by Ranae Rose
John half expected Brom to snort in derision, but he was silent, dark eyes fixed on the cross. “Remind me to thank young Joshua next time I see him, will you?”
John nodded mutely, his thoughts reduced to a sort of muddled wonderment by the apparent fact that a boy’s little wooden crucifix had preserved him from a hellish death.
Brom took the cross again, holding it in the palm of his hand. “To think that this is all that stood between you and that thing…” He let it drop and reached out to touch John instead, letting his fingers trail over the vertebrae at the back of his neck, beneath his hair. A shiver ran down John’s spine as Brom’s fingers traveled slowly over each bone, one-by-one.
“It is rather incredible, isn’t it?”
Brom cupped the back of John’s skull and pulled him close, so that their lips brushed. Brom’s breath smelled pleasantly of the pie they’d had before leaving, and the thoroughly ordinary scent made the night’s ghastly events seem far away. John pressed his lips against Brom’s, abandoning himself to the familiar feel of the other man’s mouth.
The kiss ended sooner than John had expected, and Brom drew him close, holding him as tightly as John had held Katrina when they’d been mounted on their panicking horse, trapped by the horseman’s unearthly fog. They were safe in bed; there was nowhere John could have fallen, but he remained still in Brom’s arms anyway, and the ice in his veins slowly melted. After several long minutes, he felt human again. The rekindled awareness of his humanity gripped him in a visceral way, causing his body to tingle with fierce energy and sudden desires. He pressed his mouth hard against Brom’s, demanding that he respond, that he move.
Brom slipped his tongue past John’s lips and leaned against him, pushing him down onto the mattress and settling on top of him. The heat of his muscles set fire to John’s heightened senses and quelled the very last of the shivers he’d been fighting since the incident on the road. He parted his lips, welcoming Brom’s tongue deep into his mouth. Brom’s body was so warm compared to his own that it seemed the heat would consume him. As Brom laid a hand on John’s bare hip, John’s cock came back to life for the first time since they’d touched on the trail. As it grew hard against his belly, Brom reached between their bodies and gripped it, wrapping his fingers snugly around the shaft.
John shuddered, though not from cold. The chill had truly left him, leaving a desire so strong that it burnt, smoldering in the pit of his belly and causing his cock to throb in Brom’s hand. Brom stroked him, pushing his hand to the base of his cock in one sure movement, then back up, only to repeat the motion. John closed his eyes and became lost in the sensation, in the immediate surge of longing for instant gratification and the more prudent desire to hold back, to ride the almost-ecstasy for as long as possible because it left him powerless to think about anything else. It was a delightfully torturous ebb and flow, but he couldn’t hold out forever.
Brom stopped just in time to keep John from coming, relinquishing his hold on John’s cock and finally ending their kiss.
John wrapped his hand around Brom’s shaft, running his thumb over the smooth tip as he met Brom’s eyes. Dark as they were, they gleamed nonetheless, even in the dull moonlight. Brom’s cock was hard as a rock, and he flexed his hips, forcing it deeper into John’s hand so that his knuckles met the wiry hair at its base. “Why did you stop?” John’s erection was throbbing in protest, his balls tight and aching below. He thrust his hand down Brom’s shaft again, giving him the same attention he craved for himself.
“This may be the only time I’ll ever have you here for the night. I intend to make this last until dawn.” He reached between John’s legs and cupped his balls, making him moan.
“That’s quite an ambition,” John gasped, his cock throbbing harder at the thought of it.
“It’s not such a farfetched idea – the night is halfway gone.” He continued to fondle John’s balls, reaching below to let his fingertips skim the lower curves of his ass, then between them, touching John where he still ached from the night before, when they’d fucked in an empty stall in the Jansens’ barn, as had become their habit after each patrol.
John’s insides clenched in memory, and he tightened his grip on Brom’s cock, so thick and rigid, unforgivingly hard. God, the thought of it pushing inside him, of Brom claiming him with every inch of it, was almost enough to make him come. If Brom really intended to go the whole night, John would doubtlessly be milked dry and left half-dead with exhaustion by the end of it. It wasn’t an unappealing thought – he craved such absolute release, and the fatigue it would bring, strong enough to let him sleep without feeling the cold death-grip of a phantom’s hand around his neck.
