Thank you to the lovely Drakien69 for the beta, and just for being so lovely.
Sara could feel her arm
beginning to burn. Sighing and stretching, she turned to glance at it
where it rested on the door.
The sun was falling through the glass at an odd angle, highlighting half of her skin while shadowing the other half. With her free hand she reached up and poked at the skin and was surprised at how intensely hot it felt.
Definitely burning; the skin was pickening and yet, she couldn't be bothered to move her arm. The interior of the vehicle was, however, blissfully cool though the summer sun was pressing against the outside of the car at nearly one hundred and twenty degrees. The edge of the light just skimmed Grissom's knuckles and she wondered if he would get a burn there.
Again she glanced at her arm and sighed, again doing nothing about it. She needed sleep, she needed a rather large meal and more than anything she needed a shower. A nice icy one, in fact.
"Where are we?" she breathed, rolling her head to glance at him speaking only to break the silence.
Grissom too sighed, and rested his left elbow on the lip of the window. As his head lay upon his palm, he murmured, "Outside Elko." It was nice to know that the tedious driving was getting to him as well. She'd offered to drive back, but he had none of it, waving her off as though she'd suggested he get blonde highlights.
Generally she would have been excited to be on such a long trip with him, being able to work alongside him without the distractions that other members of the team often caused. When he'd phoned her to inform her that they would be gone for the better part of a day, she'd been thrilled.
They had been getting along much better lately, casually joking, spending the occasional evening together. Sara had felt that this would be the perfect opportunity to loosen him up even more; after all, he couldn't run from her if he was stuck in a car with her. But the case had been horrendous and she'd had to retreat to the comfort of the air-conditioned Tahoe more than once. Her scalp was burnt because she couldn't stand to wear her cap due to the oppressive heat; it was just too hot to be thinking about how sexy he looked with sweat teasing his temples. Anyway, she was sure she looked like a hag, sweat soaking the collar of her shirt, causing her hair to spaz and frizz.
She'd watched him struggle to appear as though he was unaffected by the heat; that had ended in his verbally attacking an officer on duty, scaring the man to the edge of the scene. It would have been amusing if she hadn't been so busy pushing damp hair behind her ear while trying to label an evidence container.
After six hours, they finally managed to collect everything they needed and had very nearly sprinted to the SUV, sucking down bottled water from a cooler in the back. It was a good twenty minutes before they got on the road as both Sara and Grissom had to attempt to change out of their soaking, skanky clothes and into fresh ones.
She had pulled a strangely alluring tye-dyed wife beater on over pair of khaki shorts; to complete the look she tossed on a pair or worn running sneakers and had sunk into the passenger seat as she waited for Grissom to change behind the car. He'd returned wearing a hideous Hawaiian thing and beat up old jeans. Sara was immediately smitten with the softer side of him and swallowed the crack she was about to make.
When he had asked her if she was ready to get going, her reply had come loud and fast and she immediately regretted it. The look that he gave her, though startled, was tinged with an edge of raw hurt. Sara cringed immediately and slapped her hands down on her bare knees.
"I didn't mean it like that, sorry."
"I know."
They had been mostly silent since then save for brief exchanges about whether or not either had to go to the bathroom and when to stop for food.
After another few seconds staring at her pink skin, she peeled her arm from the door and let it fall to rest in her lap.
"What are you thinking?" he surprised her by saying. Sara simply blinked and shrugged toying with the cord tie of her shorts.
Her head shook a few times before she mumbled a "Nothing," that was punctuated by an incredibly loud pop-bang-crunk that had her yelling a "Fuck!" and him a "What the hell?"
Sara braced her hands on the dashboard as Grissom deftly maneuvered the large vehicle over to the side of the deserted and treeless highway. She was the one who hopped out first, shielding her eyes as she glanced at the right front tire before shuffling back to check the back ones. Grissom remained inside, watching as her steps caused dust to plume behind her.
A moment later she reappeared, swinging her long frame back into the car. "Yeah, we blew a tire... figures." Promptly tossing her sunglasses up onto the dash, she pulled her hair out of the ponytail and messily tossed it into a bun.
