TITLE:
ImpromptuAUTHOR: Anansay
SUMMARY: Could this be considered fluff? I don't know. It's just another scenario that grew out of a tiny seed of words in my head.
RATING: PG-13
SPOILERS: None - that I know of. I suppose up to and including Dead Ringer - but nothing overt.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Thanks to Ghibli for beta'ing and to Battus for "telling" me to post this. G And... I really hate titles.
May 2004
The air in the room was thick, almost suffocating. It hung like a heavy drape around them, keeping them together yet pushing them apart with its near viscosity.
They were sitting on the couch-his couch-she had yet to figure out how that had happened. They'd been in his office and after a few unsuccessful attempts at hiding their own fatigue, it was suggested that perhaps they head home. To their separate homes.
Then his car didn't work. Wouldn't even turn over. Dead. Cold and silent. So she'd offered to drive him home. And then he'd invited her inside-for coffee-as a thank you for driving him home even though she was as dead tired as he. She'd accepted, hearing the word tumble from her lips and feeling her head bob in answer, not quite understanding what was going on or why.
And then the case had been brought up, only a small detail mentioned, maybe it was just the frustrating nature of it and then the file lay open on his over-sized coffee table and they were staring at it, shuffling papers here and there, trying to find that one elusive piece to the puzzle that would have it all make perfect sense.
They never found it.
What they did find was something completely different. A puzzle piece to be sure, but not to any open case of theirs. More like a puzzle that had lain undisturbed between them for so long, it had become second nature to just feel it.
And that's where they stood now-or sat-beside each other.
Their eyes had skimmed over the pages in silence, their bodies almost touching on his too-small loveseat. He was obviously a bachelor who didn't entertain. At all. A simple couch, an over-sized coffee table for laying out in great detail his latest case, a kitchen table that did double duty as yet another surface to spread more papers. The walls were covered in bug specimens behind glass plates.
The only noteworthy element was the intense stereo system dominating the corner to the right of the couch. Tall sheer black speakers flanked shelves of components, all of which of upper-end quality. It lay silent and cold now, unused and ignored.
She could feel him sitting beside her. His coat lay over the chair by the kitchen table and his sleeves had been rolled up. His arm rested on his thigh, fingers curled over his knee and his other hand rested on the table. His feet still wore his shoes, as did hers. He'd just walked in and she'd simply followed suit. Somehow the removal of shoes brought a certain intimate atmosphere to almost any get-together of two or more people.
They'd kept their shoes on.
His body was still; perhaps he was reading or deep in thought. Nevertheless she became acutely aware of his close presence to her and his natural body heat burned her own bare arm.
The tension translated to her body in the form of tightness in her chest and she suddenly found it difficult to breathe, to take in much needed breaths. Her heart pounded in her body, thrumming through every nerve ending until she felt there was absolutely no way he'd miss it. But her hands were still on her own thighs.
And the papers became 'just papers' on the table, the writing just scribbles of ink, the typing merely dots in strange minute shapes. Her mouth went from dry to way too wet and she swallowed convulsively, keeping her lips tightly closed.
She wanted to leave yet the door seemed so far away, extending way farther than she'd remembered it. She blinked, trying to refocus herself but nothing changed. In a desperate bid to shake this feeling of claustrophobia, she leaned back into the couch. And proceeded to fall farther back than she thought.
Grissom's head spun around and he looked down at her sprawled form, her chin digging into her chest. She'd forgotten about sitting on the edge of the couch and the back of it being so far away. Now she found herself in an even more difficult and embarrassing situation.
"You okay?" he asked her.
She rolled her eyes his way, her body feeling way too heavy to move. "Yeah, just tired I guess. I was supposed to go home, you know." How she could get complete sentences out amazed her, considering her brain had stopped firing its synapses a while back.
"Yeah, sorry about that. Alright, let's call it a 'day' and I'll see you tonight at work."
Grissom said the words, but he didn't move. Neither did she. Sara knew why she couldn't move-her body wouldn't let her. Not yet. But Grissom's lack of movement-as well as his staring at her-was as confusing. Unless...
Sara pushed that thought out of her mind and pulled her eyes away from his. She couldn't think clearly when looking into his eyes. They did things to her, to her insides, like now. Her heart hadn't stopped pounding away but she was forcing more air into her lungs, expanding her chest in an exaggerated fashion. Too exaggerated if the direction in which his eyes kept flickering was any indication.
She knew she had to get up and leave. Something was going on and she wasn't sure she wanted to know what.
"Um, are you getting up?" he asked her, speaking slowly, his confusion quite evident in his voice.
"Yup." She didn't move.
He was still looking at her, his body turned toward her. Actually, it was more like he was looking down at her and that position did not allow for clean and sane thoughts to come save the day.
Then he moved.
He came toward her, leaning into her and his hand came out and touched her hand-on her thigh. And she knew he could feel it, feel her pulse stammering away beneath her skin, feel the shaking it caused in her hand. Then she noticed something else.
His breathing had changed. Grown more forced and coming just a bit quicker, as though he had more control over his responses than she did.
She wouldn't look at him, wouldn't turn her head, wouldn't move at all. Like an animal scared stiff at being found out, she lay on his couch, stiff as a board, too scared to move, lest he should find out just how much he affected her by just being beside her.
