Intimacy
#3 of The Broken Mask
This chapter contains detailed affection, desire and physical closeness. While the story contains no sex, I will mark it adult. Enjoy!
_ _"Those who have never known the deep intimacy and the intense companionship of happy mutual love have missed the best thing that life has to give; unconsciously, if not consciously, they feel this and the resulting disappointment inclines them towards envy, oppression, and cruelty."
~ Bertrand Russell, Marriage and Morals
Waiting in the cruiser in front of her apartment building was not unusual for Nick. He had seen the prettier-on-the-outside building at least six times, usually to pick her up for an early morning shift or to let her grab something she had forgotten. This was, however, the first time he had this particular view, and realized that he wasn't going to stay in the cruiser. And he was aware of that fact as he turned his eyes to the bunny sitting beside him. When she had lead him to the cruiser, telling him that she was taking him home, he had instantly assumed that she meant his apartment. Maybe a talk in the car, a walk in the park nearby, time taken to sort things out. He might even have invited her in for some coffee, as cliché as that was. Though realistically, his first choice would have been to invite her in to give her a towel. They were both still soaked to the skin.
"I can make coffee, if you want to..." The fact that she had actually said it made his muzzle spread into a wide and purely delighted grin, which only grew when she dropped her face into her paws and groaned. "I can't believe I just said that. That is so, _so _cliché."
"If it makes you feel any better, Carrots, I was pretty sure you were going to take me to my place," he said as he leaned back in the seat for a moment without taking his eyes off of her. When she raised her eyes to him and her ears high on her head, he continued "And offering coffee maaaay have crossed my mind. Right after I offered you a towel."
"Oh, right! A towel! I have towels," she said, and then groaned again as she slapped her head down on the steering wheel this time. He found it particularly adorable, how her ears flopped over the other side of the steering column and hung there with the insides turned a deeper shade of pink. "Why is it suddenly so hard to talk to you? The only things I can seem to come up with are the most obvious possible ways to let you know I want you to come upstairs and spend the night."
It sent a thrill through him, he couldn't deny that. A sort of solid, pleasant shock to his system that made him forget that his fur was still damp and cold as her words spread heat all the way to the tip of his tail. But it still amused and delighted him when he saw her shoulders stiffen the second she realized what had slipped this time. He said nothing, and managed keep his grin from spreading from pointed ear to pointed ear when she rolled her head and peek in his direction with one eye. Seeing that he was grinning, she laughed a little and covered that eye with one paw.
"You're enjoying this," she accused, her tone not totally devoid of humor. "You're enjoying watching me - the bunny you're supposed to love - suffer in her own inability to form a coherent thought, aren't you?"
"Oh, now that's really adorable," he said, ears perked fully towards her even as he reached for the door handle and clicked it open without losing his grin. "Using the 'love card' to hustle the ex-hustler. Well, lucky for you, Fluff, I have decided to take you up on one of your three attempted offers to spend the night. It just so happens that I have a change of clothes under my seat."
He wasn't all that surprised there was no rain when he jumped down from the cruiser. The Rainforest District was called the Rainforest District for a reason, after all. In fact, the ground under his feet was completely dry as he wandered around to open the back door of the car and opened the cage. As he popped the hidden lock box under the seat, he heard Judy's door open and close, followed by the pat-pat of her bare paws on the asphalt as she came around to stand behind him.
"Try to hustle you? Forgive my dumb bunny brain, but the way _I _remember it is that I did a pretty good job of it. I had you by the tail, Mr. Wilde."
"Yeah, but that wasn't a hustle, Carrots. That was blackmail," he tossed in as he pulled his spare clothes out of the box, somewhat relieved to see that they looked as clean as the day he had put them there. "Which, now that I have actually studied the law, I realize is a crime."
She gave a little huff when he emphasized the word 'crime,' but when he turned to face her she seemed far more interested in what he was holding in his paws. The salmon pink button-up shirt, grey slacks, and blue tie caught her a little off guard, and he could see the surprise in her eyes when she turned her eyes back to him.
"What?" he asked, holding them up right under her nose, which came with the added bonus of making said nose twitch. "They're just clothes. What, did you think I only have one outfit, like some cartoon character or something? Ah, Carrots, Carrots."
Laughing with a little shake of his head, he scooted around to stand beside her. His free paw took an easy hold on her waist to draw her against his side as they started their walk towards the building. He let out a surprised grunt when she angled her elbow up to nail him under the ribs.
