Текст книги "Married to the alien cowboy"

Автор книги: Ursa Dox

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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 14 страниц)

13CHERRY

Iwashed my face and under my arms with frigid water in the kitchen, then cleaned my teeth and changed into a simple pyjama set that Tasha had provided. The PJs were soft and comfy, and in normal circumstances I’d consider them pretty darn cozy.

Except these weren’t normal circumstances.

Nope. These circumstances were fucking freezing.

I tossed and turned in the empty bed, trying every which way to get warm. None of them worked. Silar only had one thin blanket on the bed and it was doing absolutely zilch in the keep-Cherry-warm department. It got to the point that I was shivering so hard it physically hurt. Like my bones were trying to rattle themselves right out of my body.

I’d been a bit relieved when Silar had said he wasn’t coming to bed just yet. But now I was just lying here, miserably chilly, hoping he’d show up and share some goddamn body heat with his wife.

Eventually, when it felt like my teeth might crack from the force of all the chattering, I gave up on trying to sleep and sat up. I swung my legs around the side of the bed and slipped my feet into the boots I’d left beside it on the floor. I went out into the kitchen with the bed’s blanket wrapped around my shoulders. When I saw my scarf on the counter, I wrapped that around me, too, figuring the more layers, the better. I wonder when he took this off, I thought as I put it on. I hadn’t noticed earlier.

But even with the blanket, scarf, and movement now that I was walking, it wasn’t enough. My breath fogged, ghostly in the dark kitchen. I was used to the cold. Terratribe I was a frigid fucking ice-ball of a planet. But at least my apartment, as crappy as it was, had heat.

I couldn’t find anything that resembled a heating system in this house. There was the wood-burning oven, of course, but after trying and failing to figure out how to actually light a fire with the materials provided, I gave up on that idea pretty quick. A search around the place also didn’t turn up any extra blankets.

It didn’t turn up my husband, either.

Where the hell is he?

I’d lain in bed for at least an hour, maybe two. What could he possibly have been working on after working all afternoon already?

There was nothing for it. I’d just have to track him down and beg him to find me an extra blanket or something.

Decision made, I went out the back door.

I didn’t see Silar out there but I heard him. At least, I thought I did. The methodical sound of hammering had to be coming from someone human or, er, Zabrian.

It was coming from the direction of the barn.

I passed around the edges of the gardens, walking under the fruit trees Silar had told me about earlier. The hammering sound got louder. It rang out from a smaller structure built onto the side of the barn. I circled the entire thing to find Silar in a sort of open-air workshop. He had something wooden up on a workbench and was pounding away at it, his muscled back to me.

He sure isn’t bothered by the cold, I thought somewhat bitterly, noting his eternal lack of shirt. Or maybe it was just that his activity was keeping him warm. He seemed to be working hard on building something.

He stopped hammering then bent slightly, examining his work. But he didn’t maintain that posture for long. Half a second later he stiffened, straightened up, and turned around.

I was at least five, maybe even seven or eight metres from him. And I hadn’t said a word.

“How did you know I was there?” I asked, startled.

“Heard your breathing.” He hefted the tool in his hand before setting it down. “Hammering must have covered the sound of your footsteps.”

“My breathing? Jeez. You weren’t kidding about the good hearing,” I said, drawing my blanket/scarf combo tighter around myself as I walked closer.

For such a rural landscape, it was surprisingly bright out here. Three moons and infinite stars sent silvery light pouring down. Silar’s little workshop area was lit with a large candle.

“What are you working on?” I asked, my words puffing up in front of me like smoke. Once I was beside him, I took a look at the pieces of wood he’d been fitting together on the workbench.

“I had all this lumber to build out your room and make your bed. But I guess I don’t need it for that now.”

“Then what are you building?”

“A table,” he said, turning those odd blue-and-turquoise-veined eyes onto me. My breath caught. “And a chair.”

“Just one chair? Does that mean you won’t be sitting to eat with me?”

I meant it to come out like a joke. But it just came out sounding pathetic.

Silar didn’t seem to notice though, thank goodness.

“No,” he replied, rubbing his knuckles along the underside of his jaw. “It means there’s already a chair in the house.”

“Oh.”

Duh. I knew that. I’d told him to sit his alien ass down on it earlier, hadn’t I? When I’d tended to his ears. There was a very good chance Silar was beginning to think he’d married a total airhead. But I couldn’t make myself get too upset or embarrassed about that now. No, right now I was just basking in the completely unexpected delight at the fact that Silar wanted to sit down and take his meals with me. He was building a whole freaking set of furniture simply because I’d mentioned the lack of it.

