A/N: I am so thrilled to see there are still a number of folks out there reading Bones fanfiction. Thanks so much for all the wonderful comments about the last chapter and the favorites/follows. Hope this one delivers for you too. Apologize in advance for any typos as I didn't read it over as much as I typically do.
And yes, this is still M.
Disclaimer: I own nothing Bones related except my imagination. Nor do I own anything associated with Walmart. (4/25/2017)
"Ms. Julian." Brennan acknowledged her feisty colleague with surprise, nearly dropping the tomato she held in her hand.
"Dr. Brennan. I sure as hell didn't expect to encounter you here this afternoon." Just like anyone else would react when they bump into a friend or acquaintance in a similar situation, curiosity compelled her eyes downwards to check out Brennan's cart. And, even though Brennan was not nearly as adept as her husband at reading other people, she knew the instant that Ms. Julian noticed the abundance of prophylactics in her cart. Caroline's eyes got large, her eyebrows lifting almost to her hair line, and she muttered a barely discernable "Good Lord Almighty" under her breath.
"We ran out," Brennan felt compelled to explain.
"Wh-, what?"
"Booth and I. We used our last condom last night and when we needed one this morning, we realized we were all out."
Caroline wasn't going to touch the 'when we needed one this morning' comment with a ten foot pole. "Well, Cher, looks like you're stocking up enough to outfit an entire Battalion." The sarcasm in her voice went right over Brennan's head.
Brennan looked down at her stash. "No, this wouldn't be sufficient for an entire Battalion. A Battalion typically consists of several hundred soldiers. It might suffice for a Company though. Not that we're planning to share. These are intended just for us," she quickly clarified.
"Of course they are. Try not to use them all at one time though. We've already got one squint in a wheelchair. Don't need another one."
Brennan was just about to claim she didn't know what that meant when it hit her and she started to laugh. "Oh, you're making a joke because if Booth and I used all of these condoms one after another during a continual lovemaking session, it's highly unlikely I'd be able to stand up afterwards, probably for quite some time."
"Riiiiighht." Caroline watched in fascination as Brennan continued to snicker. Even after all these years, Caroline still found herself occasionally surprised by the woman in front of her. She'd observed Dr. Brennan enough times on the witness stand over the years to understand that things like methods of birth control would be unlikely to cause her the same level of embarrassment a normal person might experience, but for someone as old and jaded as Caroline sometimes felt, it was still refreshing to speak to someone who didn't constantly prevaricate and dance around the truth. "Since you're all science this and science that, I would have pegged you as someone who relies on a more medicinally oriented approach to birth control."
"Oh, I take birth control pills too. But, I already have two children as evidence that birth control pills alone are inadequate." Brennan couldn't hold back the proud smile that blossomed across her face as she boasted about her husband. "Booth's semen is really quite extraordinary, despite his age. His sperm count is extremely high and his motility is very impressive."
"I did not need to know that."
During the course of their conversation, Brennan had also made a quick, surreptitious survey of the contents of Caroline Julian's shopping cart. Floral scented bubble bath; a paperback novel, presumably a historical romance since the cover included an image of a woman in Victorian era clothing whose bodice was pulled so low her breasts almost spilled over as she was pressed up close to a shirtless man in breeches that was only a breath away from claiming a kiss; a bottle of inexpensive wine that was simply labelled a 'Red Blend'; and an assortment of food items including shrimp, frozen crawfish tails, a head of garlic, celery, bell peppers, onions, chicken, andouille sausage, and Tony Chachere's creole seasoning.
Brennan tilted her head towards Caroline's cart. "Looks like you intend to make a batch of gumbo. You have most of the ingredients for it there."
"Yep. Mmm-mmm. I just love me some good gumbo," she answered. "I expect this case is going to keep me busy until we can put the murdering weasel who buried that body in the yard behind bars. I plan to cook a big pot of comfort food tonight, before the press fully figures out what's going on and starts harassing me non-stop, and just relax with a glass of wine. Hell, I may even drink the whole bottle by myself."
"I met the author of your novel there once at a writer's awards banquet a couple years ago. She did not seem to value the importance of thorough research. I expect she is woefully inaccurate in her recounting of historical facts."
Caroline huffed. "She's accurate enough in the parts that I'm interested in." The steamy parts, that was. Why else read a novel like that?
"Bones. Hey, Bones, take a look at what I found." At the sound of his excited voice, both women turned their heads to watch Booth come around the corner and head their way. Tucked under one arm, he held the air filter he'd gone to search for as well as new windshield wiper blades but in his other hand, he held yet one more box of 36 condoms that he was waving around enthusiastically. Brennan stole a quick glance back towards Ms. Julian, guessing her husband hadn't seen the prosecutor yet. He kept talking as he drew nearer. "Bones, these are so cool. They glow . . ." Booth finally spotted Caroline and faltered slightly on the end of his sentence ". . . in the dark."
"Seeley Joseph Booth," Caroline just frowned and shook her head as she plucked about a half dozen ripe red tomatoes from the bin closest to her, preparing to leave the dynamic crime solving duo for the day. "I will never be able to look at you in the same way again."
Booth could feel the flush starting beneath his collar and creeping up his neck, causing his ears to tingle with warmth. "Caroline," he choked out.
She maneuvered her cart to go around theirs. "I can just imagine what the boys back at the Bureau will have to say about this." Booth was too mortified to notice the twinkle in her eye as she walked by, but Brennan saw it.
He turned to his wife. "What is she doing here?"
