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The Only Rules That Matter: Afterlife (TheCorsair, Madam Mim)

Hand in hand with his wife, John made his way through the darkness towards the flames. For the moment the tension between them was gone, replaced by the need to hunt down Josephine Sumner and to not get killed by the Horseman as they did. For the moment. They would, he suspected, need to come back to that tension later. Jenny's comments had cut too close to home, after all, and he suspected from her reaction that his barbs had done the same. She was the love of his life and his afterlife, his own black pearl, and he didn't want anything coming between them. But that would be for a later time.

"Huh," he said as he examined the source of the flames. "Not much here. Certainly nothing I'd call supernatural. Just..." He examined the guttering patches of flame. "Fire. Smells like... whale oil. And, look here." He picked up a piece of metal. "Part of a lamp. Maybe your... maybe Adam was trying to throw his pursuers off?"

He let the broken lamp fall to the ground and looked around. "He seemed a bright lad, for all that he came out here looking for the Horseman. And I understand from Katrina that there's an old farmhouse out here. He'd probably make for that, figuring he could hole up there and use it for shelter. And it's possible he found Katrina as well. Why don't we go check there, see if I'm right and they're all right?"


“I... I think we’re safe,” he added, offering her a hand so she could sit on the plank floor. “How... how’s your ankle?”

Katrina made a pained sound as she gingerly lowered herself to the floor. "I don't know," she said, bending and touching her ankle. Adam averted his eyes a little, since the motion have him far more of a view of her bosom than she'd probably intended, given that her blouse was ripped. "I think it might be broken."

At that, though, he knelt down beside her. "Let me check." Carefully he slipped off her shoe - not a bad choice, but clearly the sort of shoe a rich girl would select as appropriate for hiking around the forest - and slowly and gently began squeezing along her calf and ankle.

"What on earth are you doing out here??" she hissed, probably out of a mixture of curiosity and trying to distract herself.

"Probably similar reasons to why you and Master Crane were out here," Adam replied absently, trying to concentrate on feeling the bone and not on feeling the shape of her leg. Damn, but she felt nice. "Looking for the Horseman, after he interrupted the social last night." She whimpered as he squeezed her ankle, then gasped in pain and slapped him across the face as he rotated her foot. "Ow! Hey!" he snapped, glaring back at her in the darkness. "I'm trying to see if it's really broken! Did it just hurt, or did something grind together when I did that?"
 
Katrina whimpered and hissed in pain as he slipped off her shoe and bunched her skirts in her fist. When he squeezed and slowly manipulated her ankle she whimpered again, then gasped and involuntarily slapped him across the face. Once it connected she covered her mouth with both hands.

"I'm so sorry!" she gasped. "I didn't mean to, I really didn't!"

"I'm trying to see if it's really broken!" Andrew snapped in the darkness. "Did it just hurt, or did something grind together when I did that?"

"I felt a little bit of a click," she replied, hoping that helped, "but no grinding. It's just...it was really sharp and painful, and now it's throbbing even though it's still. I really am sorry, you know." Katrina put her hand out and groped in the darkness, using the moonlight to find the outline of his face and gently setting her hand on the cheek she had slapped.

~*~

Jenny frowned as her husband picked up part of a lamp. "Maybe your..." She folded her arms across her chest and raised her eyebrows challengingly. "Maybe Adam was trying to throw his pursuers off?"

"Could be," she conceded, bending down and squinting at the tracks in the mud illuminated by the dying patches of fire. "Looks like it worked. Can't see much, but there's two sets of footsteps off that way," she pointed through the trees, "and two horses went off that way." She pointed down the path and looked into the dark Whoever had been impersonating the Horseman, he probably hadn't gotten away with it. John suggested they look for Adam and Katrina and she frowned in thought.

"I think following the Horseman would be the better bet," she countered after a few long moments. "If they're safe, they're safe. The Horseman went off that way in pursuit of the second horse, most likely. If he's gotten his head then it's likely he'll return to where he rises, which means we're more likely to find Josephine there. And if we're lucky--if you could call it lucky--the impostor was a bad enough person that we can take him aboard the Pearl and set him in the Locker."
 
“A click,” Adam echoed, feeling his skin flush as she touched his face. “Probably means you just dislocated it. It’ll be really sore for a while, but it’ll heal.” He bit his lip, trying to ignore the sudden rush of heat at her touch. “It’d be better if we could splint it, though. But we’d need light for that.”

“I really am sorry, you know,” she murmured.

He managed a smile. “Yeah, well, you didn’t know what I was doing. And after what that bastard tried, I can’t blame you for being careful. Besides, that sort of thing hurts a lot.” Almost absently he began rubbing her ankle, gently kneading the muscles around the injured joint. “This might hurt as well,” he said, trying to concentrate on his task and not on the feel of her leg, “but it will help you heal.” Another grin. “A little faster, anyway. I’m not a miracle worker, after all.”



It bothered him to leave Adam and Katrina on their own, but Jenny had an excellent point. “Fair enough,” he finally agreed. “Adam looks like he could sort out that idiot in the costume if it comes down to it, and neither of them strikes me as fool enough to stand their ground against the real Horseman.” He gestured around with a sardonic expression. “If they were, we’d have found them already. Most of them, at least.”

Squinting into the darkness, he examined the hoof prints in the loan dubiously. “Times like this, I wish I’d taken up some other trade. Apothecary and pirate don’t really do much to prepare you for hunting demons and witches in the forest, do they?” By reflex he reached for his compass, only to remember he’d long ago given it to his son. “Still, how hard can it be to follow this trail?”

For about a mile it wasn’t hard at all - although, in the dark, it was laborious and time consuming. Then they came to an open area in the trees, where the trail became tangled and confused and it appeared that the tracks split. Some dark fluid splattered the leaves and a tree trunk, dark and thick and swarmed with flies. John touched it and smelled it, then used the bark to clean his hand. “Blood,” he said. “I wonder if that fool got away, or if we’d find his corpse if we... hello. What’s that?”

Firelight rose up in the distance. A chill, blue flame that flat covered weirdly. “On the whole,” he grinned, “I’d say that looks like a good lead.”
 
"Yes well, you weren't exactly an ordinary pirate, were you?" Jenny pointed out, also peering along the dark path. "I'd say you've got at least more preparation than me, wouldn't you?"

They followed the hoof prints, faint though they were in the light of the crescent moon. Eventually they came to a small clearing where the path branched and the marks went all over the place. She didn't need John to tell her to know that it was blood splattered against a tree nearby. When he suggested that the idiot may have gotten away she shrugged and shook her head. Not likely. In the distance a blue flame flickered to life and she eyed it dubiously.

"We ought to follow it," she agreed, "though I know that's probably what she wants."

They were able to follow the path easily enough to get closer to the flame, but eventually had to leave it and tramp through the uncleared forest as it turned away. Finally they came to a clearing directly over which, it seemed, hung the moon. Josephine Sumner stood there, naked and painted with blood, lit by the cold glow of the fire.

