Текст книги "Married to the alien cowboy"

Автор книги: Ursa Dox

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“Make sure to always wind it back up here in the shade of the house,” Silar was saying now, drawing my attention back to the hose. “If you leave the hose sitting out in the sun too long, when you turn the water on it will be hot enough to burn.”

“Oh. Thank you.” My thanks were sincere – I wasn’t aware of such a possibility and was glad for the warning. I’d never had a garden or outdoor space on Terratribe I, and it never got very hot and sunny there. “Did that happen to you?”

“Only once,” he said. “Learned my lesson. Only part of me that ever burns these days are my ears.”

“Your ears?” Was that some kind of metaphor about being embarrassed? But that had to be a human thing – burning ears. I hadn’t even seen any ears on this guy! Where was he hiding them?

He gave me a sideways glance with eyes that once again were veined blue instead of white. Then he took off his hat and tipped his head down to me.

So he did have ears after all.

And, my God, they were the cutest fucking ears I’d ever seen, alien or human.

They were on the top of his head, normally hidden by his hat. The only other times he’d been bareheaded so far he’d either been behind me on the horse, or I’d been distracted by other things. Like his dick.

But now, with him bent down like this, I could get a good look at his adorably rounded, velvety ears, sticking up from the top of his head like an Old-Earth mouse. They were the same yellow-gold as the rest of him, though the edges and backs were darker, with streaks of irritated-looking black.

“Are they burned now?” I asked uneasily. I may not have known much about Zabrian anatomy, but the black streaking along the skin there really didn’t look right.

“Yes,” he grunted, straightening back up.

“Wait, what?” I gasped at his careless reply. “Why?!”

“Same reason you can burn,” he said, sounding completely unconcerned. “Sun.”

“Is this from today? From the ride back here?” I asked, feeling like a total ass. He’d given me his hat and now he had an injury because of it. “I’m so sorry, Silar!”

He blinked his lashless eyes.

“Why?”

“Because! You got burned because of me!”

“I got burned because of the sun.”

“You know what I mean!”

Impossible fucking man.

“It is only my ears,” he said slowly, looking mystified by my reaction. “We have good hearing, but it makes the skin there more sensitive.” He eyed me for a moment. “If I’m not mistaken, your scalp, face, and neck would have burned without the hat. And maybe even your ears on top of all that.”

“Well, yes, that’s true. But still!”

“Still what?”

Oh my God. Was this how all of our conversations were going to go?

“Come on,” I said, shaking my head and grabbing his hand. He jolted, staring at where I touched him with eyes glowing white again. I really need to find out what that’s about…

But I’d learn about his weird glowy eyes after I’d taken care of his ears.

Thankfully, when I started walking, tugging at his big body, he followed without complaint. I let go of him once we were in the kitchen where I’d left my bag on the floor. I bent down and rummaged around, shoving aside clothing for the few bottles of toiletries I’d brought from Elora Station, which included a small tube of general antiseptic healing ointment. Seizing upon it, I grinned with triumph, then straightened rapidly and turned to face Silar. I paused, noticing the way he’d hastily averted his gaze when I’d turned.

Was he staring at my ass?

Well, that would certainly be an interesting development, considering the way he’d seemed so keen on not touching me so far.

Unless he was noticing my lack of tail back there… Maybe he thought my butt looked weird without one.

Unfortunately, that was probably the more likely (and depressing) scenario. I pushed it out of my mind, focusing at the task at hand – Silar’s poor little burnt-up ears.

I was about to ask him to sit down when I remembered there wasn’t anywhere to do it in here. Except the floor, I supposed.

“How come you don’t have a table or chair in there?” I asked him as I walked through to the bedroom.

“Why would I need one?” he asked, sounding genuinely confused as he followed me.

“For eating?”

“I eat standing up.”

I knew it.

“OK, well, in case you hadn’t noticed, you’re very tall, so I need you to sit down.”

Still holding my tube of cream, I opened the closet and attempted to drag the chair out one-handed. But it was heavier than it looked.

