”

  Through the milky white haze of this otherworld, with the Headless Horseman looming behind me, what else could Bones say but “Okay”?

  Bones was the first to head into the house, and I went to follow him, but I paused near the door, turning to look back at the Headless Horseman. He stood motionless at the base of the stairs, his wide frame heaving with a breath it was impossible for him to take. Hell, it should’ve been impossible for him to stand there, headless, but here we were.

  A part of me felt guilty for leaving him out there, but it wasn’t like I could invite him inside. I was ninety percent sure that even in the otherworld, Crane’s house was off-limits to spirits. No, he’d have to stay out there. Plus, I had a feeling his presence would only further confuse Bones.

  And me. It would confuse me too. It wasn’t too long ago I was running from him, terrified that he’d use that ax to end my life. Things progressed rapidly in Sleepy Hollow.

  I went inside the house, immediately stopping. The door swung shut inches behind me, and I stood staring at Bones, who gave me the strangest look he’d ever given me in his life. All those summers we’d spent together, all those carefree days when we had nothing but ice cream on our minds, and not once had he ever stared at me like I’d suddenly sprouted a second talking head, a head that just insulted both him and his mother.

  “What?” I asked, feeling my heart speed up for a totally stupid reason. Like I was just caught by my boyfriend ogling another guy. Which A) Bones was so not my boyfriend, and B) the Headless Horseman was not boyfriend material. Even if he wasn’t an ax-wielding spirit with a thing for murder, he’s headless. Sorry, call me shallow, but I’d prefer it if my significant others had heads. Tongues were kind of necessary for, uh, certain things.

  “What?” Bones echoed. He rose a hand, gesturing toward the door, toward outside, at the Headless Horseman. “What the hell do you mean, what? That was…I mean, am I going crazy? This is all real?”

  “You’re not going crazy,” I told him. “This is all real. We’re in the otherworld right now, which is why Crane’s not here and the Headless Horseman is. Crane wanted to be the one to come with you, but I knew the Horseman would listen to me—”

  “This is nuts,” Bones whispered, his blue gaze heavy on me. It was clear he wasn’t thrilled to find out this was, in fact, real and not made up. I knew the feeling; if I would’ve known as I was growing up that this shit was real, I wouldn’t have believed my dad to be the town loony.

  I slowly reached for his hand, entwining my fingers with his. Bones did not pull away. He only stared at me as I led us back into the living room and sat us on one of the couches, the one right in front of the giant window. The Headless Horseman stood outside; if he had a head, I’d say he was staring at us, but it was hard to tell, even harder to know what, if anything, he was able to see. I mean, his chest breathed and he knew where I was, so obviously he had to see somehow, right?

  It was confusing, but also not the time to worry about it. It was time to explain everything to Bones—and I meant everything.

  I started at the beginning, or at least the beginning of what I learned. I was sure there was still stuff I didn’t know since I walked into this whole thing years late, but I did my best to relay everything Crane told me. How he and my dad worked together, how they were trying to do a bunch of different things, as crazy scientists often did, like close the veil and see the spirits in the otherworld, along with other things I couldn’t remember. How Crane thought that maybe a spirit had hurt my dad, all to bring me here, because I was the fucking reincarnation of Katrina Van Tassel.

  Anything and everything I could tell him, I did—and I did it fast, because I had no idea how much longer we had here together.

  Bones took it like a champ, only giving me a stupid, open-mouthed look twice, and both those times were when I was explaining everything about the Headless Horseman, how he was following me, protecting me from other spirits…how he wanted me to help him find his head.

  “You’re saying that thing out there is who killed Mike Reese?” Bones asked, turning his head to glance outside. Our fingers were still intertwined; neither of us had pulled away once we sat down. It was easy to forget we were touching, almost like it was the most natural thing in the world, as if this was how things should be.

  I nodded once. “But Mike was possessed—”

  “So in a twisted, murderous way, he was saving you,” Bones muttered, eventually drawing his blue gaze to me. He trusted me, but distrust for the Horseman lingered. “The spirits want you to…open the veil, which is what separates this place from the real world, and the Headless Horseman wants to protect you so you can help him find his head.”

  Yes, yes, he was getting it. Bones caught on faster than I did, when Crane was telling me all this stuff.

  “You’re not going to help him, are you?” Bones asked, his fingers tightening around mine. “He’s a killer. If you help him, there’s no telling what he’ll do.”

  “He listened to me,” I said, as if that explained it all. It didn’t, and I knew there was no excuse for murder. Even if Mike was possessed, he was still a person. A living, breathing person that the Horseman had snuffed out.

