SEVEN
Lurenz
Lurenz heaved the post into the ground, bracing it against his shoulder.
He gripped the wood, splinters biting into the worn palms of his gloves. With as much force as he could muster, he wedged the post deeper and stepped back, wiping his brow and considering the erect pole.
Thick, standing tall. Thrusting from the ground as Valentin’s cock had thrust from his groin.
He licked his lips, the salted sweat of his efforts mingling with saliva. The taste not unlike—
“Gods.” He adjusted himself as the memory of Valentin’s thick, cum-covered cock blazed across his mind. His heated gaze locked onto Lurenz. The way his blonde curls did indeed flop over his forehead and tangle in his horns, and that sound—deep, low, and utterly abandoned to pleasure.
Lurenz tossed his shovel aside and sagged against the fence post, scrubbing his face with filthy hands. “Get a hold of yourself.”
He had relieved himself just an hour before, how was he going to survive the winter?
It had not even snowed and already he looked to the spring.
Valentin would leave with his herd and Lurenz could pack these emotions away, focus on the farm, and find a partner for Onna.
Everything he had ignored for years would return to its comfortable box, and Lurenz could continue on like he always had: with his head down and mind clear.
“Grunta!” Valentin bellowed across the field. “Grunta, you heifer, get back here!”
Lurenz spun and gripped the post tighter. A chocolate brown cow ran toward him at full tilt with Valentin sprinting behind. Rope in hand, his blonde curls flew, hooves churning the dirt and sending clods flying in every direction.
“My field!”
“Move, Lurenz!” Valentin whipped the rope through his hands, fashioning a knot at rapid speed. He threw his arm up, and the rope arced and circled over his head. “She won’t stop!”
“Stop! My—the soil!” Lurenz jolted from the post, running before he could think better of it. He had just finished digging trenches, and with every hoof fall, Valentin and his heifer destroyed a week’s worth of back-breaking labor.
Grunta reared her head back, whites of her eyes rolling. A terrible sound left her, and she charged faster, lowering her head as if too—
“Oh, Gods.” Lurenz lost footing and fell back.
He hit the ground, arm screaming as he caught himself on an elbow.
The ground trembled, the heifer barreling down, sure to crush him beneath her hooves.
He raised an arm, turning his face and closing his eyes like the coward he was.
Valentin hollered, the heifer let out a wretched scream, and her weight never came.
Hooves scuffed and tussled in the dirt. Grunts and more awful cries pried Lurenz’s eyes open. Valentin gripped the rope, the end tightening around the heifer’s throat. He lowered into a squat, thick thighs testing the strength of his trouser-seams, and pulled hand over hand.
Sweat-damp curls clung to his forehead, and steam clouded in hot puffs from his nose.
The rope groaned, brought to its limits by Valentin’s strength and Grunta’s struggle.
Yet still, he persisted, drawing the heifer closer and closer still.
Swiftly, Valentin dropped the rope and launched himself at Grunta, wrapping large arms around her throat and tipping his head.
The points of his horns, capped in bronze, pressed into her thick neck.
She shuddered, the fight fleeing as a tremble worked from her ears, down her back, and into her haunches.
Valentin cooed a low rumbling sound and she lowered herself to the ground, or Valentin guided her, until they were both kneeling in the dirt.
He kept up that low rumbling hum, the sound affecting Lurenz as well as it worked on Grunta.
A calmness subsumed him, quietude silencing his lust-drunk thoughts and the fear coursing through him.
He collapsed in the soil, staring at the gray-cloud sky, his breaths deepening and drawing him to a place he had not been since his parents had passed.
“Lurenz?” Valentin’s shadow draped over him. Gods knew how much time had passed. A moment, a minute. A score or more. “Are you alright?”
“M’fine.” He closed his eyes, fighting against the draw of Valentin’s voice. “Just need a minute.”
“I should say.” Somewhere nearby, a cowbell clanged. “Take all the time you need,” he added, voice lower than Lurenz had ever heard it. Soft and tinged with a sweetness he could not name. “Grunta gave you a bit of a fright.”
“She did,” he said, surprised to find he meant it. “That sound you made, what was it?”
“A Senn-trait,” he answered plainly. “Calms the herd.”
“Calmed me well enough.”
“Did it?” he asked, closer than before. “Perhaps I should do it more often, you are always so tense.”
