A/N: This started off as a drabble… but I had a little time on my hands and was missing writing. I hope you enjoy.
Pillow Talk.
"Do you ever look at other women?"
Grissom blinked and lifted confounded eyes off the monthly budget report he had been studying. His head snapped round toward Sara, his face scrunching up with bewilderment. Head square in the middle of the pillow, eyes open wide unblinking, she was staring at the ceiling, a wistful, thoughtful expression about her face. The book she had been reading, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,lay discarded by her side. Slowly turning her head toward him Sara gave him an expectant, if rather tense, smile.
Peering at her over the top of his glasses he gave himself a shake of the head. "Huh?"
Her smile broadened somewhat uneasily, and she shrugged. "You know…"
"About what?" he said, scratching the side of his nose uncomfortably.
Sara's smile faltered and she sighed, her eyes flicking away from his face back onto the ceiling. "Do you ever look at other women?" she asked again, flatly.
Grissom blew out a breath. His shoulder lifted uncertainly, his gaze flitting toward the report clutched in his hand. "I'm…not entirely sure what it is you're asking me."
"Come on, Gil," she said turning back toward him. "You know what I'm asking."
"Then I'm not sure what you want me to tell you." Grissom put the report down on his lap and after removing his glasses pinched the bridge of his nose. He blinked, opened his mouth to speak but when no words came, gave a nervous laugh. "I'm…tired," he sighed. "Do we have to do this now?"
Sara's brow rose.
Looking away he took in and let out a long breath, then thought carefully about his answer. "I'm too busy to look at women," he uttered after a moment, bringing his gaze back to hers. "When do I have the time to-" Sara's eyes narrowed and she sat bolt upright causing his misguided answer to die on his lips. Forlorn eyes unconsciously followed the progress of the bed sheets pooling around her waist.
"What kind of answer is that?" she asked challengingly, grabbing the sheet to cover up with.
Grissom rubbed a weary left hand over his eyes and face. "A truthful one?" he tried unconvincingly, unable to conceal the trace of impatience from his tone.
"You're skirting round the issue."
"I'm not skirting round anything," he replied shortly, shuffling up into a more upright position. Leaning over to make eye contact he asked softly, "What brought this on, Sara?"
Sara's only reply was to look away from his probing stare and shrug a terse shoulder.
"Have I done something to suggest that…" He let his question trail, and shook his head before moving the report off his lap and onto the floor and carelessly tossing his glasses on top of it. "Help me out here Sara will you?" he pleaded gently, reaching for her arm. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
Pinching her lips Sara threw him a quick glance. She tried a smile but didn't quite manage it. "It's okay. I'm sorry."
Grissom's chest filled with a feeling he wasn't familiar with, and he looked down to his lap helplessly, searching in his brain for what he could have done to bring about such sudden insecurity on her part. "Is this about Sofia?" he asked after a moment. "About what happened in my office earlier?"
Sara's right hand shot to her face and she rubbed her eyes.
His hand rose to her shoulder with concern. "Sara?"
She lowered her hand and met his eyes. The answer was written all over them. "Maybe?" she whispered.
Grissom's sigh was long and very sad. "Honey, there's nothing going on between me and Sofia."
Sara's head began to shake. "She was all over your desk!"
"She wasn't allover my desk."
"Everyone knows she's got the hots for you, and she openly flirts with you and you do or say nothing to discourage her…"
"She wasn't flirting-" he tried weakly.
"And what's worse," Sara went on without pausing for breath, "you flirt back."
His eyes widened with injury. "I what?"
"You flirt back with her," she repeated calmly.
"I most certainly do not," he retorted petulantly.
"Oh, you do. How can you even look at me and deny it?" The sadness and resignation in her voice was heart-breaking.
"Sara, I can't believe you're saying that. I can't believe you're even thinking it." She scoffed. "And for the record I do not flirt with her."
"Oh, Gil, drop the act. You're not that oblivious, and you know it."