“Perhaps if you’d stop tempting death, I wouldn’t need to have you so often,” Brom said, rising from the bed and retrieving a vial of oil from a nearby drawer, moistening his erection from tip to root. “I get this horrible feeling that each time I do may be the last, and so I never want to stop. The fear of losing you makes me want all of you, all the time.”
When Brom was done, his erection gleamed faintly in the dull moonlight. John admired it for a moment, then Brom descended on him, supporting himself with his elbows on the mattress by John’s shoulders. Their hips met and their cocks touched, gliding easily against one another, thanks to the fact that Brom’s was slippery. John arched against the bed, relishing the ball-tightening sensation of Brom’s shaft against his. God, but the man was hard.
“It wasn’t intentional,” he finally replied. “What happened tonight, I mean.”
“No,” Brom said, “but that doesn’t change a thing about the way I feel. Until dawn. I mean it.” He gripped his cock and angled it against John’s entrance, flexing his hips just enough to press the head inside. John sucked in a breath, overcome by the dual pleasure and pain of being entered, of becoming one with Brom. Slowly, Brom pushed into him, burying himself to the root.
“My God…” John breathed, frozen beneath his lover, overwhelmed by burning pain and lust alike.
Brom flexed his hips a little more, going deeper as he lowered his head and took John’s mouth, kissing him fiercely.
John gasped, and Brom took advantage of his parted lips, shoving his tongue inside and exploring the deep hollow of John’s mouth, swallowing his involuntary moan. After a few panting, muffled gasps, John caught up and stroked Brom’s tongue with his, shoving back, eager to taste more of him. Meanwhile, Brom flexed his hips below, claiming John with another deep thrust.
The immediate, all-consuming pleasure of it was ecstasy. John writhed, and Brom shifted deep inside him, applying exquisite pressure to just the right spot. It wouldn’t be much longer – John could scarcely take much more of it. He was teetering on the brink of climax when Brom reached between their bodies and grasped his erection, sending him over the edge. Liquid warmth coated his belly as Brom released John’s pent-up passion in a few deft strokes. He cried out, knowing there was no one else to hear, and his passage tightened around Brom’s thick cock, urging him to come too.
Brom withstood it, and John finally lay spent and gasping beneath him. When he started moving again, his thrusts were slow, deliberate and intentionally deep, each one hitting that same sweet spot inside John. He was tired, and his body still tingled with the complacent pleasure of fulfilled yearning, but eventually, as Brom continued to make love to him, his desire was rekindled. He pressed his palms against Brom’s chest and closed his eyes, feeling Brom’s muscles shift as he drove himself into him again and again, his powerful body working tirelessly to bring John back to the point of desperate longing.
Brom reached his limit first, apparently; the muscles in his arms tensed, going rigid against John’s shoulders. John ran his hands over Brom’s back, his fingers gliding over smooth muscle until they reached the firm planes of Brom’s ass. He gripped it, holding on tightly as Brom flexed his hips vigorously. He groaned when John squeezed, and the sound sent a jolt of sensation straight to John’s groin. He purposely tighte
ned his passage around Brom’s cock, and Brom cried out loud and wordlessly, tossing back his head. He rammed into John with firm strokes, and John’s revived erection grew a little harder with each one. Soon, he was gasping too, as much from the pleasure as the force of it. Several thrusting, breathless moments later, Brom was still, his enduring erection a solid presence in John’s body.
He withdrew with a last ragged breath, sinking onto the mattress beside John and wrapping an arm around him, pulling him close. Brom’s lips were hot against John’s, still swollen from their last kiss. They kissed again anyway, their tongues meeting as their breath rushed warm and uneven against each other’s faces. When it ended John rested his head on Brom’s shoulder, letting his exhaustion creep over him like a heavy blanket despite the fact that his cock was still hard. At some point he dozed off, slipping into what seemed an erotic dream. It proved real when he emerged from the haze of sleep with Brom’s hand wrapped around his erection, stroking him slowly and thoroughly. Each tug brought him a little more fully back into the world of the waking, and soon he and Brom were entangled again, each eagerly seeking release.
