She rolls her eyes. “He’ll want you to
admire him now.”
“You’re telling me he understands what
I’m sayin’?”
“They understand more than you’d give
them credit for. They know a lot of words,
but they go off tone of voice even more. Did
you see his ears prick when you called him
handsome? Start admiring him or he’ll think
you’re insulting him.”
I tilt my head and regard the rabbit.
“You’d make a fine pair of earmuffs,” I tell
him.
“Hale!” Kez elbows me.
I chuckle. “You’re a very pretty bunny.”
“Now you’re insulting his masculinity.”
The rabbit’s nose begins wiggling faster as
he stares at me. “And you’re staring too hard.
You’re challenging his dominance.”
“Get used to it, Earmuffs,” I tell the
rabbit, but I blink a couple of times. Beaten
in a staring contest by a giant fuzz ball. Kez
is finishing what Marin’s ghost started. “You
spend a lot of time with them?” I ask her.
She nods. “They’re good company.”
Better than her brother, at any rate.
“Funny how it’s just the males who’ve made
their way into your bedroom.”
Kez smiles around a mouthful of
vegetables. “You’ll be disappointed to know
that all three are neutered.”
I draw up one knee at the thought. “At
least they’re not serious rivals.” Having won
the staring contest, the rabbit near my feet
gives a satisfied-sounding sigh and flops
onto its side in much the same position as
Ronnie. Unlike a dog, there are no bits on
display. Just furry tummy. “Why d’you neuter
them?”
“We’d be overrun. Helas had twenty kits
in one season, when we were still farming
them. And the unneutered males mark their
territory. With pee.”
I wrinkle my nose at the bunny at my feet.
It wriggles its nose back lazily, evidently
satisfied with its dominance. “Don’t even
think about it.”
Kez reaches down and rubs Ronnie’s
nose while she finishes her rendang. “They’ll
still scent-mark you. But it’s just with their
chin-glands. We can’t smell it. Tigger used
to pee in my shoes. That got old, fast.”
I bet. “How many d’you have?”
“Um, with Chalk’s current litter,
eighteen.”
“Eighteen?” I can’t have seen more than
half that. “Where’re the rest?”
“Chalk and her kits are still in their nest
box. Helas doesn’t like it when the other
females breed, so I keep them separate.” She
gives Ronnie a scratch behind his floppy ear.
“The rest are around. Not all of them are as
friendly as Ronnie. I’d be surprised if you
see Rooster. He’s the shyest. He hides under
Gig’s bed a lot.”
I nudge Earmuffs with my boot. “You’re
not shy, are you?”
The rabbit rolls over, gives me an
extremely disgruntled glare, and shuffles
around until its back is to me. It hunkers
down, furry butt squarely pointed at me.
Kez laughs. “You’ve done it now. Bunker
will only be pacified with offerings of
awril.”
The sweet native fruit would finish off
our meals nicely. Whether I’m sharing any
with a conceited fuzz ball is another
question.
“Tell me where it is.”
Kez wipes her mouth with the back of her
hand. “I’ll get it. I should check on Nevie
anyway. Here.” She holds out her hand and I
pass her my empty food tray.
She rises smoothly, giving me a nice
view of her backside. The rabbits watch her,
too. Hopefully not for the same reason. As
she crosses the floor, the black rabbit bounds
off the bed and follows her. As soon as she’s
through the door, Ronnie switches his brown
gaze to me, and after a moment, tip toes
across the short distance to flop down by my
thigh. He looks up at me with one eye.
“Lookin’ pathetic so I’ll pet you don’t
work on me,” I tell him. But it does, and after
a minute of enduring the brown-eyed
begging, I give in and begin scratching him
around the ears. He responds with that
vibrating purr they make, and a squint-eyed
expression of bliss.
“I can see why she likes you,” I tell him.
He continues to purr, and squint. I expand the
scratch-radius to include his nose and
forehead. “She surprised me just then. She
do that to you?” His continuing purr and
adoring glare say yes, yes, she surprises him
all the time. “What d’you make of her?”
Ronnie tilts his head as if to say she’s a
complete mystery to him. I scratch his furry
cheek. “I think she needs some groomin’.”
The rabbit blinks languidly in agreement.
“Make sure she knows she’s still Queen
Bunny.”
Ronnie rolls over suddenly and attacks
my hand with his pink tongue. It’s soft and
wholesome, not like a cat’s tongue. It’s like
being licked by a wet flower petal. “I didn’t
mean me,” I tell him. He takes no notice and
washes the entire back of my hand before
going back into the head down, butt up, pet
me position. I scratch him around the ears.
