Karl rumbled, “Either way,” and Emmy, blushing even pinker, took a step toward the fence like she intended to climb it.
Then a trace of amusement, or embarrassment, or maybe both, crossed her face. “My underwear is still over there, and somehow the prospect of flashing an empty pasture is more than I can cope with right now.”
“Oh, well, I—” Karl reached for her panties and shorts, prepared to offer them to her, but instead, Emmy just turned into a rabbit again and squeezed under the fence’s bottom rail.
It was the most astonishing thing he’d ever seen. There was no werewolf-movie horror to it, no twisting or shrinking or even much displacement of air. She was just a hot sexy round girl one instant, and a big fluffy adorable bunny the next. Karl sat on the ground like his legs had been cut out from under him, and Emmy hopped right into his lap.
She wassucha fluffy bunny. Big and warm and nuzzly, with the silliest floppiest ears and the biggest brownest eyes he’d ever seen. He stroked the top of her head tentatively and her ears flattened out a bit, eyes closing with pleasure. Her fur felt like velvet, thick and soft, and her little nose twitched happily.
Karl murmured, “Aww, there you go, sweetheart, do you like that?” and Emmy leaned her head into his hand harder, demanding scritches. “Aww, yeah. Everybody likes head rubs, huh? Yeah, that’s a good bunny. Oh,God, I’m sorry, I’m talking to you like you’re really a bunny, but you understand me, don’t you?”
As far as Karl knew, rabbits weren’t much for sly looks or grins, but somehow the gigantic bunny in his lap managed both. He laughed and kissed the top of her head before saying, “Maybe you should turn back into a girl.”
A heartbeat later, he had a lap full of gorgeous woman, and his hands were somehow in her hair, and her scent was in his nose, and Karl thought this cow pasture on Virtue’s town borders might actually be heaven. He groaned and brought his mouth to Emmy’s, who answered the kiss hungrily, and then, with a take-charge vibe that shot straight to his groin, pushed him over backward and kissed him like she’d devour him whole.
Karl had never been so prepared in all his life to be devoured, but after a minute or two of increasing heat, Emmy groaned, too, and sat up. “We still don’t have condoms. I’m beginning to think we should just go straight back to town.”
“I’m good here,” Karl said a little dazedly. She was right, but she was also kneeling across his hips, thick thighs capturing him, the weight of her body pressing into him, and Karl was fairly certain he could stay there forever. Especially if he could just untie that bow at the front of her wrap dress, and run his hands over her skin, following every curve and fold and dimple until he knew them all so, so intimately. He wanted to feel the weight of her breasts in his hands, and hear her gasps and whimpers as he explored her entire gorgeous body with his lips and tongue, until—
“Yep, no, we better go.” Emmy climbed off him, which was probably the right call, but he already missed the pressure of her body against his, especially the heat of where their hips had met. There was absolutely no hiding his desire, and Emmy, looking back at him as she put her undies and shorts back on, wet her lips so provocatively that Karl wasn’t sure he wasableto get up. Or at least, to leave. He seemed to be managing getting up just fine.
“Wait. Before we go.” He got to his feet, trying to adjust himself without being too obvious about it, and offered Emmy a hand up. “Before we go, can we finish my secret plan?”
“Oh! I forgot about that. Sorry. I was distracted. Yes, that seems reasonable? Especially if it won’t take long,” Emmy added hopefully.
“It shouldn’t. We just have to go to the other end of this field.”
Emmy’s eyebrows rose dubiously. “It’s a big field.”
“It is, but what’s waiting at the other end is worth it. I hope.”
She squeezed his hand and smiled. “Okay then. Let’s do it.”
They didn’t talk much, but they did walk hand in hand to the far end of the field, probably twenty minutes away. Another kissing gate, like the one he’d used the day before, led out of the field, where a hiking trail cut into the woods. Emmy paused at the gate, looking around curiously. “Okay, so what’s here?”
“Virtue’s city limits.” Karl was surprised to find his heart beating dizzyingly fast. He didn’tthinkthis would go terribly wrong, but now that he’d brought Emmy out here, the possibility that it might seemed greater than it had before. “I looked it up. The edge of this property is the closest township boundary to the town itself. The other direction is all within city limits, but…well, I thought if you wanted to…it’s just a step away, now.”
CHAPTER9
Emmy’s rabbit shrieked,We’re going to DIIIIIEEEEEEEagain, and from the way Emmy’s pulse rocketed, she kind of felt the rabbit might be right. Except of course that was nonsense. Crossing the town border would absolutely not kill her. At least, not in the lightning striking her down or something like that sense. Possibly she would anxiety-attack her way right into dying, but it wouldn’t be like a vampire going into a church and immolating or anything.
Her hand had gone very cold in Karl’s. She stood there staring at the little gate like it might come to life and bite her. Her stomach was churning, and tremors of genuine fear ran over her skin until she was actually shivering. Karl, very gently, said, “You absolutely don’t have to,” and Emmy looked up at him.
His ocean-blue gaze was steady, filled with both encouragement and concern. “It’s really easy to avoid boundaries if you’re in a car,” he said quietly. “You just don’t go that direction, or that far. I know I was taking a real chance, not telling you why I wanted to come out here with you, but I didn’t think you’d come with me if you knew what I was going to bring you.”
“I wouldn’t have.” The spring sunshine was so warm, but flashes of hot and cold were wrecking Emmy’s ability to enjoy it. Her rabbit was straining to shift and run the other direction, far away from the town border. Emmy looked back at the gate, which was identical to the one they'd entered through at the other end of the pasture.
Karl was wrong. She’d probably have to take five or six steps to actually cross the border, into the gate, around its lip—which would be a bit of a squeeze, for a girl her size—and out the other side, onto land that didn’t belong to her home town.
She couldn’t tell if it was terror or exhilaration pounding through her. Maybe both. Both seemed possible. Even likely. Her chest hurt, she was so scared. All the passionate heat from earlier had disappeared, although not in a forever way. Just in a right now way. “You could have…”
Karl gave her a long time to finish the sentence, and when she didn’t, murmured, “I could have what?” encouragingly.
Emmy swallowed and looked up at him. “You could have taken me through the gate and not told me until we were on the other side.”
Absolute horror flooded his gorgeous features. “No. No way. I mean, yeah, I guess I could have, but that would have been an incredibly dick move. This is your boundary, Emmy, both literally and figuratively. I’m not gonna trick you into crossing it. I’m not that kind of asshole. I wanted to give you a choice. A chance. If you wanted it. If you don’t, if I went too far already, I’m really sorry and I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you, but sometimes it’s easier to do something with a little encouragement. If somebody helps you walk up to it, sometimes facing it is easier, even if in the end you still have to face it on your own.”
His voice broke, and Emmy’s heart almost broke with it. Carefully, uncertainly, she asked, “Are we still talking about the border?”
