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around him to caress the corner of his mouth, the underside of his probing flesh. She sighed, her hand sliding up his chest to stroke the heated skin of his throat. Waves of pleasure chased themselves down his spine at the feel of her, the taste of her. Honey. That was what it was like. Burying his tongue in a jar of honey. Only the taste was different, hotter, like a tangy curry sauce.
    His one hand slid deeper into her hair, tugging her mouth as close to him as physics would allow. He pushed his other hand down her side, over one of those amazing hips. She took that final step that placed her within a hair’s breadth of his body. At the same time, he moved forward, pressing her back into the edge of the kitchen counter. There wasn’t an inch of her body that wasn’t against his, a breath she took that he didn’t feel, didn’t taste.
    Following his lead, she slipped one hand into the hair at the nape of his neck. The other hand she boldly lay on his ass, pressing hard to keep his hips tight against her smaller, seductively rounded, belly. He grunted against her lips as he rolled his hips, pressing his much too heavily clothed cock against her. He twisted slightly, finding the firmness of her hip bone a perfect resistance to take just a fraction of the need from his aching body.
    “Oh, hell,” he whispered as he released her mouth and dragged his lips over her jaw. He drew just the tip of her ear into his mouth, nibbling at the tender cartilage until she grunted against the front of his shirt.
    “Do you like that?”
    A blush darkened the exposed skin along the back of her neck. Augustus couldn’t help the soft chuckle that slipped from his lips as he ran his tongue down, tasting her skin from the top bump of her spine to the tiny hallow at the base of her throat.
    Her hands caressed the skin over his cheeks, pulling his head tighter against her throat for a brief moment before she pushed him back. She captured his lips, plunging her own tongue inside his mouth so quickly he nearly bit the gentle muscle. Instead, he pulled it deeper inside of him, sucking it like the most delicious candy he had ever had.
    “Where did you learn to do that?” she asked when he released her.
    “You don’t want to know,” he said as he pushed a lock of hair from her face.
    Her eyes dropped. She pressed her forehead to his chest. Her breathing was irregular, a soft whistle that made his heart jump with the need he could feel behind it. He ran his hands over her back, pulling her close again. She was his, ready and willing. He had enough experience that he could read that with his eyes closed and his hands tied behind his back.
    And he intended to have her.
    But just as he lifted her face with a fist under her chin, he saw something. He had seen it before, but it hadn’t registered. Or, maybe, he simply had not wanted it to register.
    A stack of mail sat on the counter just a few inches from her seductive hip. A large manila envelope with a label that was big enough to read from the moon. Toby Voss, it said.
    Toby Voss.
    Not Toni.
    It was like ice water rushing through his veins.
    “I should go.”
    “But…” She looked up, confusion in her eyes. “I thought this was what you wanted.”
    “So did I,” he said.
    Augustus stepped backward, nearly tripping over his own feet in his haste to move beyond touching distance. She watched, the confusion only increasing.
    She whispered his name and something else, something he couldn’t hear. But he was sure it was so mething he didn’t want to hear.
    He ran from the room like prey running from its predator.

Chapter Nine
     
     
    Augustus drove around for hours, his thoughts as jumbled as the circle he made repeatedly around the city. Jackie. That was the only coherent thought he had. Jackie.
    Somehow, he had abandoned her. Again.
    He could still taste her on his lips, still feel her body pressed against his. He could still smell her on his skin. There was still an ache deep inside, in