I sniffed, worried I’d get all teary-eyed again. God, I hadn’t realized how lonely I’d become on Terratribe I. I hadn’t shared a meal with someone since Mama had died. I mean, I had my lunches and snacks in the shuttle factory cafeteria, but sometimes that was even worse than eating alone. Loneliness when you’re surrounded by people feels different than loneliness in the empty quiet.

I used to have friends on Terratribe I – like Maggie – but she’d moved to Elora Station. I would have done anything to join her. But I wasn’t able to snag one of the coveted seasonal work contracts there and I wasn’t a super-talented baker able to open my own business like Maggie had done.

She’d also fallen in love on Elora Station and was now married to an alien orc. I’d known for some time she wasn’t coming back.

I wondered now if that wasn’t some small slice of the reason I’d jumped at this marriage program. Certainly, I needed to get away from Magnus’ men. But had another, tiny part of me been looking for something beyond that?

Was Silar looking for that, too?

He was building the table, after all…

“What are you doing out here?” he asked. “I thought you were going to bed.”

“I did. But…” I shook off the feeling that I was being way too whiny and just bit the bullet. “It’s too cold!”

He blinked his lashless eyes at me.

“Cold?”

“Yes! Don’t you get cold, Mister No-Shirt-Man?”

“Not in this weather, no.”

“OK. Well. I do! I was just wondering if you had any extra blankets or anything.”

“I do not.”

Well. That’s just peachy.

“Alright,” I said with a brittle smile, internally screaming at the thought of going back to shivering alone in that bed. “Do you um… By any chance… Do you not sleep very much?”

Silar stilled. Which was impressive, because it wasn’t like he was moving much to begin with.

“Why?”

“I was just wondering when you might come to bed.” I leaned forward a little and quivered when I felt the heat radiating out from his bare chest. “You could help warm me up.”

Holy Terra. That sounded dirty.

“Not in a weird way!” I cried. “Unless… Unless that’s what you were thinking? I mean, I am your wife after all, and… and…”

Shut up Cherry. Shut up, shut up, shut up!

If Silar was aware of my brain completely short-circuiting inside my skull, he was good enough not to mention it. He merely asked, “You require a heat source to sleep?”

“When it’s this cold? Yes! It doesn’t have to be you,” I added hurriedly, dreading the thought of him turning me down. “You could show me how to light a fire in the oven to heat up the house.”

“I only burn a constant fire in deep winter. I’ve run through most of my winter lumber and would have to cut new logs to have enough supply to burn the fire at night consistently. I will do it for you. But it will not help you tonight.” His eyes flashed white. He blinked and turned them away from me, almost as if trying to hide it. “The heat you require, I will provide.”

“Thank you,” I said, shifting from foot to foot. It was colder out here than it had been inside and now that I was standing still, I was really starting to feel it again. “Can we… Can we go now?” I shivered. “Are you ready?”

He didn’t say yes or no. He just said, “Let’s go.”

14SILAR

Cherry bounded back into the house and went straight for the bedroom. She crawled onto the bed, curling herself into a tiny, trembling ball. I followed and sat uneasily on the edge of the bed, unsure of what to do next. Would simply sitting here provide enough heat for her to sleep?

Apparently not. She was holding the blanket open for me, grimacing as if it caused her pain to do so, and hissing at me to “Lie down!”

My body obeyed her before my mind could catch up. As if she’d tugged on a rope somewhere in the vicinity of my spine, I fell back against the mattress. I cursed myself internally, realizing I still wore my boots, and I kicked them off and onto the floor. Removing my boots without using my hands distracted me for a moment, and I did not at first notice the way that Cherry instantly flung the blanket and scarf over both of us before crowding her soft little body against mine.

Stiffness slammed through me. Every part of me. Muscles, joints…

Cock.

“Sorry,” she said in a husky whisper, even as she wiggled impossibly closer. It was as if my tiny human wife was trying to burrow inside me. Her fluttery fingers sought heat, skimming over my chest and making my breath hitch. “Sorry,” she said again. But perhaps she did not mean it, because she did not move away.

I did not want her to mean it.

“Don’t apologize,” I told her, for the second time that day. “I will provide you what you need.”