"Well, you did walk down the street pushing a baby carriage for a living once," she huffed, even as she leaned into his side as they made their way into the apartment building. "A baby carriage that contained your fully adult friend, in an elephant costume going 'toot toot' to hustle pawsickles. That was a little cartoonish."
"Ah, but it worked at the time," he shrugged, and looked around at the inside of the less than impressive apartment building. The hallways were clean, but drab with a paw print pattern that wasn't doing it any favors. And the smell of cheap scent neutralizer was almost overpowering, though thankfully once they were past the mail room it started to fade to a more reasonable level. "So, why your place? Don't you have annoying neighbors? What was it? Pucky and Brink?"
"Bucky and Pronk," she corrected, giving him a little nudge to show him that she knew he was switching the names around on purpose. "And they're out of town for a week, so they won't... Bother us."
He could all but hear the blush in her voice, and the way she shifted against his side drew his gaze. She wasn't looking at him as they walked, but her high ears rested against his shoulder in a relaxed way. And when she shifted, she only ended with her pressing closer to him, causing him to adjust the pace of his steps so he didn't end up tripping over her paws. But he didn't mind the closeness, and he didn't mind taking his time, so he squeezed her lightly and he let her set the pace. He understood, after all. His own nervous excitement was so intense that he felt that if it got any worse, he might just vibrate out of his fur. Not showing it was easy enough, but he felt it. He hadn't felt like this in...
"And I'm closer to the station, so then we won't have to drive as far or wake up as early to get to work," she added, then slipped away from him and hopped forward a few steps in front of him once they reached her door.
That made him frown and his tail sag as she pulled out her keys to unlock the door, an act which was halted when he reminded her, "I'm not a cop anymore, Carrots. I turned in my badge, remember? I mean, I am planning on going into the station and begging the chief to give me my job back, but..."
"Oh, nonono!" He blinked when she left the key in the bolt and turned back to him with her paws raised and waving to stop him. "The chief didn't accept your resignation! You wouldn't tell him why you quit, and I was unconscious at the time so he couldn't ask me, and he said 'you have until noon tomorrow to bring him back.' What is it with him and these deadlines, anyway? But as long as we get back to the station tomorrow before noon, you can have your job back as long as we..."
When she suddenly dropped her voice after what had been a quick and excited explanation, complete with her attempt to mimic Bogo's deeply authoritative voice, the mildly shell shocked and relieved fox missed the last part and blinked a few times rapidly. Cupping an ear, he tilted his head towards her. "What was that last part?"
"He expects you to explain why," she said, her voice as low as her ears were at that moment. He couldn't remember a time when she had looked quite as shy as she did then, the extremely outgoing bunny even going so far as to refuse to meet his gaze entirely. Demure, might have been a better word, and he watched as she crossed one arm across her stomach and gripped her forearm as if to shield herself.
It was not fear based, he knew. If he knew anything now - anything at all - he knew that she trusted him on a level that he had not believed was possible before he met her. It was not because she didn't want him there, either. But now that the roller coaster had come to a stop, the fear and the thrill was wearing off and was giving them both time to process the day's events. The fact that they were standing outside of her apartment, being forced to confront the idea that someone might need to know the details of their encounter in the rainforest? Those events were being placed where it could no longer be avoided or thought of as 'when that thing happened.' And the reality of what that meant for them, what it would lead to if they allowed it to progress further, had reached the threshold.
Nick stepped closer to her and lowered himself to one knee, putting him closer to her level when he brushed the backs of his fingers over her face lightly. When her gaze rose to meet his, the nervousness in them as easy to read as the number on her door, his own eyes and muzzle softened into an adoring smile. "I can come up with something, Fluff. Bogo doesn't need to know what happened. I can just tell him that..."
He grew silent when she placed her paw on his mouth, and his face dropped into his best stoic expression of mild annoyance as he reached up to pull it away gently. He might have managed to pull that look of annoyance off, too, if he hadn't felt compelled to lean down and touch his mouth to the silky center of her palm lightly. He was rewarded with a little bit of a wide eyed look, and a furious rush of pink filling her inner ears as she kept them perked towards him. Neither of them was used to this new intimacy, and it was obvious that the simple gesture had caught her off guard. They hadn't even kissed yet, after all, despite everything else that had happened that day.
"Sooner or later, you're going to have to stop interrupting me, Carrots," he said gently as the playful annoyance on his face melted away. "I was going to say that I will come up with something to satisfy him without giving details."