"Well, what are you doing?" He asked, watching as she made to exit the vehicle once more.
An amused look passed over her face, "I'm changing the tire, what do you think I'm doing?"
Huffing out what sounded to be a very misogynistic laugh, he replied, "Sara, I can do that."
But she was shaking her head and stepping out of the car. "There's a reason you always have me working mechanics," she commented dryly before grinning at him. "And besides, you've been crouching all day and you'll barely be able to walk later as it is."
He rolled his eyes and followed her out of the car, rounding the side to see her open the trunk. He allowed himself a brief glance of her backside before skimming down her legs and then he moved in to help her. Grissom pulled back the panel in the floor to reveal the extra tire. Sara glanced sidelong at him as he hauled it up and onto the rear bumper.
Sara clutched the tire iron with a huff and tossed it to the sand on her right. "Gimme that," she gestured with a nod of her head at the tire though she didn't bother waiting for him to move out of the way.
He thoughtfully grabbed the jack and set it down on the ground next to the tire.
Sara wrapped an arm around the rubber donut and hauled it to the ground, rolling it over next to the iron. Amused by her sudden haughtiness, Grissom folded his arms over his chest and watched as she placed the jack under the car and began to press it down with her foot. Once at the proper height, she reached for the iron. Placing the opening of the iron over a nut and stood to step on it until it budged, her breasts jostling as a bit as she did so. Her little grunts of exertion were particularly endearing to him and lest he be cracked over the head with the hard metal bar, Grissom simply stood out of the way and watched.
His chivalrous offer earlier had been meant with immediate dismissal and he knew that if were to implore further that it would only upset her. The only two things that were on his mind at that point was her oddly arousing appearance as she wielded the tire iron and his concern that she would over-exert or possibly injure herself.
One hand was braced on the window of the car as she hopped so that the last of the nuts was loosened and screwed off. There were already slight grease smudges on the tips of her fingers from where she has slipped around the screws and rather than allow it to remain on her fingers she wiped it on the rubber of the donut.
Licking his lips, tasting the sweat that had settled on his upper lip, he continued to watch silently as she worked her magic. What was it about women who knew their way around stereotypically male duties that turned men on so much?
Psychologically there was a simple explanation, but Grissom couldn't be bothered to think of it at the moment. The angle at which she was kneeling on the ground gave him a tantalizing little peak of the trail of freckles that smudged her cleavage.
This was turning out to be a rather interesting day for him.
For her... not so much. Her knees dug into the sand and gravel below her and she felt a slow trickle of sweat slide down her neck. This sucked but for some reason, demonstrating her prowess when it came to automobiles always excited her a little. Sara rolled the new tire into position and heaved it on, nearly falling on her ass as she did so. Grissom started at that, his hands shooting out in front of him as though he'd have actually gotten to her in time. That move made her smile a little as she plucked a stray nut off of the asphalt and rotated it on a few times before tightening it completely with the iron.
She had to press it down with her feet a few times, allowing him another fine glance of her breasts moving with her exertions. Another sly grin peaked on his face; he was just glad that the salacious glint in his eyes was hidden by his shades. Another four times he was privy to her little mechanical dance and became enamored of the way her hair bobbed as she moved and of the way her little pink tongue peeked out at the side of her mouth.
When the tire was firmly in place, she kicked it for good measure and stood, hands on her hip. Nodding to the tire, she smiled, "Eh?"
"Admirable job," he rasped, dipping his head in acknowledgement of her feat. Sara smiled at him and moved to depress the jack, tossing it next to the tire once she had. She then bent to pick up the tire, her shorts slipping up high on her thighs, higher than they had previous and Grissom couldn't help it.
He grunted.
Sara paused as she began to stand, the hot rubber pressing against the thin skin on the inside of her arms. "Are you alright?" came her low inquiry as she straightened completely and moved towards the trunk. She too grunted as she heaved the deflated tire into the back, moving to place the jack and the iron in on top of it. As she moved to replace the flooring she heard him exhale heavily and slowly turned towards him, settling herself on the bumper whilst crossing her arms over her chest. "What are you thinking?" she pressed, beckoning him into the shade that the opened trunk provided. "Hm."