"I've been waiting for you, Jack," she purred, eyeing him like a predator watching its prey. "All these years, you're still the only one who's ever bested me, and I've been waiting. Patience is the name of the game, you know, and fate has finally brought you back to me." Jenny was beginning to suspect they may have been set up.

~*~

"Well, and also it really hurt," Katrina admitted, feeling his cheek warm under her hand. He began to rub her ankle and she leaned back and moaned. "That feels good," she groaned. "It hurts, but it feels good." She tried not to focus on the way his fingers touched her leg, and instead on the muscle he was gently kneading. "Thank you, Mister von Kalt. I don't think I would have properly gotten away if it weren't for you." She shivered and rubbed her arms with her hands. "It's getting cold though...but I don't feel safe going back out there until sunrise."
 
Nearly a century ago, the “pleasures of the flesh” had been one of the temptations Josephine Sumner had dangled to try to get him to sign her book. And although he’d resisted those temptations, he was only human. His mind, unbidden, had imagined what she might have looked like naked. And now, he could see he hadn’t been far wrong.

Well, except for all the blood. Hat hadn’t been in his imagination.

“Patience?” John laughed. “Hardly. It’s more like a furious Queen of Faerie brought me back. And, honestly, not so much ‘brought me back’ as ‘threatened mayhem on me if I didn’t do something about the witch that offended her’, so if you upset Mabd just to get me back then you’re a far greater fool than I took you for. Incidentally, isn’t that cold? Blood can’t be all that warming.”

Josephine struck a pose, proudly displaying her gore-coated form. “Don’t you like what you see?” She pouted. “You did, once.”

“While I will confess an attraction to a red-blooded woman,” John replied, “that isn’t quite what I mean by that phrase.”



“Adam, please,” Adam laughed. “Mister vin Kalt is my father. And I’m afraid there isn’t much to be done about the cold - I could light a fire, but...”. He gestured silently at the barred door. “No need to attract more attention to ourselves.”

He shivered a little. The evening hadn’t been cold when he’d set out, and it probably wasn’t actually cold now. But it was cool, and dark, and the inactivity made the cool feel colder. Rubbing his hands together, he found himself wishing he’d brought a blanket. Or that he hadn’t decided to come on this damn fool ghost hunt. It worried him that Jenny was still out there alone, although she was probably better equipped to deal with the Horseman than he was. She seemed to know what she was doing with that sword, after all, and she’d been the one to drive the Horseman off the last night.

Although, if he hadn’t come... who would have helped Katrina?

Unconsciously, he scooted a little closer. “Long time until dawn,” pulling off his coat and draping it around her shoulders. Without thinking he left his arm there, holding her. “You should probably get some sleep.”
 
Adam! That was his name! Katrina felt better now that she knew his name, and that she'd known it began with an A. She smiled nervously and nodded when he motioned to the door and mentioned that lighting a fire probably wasn't the best idea. He shivered a little and she shivered sympathetically, folding her arms around herself. He scooted closer and despite the impropriety she did too, and when he drew his coat around her and held her she leaned against his side.

"I don't think I could sleep if I tried," she said, shaking her head then leaning it gently on his shoulder. She shook now less from the cold and more from the adrenaline still coursing through her veins. "What on earth were you doing out here looking for the Horseman alone? And unarmed at that! I mean, Mister Crane is a pirate at least. I mean, he was, he was press-ganged..." Katrina blushed again in the dark and looked away. "Not...not that he wants that getting around..."

~*~

Josephine smiled wickedly at John's questions and Jenny noticed that her teeth were filed to wicked points. Some sort of glamour spell must have disguised them at the gathering last night. She demanded to know whether he liked what he saw, but Jenny had no patience for banter tonight.

"So you're the tart who jeopardized my husband's soul all those years ago," she said with a nod. "Must've reminded him of what he had waiting at home."

"And just think, if I'd succeeded you would have seen your daughter grow to adulthood," Josephine purred. "You would have seen her married...her children...her children's children...she would have buried you, and not the other way around."

"Right then." Jenny drew her sword and stepped forward to plunge it into the witch's chest. They both looked at the wound, then at one another.

"You really thought that would work?" The Horseman stepped up behind her on his mount, wearing Brom's head.

She shrugged. "It was worth a try. John? Ideas?"
 
"Any ideas?" John eyed the witch, examining the stab wound through her chest with a professional eye. "Hmmm." Now his gaze turned to the man who was most assuredly not Brom - the blood crusting the neck and the waxy pallor were dead give-aways. "Hmmm."

The Horseman returned his gaze, twisting the dead lips of Brom's face into a ghastly smile. "The head of an immortal would suit me better, Sparrow. No man escapes the Huntsman."

"I think," John answered in a languid fashion, raising a finger, "that you forgot an important part of that, because there's a Captain in there. And I think that you meant to say 'no man escapes the Huntsman, except the daring and famous Captain Jack Sparrow', because clearly that's what was right there on the tip of your - well, of Brom's - tongue. Wasn't it? Go on, 'no man escapes the Huntsman, except the daring and famous Captain Jack Sparrow'."

The Huntsman shifted in his saddle, eying him with Brom's glassy dead eyes. "You are..."

"Nope," John interrupted. "Try again: 'no man escapes the Huntsman...'" He stared up at the Huntsman expectantly, making an impatient gesture with his hand. "Come on, you can do it..."

"You are an impudent..."

"Nope, still not right." He grinned back at Josephine. "No wonder I escaped him, all those years ago. He can't manage to do anything right, can he? No, don't feel bad, I completely sympathize. It's so hard to get good help, really it is. I mean, I've lost track of the number of times I had a crew mutiny and strand me..."

Crossing her arms beneath her bloodstained breasts, Josephine regarded him with an expression that mingled contempt and confusion. "What are you doing?"

"...on a sandbar, or on an island somewhere, or once - once, only, mind you - with weights tied to my ankles and tossed into the Atlantic, so I know it's hard to get good help. I mean, look at the both of you, waiting for me to finish while I chuck his hatchet at him!" Action matched the words as Jack drew and hurled the hatchet he'd claimed from the Huntsman so many years ago. It flew straight and true, hurtling past the Huntsman a good three feet to the right of his shoulder to disappear into the darkness. Everyone stared after it for a moment.

"Right." Jack clapped one hand to his hat and grabbed Jenny's wrist with the other. "New plan. Run!"


"A pirate?" Adam didn't quite squeak when he repeated it, but shock made him come close. "He's a, a pirate?"

"I mean,'" Katrina corrected immediately, "he was, he was pressganged." She looked away, clearly disturbed that she'd revealed his secret. "Not... not that he wants that getting around..."

