Page 14 of Rescued by the Alien Bull Rider (Cowboy Colony Mail-Order Brides #6)

Getting hard by touching a patient in distress. It was absolutely unthinkable!

But she is not just a patient, whispered a seductive voice. She wants to marry you.

For now.

I focused on the task at hand, doing my best not to listen to Jolene’s pretty little sighs of contentment as I worked. They distracted me, because they aroused me. And a Zabrian male of honour – a doctor no less! – would submit to no perversions when there was medicine to administer.

Her skin was so warm, heating the gel. So intoxicatingly smooth. More than once, a sick desire to lick the salve from her spine intruded upon my disordered mind.

I wanted to get this done with quickly.

I wanted to do it forever. Have her body still before me, her sighs shifting the air as I touched her.

“There,” I said, the bowl of salve nearly emptied and the skin on her back notably soothed.

I realized then that I was still caressing her, brushing my knuckles along the back of her neck.

I hurriedly stepped away and made a show of turning on the tap at full pressure, loudly washing my hands.

“You will need to put on clean clothes that have not been contaminated by the irritant,” I shouted over the sound of the water.

She said something in reply. Very quietly. Even with my excellent Zabrian hearing, I could not make out the words over the tap. Hands dripping, I slammed the tap down.

“What was that?” I asked, turning back to her.

“I said, I don’t have any clean clothes.

” Her shirt from before was pinned between her collarbones and the edge of the table and she leaned forward on her elbows.

She let her hands drift idly through the air, her limbs swaying back and forth, as the last layer of salve sank in.

“I only brought a couple of outfits. I didn’t have room for more. ”

Her bag was still on the kitchen floor, and it was open. It was a good size. She should have been able to bring much more.

I went to it, using my tail to pull at the opening. The bag was full of items, and many of them were types of clothing.

But not hers.

Tiny little outfits in shades of blue and pink and white took up a good portion of space in the bag. Socks so small I doubted they would fit upon my thumb. Hats that were likewise as miniature.

Baby things.

I felt suddenly bruised, marked by a tender sort of agony, when I thought of Jolene packing so little for herself.

Meanwhile, she had devoted so much thought and space to what her child would need.

My own mother had died when I was very young.

I had no memory of her, and neither my father nor Meryn spoke of her much.

I looked at Jolene’s bag, the sole thing she had brought with her into her future, stuffed with things for somebody else, and I could not say if my mother would have done the same.

I’d have to make her some clothing. For now, we’d launder the things she had. But what would she wear in the meantime?

I imagined Jolene wandering naked through my house all day long while her things dried on the clothesline, and my loins heated mercilessly.

“Stay here,” I grumbled, turning from her and heading to the bedroom. I did have at least one thing that she could borrow. My best, cleanest shirt.

My wedding shirt.

I had not stayed for Fallon’s wedding, but I’d seen him that day at the warden’s station. I’d watched him greet his bride wearing his human-style suit, with its crisp, white, buttoned shirt.

I’d made one just like it for myself the very next day. Not that I would ever admit such a thing to anyone. Because Fallon was a moron.

But at the very least, Fallon had a human bride who accepted him. And I had to admit that it was because of him that I now had a clean garment to offer my own bride.

I pulled the shirt from its place in the bedroom closet and returned with it to the kitchen.

“Put this on for now.” I held the shirt out to Jolene.

“Oh. That’s fancy. Looks like something a politician would wear,” she said, taking the shirt.

Why human politicians would dress as if for a wedding, I had no idea.

I returned to the bedroom again, bundling the bedding up into my arms along with a natural, homemade detergent and carrying it all outside to the tub.

Unceremoniously, I dumped the bedding in and added the detergent, then I crouched by the side of the tub and took out all of my sexually frustrated energy on vigorously squeezing and scrubbing the bedding.

“I’ve known a lot of cowboys,” came Jolene’s voice from the doorway into the house, “and some doctors, too. And I can honestly say that I’ve never seen anybody work the way you do.”

