Page 9 of Married to the Alien Mountain Man (Cowboy Colony Mail-Order Brides #5)

9

JAYA

I f hearing Magnolia’s heart-wrenching story about how Oaken had saved her life before selflessly stepping aside so that she could marry his cousin instead of him hadn’t been enough to convince me that Oaken was a good enough man to temporarily marry, the way he fretted and fawned over the quality of my wedding “booty-cake” had sealed the deal.

I was ninety-nine percent sure the guy was a weirdo.

I was one hundred precent sure that he was also a total sweetheart.

I’d listened to everything Magnolia had said with a hot burn at the back of my eyes, picturing Oaken broken-footed and alone in the mountains, trying to reach the bride he’d wanted so badly, only for that bride to have fallen head over heels in love with someone else.

Instead of becoming jaded by the experience, or being turned off of humans entirely, here he was practically throwing himself at me in an attempt to help me. Even though he wouldn’t get a single thing out of it.

He was kind.

And that mattered. That meant something to me. Because it was so damn easy to get small and hard and mean when pain hooked its claws into you. But to remain good, right down to your core, even when life took and took and took from you…

That was fucking impressive. And I admired that in a person.

In my husband.

Oh, boy.

The fact that Oaken was a good guy didn’t mean it wasn’t batshit crazy that I was marrying him only a few hours after I’d met him. I’d never even planned to marry anyone at all! And now, here I was on some isolated, unknown planet, sweating under the solemn stare of the warden as he read out the Zabrian marriage rights.

I risked a sideways glance at Oaken. He wasn’t sweating. I wasn’t sure if that was a Zabrian thing – some lack of sweat glands – or if he really was just that cool with everything that was going down right now. Now that the booty-cake issue wasn’t top-of-mind, he looked, calm, peaceful, resolved…

He also looked good. Like, really good.

My cheeks burned, and I yanked my eyes forward once more. I wasn’t supposed to be ogling my temporary husband at our fake wedding. Even if he did have starkly-carved bone structure like an Old-Earth god’s…

And a body to match.

“That is all for the Zabrian ceremony,” Warden Tenn said abruptly. “Now you just have to do the human kiss thing.”

“Oh, that’s not… We do?” I stammered. “Is that absolutely necessary?”

Tasha looked like she wanted to tell me that it wasn’t, but the warden answered first.

“If we’re doing this, then we’re doing it right,” he said. “Every human-Zabrian wedding I have attended thus far – including my own – has included the human kiss ritual.”

“I have read all about it,” Oaken said eagerly. “I am sure that I could perform the ritual adequately.”

“It’s not that!” I said, my mouth suddenly chalk-dry. “It’s just…”

It was just, what?

I’d never been shy about physical stuff. I didn’t have the patience for romance, so all my sexual encounters had been a collection of casual flings, harried hook-ups, and one-night-stands with strangers as I bounced from world to world, star system to star system, on the Lavariya.

What was one little kiss compared to all that?

“And, if you don’t mind,” Oaken said, his voice gruff and low, “it might provide me a bit of practice for…”

“For?” I croaked. Holy Terra. Would I be allowed to have a sip of water first?

“For… For my next wedding.”

Oh. Duh. Of course. Unlike myself, I could already tell that Oaken was an ooey-gooey romantic at heart. He still wanted his forever marriage with a human after our short-lived one. And considering how much he was helping me, I figured I kind of owed him one.

Just one. One tiny little kiss.

Touching our mouths together wasn’t nearly as significant as the fact that we’d just legally tied ourselves to each other.

“Yeah. Of course,” I replied, nodding quickly. Too quickly. I was going to snap my damn neck.

As if worried about that exact possibility, one of Oaken’s hands rose to my throat. I gasped as the warm, rough surface of his calloused palm cupped the back of my neck. His fingertips dove into my hair. His thumb came to rest on the frantic pulse-point beneath my jaw.

And then his thumb stroked there. Only once, and so softly I was barely even sure it had happened at all.

