Chapter 2: The Sleeping Tauren's Giant Erection
The first sliver of dawn was a pale, grudging thing at the window. Pipkin woke to the smell of stale ale, old straw, and something else—clean, earthy, like sun-warmed sage. Her head throbbed a dull, respectful beat, a vast improvement over the previous night’s anvil chorus.
She was on her side, facing the center of the enormous makeshift bed. Ronan lay on his back, one massive arm thrown over his eyes, his chest rising and falling in a deep, slow rhythm. The thin blanket was tangled around his waist.
And there, tenting the rough-woven fabric, was an unmistakable, formidable shape.
Pipkin’s breath hitched. She’d seen statues. She’d seen diagrams. This was neither. This was a fact of anatomy, scaled to its owner, and the owner was built like a monument. A flush, hot and immediate, spread from her chest to the roots of her pink hair. It wasn’t just shock. It was a jolt of pure, undiluted fascination. Her artificer’s mind, always cataloguing dimensions and potential, stuttered and then whirred into overdrive. Proportional scaling suggests considerable length and girth. Structural integrity of the blanket is being tested.
She swallowed, her mouth dry. The silent room seemed to contract, the space between her and that hidden shape humming with a new, charged energy. The memory of his deep chuckle, the careful way he’d made the bed, the startling perception in his voice in the dark—all of it collided with this raw, physical evidence of him. A strange, bold impulse gripped her: to crawl over, to peel back the wool, to see. To touch. To discover the mechanics of it. The thought sent a liquid pull low in her belly.
Her fingers twitched against the mattress.
Ronan stirred. A low, sleepy sound rumbled in his chest. The arm slid from his face, and his dark eyes opened, blinking slowly at the ceiling. He took a deep breath, and as he stretched, the blanket shifted.
He froze. His gaze dropped. He saw the prominent outline. He saw Pipkin, wide-eyed and utterly still, staring right at it.
A profound, almost comical horror dawned on his features. He snatched the blanket, yanking it up to his chest, a move so swift and awkward it was like watching a mountain try to hide behind a handkerchief. The fabric now strained elsewhere.
“I… apologize,” he boomed, his voice gravelly with sleep. He cleared his throat, trying to modulate it. “That is… a morning function. It is not… it does not imply…”
Pipkin found her voice, which came out higher than usual. “Implied? Ronan, it declared. It gave a formal speech.” The words were a defensive reflex, a retreat into humor.
He groaned, covering his face with a hand. The very tip of one horn touched the wall. “This is mortifying.”
Seeing his genuine distress melted the last of her shock. She sat up, pulling her knees to her chest. “Hey. It’s… biology. You’re built on a different blueprint, that’s all.” She managed a shaky grin. “Imagine if I got embarrassed every time you noticed I needed a stepstool to reach a doorknob.”
He peeked between his fingers. “It is not the same.”
“It’s exactly the same. Just a different piece of… equipment.” She hugged her knees tighter, the warmth still pooling inside her. “Look, it’s fine. We’re adults. Sort of. I’m hungover, you’re… structurally impressive. Let’s just get on with the day.”
Ronan lowered his hand, his expression still pained but softening. He sat up carefully, keeping the blanket gathered in his lap. The mattress groaned in protest. The earlier tension in the room had shifted, transformed into a prickly, intimate awareness.
“The device,” he said, changing the subject with a blunt force that was almost endearing. “The G.E.E. It is still broken?”
Pipkin patted her pocket, feeling the inert metal cylinder. “Cold as a gnome’s heart in a snowstorm. We need that capacitor. Which means we need to find your goblin.”
He nodded, grateful for the practical pivot. “Grix. His stall is near the fountain with the cracked dragon skull.” Ronan moved to stand, then hesitated, a new problem evident. “I will require a moment. And perhaps a strategic pillow.”
Pipkin snorted a laugh, then clapped a hand over her mouth. “Right. Of course.” She scrambled off the mattress, turning her back to give him privacy. She busied herself with retying her braids, her fingers uncharacteristically clumsy. She could hear the rustle of fabric, the heavy shift of his weight.
“It is safe,” he said after a minute.
She turned. He was standing, his leathers fastened, his satchel over his shoulder. He looked like what he was: a herbalist from the plains, adrift in a city of stone. Except now she knew the hidden truth of him, and it made the air between them feel different. Thicker.
“Right,” she said again, grabbing her tool belt and buckling it on with a click. “Let’s go find a thief.”
The artisanal quarter was coming alive, the morning air crisp and full of promise that would later dissolve into dust and haggling. They found the fountain—a weathered stone dragon missing its lower jaw—and the stall tucked behind it.
