Chapter 1

Sara trudged along the hallway. Why did she sign up for this lecture? Because it was required—that's why. She sighed heavily and pushed the door open, noticing once she got inside that there was something trailing down the back of her leg, tickling it and aggravating her. She stopped mid-stride and tried to look behind herself to see what was brushing against the bottoms of her thighs, and in so doing she turned herself in a circle in front of the class. Her mind really wasn't on the younger students, who at 18 and 20 seemed so immature to her that she was practically embarrassed to be seen in the company of them. She was much more concerned with whatever it was that was trailing down the back of her and touching her leg. She turned right and could see nothing, then took a step and felt the tickle of it again. She turned left and still saw nothing. Damn! This time she bent over and started swiping her hand at the back of her denim shorts until she finally felt the fray that was a bit longer than the rest and was causing all the irritation. She gave it a tug and succeeded in nearly tearing her finger off for her effort.

"Damn!"

She pulled her finger away from the cotton string and put it in her mouth where she immediately relieved the minor pain by running her damp tongue over it. She reached for it again and tugged harder, this time being rewarded with the sound of more than just a simple thread tearing. She had managed to rip her pants. This noise brought several giggles from some girls sitting in the front row of the classroom and did nothing for her discomfort at being in their company in the first place. She stood erect and looked at the three girls who were pompously laughing at her. Barbie dolls! All of them! She was reminded of the "Brittany Club" on that old cartoon called "Recess;" a club of rich, over-dressed, snobs who were just oozing with female hormones that they wore like some kind of perfume to attract the male sex and ward off any other female who didn't appear to be up to their standards of what a female should be. Fucking cheerleaders! All three of them! The final straw occurred when she watched how they looked at her and whispered giggled insults behind their hands.

"Problem?" She asked them through grit teeth.

"Are you talking to me?" The boldest one, evidently the leader of the trio, asked Sara with a condescending smile. "I'm sorry but I couldn't understand your mumble."

"I said, do you got a fuckin' . . .," she started but stopped when she noticed how the three girls straightened in their seats and their eyes widened as they looked beyond her as if seeing something that they needed to be on their best behavior for; some kind of a wonderful treat that they were hoping to achieve.

"Don't move," came the quiet voice from immediately behind her and she felt the tug of the string she had been trying to remove, then heard the "snip" and felt the string being cut from her pants.

She swung around to see a curly-haired gentleman holding the offending piece of thread before giving her a small smile, then turned and went back to the front of the room, depositing the string in the waste can on his way to returning the scissors to a drawer in the oversized desk. This brought immediate giggles from the three girls and made the color rise in Sara's cheeks. She didn't know if she wanted to storm out of the room in embarrassment or turn around and deck the three morons behind her. Instead, she squinted her eyes in thought as she looked more closely at the man who was now sorting through index cards at the podium.

"Is this. . ." Sara looked at the schedule in her hands then back to the man at the front of the class. "Dr. Grissom's lecture?"

"Hmm," he answered without looking up immediately, but when the girls went into a giggling fit again, he relented and looked at Sara. "Yes. I'm Dr. Grissom. And you are?"

"Sidle," Sara said more quietly this time, her discomfort at being there growing. "Sara Sidle. I was assigned to come here. . ."

"Sidle—yes, I remember now. You were assigned by your supervisor. I always look forward to my unconventional students," he said as if she were the only person in the room with him while at the same time keeping his focus on his cards. "They tend to take the class more seriously. I can communicate on a different level with them than kids fresh out of high school. Please—take a seat."

She nodded, noticing that the giggling stopped behind her and when she turned around she saw how they were looking at her as if she had grown two heads. Sara smirked at the girls as she started to walk past them but Dr. Grissom's voice stopped her.

"There's a seat here, Sara. Why don't you take that one?"

Sara glanced back at the man and noted that he was talking about a seat much closer to his podium and in the front row, but on the other side of the room than the three over-enthusiastic wanna-be teacher's pets. She gave him another nod then turned and went to the seat he indicated. Before she sat down she looked back in the direction of the others and saw their expressions of complete horror. She knew they were not used to being ignored by anyone, particularly a young male, and the fact that he came to Sara's defense confused the hell out of them.