* * * * *
“Four. That’s correct.” John smiled down at Mary, a towheaded pupil of his who’d just grasped the concept of division. “Now if you—”
“Ugh!” A heavy thump and a grunt shattered John’s line of thought, causing him to whip his head around to peer toward the back of the classroom.
“Timothy! George!” John stepped quickly over a stack of textbooks and dashed down the aisle between the students’ benches, towards the fight that had broken out in the last row. One of the boys was none other than Timothy Jansen, the other another student two years Timothy’s senior and nearly twice his size. It only took a moment for it to be made painfully clear who would lose the fight. Timothy bounced onto the floor, hands clutching his mouth.
The other Jansen boys got there before John, and the scuffle transformed from a one-on-one punching match to a five-boy melee. George was in the center of it, suddenly and hopelessly outnumbered. Even little Joshua was doing his best to defend his brother. “Stop this at once!” John roared, reaching into the mass of wriggling bodies and seizing Timothy and Joshua each by a shoulder and managing to pull them out of the brawl. “Sit!” he ordered, shoving them each down onto a bench.
The two older Jansen boys were still pounding on George, who’d been knocked onto his rear end. “I said stop!” He stepped between the two Jansens and was rewarded with a well-placed, if accidental, punch to the kidney. Biting back a curse, he seized George by the scruff of his neck and dragged him from the mayhem.
“Master Crane!”
John turned, frowning, to face Elijah, the oldest Jansen boy.
“I didn’t mean to hit you,” he said, the redness of anger and exertion draining from his face, which was rapidly turning white.
John grimaced as his kidney throbbed – Elijah was fifteen, and between the width of his shoulders and the power of his punch, he would likely grow into a formidable brawler in just a few short years. “You’re not to hit anyone in the schoolhouse. What’s the meaning of this?” Usually, when any of John’s students had a disagreement, they waited until after classes were dismissed to settle it in one of the fields that surrounded the schoolyard.
“I don’t know, sir.” Elijah’s cheeks flushed, but he stuck out his chin defiantly and shot George a dark look. “I only saw him punching my brother.”
George had collapsed onto a bench, where the rest of the students had gathered around him, exclaiming excitedly over his bloody nose and swelling eyes.
“Timothy?” John shot the boy a stern look.
Timothy had acquired quite a spectacular split lip, but didn’t seem bothered by it. He grimaced despite the injury, and his eyes glittered with indignation as he shot a disgusted glance in George’s direction. “He called you a superstitious coward,” Timothy said, meeting John’s gaze, “and said I was a fool for believing you!”
“Believing me?”
“About the headless horseman, sir. He said you lied about seeing him.”
John’s stomach contracted, leaving him feeling as if he’d been punched in the gut instead of the back. He entertained a few uncharitable thoughts regarding George’s parents and let out a long sigh, wishing to God that the school day was over. He no longer suffered from the fatigue caused by late night patrols, but a new problem had arisen when he and Brom had stopped their nightly rides after their chilling encounter with the headless horseman: not all of the villagers believed his and Brom’s claim to have confronted the spectral rider. The morning after their encounter, Brom and John had decided that there was little to be done other than to calmly warn the citizens of Sleepy Hollow and urge them to stay indoors after dark. For the most part, people listened. As for the minority who didn’t…
Brom had met John at the schoolhouse during the afternoon of the day after their last nightly patrol. He’d arrived with a busted lip, though it was nothing, he’d said, compared to the damage the other fellow had walked away with. John was aware of how grating it must be for Brom to endure the scorn of other villagers for believing in a phantom; at times, John was still faintly surprised that Brom did believe. The encounter had been that convincing, that real. John pressed his fingers to his throat, where a hand-shaped bruise lingered, yellow and brown. It had been there when he’d woken the morning after, purple and livid. Brom had been the first to notice it when they’d risen together during the sunny late morning, having made love on and off ‘till dawn, as Brom had promised. It had attracted many stares since, though alternative explanations had made their way through the village’s gossip vines, most of which involved Brom strangling John for making improper advances toward Katrina.
