Married to the Alien Cowboy (Cowboy Colony Mail-Order Brides, #1)

by Ursa Dax

“No. But I am fairly certain that they have two arms. Same as us.” Curses. “Two arms,” Fallon said brightly. “That is a very good number!”

Silar patted its neck in return, a gesture that was somehow both brusque and tender, as if he were mildly embarrassed by the animal’s show of affection but secretly pleased by it anyway. This is a good man.

I placed my hands on the window sill and leaned forward until my nose was smooshed up against the dusty glass. I’d given up all pretense about pretending I wasn’t spying now, but hey, a girl needed to know what she was in for! My husband was packing what could easily be considered a murder weapon in most galactic jurisdictions, and I figured it was just plain irresponsible not to try to get a better look now. This was for my own future health and general genital safety, damnit!

HAHA

And close enough, it turned out, for him to reach over, pull at some unseen latch, and open that impossible window without taking a single step.

Lol

“Hi,” I said, lifting my chin and doing my darnedest to smile into the fearsome heat of that white gaze. “I’m Cherry. I’m… I’m here to be your bride.” Absurdly, even though I knew it wasn’t a Zabrian custom, I lifted my hand to shake, thrusting it out the window at him. It took him a while to even notice my hand. When he finally did so, he reached out and grasped it in a firm, calloused grip. I practically cried out with relief, thinking that the gesture had to be a good sign. Except he didn’t stay like that for long. He wasn’t trying to shake or even hold my hand. He simply pushed my hand back inside the room so that it wouldn’t be in the way when he closed the window. Which he immediately did. The glass thwunked back into place with terrible, dusty finality. And then Silar turned his finely-sculpted golden ass right around and walked away.

“Silar,” growled the warden. “Now is not the time for your usual silence. I need to hear it verbally. Do you consent to this marriage?” At this point I’d consent to a tail amputation if it meant I got to keep her.

“Yes,” I rasped, my voice sounding oddly loud, booming in the space. “As long as she also… That is… Do you…” She tensed as I addressed her. “Do you also consent? Now that you’ve seen me… Will you still have me?” She looked at me a moment and then moved her head rapidly up and down. I guessed I hadn’t read far enough in my human manual because the gesture meant absolutely nothing to me. I could only stare at her helplessly, guts twisting, because surely that was this tiny creature’s way of saying no. She only just got here. She’s only just seen me. I haven’t even gotten to show her my wagon yet. And now- “Yes! I consent! I’m in if you’re in.” Oh.

My gaze roved over her face as she spoke. She seemed to have endless things to say, which I supposed was just as well, because I had very few. I wondered if she really was pretty, or if it had simply been so long since I’d seen a female that, starved of beauty, I had no real standards left to speak of. Did it even matter? She was here, for some unknown reason she was willing to have me, and she was the strangest, prettiest thing I could ever recall having seen.

So I latched on to the first true thing I felt I could respond with. “I will work hard, too.” I didn’t know how to be a husband to a human. But I knew how to work. That much, I could promise.

“If you tell me what it is, I can try to do it,” he said, uncertainty and grim determination warring on his face. It was as if he expected a kiss to be something extremely difficult or unpleasant. Like loading haybales or mucking stalls or something. Guess I gotta give him credit for being willing to try… “I also have a wagon,” he added in a sudden rush. “Just… So you know.” “Oh! Well… Good! I love wagons!” I’d never been on a wagon in my entire fucking life.

HAHAHAHAH

Shirtless as he was, I could see with utmost clarity the way every single muscle in his arms, chest, and abdomen grew harrowingly taut at the touch. I felt his shoulders tighten beneath my fingers. Saw the way his throat bobbed. Heard the catch of his breath. His eyes seemed even brighter than before. How was that possible? He looks so uncomfortable. I’d get it done quick. Just a little peck. In and out and we’d never have to speak of this again. I wetted my lips with my tongue, drawing Silar’s white gaze to my mouth. Before I lost my nerve, I darted in beneath his hat and pressed my mouth softly to his.

“Upset him? Silar? Empire, no,” the warden said, looking both surprised and amused. “You just knocked that boy’s boots off, is all. He’s likely gone to sort himself out before the ride home.”