"Whatever you have to tell him to get your badge, Nick," she managed in a small, still slightly winded voice before she turned and finished unlocking the door. She pushed it open and looked over her shoulder with that optimistic, sunny smile of hers. "I want my partner back tomorrow. Some things between us might change tonight... _Have _changed. But you'll always be my partner. And I won't give up."
When she stepped inside and turned back to wait for him with high ears and a happily twitching tail, he stood, clothes in paw as they stepped past that threshold.
She felt sick. But not sick. She was queasy, which was why it was easy to compare the feeling to being ill, but the sensation wasn't a bad one. She had read about butterflies and their connection to romance, and heard from her older sisters while they were fluttering on about dating some young buck. She even thought she had experienced them herself once for a bunny shortly after leaving high school, but she remembered distinctly that it had just been a little flutter. Simple excitement, which had turned into a sweet memory but nothing more. This was something else; something deeper that caused her heart to race and her belly to tighten as she watched the fox enter her apartment. And was watched in return by sharp green eyes, she noted with a giddy feeling that made her want to dance and hide under her bed at the same time. And they stayed on her as he walked past, only looking away when doing otherwise would have required him to turn more than his head. The looks he gave her now were not with the same friendly, warm, laughing eyes that she had come to know. That was still there, too, and she was glad of it. But there was longing now, affection mingled with a deeply rooted need. And something a little hungry.
She wondered if this was what it meant to be loved. Just to be able to feel the weight of his gaze, and to feel compelled to move closer to him simply because he was Nick, and he loved her. Had he looked at her that way before tonight? Had she just been blind to it?
Closing the door as quietly as she could, she placed her key on the table as he stopped in the center of the apartment and gave an appraising look around. She tucked her lower lip in her front teeth when he walked straight towards the bed, which caused a knot to form in her belly along with a quick spurt of panic, blinking when he reached out to pick up one of her stuffed bunnies with his free paw. More than a little embarrassment rose, partly because she had nearly jumped out of her fur at the idea of him in her bed, and because she had forgotten all about her collection of stuffed rabbits. She started forward. "Oh, those are just..."
She stopped when she saw the way he rolled it over in his paw. The way he looked at the little brown toy struck her as odd; his face wasn't amused or smug at having found out that she slept in a bed full of toys. His eyes were contemplative, and continued to be so as his attention shifted to the other ten bunnies. Something else that wasn't lost on her was how small it looked in his paw. Strange, that she would think of that now, but what she could hug to her chest with both paws comfortably was so tiny in one of his that it reminded her of how gently he touched her. Remembering how she had tucked under him in the rain forest, the feeling of safety that had warmed her when he had wrapped his arms around her. And the ease with which he had picked her up, pressed her against the tree.
Maybe the memory caused a change in her scent - which she had no doubt that it did - or maybe he had simply chosen that moment to finish his examination of her collection of stuffed bunnies. Either way, he set the stuffed bunny back on the bed and dropped his change of clothes beside it before turning predatory greens towards her. She braced to stand her ground. It was time to stop acting like a kit with her first crush, even if that was exactly how she felt at the moment. But when the rest of him followed his gaze and moved towards her, she realized that it wasn't a matter of standing her ground, because the ground seemed to shift towards him. There was a patient heat in his gaze when he lowered himself to one knee in front of her.
"Do you miss home?"
The fact that his tone was gentle, devoid of the joke that she might have expected under any other circumstances made her expression to soften. Taking his paw and lifting it to her cheek, she looked up to meet his eyes.
"Not so much anymore," she replied, turning into the touch of his paw when he curved his fingers to cup her cheek. She closed her eyes to let a light shiver race through her when he passed one claw over the sensitive base of her ear, both of which drooped back as she leaned into him with both paws resting on his chest. "I haven't felt lonely for a while now."
She never expected there to be a first kiss with a fox to consider; not in her youth, not when she was at the academy, and not even for the year that she had known Nick. She had imagined what it might be like to kiss him, a lot more than she thought she should have, but had never expected those private fantasies to become reality. From stolen pecks on the lips, to more intimate and passionate kisses that she had only dared imagine when she day-dreamed in the privacy of this very apartment. She had imagined a range from perfect in every way, to complete disaster that ended in friendly laughter; from a sweet and chaste touch of lips to a tangle of lips and tongue that would leave her breathless; from floating in the clouds to being washed away to drown in a sea of passion. She had been sure she had imagined every possible way to kiss or be kissed by him in her sentimental and hopelessly romantic thoughts of her fox.
And her imagination obviously sucked.
