(1513 words, old west, ghosts, sex on horseback)
Lucy knew not to go down to the lake alone.
It had snowed heavy the night before, blanketing the prairie in a boundless layer of pristine white, shimmering under the light of the full moon. She’d spent the day playing with the children, ice skating on the lake’s frozen surface for hours before heading back into town for an evening of feasting and caroling.
No one came down to the lake alone, not after dark, and Lucy knew better.
She lifted her fingers to the hollow of her throat where her cross should have been resting against her skin. The only thing she could think of was that it must have fallen off while she’d been skating, because she’d retraced her steps meticulously in and out of town with no luck in finding the lost trinket.
It had to be at the lake. It had to be.
The night was calm and quiet as Lucy stepped out onto the ice, and she could hear the vibrating echo of her footsteps as clear as day as she tiptoed slowly across the surface of the lake, searching desperately for the familiar glint of gold somewhere.
After nearly twenty minutes of fruitless searching, Lucy was shivering violently and about to give up. And then—there. No more than ten yards ahead was a glimmering golden chain lying nearly in the center of the lake.
Lucy sprinted over to it reflexively and bent down to scoop up the treasure. That’s when she heard a blood-chilling crack. She turned just in time to watch as the ice started to split, a fissure forming along the surface originating from where she’d just come.
Lucy took a tentative step backwards, then another, too afraid to make any sudden movements that might exacerbate her situation, though every cell in her body was screaming at her, telling her to run.
Another crack formed in the ice, splintering off from the first before spreading rapidly, a branching series of breaks that would certainly spell Lucy’s doom if she didn’t make it back to shore before they reached her.
Lucy glanced behind herself to check her progress. It was still too far to make a break for it. She had no choice but to continue at a slow, careful pace, trying all the while to outrun nature itself.
An earth-shattering boom pulled Lucy’s attention back to the fissure in the ice. But the fissure was gone, replaced by a massive hole leading down into churning black water, and under that water, Lucy could see something ascending, two burning red eyes like flaming coals moving steadily toward the surface.
Before Lucy could scream, she found herself being launched into the air. She landed with a grunt in the seat of a saddle, facing a man dressed all in black with a bandana shrouding the entirety of his face and a wide-brimmed cowboy hat that cast any glimpse Lucy might of gotten of his eyes into shadow.
Lucy gaped at the man as they galloped away from the lake, and then peered over his shoulder just in time to catch a glimpse of a massive dark shape hauling itself out onto the ice.
“What was that?” Lucy asked in a whisper.
The masked man didn’t answer.
Lucy started to worry that maybe her savior didn’t have the heroic intentions his actions would seem to imply once she realized they were riding west, away from the town and the rest of civilization, and then finally, the man’s horse began to slow before coming to a stop in the middle of a wide open plain.
Lucy considered the possibility of jumping off the horse and making a run for it, but in knee-deep snow, she wasn’t going to make it very far, and she couldn’t escape a pursuer on horseback anyway. She closed her eyes instead and leaned forward into the man’s coat, trying to retain what little warmth she had left, and hoping that this man would eventually see fit to take her home.
Lucy breathed in deeply. In and out. And then she paused. Lucy recognized the scent clinging to the man’s coat. Juniper and pine. She’d smelled it before.
“Ransom?” she said as she pulled away to look up at the man’s shrouded visage, her terrified countenance turning questioning in the face of the familiar.
The masked man gave a small nod in answer, and Lucy breathed out a sigh of relief.
“You saved me,” Lucy breathed into his chest, clutching at his fur coat desperately. “You saved me.”
The night was cold, but Lucy’s face was warm as she reached up to take Ransom’s face in her hands. He stopped her, pushing her hands away without a word, but Lucy was not to be deterred. She grabbed Ransom’s wrists with both hands, bringing them down to her chest, waiting until his hands settled against the swell of her breasts before making her next move.
Lucy let go of Ransom’s wrists and instead reached down between them for his belt buckle. She glanced up at his mask as though expecting to find an answer there, or a protest, but Ransom’s only reaction was to tense his fingers as she finished unbuckling his belt, making her gasp quietly.
“If you don’t want this…” Lucy said as she moved on to the button on Ransom’s trousers.
“I want it,” Ransom said quietly.
That was all the permission Lucy needed.
It was impossible to remove her undergarments without climbing out of the saddle, and Lucy wasn’t about to jump into the snow just to divest herself of any much-needed articles of clothing, so she made do once she had Ransom’s pants undone. She shifted forward slowly, lifting her skirts to encircle them both before reaching underneath with one hand to move her bloomers to the side, using the other to guide Ransom’s cock into herself while he steadied her with both hands on her hips.
Lucy settled down onto him with a sigh and moved her hands to his shoulders instead, using them as leverage to push herself up, almost all the way off of him before sinking back down again. She was glad she hadn’t waited around for Ransom to give her the time of day, that she’d gotten a few rolls in the hay before this so she could properly savor this moment without worrying about her own inexperience getting in the way.
Lucy could feel Ransom’s fingers tightening on her hips with each rise and fall, could tell from his ragged breathing that he was getting close.
And that’s when she saw it.
The same coal-red eyes that she’d first glimpsed within the depths of the lake, this time embedded in the body of a massive black bison hurtling toward them with frightening speed.
“It’s back,” Lucy hissed as she dropped back down onto Ransom’s lap, his cock almost painfully deep inside her once her thighs were pressed against his.
There wasn’t even enough time to adjust their positions as Ransom grabbed the reigns again and spurred the horse into action. Lucy clutched at his coat, holding on for dear life and gritting her teeth against the feeling of being fucked like this, Ransom’s cock slamming into her hard every time the horse’s hooves struck ground.
And she wasn’t sure if it was the adrenaline or the fact that she’d already been close to finishing, but she was right on the precipice now, about to come just as the demonic bellowing bison closed in on them.
Lucy watched with frantic, panting breaths as the bison galloped toward them, and then turned her head to look ahead just in time to realize that Ransom was riding straight toward a cliff.
“What are you doing?” Lucy cried out, the words coming out half-uttered, disjointed.
“Trust me,” was all Ransom said in response.
Then they were skidding through the snow, the horse cutting right without warning right at the cliff’s edge and sliding to a stop. Lucy watched through wide eyes as the bison (which she could see was more skeleton than flesh now) failed to follow them, its momentum propelling it forward—straight off the cliff.
Lucy buried her face in Ransom’s coat again and let out a shuddering sob.
“You’re safe now,” Ransom reassured her.
Lucy drew in a shaky breath as she leaned back, resting her head along the horse’s neck as she tugged Ransom down to meet her. The pointed end of his bandana tickled her throat as he fucked into her, both of them desperately trying to finish now that they’d taken care of their nightmarish interruption.
Lucy came with a desperate cry, her hands clawing upwards along Ransom’s chest to his shoulders, before abruptly lifting to grab the brim of his hat. She pulled, intending to toss it into the snow, to take Ransom’s face in her hands so she could kiss him, but when the hat and the mask were gone, there was nothing there for Lucy to kiss.
Because Ransom didn’t have a face. He didn’t even have a head.