Silar’s tail snapped forwards from where he stood behind me, wrapping itself like a whip around one of the posts on the back of the chair and pulling it out of the closet with ease.

“Great. Thank you. Would you sit down, please?”

“Why?”

“I’d like you to sit down so I can put some of this on your ears,” I explained. “It’s from Elora Station. It’s human-made, but it’s supposed to be effective for a wide range of non-human skin types, too.”

“Not necessary,” Silar said, frowning at the tube.

“Of course it is! What if your burns get infected or something?” I pointed stubbornly at his hat which he carried in the claws of his left hand. “When was the last time you washed that thing? You knew your skin was damaged and you just plonked it back on your head anyway!”

Silar, appearing entirely confounded, glanced at his hat before putting it down on top of his chest of drawers. I took my new-to-me hat off as well, placing it down beside his. Then I stopped, frozen by the effect. Our items of clothing, his large, mine small, placed side-by-side in such a mundane fashion. Like we’d been putting out hats there together in this spot all our lives.

I shook myself and pulled my gaze from the hats to find Silar had seated his bulky body on the chair as requested.

“Oh! Great. Thanks,” I said, hurrying forwards. I stepped up neatly between his spread thighs.

I grimaced as I unscrewed the cap, realizing that Silar’s face was precisely boob-level like this, but it couldn’t really be helped. I wondered if Zabrian females even had breasts, and once again cursed my lack of Zabrian manual.

Speaking of manuals, wasn’t that the sound of one getting snapped surreptitiously shut? Silar hadn’t moved from the chair, but his tail had snuck over to the surface of the bed, closing the book, which it now shoved under the pillow and out of sight.

I couldn’t exactly say why, but the action just about charmed the pants right off me.

“You don’t need to hide it,” I murmured in what I hoped was a soothing tone. “I already saw it earlier.”

Silar didn’t immediately reply as I squeezed a bit of the cream onto the tip of my finger. I thought he’d just ignore what I’d said entirely, when he unexpectedly spoke up.

“I did not want you to see how far… Or rather, how not far I’d gotten…” He heaved a sigh, rubbing at his jaw. “But I have been reading it. Trying to, at least.” He made a gruff sound of displeasure. “I thought I’d have more time.”

It hadn’t occurred to me that coming here early would affect Silar or his plans.

Just like it hadn’t occurred to me that I should have refused his hat earlier.

“I’m sorry,” I said ruefully. “I seem to be causing you a lot of problems already. I haven’t been a very good wife so far, have I?”

It was a rhetorical question, but Silar cocked his head and replied anyway.

“Don’t apologize,” he muttered, tilting his head down slightly so I could get a better look at his ears. “I’m the one who hasn’t finished building your room and your bed.”

I halted just before my finger touched his right ear.

“My room?” I repeated. “My bed? You don’t mean for me to sleep in here?”

He wrenched his gaze up to meet mine. It was back to blue again.

“Do you want to?”

“I just… I’d assumed…” I cast my gaze around the room. For some reason it landed on our two hats again. Side by side.

I came here to be his wife, didn’t I? I wasn’t here to half-ass anything. And if I wanted him to keep me around after thirty days were up, surely I’d need to try to get as close to him as possible, right?

“What do Zabrians do?” I hedged, feeling suddenly shy. Sharing a bed with Silar…

“Haven’t been there in cycles,” he said with a toss of his tail that felt like the Zabrian version of a shrug.

“You don’t ever go there to visit?”

He stiffened, his gaze flashing white before he tilted his head down again, casting more of his face in shadow. “No.”

“Well, we don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” I said. “But I expected… Well, typically human married couples share a bed. Or at least a room. Not always, of course,” I stammered. Good grief. I was well and truly blabbering now. “If there are, I don’t know, sleep issues or something, they might sleep apart. Do you snore?”

“Do I what?”

“Snore. It’s this loud snorty noise people make when they sleep. Sometimes. Not always. Do you snore?”

“I have no idea.”