  Bones shook his head once. “And he’ll probably stop listening to you once you help him. Kat.” He paused, reaching for me with his other hand, swiping some of my auburn hair behind my ear, his fingertips lightly grazing my cheek, sending heat flooding through me. Our bodies slowly angled toward each other, and my lungs filled with a deep breath. I held it in as Bones continued, “I know you probably think you need him, but you don’t. You have me, and Crane.”

  I held in a chuckle when he mentioned Crane. The blue
ness in his eyes darkened a bit; it was more than obvious to anyone who could read social cues that he only brought up Crane’s name begrudgingly.

  “Whatever this is, whatever’s going on, we’ll figure it out.” The hand that had tucked some hair behind my ear fell to my shoulder, running down my arm. “I won’t let anything hurt you. If a spirit wants to get to you, they’ll have to go through me, first.”

  It was a chivalrous offer, but one I didn’t want to take him up on. I knew Bones would gladly put himself in harm’s way for me, but that didn’t mean I wanted him to. No, I refused to let anyone else die in Sleepy Hollow because of me. This puzzle, this confusing thing, would not result in any more deaths, I would see to it.

  “Bones,” I whispered his name. It’d been his name since we were children, a stupid nickname at first because he hated his birthname. As a kid with the first name of Brom, I couldn’t blame him. I’d hate that name, too. Bones was so much cooler, and even though I had a crush on him growing up, I never quite knew just how amazing this man was until now. Until I was forced to come back and realize that even though I hated Sleepy Hollow and its myths and legends, I was as connected to the town as anyone could possibly be.

  I was Kat Aleson, but I was also Katrina Van Tassel. This was my story, my strange tale…and you know what? I was going to become the writer. This story would go how I wanted it to go—and right now there was nothing else on my mind but the man beside me and the feeling of his warm, strong hand entwined with mine.

  “I won’t let you die for me,” I added, meeting his gaze, which suddenly seemed much closer than it had been a few moments ago. Was Bones leaning in, or was I? Didn’t matter much either way, because with the rate my heart beat inside my chest, I knew I wasn’t going to pull away. This, Bones, it’d all been such a long time coming, and I was tired of denying it.

  Plus, he and I needed to continue what we were doing that night in the cemetery, right? This time the Headless Horseman wouldn’t interrupt us. No stray spirits could break into the house we were in. It was just me and Bones.

  Just as it should be, a part of me chimed in, but I fought that part from taking over. Doing anything with Bones right now didn’t mean I was choosing him; it simply meant I wanted him. Honestly, what straight woman wouldn’t? He was thick and muscular, yet his hands carried a gentleness you wouldn’t expect. This wasn’t because we were our namesakes.

  What we were about to do had nothing to do with history. We would make our own.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Our noses were the first thing to touch, then our foreheads, and lastly our lips. It was a slow kiss, at first. Tentative in ways it shouldn’t be, probably because I was worried how much time Bones had left here, but then we threw our caution to the wind.

  Then it was all hungry mouths, ravenous hands, needing to touch, needing to grasp each other, needing so much more. More, more, more. Never sated, never enough. When Bones’s tongue found its way into my mouth, pleasure warmed my core. He leaned us down, laying us on the couch, my back on the cushions and him above me, his strong legs pinning mine down. Hah, as if I was going anywhere. As if anything could stop us this time.

  His fingers tugged at my hair while I ran my hands down his sides, then up his abdomen, touching his muscles beneath his shirt. Bones moaned into my mouth, grinding his hips down on me, revealing the erection that had sprouted up in the last few moments. He wanted me just as badly as I wanted him, and the thought made me even hungrier.

  Bones’s lips left mine, my mouth feeling the loss immediately. I was already panting, my chest rising and falling with each ragged breath. Bones was in much the same condition, but he had enough mind to ask, “Can we—”

  I knew what he was going to say, because it was more than obvious what was on his mind. It was on my mind, too. Can we have sex while our consciousness was in the otherworld? Who knew—but there was no harm in trying to find out, was there? Besides, it didn’t seem like he was having issues getting it up, so I could only imagine how wet I was underneath the hood.

  “I don’t know,” I said, “but I don’t want to stop.” My voice came out fluttery and light; I hardly sounded like myself.

  Bones’s wide chest let out a grumble of agreement, and before I knew it, he was working at my pants, undoing the button and the zipper before sliding a few fingers along my most private part to gauge my readiness. When he touched me there, I could feel the slickness. I was practically dripping wet; it would be impossible to be any readier than this.

  His hand withdrew from me, and he tugged everything below the waist down on me, past my knees. After, he worked on himself, freeing his cock. Were we really about to have sex in the otherworld, with the Headless Horseman just outside?

  Yes, yes we so fucking were.

  When the tip of his cock pressed against my entrance, I bit my bottom lip, locking eyes with him. For some stupid reason, this momentous. The connection I had with him, my childhood crush, everything was at a peak now. Whatever would happen after this didn’t matter. I wanted to live in the now. I wanted to feel that thick dick inside me, and I wanted to hear Bones’s moans in my ear when he came.