Taking umbrage at her accusations Grissom bristled. "There is nothing going on between me and Sofia," he repeated adamantly. He paused, his face suddenly pursing in contrition as he conceded softly, "I may have…laughed at something she said but I didn't flirt with her."
"What can't you just admit it and be done with it?"
"Admit what?"
"That you like the attention – her attention."
"Sofia's?" he said with disbelief.
Sara's stare was level. "She openly flirts with you, in front of me and everybody at CSI, and whether you know it or not, you flirt back with her. And it's not escaped Catherine's notice either."
"I-I-" Grissom blew out a breath, and shook his head. A longer sigh escaped and he raised his hands to his side in surrender. "I'm sorry if I did anything to suggest that. I wasn't aware I was doing it. I will make sure it doesn't happen again, okay?"
Sara nodded and forced a smile, and he lifted his hand to cup her face.
"I don't know what else to say," he added softly. "I don't know what to do to make you believe me. Sofia is a friend and colleague and nothing more. I enjoy her company, at work."
"You took her out to dinner," she said quietly.
"You know about that?" To Sara's small nod he added, "That was weeks ago, months even, before you and me got together. Besides, I got called out to a scene half-way through the appetizer, and anyway, that was work, not social, and strictly a one-off."
Sara's mouth pursed to the side. "Really?"
Smiling with relief he gave her a slow nod. "Besides, who's in my bed now, huh?" A wider smile playing round the edges of his mouth he leaned across to stroke his lips against hers. "I've only got eyes for you," he mouthed almost inaudibly, too shy and self-conscious to profess the words out loud as he pulled back from her.
Sara's eyes fluttered open, and she nodded. "Prove it," she murmured in a teasing breath.
His brow arched. "Prove it?"
"Yeah," she smiled as she slowly ran her tongue over her top lip, "Prove it."
Grissom's eyes crinkled with unabashed delight. "That would be my utmost pleasure."
Sara's eyes closed, smiley lips parting invitingly as he made his move. His hands moved to the back of her head as their lips met and he deepened the kiss, his tongue seeking and toying with hers quietly at first and then hungrily, passionately.
Laughing and breathless they finally broke apart. "We're okay?" he asked, his eyes searching hers earnestly.
Sara nodded, and stroked a slow hand to his cheek. "I'm sorry. It's just…she was all over your desk, laughing and joking like she owned the place and-"
He covered her mouth with his hand, cutting her short. "Subject closed. No more talk of Sofia. Ever."
He smiled and lowered his hand to her chest and gently eased her back down onto the mattress, himself shifting until he lay on his side, facing her. His eyes never left hers as his fingers stroked round her eyes, then glided down the oval of her face to the long curve of her neck, tracing down to her collar bone.
When her eyes drifted shut with a sigh of abandon he pulled down the strap of her tank top revealing a wide expanse of soft, creamy flesh. A smile of deep longing and well-being formed on Sara's lips. Pinching his lips tight at the wave of arousal surging through him he closed his eyes and took in a deep, craving breath, her smell so soft, so sweet, so her filling him whole.
His mouth gently took his fingers' place on her skin and Sara's soft responding gasp filled him with confidence. "From here to there," he said quietly, hoarsely, his lips vibrating on her skin as he drew an invisible line with kisses along her collar bone, "there are exactly thirty-four tiny freckles in the shape of your name."
Sara's soft giggle made him smile broader and when he looked up to her and found her watching him with love and wonder in her eyes he swore to himself that he would never again, unknowingly or not, make her heart ache. He threw her a mischievous wink and she laughed before reaching out a hand to pull him up to her face.
"No, Sara," he said, pulling his head away from her grasp, "I haven't finished. Let me show you. Let me prove to you that yours is the only body I look at, the only body I know better than my own." He smiled wickedly and his eyes flicked to her chest. "But first we're going to have to get rid of this," he said pulling the strap of her top all the way down her shoulder and arm before slowly doing the same to the other side until her top laid crumpled at her waist, causing pale, pert, heaving breasts to spill out.