And there was a moment of awkwardness, a slight miss on both their parts as they misjudged the length of his muzzle and her lips touched the fuzz of his chin rather than his lips. But there was no break down into laughter at the misstep. Just a smile; a smile that she felt when the paw on her cheek slipped under her chin to tip her muzzle up, just a bit, until their mouths fit together.
Then there was the sort of sweet chastity that she had always thought a first kiss should be like, a warm pressure followed by the feather light brush of his lips over hers that had no rush or urgency behind it at all. A moment in which she could feel the slow sigh that left him ruffle the fur of her cheek, and feel the slide of his thumb along the rim of one long ear as he cupped her cheek again. She wasn't sure which one of them deepened the kiss, but even as she felt the parting of his lips and the deeper dip of his muzzle against hers, it was slow and gentle and just as sweet. Their first taste of each other coming in a curious meeting of tongues, an easy exploration of the passion that had already burned them. She let the small contented sound that was somewhere between a sign and a moan escape her, as soft as the large paw that slid down her side and rested on her hip to draw her closer. She knew that he was being incredibly gentle about kissing her. He had to be, simply because he was so much larger than she was.
Why had she imagined floating on clouds and sweeping waves when she had this gentle fox? When she could experience this? From the taste of his mouth on hers, to the soft caress of his breath against her neck when he drew back long enough to steal few soft kisses down one side of her muzzle. She wanted him, and romantic notions were left scattered and lost in her mind as the reality of him momentarily robbed her of thought so completely that she was the one who deepened the kiss further and demanded more of it. Because his response was instant and matched her own, she released a groan into the kiss that did nothing to ease the aching need to just be closer to him. The fact that the first sound from him was somewhere before a moan and growl only had her paws reaching up to grab the collar of his shirt to drag him closer. It could have escalated, easily. Slow sensuality could have become something more desperate, and all it would take was a single touch in the right place, or a shift of the hips to make her level of desire known. And she knew that if she had used her grip on him to drag him on top of her, or he had used the paw on her waist to draw her into his lap, neither one of them would have complained.
But this was enough, for now. And seeming to sense her feelings, or perhaps because he shared them, he was the one who finally broke the kiss. And even that was a clear example of how much trouble she was in, as his dangerous teeth nipped at her lower lip with all of the tenderness she had come to expect from him before he turned his muzzle into her neck and buried it in her fur for a long moment. Placing her paws on his shoulders and tilting her head to the side to give him access to her most vulnerable spot without hesitation, she kept her eyes closed and just let the world he had tipped on its side slowly correct itself. The warmth of his breath as he drew in her scent causing another shiver to race through her, and a small gasp to escape her when the heat of his tongue traced upward just under her muzzle. She offhandedly wondered if she tasted like rain when he placed his cheek against hers.
"That's a nice perfume you're wearing today, Carrots."
It surprised a laugh out of her, one that only had a slight tremble to it. She rubbed her cheek against his adoringly, her paws sliding from his shoulders to wrap around him in a hug as best she could. He still had the slender build of a fox, but five months of torture at the Academy had made him a bit wider through the chest.
"I can't help it. This shady character keeps coming around," she said, drawing back and placing a light kiss on his nose. "Stirring me up, kissing me until I can't think straight. I almost dragged him to the floor once, but managed to restrain myself."
He gave a little snort in reply, sliding his paws between their bodies and nudging her away lightly. The loss of contact made her a little sorry for it, but she didn't resist. "It's a good thing you did. We will not being making love until you answer my question."
Two things happened at the same moment. First, she felt a lovely surge of emotion and arousal when he mentioned making love. Not sex, not sleeping together; making love. Because he saw it was something important between them, just like she did. The second was she felt a little rejected, and found herself at a complete loss as to what he was talking about. Her ears perked towards him as she tried to decipher this change in his mood.
"What question? You didn't ask me a question, Nick." Even though she was sure that he had not asked her anything, she still wracked her brain in an attempt to find a question that might be so important that it would actually stop him from having sex if she didn't answer it.
"I can't tell you what the question is," he said, drawing himself to his feet as he waved a finger at her frustrated look. "No no. Don't look at me like that. I can't tell you the question because it might affect the answer. And I want an honest answer. Now, there was mention of towels?"
This only confused her further, her ears dropped again as she thumped her foot on the ground rapidly and set her paws on her hips. The fact that this made him grin on made her want to thump _him _upside that grinning muzzle. "So what? I give you a towel, you dry off, change clothes, and if I haven't thought of your stupid question you'll what? Sleep on the floor?"
