Here we go again. I'm tired of constantly checking to see if I own any part of CSI. I'm always disappointed to find out I don't. So don't ask me again.

Hey, y'all, if you like this story, check out "Prisoner 4929" by Moonstarer. I defy you to stop once you start.

Anyhow, here we go.

NIGHTMARE IN PARADISE

Chapter 1.

Grissom thought Saturday mornings were the best invention anyone ever came up with.

There had been a time in his life when Saturday mornings meant going to the lab and catching up with paperwork. But when Sara walked back into his life for good, Saturday mornings became occasions to languish in bed, make plans for two days off and make love. They couldn't get enough of one another.

This particular Saturday morning had been especially athletic. As they rested together afterwards – "swapping sweat" Sara called it – Grissom made a compelling argument that he should get a day's gym credit for the workout.

"I bench-pressed you seven times," he said. "That's a great upper-body and core routine. If I have to tell you about the lower-body workout, you weren't paying attention. And it seemed to me you were paying very close attention."

Sara giggled and nested deeper in Grissom's shoulder. She moaned out of pure happiness. Absently, she ran her finger down a long, fading scar on his chest where surgeons had repaired seven broken ribs, a punctured lung and a lacerated liver inflicted several months earlier by a lunatic named Eugene McCaskey. Grissom put a hand on hers and stopped it. He turned his head and kissed her forehead. He didn't want to be reminded that he had died twice as a result of his injuries. He didn't want to remember that McCaskey nearly took Sara's life, as well.

Grissom's nightmares had been horrifying for weeks after he got home from the hospital. Mostly they involved Sara dying at McCaskey's hand in unspeakable ways. Grissom would wake up in a cold sweat, trembling, and Sara would hold him until he quieted. The doctors had warned them the nightmares might happen. Sara had experienced them, too, but she moved on faster than Grissom. He knew getting over his terror would take time. He hadn't been able to describe for anyone just how deeply the McCaskey experience scored him. Sara would have understood, but she had her own dark memories. She didn't need to share his.

"What do you want to do today?" Grissom said. "It's going to be pretty. You want to hike above Lake Mead?"

"Could we just stay in bed all day and keep doing what we've been doing?" Sara said. "Then I might give you credit for a gym day."

"How's Hank going to get his exercise?" Grissom said. "Scratching at the bedroom door doesn't count."

xxxxxxx

"Okay, a hike it is," she said. "But there's something I want to do first." She slid her hand down over Grissom's abdomen and beyond. When he responded to her slow, sensual massage, she began kissing him. Not deeply or passionately, but lightly, teasing. His eyes. His mouth. She let her tongue linger in the hollow of his throat and worked it down the chiseled valley between his pecs, thinking the regular work at the gym really had been good for him.

When she used her mouth on his nipples, he groaned and shifted under her. She felt his hands grab her hair.

She trailed down to his navel, his lower abdomen, his thighs. She saw him watching her, desire flushing his face. She glanced into his eyes and grinned seductively. Then she ducked her head to his erection. Her mouth sent an electric charge through his nervous system, and his hips bucked involuntarily. She worked him over with her tongue, her lips and her teeth until his arousal reached frantic proportions. At the last moment, she felt him reach down for her and slide her damp body up his, until their faces were level. He rarely let himself come in her mouth, although she liked it. He preferred it when they climaxed together, eye-to-eye, so to speak. Truth be told, Sara didn't care one way or the other. As long as she was doing this for, and with, him.

He used his tongue on her nipples, already hard and erect, and then followed the same general path she had taken, down her body to her thighs. She writhed under him and groaned when he began using his tongue inside her. She came once. He repositioned himself and entered her, before the first orgasm ended. He moved within her and built the sexual tension to another peak. They went over it together.

When the spasms ran their course, Grissom sighed and started to roll away. She wrapped her arms around him and held him in place. He was still inside her. She didn't want to lose the feeling.

"How did you know I was hoping for a twofer?" she whispered in his ear, punctuating the message with her tongue.

Before he could answer, she moved his head and kissed him with all the passion she could muster.

Life just doesn't get any better than this.

xxxxxxx

After breakfast, they dressed for the hike. For Grissom that meant including in his backpack an array of sample jars in which he could carry back any insects he gathered for his enormous collection. Sara collected butterflies and tucked several glassine envelopes in her backpack for her own samples. There might not be any for either of them, however, since they only collected what was already dead.

They were on their way out, with Hank straining his leash, when the doorbell rang. Grissom frowned.

He glanced at Sara. "Maybe we should hide until they go away."

But he opened the door and was surprised to see Brass standing outside with Ecklie and two uniformed police officers.

"You're a little early for dinner," Grissom said.

No one smiled.

"May we come in?" Brass said.

"Well, actually, we were just headed out," Grissom said.

"Gil, don't make this tougher than it already is," Ecklie said.

Grissom's mind raced, trying to define the situation. He couldn't. So he stood aside for them. Ecklie walked in first, followed by Brass. The two uniforms stopped in front of Grissom. One man turned him around. The other cuffed his hands behind his back.

Grissom felt light-headed when he heard the familiar words from Brass: "Gilbert Grissom, you are under arrest for the rape and murder of Cynthia Seibert. You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to an attorney. Anything you say …"

Cynthia Seibert? Grissom knew all too well who she was. Her body had been found early Thursday morning in a room at Binion's Gambling Hall, a downtown Las Vegas institution on Fremont Street. Catherine and Nick caught the case. The victim had been raped and garroted. How the hell did that come back to him? He knew Cynthia Seibert only in death. He'd never laid eyes on her in life.

Grissom wanted to ask the question, but he could only stare at Brass in disbelief.

Sara wasn't at all at a loss for words.

"Are you nuts?" she said. "How could you even consider something so absurd? Grissom? A rapist and murderer? You can't be serious."

"As Grissom would tell you himself, the evidence is the evidence," Ecklie said. "I've heard him say it a hundred times."

Grissom found his voice. "What evidence?"

"Your lawyer will tell you," Ecklie said.

Grissom tried frantically to recall where he'd been Wednesday evening. David Phillips had estimated TOD at about 6 p.m., eight hours before the body was found. Grissom suddenly remembered Wednesday, and his heart sank. Sara was at UNLV all day, so he'd taken his camera and driven down to the Lake Mead National Recreation Area to photograph bighorn sheep. When he returned to Las Vegas, he went directly to the lab to start his shift. He had no alibi for time Cynthia Seibert was murdered.

"Get him out of here," Ecklie said to the two officers. He turned to Grissom. "By the way, in case you haven't figured it out, you're fired."