Annie sat at on her couch the next afternoon, watching as Auggie crawled beneath, above, and all around her massive desk, disconnecting her current computer. She told him when he arrived that she wouldn't tolerate any remarks about her current setup. He did promise with an easy smile and a squeeze of her shoulder.

A squeeze that she still felt now, 15 minutes later. Yep, she told herself, she was smitten. She'd tried to tell herself she just had a crush, but it went a little further than that, she knew. This was out-and-out attraction. One that started yesterday when Hank had called Auggie her boyfriend, and she didn't feel the need to correct him. Auggie teased her about it all through the dinner, but she refused to be baited.

Until, of course, they had walked back to his shop/apartment and her car parked in front. He'd kissed her good-bye, telling her to drive safe. The kiss was nothing more than a hesitant brush across her lips, but damn, did he taste sweet. She almost jumped him then and there.

But she knew she'd see him again, and here he was, on his hands and knees crawling under the kneehole of her desk to extricate the keyboard and mouse wires. She could hear him talking to himself as he worked, and she smiled. He wasn't making fun of her setup, only talking himself through his work.

Also, the position he was in now gave her a view of a wide expanse of his back as his shirt rode up. The muscles she'd felt across his shoulders, she noted, went further than his biceps.

Auggie tried to concentrate on his work, talking himself through his tasks to keep his mind on them, but it was proving difficult. As soon as he arrived, Annie had taken up her current position on the couch with a mug of coffee and had been watching him ever since.

He'd wanted to point out that she was staring again, but in truth he enjoyed it. Just as he enjoyed being called her boyfriend last night. She didn't correct Hank at all, and that to him meant that she was as attracted to him as he was to her. And that she'd allowed him to kiss her before going home was the final stroke. Whether she liked it or not, Auggie was going to be in her life long after he set up her computer system.

Which he'd get done a lot sooner if she quit staring at him like an oasis in a desert. Suddenly, he got an idea. "Hey, Annie?"

"Yes?"

"Could you grab a flashlight and give me a hand? It's a bit dim back here, and I can't see all that well." Well, it was mostly the truth, he thought. Her tastefully placed lamps made for a lovely ambience, but didn't give any light behind her desk. She soon walked up to him, flashlight in hand.

"Okay, just shine it here, please. Thanks."

Annie did as instructed, but found she couldn't watch him as closely as she did before. With a disappointed frown, she asked, "I'll still have all of my old files, right?"

"Yep, I transferred everything to the external hard drive first. It's a full terabyte, so you'll have more than enough room to backup anything you need."

"Okay."

Auggie glanced up at her expectantly.

"What?"

"Nothing," he said with a smirk. "Just waiting for you to ask me what a terabyte is."

"It's a thousand gigabytes, right? It goes byte, kilobyte, megabyte, gigabyte, terabyte."

"Impressive, Miss Walker. I have a feeling you were just joshing me that you didn't know anything about computers."

Annie rolled her eyes at him, "There's a difference between knowing how to operate a computer than knowing how to put one together, you know."

Auggie nodded and resumed his duties. He finally got all of the wires and connections disconnected and separated, and he stood. Something, unfortunately, that proved to be difficult given the cramped space and Annie's closeness. Even so, she wound up brushing up against him as she stood, as well.

The movement made them both jump slightly, and Auggie reached out and caught her elbow before she stumbled.

"Sorry," she said softly.

"Don't be," Auggie replied. "I've been trying to get you in my arms since last night."

Even in the dim light, he could see her cheeks redden a little, and he decided to step back with the flirting until he got her computer set up. "Well, do you want to keep this dino – I mean, do you want to keep this CPU and monitor, or do you want me to take it back and recycle it for you?"

"You can recycle this kind of thing?"

Auggie nodded, "It can be reused and repurposed."

"Sure, then," Annie said, stepping back and resuming her position on the couch. As he hefted the CPU in his arms, she had an unexpected wave of loss. "You did make sure to get everything off of there, right?"

Auggie stopped on his way to the door and turned back to her. "Yes, I said I did. Don't you trust me?"

"Of course I do, it's just – that was my first computer, and –"

"As of now, it's just a bunch of metal and plastic. Anything useful it contained is in that little black box there," he said, nodding his head to the hard drive sitting on her desk.

And as he walked out with her CPU, Annie got up and went over to the "little black box." She picked it up, feeling the weight of it. How can something so small, the size of a paperback book, hold a terabyte worth of information, she thought. Setting it back down, she shook her head at herself. Maybe Auggie was right in his jibes at her lack of computer skills.

Auggie walked back in to take her monitor out to see her leaning against her desk and frowning. "What is it? Annie, I promise you haven't lost anything. I double-checked."

"Oh, I know you did. It's just – I feel so useless, not knowing what you're talking about half the time."

"Useless? Where's all this coming from?"

Annie shrugged, and Auggie immediately walked up to her, tucking a finger under her chin and pulling until her eyes met his. "I know more about computers than you because I've studied them for over a decade now and have a couple of degrees in computer science. Besides, this is nothing compared to what you do."

Annie's eyes narrowed as she tried to quell the shivers coursing through her from his nearness and touch. "Why, what do I do?"

"Well, I know you're fluent in Spanish, but how many other languages do you speak?"

A small smile came to Annie's face as she whispered, "Five."

"Excuse me, I didn't quite hear that."

"Five," Annie said louder. "I can list them for you, if you like."