"I would think not," Adam agreed, wide-eyed with amazement. But then, it made a certain sense. It explained why Master Crane had a fancy pistol and more than one fancy sword in his home. And why he had such a commanding presence. And, well, to be blunt it explained some things about Jenny. How she was so comfortable with a sword as well. Were they even master and servant, really? Or had she been a pirate as well? He'd heard of such things, in the broadsheets and the few novels he'd read. "Wow. But, uhm, yeah. I'll keep it quiet."

They sat next to each other for several moments, listening to the sounds of the darkness that filtered in through the cabin walls. It was painfully quiet outside, far more than was natural. In the distance he could hear the screech of an owl, and the occasional chirp of a bat, but nothing else. Except Katrina's breathing, which he focused on to ease the tension of the waiting and the uncanny quiet. But that reminded him of her soft body pressing into his, awakening memories of Jenny from earlier in the day. Or, more specifically, of what he and Jenny had started but not stopped. "Uhm," he said, shifting awkwardly, "are, are you getting tired? I can try to make up a pallet, if you are."
 
"Thank you," Katrina said with a nod when Adam promised to keep Ichabod's past a secret. "It isn't like he could've helped it in any case. I mean he was a boy, he was press-ganged. The king pardoned him and everything, and...and I'll stop babbling now." She giggled nervously and tucked a bit of hair behind her ear.

The cabin seemed suddenly very close, with the unnatural quiet outside and the lack of space between them. She leaned gently against him--for warmth, of course--and he offered again to make up a pallet for her. He must have been nervous because of the impropriety of what was happening. The impropriety made her nervous, too. She smiled weakly and shook her head.

"No thank you," she said gently. "I don't think I could sleep if I tried with that Horseman out there. So..." She glanced over at him. "You never answered my question. Why are you out here all alone, unarmed? Awfully dangerous...takes a brave man to come out here alone at night when there's nothing out here, never mind coming after the Headless Horseman."

~*~

There wasn't much anymore which struck fear into Jenny's heart. Certainly she would be afraid of a situation, but nothing had made her fear for her life since her death like the awful, gruesome smile the Headsman used Brom's mouth to form. John babbled uselessly, no doubt trying to distract the ghastly pair but from what she didn't know. Then he hurled the axe at the specter, only for it to fly straight by his shoulder without coming even close to nicking him. She, Josephine, and the Horseman watched it fly into the trees, dumbfounded.

"Right." Jack clapped one hand to his hat and grabbed Jenny's wrist with the other. "New plan. Run!"

Jenny took off after her husband, both of them now unarmed. "You carried that damnable axe for a hundred and fifty years and you missed! He was six feet from you, John! How could you miss?" She panted as they ran pelmel through the trees, convinced she could hear hoofbeats pursuing them. She juked between trees, trying to keep a hold of her husband's hand but mostly focusing on just trying to get them away from the ghoul pursuing them.

"Up there!" she panted, cursing as she hit her hand against a tree as she flung her hand forward to point. "Lights!" Jenny didn't bother knocking, but slammed the door open and tripped over the threshold. "What the hell is this place?"
 
"You carried that damnable axe for a hundred and fifty years and you missed!" Jenny bitched, the words coming in sharp bursts as they ran.

"I know! But I never claimed to..." John protested.

"He was six feet from you, John! How could you miss?" she panted, clinging to his hand as they juked through the trees.

"How did you manage to stab a woman through the heart and not kill her?" John shot back, fully aware it wasn't a fair comparison. It hadn't been magic that had fouled his aim, after all. It had simply been a lack of skill with a throwing axe. Really, he'd have been better off just jumping forward and sinking it in the Huntsman's ribcage. Assuming it would have worked, that is. "And how the hell is he keeping Brom's head on? Wouldn't it just fall off?"

The trees were denser here, a fact that created benefits and drawbacks. The Huntsman would have to take a round-about path if he wanted to keep to his steed trying to guess where they'd emerge from the trees. On the down side, it meant that John slammed his head into more than one low-hanging limb and bounced off more than one half-seen trunk. Truly, sprinting through dense woods at night was one of the stupider things he'd ever done. But then, standing and fighting a demonic nightmare with a stolen head would have been right there in the top three. So, really, this was the smarter of the two options.

He tried to remember that as he slammed into another tree.

"Up there!" she panted, cursing as she hit her hand against a tree as she flung her hand forward to point.

"Unh?" Blinking, he saw the hut Jenny was pointing at. It was built in an older style than the houses in Sleepy Hollow, logs fitted together and chinked with mud, and a roof of tree branches shingled with bark. But a light burned through the narrow slit windows, and a door faced them.

"Lights!" Jenny shouted, dragging him forward and thrusting the door open. They both hurled through, Jenny tripping over the log threshold and John hopping and jumping awkwardly to avoid sharing her fate. Still, he staggered and nearly went down. "What the hell is this place?" she asked, pushing herself up on her hands.

John dragged her in and slammed the door shut. "Shelter," he said, slamming a bar home. "And..." Details began to filter in. There was a pallet bed against one wall, and a simmering cauldron over a hearth in the center of the floor - the fire giving heat and light as well as serving as a stove. Herbs and plants and animal parts hung from the rafters, and the other walls were crammed with books and parchments and shelves of bottles and jars and a human skull. The scent of the hut was a mixture of drying herbs and cloying smells that reminded him of his time in Egypt. "And... hmmm..."

Carefully, he stepped across the packed earth floor to examine the shelves. "Hmmm..." He pulled a book down. "Chaldean Oracles." Another. "Daemonologie, In Forme of a Dialogue, Divided into three Books: By the High and Mighty Prince, James &c." He put that back, drew down another at random. "De Occulta Philosophia libri III. Dürr-i Meknûn. Theatrum Chemicum, præcipuos selectorum auctorum and I'm not finishing all of that." He tossed the book to the ground, then turned and looked at his wife. "I think we found Jo's house, don't you?"



"I wasn't unarmed when this started," Adam replied, sounding slightly more glib than he'd intended. "I had a stick." He chuckled self-depricatingly, imagining her expression. "A big stick, really. I broke a wolf's skull with it, once. But as to why I came out here?" He shrugged, then unconsciously tightened his arm around Katrina's shoulders. "It made sense at the time. Jennifer - Master Crane's housemaid - was going to come out here looking for the Horseman. We, uhm, we saw him. Last night, he attacked the church, and Jennifer thought someone needed to find out where he came from."

He shivered a little at the memory. "I couldn't let her go alone, not and call myself a man ever again. Although... I don't know that she actually needed me." Frowning a little, he thought about what he'd seen. "You... you said Master Crane was a pirate. I... I think she might have been one as well. She had a sword and a pistol, and they could have been his I suppose. But... she seemed comfortable with them. Like, like she'd used them before. Many times."
 
"A stick?" Katrina raised an eyebrow and tried not to laugh.

"A big stick, really," Adam added, sounding sheepish before adding that he'd broken a wolf's skull with it. Big stick indeed.

