The Evidence in the Act
A/N: I found this on my computer the other day and decided to edit and share it. It's set just after Season 2, Episode 21 (Stargazer in a Puddle). You may recognize a snippet or two as coming from my one-shot series, Stolen Moments, but this was actually written prior to that. Heed the M rating, please! This will be a two-shot, once I get around to writing the second half. The excerpt below is from Stacie Cassarino's poem "Summer Solstice." I've linked to the full text in my profile if you want to check it out – I encourage you to, it's beautiful! Okay, enough rambling on my part. Please enjoy and let me know what you think. Oh, and for those of you following From the Heart, the next chapter should be up within a few days. Thanks!
Tell me our story: are we impetuous,
are we kind to each other, do we surrender
to what the mind cannot think past?
Where is the evidence I will learn
to be good at loving?
"You're not a bad anything," he tells her for the second time that night, pulling her face to his like he wanted to earlier.
Her mouth is soft and warm, but unresponsive. She does not push him away, nor does she pull him closer, and the fireworks he expects never come. Booth knows that he has startled her into stagnation, so he ends the kiss with a brief sweep of his tongue across her sealed lips. His hands move to her shoulders, and he rubs his palms tenderly over her collarbone before dropping his arms to his sides. There is a storm coming, Booth's sure, and he awaits the inevitable. Brennan's blue-green eyes are hidden from his, downcast, and he watches as she raises the fingers of her left hand to her kiss-swollen mouth, rubbing them absently over her lips.
"Booth?" His name sounds odd, strangled.
"Yes, Bones?" He plays it cool.
"You kissed me." Brennan sounds surprised, as if it that very true fact has finally begun to register in her mind.
"I did." He nods. "And I'd like to do it again sometime, hmm?" Booth is just thankful that he hasn't yet been banished from her apartment.
"Why?" She is full of questions that he doesn't know if he has the answers to. But she's still Brennan, and he can try.
Booth backs away from her and turns, covering the length of her living room in six long steps. He paces, hands in his pockets, and thinks. What can he tell her? He can't say that he hasn't kissed anybody else in three months because he hasn't wanted to kiss anybody else but her. A confession of his love – yes, he admits it – would send her running, as would any attempt to explain the fuzzy spontaneity of his decision to finally lay one on her. With a sigh, Booth returns to stand in front of her. He doesn't touch her, not at first, and she finds his eyes with her own, the curiosity in her gaze shining through. What he tells her is the only thing that he can come up with.
"Because when I touched you here…" he tips her chin up with his finger, letting his thumb graze her bottom lip, "…like this, outside the diner that day, I wanted to taste you."
She immediately flushes, color dusting on her cheekbones, and Booth leaves her with her thoughts. His footsteps sound extra loud in the deafeningly silent room as he makes his way to her couch and sits with an audible thump. Brennan remains behind him, apparently unmoving, and he crosses his feet on the coffee table and waits; for what, he is not sure. In retrospect, he thinks, he probably should have phrased his… desires… more eloquently. However, sugarcoating his words would not make them any less true, and Brennan is far from being the master of subtlety. It's time for her to learn that he can be blunt, too.
"You can." He hears her voice from the vicinity of his left shoulder. Looking up and back, he sees that she has come within his reach. "You can," she repeats.
"Can what?" Booth can't imagine she means what he hopes she means.
"Taste me." She moves around the couch to stand in front of him. "Again." This wry afterthought makes his groin tighten painfully. Oh God, she means it.
Planting both of his feet firmly on the floor again, Booth reaches out and snags her wrist, tugging her nearer. She comes easily, surprising him, and he isn't quite sure how to proceed. He settles with sliding his hand downwards from her wrist, entwining his fingers with hers. Rubbing the soft skin of her hand with his thumb, he finally looks up and meets her gaze. She's watching him with that trademark Brennan look, as if he's a specimen of some sort. He swears he'll make that disappear soon enough.
Apparently he's waited too long, because Brennan suddenly drops his hand and crosses her arms in front of her, pulling her blouse over her head in one swift motion and tossing it carelessly to the floor. The sight of her ample breasts encased in her rose-colored bra makes Booth's mouth grow dry and sends all the blood in his body rushing southward. She is perfect, her skin nearly glowing in the waning light, and he leans forward to slide his arms around her waist. Booth puts his cheek to her stomach, inhaling her scent, and merely breathes for a moment, content just to hold her. When her fingers slip into his hair, short nails massaging his scalp, he raises his eyes to her face.
"You're beautiful," he says with reverence, sending a smoldering look over her body. "God, you're so beautiful."