He stood, every bit of him but his hat soaked and dripping, the empty bucket still held high above his head. He would have been utterly still if it weren’t for the heaving of his back indicating harsh and rapid breathing. “Cooled yourself off there, Silar?” I whipped around to find the warden watching us both, my bag in his hands.

Empire help me, I did not deserve her. I was going to do everything in my power to keep her anyway.

“The regular factory workers weren’t supposed to touch any of it, of course. It was only for the fancy-pants boss-types and the politician’s team. But Mama managed to sneak one little cherry off the edge of the tray and pop it into her mouth without anybody noticing. She said it was the sweetest, most beautiful moment of her life.” Cherry rubbed the back of her hand across her eyes and gave an oddly wet-sounding inhale through her nose before continuing. “She said that me being born was the only thing that had ever eclipsed the experience of eating that cherry. Her new most beautiful moment.” She laughed shakily. “Plus, my face was as round and as red as a cherry when I was born, so I’m sure that contributed to the name choice.”

I cast about for an appropriate response. “They call me Silent Silar,” I told her at length. A smile unfurled, slow as sunrise, as she took that in. “Sounds like we could be a perfect fit, then,” she said. “Just like this hat!” A perfect fit. Maybe this really would work out. Maybe, after the thirty days were up, I would not have scared her off and she would stay with me. She would really be my wife.

I would use my thirty days to show her how calm, controlled, and decent I could be. To prove just how hard I’d work to take care of her. I’d show her who I was, besides a convicted murderer who apparently wanted to do unnaturally perverse things to her backside, that is. If she could learn to like me, or at the very least respect me, before I told her why I was here, then maybe she would stay…

“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.

“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 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.

“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.”

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.

“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.

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 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…

“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.

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.

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!”

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.

HAHHA

This part of Cherry had not been hard before this morning. I would have noticed. She’d been submerged up to her chest in that cold water and now the ends of her udders were about to fall off and it was all my fault. Even what I was doing now – trying to warm her flesh and restore healthy blood flow – was not working. If anything, these frost-toothed spots were only getting harder!

LMAOOOO

“It’s alright,” she interrupted. “You don’t need to apologize again.” She smiled tentatively. “We’re bound to run into more of these sorts of misunderstandings as we get to know each other. But I figure that if we talk to each other and…” Her voice caught. “And touch each other… We’ll figure it out.” “Do you want me to touch you?” I hated the thought that she might be standing there and suffering my touch just so that I could get a hands-on human education. But she dispelled that fear with a single word. “Yes.” My wife wanted me to touch her.

“Do humans only kiss at weddings and funerals?” The question crawled up my throat before I had a hope of calling it back. “Funerals?” Cherry whispered. Her eyes looked unfocused, the dark parts in the centre larger than before. “Is kissing merely ceremonial?” I ground out. “Oh, no.” Her eyes fluttered closed for a moment as my thumbs circled her nipples once more. Her breathing turned arousingly ragged, and it took her a moment to begin speaking again. “No, humans do it all the time. Whenever they want.” Oh. Maybe that was good. Good that kissing was not so formal or ritualistic. Maybe I would not offend her human sensibilities too much if I- “I want to put my tongue inside you.”

She moaned and threw her arms around my neck. She tugged me so hard that my hat tumbled to the floor and my head was forced into sudden descent. When her mouth touched mine, it was not with the swift stiffness I experienced at our wedding. No, this time her lips were a hot caress, wet and wanting. Her mouth opened, and her fingers slid up into my hair. The soaked and silken tip of her tongue touched mine at the exact moment that her fingertips came into contact with the sensitive, healing edges of my ears. It was also at that exact moment that I climaxed, my sac swelling and my cock shooting seed into the tight clutches of my trousers. I groaned into Cherry’s mouth as pleasure ripped through me, my hands spasming against her breasts, my hips rocking helplessly against her bare belly.

He didn’t ask what I referred to. He simply flicked his tail in his weird Zabrian version of a shrug and said, “I don’t say much. But what I do, I mean.” Oh. Oh.

And in that strangely hushed moment, I didn’t miss Mama or Maggie. I didn’t pine for Terratribe I or wish I could have just one more chance to make it all right. I didn’t pray again. I just wished I could have seen Silar one more time. Seen him one more time and maybe even told him that

“Silar!” my wife cried for a third time. “You let him go! This instant!” My body obeyed her immediately. Clearly, it was more devoted to her than it was to me.