"You must be very strong then," she said, leaning in closer as his arm tightened around her shoulders and he explained that he'd come out here with the Widow Dolan. Katrina had caught a glimpse of her in town earlier today as she'd headed out to the schoolhouse and had felt threatened. But if Ichabod's girl was keen on going out in the woods with the farmboy then she supposed she had little to worry about when it came to Ichabod. Even so she could see why the widow woman liked him: he was broad-shouldered and strong, and even Katrina felt safe leaning against him in the dark shack. His speculation caught her attention and imagination.

"Do you think they were pirates together?" she asked breathlessly. There had been something about Widow Dolan that had caught her attention, something beyond her pretty freckles and curly hair which had made Katrina feel threatened; it was some sort of strength, a quiet danger about her that Katrina had thought a certain type of man might find appealing. That the older woman had been a pirate would fit that to a tee and made sense to the teenager.

"Maybe they were lovers...or still are, and they're posing as master and servant to escape the authorities." She looked up at Adam and bit her lip. "I'm sorry, I oughtn't have said such things. Coming out here alone with her at night...I'm sure you must be quite sweet on her. I'd heard rumors that she already had a man." Gossip spread quickly in this sleepy little village, and it hadn't taken long for word to spread that the schoolmaster's girl was already stealing the men. It was already a topic of debate, after the incident at the church last night, as to whether she were enspelling them. Katrina had fought vociferously against this idea, if only because that would mean that her Ichabod was complicit to witchcraft since he seemed immune to her charms. "Word spread after someone saw her kissing a tall lad outside her master's door last night, I can only assume that was you," she added by way of explanation, shifting to lean against him more. "I'm sorry, I talk too much."

~*~

"I think we found Jo's house, don't you?"

"Double double, toil and trouble," Jenny agreed, sniffing at the cauldron and wrinkling her nose in distaste. "The question is: where are her sisters?" There was only one bed after all, so either the witches didn't live together or the other two had already flown the coop. She looked around and shook her head, unable to believe her husband had set foot into a dwelling like this and not immediately turned right back around. It wouldn't have been worth tying Anne's soul to all this. As she looked around her eye kept getting drawn back to the human skull on the shelf.

"What do you think the odds are this is old hob's?" she asked, tossing it a short distance into the air once but unwilling to otherwise show further disrespect. "Should we give it to him, maybe? Or just crush it?"
 
Adam was suddenly grateful for the darkness, because he could feel his cheeks burning at her question. "Uhm... yes," he admitted, shifting uncomfortably as he felt himself hardening at the memory. "That... that was me." He thought hard, trying to get his mind off his sudden arousal, and off the feel of Katrina's soft body pressed against his. "And I'd heard, well, not rumors. But, well, gossip. Stories that Master Ichabod was paying suit to you." A terrible thought struck him. "He wasn't... you don't think he was... using you? To get close to your father?"

He didn't want to believe it, any more than he wanted to believe that Jenny was secretly Ichabod's lover. But, well, they'd both been pirates. Why would a pirate, or even a pirate who'd taken the King's pardon, come to Sleepy Hollow as a school teacher? With a war on, either side would pay handsomely for a skilled seaman. And surely a pirate - or a retired pirate - would be a skilled seaman? "I'm sorry," he added. "That, that was ungentlemanly. I shouldn't have said such things about him, not when I don't even know him."



"Sisters," John said, slapping his forehead. "Damnation. I'd forgotten about them in the excitement." He scratched his head, thinking hard as Jenny picked up the skull and tossed it like a ball.

"What do you think the odds are this is old hob's?" she asked, tossing it a short distance into the air once. "Should we give it to him, maybe? Or just crush it?"

"He's clearly looking for a head," John replied. "i say we give it back to him, since that's most likely the one he's seeking." With that he began emptying out the chests and rooting through the contents. "Maybe there'll be something else of use here?" It didn't take long to get through them all, and at the last he held up a [url\http://www.gemstonefactory.com/images/16/Aztec%20Knives%20group%20C.jpg]knife with a glossy black blade and a jade handle[/url]. "Ah ha!" he declared, waving it triumphantly. "Steel didn't hurt her, but maybe stone will?"

Tucking the blade carefully into his belt, he looked around. "I don't see anything else. Grab the skull, and we'll set fire to the hut on the way out." He grinned. "That should draw her here, shouldn't it?"
 
Jenny looked at the knife and nodded, impressed. "I've heard obsidian can kill the dead," she said. "The walking dead, I mean. Maybe it can kill witches as well."

She hopped out of the cottage for a bare moment to grab a dry branch, then came back in and carefully tucked the skull under one arm. She held it gingerly, making sure not to crush it. Fortunately it hadn't rained in a day or two, so the branch caught fire easily when she stuck it in the fireplace.

"C'mon, let's go." On her way out, Jenny set fire first to the bed, then the table, and left little bits of crumbled but still burning bark along the floor on their way out before touching it to the dry thatched roof. "Try to steal my husband. Threaten my baby. Call me a witch. Oughtta teach her," she mumbled, making sure the overhang had caught well enough before tossing the branch onto the middle of the roof. "Now we wait, I guess."

~*~

"Close to father? But why would he--?" Katrina stopped. She wasn't naive, she knew exactly why a pirate might want to get close to her father. She chewed the inside of her lip for a moment, then shook her head. "No. No he wouldn't...not Ichabod. He's been nothing but a gentleman..."

"I'm sorry," Adam said in the dark. "That, that was ungentlemanly. I shouldn't have said such things about him, not when I don't even know him."

"Well, I don't know him very well myself," Katrina admitted with a shrug, face turning hot with embarrassment. She loved him! And he loved her! Well, he hadn't said as much, but he'd acted it. Surely it couldn't have all been lies, could it? "He's only been in town two days, hasn't he? But I mean...what would Missus Dolan stand to gain from getting involved with a farmer? Er...no offense." She looked over at him, genuinely hoping she hadn't offended him. "But pirates like riches, don't they? My father is the richest man in town and everyone knows it. But I mean, unless they're not lovers and she's actually looking to settle down, it wouldn't make much sense. Especially since Ichabod's never paid her any mind, doesn't even like talking about her. Not when we..." She blushed and looked away again, remembering how he had felt against her that afternoon. Had it really only been that afternoon? The feeling of his hands on her, of grinding against him, made her shift uncomfortably, suddenly aroused. It was highly inappropriate to be aroused and alone in the dark with a handsome lad. Not as handsome as Ichabod, obviously, but the farmer's boy wasn't exactly a sore sight.
 
John watched the flames dance over the hut, lighting the clearing like a vision of Hell. Weird shadows lept and spun around them and black smoke belched into the night sky. Within the hut he could see flickers of purple and green flames amongst the dead and orange. Something gibbered and shrieked, and maybe it was a trick of the flames that made him think he saw a shape wreathed in fire staggering blindly and groping for the door. Maybe. But it made the hair on his arms stand on end, and he loosened his blade in its scabbard as he urged Jenny away. “That signal’s a thousand feet high,” he remarked, “and the witch and her huntsman are looking for us. And since I think there’s no doubt they’ll see it, I’d rather not be in plain sight when they do.”

