Chapter 3
Kat
The room is too cold, too empty, too dark.
The lone candle flickers and even though I keep lighting my fingertips on fire to give more light, it’s not enough and the use of this power drains me, making me feel more exhausted than I already am.
There’s an uneasy feeling in this room too, an energy that doesn’t belong here.
Perhaps it’s because of what Crane has told me about the ghosts of his late wife and the teacher, but there’s a sense of not being alone, like there are things watching me through an invisible wall, waiting for the right moment to come crawling out.
Then there are the sounds coming from the room next door, Crane’s room, where he’s keeping Brom. I know he told me to get some sleep, that he would take care of him, but from the floors and walls shaking, the cries and the thumps, it’s impossible to.
I want to know what’s happening.
Is Brom fighting off the horseman?
Has the horseman won and is he taking on Crane?
Is it Crane putting Brom in his place?
I know that Crane just saved Brom’s life with his healing magic, but he’s also the one who shot him and the rage he felt toward Brom was just as palpable as the sweet longing I saw between them.
Though sweet longing is a mild way of putting it.
The sight of my two lovers kissing and groping each other did something to me.
It poked and prodded kindling inside me, stoking the flames, until what I felt for them was a mixture of jealousy, curiosity, and unrepentant desire.
I don’t even know what to do with these feelings, what they mean.
Both men seem so worldly when compared to me and I feel so terribly na?ve, young, and sheltered.
Yet it thrilled me. Turned me on. Made me yearn for them not only individually but together.
But when I pushed my arousal aside, I was left with the truth. Truth and pain and bruises on my neck and blood on my head.
Because Brom hurt me. He hunted me down to kill me. And even though it wasn’t him when he said he’d put me in the grave, I still see his face over me, his dark eyes turning black. I fear him now when I shouldn’t, and I would do anything for that to go away.
I really thought he was going to murder me. Rape me and slay me and I don’t know when I’ll be able to shake that feeling. I hope soon. Because I don’t want to lose him as my friend, I don’t want him to stop being Brom to me.
And yet I already feel the distance, the panic that sweeps in when I think about him touching me. It scares me, saddens me, and makes me so glad that I have Crane to protect me, even though he’s protecting me against my own best friend.
There is still so much to sort through. The reason he left Sleepy Hollow to begin with.
Pastor Ross? Why was Brom made to run while the pastor stayed around for at least another year?
Why was the pastor not punished for his actions, an adult in that situation, when barely eighteen-year-old Brom had to leave?
And why didn’t he tell me? That’s what hurts most of all.
He didn’t trust me with his truth. I would have understood.
I wouldn’t have judged him. Why did he bed me, take my virginity, and then leave me to spend the next four years wondering if I was tainted goods? If I had done something to make him go?
Did he tell you?
I gasp and spin around on the bed, staring at the empty space behind me where I swear I heard a woman’s voice. My heart beats wildly in my chest and I press my fingers there, swallowing hard. I must have imagined that.
Did Ichabod tell you what he did?
Now the voice, which I can only assume is Crane’s late wife, is coming from in front of me. I whirl around as a cold breeze ruffles my hair, threatening to blow out the candle.
I’m not about to stay in here alone now. She might be a jealous spirit.
I get to my feet and hurry to the door, feeling this cold dark presence at my back like an oncoming storm, and I’m stepping out into the hall. It’s pitch black and I light my fingertip enough for me to find Crane’s door.
I open it and step inside his room.
And my mouth drops open.
Crane is behind Brom, who is bent over the desk, pants around his ankles, a tie in his mouth. Crane’s jacket covers his rear, but his trousers are bunched around his thighs as he slams his hips into Brom and there is no question what he’s doing to him.
Brom lifts his head to look at me and his eyes flash with pain, but whether it’s a physical or emotional pain I’m unsure. Then Crane takes Brom’s head in his hand and pushes it down on the desk.
“Stay down,” he growls at him, and the command makes me feel like I’m unraveling. To see such a big brawny man like Brom being ravaged by Crane is mind-blowing, like every last innocent part of me has been thoroughly corrupted.
For a moment the room is filled with only the sound of Crane’s animalistic grunts, the creak of the desk, the gasps escaping from Brom, the rhythmic slap of skin on skin, and I think maybe I can back out of the room without disturbing them, without disturbing this.
But then Crane pauses, his hands tight on Brom’s hips, and his head tilts to the side, gazing at me from the corner of his eye. A strand of black hair sticks to his sweat-damp forehead.
“You don’t have to leave, Kat,” Crane says, his voice low and guttural, missing all that smooth silkiness that I’m used to. “Not if you don’t want to. But if you want to stay, I’ll ask you to shut the door.”
I close the door behind me, making my choice to stay.
To watch.
To see.
I slowly walk toward them and Crane pulls out only to thrust back inside Brom and I’m feeling dizzy at the sight and the lewd slick sound of it all.
I look at Brom and he lifts his head off the desk again to stare at me, his face flushed.
Furrowed. He lets out a garbled cry against the tie as Crane pushes his head back down.