“It’s fine if you do,” I added hastily. “Mama always said I sleep like the dead, so it won’t bother me…” I steeled myself. “I’ll sleep here! If that’s agreeable to you, I mean.”

Silar didn’t look up. His head still bent, he merely muttered one single, growly word directly at my boobs. “Agreeable.”

“OK. Swell. Sleeping arrangements are settled, then,” I said in a breathy rush. For some reason I didn’t feel relieved by this agreement, even though it was what I had been angling for. My belly tightened with nerves as I finally dabbed some of the cream onto the blackened edge of Silar’s ear. He hissed sharply, and I snatched my hand back.

“Sorry! Did that hurt?”

“No,” he said after a tense moment of heavy breathing. He curled his hands into fists on top of his thighs.

This was just like when I’d put my hands on his shoulders and then kissed him earlier. The simplest touches resulted in the most extraordinary, explosive physical responses. It occurred to me as I thoughtfully squeezed more cream from the tube that it might have been months, or maybe even years, since Silar had been touched by another person.

“Here,” I whispered, giving him a bit of a warning before I stroked the edge of his other ear, gently spreading the cream. He didn’t actually hiss this time, at least, but he did breathe in sharply through his nose. Some unseen muscles beneath the hair on his scalp spasmed, making both his ears twitch in unison.

“Are you sure this isn’t painful?” I asked doubtfully, adding a little more cream to the first ear.

“Define painful,” he said raggedly. Thrown by the question, I couldn’t come up with an answer.

Instead, I asked, my heart in my throat, “Should I stop?”

“Probably.”

I raised a brow at him.

“If I stop, will you promise to finish the job and do this yourself?”

“No.”

I smirked and rolled my eyes.

“I didn’t think so. I’ll try to be quick.”

Silar remained dutifully stiff and silent under my ministrations. Soon enough, all the inflamed, black bits of his ears had been coated with the healing antiseptic cream.

When I was finished, I asked him if he had any bandages to wrap everything up so the skin would stay clean, but he just stared at me blankly.

“Did that not translate?” I asked, wiping residue from my fingers onto my pants. Silar’s blue-veined gaze tracked the movements of my hands against my hips. “I want to wrap up your ears so all the cream doesn’t come off and everything stays protected.”

“It translated,” he finally informed me, taking his eyes from my hip-area with what looked like some effort. “I just don’t have anything like that.”

“What the heck do you do when you’re injured?”

“Usually nothing.”

I gaped at him.

“So, what, you just bleed all over the place and don’t even bother covering the wound?”

He did that tail-shrug thing again.

“Blood clots quickly enough. If it’s really deep I just wrap it in a shirt.”

Is this why he doesn’t wear a shirt? I thought rather grimly to myself. They’re all ruined with old blood stains because the man doesn’t have a single fucking bandage in his entire fucking house?

“Well, we’ll just have to make do,” I said with forced cheer. I went back to my bag in the kitchen, tossed the tube in, then fetched out my red scarf. I returned with it to the bedroom, fingering the soft material as I went. “Cherry red!” I said, smiling and shaking it at him.

“What’s that?” he asked from his seated position. Now that I was done rubbing cream on his ears, he seemed a little more relaxed. His fists had uncurled, and he leaned his large torso back against the chair, watching me as I approached.

“It’s for your ears.”

His gaze narrowed.

“Don’t use that.”

“It’s clean and it will protect-”

“Don’t.”

I sighed in exasperation.

“Are you going to put your hat back on and go back to work out there?”

“Yes.”

“Then you need something to cover your ears! Your hat’s got all kinds of dust and bacteria and lovely human sweat in it now, thanks to me. And I’m pretty sure wrapping a whole shirt around your heat is not going to be ideal.”

“Don’t use that.”

How many times was he going to repeat some variation of that same command?

“Is there a specific reason why you don’t want me to use it?” I asked, fighting to keep the irritation out of my voice. I was the idiot who’d taken his hat and caused him to get burned in the first place. Couldn’t he just accept this little bit of kindness from me, from his wife? Why couldn’t he-

“It’s too nice.”