Even if it meant I did not get a moment’s sleep because of it. I certainly wouldn’t. Not like this. Not with my chest heaving as if I’d just wrestled a rogue bull into submission. My body burned. My cock stood hot, hard, and at attention, a bulging post beneath the blanket that I was fairly certain – at least, I hoped – that the darkness concealed.

Cherry would not want me to lie beside her like this if she only knew how my body was already responding to her. She was suffering, meanwhile all I could think about was what it would feel like if those little fingers drifted downwards. Down, down until she brushed them over the tightest point of my pants, feeling the engorged heat of my –

“Why do your eyes do that?”

“What?” I asked raggedly. A stupid question. If I’d taken a mere half a moment to process her question I would have known what she meant. But Cherry explained patiently, nudging herself harder against my arm as she did so.

“When your eyes get bright and white like that. It’s extra noticeable in a dark room like this.”

Blast.

I snapped my eyelids shut.

“You do not know?” I asked with some confusion. “Your eyes are white as well.”

“Yeah. But like I said before, they’re always like that. Same way the inner part is blue and then black. It’s just how human eyes are. The colour doesn’t change the way yours do. Well,” she amended, “the black point in the middle, the pupil, gets bigger in the dark to let in more light. But your thing doesn’t seem to be light dependant.”

“It happens when a Zabrian feels…”

Feels like he wants to rut his wife like an animal.

“Strong emotion,” I finished, my throat seizing on the words.

I did not go on to tell her that it was a sign of a male of poor control, a male of very low standing, if his eyes went white often. I did not tell her that good men, worthy men, barely showed the white in their eyes at all.

Another lie by omission.

Another sign that I did not deserve her.

“Oh,” she breathed, and I could feel it, not just hear it, a tantalizing brush against my shoulder that sent my blood racing and cock pounding. “That’s… I never would have guessed that.”

“Why not?”

“Because you… You seem so… It’s not just that you’re quiet but…”

Her voice trailed away, and I waited in anxious agony for her to go on. For her to tell me just what it was that she found wrong with me so that I could go about trying to fix it.

“What?” I rasped when she did not continue.

“It’s not that you seem emotionless,” she said in a rush. “I mean, you are definitely quiet. But I just… I never would have known you were experiencing strong emotions without the eye thing. You seem… very controlled.”

Controlled? Good Zabrian men were controlled. Men who did not get convicted of murder before they were even old enough to graduate from the childhood portion of Zabrian Academy. The white of my eyes proved just how much control I lacked.

My cock proved it as well.

But even so, even knowing she was entirely and utterly wrong about what she’d just said, it sent an undeniable surge of strange satisfaction through me. Cherry thought I had control.

She thought I had one of the best qualities of the best Zabrian males.

She did not know Zabria. She did not know me.

She did not know how wrong she was.

She would find out, of course. When I told her what I’d done. Why I was here in the first place.

But not tonight.

Tonight, I would let her go on thinking that the male she’d married was good enough to lie beside her.

It seemed my lying beside her was helping. Her breathing evened out, her body relaxing against my arm.

Until she inhaled quickly and tensed.

“What sort of emotions?” she asked with a suddenness that had me opening my eyes despite myself. “I hope… I hope I haven’t done anything to bother you too much.”

“What?” I croaked.

I’d never been articulate. At least, not as an adult. Though I’d talked incessantly as a child. Asked a thousand and one questions of my mother every day.

Until the trial. Until I learned that speaking, telling your story, using as many words as you could to defend yourself…

Was utterly useless.

And then I’d been sent here, isolated from society with only the other convicts and wardens to speak to as I grew from child to man.

It had been so easy to let my voice die.

But now it seemed that Cherry wanted that voice. The problem was that I was even less able to form words around her than I was the warden and the others. Which led me to answering her question with foolish, single-word questions of my own. I’d lost count of the times I’d responded to something she’d said with “What?” or “Why?”

“I hope I’m not too much… Too outside of what you expected,” she said, sounding nervous. “Your eyes were white when you first saw me. And then the kiss… Sorry about that, too, by the way.”

I stopped myself – barely – from asking “Why?” once again. Like a dunce.

“Surprise is an emotion, too,” I informed her, focusing on getting the words out of my tight throat and ignoring the raging pulse in my chest and in my cock.

“So I didn’t upset you, then?” She asked it somewhat tremulously.

“No.”

I could not think of a single thing she could do that would actually upset me.

Except…

Except leave me when the thirty days were up.

She breathed out in a long, sweet rush over my skin.

“Oh. Good. I was worried I’d offended you or something.”