She swallowed. Then he swallowed. And it was too much.
Risking it all she turned her head to look at him, to really look at him, to see if maybe there wasn't something there.
It was there, in the bottomless depths of deep blue storm-ridden eyes. It was there in the quiver of his lips. It was there in the tremble of his hand on hers. It was there in the way his eyes kept going to her lips and back again.
It was the moment of reckoning. Things could go either way. Either Sara got up and left or...
It was an idea that she pushed out of her head. After four long years surely it wouldn't be this easy. Would it?
It was.
With barely perceived movement, his lips were on hers, soft and gentle. Her eyes stayed open, too shocked to close. She could see the curls on his head so clearly now. The tiny wrinkles on his skin, the shape of his ears, the way the edge of his lobe went straight to his neck.
It wasn't really a kiss per se. More like a touching of lips. When he pulled back-slowly-and met her eyes once more, lust was replaced by fear, confusion and a growing aura of discomfort.
Sara didn't move. Shock kept her still. There was no information she could pull up to tell her how to respond. Grissom had just kissed her!
When he finally moved and turned away, dropping his head to his chest, a surge of energy pulsed through her body. When she heard his words mumbled so quietly, "I'm sorry..." that energy burst forth and she finally sat up, and a hand went to his back.
It was an unconscious movement on her part, meant to assuage, but he stiffened at her touch.
"Please," she said, "don't be sorry." He didn't move. "It... caught me off guard, that's all. I didn't expect you to... um, kiss me."
"You... you moved on?" came his soft voice from beneath him.
Moved on? "No. No I haven't moved on, Grissom." He still didn't move. "Grissom, look at me. Please."
His head came up. He took a deep breath and then turned to her, his eyes once again a mask of ice blue. He stared at her, waiting for her to speak, never taking his eyes off hers.
Behind his well-honed mask Sara saw the heart of a little boy, hurt and in pain from being rejected. It was too much.
She leaned in quickly-before he could react-and kissed him.
For a moment she feared she'd made a mistake. He didn't move. At all.
And then he did. She felt him soften and relax before leaning into the kiss and making it real this time. His hand came up and caressed her face, just the tips of his fingers, as though he were afraid to touch too much, to want too much. They glided over her skin, like the tips of a butterfly's wings, tickling and caressing at the same time. When nothing changed his entire hand flattened to her face before moving to comb through her hair.
Her heart almost stopped when he opened his mouth and his tongue darted out to cautiously touch hers. A kiss of lips was one thing but to feel his tongue against hers, it was too much and she groaned into his mouth, pushing into him until he sat back against the couch. She followed him, never taking her lips off his.
In a brave and most likely insane rush of desire, she moved to straddle him, landing with a firmness that both shocked and fueled her when he did nothing to stop her.
The heat was spreading like wild fire through her body and centralizing in her loins as she ground against him. It was his turn to moan and it was such a sweet sound, so full of wonder and want.
It was building too quickly. Everything that had ever been stored was coming out, in droves, to enfold them in its magic. With heaving chests and gasping breaths they came apart, their eyes wide with shock at what had just happened. They stared at each other, she on him, as the meaning of it all came crashing down on them with the weight of reality. Sara was the first to speak.
"Well," and that was all she could manage at that moment as she bit her lip, her hands on the couch on either side of his head.
He licked his lips. "Um," was his choice of opening sounds and that was all he could say, his own hands on her hips, keeping her there.
Suddenly the image of Grissom as a composed and self-contained man of limited emotional responses was replaced by something much different. His shirt was half open revealing a bare chest down to his sternum, his normally subdued hair lay in a mess of curls on his head and the prominent bulge in his pants all lent a very erotic picture of a side to him Sara had never really imagined. But beyond all that it was his face and the way his swollen lips lay parted and how his eyes burned into hers, icy heat from deep within that made her melt.
She was sure her own appearance-she blew a strand of hair away from her face-wasn't much different. Her own shirt was pushed up midway with Grissom's thumbs presently playing havoc with the sensitive skin on her sides and the moist spot between her legs would probably feel cool and damp and a mite uncomfortable when she finally got off him and went home.
"I should move," she said but his hands only tightened on her hips.
His eyes were roaming her face as though searching for something. "I... like this." Like a man coming out of a long spell of isolation, his words were tentative yet eager. "Sara... I'm sorry." At her dumbfounded and wounded expression, he hurried on, "For waiting so long. I've been a fool. I should have..." He looked away, searching for the words. "I should have done something a long time ago. This, this thing between us, it'll never go away, will it?"
Sara stared at him. His words, spoken so softly and with such tremulous tenderness, worked their way through her haze to her heart. "No. It's only gotten stronger. If something didn't happen soon... I would have left. It would've been too much to stay and not... be able to... do something."
His eyes closed and he let out a sigh so full of agony finally released. "I know. God, I know!"
She sat up straighter and looked him dead-on. "Gris... Are you sure you want this?"
He met her gaze with a sober one of his own, lust put aside for now. "Yes." And the little word carried with it much depth and conviction. "Yes, I do."
Her body relaxed on his, her arms resting on his shoulders and she smiled as she leaned in and kissed him. A kiss free from barriers and boundaries. A kiss free to be what a kiss was always meant to be: a chastely intimate touch between two lovers.