My nagging thoughts dispersed instantly. I stared at Silar, suddenly overwhelmed with something that felt a whole lot like tenderness. He didn’t want me to, what, get it dirty? He’d rather let an injury get infected than sully something of mine?

I swallowed a hot lump in my throat.

Silar took care of his property. Of his house. Of his animals.

But who took care of him?

Who took care of the man who didn’t have a table to eat at or a person to eat with?

The man who didn’t even bother to bandage himself when he bled?

I will.

I would do it. I was his wife now and wives were supposed to poke and prod, help and heal, and if Silar didn’t like it then too fucking bad because he’d married a human woman and we were one hell of a stubborn breed.

And if he decided to send me back after thirty days as a result…

Well… I’d just have to cross that bridge when I got to it. But I wasn’t about to idly sit by and watch Silar make dumbass decisions about his health just so I could keep my scarf clean.

“I may not know much about Zabrian marriages. Or even human marriages,” I admitted quietly as I returned to my place between Silar’s spread legs and placed my scarf gently over his ears. “But I do know that you’re more important than some scrap of fabric.”

I tugged gently on the scarf before tying it in a bow beneath his chin. Satisfied with my handiwork and trying to ignore how hilariously cute he looked with the scarf arranged along his hard jaw the way an old lady would wear one, I nodded once. He stared back at me in white-eyed silence.

“Next time,” I told him with a soft smile, “We’ll get some real bandages.”

I had a funny feeling that this big, quiet, alien dope was going to need them.

I had a feeling he’d needed them for a long, long time.

12SILAR

Cherry’s face was very close to mine.

So were her lips.

Small. Soft. Pink. And just a little damp where she had licked them while tying the scarf beneath my chin.

I wondered if humans only ever did the kiss ritual at weddings. I did not see how we could have another wedding so that I could repeat the experience. But maybe they also did the kiss thing at other important ceremonies, like funerals. I found myself rather foolishly hoping that someone might die soon so that I could find out. Maybe Zohro. No one would miss him. It would be worth it.

I remembered the way she’d pressed her mouth to mine. How entirely stunned I’d been in response.

How aroused.

How I’d had to turn right from the room and douse myself in cold water just to feel halfway myself again.

It was very likely a sign of impending insanity that I wanted to repeat such a disconcerting experience.

I wanted to do it anyway.

I also wanted, very suddenly and very badly, to shove my tongue into her mouth.

Terrified that Cherry might somehow read that new and shockingly perverse desire on my face, I immediately stood, forcing her to take a large step back. I reached around her for my hat, holding it in front of my groin in a manner I feared might become all too natural to me now that she was here. But I did not see any other option, as I’d been half-hard from the moment she’d touched my ears and the thought of stroking my tongue along the hot, mysteriously human surfaces inside her mouth was not helping.

At least I would not need to wear my hat on my head for the time being, since she’d ignored me when I’d told her not to use her pretty scarf and my skin would now be well protected. The red garment was snugly fitted against my injured ears. It was very soft.

It smelled like her.

And now my cock was so hard I could have hung my blasted hat upon it if I’d wanted to.

Light-headed, white-eyed, and with most of my body’s blood currently throbbing through my groin, I wondered how long I could last like this before my heart or my brain or some other vital part of my body simply gave up, gave out. I thought it unnervingly possible that I could make my wife a widow before the first human month of our marriage had even come to pass.

I snapped my tail up against the hook at the back of my belt, grunted something that might have been a word at her though I wasn’t entirely sure, and headed right back out the door.

I spent the rest of the day catching up on lost time. I repaired spots on the fences, looked for signs of predatory genka beyond my property, checked on the health of the pregnant cattle and as evening fell, milked the lactating ones. I returned to the house at sundown, carrying buckets of milk meant for the cellar.

I found Cherry in the kitchen. She started when I came in the door, and I grimaced. I’d been alone for so long. There had never been any reason to try to quiet my steps or announce my presence before.

