Page 57 of Rescued By the Alien Bull Rider

Or perhaps she still just did not want to kiss me.

Maybe she never would.

“I just… I didn’t think you had any interest in that!” she sputtered. “It’s not exactly something you do with your sister!”

“What?”

“Well, then again, that isn’t necessarily true,” she amended thoughtfully. “Lots of people kiss their loved ones on the mouth, even family members. I never did, but…” She licked her lips, causing my throat to spasm. “Sure. OK. We can try.”

Was this it? Was this all I’d had to do, this entire time?

Just… Just ask? For what I wanted?

Was it truly that easy?

I was still bent awkwardly at the waist, so I lowered myself to my knees beside the tub. Jolene scooted her backside along the bottom of the tub, sending water sloshing over her belly and breasts, both of which were lined with purplish marks.

“Stretch marks,” she said with what sounded like an embarrassed laugh when she caught me looking. “They should fade in time. Hopefully.”

“Why do you hope for this?”

“Oh. I don’t know. You don’t think… Think they’re kind of ugly?”

She had said such a thing before. When she did not want me to look at her eyes, swollen from crying. Ugly, she had called them.

“I think you’re beautiful.”

Her self-conscious smile slipped away. As if rinsed off by the water.

Or slapped off by my words.

“What?”

Why did she seem so confused by that statement? Why did I feel the need to vigorously defend myself, as if she had just accused me of lying?

How could she not see what I saw?

“You have hair like the sky before nightfall and eyes like the sky in the morning,” I said fiercely. “You have a smile that I fear I would lay down my life for. And you have such soft skin-” My knuckles brushed her belly.Carefully. “-that stretches to accommodate everything you need it to. I once thought human skin was terribly weak. But now, I see the strength in it.”

“Oh.” She took a shuddering breath, then said, “Zohro. I am going to kiss you now.”

Even though I had been the one to ask about it, the one hoping for it, I now reeled with panic that I was ill-prepared. There had been no mention of how to kiss in Tasha’s book, aside from the obviousness of putting your mouth on another’s. But what did you do after that? Surely, you didn’t just seal your mouth to another’s and then… then just sit there?

Jolene shifted to her knees, placing her small hands on the edge of the tub.

“I can’t lean forward much with the belly,” she said. “You’ll have to come to me.”

I would always come to her. Just like I had that first night, when I saw her in the moonlight as my bull prepared to charge.

Somehow, this situation felt just as potent as that one. Just as important to survival. Like one of us would die if I failed.

My heart battering against the insides of my ribs, I slowly lowered my mouth to hers.

Her lips brushed mine. A silken caress. So tender, and yet astonishing in the effect it had on me. With no more pressure than that of a fluttering bird flicking its feathers against my skin, she sent desire slamming through my body. My cock bulged in my trousers, my cock tail writhing helplessly against my shaft.

I wanted to ask her what I should do now. But I did not want to appear incompetent. So I merely waited, shaking, every muscle straining.

“There,” she breathed against my skin. “Now you’ve had your first human kiss.” She drew back slightly, her perfectly round human pupils larger than before, turning the blue to a mere sliver in the white. “What did you think?”

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