Holden: Hollow Duet: Part 2 (The Hollow Duet) Read online

  Holden

  A story by DD Prince

  Copyright 2019, all rights reserved. http://ddprince.com

  This story may not be copied, distributed, or otherwise used in any part without the author’s permission.

  Don’t be a book pirate! Please respect the hard work of authors by buying this book from Amazon or reading it via a Kindle Unlimited subscription. Thank you.

  This is not a standalone story. This is part 2 in The Hollow Duet. You must read Hollow first.

  Contents

  1- Now: October 31st

  2 – Flashback: Our First Day Together

  3 – Flashback: The Farm

  4 – Now: The Reveal

  5 – Now: The Calm Before the Storm

  6 – Now: The Storm

  7 – Now: The Intervening

  8 – Now: The Chase

  9 – Now: Deja Vu

  10 – Holden: The Next October 31st

  11 – The After

  Epilogue: Five Years Later

  Holden

  Isabella

  End of Book Matter

  Note to the reader:

  This is part two in The Hollow Duet.

  If you haven’t read part one, please do so before reading this book, otherwise it won’t make sense.

  Warning: Graphic violence. Horror. This duet is for those over the age of 18.

  1

  - Now: October 31st

  I was a bundle of nerves when I opened the test. I was hopeful when I did what I was supposed to do to use it. I felt an instant of pure elation when I saw the blue ink seep through the window. But then, other emotions, complicated ones…they took over.

  As I stood at the bathroom sink, staring at the blue plus symbol on the window of the pregnancy test, my teeth were embedded in my bottom lip. My eyes moved up to my reflection and I had trouble with what I saw on my pale-looking face.

  Fear. Remorse. So much remorse. My dark eyes looked haunted. So very haunted.

  My eyes moved back to the plus sign.

  A baby. Our baby. I wasn’t remorseful about having a baby. Quite the opposite. I was elated at the idea of being a mother, at seeing a little baby – our baby – in the arms of the man I loved. I wanted a baby so badly I could taste motherhood like something sweet on my tongue. But the joy that would come with it? Deep in me, in a place I tried to hide – I felt like I didn’t deserve it.

  Holden flushed my birth control pills a month or so ago, and when he put me up against the wall and ravished me, I probably ovulated that day. He ravished me most days, but that day – I felt funny directly afterwards, as if sensing the precise moment the cells split. Strange, right? But, I’m serious.

  I know that it usually takes a while for birth control to leave your system, but stranger things have happened to me.

  As for the ravishing…

  Truth be told, there weren’t all that many days that Holden didn’t show me how he felt about me in a very physical way. He was quite demonstrative: my handsome, gallant, chivalrous husband.

  He was a perfect gentleman in most ways, but an absolute rogue in the bedroom. And elsewhere in our home. He’d taken me in every room once we moved in. And the barn. And the garage. Plus: in both my car and his car.

  It’d come over him, this hunger for me. He’d get a look in his eyes and my knees would weaken. And then he’d take me. Passionately. Hungrily. He was very, very good at it.

  And I had no complaints whatsoever about the fact that his sexual appetite was challenging to keep up with. He was the only one I had ever been with and would ever be with. I would never, ever want another. I didn’t even get gooey at the idea of a movie star hall pass, like my coworker friends joked about in the staff room at work. I had no want, zero cravings for any man but the man I had.

  He was tall, dark, handsome, strong, and looked at me like he felt lucky to have me, and like he could never want another, either.

  He didn’t know about the birth control pills until he dared to ask me one evening when he caught me smiling at a giggling baby being pushed in a swing at the park as we took a stroll if it upset me that we hadn’t gotten “with child” yet. That was when I explained that I was on The Pill, a pill to prevent pregnancy. He frowned and looked cross with me. It hurt. I’d never seen that expression on his face before.

  “Do you not want to bear my children, Isabella?” His expression changed to hurt and that was even worse than him looking cross.

  “The pill just lets us decide when we're ready, Holden.”

  “And you’re not ready? Why? Do you not trust me to be the father of your baby? To take care of you both?”

  It was an uncomfortable moment for me. We didn’t ask a lot of questions in our marriage. We avoided questions, for the most part, beyond something surface-like. Not asking questions felt safer. We had topics we weren’t allowed to discuss. We didn’t even talk about the fact that we couldn’t discuss certain things. Fewer questions meant less risk, in my opinion.

  “Of course, I trust you.”

  He steered us back the way we came, to the car, and was quiet on the ride home, as was I.

  “Where are these pills?” he asked as we got in our front door. His expression was hard. It made my belly flip-flop and not in a good way, not in the usual way Holden made my belly feel.

  I fetched them from the top drawer of the bathroom vanity and as I turned, he was right there, directly behind me, startling me. His expression was hard. His arms were folded across his chest.

  I handed the package to him, about to explain how they worked when he threw it into the trash bin, hooked an arm around my waist, and then tore my skirt up at the back as he put me face first against the floral wallpaper.

