A/N : If you like this story you should really message craftyjhawk and thank her. She is the one that encouraged me to post it :) There were a couple little things I wrote before I started "Need" but never posted. Prior to posting this here I think I only showed it to my dear friend Craftyjhawk, my husband, and givesup. She has encouraged me to post the other couple of stories. I think I will, but not tonight.
I hope you enjoy this. It takes place after Blackout in the Blizzard but before the death of Vincent Nigel-Murray.
I would love to know your thought on this little one-shot – so please leave a review.
"I'm tired of waiting Booth." She must have used the spare key to let herself in. Now here she was leaning against his bedroom door frame. She looked impatiently at him.
"Tired of waiting? Aren't I worth the wait, Bones?" He stood in front of the bedroom mirror loading his pockets for the day and making final adjustments to his tie. "What exactly are you waiting for?" He knew though, he knew what she meant and his question was offered up with a charming almost taunting grin. If she wants it she is going to have to come get it. "I'm almost ready." He winked at her in the mirror.
She didn't dodge at all. "To be with you, to show you …." She paused for a breath, just the slightest hesitation, showing her awkwardness in being this honest about her emotions. Then she let it out. "To show you that…that I love you."
He chuckled skipping over the part where she had just confessed her love for him. "Bones, it hasn't been that long since we talked about this. These things take time. I want this to last I don't want to rush into something too fast and …." He was trying hard not to say he didn't want her to get scared and run off again to some god awful corner of the world.
"My feelings for you didn't start during that blizzard, Booth, you know that."
"The Eames case, that night in the rain?" He felt his attempts to keep this a casual conversation slip away. God, what a painful memory. This was the last place he wanted to go. He let out a deep sigh, "You didn't move on." He wasn't sure himself whether that was a question of a statement.
She hung her head and took a breath. She hated admitting emotion, describing such an intangible thing in words was never precise and she was clearly not good at it. "Farther."
That got his attention. "Farther? Farther back than the Eames case?" His voice sounded strained. "How far?" His heart was racing now. Wrapping his mind around this, dredging up their recent past was painful. He sat himself down heavily on the bed and hung his head staring a hole through the floor. Then rubbed his face with his hands. He couldn't look at her. The possibilities of what she was implicating sunk in. He knew her, he knew she would misinterpret the wave of emotion flooding him. He just needed a moment to brace himself for an answer he wasn't sure he was ready for.
She shifted her weight back and forth as she looked down on him, transfixed by his strong hands as they held his head. Was he angry? He didn't seem angry though his jaw seemed tense and was pulsating at an expedited rate.
She let out a deep sigh. She had decided to be honest with him no matter where that led the conversation. Honest had to be better than living in this state somewhere in between friends and partners and lovers. "How long have I had feelings for you or how long have I been ready to act on them?"
His head came up. He caught her eyes. His face shrouded in a look of painful disbelief. "You told me you didn't have feelings for me on the steps of the Hoover, so how far back could this go, Bones?"
"I never said that, Booth, I said I didn't have an open heart – I couldn't give you what you deserved. I couldn't be enough for you and I didn't think I could change. I didn't know how." She jumped at the implication that she had ever said she didn't have feelings for him. How could he even think that? "I didn't see how I could ever give you what you would give me." She hung her head, shame, she felt shame at her inabilities in this area. They had been the source of so much trouble between them. It was one of the few areas in her life where she wished she could be "normal."
"Shit." That's all he said. That's all he could manage as the torturous time away in Afghanistan and his time with Hannah suddenly seemed ridiculously unnecessary.
There was a deep uncomfortable silence that filled the room. She moved closer pacing back and forth in front of him. This was way too much for her to process. Not sure at all what he was feeling, she tried to separate and define anger, frustration, pain, unhappiness. It all seemed to scream to her that she had been right. Scream that this with him, what she wanted now more than ever, would never work. She would only hurt him and never be able to love him in a way that he would need, in the way he deserved.
She closed her eyes, feeling very much like she couldn't watch whatever his reaction would be. "Maluku, in Maluku. That's when I decided that I could at least try to act on it. Try to love you the way that I knew you loved me. That's when I knew I wanted to try." He watched her pained expression as she squeezed her eyes shut tighter. "Early on. It was early on that I knew I wanted to try regardless of the outcome. But then when we were back and we met - "
He finished her thought. "I told you about Hannah." That was the breaking point. She collapsed on the floor, on her knees, and landed between his legs. His gaze followed her down watching the tears nearly explode and pour down her face. Her hands flew up to hide the breach in her defenses. She was stronger, it was true, but that didn't mean she was used to allowing herself to be vulnerable or that she liked it.
He gathered her up in his arms.
