A/N: Disclaimers, etc. in the first chapter. This is Booth's side of the story, although I don't intend to re-tell everything. I just want to give more. Scarlet.

If Only, part one

In my mind, I trace the path back to the night when I had first given in to my need of her. The Donnelly case had been particularly harsh for both of us. We had solved it and had arrested the bad guy, but in the end, we had both felt that we had lost somehow. I hadn't been ready to go home to my empty apartment - Rebecca had taken Parker on a weekend holiday. I hadn't been ready to spend my weekend with only the memories of the case.

I had suggested ordering in some dinner when we arrived at her apartment and she had accepted. I think that maybe she hadn't been ready to face the night alone either; not that she would ever have admitted as much to me. Her feelings were, as usual, hidden deep beneath the surface. Still, she had accepted my company and for that I had been grateful. Even today, I was grateful, in spite of all that had happened. Maybe more so - because of all that had happened.

Dinner had consisted of our classics: Thai food and Spanish wine. Actually, there were many times that I would have preferred a good bottle of beer to a glass of wine, but it was all that she had had on hand and neither of us had felt compelled to leave her apartment once we had arrived.

When I think about it, it was the wine's fault - what happened next. It wasn't that either of us had had so much to drink that we couldn't be held accountable for our actions. It was just that the wine had silenced my inner censors. The ones that would have immediately dismissed the suggestion that I kiss away the little bit of sauce that had teased me from the corner of her mouth. It was the wine that had encouraged me to then deepen that kiss, to tease her tongue with mine, to cup her breast in my hand and tangle my fingers in her hair. The thought had been my own, but the wine had allowed me to finally act on it.

It was as if once the door had been opened, neither of us had been capable of closing it. She had tasted wonderful and the feeling of her body beneath my hands was indescribable. I was well beyond the point of no return by the time she had stood, pulling me to my feet and leading me to her bedroom. There, as we had quickly undressed, I was able to fully appreciate her body, recognizing that my daydreams had done her little justice.

"You're beautiful," I had breathed, the words seeming to escape my lips of their own accord.

"You're very well-formed yourself," she had answered with a sexy half-smile as she had stepped forward to caress my chest.

That had been all the encouragement that I had needed and we had tumbled atop the bed. The love-making had been incredible, beyond my every expectation, and then some. Afterwards, I had fallen asleep with her head tucked against my chest and a smile on my face. That smile had quickly faded the next morning when I had woken up.

"It's human nature, Booth," her words replayed in my mind and their impact still caused a weight to slam into my stomach. "We were just trying to celebrate life… to justify our existence. It didn't mean anything. It doesn't change anything."

At the time, it had been worse than waking to a bucket-full of ice cold water being dumped on my head. I had woken to that deep sense of satisfaction that only a night filled with good sleep and better sex could bring. I remember stretching, feeling for her warmth beside me, thinking of starting the day much in the same manner that we had ended the night. Instead of her warm body, my fingers had found only cold sheets.

She had entered the room then - completely dressed - and had pronounced the whole experience as a mistake. Not even a mistake. It would have been better if she had said that it had been a mistake. But she couldn't even assign that much meaning to our night. She then proceeded to explain it away with some anthropological mumbo-jumbo and I had been too shell-shocked to dispute her claims. Instead, I had accepted them, dressing hastily after she had left the room.

Throughout the weeks that followed, I struggled to find a comfortable working relationship again with her. In the first few days, I feared that we would never recover our friendship; that the very reason that had prevented me from pursuing her in the first place had become our reality; that one night of pleasure had ruined years - potentially - of harmonious partnership.

It didn't help matters much that I couldn't get her out of my head either. Whether it was discussing a case or driving to a crime scene, I was constantly reminded of our night together. Before then, I had been able to rein in my imagination, but my memories seemed to be out of control. A hint of her perfume, the curve of her lips, a glimpse of skin as she crossed her legs when she was wearing a skirt. All of these things warred against my self-discipline, bringing flashes of that night to my mind, often at the most inconvenient of times.

"Booth, I'm about the same size as the victim and you have the same build as our suspect. Stand behind me and I'll show you."

