Jordan’s brain, which had been doing an admirable job of staying professional through the incest revelation, immediately abandoned its post.

"That’s what the System says. Wearing it without the intimate activity part is safe."

"So if I put on the ears and the tights right now," Chloe said, and her hand had migrated to his chest, flat against his sternum where she always put it, "and we don’t do anything that would activate the reproductive optimization, I just get to find out what neurochemical charm enhancement feels like."

"Theoretically."

"You’re saying theoretically because you’re scared to say yes."

"I’m saying theoretically because your mom just left this apartment ninety minutes ago and threatened to have people in Koreatown make me disappear, and there’s a version of this where she comes back for her forgotten Tupperware and finds you in a bunny costume."

Chloe considered this with the seriousness of a woman weighing a business risk. "She took all her containers. She counts them. There were six and she left with six."

"You counted her Tupperware."

"She counted her Tupperware. I inherited the trait. It’s the only thing my family passes down that isn’t debt." She was already getting to her feet, using his shoulder for balance, and Jordan rose with her because the alternative was staying on the floor while his girlfriend walked toward a magical arousal suit, and even he wasn’t dumb enough to do that.

She reached for the packaging.

"Chloe."

"I’m just going to try the ears."

"That’s how it starts. First it’s the ears, then it’s the tights, then the System’s charging me eighteen years of child support."

She pulled the bunny ears free of the packaging and set them on her head in one smooth motion, adjusting the band so it sat above her hairline, the soft structured ears standing up straight against her black-and-blue hair. For a second nothing happened, and Jordan almost relaxed.

Then Chloe’s breath caught.

It was small. Just a little hitch, the kind of sound she made when he traced the curve of her spine in the dark. Her eyelids fluttered, her hand coming up to grip the counter edge, and a flush crept up from her collarbones toward her jaw faster than any blush he’d ever seen on her.

"Oh," she said quietly. "Oh, that’s..."

"That’s the charm enhancement." Jordan’s mouth had gone dry. "You feel it?"

"I feel it everywhere." Her voice had dropped into a register he recognized. Not quite Calypso, not quite the sharp campus version, something rawer underneath both. She pressed her thighs together where she stood, and Jordan watched her do it, and every rational thought he’d been holding evacuated his skull in a single organized column. "The System’s not subtle."

"The System’s never subtle."

She looked at him from under the bunny ears, dark eyes half-lidded, her chest rising and falling faster than it had a minute ago. The pink sweater had slipped further off one shoulder. She looked ridiculous and devastating at the same time, which was, Jordan was starting to understand, kind of Chloe’s entire thing.

"I want the tights too."

"Chloe, the tights are half the-"

"You said the tights alone are safe. Ears and tights, no sex. Just the outfit." She was already peeling off her leggings, hooking her thumbs in the waistband and sliding them down her hips with a slowness that might have been the charm enhancement or might have been her being deliberately cruel to him, and Jordan genuinely could not tell which was worse. "You get to keep your pants on. I get to know what the full effect feels like. Everyone wins."

"Everyone does not win. I lose spectacularly."

"You’ll survive." She stepped out of the leggings and reached for the sheer black tights, and Jordan noticed, distantly, that the material caught the kitchen light exactly the way it had in the closet, faint shimmer running through the fabric like the System had woven arousal directly into the threads. "Turn around if it’s too much for you."

"I’m not turning around."

"Then stop complaining and enjoy the show."

She sat on the edge of his kitchen stool to work the tights on, pointing one foot and drawing the sheer fabric up her calf, over her knee, up the smooth line of her thigh, and Jordan watched every inch of it with the focus of a man memorizing something he’d need for a test later. The tights hugged her legs like they’d been measured to the millimeter, the black sheer turning her skin into something out of one of the images he’d paid for six months ago, except she was here, in his kitchen, real and flushed and breathing hard, and the version behind glass didn’t hold a candle to it.

She stood.

Bunny ears. Sheer tights. The pink sweater still hanging off one shoulder, riding up at the hip where the tights sat high on her waist. Her natural eyes dark and glazed, her lips parted, her whole body strung tight with whatever the System had cooked into the fabric.

"Nn." A small sound escaped her, and her hand went back to the counter to steady herself. "It’s... it keeps building. Is it supposed to keep building?"

"How would I know?" Jordan’s voice came out lower than he meant it to, and he felt his own trait stir in response, Alluring Whisper leaking into the words without permission. Chloe’s whole body swayed toward him. "Okay, that’s not fair, I didn’t mean to do that."

"Do it again."

"That’s absolutely how I get in trouble."

"Jordan." She crossed the kitchen to him, and up close he could feel the heat coming off her skin, could smell the vanilla and something underneath it that was sharper, hungrier. She pressed against his chest, and through the sheer tights he could feel every line of her against his thigh. "I’m wearing a magic sex costume in your kitchen and you’re worried about being fair."

"I’m worried about the pregnancy feature, actually, which is a very reasonable-"

"We don’t do that part." Her hands slid up his chest to his shoulders, and she rolled her hips against his leg, a slow deliberate drag that pulled a broken little sound out of her. "Haah. We just... do everything else. Nothing that activates it. You said the reproductive optimization only triggers during-"

"That’s what the System said, but the System also gave me an incest trait ten minutes ago, so forgive me if I don’t fully trust its risk assessment."