Page 22 of Rescued By the Alien Bull Rider

And, holy hills of Terra…

He looked good.

He had damn-near perfect riding form. Relaxed but engaged. Upright, strong, with a natural ease that reinforced just how skilled and experienced a rider he clearly was. His lack of shirt gave me an unobstructed view of the flexing of his shoulders, chest, and abdominals as he maintained flawless balance on Wyn’s back. His hat was just like mine, which made me grin.

“Got my own hat!” I called to him, waving jauntily as he approached. “We match!”

He didn’t return my smile. His eyes, however, did flash white beneath the shadowy brim of his hat, which I hoped was basically the same thing. I watched him closely, maybe a littletooclosely, as he dismounted, amazed by his easy strength, the practised swing of those long limbs…

And his ass. My God, the ass on this man! Perfectly sculpted and taut beneath the leather of his trousers, it was a work of freaking art. It deserved to hang on a museum wall somewhere, lovingly placed between Old-Earth masterpieces.

Maybe it was a little rude to be mentally curating a shrine to Zohro’s booty, but I couldn’t help it! The universe needed to know about Zabrian butts! How the heck were these guys hurting for ladies and reliant upon human mail-order brides when they looked the way they did? Did Zabrian females just, like, hate beauty?

Oh well, I thought giddily as Zohro turned and began to close the final distance between us on foot.More for me!

“Good morning!” I said brightly as he walked through the grass. Maybe if I was extra nice about it, he’d let me take the hay out of the bed for tonight. “Thank you for the hay bale! Though I have to ask... Will that be a permanent fixture in our, um, marital bed?”

On the wordsmarital bed, Zohro suddenly stumbled.

“Are you alright?” I asked as he caught himself with a curse.

“Of course I’m alright,” he muttered. “I just stepped in a blasted hole.”

I looked at the nice, flat ground. Not a hole to be seen.

“I see.” I chose not to poke holes in his, well, hole story. Maybe he was embarrassed to trip in front of me. Frankly, I kind of liked it. He was so damn impressive. Everything he’d done for me last night had elevated him to something close to superhero status. It was nice to see him fumble a little bit. He clearly didn’t enjoy it, though. And that honestly kind of made it funnier.

I swallowed laughter. “So. The hay bale?”

His eyes shifted back to pink. “What about it?”

“Is it, um, staying with us in a long-term capacity? Or…”

He crossed his arms over his broad, bandaged chest.

“Depends,” he growled. “Are you going to stay sleeping on your left side like you’re supposed to? Or are you going to keep rolling onto your back, putting us both at risk of a stroke?”

“Wait. I was sleeping on my back?”

Shit. I knew that was a no-no this late in pregnancy.

“You were,” Zohro confirmed with narrowed eyes. “You refused to stay put every time I rolled you onto your side. And you also refused to wake up and listen to my medical advice. So I had to come up with another solution.” He pointed his tail towards a stack of hay bales near the fence of this paddock. “The hay bale kept you in the correct position.”

My cheeks sizzled at the thought of Zohro trying to roll me over and getting progressively more pissed off when I rolled right back. Though uncomfortable, his solution was kind of ingenious. My back might itch like fucking hellfire, but at least I didn’t smoosh my vena cava and cut off blood supply to my poor brain.

It might not have been the most impressive brain in the cosmos, or even the most impressive brain in our household. Butit was the only one I had and I wanted to keep it in good working order if at all possible.

“Thank you,” I said.

“You already thanked me for the hay bale.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t really mean it the first time.”

Zohro’s thunderous frown was nearly as spectacular as his ass.

“Why the blazes would you say it if you didn’t mean it?”

“Because I didn’t know what the hay meant to you! I wondered if it was some, like, sacred wedding ritual or something. Or a gift. I didn’t want to offend you.”

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