Bones' voice played clearly in my mind as I remembered a particularly embarrassing incident of a few weeks ago. We were on the platform in the lab, debating the logistics of a murder and how it had occurred. I had been adamant that the victim couldn't have fought back as fiercely as the squints were saying and Bones had wanted me to help prove that I was wrong.

"But, you have martial arts training," I countered, trying to preserve my masculinity in front of the squints.

'Great, that's just what I need,' I thought. 'She'll toss me to the ground and then step on my neck and my reputation will be ruined forever.'

The scene played out in my mind and I had to fight to keep the grimace from my face.

"Don't worry, I won't hurt you," she answered, not that it eased my concern in any way.

I gave in, knowing that, if I argued any further, I would risk my reputation. They were the brains and I was supposed to be the brawn, after all. How could I be afraid of a little hand-to-hand combat with one of them?

I stepped behind her, covering her mouth with my right hand. I wrapped my left arm around her upper body, effectively securing both of her arms at her side. I was smirking but she couldn't see it because my mouth was next to her ear and I was breathing in her scent and I was trying vainly not to notice how nice it was to hold her in my arms.

My voice was raspy when I spoke: " Now what?"

Her eyes weren't wide open with the fear that would have been reflected in the victim. Instead, their lids were lowered provocatively and I instantly regretted having agreed to the demonstration. Her body was pressed against mine and her ass was fitted against my groin and I barely stopped myself from stroking the shell of her ear with my tongue.

"Guys, please, get a room already."

Angela's laughing comment brought me back to the bright lights of the lab. In truth, my mind was back in the lab, but my groin was still pressed against Bones' soft backside. That had never happened at the Jeffersonian before, so I'm pretty sure that my groin was still in her bedroom.

"Well, Bones," I had to clear my voice before continuing; her warmth in my arms proved to make speaking a little difficult. "I have you now and you don't have a dislocated shoulder or a broken wrist. And I don't have any broken ribs or any other injuries. I guess you were wrong."

I had been about to release her when she began struggling in my arms. Her movements had been aimless at first and they only served to stimulate me further. I could tell that she was trying to not act with her own instincts; the picture of me lying on the floor with her foot to my throat flashed through my mind again and this time it served to distract me from her hips as they rotated against me.

Her movements became more forceful and I shifted my position. I quickly relinquished the hold that my right arm had on her upper body and grabbed her right arm, twisting it gently up behind her back.

"There goes the shoulder." Angela announced and then Bones' left elbow tapped my ribcage.

"And the ribs," Hodgins added.

"You're not holding me close enough, Booth," Bones spoke from behind the loosened grip of my hand. "I can't show you how you'll break my wrist."

I released her then. I couldn't believe that she wanted me to hold her closer when I was certain that she had felt my cock pressing against her when she had struggled against me. I couldn't believe that I was at the point of being turned on by her even in the most unexciting environments and that she seemed to be completely unaffected.

"Bones, I don't want to break your wrist," I answered, frustrated. "Angela, isn't this why we have your Angelator-thing? So we don't get hurt trying to figure out how people got hurt."

"Yes, but the real thing is so much more stimulating," she answered with a smirk and her eyes dropped meaningfully to my crotch.

I laughed and turned my back to the group, discreetly trying to shift things around, hoping that no one else had noticed my predicament. I returned to our debate and conceded that the squints had been right again.

My defeat had been forgotten quickly, but the feel of her in my arms and the scent of her hair had stayed with me for the rest of the day. The rest of the night and many nights after that, too, if I were to be completely honest with myself.

After that day, I knew that I had to get her out of my mind. The fact that we had had sex hadn't meant anything to her, or if it had, certainly not anywhere near as much as it had meant to me. I may have had a few glasses of wine that night, but I had seen our having sex as naturally, the next step in our relationship. I had thought that there was something beyond the usual partner-like feelings between us. I had believed that the sparks that jumped between us had stemmed from some kind of natural chemistry. I had been wrong in every instance.

A/N: Thank you for reading so far. Please review. Your feedback keeps me motivated and helps me improve. Scarlet.