“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doin’.
Ten seconds of lickin’ does not get you five
minutes of petting.”
But it does, evidently, and I’m still
petting the rabbit when Kez returns balancing
three bowls of green awril slices. She sits
cross-legged next to me, hands me one bowl,
sets the other between her knees and puts the
third on the floor.
The rabbits hit the third bowl like orclas.
I watch them eat the green fruit with
grunts of delight. The brown and black one
keeps grabbing slices with his teeth, shaking
his head like he’s tearing the fruit off the
vine, then jerking his head back to chomp
each piece down. Ronnie and Tigger just
bury their heads deeper and deeper into the
bowl. “It’s a feeding frenzy,” I remark to
Kez.
She smiles. “You should see them with
clyros.” Another native fruit. Fermented and
made into a sickly-sweet wine, it’s a favorite
of Kuseros’s alkies. “But too many make
them sick. And sick bunnies are kind of
gross.” She tickles Ronnie’s back with her
fingertips. The rabbit hunches a little but
doesn’t lift his head from the bowl.
“Speakin’ of sick bunnies,” I say. Kez
looks at me, her brows drawing in to frame a
question. “How’s your friend?”
“Oh.” She shrugs one shoulder. It’s a sad,
resigned gest
ure. “She’s started the
coldspiral.”
I’ve heard about Hex withdrawal, but
I’ve never seen it firsthand. “What’s the
coldspiral?”
“Chills, heart palpitations, spasms,
nausea. It’ll get worse and worse as she
comes down. A big dose of Hex really fucks
your body up. It’ll be tomorrow before she
evens out. The Naltrex will take the worst of
the edge off. Make it bearable. Barely.”
She’s silent for a moment, chewing her
dessert. “I can’t believe she did this to
herself. The baby’s due in eight weeks.”
It occurs to me again that it might be best
for everyone if the baby’s never born, but
since Kez has already discarded that idea, I
don’t offer it aloud. “That kid, what’s his
name, Skylar, is he really the father?”
“Nev’s told him he is.” She shrugs.
Doesn’t meet my eyes.
“Not a one-man woman, huh? An’ he was
awfully quick to sell her ass.”
Kez rubs the bridge of her nose with one
finger. “But they both say it’s true love.”
I put my bowl on the floor next to the
rabbits. They can have the last few slices of
fruit. I kneel in front of Kez, straighten out
one of her legs, and begin unsealing her boot.
“Look like love to you?”
She watches me, blue eyes full of the
shadows cast by the wreck of her friend’s
life. When I draw her boot off, her lips part
and her pink kitten tongue slips out to wet her
lower lip. Her pupils dilate, swallowing the
shadows. “Um, what’d you ask?”
I hide a smile. Shrug out of my jacket so
my upper body’s bare. Flex my shoulder and
biceps for her as I draw her other leg out
straight. “I asked if it looked like love to
you.”
She puts her empty bowl on the floor.
“What does love look like?”
I shrug. I’ve probably seen love more
than a few times, but I still don’t know what
it looks like.
“The doctors call it co-dependence.” She
watches me closely as I pull off her other
boot. “You know what looks like love to
me? Don’t laugh.”
I nod, curious.
“Ape and Chiara. Oh, I know he’s an
idiot. But I think she really loves him. And I
know he loves her. You should see the way
he looks at her sometimes. It’s like he’s
seeing the sun rise for the first time . . . that
sounds really stupid, sorry.”
Not as stupid as wanting to be looked at
that way. “So you think they’re the real thing,
huh?”
She nods. “That’s why I haven’t forced
Chiara to go home. You think I’m wrong
about that, don’t you?”
I straighten her legs in front of me. Run
my hands down them, feeling her firm
muscles through her fatigues. I trace the
shape of her knees with my thumbs. “Wanna
know what I think?” At her nod, I say, “I
think we’ve done enough thinkin’ for a
while. Let’s do somethin’ else.” Something
that involves getting physical, and sweaty.
She grins. “That sounds good to me.”
I send Kez for towels, because half the
fun of sex is getting messy and I don’t have
any more robes handy. Then I drag the bowls
of fruit out from under the rabbits’ noses.
Ronnie catches the edge of one with his teeth
as I pull it away and we have a short tug-of-
war, which I win. I put the fruit out in the
hall and once Kez returns with the towels,
close the door on the fruit-guzzling rabbits
and push the chair from her vanity across the
membrane. I’m not interested in being
interrupted, nor am I putting on a show for
bunny-voyeurs.
Kez watches me block the door with a
small smile. “Tigger will get through that.”