"Officer Hopps, I am wounded," he said, placing his paws on his chest with what had to be the worst attempt at actually looking hurt that she had ever seen. "Am I to believe that you intend to make me sleep on the floor for defending my chastity? Shame on you."
She couldn't hold onto the annoyance, even though she tried. He looked much too happy, and she felt that mood rubbing off on her. Or maybe that was her own good mood coming back, despite the annoying fox in her apartment. She had to stifle the laughter that threatened to rise at the ridiculousness of his act and his words, and only managed to hide her smile by walking past him to the bed. She took another moment to think about questions he might have asked her recently as she pulled the promised towels out of the drawer under her bed, but was still drawing a blank. But a small smile curved her muzzle as she considered her own change of clothes, and deciding on a little payback, tucked the items under her own towel. She would just see how long he could keep his promise of no sex.
Casting a sidelong glance at him, she closed the drawer and pulled herself to her feet with a little hop in her step. She flipped one of the towels to him, quick and high, and was gratified when it wrapped itself around his head before he could catch it. Then she laughed when he released a long suffering sigh, and reached up to scrub it over his still damp head-fur without removing the towel. She gave him a little shove towards the bed and his own change of clothes.
"You'll have to keep your back turned," she informed him as she took a few steps back, holding the towel, which looked huge against her small frame, against her chest with both arms. "Since you're so insistent on protecting your 'chastity,' as if I believe that for a second."
He dropped the towel on the edge of the bed after stroking it back between his ears to smooth the now only slightly damp fur. She suffered a moment of considerable heat when he reached up to tug the knot of his tie until it came free. Something about it was so ridiculously appealing that she wanted to see him do it again.
"In that case, it's only fair that you return the favor," he said, slowly dragging the tie out of his collar. Green eyes were unwavering when he reached down to start unbuttoning his shirt, and she found herself unable to look away at the cream and red fur that was gradually coming into view. He stopped about halfway down, and she gave a sharp huff when he pointed one claw at the ground and spun it in a lazy circle. "Turn around, Carrots. This isn't a show for cute little bunnies."
The next few minutes, in which they both fully trusted that the other would keep their word and face the opposite direction, there was an easy silence in the room. A silence that was only broken by the whisper of towels over fur and the rustle of cloth as they both started to change. It was hard for her to ignore the fact that, for a moment at least, she was naked in the same room with Nick. She _wanted _to be naked with him. She wanted to be naked in bed with him. Now. Her mind kept drifting to wondering what those paws would feel like sliding over bare fur when her mind was entirely her own, or what it would feel like to kiss him again when they were pressed together without the barrier of clothing between them. So close now that she could taste the frustration of his odd refusal even as she pulled the sunny yellow t-shirt over her head. Her heat wasn't helping, though she knew better than to allow that to set the pace.
When she was dressed, she dared a glance over her shoulder and saw that he was facing the window mostly dressed and flipping up the collar of his shirt to loop the blue tie around his neck. She had to admit, the shirt and pants worked well with his fur coloring. It granted him a sort of urbane appeal, on top of the fact that she somehow found him to be amazingly sexy just standing there looking away from her. For a predator.
For a predator? Who are you kidding, Judith? Stupid question. Stupid fox. I want to crawl all over him, and let him crawl all over me...
"Whatever you're thinking about, stop thinking it," he said suddenly, nearly making her jump out of her fur. She watched him take a particularly deep breath, which was released in a slow exhale that she could have sworn had a touch of lusty growl mingled in. His tone remained light and easy going as he continued. "Unless it's me, which I can't blame you for. But the fact that I can smell you from here is very distracting."
"I'm dressed. You can turn around now," was her only reply, and she watched him closely for a reaction as he turned. His paws were busy looping the knot in his tie, which is where his eyes were for a second or two longer before he lifted them to her. And she found his reaction particularly gratifying.
The paws handling the tie with the casual ease of someone who wore a tie every day came to a stop halfway through the act of tugging it into place. His muzzle also went a little slack, leaving his mouth parted as if he wanted to say something but just couldn't find the words. She watched his eyes take her in, wearing nothing more than the yellow t-shirt and a pair of low cut, side-tie bikini panties that showed Mr. Nicholas Piberius Wilde a great deal more of her than he had ever seen before. And she felt considerably more feminine than she had since joining the ZPD when he snapped his mouth closed, swallowed so thickly that she could hear it, and cleared his throat while tugging at the tie as if it were somehow restricting his ability to breath.
"That's cheating, Carrots."