So there was absolutely no reason that I should have felt that shivery whisper of a touch ghost hotly between my legs.

“Is this alright?” Oaken murmured. “I saw a male touching a female’s neck like this in the book.”

“The book has… has d-diagrams?” I stuttered.

It turned out to be very difficult for me to form words with Oaken’s big, strong hand so tenderly spanning the back of my neck like this. It was like he was casting some kind of spell on me.

A horny spell.

I did not appreciate it.

“Yes,” he said, a little huskily. “Very educational ones.”

Somewhere beyond the feverish bubble that Oaken’s proximity to me had created, I thought I heard Magnolia mutter, “Oh, boy.”

“Well, they are educational,” Tasha responded.

But if anyone else had anything to say on the matter, I didn’t hear it. The sound of my own breathing surged behind the crashing rhythm of my heart, like the wind behind waves, drowning out everything else. Oaken bent closer, his broad, dark green face filling my vision.

His cheekbones were sculpted as if from Old-Earth emerald, his jaw broad and sexy and square. His eyes were opalescent and bright, like starlight. Even his mouth was nice, I noticed with an irritated sort of appreciation. His lips were full, not so much that they were pouty, but enough that putting my own mouth there was going to feel very –

It wasn’t going to feel like anything!

Because none of this was real. None of this mattered at all.

But even so, I still found my hands rising to touch him. My right hand brushed the bulging muscle of his left shoulder, the other lying flat against his right cheek.

I mean, I was supposed to be giving him a little bit of practice for his future wife, wasn’t I? I couldn’t just stand there, stiff as a board, while he did all the work. He’d never even kissed someone before!

I’d already hit the poor guy with a hammer today. I didn’t need to be rude when he tried his darndest to kiss me. Right?

My eyes snagged on the dried blood on his head. I never got a chance to use the knitter on him, or even help clean up his split skin.

“Oaken,” I breathed. “Your head. I-”

The rest of my sentence was swallowed.

Not down my own throat.

But into Oaken’s mouth.

His lips touched mine, so exquisitely softly at first. A sweet, silken slide that had me pressing my mouth closer for more before I even realized I was doing it. I felt the leap of Oaken’s bare shoulder beneath my fingers, heard the ragged shudder of his sigh at my response. Hot breath skimmed my face. His other hand, that up until now had remained at his side, flew to my hip, long fingers squeezing. My nipples snapped to attention beneath my cropped tank top, and once again I became aware of an aching echo between my legs.

Oh, God. What the hell was this? Why was I getting this embarrassingly aroused from a kiss? The man was a virgin, for crying out loud! A big, green, alien virgin who had no fucking business getting me all hot and bothered just because he’d smooshed his cute, inexperienced lips up against mine.

But, fuck me, I was more than hot and bothered.

I was pathetic. With soaking wet panties, to boot.

But, apparently, no amount of shame or confusion or internal loathing for my own astounding horniness was enough to actually make me pull away from him. No, I only did that when I heard the damning click of Lala’s camera function.

“Lala,” I gasped, twisting in Oaken’s grip. “What are you taking a picture for?”

I didn’t even realize she’d left my pocket. She’d been curled up in there since lunch, preserving her battery while away from the ship.

“I am commemorating the culmination of your wedding ceremony,” she said coolly. And then, the camera behind her eye sensor snapped again.

“OK, that’s enough,” I huffed at her. I dropped my hands from Oaken’s body, expecting him to immediately do the same.

He didn’t. Not at first. His fingers – both the ones cradling the back of my head and the ones on my hip – spasmed, as if in protest. As if they wanted to keep me there.

His thumb stroked the pulsing place below my jaw again. Just like before, he did it only once. But unlike before, this time, it wasn’t a subtle, whispering touch that made me question if it had happened at all.

It was a hard, hungry drag of calloused skin against mine. Undeniably intentional.

Then, his hands were gone.

I was ashamed to admit that I actually staggered a little bit at the loss of them.

“You are now married,” Warden Tenn said.