Sara's brow knit in confusion as well. What the hell did he come to her defense for, anyway? And the more she thought about it—he most definitely was a "young" male! He wasn't what she had been warned about—an older man who was exceptionally boring. She dared a glance up at him and although he was wearing glasses for reading over his cards, he seemed only slightly older than she. By the look of him, he must only be about thirty—very young for the credentials he had.

The more she looked at him, the more she decided that he most definitely wasn't hard to look at! He was rather attractive in a boyish sort of way. And she couldn't help feeling a certain amount of fondness for the way he came to her defense, albeit rather unobtrusively, but still!

Then he glanced up at her and gave her a slanted smile. Her mouth dropped open then she smiled back. Those eyes! She had never seen eyes that had drawn her into them as quickly or as deeply as they did and she felt the overwhelming urge to make sure that they never strayed far from her again! He was divine!

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

Gil Grissom stood at the window of the small lecture hall pondering on just why he was there. He was forty-one years old with a firm hold on a career as a crime scene investigator in Las Vegas and just because some renowned professor of Anthropology invited him to come and lecture in San Francisco, he jumped at the chance. It wasn't because he was eager to get back to teaching. He had become a little disgruntled with that in the past, and the reasons were "giggling" directly behind him. He hated when he wanted to share his knowledge with young minds and they couldn't seem to see past their own mirrors, mainly because the intelligence wasn't there to allow them to focus on anything other than their own reflections.

"Dr. Grissom?" A blonde girl called to him from where she was gathered with an auburn-haired and a raven-haired beauty. "Did I need to bring anything to prepare for my session with you today?"

The other girls giggled again, evidently finding their leader extremely hilarious until he looked over his shoulder at them and they tried to stifle their laughter. "Your session?"

"Yes," the young girl almost cooed at him, putting on a Marilyn Monroe pout as she looked at him. "Our time together. I always like to be "prepared." Maybe have a little "protection" in case further testing is required."

Ah, yes. . .the girl was trying to be provocative and was simply coming across as . . . well, idiotic. So, he turned his body completely toward them as he looked into her eyes.

"And would your friends be needing further testing as well?" He asked quietly.

The blonde leader swallowed, licked her lips, then without checking for her friends' responses answered him. "If you prefer it that way."

"Then I suggest you run out to the University Store and grab yourself some protection—like maybe a notebook and something to write with. And now that you've brought up testing, I'll keep that in mind when I hand out what was going to be a worksheet. I think you're right, perhaps it ought to be considered a test and be worth 25% of your grade in Anthropology."

He watched as the girl seemed to deflate before his very eyes then turn quickly to the black-haired participant in their group, "Give me some paper from your notebook! And a pencil!"

He turned back toward the window when the girls took their seats and they soon were forgotten again when he saw the tall brunette hurrying toward the building. She got midway across the grassy lawn when she bumped into a male student going in the other direction and her knapsack was knocked off her shoulder. The male paused as if he had more important things to do, then saw the girl and knelt immediately to pick up her things. Grissom watched as the boy attempted to charm her with a smile and conversation but the girl kept looking toward the doorway to the building in an attempt to ease away from him. Finally, the girl gave him a smile that competed with the brightness of the sun. Grissom had never seen a smile as bright or as infectious as the one he was witnessing on the other side of the window. He couldn't stop the smile that was tugging at his lips just from watching her. When she turned back toward him, he noticed she was wearing sunglasses but still she shaded her eyes with her hand as she looked at the name of the building as if to make sure it was the correct destination. With her hand raised like that, it gave him a perfect view of her slender body, quite adequate breasts, long throat, well defined arms and legs that seemed to go on forever before disappearing inside an old pair of sneakers. By God, she was enchanting! Now, if he'd only get students like that one! Then he'd be a little more excited about being here. He watched as she disappeared inside the building then he sighed heavily and went back to his desk to pick up his index cards and go through them.

"Dr. Grissom," came that voice that was already beginning to irritate him. "I got that "protection" we were discussing," she tried to sound provocative again but sounded moronic to him as he looked up to see her holding up an 11 x 14 inch piece of legal-sized paper. "Do you think it's "big" enough?"