It’s then that I realize it’s not physical pain I’m seeing on Brom’s face.
He’s enjoying it. From my angle I can see his cock under the desk, the long hard length of him.
No, the pained expression comes from emotional pain.
It comes from humiliation. Because that’s what Crane is doing, isn’t he?
Screwing him while he’s leashed and bound and bent over his desk.
“Does this turn you on, sweet witch?” Crane says in a raspy voice, and my eyes are glued to where his own cock disappears into Brom, shiny with oil, and, goodness, I might need a dip in a cold bath.
“I’m merely curious,” I manage to say, but my voice betrays me with how husky it sounds.
“The way to my heart,” he says through a groan.
Crane pauses again, grabbing Brom by the hair and yanking his head back. It’s only then that I notice the blood under Brom’s nose, a cut at the side of his head. My stomach twists knowing that Crane has hurt him, even though I know it’s what he deserves for hurting me.
“Take a good look at her, Brom,” Crane says. “Because a look is all you’re getting.”
Brom lets out another strangled roar, his eyes seeming to grow darker. The flames from the candles make it look like there’s hell inside them.
You know there is, I remind myself. You saw what he tried to do to you. There is hell inside that boy and you’re not safe until it’s gone.
“Are you wet?” Crane asks me as he starts pumping again, the desk rattling. “Lift up your nightgown and show him.”
I meet Crane’s eyes, surprised at what he’s asking me to do.
Even though his expression is ravaged by lust, he holds my gaze with gravity.
“He won’t hurt you. He won’t touch you. I won’t touch you either, not unless you ask me to.
I just want him to see what he can no longer have.
” He pauses. “There is more than one way to hurt a man, darling.”
I swallow hard, eyeing Brom for a moment. It sounds so cruel.
But it sounds perfectly cruel.
A strange jolt of power runs through me. Is this what it’s like to be Crane? To be the one in charge, the one holding all the cards?
I take off Crane’s coat, discarding it on the ground. Then I move over so that Brom can see me clearly. I meet Crane’s stare and am delighted to see that clinical side of him is gone and instead he’s staring at me with pure molten heat.
Energy buzzes inside me like I’m a beehive, my legs dripping with honey.
This power, this power. I can taste it on my tongue, the way that these two big men stare at me like what they’re doing to each other doesn’t even count, doesn’t even factor.
All they see is me.
I lift up my nightgown and part my legs. My heated core is met with cool air and both Brom and Crane suck in their breath in unison.
Yes. This is the power.
Electricity curls up my spine and I bring my hand down, sliding it over my pelvic bone, parting my most sensitive area. I am wet—I can feel it gathered on my thighs.
I’m staring at Brom, remembering how he hurt me, feeling revenge and cruelty spike through my heart.
It’s not just the horseman. It’s not just that he smashed my head into the wall and that he wanted to kill me.
It’s that he left me. I know why he left but it still doesn’t stop the pain, the fact that he didn’t think I was worth confiding in, that he still left me when he knew my mother never had my best interests at heart.
Never once returned to Sleepy Hollow to tell me the truth, never once sent a letter to let me know he was okay.
Instead he was with this man, this man who is deep inside him, and I have to admit, I’m a little angry at Crane too, because it wasn’t fair that he got to have Brom while they were in New York and I was left behind. I’m jealous that he got Brom during those lost years while I was all alone.
I look at Crane now, the lust deepening his frown, his mouth open in ragged gasps as he continues to thrust into Brom’s backside. Well, if he wants to punish Brom, then I’m not going to stop him.
I’ll help him.
I sidle closer to Crane, making sure Brom can still see me where it counts.
“Touch me,” I say to Crane, swallowing hard. It feels like I’m acting in a play but I have to own it, own this wild energy that’s running through me and claim it as mine.
His eyes flash. He clears his throat. “Ask me nicely.”
This man does not let up.
“Please touch me.”
He reaches out and slides his large hand up my inner thighs, making me shiver at his touch, and lets out a deep groan.
“Christ, Brom, you should feel how wet she is already,” he pants. “She’s dripping down her legs. Do you think it’s all for you or all for me?”
Crane slows down his pace inside Brom as his hand glides up and up my thigh until it’s sliding over my slick surface and I can’t help the soft cry that falls from my open mouth.
“God,” I breathe.
“You know I am,” Crane says through a grunt, simultaneously shoving harder into Brom while starting to pleasure me with his hand. His fingers sink inside me, the movements rough even though there’s barely any resistance, I’m so wet.
There’s something so sinful about this. My family took me to church when I was younger but only to keep up appearances and integrate with Sleepy Hollow’s society.
The concept of sin didn’t feel very real when you knew you were a witch, and they’d burn you at the stake if they could.
But here, now, as Brom is getting defiled by Crane, while Crane has his long, skillful fingers pumping inside me, as I stand there in front of both of them, exposed and bare, I feel like this was the sin they talked about during the sermons.
Something that could lead you down a wicked path from which you’d never return.
I want to go down that path and never look back.
After a life of loss and secrets, I’m choosing to be wicked.
And, my lord, it feels impossibly good.