“I’ll move it when we’re done. I just
don’t wanna be interrupted.”
“Why, are we about to do something?”
she asks. Her voice is all innocence, but
those big eyes are filled with an absolutely
wicked light. Naughty kitten.
“No, nothin’ specific,” I say as I stalk
towards the bed. I’ve got something very
specific in mind, and from her expression,
she’s guessed it.
She sits down on the edge of her bed.
Leans back on her elbows. Nice position. It
makes her breasts rise and swell against her
black tank. As if they weren’t tempting
enough.
“You can put those away,” I tell her. “I
was thinkin’ pure thoughts.”
She snorts. Settles back onto the bed. “So
you just want to be friends now?”
“Uh-huh.” Friends who fuck until they
pass out.
“Okay. We’ll just be friends.” She puts
her hands behind her head. Her nipples peak
against the cloth of her tank. I need those in
my mouth. “I want to be friends with your . . .
um, what do you call it?”
“Whaddo you mean, what do I call it?”
She grins at the ceiling. “Guys always
name their dicks.”
Like I’m telling her. “I call it my dick.”
“I bet you don’t.”
I kneel next to the bed. Run my palm
down her body from the base of her throat to
her groin. Shaping each swell and dip. I roll
the hem of her tank up with my thumbs. Bare
her creamy belly. Lean over her and mouth
slow to watch her eyes dilate further. “What
would you call it?”
She wraps her arms around her head.
“The Master Blaster?”
I stroke my way across that soft skin to
the waistband of her pants, unfasten them,
catch the stretchy band of her underwear
with my thumbs and peel them down over her
hips together. “Don’t think so.”
“Big H?” She giggles. “The Socket
Rocket?” I work her clothes down her thighs
and the touch of cool air on her skin makes
her sit up. “Wait, could we turn off the
lights?”
“Yeah.” I’ll get her to the point where
she’s not self-conscious with me anymore.
But it doesn’t have to be tonight.
She wriggles across the bed and taps a
panel on her bedside table. The lights dim
slowly and finally wink out. I blink a few
times while my eyes adjust, then find her soft
hips with my hands and pull her back into
position in front of me.
“Can you see everything?” she asks
softly.
I consider lying to make her more
comfortable. Discard the idea. I want her to
be honest with me; guess I’ll have to give as
good as I get. I lean over and kiss her belly.
“Enough to do this.”
“Oh . . . are you . .
.?”
“Am I what?” I move my mouth down a
couple of centimeters and kiss the top of her
mons. Run my palm over her finely-grained
skin. I love that she’s bare there. Nub-hunting
through a thicket does not turn me on.
“Um, I, uh, oh . . .” She shivers and lies
back on the bed when I lower my head
further and flick the tip of my tongue over the
pouty little vee at the top of her labia. “I’ve
never done this before.”
I finish tugging her pants and undies
down her legs and toss them over my
shoulder. Debate whether I want to get naked
now or later and decide there’s something
appealingly dominant about keeping my
boots and pants on while I go down on her.
“Why not?”
“I, uh, I haven’t had a ton of offers . . .”
She grips her elbows and shivers again,
harder. “Hale, I . . . I think I need some
rules.”
“Yeah?” I stroke her belly. Something
about this is unsettling her. Maybe something
to do with the scar on her inner thigh, which
is much too close to her groin for comfort.
Maybe just that no one has gone down on her
before, which is a damn shame. Whatever it
is, she needs reassurance.
“Rule one, your hands stay here.” I pat
the bed on either side of her hips. She
immediately drops her hands to her sides and
digs her fingers into the covers.
“Okay,” she breathes. I dip my head and
kiss her belly, which quivers, but she’s
stopped shivering. She’s beginning to relax.
“Rule two, dead puppies.” That one
should be familiar to her. She nods, relaxing
even further under my hands.
“Rule three, two strikes. You move your
hands from there once, you get a spankin’.
Move your hands twice, you get the ass-
whipping of your life.”
She wriggles on the bed. “Okay.”
“Rule four, you can’t come until I say you
can.”
“Oh,” she breathes. She arches her back
against the bed and fists the covers. She likes
giving up control during sex; delaying her
orgasm will be hard for her. It’ll keep her
mind off her brother. “Okay, I’ll try.”
“Rule five, come before I say you can,
an’ you spend the rest of the night suckin’—”
I punctuate my words with a quick kiss and
suck on the soft skin below her navel. “And
swallowin’.”
She lifts her head to look at me. Her
pupils are so widely dilated her eyes look
solidly black. “I’ll do that any time you want