8. Fallon
8
FALLON
T he chatter and laughter from the human females had ceased, and a glance back from my place on the driving bench of the wagon told me that Cherry and Magnolia had both fallen asleep, their heads leaning against each other. Darcy’s eyes were closed, too, her head tipped back, her slender white throat exposed. But something told me she was not actually sleeping.
I wanted to say something to her, but did not want to disturb her rest, so instead I turned my attention to Silar, who rode his mount Tarion beside me.
“So, Silar,” I called over to him. “Are you going to tell me what the bucket was for? At the wedding?”
He took so long to answer that I assumed, in typical Silar fashion, he’d decided to ignore me. But eventually his deep voice cracked out of his throat.
“How about you just focus on holding the reins,” he said. “I don’t want that wagon tipping with my wife inside it.”
“I can hold the reins and hold a conversation at the same time,” I scoffed. “Not to mention the fact that my own wife is in the wagon, too, and her lovely friend Magnolia.”
Silar grunted in such a way that let me know he was really only worried about Cherry. It would have bothered me, but the fact that he’d even been capable of loving Cherry at all had already been a complete and total shock. He had eyes for her and her only, and expecting him to extend his puny stores of affection to anyone else beyond his wife was simply asking too much.
He didn’t growl or grunt or make any other noises for a long while. I was just about to come up with some other topic of conversation to pass the time when he suddenly said, “The bucket was for water.”
“Water?” I said, making sure my two shuldu Kolt and Reesha were still calm and plodding forward before I turned in my seat to look at him.
“After Cherry did the kiss to me,” he said, his eyes on the road ahead, “I walked right out of the warden’s station, filled a bucket with water, and dumped it over my head.”
“Did it help?” I inquired.
“Not really.”
“Hmm. I see.” I thought about that for a moment, comforting myself with the fact that at least I had not been the only one to embarrass himself at his own wedding. “Do you have any other tips for me? About having a human wife?”
“The soft parts on their chests are not called udders,” he said.
“Of course they aren’t,” I said, giving him an odd look. “I read the book! I know all about breests!”
“Breasts,” he corrected. “If you’ve read that cursed book then why are you even asking me for advice?”
I thought about how I’d interpreted the book’s section about kissing and sighed.
“Well, it seems to have led me ever-so-slightly astray already.”
Silar gave a crackly snort that could have been judgmental but I chose to interpret as one of camaraderie.
“A man could read a thousand books on human women and never be any closer to actually understanding them. You’ll have to learn through trial and error and making a complete fool of yourself.”
“Is that what you’ve done?” I asked, unable to imagine grumpy Silar tolerating feeling like a fool so consistently, especially in front of his precious wife.
But he astonished me with his instant, honest answer.
“Yes.”
Well. I could not tell if that was encouraging or not.
The rest of the ride passed in relative silence, nothing but the steps of our three shuldu, the occasional creak from the wagon, and the soft breathing of the human women to mark the quiet.
Already, I could pick out Darcy’s breath from among the other two without even having to turn around. I still did not think she was asleep, but every time I turned to look at her, she still had her eyes closed and her head tipped back, her arms crossed over her front.
When we reached Silar’s ranch, Silar dismounted and then hoisted himself up on my wagon’s running board. Cherry was still fast asleep. Without speaking or making any kind of noise, he placed a large hand upon the side of her throat, running his thumb along the bone of her jaw, back and forth, until her eyes fluttered open.
“Howdy, husband,” she murmured as her gaze focused on him. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.”
Instantly, Silar tensed, leaning his face closer to hers.
“What’s wrong with your eyes?”
“Nothing. It just means I’m happy to see you, that’s all.”
Silar brushed his thumb against her skin once more before collecting her hat from where she’d lain it in her lap. With incredible gentleness, he placed it atop her head.
The tenderness between them made my throat tighten. I glanced at Darcy. Her eyes were open now as well. She caught my gaze and smiled. It was not as easy a smile as Cherry’s, though, and I could not understand why.