Grix was exactly as expected: green, sharp-toothed, and with eyes that calculated value down to the copper. His stall was a chaotic pile of glittering junk, broken machinery, and questionable talismans.
“Stormhoof!” Grix chirped, his voice like grinding gears. “Back so soon? Come to buy back your own purse? I’ve priced it fairly. Twenty percent finder’s fee!”
Ronan’s ears lay flat against his skull. “The purse contains thirty silver. You ‘found’ it beside me while I slept. A five-silver fee is customary.”
“Customs change.” Grix’s beady eyes slid to Pipkin. “Who’s the little friend? Your keeper?”
“I’m his engineer,” Pipkin said, stepping forward. She planted her hands on the stall’s edge. “We’re here for a trade. Not for the purse. For an item. An arcane capacitor, triple-coiled, rated for high arcanokinetic flux.”
Grix’s grin widened. He reached under the counter and produced a small, oily box. He opened it to reveal a collection of glowing components. “I might have such a thing. Very rare. Very expensive.”
“We have no money,” Ronan stated.
Grix’s grin didn't falter. It widened, revealing too many needle-like teeth. His gaze traveled slowly, insultingly, from Pipkin’s face down her small frame and then over to Ronan’s imposing bulk. The calculation in his eyes shifted from money to something more perverse.
“No money,” Grix echoed, tapping a claw on the capacitor’s box. “But I see other assets. Other forms of… currency.” He leaned over the stall, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial hiss meant for Pipkin alone, though Ronan’s twitching ear caught every word. “Your big friend here. The walking monument. I’ve got a bet going with the lads at the slag pit. They say a Tauren’s cock is just for show, all useless hide and no proper function.”
Pipkin’s stomach tightened. “Get to the point, you little creep.”
“The point is spectacle,” Grix said, his eyes glittering. “You want this capacitor? You get on your knees right here, pull out that mighty bullcock, and suck him off. Properly. Until he finishes. I get the proof. You get your part. Everybody wins.”
The proposition hung in the air, vile and absurd. Pipkin’s first reaction was a hot bolt of outrage. Her second, traitorous and immediate, was the memory of that formidable outline under the blanket, and the liquid pull it had sparked in her. The capacitor glowed in its box, the solution to every problem. Ronan stood silently, a storm gathering in his stillness.
“Fine,” Pipkin said, the word out of her mouth before the full reality of it could crash down. “You get your show. We get the part. Now.”
She turned to Ronan. His expression was unreadable, a mask of stoic fury. She walked toward him, her heart hammering against her ribs. The scale of the task finally hit her as she stopped before him, the top of her head barely level with his belt. Monumental wasn’t the word. It was geometrically insane.
“Pipkin,” Ronan rumbled, a warning and a question.
“Just… stand there,” she muttered, her fingers fumbling with the leather lacing of his trousers. The smell of him—earth, leather, warm fur—enveloped her. Her knuckles brushed against the dense, soft fur of his lower belly, and she felt him tense.
She got the fastenings open. She had to reach in, her small hand disappearing into the fabric. Her fingers found warm, smooth skin and overwhelming heat. She wrapped her hand around him and guided him out.
Her breath stopped.
Seeing it in the muted morning light was different. It was thick, uncircumcised, and heavy, the shaft a column of rigid flesh that darkened to a deep taupe at the broad, flared head. A bead of clear fluid already glistened at the slit. It was easily the length of her forearm, and thicker than her wrist. The reality of it, its sheer physical dominance, made her knees feel weak. This wasn't desire; it was a fundamental engineering problem.
“Well?” Grix cackled from the stall. “Clock’s ticking, sweetheart!”
Pipkin looked up at Ronan. His jaw was clenched, his nostrils flared. But in his eyes, beneath the anger, she saw a deep, shameful heat. He gave a single, almost imperceptible nod.
She dropped to her knees in the dusty street. The cobblestones were hard and cold. From this angle, he was a tower of muscle and fur, his cock jutting out like a battering ram meant for a castle gate, not her mouth. She leaned in, the musky, animal scent of him filling her head. She opened her mouth as wide as she could, her lips straining, and took the broad head inside.
It was too much. It stretched her lips to a burning thinness, pressed against the roof of her mouth, and touched the back of her throat instantly. She gagged, a wet, choked sound, and pulled back, saliva stringing from her lips to his gleaming tip.
“Fuck,” she whispered, panting.
“Give it up, gnome!” Grix yelled.
Anger, now at herself and the goblin, flared. She spit to the side and dove back in. She couldn't take length, so she focused on the head, using her hands on the formidable shaft. She licked at the slit, tasting his precum—salty, clean—and then swirled her tongue around the corona. She sucked on the head like it was a piece of hard candy, her cheeks hollowing. One hand worked the base, her fingers not even meeting as she gripped him.