She should have been more worried about the offensiveness of her husband’s thoughts in that moment. Thoughts about kissing her again outside of a ceremony, thoughts of what her tongue might taste like against my own.

“Whoa. I think your eyes just got whiter.” She hesitated, then let out a low chuckle. “I thought that understanding the white eyes thing would help, but now you’re even more mysterious. What emotion are you feeling right now, Silar?” She laughed again, but it didn’t sound very happy. “I hope it’s not annoyance at how much I’m talking.”

“It isn’t.”

She waited, no doubt wanting me to say more. To try to educate her on the riot inside my own head.

I had no way to untangle it, let alone explain it. There was arousal, surely. That was the most obvious. But it was more than that. There was shock at how strangely good it felt to provide for her, to be the only one to keep her warm. And then there was something else. Something tender and aching, something like a bruise. A sweet sort of pain that made my whole body hurt with the desire to turn towards her and take her entirely into my arms.

Maybe I could do it, under the pretense of making her even warmer. Cover her body with mine like a blanket until she wrapped her own arms around me in turn and…

And she felt the offensive straining of my cock and immediately fled from me.

I should have read more of that stupid book, I said, clenching my fangs together. I hadn’t yet encountered anything in the text about human marital expectations or formalities. Was it proper to hold your wife in bed? Perhaps I could manage it without her feeling the heinous poke of my erection.

Perhaps… Perhaps-

“Can I hold you?” The question tore out of me, sounding strangled, before I even realized I was asking it. I berated myself for lobbing it out there in such a blunt, careless way, but at the same time felt a rush of breathless anticipation at her answer. Likely she would balk and say no. Maybe even ask me to leave the bed entirely.

But maybe…

Maybe she would say yes.

My heart stampeded in my ears, like the hoofbeats of an entire herd. Every nerve bristled beneath my skin. The tip of my cock grew damp beneath my clothing, my sack bunching beneath the hard rod of the organ.

Cherry made no answer.

I’d lived in silence for cycles. Never before had I thought that silence might be the death of me.

But I thought so now.

I allowed myself a small, slit-eyed glance her way, not wanting to blind her with my eyes in the dark.

But it seemed there was no chance of that. Cherry’s eyes were closed, the odd, short little hairs of her eyelids resting prettily against the hollows above her cheeks. Her body was slack and still, her breaths shallow puffs.

She was asleep.

I watched her face, illuminated with the silver-white glow of my eyes. I did not dare to blink. That new, tender pain got suddenly sharper. Like a beautiful blade, sliding from my throat to chest. Cutting me open and claiming everything.

I should go.

I had not yet washed or scrubbed my fangs or even taken off my pants. Though removing my pants now was probably a bad idea if I planned to return to the bed to keep Cherry warm. Having a barrier between us, however flimsy, seemed like a good idea. Plus, if I lost control and climaxed (which I felt shamefully close to doing already) then at least I’d only foul up my own trousers and not the bedding I shared with her. I carefully moved the arm not currently claimed by Cherry and fisted my cock with a muffled groan.

Cherry sighed in her sleep, snuggling harder against me. She slung a slender leg across my thigh, her knee coming perilously close to my fisted cock. Heat seeped from the place at the apex of her thighs, and I squeezed my cock even harder, panicking at the fact that I really might ejaculate now. I focused on my laboured breathing, trying desperately not to think of the secret, human place between Cherry’s legs that was now nestled so perfectly against my hip.

Why in the great stretches of the Empire did she need me to warm her, I wondered, when that part of her was so dizzyingly hot?

Tomorrow, I told myself in feverish alarm, I would prepare more lumber for the oven’s stores. There was no way I would be able to suffer through Cherry using me as some sort of heated pillow night after night. My cock would fall off.

But I might be able to get some sleep and survive this marriage if we were just lying beside each other with a little space in between.

At least, that’s what I tried to tell myself as I settled in for a very, very long night.

15CHERRY

There was some sleepy confusion before I opened my eyes. Because outside of my closed eyelids was a bright, warm light. Nothing like the wimpy sunlight of Terratribe I and certainly not like the artificial lighting of Elora Station. I kept my eyes closed for a long while, just enjoying the bask of it across my face. The gentle heat that poured over me, syrupy sweet.

Heat.

That triggered a memory of last night. Of Silar dutifully slogging back in here with me to warm me up after dark. I could barely remember being here in the bed with him, I’d fallen asleep so fast.