  “I want our first baby here, Isabella. First of many. And as soon as possible.” He ground his hips into my backside and huskily rumbled, “Is that acceptable to you?”

  The way he asked, I couldn’t possibly say it wasn’t. I spun around as his hands went to his fly. His mouth crashed against mine as my back slid up the wall with the force of being impaled by him.

  My legs wound around his middle and my teeth sank into his shoulder as I whimpered.

  "Good answer," he advised.

  ***

  “I want our first baby here.”

  Our first baby.

  This hurt so much, because it wouldn’t be our first. Not truly. Our first was…gone.

  I slipped the test into folded up tissue and tucked it into the drawer in the vanity. My palm caressed that vanity. Holden made this with his bare hands. It was beautifully finished, lovingly made for our home. A home he wanted to provide for his family. Me. His children.

  In our one year together, I’d learned a lot about him by watching him, rather than by asking questions. And he watched me, too. He’d know, as soon as I told him I was pregnant, that there was more. More in my heart. My conscience. I had always worn my heart on my sleeve, and he was so observant.

  So many things were already unsaid by us. Would the guilt eat me up inside? Would the stress of it all mean that I’d hurt another baby of ours and lose this one, too?

  I was terrified of losing another baby, of being responsible for killing two of our children.

  The guilt of knowing I’d very likely killed one already was bad enough.

  2 – Flashback: Our First Day Together

  November 1st, Last Year

  “They said you’d help me.”

  My eyes widened with worry. They? Was he about to say things he shouldn’t?

  “I’d like to buy a car. A fast one.” His mouth split into a smile.

  “I hoped you’d help me with this,” he said, pull
ing a stack of papers out of the gym bag he’d brought with him. I was rinsing dishes from our pancakes. I dried my hands and took the pile of paper and flipped through it. Oh. His assets. Property. Bank statements. Investments.

  “Can you help me with that, Isabella?”

  I had no idea how he had so much money, but now knew that he was my landlord. The deed for this property and several other commercial properties besides was in the stack, along with a pretty diversified investment portfolio that was being managed for him by an investment company with a P.O. Box address in Marblehead, Massachusetts. The same P.O. Box address for the corporation I had sent my lease and rent checks to. Erica?

  It wasn’t as if I’d been steered to rent this specific apartment by someone. I’d made the choice myself. How odd (not unlike the oddness of everything surrounding Holden).

  Erica never told me she was a witch, but I surmised that she was. The things she said, the book she carried, not least of which were the words in the children’s book about the headless horseman that talked about a local coven of friendly witches keeping the area safe from The Horseman.

  “Can I pick the color of this new car?” I asked.

  His lips tipped up. “Yes. So long as you choose silver.”

  I giggled.

  He grabbed my hand and tugged me toward him, then pulled me into his lap and I put the stack of papers on the table and wound my arms around his neck. My lips instinctually moved to his throat, to his scar.

  I heard a sigh escape his lips and felt him harden underneath me. He was in just a pair of jeans. I was in the button-down shirt he wore the night before.

  His hands went underneath and gripped the cheeks of my bottom.

  I smiled against his neck, feeling my face flush. This sexual stuff was so new. But I liked it. A lot.

  “You know, I have a car.”

  “Is it fast?” His fingers slipped into the crotch of my panties and directly inside me. My head rolled back, and his mouth was right there, on my throat.

  “N-no. I mean, it can go fast but it’s not a sportscar. It’s pretty zippy, but it’s economical.”

  “Get me out,” he ordered, lips against my jaw, grinding his hips upwards, to add context. He yanked my underwear to one side.

  I fumbled with his fly and hesitated.

  “Grab it, kitty cat. It wants your heat.”

  Heat flushed my face even further.

  “No need to be shy with me. Ever,” he assured, caressing my head and twirling a lock of my hair.

  Eyes on his, I carefully pulled it out, then my eyes dropped and saw why it’d been so easy. He had no underpants on. He lifted me a few inches by my hips. My panties were still aside so when he lowered me, there was a clear path for him.

  He slowly lowered me down onto him until he was an inch or two inside. I winced.

  “Sore?”

  He’d been very energetic the night before. And that morning before breakfast.

  “I’m good,” I sort of fibbed. Because I wanted him.

  “Good.” He slammed me down the rest of the way and I yelped.

  His eyes went concerned. I blew out a long breath and grabbed his shoulders. His eyes looked directly into mine. I melted at that look.

  “You feel like the heaven I’ve been waiting for.”

  He was in limbo for two hundred years. I had spent the last year having bad dreams. I felt, deep inside, like that was now changing. I was going to do my best to be his heaven until he really got to go there. And I knew right there, Holden deep inside me and looking at me with so much pure devotion in his eyes that because I would keep our secret, he would be the best dream come true.

  I chewed my lip, and then replied, “You feel like a dream come true. The good kind of dream. But I am shy, Holden; I can’t help it. You’ve been my first and…only.”

  “I know,” he murmured, lust flaring in his eyes. “And in fact, I quite like that about you. It’s endearing. And it’ll only ever be me, sweetheart.”