  Bones pushed his hips against me, driving himself deep into my core, lighting me up in ways I never knew possible. I felt full, as if my whole body could feel his dick. When he began to thrust, I inhaled, arching my back to allow him to drive into me deeper. As deep as he could go without breaking me.

  Hell, even if he wanted to break me, I wouldn’t mind. This was like heaven. Heaven on earth—er, heaven in the otherworld? Whatever.

  Bones tried to kiss me as he thrust into me, but he was lost in his own pleasure. I didn’t mind, because I was focusing on the feeling of his dick, too. Like it was made for me. My dick. Everything about him was mine. I claimed him. I wasn’t going to share him. Call me selfish, but I wanted both Crane and Bones. This was the twenty-first century; a woman didn’t have to pick, did she?

  I mean…why choose?

  The sounds of my wetness filled the air, mingling with Bones’s grunting and my gasps as his thrusting grew harder. Our eyes locked, and I could see the hunger in his gaze, the way he wanted to eat me up, have me again and again and it would still never be enough. I hoped I gave off the same look, hoped he knew that I was a liar if I said this didn’t mean anything.

  Yes, I was a horny bitch, but I was only a horny bitch for him. And Crane, but Crane wasn’t here. It was just me and Bones.

  My fingers tangled in his blonde hair, tugging it gently, exposing his neck to me. I brought my lips to his neck, kissing him, sucking on him, feeling his shoulders start to shudder. He liked the neck kissing, apparently. I ran my tongue up to his jawline, and was just about to give him a deep, earth-shattering kiss when, just like that, he was gone.

  Bones was gone, his dick too. I was suddenly alone on the couch with my aching vagina and my pants and panties tugged down to my ankles.

  I threw my head back on the cushion, letting out an annoyed, frustrated sound. All I wanted to do was fuck Bones. Was that too much to ask? For the whole Sleepy Hollow thing, the whole doppelganger bit, it felt oddly impossible to do it, like every outside force wanted to give me lady blue balls.

  Ugh.

  Well, I was probably going to be stuck here for a while longer by myself, so I had time to take care of myself. My fingers were not as good as someone else’s—or a mouth, or a dick, for that matter—but they would do just fine.

  I brought a hand between my legs, feeling my own wetness. I brought some of it from my entrance up to my clit and started stroking away. My eyes closed, and I pictured Bones on top of me, pounding away with wild abandon, as if we’d never stopped. I imagined his moaning, the feeling of his wide, strong body above mine, how his dick filled me up perfectly, right to the brim of what I could handle.

  My skin flushed, growing hot. My breathing grew rapid, and my hand’s pace picked up. Toes clenching, I worked at the eager nub at my apex until I felt the pleasure building inside o
f me, until the ball of heat released and flooded every part of me, like electricity tingling my every muscle. I let out a cry when I came, wishing Bones was here to hear me.

  Hands were fun, don’t get me wrong, but the real thing was so much better.

  Sighing to myself, I rested my arms above my head on the couch, laying there with my midsection exposed for a while. Had to give my body some time to calm down, didn’t I? I smiled to myself as I wondered if Crane had seen an erection start to grow on Bones’s unconscious body. That was a telltale sign if there ever was one. Kind of awkward, but also kind of hilarious.

  At least my turned-on body was easy to hide, unless Crane was touching me while unconscious, which I didn’t think he was. With how he acted, I was pretty sure the man grew awkward while even thinking of doing something inappropriate…until the clothes were off, then he became somewhat of an alpha.

  I let out another explosive sigh as I sat up and tugged my pants and everything back up. I swung my legs off the couch, looking around. I supposed I could snoop, but my peripherals spotted the Horseman still standing outside, having not moved a single muscle in all that time. Well, other than his expansive chest that could hold the entire freaking continent of Russia.

  I got to my feet, pausing when I still felt a little tingly between the legs, waiting for the feeling to pass before I headed back outside. The demonic horse stood ten feet away on the driveway, its hooves pawing at the ground. I ignored its red, fiery eyes as I moved before the Horseman, whose feet nearly touched the bottom step of the marble stairs.

  His chest rose and fell steadily, breathing breaths he should have no right to take. The laws of nature must not affect him in the same way they affected everyone else. He was above them, in his own terrifying league.

  And yet…here, now, I wasn’t afraid. Maybe I’d grown bold since he listened to me, since he stopped from hurting Bones. Or, hell, maybe simply seeing him so often was making him less intimidating and frightening. Then again, perhaps I’d just become numb to it, to him. Sleepy Hollow was morphing me, twisting what I thought was right and wrong.