Page 33 of Licks

But a second later, he shrugged a shoulder. “You have a point.”

He leaned down and kissed me softly, a reverent touch that had me rocking on my heels. My belly dipped. We both moaned. Tingles cascaded down my spine.

August’s lips were on mine, where they were meant to be.

Our hands moved and heads tilted, a natural shift that allowed us to open to each other. Open to our past. Accept it. Move on. I clutched the sides of his T-shirt, my fingers curling into the soft fabric. Mine. August was finally, maybe, almost mine.

He cradled my neck, tugged my hair. His breath filled my lungs, sweet and hoppy with the tang of beer. Deeper. Hotter. We were putting on quite the show.

When his tongue skimmed mine, I whimpered.

I’d never whimpered when kissing a man. My skin had never felt like it had shrunk, every inch taut and aware, my clothes and underwear suddenly suffocating. And wet. The damp heat between my thighs engulfed me. He pulled back too soon.

My eyes fluttered open. August came into focus, the street around us reminding me where we were, and of the task ahead of us. Still, I didn’t move. “I’m scared to leave this spot.”

He rested his forehead against mine. “Why?”

“This could be a dream. I could lose you again. I just…I don’t think I can handle that.”

He smoothed my hair and kissed the sensitive skin by my ear. “It’s not a dream, Possum. And if this is one of your stupid pranks, I’ll fill your bed with spiders.”

I shivered involuntarily.

“But that was…” His breath skimmed my lips once more.

“Yeah, it was,” I agreed. Everything.

He stared at me a beat longer, then scanned the street. He cleared his throat. “Your car or mine?”

I was about to say, either as long as we get naked in the backseat. But such extracurriculars would have to wait. This was Mission Find My Dad, and Badass PI partners didn’t mix business with pleasure. “Let’s meet there, in case we have to split up to chase different leads. It’s an artsy center in the Tenderloin. My mother danced there or something. She referenced a guy who would watch her some days and pick her up.”

Instead of agreeing, he frowned, and my stomach sank. Was he having second thoughts? Was he suddenly overwhelmed? “What is it?”

He toyed with my fingers, dragging his thumb over my cuticles in seductive half-moons. “Nothing. I’ll follow you.”

After pointing out our cars, we separated slowly, walking backward, our hands the last things to part. Again, a cold desolation gripped me. I almost changed my plan and dragged him to my car, but that was the crazy talking. Daffy as a duck. When my heel cranked into a lamppost, I finally turned and hurried to my Impreza.

6:30 p.m., 29 ½ Hours…

Gwen

My driving skills on the way to the TASC center were an embarrassment. I cut off two cars, nearly plowed over a man, and I drove so slowly at one point, honking blared for five seconds.

All I could picture was losing August, his rental car disappearing from sight, him disappearing from my life. I could win that show: America’s Worst Driver.

In one of America’s seediest districts.

The Tenderloin had a smell about it, eau de vomit mixed with rotting garbage and a skunkiness all its own. Weed mixed with gasoline. The homeless community owned the sidewalks, sleeping and loitering twenty-four/seven. Random shouts competed with grinding brakes, and this was an improvement from decades ago.

Again, I tried picturing my mother venturing here, blouse buttoned to her chin, gray-streaked hair close cropped. Pointed nose. Thin lips. Severe. That was the word that best described her, in looks and personality.

Yet her younger self had spent time in the Tenderloin.

I dodged crumpled garbage on the cigarette-littered street, stopping once to drop a bill into a woman’s panhandling cup. San Francisco’s homeless problem was always upsetting. The number of displaced people here threatened to flood my already overwrought heart.

They were also intimidating, especially the man swerving toward me, who smelled like he’d bathed in whiskey. “Gimme some sugar, hot cakes.”

August appeared at my side and wrapped a protective arm around my shoulder. “She’s only serving sugar to me,” he said, curt, leading me toward the rec center. His handsome profile was a granite mask.