Grissom swallowed and smiled and seated himself next to her. Sara smiled at his proximity and swung her leg to nudge his thigh with hers. "I was thinking, that this was a very... intimate moment for you and I," he conceded, shocking her slightly.
Tilting her head, Sara unclenched and placed her hands on the carpet behind her. "Yeah?" she asked sweetly, tilting her chin up to him. "How come?"
"What, you don't think so?" he blinked before he turned to glance at her.
The smile she was wearing was quirky, sweet, smoothly sensual. "I think... that most shared moments between us... alone... are very much intimate for more reasons than I care to say right now."
A smile slid up on Grissom's lips too, and he nodded slowly, glancing to the hot sky before sliding closer to her. Sara looked down at where his right hand lay next to hers and watched the moment slow when his left moved to cup her cheek. They sat like that for a good while before he leaned in and brushed hers lips with his one, two, three times before he actually captured her bottom lip and slid his tongue over it.
There was nothing for her to do but smile and bring her fingers to lay upon his. There was nothing she could do but laugh as his hand slid from her cheek to the back of her slick neck. There was nothing she could do but kiss him deeply when he opened his mouth and slid his sweet tongue against hers.
And then they were kissing, really kissing. They were kissing as though they were teenagers, as if it had been a newly invented sport, as if they were out to prove something. They were kissing sloppily and perfectly, clashing teeth and bumping noses. They were kissing the other like the other needed to be kissed, as though they were battling the sun for both heat and passion.
When he pulled away from her, trailing a damp, callused hand down her arm, he sat back on his hands as well, content to leave her palm resting atop his knuckles. "Would it be too forward of me to say that you're the only person who can wrap me completely in the intimacy of a moment?"
"A moment?" she inquired, her voice having melted somewhere between the beginning and end of the kiss.
He looked at her, his eyes no longer soft or affectionate, but serious and passionate, the irises nearly swallowed by the black of his pupil. "Of a second; you can leave me speechless and wanting in a second."
Sara's smiled dimmed as she stared at him in interest. "You'd be surprised at the effect I can have in a minute," she cooed sensually and waited for him to respond.
Grissom blinked and looked back out at the deserted desert highway in front of them. "No… I've been wrapped in you, seconds and minutes," he began, speaking slowly and in that low tone that she could only compare to thick syrup. "I think I would very much like to know what it feels like to be wrapped in you for a day…"
A sweet roil turned her stomach and she licked her lips. "Oh yeah?"
"Certainly," he said, clearing his throat as he did so. "Or what it's like to be held in a moment with you… for a year."
Oh, Sara felt wonderfully warm, as though his words were sliding through her veins, reaching her heart and causing it to beat erratically. "I do…" she began, working up the courage to imply what she intended to. "Have amazing staying power… I can hold a moment… forever."
He looked at her again then, his gaze sliding from serious to soft to surprised at her suggestion. "I think I'd like to remain in a moment with you forever," she whispered, wriggling her hand beneath his and twined their fingers together.
He said nothing, betrayed nothing but when he nodded once-stiffly, succinctly-she knew what it meant and it made her heart slow and breathe and thank her for getting it what it had needed for oh so long.
"Let's get going," he muttered and they stood; Sara trailed her fingers from his as she moved to shut the trunk and he watched her round the corner of the car before he moved to enter it himself.
Inside, he started the vehicle again, a fresh blast of cool air hitting them in the face as he did so. Sara slid herself back in the seat and replaced her arm on the burning face of the door. "I could use some food," he said, his voice taking on a strange lightness that she'd only heard a handful of times.
It hit her then, that it was the voice he used only during moments with her… during her moments. The Sara moments… and he had a voice for them.
She smiled, feeling lighter and more relaxed than she had in months. "I'm amenable to food," came her lazy reply.
Grissom smiled and leaned over to brush his lips over the crest of her ear, "I don't want this moment to end."
"So don't let it," the easy reply slipped off her tongue as she stared down at the stretch of highway they had yet to cover.
Grissom sat back and smiled… and drove.