Page 36 of Rescued by the Alien Bull Rider (Cowboy Colony Mail-Order Brides #6)

I could not remember ever having woken in the morning in such a state of sated calm. I had woken several times in the night to take care of Autumn, of course, but I still felt bizarrely well-rested. The usual restless energy that drove my limbs from the moment I woke each day was calmed.

It was Jolene. It had to be. Her love.

Her body.

She had soothed something in me.

She was not currently in the bed with me. I stood and checked on Autumn, who was currently sleeping soundly in her cradle at the foot of the bed, then left the bedroom for the kitchen.

That was where I found my wife. Her back was to me, and with her small, low human ears she did not hear my approach.

I took a moment to appreciate finding her there.

To experience the humbled awe I had for this woman, this woman who was mine, at home in my home, in the kitchen where I could so easily come and find her.

Her vivid hair was mussed from sleep and the activities that had come before, cascading in wild red waves over her shoulders.

She yawned noisily, fetching down a cup.

I put my hands on her waist from behind, and she nearly dropped it into the sink.

She spun in my hold, clutching the cup to her chest. “Zohro! I didn’t hear you! Lost in thought, I guess.” The corners of her mouth tipped upwards. “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” I replied. “What were you thinking about?”

Was she thinking about me, as I had been thinking about her? Thinking about last night? Thinking about how soon we could do that again?

“I was wondering if you’d ever tried to contact Meryn.”

Startled, I dropped my hands from her waist. She twisted to fill her cup with water at the sink.

“No.” I finally said, once my surprise at her question had worn off. She sipped her water, watching me. “She would want nothing to do with me. No decent woman would.”

Jolene gave me a warning sort of look.

“Except you,” I said quickly. “Obviously.”

She took a final sip of her water then put the cup down.

“I was just thinking that my call with Pa was weird but, in a way, it was good. I really do feel like I’ve gotten some closure from it all. I was just wondering if you’d ever tried to do the same.”

“No,” I said again, exasperation creeping into my voice. I did not want to talk about her Pa. If she was going to be thinking about any male right now, I wanted it to be me.

I gripped her waist once more, lifting her easily to the counter and slipping my tail into the waistband of her shiny white pants. She gripped my shoulders and quietly moaned.

“Done talking now,” she said. “Got it. Nice subject change, by the way. Very effective.”

When my tail dipped between her silken folds, I groaned to find her already wet.

“If you want,” she breathed, her pupils huge in the dawn light of the kitchen, “we can try…”

“Try?”

She wriggled out of her pants, letting them fall, fluttering, to the floor. Then, she spread her thighs, grinding herself against my cock through the pants I’d put on when I’d gotten up with Autumn.

“We could try this.”

My hands were at my belt at once, frantically yanking at metal and leather until the belt, and the trousers themselves, were unfastened. My cock bobbed free, desperately engorged for her. My cock tail snapped in flickering motions, the tip of it just reaching Jolene’s flesh.

“Oh, yes,” she sighed. She arched her hips forward, until my cock’s tip was perfectly aligned with her sopping entrance. “Slow,” she said.

But she only said it once. Words were lost to her after that, as I pressed my cock into the scorching slickness of her heat. When my cock tail lassoed her most sensitive nub of flesh above, empire help me, I felt her convulse around me in response.

I planted my hands on the counter behind her for extra stability and control, then began to rut into her, haltingly at first. But soon, she was meeting my movements with her own hips, her tightness alternating between squeezing and loosening, stretching to accommodate me.

Blinking through a thick haze of pleasure, I watched her closely for signs of discomfort, but she showed none.

Her face was flushed, her mouth open with rising moans.

Her nipples were hard beneath her thin white top, and the fabric there soon grew damp.

I was nearly feral at the sight of her, so spread, so wet, so needy for me.

When she quivered around my cock, then convulsed in beautiful climax, as if to draw me deeper, my knees weakened, my sac tightened, and my cock heaved inside her. I filled her with everything I had. Gave her everything I had to give.

I was her husband. And it was only right.

A few days later, Jolene came and sought me out where I was at work preparing the barn for oncoming winter.

The days were going shorter now, colder, the breezes more biting.

Autumn, who was strapped to Jolene’s front, was dressed for the weather.

She wore a thick fleece onesie Jolene had brought with her, decorated with smiling suns and moons, as well as a set of mittens, socks, and a hat that I had made for her.

“Hello,” I said, leaning down to kiss Jolene on the mouth.

Having watched Jolene, I had learned that kisses were not only for one’s wife, so I leaned down and kissed the top of Autumn’s fuzzy orange head, too.

It was one of my favourite things to do, kissing her in all sorts of places.

Her fat little cheeks. Her perfect, tiny fingers. The little button of her navel.

“Hello to you too,” Jolene said. Autumn greeted me just as enthusiastically by grabbing a loose lock of my hair and yanking gleefully upon it. “I just wanted to pop over here for a second. The warden sent me something in Zabrian and I was hoping you could translate it.”