"Come here, come here, it's okay. Shhh," he was carefully prying her hands away from her face, trying to comfort her as he wiped her tears. She kept pulling them back to hide. "Shhhh… it's okay, I'm not mad. Shhhh…" He held her tightly. "I had no idea. I just had no idea." His head shook in disbelief. "You just surprised me, Bones, that's all." His disbelief was almost tangible. God, if he had known, if he'd understood, how many things would have been different?
He held her face in his hands, such a strange combination of gentleness and strength. He held it right next to his own, carefully moving her hair behind her ear, then whispered. "Temperance," it rolled out soft and low, "I love you." She felt his words, her body losing all strength to them. She clung to his arms, nodded in acknowledgment. "I'm not mad," he continued, "I just really didn't know. I didn't expect your answer. But it's important that you don't confuse what I am feeling and think I'm angry, okay?" Again she nodded. To date she was very sure that he was the only person on earth that could leave her speechless.
And then he carefully brought her face before his own so their foreheads were touching. Their breath hard and heavy, standing so close to a line that had kept them from this moment for years. They were staring it down. He reached for her lips with his own until they touched. There was no question what came next. There was no more waiting. Her lips on his felt so much better than he remembered, so much better than he had dreamed in his coma dream. Better than that sexually charged night on their first case when tequila was her cover to run. It was better than under the mistletoe in her office with a puckish witness.
It felt so good and so right that he almost didn't feel her hands move to his chest, didn't feel her pulling back, pushing against him. But when he felt her hand pounding on his chest his mind went to the last kiss, the one on the Hoover steps, the one where she told him no. He pulled back confused.
But this wasn't that kiss, wasn't that night.
She grabbed at his tie, the one she had just watched him straighten in his mirror. Her firm grip pulled him back his breath careful, his eyes cautious, his hands coming to rest on her hips. Her eyes dart from his to his tie, back and forth, hands sliding carefully over the soft silk material. Until those strong nimble fingers that he'd so often watched carefully pick up and examine bone finding untold stories began to move deftly to the knot, untying it carefully. First the tie, then the collar button. It was good, he could breathe. She kept moving unbuttoning as she went until she'd unbuttoned them all. He was transfixed by her and when she was done and her eyes came to meet his he saw so much, so many emotions. It was almost impossible to discern what she was trying to convey to him. So, he stared and sought, their eyes locked. And then it clicked for him she was seeking permission. It didn't matter what it was for, she had it, she had his permission. He nodded his answer, yes. It was yes to whatever she wanted. She had never known it, never realized it but his answer had always been yes. He was just waiting for her to ask so he could accept.
She dipped her head again to his chest, carefully parting his crisp fresh white shirt, her fingertips barely grazing his skin as she lifted the shirt from his shoulders. She watched as he shivered under her touch, then he helped, shrugging it off and letting it fall to the floor. Her hands floated over his muscles, he could feel the heat from them but they didn't actually make contact. He could barely breathe. And then she stilled. she'd found it. Her head tilting to the side, her eyes welling with tears, her fingertips connected with the small scar. This was her scar, it should have been anyways. She leaned in and kissed the tiny scar. Her soft lips lingered. God, he loved her. Moved into action, he couldn't help but hold her, clinging to her, carefully moving her hair back so he could see her beautiful face, so he could kiss away her tears. He wanted to remind her that he was here, now, for her.
Everything suddenly seemed urgent. He needed her to know, to feel by his touch, by his kiss that he was hers and she was his. He needed to touch and smell and taste and love every inch of her. She felt it too, he could see it in her eyes, feel it in her touch. It had moved her to action to push them past their stalemate and now he needed to catch up with her, be with her. He watched her as his hands began to move over her body, watched as her eyes fell shut, as she soaked in his worshiping touch up, as her body reacted to him and his to her.
Their cell phones rang, nagging reminders that they were stealing time away from obligations. They ignored them. All their careful preparations for the day being blissfully undone, shirts, slacks, stockings, socks, lay lifeless wherever they fell. Sirens blared up from the street, angry horns honked the irritation of the morning rush, the world marched forward and they responded to none of it. In a rare moment, in this moment, their moment, none of that registered. Somewhere in the middle of it all they fell into bed, his bed, and it became their whole world. They shared and loved and gave until they came apart in each others' arms. Then they clung to each other, almost in fear that moving would change it all somehow, remove it, erase it. Tangled in silence, in comfort, in safety she finally broke the silence, "You were right." her fingers traced circles around that tiny scar. "It was worth the wait, Booth."
She felt him smile, felt the soft kiss on her forehead. He rolled over tucking her underneath him as he went. Carefully, he smoothed her hair, moving it out of her face, adoring every inch of her. Then set out to prove her right all over again.