Disclaimer: CSI: Miami does not belong to me. The characters are full of inspiration, intelligence, and intrigue that I can't help but borrow them a short while. I heartily enjoy the show and its premise. The events of this story are mine, but the characters are definitely not.

Author's Note: For b8kworm, the H/C group. Eternal gratitude to Mr. Hathaway, who made me realize I had a talent I was wasting; my apologies for neglecting to put a note here on all the other stories. To Lauri, because you've made me more vocal about the smut I'm addicted to but can't write; this is as close as I get. Thanks, Marianne, for your enthusiasm and help for my *trudgings*, LoL!

Summary: She could see that control, which kept him just outside her personal space, giving her his permission to seduce to her heart's desire. Just before she did just that, she promised his heart a sincere conversation with hers.

Archives: My site. Anybody else, email me. I like to go visiting.

Pairing(s): Horatio/Calleigh

Spoiler: None, sorry.

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Title: Nights Under the Full Jazz Moon

Author: Laeta
Email: ladylaeta@yahoo.com


Chapter 1: First Motions

She was still considered a tourist in the way the city's life at night sometimes caught her speechless. Miami was a world away from the lazy, superficial evenings of the Louisiana from her memories. So she cherished those memories of a simpler life when city life occasionally overwhelmed the country-girl-at-heart she truly was. Moments like now where she had no idea what to do.

Like a rule, she was the lone wheel among scores of female friends who vouched for a girls' night out away from their male significant others. Husbands, fiancés, boyfriends, and male best friends were undeniably absent as her friends spilled onto the club's dance floor and cracked jokes around their commandeered table - with the best view in the house: the bar.

On nights like these, they owned the club and every single man was their prey. None escaped them, they were that good. The bar was where the bait lie and the ladies could see their prospective night's meal unaware as they decided who was worth their time. The trap? The trap was hours of sexual hunger unleashed and sensual teasing that ended the instant the clock struck the time. Then the ladies reigned in, fidelity was kept, and the sun rose over the eastern horizon.

This evening, she sat at the table's head, her back to the bar; resignation had Calleigh lonely and aching. The night would be more fun if she had a man - a man who would show amazing love, intensity, and trust in her indulgence on this one night. Reality was that she wanted one man, and he was next to impossible to have.

She worked with him, learned from him, and yearned for him in equal measures every day. None of their open flirting would ever amount to much because of their professionalism and the haunted remnant of shadows from the past - both his and hers. Yet, she never made a secret of her appreciation for his physical body that was both devastatingly solid and a phantom apparition, as well as the mind it encased. She could only imagine the thrill of becoming the latter's sole focus. As it was, the wanting was so much other men shrank in comparison, and it was the reason she sat with her back to the bar.

Nevertheless, she listened with avid attention to every raunchy description of the male meat within the club. She may want one man in particular, but she was still one hundred percent woman. Besides, it was interesting to hear the men's reactions to her and her friends' outfits. After all, the name of the game they played was tease seduction.

Like all the ladies, Calleigh wore boots and the skirt to match. Shirts varied according to taste and mood; she fitted the risqué tank top nicely, which hid beneath the demure thigh-length, lightweight ladies leather jacket she did not bother to put in the coat check. Maybe later though; it was early enough that the club's air conditioning had some effect. Hair swept up to hide its length and thickness, her neck was bare as were her fingers.


Twilight finished its idle stroll and night's arrival called all the ladies to the dance floor. Leaving her jacket to mark the table taken, Calleigh joined her friends while a pair of eyes with the intensity of the moon followed her every move.

Like all the nights past, she soon returned to the table and joined some of her pickier friends as they looked for the night's perfect partner. Like all the other nights, they tried to find Calleigh's while she looked on with exasperated amusement. She knew they would never see him; he had no reason to come to a club like this one.

So candidate after candidate was rejected. He was not tall enough. He did not have the right hair color. The style of his clothes was wrong. The drink he ordered was wrong. The set of his shoulder, his posture, was not sufficient to boil Calleigh's blood. Until her friends suddenly fell silent and Calleigh laughed aloud at the collective look of stunned amazement on their faces. When it dragged on longer than usual at the appearance of an especially gorgeous male specimen, Calleigh was tempted to turn around.

However, the last time Calleigh had spent the night ignoring men, it was a disaster. At her friends' urging, she turned to glimpse at the man and a jealous riot broke out. She was mortified that a simple action could cause such emotions over someone like her. Once recovered, she realized that the men were trying to get her attention; because she was not openly watching them, they assumed she had the highest standards. To be chosen by her, then, was every man's dream, the ultimate male ego boost. So when she deigned to glance at the man, it seemed the testosterone ego contest raging behind her lost civility. Every man wanted the "winner" to be himself; when it was not - well, she learned not to make that mistake lightly again.

Becoming more and more tempted she fired question after question. Very, nicely tall. Red hair. Suave, subtle style. Cradled a cocktail glass that showed off the unmistakable color of a Comfort Dry Manhattan. Broad shoulders, trim waist. Amazing carry and grace, almost feline in his movement.

Calleigh could feel her heart start to race as the implication sank in. Disbelief halted the want to satiate her curiosity and look at the man. She could see the fine appreciation in her friends' faces as they appraised him. It was by the looks on their faces that she knew the instant he turned away from the bartender and glanced in their direction. They only wore that expression for the most devastatingly handsome.

Yet she could not bring herself to accept he was there - in the club - with her. That, and the fact none of her friends were pawing to claim the man. The answer to her second stray revelation came when they looked, in unison, at Calleigh and gave her their hands-off sign. They would not touch him; whether or not she wanted him, he was all hers and the thought warmed her motionless body.

Slowly, Calleigh managed to turn around and looked straight into Horatio's eyes.


The first thing she responded to was the heat; it was September afternoon in Louisiana. It languished in his eyes and she rose out of her chair, helpless against anything but approaching the beckoning fire.

The next thing was the way those eyes raked her from head to toe and dragged themselves up again. She saw the male approval at the outfit she wore and did not bother to suppress the thrill that rode through her. Blatant appraisal had never been a turn on before, but tonight, she almost cried out from arousal. The way he responded to the combination of clothing articles told her he liked gentle romance but did not resist the urge of blood hot, rough sexuality. He could accept a woman's raw sensuality because he was secure in his masculinity.

A subset of that masculinity was the control vibrating through him. She could see that control, which kept him just outside her personal space, giving her his permission to seduce to her heart's desire. Just before she did just that, she promised his heart a sincere conversation with hers.


Even as the club's dance floor crowded, Calleigh was oblivious to the sweat and press of the other dancers. Her awareness had long since narrowed down to the man whose body curved around and into hers as the beat and the darkened atmosphere intoxicated them. She savored the scent of his body as it worked hers into a matched frenzy. She memorized the planes of taut muscle through the single layer that separated the inherit softness of the female body from the achieved hardness of the male physique. The heady texture of his hair running through her fingers brought his body even closer to hers and she reveled in that power. Through it all, the heated fire of his eyes made her forget her inhibitions and she finally experienced the full bloom of her own sensuality.


Chapter 2: Question Unanswered

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© RK 12.May.2003