Something thumped weakly at the burning door. He led Jenny a little more insistently. “Besides,” he added with a grin. “I love surprise parties, don’t you? And I’m sure Josephine wouldn’t want us to spoil hers.” The thumping finally stopped as they moved into the darkness. After looking around, he hunkered down behind the undergrowth and waited.

Time passed.

“This is far less fun than the last time we went looking for a ghost,” he grumbled, keeping my his voice low. “Remember? Dover Castle? The night we snuck up there after we were married? Now that was the way to...”. He paused, listening. “I think she’s...”

Josephine Sumner flew into the clearing. Literally. Sitting side-saddle on a yarrow stalk, wild-eyed with fury. “No!” She snarled, stamping her foot as she dismounted. “No, no. NO! Sparrow! Sparrow, and that slut of his! I’ll... I’ll...”. Her nails raked the skin of her arm, fresh blood Well by up to mingle with the clotted gore that coated her skin. “Seven are they! Seven are they!” She chanted, casting droplets into the flames. “In the ocean deep, seven are they! Battening in heaven, seven are they! Bred in the depths of the...”

“Pardon me,” John said, delicately stepping back into the light, “ It... seven are who, exactly?”



“What would she have to gain from getting involved with a farmer?” Adam repeated dolefully. “I... I don’t know. My father’s not poor, but he’s hardly wealthy.” He sat and stewed for a moment, listening to Katrina fumble through talking about her day with the schoolmaster. “I mean, if she’s a pirate, why would she have come looking for the Horseman? There’s no wealth in...”. His voice died in sudden terror, tongue cleaving to the roof of his mouth.

He could hear hooves on the ground outside. And the creak of leather, and the clank of metal.

“Shhh...” he hissed, pulling her protectively close as he groped for his stick. Breath rasped in his lungs, painfully loud in his ears as he strained to hear. Fingers curled around the stick.

The door shook. “Hello? Open up.” The voice was that of Brom Bones, But... different. Hollow, and cold. He felt Katrina shiver against him, and cautiously he lifted his stick. What good it might be, he didn’t know. Not against... “Are you in there?”

Not against whatever it was that spoke with Brom’s dead voice.

The door shook again. Then it shook harder, as something slammed into it. And then it stopped, and a moment later he could hear galloping hoofbeats recede. Now he could feel himself shaking it’s relief and adrenaline. “We... we’re alive!” he grinned. Without stopping to think he kissed Katrina. “We’re alive!”
 
Katrina frowned, confused, but she had barely opened her mouth to ask what was wrong when he hissed at her to shush and pulled her against him. She jumped when the door shook and covered her mouth when Brom spoke. But it wasn't Brom. She had listened to the timbre of his voice so many times before, delighting in the way he spoke and the way his voice rumbled in his chest and vibrated in his throat. That...thing, whatever it was, it wasn't Brom. Frightened more than she could ever remember being, Katrina wrapped her arms around Adam's broad chest and looked up at him. She shook her head frantically when it demanded to know whether they were in here, but Adam seemed to know better already. He had his wolf-crushing stick ready at hand.

The door shook and she jumped as the fiend slammed into it, squeezing Adam harder and biting the rough cloth of his shirt to keep herself from screaming. A few moments later they heard it gallop away and she unclenched her teeth from the fabric, sighing in relief. Adam announced that they were still alive and Katrina couldn't help but grin and giggle, also shaking. Then he kissed her.

She wasn't sure what it was about that particular kiss, even in retrospect years later. Perhaps it was because they had just narrowly escaped death. Perhaps it was Ichabod's earlier denial of her needs. Perhaps it was the cold, or the tiny sliver of moon that just barely kept the cabin from being pitch black. But whatever it was, it broke in her whatever dam had been holding her inhibitions back. Without thinking much, Katrina wrapped her arms around Adam's neck and pulled him into a long, deep kiss of fear and relief and want.

~*~

Jenny covered her mouth, queasy at the sight of something inside struggling in the flames. The keening scream rose goosebumps on her arms and the hair on the back of her neck. She didn't struggle when John guided her into the underbrush. She jumped and wished she had had the sense to pull her own blade out of Josephine's chest as something bumped against the door before the struggle finally stopped. Not that her blade would have done much good, but she felt naked without a weapon against such a powerful foe. They crouched together in the underbrush, waiting for Josephine to appear.

"How could I forget?" Jenny smiled when her husband reminded her of the last time they'd gone ghost hunting in Dover Castle. "We never did find that old ghost, you know." Her smile faded as John continued to talk. That was where they had conceived Jack, long dead even before they had met their own time. It was where her father had found them that terrible night Anne had almost died. Her baby, gone long before even their eldest. There were times that Jenny enjoyed reminiscing, and other times when she fell down a rabbit hole of sorrow and longed for the oblivion of death, for the warm embrace of Heaven just so that she might see her parents and children again.

Her melancholy wasn't entirely lifted when Josephine flew into the clearing, but she was able to summon the determination to push it to the back of her mind. Once this old bitch was dead she would return to the Pearl and drink away her memories. Then she would fuck them away. And then drink some more. But for now focusing on the task at hand was enough.

John stepped into the clearing with his usual dramatic flare to interrupt whatever sort of casting the hag was doing. Jenny followed, brushing the twigs and leaves from her skirt. "And why is it always Sparrow and his slut?" she demanded. "I should think fucking the same man for a hundred and fifty years would hardly qualify me as a slut. And why can't I be Sparrow too? It's just downright insulting, you know." She was more than glad to provide a distraction while John got close enough to use the obsidian blade on the witch. Maybe they could just toss her into the inferno that was once her cottage?
 
"Why?" Defiant and irritable as it had been, Josephine seemed to take Jenny's question seriously. She placed a hand on John's chest and pushed, sending him stumbling aside as she strode across the clearing towards her. "Why can't you be Sparrow too?" Her laughter echoed among the trees, harsh and mocking and hateful. "Because you aren't allowed your own identity, are you?" Hands on hips, the nude witch regarded her with an imperious air. "Listen to your own name. Jennifer Marian Agnes Dolan Sparrow." She snorted. "The Church bound you to your husband, bound your mother to her husband, as far back as the Roman god has been able to assert his dominance in Eire! Where is the proud display of your mother's blood, Jennifer? The line of the Fir Ol nEchmacht through Gráinne Ní Mháille? I name you not, because you have bound yourself!"

"Now wait just a..." John began.