But she was not alarmed for long. She flashed me a dizzying smile and gestured to two plates – my only two plates – on the counter beside the sink.

“I made dinner! Or, I scavenged for it, anyway. I hope it’s alright that I took stuff out of that cellar down there.”

“Of course,” I said. “It’s your cellar now.”

Her cheeks darkened. I did not know what that meant.

I turned and brought the buckets down the stairs, emptying them into sterile bottles. The whole time, I thought about her. Thought about her coming down here, like some little creature of the woods, foraging for her dinner.

And for mine.

I could not remember the last time someone had put together a meal for me, even a simple one like the ones on the plates above. My old warden before Tenn probably had when I’d first arrived. My mother must have before that, though my memories of her were hazy at best and bloodstained at worst.

But Cherry made me dinner.

My wife made me dinner.

Something like hunger burned in my belly, but I did not think it was for the food.

I headed back up the stairs to find Cherry in the same place. She had not yet touched her food.

Waiting for me.

The burn in my belly moved upward, warming my chest. I tried to cough it out. It did not work.

“I wasn’t sure where to put this stuff since there’s no table or chairs. But I don’t mind eating Silar-style tonight,” she said. “You’ll have to tell me what some of this stuff is. I assumed all of it was edible.”

“Smoked meat,” I said, aiming a claw at her plate. “Pickled root vegetables. Pickled ardu eggs. Pickled ardu eyes.”

“Wow. That’s a lot of pickled… Hold on. Did you say eyes?” Her own eyes got huge in the dusky gloom. “Well… Alright! Who am I to turn my nose up at that?”

Could humans move their noses?

She popped a shiny ardu eyeball into her mouth. I watched her chew, aware that my gaze was whitening and not having a single way to stop it. I watched the muscles work along her delicate jaw, suddenly desperate to place my fingertips there and feel her.

I did not. I shoved some meat into my mouth and chewed.

“Not bad, actually,” Cherry said after swallowing. “What kind of meat is this? Is this from the herd outside? What are those animals called?”

“The cattle?”

“Oh, it’s just translating to ‘cattle.’ I guess that’s the equivalent, then.”

“The individual beasts are called bracku. We call the males bulls and the babies are calves.”

“OK, yup. Some of those are translating. So, you obviously can eat them. And I suppose that was milk you brought in. Is that all you use them for?” She ate another ardu eye while peering out the window at the darkening land. “You sure seem to have a lot of them for just you.”

“Once a cycle the Zabrian Empire sends agents to grade them. They buy most of the healthy ones and deposit credits as compensation into an account managed by the warden.”

She tore her gaze from the window and fastened it on me.

“Managed by the warden? What, is he like a financial officer, too? That man sure wears a lot of hats.”

“I’ve only ever seen him wear one hat. Though he may have more,” I told her with some discomfort. I did not know how to lie around this. How best to explain that, as convicts, we were not allowed free rein of our own earnings. That anything we wanted to order from the Empire or from somewhere like Elora Station had to be approved and vetted first.

How could I explain to her that if I ever wanted to buy her a gift, I could not even do it without asking the warden’s permission first?

Not that I’d even know what sort of gift to give her. With a jolt, I realized her scarf was still tied around my ears. I hastened to unfasten it. I tried to hand it back, but she was looking out the window again and did not notice me. I held it awkwardly in the air for a long moment, just watching her and unable for some reason to form a single sound to catch her attention. Eventually, I folded it carefully and put it on the counter.

“They must really like the meat if they’re willing to go to so much work shipping it between planets,” she said, almost more to herself than me.

“Bracku is a delicacy on Zabria, but the animals do not thrive there.”

“But it also doesn’t seem like there are many of you here doing this,” Cherry pointed out. “If it’s worth going to the trouble of coming way out here for the cattle, why don’t they have a big operation set up out here? Just, like, tons of ranches and people working the land? Does this have something to do with the caste system Tasha mentioned?”

My wife was clever and curious and I worried that might prove to be to my detriment. I avoided her gaze.