Without giving her a chance to respond, almost afraid of what she would say, Booth presses the lightest of kisses to her bare skin, right above her navel. He hears her sharp intake of breath and smiles against her stomach, allowing his tongue to lavish the milky canvas before him. She feels so soft against him, so unlike the everyday Brennan he works with, and he is fascinated by her. She is his Achilles' heel, he knows, but he wouldn't have it any other way. When she makes a sound of pleasure in the back of her throat, he can feel it in his lips, and he slides his hands from the small of her back to her hips, grasping the belt loops on her dress pants to jerk her closer. Brennan's fingers tighten almost painfully in his hair, and he feels the impatient tug in his groin.
"Bones," he speaks her nickname to ground himself, barely managing to suppress the arousal threatening to boil over in his veins. "What are you thinking? You're quiet. It's kinda scaring me a little, y'know?" He would never ask her this, not in a million years, the words sounding breathless as they come from his lips, but he needs to know if she's feeling it, feeling this, whatever it is, too.
His head is being forced backwards, and then her hands are on his cheeks, framing his face between them. He looks up, finds her eyes, and is shocked to see the glimmer of tears in them, the first ones threatening to fall from the corners. Her expression is far from upset, offended, terrified, and all the other emotions that he usually associates with crying. Instead, she is smiling, an unguarded smile that he's never seen on her before. It momentarily bewilders him, and he doesn't move, simply cradling her hips in his cupped hands, unsure of what she needs from him at the moment.
"Thank you," she murmurs, stroking his hair tenderly with her fingertips, teasing them along the delicate shells of his ears. "Thank you, Booth, for everything." Before he can say anything, not that he could think of any response other than 'you're welcome,' as ridiculous as that sounds, she sinks to her knees between his legs and urges his arms around her bare shoulders, her brow somehow ending up in the vicinity of his chest. His t-shirt dries her eyes, and the feel of her back beneath his hands, marred only by the straps of her bra, renews his excitement. Her stillness continues to deeply concern him, but he can't find the words to question her again. Maybe she doesn't want this anymore, maybe he's succeeded in scaring her away, maybe it's too late to turn back, maybe…
All of his doubts are silenced when she pulls away and kisses him. He catches a glimpse of her eyes, startlingly blue in the dim light of the living room, before her lips are on his, hot and wet, and this time it's he who is unresponsive. Booth should know by now of her uncanny ability to surprise him, but he still wastes precious moments before he kisses her back. The change is immediate; their mouths open simultaneously, and he feels her tongue skim over his teeth before gliding between them to mingle with his own. At the first touch of her tongue on his, Booth's rational mind is no more, and his hands grip her sides tightly as he fights for control over his body. Brennan is amazing, everything he dreamed of and more, and he gradually softens the kiss until he is just occasionally pecking her lips with his. Her elbows dig into his chest as she curls her fingers into the neck of his t-shirt, stretching it down so that she can lean forward to pepper his throat with kisses.
"Come here," he says hoarsely, grabbing her arms and pulling her up so that she lies, curled into herself, against his side, her head on his shoulder. As she looks up at him, he brushes a lock of her hair from her eyes and smiles down at her. "I want this. To be honest, I have wanted this for awhile. I'm just so exhausted of fighting what I feel for you." he admits, the worry grooves on his forehead defined with the weight of his confession. "I'm tired of waiting, Bones. I'm tired of pretending there's nothing between us. I'm tired of that goddamn line I was stupid enough to draw." He knows it would be easy for her, out of fear, to dismiss him as a source of biologically imperative satisfaction, and he doesn't want that. If he can't have it all, if he can't have every part of her, then he will stop it now, before it escalates.
Brennan ducks her face in the space between his neck and shoulder, away from his burning gaze. He can almost hear the wheels turning in her head, and he lets his hand skim ever-so-lightly up her spine. Her shaky exhale is hot on his neck, but he doesn't move, not yet. She needs to do this on her own. Breathing in the aroma of her hair, something spicy and flowery and fruity all at the same time, Booth prays with everything he believes in for her to trust him. He won't know what to do if she doesn't.
Finally, she shifts, sitting up on the couch beside him. He doesn't want to look at her – now it is he who is afraid, afraid of what decision she has reached. Without warning, Booth feels her hand on his, where it had been the last few minutes in a nervous fist against his thigh. She tugs on it, turning him towards her, and he forces himself to meet her eyes. Holding his hand between both of hers, she draws it to her body where she lets it rest over her chest. He can feel the gentle thud of her heartbeat, and this calms him somehow.
"According to Euclidean geometry," she begins, and he can only hope that this turns out well, "the shortest distance between any two points is a line." Her fingers squeeze his gently, and, smiling, he raises his free hand to cradle her cheek in his palm. Point A, she is just his partner. Point B, she is just his everything. "I want this, too," she says softly, her voice barely above a whisper, and he realizes she is accepting all that he has to offer.