Lurenz cracked an eye open, surprised to find Valentin crouching beside him. Grunta stood at his back, the rope slack between them and wound loosely around Valentin’s fist.
“How would you know I am tense?”
Valentin chuckled, low and rolling, and shook his head. “You are not the only one who enjoys watching, Lurenz.”
Heat exploded in his cheeks, his belly flipping. A week and they had not addressed the other night. For a week, he had tiptoed around Valentin, wondering if he’d dreamt the entire exchange. His stare and the sound he had made. His cum coated belly.
Answering heat simmered in Valentin’s eyes. They dropped to Lurenz’s mouth, his throat, tracking the red crawling the length of his body before flicking up to meet his eyes. “You have tortured yourself for days, worry no longer.”
“Worry?”
“I enjoyed it.” Valentin smiled softly, and that low, calming hum sounded again. “Did you?”
Lurenz swallowed, or tried to, but his throat seized, clamping shut with surprise and a rush of desire. “I—what happened?”
Valentin studied his face, smile fading as the hum ceased. “Barn cat spooked her,” he answered. “She is with calf and more skittish than usual.”
Lurenz sat up, bringing his face close to Valentin’s. This close, he noted gold flecks in his eyes, and a smattering of freckles across the wide bridge of his nose. “Isn’t it late in the year for a calf?”
“It is.” Valentin nodded at the cow. “Grunta is always full of surprises.”
“Your horn.” Without thinking Lurenz reached out, trailing fingers along the curve of Valentin’s horn.
The bronze cap was gone, revealing a dark brown tip.
He swept his fingers over the peak, shocked at the knife-like point.
Valentin stilled, watching Lurenz from the corner of his eye.
He withdrew his hand, a blush burning in his cheeks. “The cap,” he blurted. “It fell off.”
“Shit. I just got those.” Valentin huffed and rose, sweeping loose curls from his forehead.
He glanced around the field, frown deepening.
Churned earth and rocks ruined the tidy rows, and deep ruts dug by their hooves showed the snapped ends of root vegetables.
“Your field. Gods, Lurenz, this must have taken days.”
“It is alright.” Lurenz hopped to his feet, putting distance between them. “As long as the snow stays away, I have the time to plough again. Perhaps I will find your cap.”
Valentin frowned and shuffled his hooves. “Still, I am sorry. Is there anything I can do to help?”
“No need.” Lurenz waved his hand, intending to end the conversation and escape to his workshop. This was the most they had spoken … ever, and with each second in Valentin’s presence, with those low, soft words and that comforting hum, he felt his resolve weakening.
Valentin stepped closer as Lurenz waved him off. His fingers graced his arm, hand landing softly on the curve of Valentin’s bicep. A jolt shot through him at the touch, tightening his grip. He whipped his face up. “Val—”
“That scared the hells out of me, Lurenz,” Val blurted.
The raw, ragged admission snapped the final strands of Lurenz’s restraint.
He rose onto his toes and pressed his mouth to Valentin’s.
Too brief, too hard, and as soon as it began, he pulled away.
Valentin chased his kiss, flicking Lurenz’s lips with his tongue, and plunging the moment Lurenz parted for him.
Their kiss was eager and unrefined, but it was all Lurenz had ever wanted. He matched Valentin’s hunger, clinging to him with a near-desperate grip. Rope thudded to the ground and Valentin banded his arms around Lurenz, pressing him hard against his chest and lifting him from the ground.
Valentin’s heartbeat was a drum, steady and strong, spurning Lurenz on. He grasped whatever bits of the Senn he could—his arms, his shoulders—unable to find a secure hold. There was so much of him and Lurenz was just a man, dwarfed by his presence and overwhelmed by desire.
He pulled away, gasping for air. “Val—”
“You never say my name.” He nuzzled Lurenz’s throat. “For years, I have wanted to hear you say my name.”
“Valen—” he tried again. Valentin’s broad mouth came down on the crook of his neck, turning his name into a groan. “Gods, keep doing that and I’ll never say it.”
“Good.” His tongue flicked a spot behind Lurenz’s ear. “I would rather you moan it.”
Heat coiled in his spine, dribbling down his bones.
Lurenz ground against Valentin as he wrapped his legs around a thick, muscled waist, seeking his mouth while lost to the madness of their kiss and sensations riddling his body.
Better than his hand, better than he could have imagined and he remained fully clothed. “Gods, please.”