“Translate it?” I asked, carefully removing Autumn’s fingers from my hair. “Your tablet has translation software. Or you can simply use the read aloud function. Then your own translator will sort it out for you.”

“I’d rather you did it,” she said. The barn door was open, and her eyes looked so incredibly blue with the backdrop of the crisp sky behind her. As always, I was helpless to refuse her.

But apparently, she didn’t really care if I actually translated it for her or not. Because by the time I took the tablet from her and read the first words, “My dearest brother,” she had already left the barn.

“What the blazes?” I asked, scowling at her back as she strode away with Autumn. I considered going after her and making her take her tablet with her, but my curiosity had been piqued regarding this mystery text from the warden. I returned my attention to the screen to continue reading.

My dearest brother,

I must admit I was surprised to receive a message from your wife, which was passed from your warden to my local constable of the Imperial Justice Committee, who then forwarded it to me.

I was perhaps even more surprised to learn that you had a wife in the first place.

I did not know that such a thing was possible for you where you are.

Jolene has shared much information about your life on Zabria Prinar One.

I found myself in disbelief, even tempted to laugh at times, at her vivid and often irreverent descriptions of you.

It is hard to picture you riding shuldu and wrangling cattle.

But your wife tells me you are immensely skilled at it all.

And that, I can believe. You were always able to conquer anything you set your mind to.

I am glad I read her message. There were cycles, after your conviction, that I would not have accepted such a message even if one had been sent.

But time passes. Perspectives shift. I feel your absence keenly as of late.

My son, Aleron, is now older than you were when you were taken away.

And he is still so very young. I think of the child you were, and I grieve. For both of us.

Your wife tells me that you are happy. She tells me she loves you deeply, and her affection for you shines through in every word she writes. She has told me about your human daughter, about what an admirable father you have become.

I want you to know that I have found similar contentment.

After your conviction, I left my surgical post at the Academy and moved to live with our late father’s sister in her province.

There, I gave birth, and once I was recovered, I opened my own small surgical practice.

Away from the teeming ambitions of the Academy, I have found a community that accepts me.

And I have married. My husband is an honourable male.

He has been in Aleron’s life since infancy, and, like you with your Autumn, he has proven himself to be a worthy father.

He makes me very happy, as does our son.

Aleron is brilliant and headstrong. Just like you.

I believe that he will do something great one day.

Please thank Jolene for sending me her message – I have read it more than a dozen times. I have wondered about you for so long, but was never given any information on how to contact you.

I hope that, next time, you will write me a message yourself. If you do, please know that I will answer.

With honour and affection,

Your sister, Meryn.

For a long while, I merely stared blankly at the screen after reading.

Then, I read it again.

And again.

If I had been capable of human tears I would have cried them. I traced the Zabrian words with the pads of shaking fingers, hearing my sister’s voice in my head as I read them for a fourth time. And then a fifth. And a sixth.

And then I lost count.

She did not hate me. She was not ashamed of me. At least, not anymore.

My body felt as if it were filled with light.

I ran from the barn, and when the sunlight hit me – me , Zohro, prisoner of the empire, forever a convict – I was freer than I’d ever been.

I found Jolene beneath a fruit tree near the house. She was speaking in gently admonishing tones to our daughter, who was reaching up towards the branches.

“You’ll have to be a lot bigger than you are now before you can climb a tree, little miss!” she said, her cheeks dimpling. “Besides, I don’t want one of those apple-looking things falling on your head, and – oh!” She noticed me and froze.

“I read it.” My voice sounded foreign to my own ears. Like I had not spoken in cycles.

“I’m sorry,” she said. She pursed her lips. “Actually, I’m not sorry. I don’t know why I said that. Apology rescinded.”

I took a step towards her.

“I hope you’re not mad at me,” she went on, “but I understand if you are.”

I moved as if in a dream.

“It’s OK. I can wait until you’re not mad anymore. I’ll be patient. I can-”

I silenced her with the claiming rapture of my kiss, stealing her words and her breath. Autumn made a slobbery sound of delight between us, batting at my chest with her mittened hands.

“Thank you,” I hissed vehemently against my wife’s mouth.

“You’re not angry?” Her eyes glistened.

“No,” I said. And I meant it. And then, I thanked my wife again.

I thanked her for a third time that night when I moved, hot and hard and ardent inside her.

What else could I do but thank her? She who loved me, who gave a daughter to me, who looked at all the ugly, broken pieces of me without flinching or pulling away?

Who reached into the still-bleeding wounds of my past and stitched them up when I, a surgeon, could not even do it.

She wrapped her arms around me and came on my cock like a storm. Like a sunrise.

Like a beautiful, powerful thing that can take you so wholly by surprise. That can knock you down to your knees and leave you wondering…

How the blazes you ever deserved it.

Thank you so much for reading Zohro and Jolene’s story!

These two are very special to me, and I loved seeing how they both healed each other.

They went from feelings of unworthiness to true, unconditional love, both for each other and for baby Autumn.

Warden Hallum’s men are all coming up next in the series, starting with Rivven’s story which you can find in Smitten by the Alien Saloon Owner!