"No, thanks. Don't want to be showed up that much," he said, taking a step back. "Now, let me get that monitor out of the way, and we can start unpacking boxes." He clapped his hands together and rubbed them in anticipation.

Annie laughed, "You look like an 8-year-old who's just woken up Christmas morning."

"Yeah, but this time, it's you who'll be getting the presents."

Half an hour later, Annie's fingers were on her cordless mouse, clicking on everything that showed on the flatscreen monitor in front of her. Auggie sat patiently beside her, explaining the new operating system's layout and where everything was located. He also helped her set up her webpages and e-mail accounts. He usually didn't spend this much time with his customers, but who was he kidding? He usually didn't go out to dinner with his customers or kiss them good night or come close to kissing them twice now during an install.

"And what's this?" Annie said, hovering the cursor over an icon on the desktop.

"Skype," Auggie answered. Then at her blank gaze, he explained, "See this hole up here?" He pointed at the top of her monitor. "That's a webcam, and you can video chat with anyone else with a Skype account."

"Do you have one?"

Auggie nodded, "Yeah, most laptops and systems come with webcams as standard features anymore."

"No," Annie said with a smile. "Do you have a Skype account?"

Auggie returned her smile with enthusiasm. "Yes, I do. Would you like to video chat with me?"

Annie knew that question wasn't anything close to be sexual, but she felt herself reacting as though it were. She took a deep breath to calm her nerves before saying, "Well, I'd like to try it, and I'm not sure who else I know that has one."

"I'll set you up an account," he said, pulling the keyboard over to in front of him and opening up the program. After a few minutes, he had her set up, along with her username of "Princess Anne." She scoffed at first, but he refused to change it.

"And how will I find you? Do you have, like, a username or something?"

"Yep, it's A-Squared."

"Clever," Annie said.

"I thought so, too. Now, do you have everything you need?"

"Yeah, I guess so. It's not much different than my old one, so I shouldn't have a problem. Sorry for keeping you here so long. I guess you have to get back to your shop."

"It's not a problem. I left Carl in charge," Auggie said, standing up.

"Okay, let me get my checkbook, and we can get this settled," Annie said, pulling open a desk drawer and retrieving her leather-bound wallet. She glanced again at the invoice Auggie had given her and set about writing out a check.

"You can wait to pay me, Annie. Most people just drop it by the office or mail it in, or –"

"No, I'd like to get this done and over with."

Feeling almost dismissed, Auggie nodded, "Oh, okay, then."

Annie wrote the piece of paper out quickly and tore it from the checkbook. Standing up, she handed it to Auggie, who, without meeting her eyes, folded it in half and slipped it into his pocket.

"Okay, then, I guess that's it. You can call me anytime you need help, although you really shouldn't –"

Auggie's good-bye was cut short as Annie stepped up to him and reached up to his face, or more specifically, his glasses. She began pulling them off, and he grabbed her wrists to stop her. When she shook her head, he let her pull them off and place them on the desk behind her.

"Annie, what are you doing?"

"Well, our professional business is over, right?"

Auggie nodded.

"And if I'm not mistaken, over the past two days, you'd be interested in something closer to a personal business relationship?"

Auggie nodded again.

"Well, if you don't mind, I'd like to start now."

"But why did you take off my glasses?"

"Because I wanted to see what you looked like without them," she confessed, raising her hands to trace his cheek and jawline. "You're okay without them, right? I mean, you can have them back, but –"

"I'm fine."

Auggie didn't have the heart to tell her that his nearsightedness allowed almost perfect vision in his left eye for anything within a foot of his face, which of course, she was right now. And such a vision she was. At a distance, with his glasses on, there was no mistaking her beauty, but up close was decidedly different. He could tell the blonde shade of her hair was streaks with darker strands. Her brown eyes – wide and expressive – held flecks of gold in them that shone in the lamplight. And her lips. If he was any good at poetry, he's sure he could find a few dozen adjectives to describe them.

But he didn't want to at this moment. All he wanted to do was lean his head down to her lifting one and kiss her, accept her kiss in return. The brief taste he'd had last night wasn't nearly enough for him.

Annie kept her eyes open as she lifted up on tiptoe to reach him. Her hands rested on his shoulders for balance. She was almost mesmerized by the unobstructed view of his eyes. They were warm and expressive, and though he said he couldn't see out of his right eye, it was perfectly functional, moving in synch with his left one. Maybe later she'd ask him for more details about his sight, but she didn't really want to know. Not right now. Right now, all she cared about was how firmly his mouth fit over hers. He'd tilted his head at the last minute, and his mouth was fully upon hers.

After a few nudges and brushes, his arms came around her back to pull her up against him, He pulled back half an inch, and she felt the hesitant touch of his tongue against her lower lip. She immediately responded – could she do anything else?

His taste was intoxicating, and after obliging his request, she moaned softly as he swept her mouth. He was both persistent and holding back, and she found herself grateful for it. After pulling back for a breath, she let herself back down on her heels.

"Wow."

Auggie laughed, "Yeah, that about sums it up."

"I guess you have to go, huh?"

Nodding, Auggie relished a few extra moments of her in his arms before loosening his grip. "Can't leave Carl alone too long."

Annie took a deep breath before extricating herself completely from his arms. "So, this Skype thing, huh?"

"Yeah."

"I'll be able to see you and talk to you, huh?"

"That's the general idea."

Annie turned around and retrieved his glasses, handing them back to him. "Then I guess I'll see you later tonight?"

"Until then, Princess Anne."

"Good-bye, Auggie."