Page 5 of Hunted By the Headless Horseman
I turn, leaning over ever so slightly to notice the attached bathroom, the claw-foot tub.
He washed me.
Can he see me?
The tapping stops.
“Shit!”
I scramble off the other side of the bed, hearing the chair topple over, the sound of boots. He’s closing in on me out of the corner of my eye.
Shitshitshit!
He seizes my wrist. I miss the door handle by an inch.
A very muscled arm, the same one that plucked me right up like a flower, ropes around my waist, yanking my body against his—my back to his chest. My head doesn’t surpass his collarbone. The hand at my wrist touches my neck, fingers curving around my throat like a seductive and tender hover above a choke hold. He’s anchoring me to him.
Adrenaline spikes my pulse. My breath escapes in ragged gasps until the hand at my throat taps a finger to my pulse. Taptap. Pause. Taptap. Is he…trying to help me slow my heart rate? Calm me?
After a few more taps to my pulse, the hand migrates north until it skims a lone finger down the bridge of my nose. Encouraging me to breathe?
Okay,Belle, you can do this. Just breathe.Hot, headless Heathcliff is trying tohelpyou, not hurt you.I take deep breaths, long and deep, until my heartbeat stops thundering in my ears.
With one more deep exhale, I tilt my head slightly, gulping. What did I expect? A head to suddenly appear? Jack-O’-Lantern, maybe? Nothing’s there.
The gloved hand at my waist lurks up until it stations itself just beneath my breasts. The other returns to my throat, fingers caressing my skin. Oh, god…heat thrashes in my veins…and some—mmm, some travels lower, nestling between my thighs.
“Okay, okay, I know, that was stupid of me,” I deflect. “More than stupid, it was impolite to simply run off after you picked me up from the ground, brought me to this pretty bedroom, and washed all the mud away before dressing me in a nightgown worthy of a Dracula novel.”
He could have done far worse. And with the cold night air, I suppose he kept me from hypothermia. That was…sweet.
“Look, I don’t know if you can hear me. But here you are, this famed icon from dark Halloween folklore, and you must not get many visitors, and maybe you can’t talk, but I’m sure you’re a great listener if you can listen—I mean, but maybe you can’t, and that’s okay because I am an amazing charades player. And now you know I ramble really fast when I’m very nervous.”
I suck sudden air into my lungs, only to notice he’s leaned over, and there’s this thumping motion from his chest. “Um…oh, lord, are you laughing?”
He lifts the hand from my throat, poises it in the air next to me, and wags it back and forth in the gesture of “kind of”.
“Oh, bloody Mary, you can hear me, understand me?” My breath hitches when he touches my bottom lip, then sinks a thumb to my chin, pressing down. “Uh, is that code for “talk more”?”
He presses his chest to the backs of my shoulders for just a moment before rising again. I think that was a nod.
“Okay, first…” I lift a trembling hand to his, flinching when he does—as if he’s startled by the gesture. How long has it been since he’s felt anything from anyone? Shaking off my curiosity, I take his hand and position his fingers in a thumbs-up. “This means ‘yes’ or ‘good’.” I then lower it in the opposite direction, thumbs down. “This means ‘no’ or ‘wrong’ or ‘bad’. It will make charades much easier. Do you understand?”
My heart lurches into my throat, but when he pivots his wrist and does the thumbs up, I breathe a deep sigh of relief.
“Good…”
I chew on my lower lip, debating on what to ask next. Sure, I want to know his name, but I’m curious about so much more, and it looks like I’m going to be here for a bit. Especially since he seems to have no intention of letting me go. Not that I could possibly know the intentions of a headless horseman.
“So, how can you understand me?” I wonder.
With my hand still clutched in his, he captures my index finger, taps it, then reaches into his inner coat pocket, retrieving my grandmother’s book.
I put two and two together. “Oh…when I cut my finger and dripped blood on the page.”
Thumbs up. He puts the book back in his pocket and wraps an arm around my waist again. My belly does a little flutter.
“Is there any way I could understand you?”
