NINE Lurenz
NINE
Lurenz
The days took on an easy pace from there, interspersed with stolen moments in the barn or Lurenz’s workshop, or the copse of trees at the far edge of the field.
As the weeks progressed, the farmhouse filled with laughter and bright chatter and at night, when Onna excused herself and disappeared up the stairs, Lurenz and Val entertained themselves by the fire.
He could not remember a time in the last year he had slept so deeply, or smiled so easily, the pain of his parents’ loss easing with every quiet smile from the Senn.
By Wintertide, Lurenz could almost consider himself a man of leisure, and as the year turned, and the winter deepened, a new itch entered his mind.
“It will be hard,” he said one night, sitting beside Valentin on his cot, “when you leave in the spring.”
“Will it?”
“In more ways than one.” He smiled at him, enjoying the way Valentin’s eyes softened, the gold flecks melting until his eyes were liquid and welcoming, drawing Lurenz like a moth to the flame.
He hitched onto his side, straddling Valentin and settling his hands on his chest. “Would that I could come with you.”
“Why don’t you?”
“The farm,” he answered honestly. “Onna cannot manage it alone, and we cannot afford to hire any hands.” He ran his hands down Valentin’s chest, enjoying the thick mounds of muscle and soft padding.
“I will miss the way you warm the room.” Lurenz bent low, grazing the shell of Valentin’s ear with his teeth.
And his neck, breathing softly into the velvet dusting of fur at the nape. “How you sigh when I do this—”
He sucked lightly, rewarded with the very sound he sought.
“Lurenz.” Valentin gripped his thighs, the growing thickness in his trousers rubbing deliciously against him. “Onna’s just gone to bed.”
“Onna’s been gone long enough.” He flicked his tongue again over the same place. Valentin grunted, growing harder as Lurenz rocked his hips. “She’s toying with us, just as she did that first night. Making excuses to stay up later and later, driving me mad.”
“You and me both.”
“Not mad enough.” Lurenz tugged his belt, watching his face for any hesitation or show that Valentin might not want this. That fear might fade one day, but this time with him, the allowance to touch him when he had yearned for so many seasons, was still precious and new.
Valentin stroked his thighs, sighing when Lurenz closed his hand around his cock, fitting his palm to the curve to stroke Valentin, though his fingertips did not touch.
“Gods, Lurenz,” he murmured. His head thumped lightly against the wall, chest rising and falling in deeper and deeper bellows. “You are a fast learner.”
“My mother wanted me to attend university,” he answered, and froze.
There was a place he had not gone since his parents’ death. The future he would never know. All that waited on the road of Lurenz’s life was the farm and the village. He winced and resumed his strokes, forcing the dark thoughts away and filling his head with Valentin instead.
Panic hitched him forward. He sealed his mouth to Valentin’s as he stroked, frantic in his movements, desperate to outrun the sorrows of his lost future.
The village. The farm. The harvest and the field. Valentin for a season. That was Lurenz’s world, and so he would learn every nook and cranny. Every ticklish place and satisfied moan.
“Lurenz.” Valentin lightly gripped his forearm. “Lurenz, sweetheart.” Grabbed his shoulder. “Lurenz, stop.”
“No,” he sighed, but stopped, pressing his hand into the cot and dropping his forehead against Valentin’s shoulder. “Please, no.”
A low hum resonated from Valentin’s chest. He cupped the back of Lurenz’s head, stroking his hair and toying with the ends. “What is it?”
“Nothing.”
“Tell me, Lurenz.”
“It’s alright.”
“No.” The gruff tone raised Lurenz’s head. Valentin searched his face and cupped his cheek. “Do not retreat to your short answers and scowls. Tell me.” He stole a soft kiss. “Please.”
“What is there to tell? My parents have died and left me the farm. Onna will wed and leave, and I will remain here; a farmer in a forgotten village carving a life out of poor soil and you will return to your mountains with your herd, touring monasteries and villages I have only read of in books and maybe, after a year, you will return. But what then? What happens the following winter? Or the next?”
Valentin’s hand fell away, his soft expression hardening like stone.
“What happens when you return with your herd to find me old, or scarred? Grey-haired and wrinkled? Much can happen in the months you are gone, what if I am missing a limb? Or fall ill? What if—” His throat pinched, the words too painful to speak, but Lurenz was no stranger to pain.
“What if you find some other farmer and drive your herd to his barn instead?”
“Do you truly believe there has never been another farmer?”
Lurenz flinched, mouth dropping open in surprise.
“In all my seasons, do you believe I never once sheltered in another barn in a village you have never heard of? In all the years I returned to this village, with its odd laws and odder walls, with its cold people who scowl behind my back yet smile to my face, did you not consider there were other farms I could have sought refuge? And did you never consider once, in all these years, why I drove my herd to a tiny farm with a tiny field and a farmer’s son who would not grace me with more than a single word? ”
A sound squeaked out of Lurenz’s throat, and a burn crawled into his eyes.
Valentin frowned, eyes boring into Lurenz.
His hands flew to his waist, undoing his belt and his pants.
He wet his palm with a broad sweep of his tongue and cupped Lurenz’s cock, working the shaft until the next sound to escape him was a groan.
Valentin grabbed his collar and hauled Lurenz forward, half-snarling against his mouth, “Did you never wonder why I returned, season after season, just to glimpse your back disappearing through a door? Or to catch a fleeting glance from these beautiful eyes? Did you never realize, after all this time, that it was you I drove my herd to?”
“Valentin,” Lurenz gasped, unable to manage any more than his name.
Valentin brought their cocks together, gliding his palm around both in steady, intentional strokes, hard enough for pleasure but not enough to please.
The hum in his chest deepened, lulling Lurenz into a hazy, aroused state. His hips rolled, every bit of him attuned to Valentin’s voice, the hum, the exquisite pressure of his palm and their cocks gliding together.
“Now that I have roped you Lurenz, there are no valleys wide enough or walls high enough to keep me from returning to you.”
A strangled sob left him, and the tears burst free.
Valentin kissed the salt from his cheeks, whispering promises into his skin until he shuddered with pleasure, spilling over them both.
His shoulders twitched, body spasming in easy, unending bliss.
He ran his hands through Valentin’s hair, grasped his horns, and held on as Valentin stroked him through his release and right into his own, drowning their laps in semen.