“Yes. As other industries and wealth grew on Zabria it became harder and harder to recruit new labourers for the ranches on this planet. It is not considered a desirable or honourable life.”

She whirled on me, her tiny hands flying to her hips.

“Well, that’s just nonsense!” she said with a fearsome frown. “And I’m sorry if that’s offensive, since I guess that’s your culture and all, but any man who does an honest day’s work is honourable in my mind!”

Her words twisted through me, the oddest sensation of pleasure and pain. Pleasure that she might think me honourable.

Pain that it was not true.

Even now, I was lying to her, at least by omission. I had not lied about the fact that fewer and fewer Zabrians wanted to come work the land on this colony planet. That was all correct, as was the fact that dwindling numbers of women were willing to come here over the cycles, which meant no children to prolong farming family lines.

What I did not tell her was that when the ranchers were all gone, the Empire replaced them with us.

Cherry popped another bite of food into her mouth – bracku meat this time. The anger on her face melted away.

“Wow. Alright. I see why that’s a delicacy. That’s fantastic,” she said, chewing slowly, savouring it. “I’ve never had Old-Earth style beef. I wonder if this is what it was like.”

“That is not even the highest grade,” I informed her. “The bracku meat I smoke usually comes from older beasts that the Empire is unwilling to buy.”

She shook her head again, up and down this time, and ate another piece.

It was strange to converse so much and for so long with someone like this. To stand together, eating with such familiarity.

I was surprised that I did not dislike it. It wasn’t exactly easy to talk to her, but it wasn’t as torturous as I’d feared. Cherry seemed so sincere in her curiosity about this place. And about me. Though I could not fathom why.

But then again, I also could not fathom why she’d wanted to marry me at all.

Yet here she was.

“Well, I don’t care what the folks back home say, Silar. I’m glad to be here.” She met my gaze steadily. “It might be hard work but I’m used to that from the factory. And you’ve got all these lovely animals! Only animals I got to contend with back home were factory rats. Not to mention the amazing fruit and the plants and…”

“And?”

She hesitated. Her eyes took on a peculiar quality. A sort of glow that was not a glow. Not in the way my eyes glowed at least.

“And you.”

“Me,” I repeated hollowly.

She made a dainty sound in her throat and looked down at her plate.

“Yes, you. This is a good life you’re offering me, Silar. And I know we just met, but I feel like I can already tell that it’s better because you’re in it.”

She seemed rather shy as she said it, fiddling with a bit of ardu egg on her plate but not actually picking it up and eating it.

I wanted to hold her.

And not in the perverse way that I’d wanted to put my tongue in her mouth before.

Just hold her.

Just to see what it felt like. What she felt like.

Was that normal? Would she welcome it?

Or would she take back every single word she’d just said?

Perhaps it was not normal. I’d never seen my own father do such a thing, at least not that I could remember. And my father had been a paragon of Zabrian excellence.

He was the one who’d turned me in, after all.

Cherry seemed content to focus on eating now. Following her lead, I did the same. When we’d finished, I grasped both the plates, taking them to the sink to wash them.

“Oh! I can do that,” Cherry said hurriedly.

“Why?” I asked with a frown. I’d washed these plates several times a day, every day, for cycles. “I don’t expect you to.”

“Is there anything… You know… You do expect?”

“No.”

She looked vaguely surprised by that. I could not blame her. I still was not entirely sure why I’d voted yes to the bridal program.

“Alright. Well. I guess I’ll get ready for bed, then.” She hesitated, biting her lip in a distracting way.

It took me far too long to realize that she was waiting for me to reply that I would do the same.

Normally, I would be getting ready for bed around this time. I rose early for chores and did not have anything specific to keep me awake or occupied in the evenings, other than trying to read that book from the human-Zabrian liaison.

It had been a long day. I really should be getting to bed…

With my wife.

I inhaled sharply, my tail going tight ’round its hook. “I… have more work to do.”

“Alright!” Cherry answered, her voice sounding higher than usual. “Goodnight, Silar!”

I left the house and let the door swing shut between us.