"See something you like, Wilde?" she asked him, the slightly weak tone of his voice leaving her feeling a little more like she was stepping over his resistances. "You act like you've never seen a bunny before."
"Not this much of one," he replied, and she enjoyed the way he seemed to be drinking it in. She could see those green eyes wander over her, and the reality of the desire she saw in his gaze was a wonderful thing for her. His gaze was either lazy or reluctant to leave her body when he turned it to meet hers. His expression dropping into a grumpy, annoyed fox as only his could with his ears folded back and his eyebrows lowered. This might have been because she had reached up and started to fiddle with the buttons of his shirt, which were popping open one by one under dainty paws.
"Judy, we talked about this."
She gave him her best innocent smile, though she also noted that he didn't actually stop her as she reached the halfway point. There was a pleasant hum in her blood and a light ache between her thighs, distracting her enough that she almost missed that little admission. She rolled it over in her mind for a few seconds, a few seconds in which she had reached the last button, allowing his shirt to fall open. She chewed on her lower lip as she reached out to slide the fingers of one hand through his fur lightly. Still slightly damp, now a little ruffled, thicker than a bunny would have, but oh so warm when she sank into it until her claws brushed flesh. And this time, she felt _him _tremble, and raised her eyes to see him tilt his head back as a pleased sigh escaped his muzzle.
My fox.
"What do you mean, 'never this much of one'?" she questioned lightly, as her other paw joined the first one an explorative path down his stomach. She didn't go beyond that, not just yet. She simply enjoyed the way she felt his muscles tense when she dug in deep enough to cause a reaction. "You can't tell me that I'm the first bunny you've seen naked. You seem to have a fetish, after all."
"I don't have a bunny fetish, Carrots," he said as this drew a slightly strained chuckle from him, one that she felt against her palms as her paws returned to his chest. "I have a Hopps fetish."
"I'll be sure to warn my sisters, then," she said, her voice more of a hum than anything else when she nuzzled his chest. She drew in the scent of male fox as she nestled closer to him, sliding her arms around his waist as she let that feeling of being safe and warm settle around her.
"Based on your surprised reaction," she both heard and felt him say, and relaxed against him further as he slid one paw up and down the length of her ears. "I can only think that you've been looking at pictures of naked foxes."
The weak knee inducing euphoria of his finger pads sliding along the rim of one ear was quickly interrupted by a rush of embarrassment. Embarrassment that only heightened when he leaned into her, and with one paw at the small of her back, lifted her off the floor with a delighted laugh. A laugh that only ended when he dropped back onto the bed, carrying her with him until she found herself lying on top of him. Not straddling him; actually stretched out on top of him with her head still pressed into his chest, her hips nestled against his, and after a minor adjustment her legs kicked up to allow him to cross his comfortably.
Once she had overcome the terrible embarrassment, she managed to push herself up and rest one arm across his chest as he reached for a pillow to pull into position under his head. It was ridiculously comfortable, lying on top of him like this. In a way that she had never experienced before, except once in the rainforest when her mind had been savage. And because he didn't seem to mind it one bit, she didn't try to change it. She simply let her legs sway lightly as she studied his face in the comfortable silence, amethyst eyes moving over his muzzle to take in every detail of him. She knew that under that calm expression that he wore was the same desire for her that she felt for him. She could see it in his eyes, in the intensity of his gaze and how he watched her as though she were the only thing in all creation at the moment. And she could feel it between their bodies where she felt the light throb of his arousal. Intimidating as it was, because of what he was and what she was, it relaxed her rather than frightened her.
He wanted her, and he made that obvious in every way. It eased that slight worry that he was just making her wait to tease her. There was something that he wanted, something that she had the answer to. Something that she needed to find the answer too. But until she did, she was content knowing that they wanted each other. When she felt him slide the back of her shirt up, and felt his fingers follow that simple motion with a brush of his pads over the fur at the small of her back, she released a low sigh of contentment. She returned the affection with a touch to the top of his muzzle, letting the tiny claw of her forefinger slide over the bridge with a touch so light that it was almost non-existent.
"I'm sorry I don't remember the question," she said, her voice soft in her honesty as her touch wandered down until she cupped the underside of his muzzle. She brought her mouth to his, and gave herself to a slowly passionate kiss that only lasted for a few seconds.
"Don't worry, Carrots," he said, without a trace of resentment, frustration, or unhappiness in his voice. In fact, she had never heard the familiar voice of the once scruff and jaded street hustler sound quiet so peaceful or content. "You'll figure it out. And when you do, I'll still be right here."
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