Grissom resisted the overwhelming temptation to cup his hands to them, and bring a nipple to his mouth, lick and nibble and tease his tongue around it. Instead, he let his eyes skim over every millimetre of flesh, his breath hitching, catching in his throat with every slow, languorous stroke of his eyes over her skin.
When he could take no more of his own teasing he lifted eyes, wide, dark, hungry with yearning back to her face. Sara swallowed and with a nod of her head finally relaxed the hold she had on him. Closing her eyes she laid her head back down onto the mattress. Her arms moved to her side, her hands meeting above her head, her back arching up as she offered herself, wholly and unconditionally, to him.
Smiling, he looked down at her body and closed his hand around her neck before sliding it down the length of her sternum, between her breasts, to her navel, and back up again. Sara's hands flew to his back, his shoulders, his head, and he broke the contact long enough to prise them off him and gather them back above her head.
"Let me show you," he repeated throatily.
Holding them there with one hand, his lips recommenced their slow, sensual exploration of her body taking up exactly where they'd stopped, in the crook of her neck, kissing, licking, brushing down to her chest, along the curve of her breast, stopping at the underside. There, he took a moment to reign in his fervour and catch his breath.
With a deep moan of contentment Sara buried herself deeper in the mattress and his lips forming into a wicked smile at her reaction he tightened the hold he had on her hands so that it was impossible for her to wriggle free. Mischief shining in his eyes he peered over the top of her heaving breast up to her face, and waited.
Her eyes snapped open, dark and wide with desire. Her lips parted in a breathless gasp. There was no mistaking his intention, and Sara was prisoner to his demands. His eyes were telling her all that words couldn't, promises of everlasting love and faithfulness, of deep-seated belonging and contentment. You're mine, they were saying, mine to love, cherish and lose myself in, as I am yours, and no other woman could make me feel this way.
His tongue darted out of his mouth and closing his eyes at the searing surge of desire that shot through him he lowered it to her breast. Sara's moan came loud and long, as though branded by his touch.
"This is my favourite spot on the whole of your body," he breathed, licking and tracing the softest pattern in the fold, "It's the gentlest, creamiest, fleshiest, tastiest, most inviting and captivating place on earth. It is the place only I can visit."
Sara's body writhed, trembled and quivered with every stroke and brush of his tongue, with every kiss and lick, with every bristle of whisker and whispered breath. Her hands pulled and tugged, fighting against his hold, wanting, needing to touch and feel him as intimately as he was touching her.
He held fast, unmoving, eager to prove his point to her. "I haven't finished," he murmured keeping his lips on her skin. "Let me prove to you that I am yours just as you are mine."
He shuffled down the bed a little, stretching so one hand till kept hold of hers while the other snaked down light and nimble over the gentle curve of her stomach and under the waistband of her shorts. Sara let out a small piercing cry, and he smiled.
"And if I touch you here," he continued, his fingers gradually, leisurely inching closer to her folds but not making contact, "ever so lightly, ever so gently…"
Sara's whole body shook, squirming and writhing and she ground herself against him, against his hand, his caresses, her soft gasps becoming louder moans and groans the bolder he became with his strokes and words.
"…this happens," he said, taking delight in watching the effect he had on her, the emotion reflected on her face. "Open your eyes for me, Sara," he whispered, pausing briefly in his ministrations, "and look at me."
Her eyes fluttered open, overflowing with love and lust and unspent longing as she stared dreamily, drunkenly back at him.
The smile he gave her was somewhat shy and diffident. "I can never look at another woman and not think of you. I can never look at her body and not compare it with yours. My eyes may wander at times, but my mind, my heart will never – can never – stray."
The End.
A/N: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is a 2003 novel by British writer Mark Haddon. It won the 2003 Whitbread Book of the Year and the 2004 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book. Its title is a quotation of a remark made by the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes in Arthur Conan Doyle's 1894 short story "Silver Blaze".