Josephine wheeled on him with a hiss. "Silence, Jonathan Nathaniel Sparrow! I bind you to silence, bind you so long as the stars burn!" She turned back, her impish smile ghastly under its mask of clotted blood. "However do you tolerate him? But, I tell you Jennifer, there is no need for us to be enemies. Are we not of the same blood? The Normans named me Sumner, when they drowned my daughter as a demon. When they used me as Ben Halliwell sought to use you, and sentenced me to burn for not being what they wished. But I tell you truly when I say that from my mother backwards to the dawn of the world runs the blood of the Ni Cruinniú, and that I am of the Fir Ol nEchmacht." She cocked her head, then offered her hand. "We should be sisters, Gwenhwyfar Ní Mháille."


He hadn't intended to kiss her, not really. And when he realized he had, he fully expected her to slap him. He'd have deserved it, really. But she simply stared at him in shock for a moment before coming into his arms, gripping him tight and pulling him back into another kiss. This one was hungrier than the first, needier, and it was impossible to tell who was driving it. All he knew was that fear and adrenaline were transumting into desire and hunger, and she was climbing into his lap and pressing her body against his as he gripped her hair and the back of her dress and pulled her tight against him. Her tongue was slippery in his mouth, and her mouth was hot and yielding to his tongue.

The kiss ended with a mutual agreement, both of them gasping with passion and a need for air. He pulled her back, devouring her lips again, his hands working between their bodies to cup her firm breasts before tugging at the laces of her bodice. She leaned back slightly, grinding against his hardening cock as she did, and soft warm flesh spilled into eager hands as the laces opened. He explored further, feeling cloth slip from her shoulders as he tasted her murmured sounds of agreement, intoxicated by the feel of her warm skin. Some small voice of reason protested, shouting that this was madness, but he pushed the voice aside as he brought one firm breast to his lips and tasted the stiff flesh of her nipple. If this was madness, so be it.
 
Adam's strong arm wrapped around her waist, his other hand gripping her hair, as she climbed into his lap to straddle him. There were too many layers for her to feel his erection, but she knew that whenever she did this to Brom it drove him wild. The kiss ended, leaving them panting, and Katrina opened her mouth to apologize but wasn't able to before he pulled her back again. His strong, large, calloused hands worked between their bodies to free her breasts of her bodice. The cloth of her dress slipped over her shoulders, down her arms, and she slipped her torso out of it entirely before burying her fingers in his hair and kissing him harder.

This could never happen, of course. Katrina knew that even as it did happen. The warmth of his tongue on her nipple drove away any serious thoughts of putting a stop to it, instead gripping his hair more firmly and grinding against him. With her overskirts discarded Katrina clung to the farmboy in her bodice and petticoats, reveling in the feeling of his flesh against hers. Suddenly it came to her attention that she couldn't feel his flesh--well, nothing more than his tongue and hands--and she pulled desperately at his homespun shirt, pulling it off over his head and clinging to his warm chest. Katrina left kisses along his shoulders and red streaks up his back as her nails dragged along his flesh.

"I want you," she muttered against Adam's lips, kissing him hard before his attention returned again to her breasts.

~*~

Jenny folded her arms across her chest and stood her ground as Josephine advanced on her, claiming that she wasn't allowed her own identity. She mentioned Gráinne Ní Mháille, better known to Jenny as Granny O'Malley. She had never known her great-grandmother, but her Gram and Granddad Ricard had described her as a fierce and formidable woman. Gram herself had been just as formidable. How dare this Devil's Whore speak of her? And then she silenced John after having pushed him away. Jenny's blood boiled as though the inferno consuming the cabin had taken up residence in her heart.

"Sisters?" she scoffed. "You lose your child and sell your soul, I lose mine and I grieve like a good mother who would thank God for looking after her child." She shoved Josephine, ignoring the outstretched hand. "You're assaulted and you turn your back on God; I held my head high knowing he was with me. The Church didn't bind me to anyone. I chose my husband just as my mother chose hers." She continued shoving the witch hard, advancing as Josephine staggered back several steps, where John behind her had his obsidian knife. "You silence my husband, you threaten my daughter, and then you dare to try and strip me of my own agency? Then you say we should be sisters? How dare you? Leave me and my family be, Slut of Satan!" She gripped Josephine by the shoulders and rushed her backwards into the knife. "And keep my Granny's name out of your whore mouth."
 
“I want you.”

Katrina’s whispered confession played over his nerves, heightening the arousal that heated his blood. He couldn’t by to her, tasting her desire as she kissed him, then returned to her breast as she urged his attentions downward. His lips closed on her nipple and he was rewarded by a hungry sound of delight as she pressed herself against his mouth. “I want you,” he replied, the words indistinct as his tongue played with her skin. “God, I want you.”

Her ran his work-hardened hands over her clothes, trying to work out how to remove them by touch. Finally, with many false starts and many caresses, he managed to poll her blouses down over her shoulders. Cmon boys nched around her hips as his fingers and lips explored her bare skin. “You’re beautiful,” he groaned, eyes feasting on her curves in the darkness. Then e was pushing her back, laying her out on the packed earth as he fumbled with her skirts.



Josephine gasped in agony as the obsidian blade drove into her spine, and John suddenly felt himself able to move again. Immediately he leaned into the blow, driving the sliver of volcanic glass deeper, and blood flowed over his hand to drip onto the grass. “I’m sorry for your daughter,” he said, wrapping an arm around her throat and driving the blade deeper still. “But This has been a long time coming.”

Josephine gurgled and screamed, trying and failing my to form words as bloody froth by bled and burst on her lips. Then she screamed again as John ripped the dagger loose and drove it in again, lower this time. He ripped upwards, feeling the glass snap and shatter as it struck her ribs. “My...” she gasped, going limp in n his arms, “my... daughter.”

John let her fall. “I don’t know if you’ll ever see her again, Josephine. The only thing I have any say in is...”. He cocked an ear, hearing hoofbeats thundering. Then the Horseman burst into the clearing, saber drawn.
 
Jenny couldn't find any measure of Christian charity or pity in her heart, and she didn't even want to try. She had lost a child too, and the difference was in how she'd handled it. Her fingers dug into the witch's shoulders as she pressed her back onto John's knife.

"My... my...daughter," she gurgled, going limp in John's arms.

"You should have honored her better," Jenny hissed, letting her fall.

John was at least trying to be kind, trying to be sympathetic, but Jenny couldn't find it anywhere in her just at that moment. Something in a mother broke whenever she lost any child, especially a daughter, and Jenny had buried all but one before her own time had come. And even then, the release of death hadn't freed her from the burden of burying her own children. Why did Josephine Sumner deserve her pity, her words of kindness, when Jenny herself had laid three of her five children in the ground before she had turned sixty without turning to the prince of lies?

She looked up when John was interrupted by thundering hooves. The Horseman was back, still wearing Brom's decomposing head, turning livid as rigor mortis set in. Jenny scrambled toward the skull where it lay in the grass when she'd dropped it as Josephine had advanced on her. She'd had quite enough of these two for a lifetime.