“I’m not sure if I should say congratulations,” Magnolia said, “or what. But either way, yay for both of you!”

“Yay,” I managed weakly, still feeling the throbbing aftereffects of my arousal. Lala, who apparently was finished being a wedding photographer now, climbed up my leg and burrowed into my pocket.

“Do you still want some toast?” Oaken’s voice was thick and rough.

“What?”

“Toast,” he repeated. “Do you still want to have some?”

“Um.” Had I ever asked for toast? “No, thanks. I’m pretty full from Magnolia’s lunch.” When I turned to squint at him in the bright afternoon light, I found him holding up the metal ring once more.

“An exchange of rings,” he said solemnly, his eyes searing me from beyond the metal circle in the air.

“I don’t have one for you,” I warned, taking the big ring from him.

“Doesn’t matter,” he murmured. “This is enough.” His shining gaze fell to my mouth, and then he abruptly turned away. “I have many chores to catch up on.”

“Oh! Yeah. Of course.” The guy was basically like a rancher out here, right? He probably had a shit-ton of tasks to complete on a daily basis, and so far he had spent most of the last several hours dealing with me instead.

“Stay within the fenced-in areas of the property when you’re alone,” he said, turning to look at me over his shoulder. “Magnolia knows where everything is if you need anything.”

“I sure do!” Magnolia said, grabbing my hand.

“OK. Great. Yeah,” I rambled. Being around Oaken was still doing things to my speaking abilities. Though my speaking abilities didn’t seem to be coming back anytime soon now that Oaken was apparently leaving. He strode away, and I let myself take in the shape of my new husband as he did so. His long, black hair swished between hard, massively broad shoulders. His torso tapered into a wide but lean waist, and his tail was slung over an ingenious little hook on the back of his belt, so that it didn’t drag along in the dirt and grass behind him as he went.

And below that tail…

Was possibly the best butt I’d seen this side of the galaxy.

Or in any galaxy, really.

What the hell was Oaken talking about booty-cakes for when the man was stacked with his own damn bakery back there? Seriously, did being an alien mountain cowboy somehow automatically give you fantastic fucking glutes? Did the man do hundreds of squats with a bail of hay on his back during his downtime?

Inquiring minds needed to know!

I wrenched my gaze lower, but then I was staring at his impressively thick thighs, and below that were boulder-like calves that disappeared into a pair of leather boots that I suddenly found absurdly and inconveniently hot.

“Want me to show you around a bit?”

Magnolia’s kind voice at my side nearly had me jumping out of my skin. I felt like I’d been caught doing something dirty, even though as far as anyone else knew, I was simply watching my new husband walk away.

“Yes, please,” I said.

Anything to distract me from the work of art that is Oaken’s posterior chain…

Magnolia grinned and squeezed my hand. It made me aware of the fact that I still held Oaken’s ring in my other. I held it up for closer inspection, running my thumb along the smooth curve of metal. The metal was a dark silver-grey colour. It had a nice heft to it, and the curve of the circle was nearly perfect. Someone had spent a lot of time making it.

I had a feeling that Oaken had spent a lot of time making it.

I could picture him now, bent over hot metal, his black brows furrowed with concentration as he worked. Trying to make the perfect ring for some long wished-for wife.

It didn’t feel right that I should have it.

I kept it anyway.

In that moment, I vowed to do everything I could to help Oaken win over some future bride. I may have technically been his wife now, but my real role would be his relationship coach. I would make him the most eligible male on this entire freaking planet. A bonafide human aficionado.

Sure, he had the book Tasha wrote, but obviously there were still some misunderstandings on his end, as evidenced by the fact that I was currently holding a bangle and not a ring for a finger. Though, to be fair, wedding bangles were definitely a thing. My mother had had set, though I remembered them about as well as I remembered her face.

Which meant I barely remembered them at all.

Oaken became a tiny dot in the distance of his mountain valley ranch. Before he completely disappeared, I slipped the bangle onto my left wrist.

It was a perfect fit.