by Simon Archer
“Deity,” I whispered, wanting to say something other than her name. I had to give her a compliment, tell her how beautiful she looked in this moment. But no words came out, other than the collection of letters that was her name. “Deity.”
“You can’t say my name like that and not kiss me afterward,” Deity replied.
Without a second thought, I wrapped my hand around the back of her head and brought her lips to mine. Her hands quickly found the sides of my face and rubbed them along my beard. She tasted better than she smelled, the sweetness of the honey and the tangy tangerines bursting on my tongue. I slid the tip of my tongue along her bottom lip, and Deity immediately moaned. She pushed her body forward until it collided with mine, the heat of her burning through our stained clothes.
I waved my fingers up the back of her neck and into her hair, while my other hand wrapped around her waist. She had the most brilliant curves for me to hold on to, to recognize that there was a woman against me. But it wasn’t just any woman. It was Deity. Sexy, kind, patient Deity.
She broke away for the briefest of moments to push my hair out of our way. Never in my life before now had I regretted my longer locks, but right now, I wanted to shave the whole thing off so I wouldn’t waste a second kiss, nuzzling, tasting her.
“You have such great hair,” she complimented. Her sharp nails raked against the top of my head, and I groaned, the sensation rippling down my spine. “I have always liked your hair.”
“Is that all?” I moaned against her skin as my kissed traveled down the length of her neck.
“No,” Deity said with a chuckle. I could feel her belly bounce against me when she laughed. I ran my hands around her stomach, my calloused hands scraping across her belly. “You’re so strong and knowledgeable, and you let me use your gorgeous kitchen.”
When she mentioned the kitchen, I paused and pulled back a little. “Do you think…? I’m not expecting anything in return for using the kitchen. Especially not anything like this.”
I lifted my hands from her, as difficult as it was. I couldn’t stand the thought of Deity thinking she owed me anything. In response, Deity lifted herself on her knees and placed her hands atop mine. She guided them back to her waist, slid them down to her hips, curved around her ass, and then left them on the small of her back.
Her own hands clasped back behind my neck. Her head hovered ever so slightly above mine, nose to nose.
“I have wanted you, Rico Jacek, from the first day I started working at the Blue Water Inn,” Deity confessed. “Then, when I learned that you were not only hot but also generous and passionate and a good man, I wanted you more. I just wasn’t sure you wanted me.”
“Oh, Deity.” I buried my head in the crook of her neck. “You have no idea. I’m not always good with my words, and I think too much. If I had known, if I had taken the time to tell you, I wouldn’t have wasted any time and kissed you a hell of a lot sooner.”
“Then please,” Deity said as she lifted my chin back to face her with a single, seductive finger. “Don’t waste any more time.”
I didn’t and kissed her again. As her lips parted, I slid my tongue into her mouth. We teased and tousled. When her tongue circled around mine, my toes curled inside of my shoes. I grew hard at the taste of her, the scent of her, the feel of her skin beneath my fingertips.
I navigated my hands beneath her shirt and tugged, begging for her to pull it off. She obliged, and I explored the ebbs and flows of her curves. I ran my hands and my lips along every crevice. Deity moaned, a purr at the back of her throat when my hands rubbed right below her breasts. I adjusted my grip so I could feel the fullness of her in my palm.
With more kisses, I guided her to the floor. Our bodies never disconnected as we traveled down, my body atop hers. She didn’t shrink beneath my weight and wasn’t intimidated by my size. Deity grabbed my hips with eager hands and pressed me right against the apex of her pleasure. Her head tilted back, and she released a throaty laugh.
Pressure mounted in my groin, and I sat up, intent on pulling off my pants in response. However, Deity sat up on her elbows and stopped me.
“Wait,” she said. Her voice was breathy and trickled with longing.
“What?” I asked, my belt halfway unhooked.
“There’s got to be a bed in this massive house,” Deity said, her eyes lifting up to the ceiling.