“You have no idea the shock of that, Silar,” he added quietly, sounding sick. “To suddenly see a vulnerable little female in the path of my cattle. And knowing in the deepest parts of myself that I’d never reach her in time.” “I know exactly what it’s like.” I’d seen the same thing he had. I’d watched my wife in the road. About to die. Because of him. “I need to see her,” Fallon said, his eyes going moon-white. “I need to make sure she’s alright. And apologize and-” “You need to get off my property before I change my mind and kill you.”

Fallon glowered at me, dragging his bloody fingers absentmindedly across his throat. Then, all at once, it hit him. I watched understanding, then horror, dawn on his face. “She does not know? That you… That we…” His voice lowered to a hissing whisper. “She does not know about the convictions?”

“Oh,” Fallon said, his white eyes bouncing back and forth between the door and me. “Oh… Oh my cursed cattle… Alright… So…” “So,” I cut him off, “you will keep your mouth closed for once. It seems as though my wife wishes to greet you. Therefore, you will sit down, shut up, and take whatever generosity she chooses to bestow upon you because the Empire knows that I have none. And Fallon,” I added on a dangerous growl, “if you breathe one word about my murder conviction to her then I vow to you, that breath will be your last.”

But all that achieved was making sure that I cried silently. I stared at Silar while big, breathless tears rolled down my cheeks. “Don’t say sorry,” Silar said, the words sounding like they were ripped from somewhere deep in his throat. “Not to me, Cherry. Never to me.”

“What do Zabrians do,” I asked, “to show affection?” “I do not know.” Something about the immediate and unguarded way he said it made me feel like I was going to start crying all over again. He didn’t think there was anything weird or wrong with what he’d just said. Whether it was because his family didn’t give much affection to him, or because Zabrians just didn’t express themselves the same way humans did, I couldn’t be sure. But either way, his response took my heart in its hand and squeezed. Life on Terratribe I was never really easy, but mine had been blessed with more love than I knew what to do with. At least while Mama had been alive. But Silar… Silar had never experienced anything like that.

He didn’t know if hugging me, his wife, was right? Were these the kinds of questions my husband had been torturing himself with while I’d been pouting over feeling rejected by him? Maybe it wasn’t that Silar didn’t have any feelings for me. Maybe it was just that he didn’t have the first fucking clue what to do with those feelings. Well. I could bloody well show him. Starting now. “OK. Well. It is right, for the record. I love hugs. Always have. And you can hug me any time you damn well please,” I told him, closing the last little bit of space between us. I sighed and leaned against him, turning my tear-dampened cheek to his chest, and wrapped my arms around his back. “This is a hug.”

“Are you telling me that you almost strangled another man because… because he indirectly almost harmed me?” “Yes.” Holy shit. That… should not have been so hot to me. Especially when the person in question was someone as sweet as Fallon seemed to be.

“Definitely prettier than me.” Fallon looked like I’d just about blown his Zabrian mind. It was kind of fun seeing how absolutely banana-pants excited he was getting. So fun I almost missed Silar’s quiet, incredulous growl of, “Unlikely.” A hot thrill caught low in my belly.

“It is nothing, Cherry.” I told her firmly. “There’s only one thing currently in this house that matters to me. And it’s not a cursed hat.”

I’d never had much of a reason to use my credits before Cherry. It was deeply satisfying in a way I could not have anticipated to have someone to spend them on now.

I wanted to ask her if she would stay. Perhaps I had not impressed her, but I hoped I had at least not disappointed her too much. The question was right there. Stuck at the back of my throat. Will you stay with me, Cherry?

I slicked my tongue against hers like a starving man. And maybe that’s what I was. I’d been so empty for so long. Waiting for something without knowing what. And now she was here.

“You have no idea,” she murmured huskily, “how much I’ve wanted to kiss you again.” “It is probably good,” I panted hoarsely, “that you have no idea the things I’ve wanted to do to you.” She grew still. Oh, well done, Silar. Now you’ve done it.

Her beauty was like a blow. It struck me, pained me, made me feel like I was grieving though for what I could not say.