As she twists her head to kiss his wrist, Booth lets the hand on her face slide around to the nape of her neck. Pressing gently there, he urges her closer. Their noses touch, and he cannot resist the temptation. "I always knew your squintiness was good for something," he teases with a charm smile, tangling his fingers in her hair.
"Shut up, Booth," she admonishes, though her eyes are sparkling with amusement. He learns forward to kiss her, but she slips out of his grasp and settles back against the armrest of the couch. Seeing Brennan stretched out before him shirtless does wondrous things to his libido, and he is aware once again of how painfully hard he has been during this entire exchange. He fidgets in place, trying to get comfortable, but when he glances over at her, those eyes he loves so much are cast downward to his crotch, and that is the end of what remained of his self-control.
Her legs are the closest part of her body within reach, and when he grabs her ankle, she tenses out of reflex. Sliding his hand up her leg, Booth squeezes her calf with what he hopes is reassurance to keep her still. The dress pants she wears are of gray pinstripe variety, dark against the smooth fairness of her skin, and as his gaze travels up her body and his fingers rub tantalizing circles on the inside of her knee, he knows she will be amazing. He knows nothing will be more amazing than this, ever again.
He isn't close enough to touch her where he wants to, where she wants him to if her shortness of breath is any indication, so he lifts her legs and slides over, setting them back down to rest comfortably across his own. She obliges when, with the slightest of taps on her inner thigh, Booth encourages her legs to fall open. From this position, every part of her is easy access, and when he passes a haphazard finger over her through her pants, she gasps, his name caught in her throat. He swallows thickly and skims up her body further, his touch tracing an invisible path over her abdomen. Reaching her breasts, he slips his finger between them, under her bra, and feels the skin there, so soft above the hardness of her sternum. He bets her bones are perfect, as flawlessly beautiful as she is to him on the outside.
"I wonder," she muses out loud. "What will you call me?"
Booth knows what she is asking. What will he call her when he falls apart in her arms? He closes his eyes and leans his head back until it rests on the top of the couch. His hand drops away from her body, and he crosses his arms over his chest. In his dreams, he calls her Temperance and she calls him Seeley and they live happily ever after. In his fantasies, he calls her Roxie and she calls him Tony and they fuck every night beneath the lights of Vegas. But in reality? In reality, she is Bones and he is Booth and they are wandering in uncharted territory. If this is what it's like to be lost, he thinks, then he never wants to be found.
"I don't know," he replies, because it's the truth. Uncrossing his arms, he rests them over her legs in a relaxed embrace. "But I'd be willing to experiment…"
She sits up in one smooth motion, and her weight in his lap is welcome. After a brief moment of fumbling limbs and subtle adjustments, she is straddling him, knees on either side of his hips. Booth bites back a groan as she moves against him, her arms linked around his neck. With hands that shake, he cups her breasts in his palms, able to feel the heat of them even through the bra that, for some reason, he hasn't done away with yet.
"Booth, please," she sighs. Slumping forward until her chin rests on his shoulder, she breathes chaotically into his ear, begging him with her mumbled and indecipherable words. He rubs the hard points of her nipples, fingers sliding over satin and lace, until she can't take any more torture. Brennan's long fingers curl around his forearms, pulling his hands away from her breasts. His eyes, which had slid down to watch as he touched her, rise to hers and he can do nothing but kiss her. He kisses her with everything that's left in his body, all the love he has in his heart. He kisses her until her lips are red and swollen and neither of them can breathe. He tangles his tongue around hers, holds her face tenderly between his hands, his thumbs smoothing over the arch of her cheekbones again and again and again until he has memorized the feel of the bones beneath her skin.
"Stop it," she mumbles between kisses, even as her hips undulate against his. He matches her enthusiasm, relishing the way their pelvises fit together like lock and key. "Stop it, stop it," she begs again, but her lips do not leave his for more than a breathe. Booth knows she doesn't want him to stop. Her hands, instead of pushing him away like her words do, slide beneath his t-shirt and she curls her fingers, digging her nails into the tender flesh of his abdomen, as he kisses her deeper, wetter than before. He hisses with the slight pain and pulls away from her mouth, but Brennan leans in, following his lips with her own.
"Bones," he breathes, holding her body away from him to look at her. She's panting hard, her chest expanding to nearly touch his, and when she smiles at him, that enigmatic smile of hers, he simply loses it. Sliding his hands to her ass, he urges her to wrap her legs around his waist as he stands, stumbling unsteadily down the hall toward her bedroom.