I glanced up to find her in my shirt and her boots, the rest of her clothing held in a big pile in front of her, presumably to add to the tub once the bedding was done.

“What do you mean?” I asked her, not stopping my hands. Between the detergent and the agitation of my movements, the tub’s water had turned to a rapidly swirling white froth.

“You work like… Like you’re running out of time.” She stepped out of the house and came down to where I was. “You work like you think you’ll die if you don’t. You work like you’re angry. At everything.”

My fingers clenched around the bedding so hard I felt a claw slice clean through the quilt.

She was right. Had it become so obvious? Distance from Zabria, from the tempering influence of my sister, was fraying my control.

A good Zabrian male was a master of himself – always. Master of his desires. Of his temper. Of his eyes. As the water slowed, I saw the untamed white glow of my own gaze reflected tauntingly back at me.

I’d never been like Meryn or my father. I’d never been capable of their cool reserve, their inner core of calm so revered inside the empire.

I’d been able to pretend well enough. I’d learned to keep the hot writhe of unacceptable emotions locked away, channelling the fusion of that inner fire into my medical studies.

Pursuing something as demanding as a degree at the Medical Academy of Zabria before reaching the age of fifteen cycles had given me an opportunity to strictly focus myself with ruthless discipline.

I let the relentless drive of my seething, unseemly desires achieve something productive.

And for a time, it had worked. Better than I ever could have imagined.

But then there had been Xander. And Meryn’s pregnancy. And every piece of carefully cultivated control went exploding outwards with such force that it left a full-grown man bleeding out between my boots.

I’d watched him bleed, knowing that I’d done it, knowing that I’d had the skills to save him.

But I didn’t.

Then came the conviction and the exile. And I’d never really been able to claw any semblance of that control back. I always thought that, upon my return to the empire, I’d manage it somehow. Become who I was meant to be.

But I would never return to the empire. Here I would remain, with my eyes white more often than not, working like I was “angry at everything.”

Because I was.

Well, not everything, I realized as my gaze tracked over Jolene’s easy, open face.

“It’s pretty impressive.”

“It’s… What?!” I nearly stammered in reply.

“The way you work.” She tossed her clothes down and flapped her hands up and down at me. “The way you are.”

I gaped at this human, this strange, tailless, trouserless female who stood before my shamefully white eyes and smiled.

Who looked upon the most horrifically unacceptable parts of me, who saw straight through the ripped edges of my control, and with clear, guileless blue eyes, told me she was impressed.

Humans are ridiculous.

But there was no bite to the insult. There was only a longing that stole my breath. Left me defenceless as a child. Because maybe her assertion was ridiculous. But I was ridiculous, too.

And she did not seem to care.

Suddenly, I was standing, though I could not say when that had happened, or why. I abandoned the tub, striding to her, stopping only when her protruding belly kept me from advancing further.

“Thank you for the shirt,” she said. “Not quite a perfect fit.” She chuckled, raising her wrists to show me the too-long sleeves she’d rolled up.

The shirt itself was also too long for her, the bottom hem of it falling to her thighs.

And yet, one part of it was too small. Three of the buttons could not reach each other over the swell of her abdomen.

She’d left those ones open, creating a gap in the garment that exposed a hand-span of her naked, taut skin.

Without thinking, without even realizing I was doing it until I was done, I slid my wet fingers into the gap, brushing, then palming, the smooth heat of her belly.

She gave a gasp, her large breasts heaving with the force of her breath.

I could see the dark tips of those soft mounds through the white fabric.

The central points grew hard, poking through.

Her eyelids fluttered, sending light and shadow dancing beneath her lashes.

The dark parts of her eyes – pupils, they were called – bloomed.

I slid my hand lower, popping open another precarious button. My claws brushed soft fluff – her human pubic hair – and my cock responded with an aching throb.

“ Zohro .” My name was a throaty caress. “When are we getting married?”

Misery flayed me.

I wrenched my hand away and said, “I killed someone.”