It was almost embarrassing, how quickly I’d passed out on him. But it had been a long, tiring day. I’d finished my trek across the cosmos, gotten married, then taken a multi-hour-long horse ride back here. Now that I thought about it, my ass and legs were pretty tender from the journey.

It was obvious, even without moving or opening my eyes, that Silar was no longer in the bed with me. The heat I was currently experiencing wasn’t the delicious solidity of his body, but something more dispersed and atmospheric. A sudden crackle-pop sound had my eyes flying open and I sat up.

The bedroom door was open, and I could see into the kitchen. A wood fire in the great oven was burning merrily, and there were loads of new lumber piled up on the floor, ready to be used. My heart turned to goo at the thought of Silar getting up early and adding “collect wood for my chilly-willy wife” to his list of morning chores.

Then that goo turned to lead when I realized it was probably because he didn’t want to be responsible for warming me up in bed.

I sighed and wiggled my butt forward out of the bed, stepping into my boots as I stood. My motion knocked something to the floor. Seeing that it was Silar’s wife instruction manual, I blushed and snatched it up. It felt weird to leave it in the bed now that I was sleeping here, so I chucked it into the mostly-empty top drawer in the dresser.

Silar’s hat was gone from the top of the dresser. Mine remained. I’d need it today, if the sun spilling in through the bedroom was anything to go by. I hope his ears are better… I’d have to coax him back into the chair to have a look later.

A quick survey of the kitchen, storage areas, and cellar told me Silar wasn’t in the house, nor was he visible from the porch. Figuring that he was probably out dealing with the animals or mending fences, I set about deciding just what it was that I was going to do today. After catching a whiff of myself, I grimaced and decided that number one on the agenda was figuring out the bath situation.

I tracked down the laundry tub Silar had mentioned, a squat wooden half-barrel that would just barely allow me to sit in there with my knees drawn up to my chest. I placed it in the kitchen as near to the oven as I could, hustled outside for the hose, brought the hose inside and placed it in the tub, then went back out to turn on the tap. I ran to the door to keep my eye on the water, and when the tub seemed like it would be just full enough that I wouldn’t send all the water sloshing out with my body, I turned off the tap and went back in. A quick check of the window above the kitchen sink told me that Silar wasn’t on his way back here to catch me naked in the kitchen, so I stripped out of my pyjamas, panties, and boots, resolving to give the garments a wash in the tub when I was finished bathing.

Even though we were married and had spent the night beside each other in bed, the thought of Silar happening upon me while naked made nerves snatch uncomfortably in my belly. Hastily, I stepped into the water without letting the fire warm it properly. I cawed at the frigid shock of it, then reminded myself that Lake New Nipissing would be much colder as I resolutely sat down and started scrubbing.

I’d only just managed to get the full length of my hair soaked in water, scraping it awkwardly back from my face, when the rapid-fire thunder of heavy boots hitting the porch forced my heart up into my throat. There was no time to get out, no time to hide myself as the back door slammed open and Silar barrelled in.

His eyes were bright white. When they fastened on me, they only got brighter.

“Silar!” I squawked indignantly, drawing my knees up closer to my chest and glaring at him, fully aware of how he hadn’t done anything wrong here. This was the fucking kitchen. I hadn’t warned him I’d be using it. But I couldn’t help the shivery creep of colour up my neck and into my cheeks.

“I heard you scream.”

“I… I didn’t scream!” I retorted, snaking one arm out of the tub to grab at my pyjama top. “I gave a very dignified, lady-like yelp!”

“Why? What happened?” He came further into the room with the force of a storm, all that quiet energy crackling and threatening to explode, the lightning-like veins of his eyes completely swallowed by the blinding white glow.

“Because the water is cold, that’s why! I didn’t let it heat up enough!”

“The water?” He only now seemed to register what I was doing in the tub. He jolted, then went stone-still as he registered my nakedness.

Not naked for long, though. I managed to get my arms into the sleeves of the pyjama top, snapped its sides closed over my front, then shakily stood, water pouring off me. The silky top was fairly long. It covered my ass and crotch, at least. But my weird method of dressing had soaked a lot of the fabric, and as I lurched out of the tub and stepped onto the floor, I was fully aware of how hard my nipples were, poking through the now-transparent garment.

Silar was obviously aware, too, his heated white gaze glued to my tits.

And, as if his hands couldn’t help but follow his eyes, he made a choked sound low in his throat, closed the space between us, and pressed his rough, warm palms against my breasts.