This, of course, turned the other girls into an instant fit of giggles. He was about to suggest that with the clearly minimal amount of space in her mind she might require the whole tablet to jot down the notes so she could remember them, but the sight of his "dream-student" walking through his doorway stopped all thought of the three imbeciles in the front row. The brunette glanced around the room and when she let her eyes travel over him, the sight of those dark chocolate orbs stunned him and the next thing he knew, his well organized stack of index cards were now spread out upon the desktop where he had dropped them. He grabbed at them and tried to pick them up but by now they were in complete disarray. He was about to put them back in their proper sequence when he noticed how she was stopped in the middle of the floor and turning this way and that. The sound of the other girls' laughter pissed Grissom off. He knew what was happening. The others could feel the strength of this girl's intelligence. It reached out and taunted them like a high-pitched dog whistle alerts dogs; something that someone of any intelligence cannot immediately pick up, but if they are lacking in that department, they can not only pick up on it, but actually get irritated and critical of it. He could see it in the maliciousness of the three girls' eyes as they watched her wearing denim shorts and a tank top. Grissom looked at how her neck showed behind her hair that was pulled back in a haphazard ponytail and he had the sudden urge to reach out and touch it.

He watched as the girl bent down and was swiping at something at the back of her legs, then he saw the problem as she grabbed onto a long piece of string and he understood her dilemma. It was tickling her leg and she wouldn't rest until it was taken care of. When she injured her finger and stuck it in her mouth Grissom felt a sudden bolt of intense desire rush straight to his groin and he was shocked by it! Jesus Christ! All of that just from watching her put her finger in her mouth! That was when he heard the other girls start their barb with her and he wouldn't put up with it. She was too much their superior to be made to feel any less. Without thinking, he grabbed the scissors on his desk top and moved up behind her. The giggling stopped as he instructed her to not move lest she back up into the pointed tool. Then he snipped off the problematic source of her irritation, taking a great appreciation of the fact that her denim shorts were a wonderfully tight fit and showcased her pert bottom to perfection. God, but he only had to reach out and grab onto those two globes and. . . She turned around and looked at him in surprise and he was rewarded with a closer look at her face.

Jesus! Those eyes! The shape of her lips! Her face in general was absolute perfection. He let his eyes drop ever so briefly down over her throat and the tops of her breasts and he could feel his breath still until he forced himself to turn back toward his desk and put the scissors away. Christ, he couldn't spend the rest of the lecture just staring at her cleavage, could he?

His notes! That's right. He had to arrange his notes that he had dropped upon sight of her.

"Is this. . ." the girl looked at the schedule in her hands then back to Grissom. "Dr. Grissom's lecture?"

"Hmm," he answered without looking up immediately, but when the girls went into a giggling fit again, he felt his irritation with them growing. "Yes. I'm Dr. Grissom. And you are?"

"Sidle," Sara said more quietly this time. "Sara Sidle. I was assigned to come here. . ."

"Sidle—yes, I remember now. You were assigned by your supervisor. I always look forward to my unconventional students," he said as he tried to remain focused on his cards. He didn't have much time before beginning and he hated being unprepared. Not that he couldn't do the lecture without the notes—but he felt more secure knowing they were there if he needed them. "They tend to take the class more seriously. I can communicate on a different level with them than kids fresh out of high school. Please—take a seat." She nodded and turned around to go toward the back of the room and Grissom saw how the other girls were looking at her with blatant jealousy. He could only imagine that they saw she had a natural beauty they would never process and if they did, it wouldn't last much longer than their youth. He couldn't allow them to dictate where she was going to be in his class—so he decided to help the situation along somewhat. "There's a seat here, Sara. Why don't you take that one?"

Sara glanced back at him as he nodded toward a seat closer to him. She gave him another nod and her brow knit in confusion as she took her seat and he could see that she wasn't used to men stepping in to defend her honor. That—he could not understand other than the fact that she seemed very self-sufficient and probably took care of her honor very nicely on her own. He glanced at her again and couldn't stop the smile that tugged at his lips. He watched as her

mouth opened then she smiled back. Jesus! There was that smile again! And this time the small gap between those gorgeous white teeth didn't escape him. Immediate thoughts of those teeth scraping across his. . . No! He couldn't afford to think about that! He had to make it through this lecture and several more over the next few days. He didn't want to be side-tracked by a quick infatuation that would make him lose all credibility as a speaker. No, he had better concentrate on the subject at hand—but damn! She was divine!