At least they didn’t know the truth of that matter.
“Master Crane?” Joshua’s voice called John back to the matter at hand. “Aren’t you going to punish George?”
John managed to maintain a stern expression as he gazed down at the youngest Jansen, who had been his most loyal supporter ever since the incident with the headless horseman. John had told Joshua that his crucifix had delivered him from danger, and that he’d given it to Katrina Van Tassel so that it might keep her safe. Of course, he hadn’t told the whole story, or mentioned that Katrina had been present during the ordeal, but the knowledge that his handmade cross had been a success had thrilled Joshua. He’d taken to telling anyone who’d listen that the headless horseman was real, and that the crucifix had deterred him, saving John’s life. “I think George has had quite enough punishment,” John said, frowning at the sight of blood trickling down the boy’s chin.
Joshua frowned, clearly of a different opinion, but wisely said nothing.
“You boys, on the other hand,” John said, “know better than to engage in violence at school.”
The Jansen boys all frowned back at him with assorted expressions of betrayal. One had a bruised cheek, another a split lip, but they’d all fared much better than George.
“I’m afraid I’m going to have to send you all home early. I’ll speak with your father this afternoon.”
All four boys gathered up the books they’d brought and began to shuffle sullenly from the schoolhouse. They wouldn’t mind missing their lessons, but they were surely dreading facing their parents. Maybe John could dismiss the rest of the students a little early too, and convince Mr. Jansen to take it easy on his sons. After all, poor Joshua had been trying to defend John’s honor, and he and George had been a ridiculously unfair match. The other three boys had only been defending their brother. Given, they had gone overboard, but…
“You go home too, George, and have your mother clean you up.” John turned to the rest of his pupils, scanning the small crowd for an older boy of sufficiently calm temperament. “Edward, walk George home, please.” He couldn’t just send George stumbling home alone, his face bloodied.
“Yes, Master Crane.” Edward hopped up from his bench, no doubt delighted
to take a break from his lessons.
John resumed the lesson as normally as possible, but his pupils fidgeted in their seats, and there was a marked air of distraction about everything they did that day. He finally gave up an hour before the usual dismissal time and sent his students home, much to their joy. All of Sleepy Hollow would know about the boys’ fistfight within the hour, if they didn’t already. Would they blame John? Probably. Frowning, he exited the schoolhouse and began the walk to the Jansens’ home where, God willing, he’d be able to preserve the boys from the worst of their parents’ wrath.
* * * * *
“It’s a shame about that lip,” Martha Smit said, leaning casually against the table in the Van Tassels’ kitchen. “It won’t heal by Friday, you know.”
“I suppose it won’t.” Katrina channeled her annoyance into the task of kneading bread dough and did her best to appear unaffected by Martha’s chatter. The woman had materialized on the doorstep a quarter of an hour ago and marched into the house as soon as Katrina had opened the door, gossiping away and making annoying observances, the latest of which was that Brom’s split lip wouldn’t have time to heal before their impending wedding.
“You’ll look like an angel, I have no doubt, and he standing beside you looking like a hot-headed ruffian!” Martha chuckled. “Reminds me of his younger years, when you were no more than a girl. He was quite the rowdy, you know.”
Katrina mumbled something noncommittal, resisting the urge to seize the opportunity to make a less than charitable comment about Martha’s age.
“Got in more fights than anyone could have counted,” Martha continued. “Was always brawling over something. And such a strapping young fellow he was, too.” She sighed, apparently relishing the memory of Brom’s scandalous youth. “But he grew out of those habits, didn’t he? When his parents died, the poor dears, and left him the farm to manage. A week ago, I would have sworn he’d never go back to his old ways.”