"Oi!" She held up the skull and shook it at him. "Looking for this?" Jenny chucked the skull at him, hoping she had aimed true but wanting in some morbid part of her to watch the Horseman get off of his mount and go searching for it in the tall grass.

~*~

The packed dirt floor was cold against her back as Adam laid her back, fumbling with her skirts. She wasn't certain whether she were shaking from nerves or from the cold, but the farmboy's warm, firm body was enough to help quell Katrina's shivers. His calloused hands fumbled in unfamiliar territory and she helped him, pulling at the ties and helping pull away her skirts and discard them over with her blouse and his shirt. Her hands briefly, shyly tugged at his pants, but she was too nervous and too shy to go on.

"Take me," she groaned, running her hands over his back. "Oh Adam..." Katrina's fingers ran through his hair as his lips explored her flesh. Her thighs shook as she pulled them to either side of him, pressing them against his hips.
 
"This evening just keeps getting better and better, doesn't it?" John asked, stepping clear of the dying witch and drawing his sword. He wasn't certain it would be any use against the Horseman, but he didn't have any better options. The hatchet was gone, lost somewhere in the woods, and the black glass blade had snapped off in Josephine's ribs. "We need to go somewhere much nicer next time, I think."

A triumphant gurgle echoed from the darkness and the Horseman emerged back into the ring of light cast by the burning hut. Laughing with lips stiffened by rigor mortis, he tore Brom's head from his neck and settled the skull into place. "Free!" he howled, witchlight and flame dancing around the skull. "After centuries, I'm free! Free to... what are you doing?" The last was directed to John, who was sheathing his sword once more.

"My office," John replied, looking back at him.

"Your..." Realization dawned in the burning eyes of the Horseman. "No! I'll kill you first!" he screamed, charging across the clearing at them. But John was faster, swinging a length of silvery light and lashing it across the clearing. It wrapped around the Horseman's waist and John yanked it taught, jerking the man off his feet. "Not me!" the revenant howled. "Not me! It was the witch!"

"The witch?" John snarled, snapping the coil of silver and looping it around his wrists. "She's a murderer and a monster, yes, and she'll face judgement in the next world." The Horseman struggled and John jerked again, then sent another loop around the flaming neck. "But you? You who professed to be a servant of God and profaned that office? Who perverted judgement and dealt out torture and death to the innocent to gain wealth?" Another snap of the line, wrapping it around his legs. "It's the Locker for you." A final snap of the line sent it lashing around his throat, choking off his screams. "Fifteen men on a dead man's chest. Yo ho ho."

The deed done, he looked down at Josephine's body. "What do you think, Jenny? Toss her in the flames? Or just leave her to rot?"



Adam reared up, fumbling with his pants when Katrina stopped - something he was glad for and disappointed about. God, but he wanted to feel her soft hands on his erection. But he was certain that, if she did grip him there, this would end all too quickly and all too disappointingly. So he pulled them open, pushing them down over his hips as her bare thighs pressed against him. "Take me," she groaned, runing her hands over his chest and back. He came down over her, kissing her lips and throat and bare breasts as her fingers ran through his hair. "Oh Adam..."

"Katriina..." he breathed, reaching down between them to explore between her thighs. She was slick, parting easily to his touch, and she moaned beneath him as his fingers slid inside her. Using those fingers as a guide he pressed his cock forward, gasping as he felt his head slip through her wetness. "Ah... Katrina..." There was a moment of awkward fumbling then as he moved against her, before he was lined up properly. Then he pressed forward, trying to go slow. He'd heard that the first time could be painful for a woman and so he entered carefully, groaning in an agony of pleasure as he fought the urge to simply bury himself in her. But then his hips met hers, his shaft completely surrounded by her walls, and he stared down at her in the darkness. "Are... are you... all right?"
 
Katrina gasped when he finally entered her, clinging tightly to his broad, strong shoulders and shaking. Slowly he pressed forward, inch by agonizing inch as her walls gently squeezed his shaft. When Adam asked whether she was alright Katrina nodded, pressing a hard kiss to his lips. She, too, had heard that it could hurt the first time but he hadn't hurt at all. She would figure out later what that meant for her and the poor farmboy who would certainly put her at a social disadvantage should anyone ever find out.

"I'm fine," she gasped, peppering Adam's throat and shoulders with kisses. "God you're so thick..." Of course, she had no basis for comparison, but she could feel her walls gently stretching then tightening around him. "Don't stop," Katrina begged, pressing her hips up toward his, pressing her nails gently into his flesh. "Oh God Adam please don't stop..."

~*~

Jenny was tempted to laugh at the Horseman's expression as her husband tied him throat-to-ankle, but she didn't. She hadn't thought that a bare skull was capable of making expressions, but the Horseman appeared terrified as John snapped the final loop around his throat and choked him. When he asked her what she wanted to do with Josephine's body she frowned and looked down at it.

"Well, I was hoping to take her to the locker as well..." she said slowly, then with a shrug and a sigh bent to heave the body up over her shoulder. "But if we can't, we shouldn't leave any remains around to be reanimated or anything like that." The old wooden door of the cottage cracked and crumbled even as she walked up to it and threw the corpse into the inferno then spat on it. Turning her back on Josephine Sumner for the last time, she crossed the clearing and kissed her husband gently.

"Congratulations on your first soul," she said quietly with a smile. "Only ninety-nine more to go."
 
“Ninety-nine more to go,” John agreed, kissing Jenny back. Feels like there should be a song in there, doesn’t it?” He kissed her once more for good measure, hands roaming a little as he did. After everything that had happened, the thought of having here on the forest floor - celebrating his first success and, to be honest, working off the illicit arousal his time with Katrina had generated - was suddenly extremely erotic. But even as his tongue gently slid between her lips, the thought of Katrina made him remember something else. “Oh, shit,” he breathed. “We’d better see if we can’t find Katrina and wasshisname, Adam. Make sure that the Horseman here didn’t hurt them.”

Looking around in an effort to get his bearings, John pointed out into the darkness. “That way, I think,” he finally decided. “Katrina said there was an old farmstead, or trapper’s cabin, or something over there. She said it was haunted, but if they were being chased it seems a likely place to head for.” Slinging the silver thread over his shoulder like a rope, he caught Jenny’s hand and headed into the woods. “This way. I’m sure of it.”


I'm fine," she gasped in response to Adam’s question, peppering his throat and shoulders with kisses.l as he strained against the urge to pound himself into her.

“You... you are,” he gasped in response, uncertain if he was agreeing or what. All he knew was that she felt incredible beneath him. Around him.

“God you're so thick..." she groaned, and he groaned as well as he felt her inner walls tightening around his shaft.

He began moving, slowly thrusting into her, afraid that he’d climax if he went too fast. “God,” he gasped out, rising up on his arms to kiss her lips and breasts, and finding that the motion pushed him even deeper into her body. “You feel so, so good. On me.”