A low, shuddering groan escaped Ronan. His hands, which had been clenched at his sides, came up to hover near her head. He didn't force her. He just stood there, trembling with the effort of his stillness as she serviced him.
Pipkin lost herself in the mechanics of it. The taste, the heat, the sheer obscene reality of the act. She bobbed her head, taking a little more each time, fighting her gag reflex until tears streamed from the corners of her eyes. She used her tongue, her lips, her hands. The world narrowed to the salt-skin taste of him, the muffled sounds of the city, and Grix’s eager, panting breaths from the stall.
Ronan’s breathing grew ragged. A deep, rhythmic pulse began to thrum under her hands and lips. “Pipkin,” he growled, a raw, helpless sound.
His hands finally settled on her head, not pushing, but cradling her skull with impossible gentleness. It was that touch, the stark contrast of tenderness amidst the crude act, that undid her completely. She redoubled her efforts, sucking and stroking with frantic dedication.
He came with a choked roar, his hips giving a single, shallow thrust. The first spurt flooded her mouth, hot and bitter, more volume than she expected. She swallowed convulsively, some of it escaping down her chin as the pulses kept coming, painting her throat with his release. She kept sucking, milking him through it until he softened in her mouth, spent.
She pulled back, coughing, wiping her slick chin with the back of her hand. Her lips felt bruised and swollen. Ronan quickly tucked himself away, his movements hurried, his face a storm of conflict.
Pipkin stood on shaky legs and turned to the stall. “The capacitor. Now.”
Grix was practically dancing, clutching a small scrying crystal. “Got it! Every glorious second! A deal’s a deal.” He shoved the glowing component into her hand.
She snatched it, the metal warm from his vile grip. Without a word, she turned and walked stiffly away, Ronan falling into step beside her, a wall of silent, shamed fury. The transaction was complete. The capacitor hummed in her palm, a small, hard-won piece of power, and the taste of him was still thick in her mouth.
The capacitor hummed in her palm, a small, hard-won piece of power, and the taste of him was still thick in her mouth. She walked without seeing the street, the goblin’s leering face burned onto her eyelids. Ronan’s silence beside her was a solid, shameful wall. She stopped abruptly, turning to face him beside a boarded-up alchemy stall.
“Look at me,” she said, her voice rough.
He did, his eyes dark with a turmoil she recognized. It wasn’t just shame. It was want, curdled by the circumstances. “That should not have happened,” he said, each word a stone.
“But it did.” She wiped her mouth again, the ghost of his salt still on her tongue. A fierce, frustrated heat had settled deep in her gut, untouched by the degrading performance. It had only been stoked. “And now I’m fucking wired and you’re… whatever you are. Tense.”
He let out a long breath, his nostrils flaring. “I am.”
“That goblin got a show. I got a component.” She stepped closer, her head tilting back to hold his gaze. “We didn’t get a goddamn thing for ourselves. That’s the unbalanced equation.”
Understanding dawned, warring with his honor. “Pipkin…”
“Don’t.” She poked a finger into the dense fur of his chest. “You don’t get to be chivalrous now. Not after that.” She leaned in, her voice dropping. “My room. My rules. No audience. No deals.”
A muscle worked in his jaw. The conflict in his eyes slowly burned away, leaving only the heat she’d glimpsed earlier. He gave a single, slow nod.
They didn’t speak on the return. The climb up the inn stairs was a study in pent-up energy. Pipkin fumbled with the key, her hands unsteady, and shoved the door open. The room was as they’d left it, the makeshift bed a testament to his earlier practicality. She tossed the capacitor onto her tool satchel; it clinked and glowed, irrelevant now.
She turned, locking the door behind him. The space felt smaller with him in it, charged like the air before a storm.
“We’re going back to the bedroom now to finish off what had been started,” she stated, the words leaving no room for debate. She was horny and it needed to be dealt with. “That spectacle for Grix was just a transaction. This isn’t.”
Ronan watched her, his chest rising and falling. “What is this?”
“Physics,” she said, walking toward him until she had to crane her neck. “Release of tension. Mutual curiosity.” Her small hands went to his belt again, but this time there was no hurry, no performative edge. “Now, are you going to just stand there like a monument, or are you going to help me?”
A ragged sound escaped him. His huge hands came up, cradling her face with a tenderness that shattered her remaining pretense. He kissed her. It was deep and slow, a exploration that tasted of shared ale and his own unique flavor. Her hands worked his leathers open, pushing them down over his hips until his cock sprang free, already fully hard and impossibly thick.
“Bed,” she gasped against his mouth. “The actual bed this time.”