I wanted to worry, then soothed myself with the reminder that Darcy did not yet know me like Cherry knew her husband. Besides, I was much easier to get along with than somebody as churlish as Silar. If he could make his human wife love him then by the great blue blazes, so could I.
Despite Cherry’s protests, Silar held fast to her as she got out of the wagon. He took one of the bags as well. Apparently, the bag was full of things Cherry had been meant to bring with her when she’d first arrived. He stood quietly, dutifully, to the side, holding his wife’s bag as she waved at Magnolia, now awake, and Darcy.
“I’ll come visit you guys. Or you can come here,” Cherry called up. “I’ve also got my comms tablet so you can message me or call me anytime. Whatever works.”
After the goodbyes were said and tablet communication signals were established between the three of them, we continued on our way.
The sun was setting by the time we reached my property. On one horse at a good pace, I could have arrived home much more quickly. But I didn’t dare drive the shuldu any faster than their careful clip. Silar’s comment about the wagon tipping was not unfounded, and I would have rather reached our destination in the dead of night than risk anything happening to the two females inside.
I leaped out of the wagon to open the gate nearest the house – a gate newly-built since so much of my fencing had been ruined during a recent stampede of my cattle – and led the shuldu and the wagon through. Securing the gate, I unhitched Kolt and Reesha, then hurried around to the side of the wagon to see that Magnolia was already stepping onto the running board. She was not as tall as Darcy, with much shorter legs. I held out my hand to help her down.
“Thank you!” she said, taking it and hopping to the ground with a little “oof!” sound and a cloud of dust dispersing around her boots. I eyed the wagon and the height of the running board critically. The wagon, like everything else here, had been built to Zabrian proportions. Even though Darcy was tall for a human female, I wondered if some things would still not be sized correctly for her.
As I puzzled over that thought – which furniture I might have to break down and rebuild – Darcy appeared at the side of the wagon. Her booted foot went down to the running board where her ankle appeared to buckle. She wobbled.
I reacted as quickly and instinctively as I would have if I had been the one about to fall. My hands shot up to her waist, and in her moment of imbalance her hands went to my shoulders, pale fingers gripping tight. Her touch on my skin was nothing like Magnolia’s a moment before. With cool, smooth hands, Darcy scorched me.
“Sorry,” she said, her eyes widening. “I’ve just been sitting too long. And I’ve always had kind of weak ankles.”
She went to remove her hands from my shoulders, which I did not want to happen. Instead of letting her release me and hop down on her own, I tightened my hold on her waist and lifted her easily to the ground.
I put her down directly in front of me, much closer to my own body than I strictly needed to. Much like Silar had done with Cherry’s jaw, I found my thumbs involuntarily sliding up and down, exploring the shape of her waist through the thin white fabric of her dress. I could not seem to stop myself. Could not seem to help it. This slow, subtle, roaming touch.
First my cock. Now my stupid thumbs. What other parts of my body was I going to lose control of around my wife?
Darcy remained still, looking up at me, the blackest parts of her eyes nearly swallowing the green as I slowly slid my hands down to her hips. My thumbs brushed what had to be her hipbones, and my breath hitched, my cock giving a hot throb.
Darcy’s hands were sliding downwards, too, easing from their place at my shoulders until they came to rest on the skin of my bare chest. I’d stripped out of my wedding jacket and shirt halfway through the journey home, unable to stand the late-spring sun beating down on the dark fabric. Unlike the females, I had not been shaded on the ride. Which normally was not a problem, assuming I had a hat and was not wearing multiple layers of clothing to overheat me.
“I should get my bag,” Darcy murmured.
“I will get it.”
Neither of us moved.
The roaming thumb sickness seemed to be catching. Darcy’s thumbs now made slow strokes across my skin, her fingers splayed on the thickest muscles of my chest. Each shifting touch echoed tenfold in my groin. It took every scrap of will I had left not to close the last little bit of distance between us and start rubbing my cock chaotically against her abdomen.
Instead, I just stood there, barely breathing, and suffering.