Free The Winter Courtship Rituals of Fur-Bearing Critters by Amy Lane

his groin and made Crawford feel warm all over.
    He wasn’t sure who pulled away first, but his cock was stiff against the placket of his jeans, and his breath was being forced out in pants. Ben was literally whimpering, and he had one leg wrapped around the back of Crawford’s thighs as he tried to grind up against the front of Craw’s leg and get off. They had just come to the part of the kiss where it was either back off or go down on each other in the snow, and thank God someone had the good sense not to go that far.
    Craw wasn’t completely sure it was him who had it, either.
    “God,” Ben panted. “God. There’s only one thing I want right now, but I’ve got to go put the heater on in the lean-to, and you’ve got to tend stock, and it’s late and…”
    Craw nodded. He had an hour, maybe two, of chores to do—they both knew it. He swallowed and placed a brief, promising kiss at the corner of Ben’s mouth. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he gasped, and then, over Ben’s whimper of protest, he said, “I’m going to have a question with me. You decide how you answer, okay?”
    “God,” Ben panted, “you got a question that’ll go with that? ”
    Crawford didn’t have enough left to laugh. “Well,” he said with the kind of snuggle that made Ben’s ribs creak and the muscle between his own shoulders stretch out, “I didn’t say it would be in words.”
    They didn’t let go after that, but they didn’t talk much either, and Crawford managed to brush Ben’s cheek with the side of his nose and to notice, even in the darkness, that Ben had a few freckles on his cheeks that the scruff didn’t cover.
    “Why don’t you shave?” he mumbled, his lips rasped by that little bit of stubble.
    “Why don’t you talk?” Ben answered, making a hmm sound as Crawford explored him, and those were the last words they had.
    Crawford kissed him one more time—oh God, so sweet—before he found himself back in the truck and on the small dirt road to tend to his critters.
    He did his chores by rote, making sure the animals were warm and happy in the barn before he retreated to his house and started the fire in the modified Franklin stove in the middle of his kitchen. His bedroom was right above the kitchen itself, and with the gas heat on and a little bit of wood, he could have a floor that didn’t make his feet ache with cold when he woke up the next morning.
    As he took off his outerwear and tramped the snow out of his boots and put everything to rights in his small little home, he realized that sleep was going to be a damned long time coming.
    He might as well work on Ben’s question now.
    He pulled out alpaca yarn, some in rust and some in teal, and worked quickly, whipping the thing up in no time. He liked it—it made him laugh—and it sure did answer one of the questions Ben had hurled at him when he’d had his fur ruffled, didn’t it?
    He liked it so much he made another one, in different colors, just to give Ben a choice. He looked at his handiwork—knitting as joke and knitting as a proposition of sorts—and smiled. No, Crawford didn’t talk a lot. But sometimes he got his point across just fine.

Chapter 6
The Curious Behavior of a
Mated Pair of Furry Mammals
     
    Ben was wearing the fingerless mitts as Crawford approached, with a pair of thin black factory-made gloves underneath them. Crawford’s eyes narrowed at that violation, and then he remembered that he’d had other things to do with his time and that Ben had still been cold.
    Crawford had walked this time, leaving Everclear in the stable, mostly because after the trip the day before, he felt like it, and Ben’s little pasture fence was really not that far away. Ben was out in front of his house, salting the walk to keep it from getting icy. It was a little early for that—most folks tried to show more fortitude that way—but Crawford applauded the effort. His sweet little California bunny might actually keep hopping until