He lifted her effortlessly, his hands spanning her waist, and carried her the two steps to the mattress. He laid her down as if she were made of glass, then knelt on the floor beside it, bringing them to a better level. He tugged her trousers and smallclothes off in one rough pull, the cool air hitting her wetness immediately.
“You see?” she said, spreading her legs, letting him look at the slick evidence of her want. “This started the second I saw that tent in the blanket. The goblin just interrupted.”
He groaned, lowering his head between her thighs. His tongue was broad and hot, licking a slow, devastating stripe from her entrance to her clit. The sheer size of him, the contrast of his massive head between her small legs, made her cry out. He ate her with a focused intensity, as if studying a rare plant, learning what made her tremble. His nose nudged her clit as his tongue plunged inside her, stretching her slightly, and the dual sensation coiled her tighter.
“Ronan, fuck, right there,” she chanted, her hands fisting in the fur on his head. He obeyed, his movements growing more rhythmic, sucking her clit into his mouth while his tongue fucked her deeply. The orgasm built quickly, a harsh, bright wave from the morning’s denied tension. It broke over her, wracking her small frame, her heels digging into his broad shoulders.
Before the pulses fully faded, she was pushing at his head. “Enough. I need you inside me. Now.”
He pulled back, his muzzle glistening. His cock, jutting thick and angry-red from his fur, looked impossible. He hesitated, his eyes clouded with concern. “Pipkin, the size…”
“Is a problem for me to solve,” she finished, breathing hard. She reached down, guiding the broad head of him to her entrance. It stretched her obscenely, a burning, delicious pressure. “Just go slow. Let me get used to you.”
He nodded, sweat beading on his forehead from the effort of his control. He pressed forward, an inch, then two, the thick ridge of his head popping past her tightest resistance. She gasped, a sharp sound of pleasure-pain, her body arching. He stopped, trembling.
“More,” she demanded, her voice tight.
He pushed deeper, a slow, inexorable invasion that filled her beyond anything she could have imagined. It felt less like being entered and more like being remade around him. She could feel every inch, every vein, the hot, hard reality of him seating itself deep in her belly. When he was fully sheathed, she lay utterly impaled, breathless, her inner walls fluttering wildly around the incredible girth.
“Move,” she whispered. “Please, move.”
He withdrew almost entirely, then sank back in with that same torturous slowness. The friction was unreal, a slick, tight drag that sparked lights behind her eyes. Each thrust was a profound claiming, a careful devastation. His weight settled over her, his fur soft against her skin, the musky scent of his exertion enveloping her.
“Is this… am I hurting you?” he gritted out, his voice strained.
“It’s perfect, you gigantic bastard. Don’t you dare stop.” She wrapped her legs around his lower back, hooking her ankles, trying to pull him even deeper. The angle shifted, and the next thrust rubbed his thickness directly over a spot inside that made her vision blur. “There! Right there, fuck, just like that!”
His control shattered. His hips snapped forward, driving into her with a powerful, rolling rhythm that shook the bedframe against the wall. The sound was filthy: wet, slapping flesh, their ragged breaths, the creak of wood. He fucked her with a primal intensity that had been buried under layers of stoicism, each deep drive punching a choked cry from her throat.
She came again, a sudden, violent clenching around him that made him roar. His rhythm stuttered, then became frantic. He plunged into her one last, deep time, his whole body locking as he emptied himself inside her. She felt the hot, pulsing flood, another impossible volume, filling her up as he grunted his release against her neck.
He collapsed beside her, careful not to crush her, his spent cock slipping from her with a soft, wet sound. The room was silent except for their labored breathing. The scent of sex, sweat, and sage was overwhelming.
Pipkin stared at the water-stained ceiling, feeling thoroughly, utterly wrecked. The capacitor on the satchel glowed, forgotten. She turned her head on the mattress. Ronan was watching her, his expression raw, unguarded.
“Well,” she said, her voice hoarse. “That’s one way to seal a partnership.”
A slow, real smile touched his mouth, the first she’d ever seen. It changed his whole face. “Your engineering solution was adequate.”
She snorted a laugh, wincing at the pleasant ache between her legs. “Adequate? I just took the full might of a Tauren bull and you’re calling it adequate?” She propped herself up on an elbow, looking at the mess they’d made. “We still need to get your money back. And find that Dreamthorn.”
“Later,” he rumbled, pulling her gently against his side. Her small body fit into the curve of his arm, her head on his chest. “The problem required immediate attention. It has been dealt with.”
She listened to the strong, steady beat of his heart beneath her ear. The hum of the capacitor was a faint counter-rhythm from across the room. Outside, Valdrakken continued its noisy day, unaware of the fragile, complicated alliance being forged in the quiet of a rented room.