I froze as if I forgot the number of rooms in my home. “I mean, yeah, but--”
“I’m sorry, Rico, but if you’re going to ride me as hard as I want you to, I’ve got to be on something softer than the kitchen floor,” Deity said with a seductive smirk.
She slid herself out from under me. I watched her stand, shirtless and loose. A goddess in her own right, Deity sauntered around me. Her body moved with confidence and grace. It took all my self-control not to scoop her up and put her right back on the ground to take her right there.
The woman ran a seductive hand along my shoulders that made me shiver with anticipation. I enjoyed the zings that ran down my spine. She leaned over my shoulder, now behind me, and bit my earlobe before speaking.
“Follow me,” she commanded.
Deity kidnapped me. Heart, soul, and sex. There was nothing more for me to do than I was told.
14
Deity spent the night with me at the farmhouse that night. And the next night. And the night after that.
After we burnt the first batch of cookies, she remade them for me the next morning, and they were as good as she claimed. I kept the leftovers in my room, away from Barth’s prying eyes.
Deity stuck around the farmhouse more often after our first evening together. It was a natural and easy progression, having her there. It was like she always belonged. Barth and Gerry enjoyed her presence, too, especially since they got to be her taste-testers, considering the diet I was still supposedly on. Deity was really supportive of my healthy eating and made it her new mission to find recipes that would help keep my energy up during training sessions.
The sessions happened every day. Barth had me at our makeshift gym, converted from the barn, every morning. I only got to rest one out of every five days, but even during those technical rest days, I stayed active. The farm made it easy to always keep me upright and moving. When I was plowing in the fields, I would practice my footwork by weaving in and out of the rows. I carried extra buckets of food for the animals to supplement my weight lifting. Often Graham and I would run around the small lake on the property, the dog scurrying ahead of me with his endless energy.
Despite all of my technique training and strength building, Barth didn’t put me back in the ring. My nose had healed up, and my ribs were nearly one hundred percent. Deity’s daily supplements and ointments sped up the process, and she meticulously applied them when she finished her shift at the Blue Water Inn.
Unfortunately, Herc still wanted me to stay away from the bar for the time being. Some authority figures had been in after hearing about the fight, but Herc managed to guide them away from my doorstep, for which I was grateful. I knew I needed to honor his wishes, but the itch to fight crawled along my skin. Especially with all this training, I needed to do something, and I thought even watching a fight might be useful since Barth was still reluctant to let me back in the ring.
“You’re still too wrapped up in it,” he said when I complained. “You need these moves to become habit. So you don’t have to think about them when you’re in there. It needs to be more natural. You have to balance between thinking and feeling.”
It felt like a bunch of dragon shit to me, but I didn’t say that to his face. I did complain to Deity, though, one night, while we lay in bed. Her naked body curled against my side, her head pressed against my chest. I ran my fingers through her hair as I spoke.
“I just want a chance to show him what I’ve learned,” I argued.
“He doesn’t think you're ready,” Deity said with a simple shrug. “He’s the trainer. You have to trust that he knows what he’s talk
ing about.”
“It feels like he’s punishing me,” I said, voicing my concerns aloud.
“Did you do anything to warrant punishment?” Deity asked. She shifted her body so that she rested her chin on my chest, getting a better look at me.
“Barth seems to think I did,” I griped.
Deity grumbled, the noise making her chest rattle. “You just have to trust him, Rico. I don’t know what else to tell you.”
“I do trust him!” I protested, but the words sounded false even to me.
“No, you don’t,” Deity said, calling me out. “If you did, you would trust his process and do what he says. You can’t pull the cookies out of the oven before they’re fully baked, or they won’t taste as good.”
“You’re telling me to be patient?” I asked, lifting my head to better see her.
“Yes, I am.” Deity turned her head back, so the side of her face pressed against my chest again. “You’re better at it than you think.”
“I just want this so bad, Deity,” I told her for the thousandth time.