Leaving the Horseman lashed to a tree, John crept up to the door of the little hut and pushed. Then he pushed again, only to find it stuck fast. “Barred,” he murmured, then cocked an ear. “Definitely people inside, though. I can hear voices. Let’s try a window.” The windows were shuttered, of course, but on the third try Jenny found one that was loose. They pried it aside and peered in. “Well,” John said after a moment, voice husky, “we found them.”

The first thing he made out in the semidarkness was Katrina, her proud young body half-naked and her legs wrapped around the powerful hips of the farmboy thrusting into her. “Don't stop," she begged, meeting his thrusts as her hands slid over his strong back. "Oh God Adam please don't stop..."

Standing behind his wife so they could both peer through the single half-open shutter, John unconsciously pressed his sudden erection against Jenny’s firm rear. “I... I think they, they’re all right,” he whispered, hands resting on her hips. His own hips moved slightly, thrusting in unconscious imitation of the farmboy’s motions as he fucked Katrina. “Maybe,” he murmured, biting gently at the back of Jenny’s neck, “maybe we should go?”
 
"Faster," Katrina begged breathlessly. "Touch me, Adam." She thrust her own hips up against his as he pushed deeper into her, moaning without paying much attention to her volume. Much of her shyness gone, she curled her fingers around one of Adam's wrists and guided his hand to her clit, arching her back and crying out as he touched her. "Right there...oh God yes!" she cried out as he began to understand and pleasured her as he pumped in and out of her hot, slick snatch. "Harder..." she groaned, "faster..."

~*~

"Maybe," John murmured, biting gently at the back of her neck, "maybe we should go?"

"Mm," Jenny agreed vaguely, not paying much attention to her husband's words. Her gaze was fixed on the farmboy's muscles as they moved under his skin, accentuated by the sliver of moonlight falling on the young couple. Only perverts spied on others as they made love, and she knew that, and yet... "In a minute."

John was, after all, pressing insistently against her, imitating Adam's thrusts so that it was easy to imagine him behind her. She shouldn't. She should be focusing even harder on her husband as he thrust against her unconsciously. Jenny bit her lip and gripped the window ledge harder, conflicted not over whether to stay and watch, but whether to imagine that it was Adam behind her even as she watched him make love to a girl his own age.
 
“Yeah,” John agreed absently as he stared over Jenny’s shoulder at Katrina “in a minute.” God, but that girl looked incredible. The way her ripe, pale breasts gleamed life is ivory in the silver moonlight. The way she bit her lip as she moaned with each thrust. “I want you,” he murmured, “now.”

Jenny responded by gripping the windowsill and pushing back, grinding a little against his erection. Still watching Katrina he slowly opened Jenny’s blouse, cupping one of her larger, heavier breasts. The other worked at her skirts, pushing them and the undergarments beneath them to pool around her ankles. The same probing fingers found her lips, found them slick and wet as she moved er bare ass against his still-clothed cock. “Touch me,” Katrina begged as he circled Jenny’s clit. “Harder. Faster.”

His fingers slipped from Jenny’s slick cunt as he pulled back, just long enough to undo his trousers. His head slid over her ass, leaving a thin trail of precum before pressing against her slit. He thrust deliberately, hearing Katrina moan long and low as Jenny’s walls parted and then gripped him.



“You... feel so... so good...” Adam gasped out, as Katrina begged him to go faster. In response he began driving his hips against her, making by her body jerk and slide on the wooden floor with each powerful thrust. She whimpered in response, making him freeze in mid thrust. “Are... are you all right?” he asked, suddenly anxious. In respect new she tightened hr legs around his hips, while her sof hands tugged at his shoulders.

He began moving again. Slowly at first, grinning down at her as he resisted her efforts to make him speed up. But the playful urge faded quickly, lost in the desire to thrust harder. Faster. To simply fuck. “Are... are you... you close?” he gasped out. “I... oh, fuck, i don’t... don’t know... how long... I can... last...”
 
Adam froze mid-thrust. Katrina gasped, gripping desperately at his shoulders and tightening her legs around his hips when he asked whether she were alright. God if he would just fuck her! When he began moving again it was slow, making her whimper and groan in agony and frustration. She pulled Adam down for a hard, desperate kiss when he refused to go any faster.

Then he started pounding her again. Katrina cried out, letting her head fall back, digging her nails into his shoulders and letting them slide down his arms as she slid and jerked along the dirty floor. He gasped out, asking whether she were close, and for a moment all she could do was moan.

"So...close..." she finally managed to gasp. "Oh God...please...harder...!" She'd never known before--and how could she?--just how rough she would like it.

~*~

They shouldn't be doing this. She shouldn't be doing this. She shouldn't have been watching the young couple, licking her lips at the way Katrina's breasts gleamed in the moonlight or the way Adam's thick cock pumped in and out of her. She shouldn't have been thinking about whether he would make the same expression he made now if she had dropped to her knees in the woods that afternoon and taken that cock in her mouth.

Jenny gasped quietly when Adam's John's fingers circled her clit. She pushed her ass back against him, feeling his throbbing erection through his clothes, grinding against him insistently as she watched Adam pound the little rich trollop. Her mouth dropped open when she felt him slide his head over her ass then finally enter her. She bit her lip as he cupped her breasts and moved in her, mouthing the farmboy's name where he couldn't see while she watched him playfully tease Katrina.
 
This was so unbelievably wrong, watching another couple while he drove himself into Henny’s slick pussy. Watching Katrina beg to be fucked, her ripe young body on display as she begged to be fucked, seemingly gasping in time with his thrusts. He and Jenny had done something like this more than once, mwatching themselves in the mirror in their cabin. But the illicit - the sinful thrill of taking Jenny while watching Katrina plead to be fucked harder? God, he was turned on!

He tugged on Jenny’s blouse, listening to her mouth words he couldn’t quite make out. “You feel,” he hissed, gripping her bare shoulders for extra leverage, “so... fucking... good...”. He always loved sec with her, but it was becoming routine. Predictable. Even their games were becoming monotonous. But now?

“So...close..." Katrina gasped as Jack thrust into Jenny once more. "Oh God...please...harder...!"

Jack’s hands squeezed down on Jenny’s shoulders, jerking her back to to him as he began pounding into her hard enough to slap her body into the wooden wall of the cabin.

[he]

“So...close..." she finally managed to gasp. "Oh God...please...harder...!"

Adam complied enthusiastically. Muscles hardened by a lifetime of labor writhed beneath his skin as he drove himself brutally into her slim body. Gone was any concern about hurting her. All he wanted now was to hear the slap of skin against skin, and her incoherent cries of ecstasy as his rigid cock drove deeper and harder into the slick tight grip of her cunt. “God,” he gasped, sweat dripped g down his face and chest from his efforts, “I... I’n close. Fuck, Katrina, I’m close...”

A thought struck him. “Should... should I pull out?” Even as he asked, his cock slammed into her once more.
 
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