Boo school, yay skype, yay Kirsten.

Let loose, that's what her body told her to do.

Generally when that urge flowed true and free, she'd sink herself into a warm bathtub and entertain herself with thoughts of passion and hunger and-and, and, and. The bubbles, they were just a tiny bit less than a new lover's kiss and she wouldn't miss it as she slipped down into the suds and shuddered release.

Once per year, perhaps... she would feel an urge to tear off her skin, release her soul from the flesh and float up, down, anywhere. In the past, it had been satisfied by her going with Nick or Greg or Warrick out, just out. So what if she was mid-thirties and had no one. What did it matter that she was still string stung by a man who didn't bother to, to, to... who didn't bother with anything human.

It was the fifteenth of October when she worked up the nerve to speed over to his apartment.

She blamed it on impending Halloween and the delicate tease of winter. The candy, she could taste it, just wait at the door, waiting on him. He was home, that she knew for sure having seen his vehicle tucked away inside of his two car garage. The only thing holding her back was the tiny thread of doubt that dashed before her eyes.

But just as it had appeared, it was gone.

So she turned to his stairs and began climbing. Palms steadily gripped the railing as she climbed, sure of herself more than ever. One foot in front of the other as she rehearsed her years-old speech in her head. It was calculated, it was precise and it was so damned intense, that climb up his stairs, that she didn't really know how she'd do when she got to the top and knocked.

She didn't have to worry about it.

"I was... hi, Sara." He stuttered, deliriously disheveled, clutching his car keys in his hand.

Frozen to the spot she simply shrugged. "Hello."

"What uh, what are you doing here?" His thumb slid over one of the keys in his hand. It wasn't supposed to be, but it was so damned erotic that she had to close her eyes and gather herself.

"I came to see you," and it was all she said, eyes so wide, slight cleavage on show, supplication in her stance. If it would have provoked him she would have raised a brow but she knew then, just as she had known from the beginning, that he had wanted every little bit of her.

"See me about what?"

And at that, Sara let all pretense down. She made no ceremonious speech and she didn't over-talk. She didn't beg or plead with her eyes or pout her lips, she just spoke. "You."

She paced two steps before she reached him and when she did his eyes went wide. They weren't touching, just barely skimming the surface of each other's soul but still he was frightened; deep, too deep. It both amused and distracted her, made her wonder why she'd chanced an encounter in the first place.

"Just... just let me," she began, stuttered, brought the pad of her thumb lightly across his bottom lip, eyes tracing her gentle movement. She did it twice, and on the second pass, brought her hooded gaze to meet his.

One word, "Inside."

And with that, she was trailing behind him, his stomach fluttering just as badly as hers.

Inside, inside, inside he took her face between his hands and just kissed her like they were meant to kiss. He touched her like he was meant to touch her, like she was meant to be touched. "Only once," he kept repeating in an increasingly broken voice. "Only once."

And she took his promise to himself to be true: this would only happen once, and she only had one chance to commit to memory the exact hue of skin and the exact taste of his lips, collarbone, earlobe. She only had one shot to catalogue how he said he name as he was nibbling his way down her neck.

Just like leaves, he floated down, fell upon her with grace.

Breath gasped out when he pressed into her hard. And then her eyes were grasping hers, a crazy lucid thing that refused to subside. He was there with her and she didn't know how to handle it.

So she didn't handle anything, she just let go.

It was crazy, how she could love and not be loved back and she expected to thrust up to him and just give. But god, that first thrust, she was receiving everything she'd ever wanted. Her teeth gnashed together because damn, he was just so deep, insanely there that it was difficult for her to wrap her spinning mind around anything.

"Please," he kept whispering into her neck, "Please, please, please."

'Please, what?' she wanted to ask so desperately that the words formed in her head and on her tongue but he stole them away from her with his own tongue. She could swear she heard him murmur, 'Again' but she didn't really want to hope. Her life had gone to sea on a slight of hope.

One hand on her hip, the other came up to tangle with hers and she very nearly pulled away. Intimacy, that wasn't in the cards; she hadn't thought that intimacy was in the cards. But he held her hand and pulled back to focus on her eyes as he thrust into her, "Sara-Sara, god, Sara."

His fingers tightened, squeezed around hers and somehow, her words came out a tearless sob. "Griss?" she asked, arching her hips up to meet an enthusiastic press of his hips.

"Yeah?"

A breath, "Okay."

His forehead to hers, bodies jarring with the pressure, with the intensity of their actions. She wouldn't call it love making, not until it happened again.

But she wanted to tell him...

"Want to tell, oh, god, tell you-" She shouldn't have been speaking, it really should not have been possibly, but of all the impossibilities that had arisen in the past hour, speech wasn't high up on the list of things to consider.

"Don't!" he pleaded. "Don't or-fah-Sara, happen again..."

But it would happen again, she could tell from the way he was clutching her, the way she breathed into him, the way they came together.

Bodies cooled, damp with sweat and she knew they would be building bridges and burning them right down. She'd always had an affinity to disaster and sometimes she liked it like that. And maybe he did too.

She got up before he asked her to leave, putting on her clothes at a leisurely pace. "Bound to happen," she muttered, her voice thick with wanting to sleep. "Bound to… sorry."

But Grissom was flung on his stomach, left hand idly stroking the fitted sheet beneath him. "See you tonight," he murmured languidly, causing Sara to turn.

"You're not on tonight."

But all he would say was, "See you tonight," and she had to consider that the start of something. Maybe not the beginning of something wonderful, but it was a start.