“I know,” she said softly. “You wanted me and had to be patient. Look how that turned out.”
I chuckled at her response and squeezed her tight. “I wasn’t that patient the minute I found out you wanted me too.”
“No,” Deity replied, drawing out the word. “But you get my point.”
“I’m not sure I do,” I said in a teasing tone. With one swift movement, I rolled the pair of us over, so I now hovered over her. She yelped with surprise and landed on my pillow, underneath me. “I’m not a very patient man.”
I dictated my desires by lowering my lips to hers. With little pecks and nips, I worked my mouth down her body, taking extra time at her chest. When I migrated down to her stomach towards her naval, a sharp sting stopped me.
Deity had a hold of my hair and yanked my head away from her body.
“You are gonna need to practice patience because we can’t be doing none of that right now,” Deity said with a sharp shake of her head.
“I thought you were enjoying it,” I protested, trying to continue, but Deity’s grip stayed firm.
“I was,” she insisted, “but I have to go to work.”
I flopped over to the side of the bed with a groan. Deity wiggled out from under the sheets and glided to her pile of clothes on the floor. I watched her body jiggle as she made her way across the room. There was something so sexy about her that even her putting on clothes made me want to launch up and kiss her. Nevertheless, I respected her space and her time, knowing that while she would rather spend all her time in the kitchen downstairs, she had a responsibility to the Blue Water Inn to honor.
She had her shirt halfway over her head when she shot me a raised eyebrow. “What?”
“What do you mean, what?” I asked as I lay on my side, propping my head up on my hand.
“You were looking at me funny,” Deity replied through the fabric of her shirt.
“Nope,” I said sweetly, “just looking.”
“Okay, well, you can look some other time.” Deity leaned over with her shoes gathered in her hands. She gave me a quick kiss, and I resisted the urge to pull her on top of me. “See you later, Rico.”
“See you later.”
Deity made her way to the door when she suddenly found it swinging open before her. It nearly knocked her in the face as it burst open. Gerry was on the other side. His blond hair streaked with sweat, and his face was as red as a cherry. The gnome huffed and puffed with labored breaths.
I bolted up in bed, though I made sure I was covered with the sheet. “Gerry? What the hell?”
“Rico,” Gerry heaved. “You gotta get to the cow shed.”
“What?” I asked. “Why?”
“Something’s wrong with one of the cows,” Gerry reported. He spared Deity a glance. “Hi, Deity.”
She waved back uneasily.
“Like what kind of wrong?” I prodded the gnome for more details.
“I don’t know, man,” Gerry said wearily. “Barth just told me to hurry up and get you.”
“Which one is it?” I reached down to the ground, my hand blindly searching for my pants. Deity rushed over and put them in my hand for me.
“One of the brown ones,” Gerry answered unhelpfully.
“Over half of the cows are brown, Gerry,” I lamented. “You gotta give me more than that.”
“I don’t know more than that!” the gnome complained. “Barth told me it was an emergency and that I need to haul ass to get you.”
“Okay, okay,” I agreed, “but you gotta turn around.”
“I’m not leaving without you,” Gerry argued. “I think Barth would kill me.”
“Gerry,” I said sharply. I gestured to my half-naked body.
The gnome’s eyebrows wrinkled together. Then he glanced at me, shifted to Deity, who still clutched her shoes, then back to me. His green eyes widened when all the pieces shifted into place.
“Oh! Gotcha.” Gerry obliged, then, by pivoting in the doorway and shielding his eyes for good measure.
I scrambled for my clothes and managed to gather something close to acceptable. Deity looked at me with worry filling her eyes. “Do you need anything?”
“For you to go to work,” I said as I pulled on my last boot. I leaned over and kissed her on the forehead. “Don’t worry about me. I’ve got help, and we’ll find out what’s wrong with her.”
“Okay,” Deity said, her voice a little shaky.
“You good?” Gerry asked without turning around.