  Sex on a kitchen chair with me riding Holden Holloway, my feet dangling, my toes curling – was amazing. I’d come to learn that sex with Holden anywhere would be amazing.

  ***

  “First stop, a church so we can arrange to be married,” he told me, as we walked hand-in-hand down the main street of Drowsy Hollow. It was a small town and I got helloes from most of the people who passed us because some knew me and the rest because it was such a small and friendly community.

  We’d just spent twenty minutes in my car in the countryside where I’d shown him the driving basics. He took to it like a natural and drove us back to the apartment with the ease and skill of an experienced driver. His paperwork included identification, including a driver’s license, which I found alarming. I decided I’d order him a driver’s handbook online so he could read it and study all the rules. Now, we were having a stroll as I showed him around.

  Holden got curious looks from many. He greeted everyone with a smile and a hello or good day as we made our way down the sidewalk. He stared with ardent interest at a greyhound bus that went by and then even more at a motorcycle.

  “I’ll want one of those, too. Later,” he said, gesturing to the motorcycle. “And a boat.”

  I giggled. Boys and their toys.

  He squeezed my hand affectionately. “After the church, the bank to withdraw money to go to a car merchant.” He kissed my temple. “And a diamond for your finger. Does this village have a jeweler?”

  “Absolutely on the car. But I don’t need---”

  “Yes, little kitty cat. You do. A big diamond.”

  I smiled. “Okay.”

  ***

  The local church was booked for weddings for the upcoming eight Saturdays, so I suggested a city hall wedding.

  “Wherever will make it so that I can legally call you mine works for me,” he told me.

  ***

  The pretty bank teller flirted shamelessly with Holden despite me standing right there. Yes, he was that dreamy. Tall. Strong-looking. Ruggedly handsome. And then when she keyed some things into the computer after he put his bank card into the machine (I showed him the paper with his PIN number), she went pink-faced and got even more flirtatious. I wasn’t surprised she got like that after seeing what was in his account. His bank account had $1.7 million in it according to the documentation I’d seen that morning. That wasn’t including his assets. That was just cash sitting there earning interest.

  “My fiancée needs to have access to everything,” he told her sternly, looking like he was annoyed with her flirting. She was leaned forward at the counter, balancing on her elbows, which pushed her boobs together and gave him an eyeful of cleavage spilling out her baby pink cashmere sweater set.

  Her eyes swept over me with disappointment. “I’ll check if the manager can see you. One moment, please.”

  She sashayed away. My eyes were on her butt. I looked to Holden’s and his weren’t. They were on me. Bonus points for him.

  The bank manager was a little old man that looked like he was ten years past retirement age. He arranged for me to be added to Holden’s accounts. He raised a brow at the fact that Holden didn’t want to have his signature on my withdrawals.

  “No limitations?” the bank manager tried to confirm.

  “None.”

  “Meaning she can clean out the account and we wouldn’t even notify you?”

  “Meaning that, yes.” Holden certainly spoke as if he knew what he was doing.

  The bank manager glanced at me with shrewd eyes and then went away to get a bank card made for me.

  “They’d usually expect a prenuptial agreement,” I whispered. “Because of how wealthy you are.”

  He looked at me curiously. I would come to recognize that look in the coming months. When I saw that expression, I would gently tell him more about whatever scenario we were in and do so in a way that was discreet. He was from another time. A lot of things were foreign to him. Even pushing buttons into a pad at the teller must’ve
been awfully strange for him.

  “Many couples nowadays make arrangements prior to getting married that state how their assets are to be divided upon divorce,” I explained, “That way, they don’t have to split the money and assets down the middle. If one spouse is very wealthy, it’s particularly popular, so the wealthy spouse doesn’t lose too much. Divorce has become really common.”

  He frowned. “We won’t be common, Isabella. Have they removed Till Death do us part in marital vows?”

  “No. They haven’t. I---I just --- I’m explaining why he was acting surprised. If he were a younger bank manager he’d have probably been even more so. Men of his generation often believe that they should control the family finances, as well, so we probably weird him out for multiple reasons.”

  “I would normally agree about the husband keeping charge of the wealth, not to keep you from it due to deceit, but to take on that burden for us so that you don’t have to give it any thought. But, as I’m a little undereducated in the current… state of things, your help will be needed.”

  “I’m happy to help, Holden.”

  Holden looked annoyed. “What’s mine is yours, Isabella. And I believe in marital vows. You look like you want to shrink away and hide.”

  I laughed nervously and pushed my hair out of my eyes with a shrug. Mr. Bank Manager was coming back with a card for me and a stack of paperwork.

  “Your card, Miss Krane. Kindly choose a PIN number.” He passed me a wired number pad. “After you marry, if you decide to take his name, we’ll have another one made, as well as order some checks.”

  Holden bristled. “If she decides to take my name?”

  I squeezed his hand. “Of course I will. I’m a traditional girl.” I smiled brightly. “Isabella Holloway has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?”