“Yeah,” I answered with one more short smile to Deity.
“Let’s go,” the gnome commanded. He zipped down the attic stairs ahead of me. I clambered after him, leaving Deity in my room.
I pressed Gerry for details the whole way to the barn, but he was infuriatingly unhelpful.
“Seriously, Rico,” Gerry said as we ran. “I know nothing except for that a cow is sick, and Barth told me to get you. Now, stop wasting your breath, and let’s just get there.”
I burst through the shed doors ahead of Gerry, who slipped in behind me. The cows stood in rows in their respective stalls, though some of them mooed when we entered noisily.
“Barth?” I called out, unable to see the elf from where we stood at the entrance.
“Down here!” he replied.
I followed the sound of his voice to one of the final stalls. The closer I got, the more I deduced what was going on. When I stuck my torso over the stall door, my suspicions were confirmed.
Barth sat on a patch of mud as he stroked the head of one of the largest and oldest cows I had on the farm. Her name was Gretchen, a chocolate-milk-colored cow, who had been growing fatter and fatter at an alarming rate. As I had suspected the night I was late to the fight, she was pregnant. Now, she was in labor.
“Something’s wrong with her,” Barth explained, his voice quaking. “One minute, I was feeding her, and the next minute, she just collapsed like this.”
Gretchen laid on her side, mooing at a full moan. At the sound of her groan, my brain snapped into action.
“Gerry,” I commanded, “I need you to get me a bucket of water, and see those two chains hanging on the wall over there? I need those too.”
The gnome hopped into action and scurried off to get the necessary supplies. I approached the cow, and Barth quickly got out of my way.
“It’s okay,” I reassured the elf. “She’s just giving birth.”
“Giving birth?” Barth exclaimed. His face paled, and his eyes widened. “What does that mean?”
I glared at the elf. “She’s having a baby, Barth. It’s completely natural.”
“I know what that means,” Barth snapped. “But what does that mean for us?”
“I’m going to check on the position of the calf and then determine if we have to help her or not,” I said as I took off my shirt and flung it over the side of the stall wall.
“We?” Barth gaped.
“Yes, w
e,” I confirmed.
I flexed my fingers and crouched down next to Gretchen. “Sorry, girl,” I muttered before I plunged my hand into her backside.
The squish echoed against the wood, and Barth’s face went completely pale.
“You are not allowed to faint on me, Barth, you hear?” I shouted to the elf to make sure he could hear me. “Talk to Gretchen. You’re good with the animals, soothe her.”
Barth nodded wordlessly and shuffled around the edge of the stall to stand in front of the cow. He tossed his beard over his shoulder and stroked the cow’s head. “Good girl,” he cooed.
I fished around to find the soon-to-be-born calf’s front hooves. Once I located those, I could pull them out into the open. When Gerry got back with the water and the chains, I would wrap the chains around the hooves and time my pulls with Gretchen’s pushes.
It wasn’t the first calf I had delivered, but it was the first one in a long time where I couldn’t find the hooves. While my fingers searched, Gerry returned. He nearly toppled the bucket of water when he surveyed the scene.
“Holy Walden!” he exclaimed. “What are you doing with your hand up that cow’s ass?”
“I’m trying to find her baby,” I grunted as I shoved my arm further inside.
Gretchen released an annoyed grunt, and Barth appropriately stroked her head and whispered to her.
“Gerry, bring that bucket over here,” I asked, beckoning him forward with my free hand.
“Nuh-uh,” Gerry said with a violent shake of his head. “I’m not getting anywhere near that.”
“Just give me the bucket and the chains, and then you can step back, okay?” I urged him.
The gnome cautiously stepped forward, the chains wrapped around his arm, while he carried the bucket in two hands. He plopped it down next to me, and some of the water spilled over the side. I pulled my hand out of the cow and doused it in the water. An abnormal amount of blood exited with me, along with some white, jelly-like liquid.