Brennan thought that was a pretty silly question with a pretty clear answer. "Shopping. Just the same as us."
Caroline, not quite out of ear-shot yet hollered back over her shoulder. "Not exactly the same as you, Cher," a final reference to the difference in the content of their carts.
It always felt good to be proven right Caroline thought as she wandered away. The first time she saw Booth and Brennan together was on the case where she told Booth he had to fire the good doctor. Their chemistry was apparent even then. The next time she met Dr. Brennan was in a café in New Orleans. The way the partners interacted was fascinating and she'd have bet money that if they weren't sleeping together then, they would be soon. Amazingly, she'd have lost that bet. She'd never met two more stubborn, moralistic, perfectly suited for one another people in her life. By the time several years had passed and she coerced Dr. Brennan into kissing Booth under the mistletoe, she'd about given up on them, but when the demand for five steamboats morphed into a flotilla almost double the required size without any extra prompting from her, she knew that eventually the pull they felt for each other would bring them together. As much as she enjoyed giving Seeley Booth a hard time, observing the strength of the passion he and his wife still shared brought a smile to her face. Glow in the dark condoms, indeed.
The rest of the drive home was tense. Even though Brennan insisted that Caroline was just teasing them and could be counted on to maintain their privacy, Booth kept fretting over the ways that the lady from Louisiana could use her knowledge from their unplanned rendezvous to extort something from him. She was not a woman he wanted to be beholden too. He'd owed her favors in the past and she didn't hold back when it was time to collect. On top of that, his wife's hand had been gently tracing patterns on the inside of his upper thigh for miles now and he'd been waiting, breathlessly, for her to become a little more bold, debating internally whether he should encourage her or dissuade her if she did.
When they were only 10-15 minutes from their house, Booth pulled the SUV to a stop at a red light and Brennan suddenly, without warning, opened her door and jumped out of the car. "Bones? What the hell? What are you doing?"
"Just getting something." Brennan strode behind the SUV and popped open the tailgate, reaching in to grab the bag of prophylactics they had just purchased and stored in the back before shutting the hatch and hopping back into the front seat, right as the light turned green.
Looking at what she had on her lap, Booth grinned. "Did you see the face on the kid that checked us out?"
Brennan chuckled, giving her husband an admiring sideways glance. "Yes. I think you may have achieved hero-worship status in his eyes. With the first box he rang up, he kind of smirked . . . with the second, he snickered . . . by the time he rang up the sixth box, he just seemed awestruck when he looked at you."
"He was checking you out pretty hard before he was done, too."
"Mmm. I suppose that explains why you put your arm around my waist, publicly declaring me as your mate in a non-verbal gesture. As much as I enjoy your physical displays of affection, you must realize that your role as my lover is not in jeopardy to any other rival, especially not some young, adolescent male who, in no way, could ever please me like you do."
Booth removed one hand from the steering wheel and tenderly brushed her hair back from her face, tucking a strand behind her ear. "Doesn't matter if he's not a real threat, Bones. He needs to learn to simply be respectful too. You deserve that and so much more, even from pimply faced adolescent boys at Walmart that find you just as beautiful as I do."
Brennan gave him one of those smiles that said without words how much she adored him before she turned back to the bag in her lap and started rifling through it. "I think there may be a flaw in our plan, Booth."
"Oh? What's that?"
"We have too many options now." She lifted two boxes at random from the bag and studied them side by side. "I can't make up my mind which condom I want to try first."
"So? Just grab one."
"Booth!" Brennan gave him a horrified look at his typical, male response. "No, we can't do it like that. Each of these different brands has a unique element to it designed to enhance our pleasure based on the mood and tempo we anticipate for our lovemaking. Just grabbing any old one won't ensure we'll be getting the optimal experience from our purchases." Tossing the boxes back into the bag, she reached for her phone. "Maybe there's an app that can help us make the best decision."
"On your phone?" Booth was incredulous. "You expect to find an app for something like this?"
"Yes," she nodded. "There are apps for all kinds of things."
"You're crazy."
"Ah-ha. Found one," she sing-songed. "Trojan makes a phone app and it says here that it includes a condom selection tool . . . Hmm, that's interesting. It even has a vibrator simulator that uses the phone's vibration features to mimic the pulsing patterns of some of their most popular vibrators."
Booth rolled his eyes and reached over to grab her phone from her fingers then toss it back onto her lap. "Alright, stop that, Bones. Put that away and let's just think about this rationally for a minute and I'm sure we can figure it out. For example, it's still the middle of the afternoon, so the glow in the dark condoms would be kinda pointless and we can eliminate those, for now."
"Oh, very good, Booth. By using process of elimination, we should be able to make it an easier decision. Are you still feeling horny from this morning?"
Booth gave her a lascivious grin. "Darlin', around you, always."
"Good, that's good to hear." Her voice was a little breathless. "Well, I'm also still feeling quite aroused, from this morning and from our shopping excursion. I don't believe we need the extra sensation from one of the textured types at the moment. Likewise, the warming condom would be wasted right now as I don't expect to last long enough to enjoy it once I have you inside me so that eliminates three more."
"Jesus, Bones." Booth would never fully understand how listening to her talk, no matter what she happened to be speaking about, turned him on so much. He could feel his need for her escalating with each sentence she uttered. "We'll be home in less than 2 minutes. You have until then to make your choice because, baby, I am not waiting a minute longer."
"We're down to choosing between the red condoms or the Sensis thin condoms. Which do you want to try?"
"I don't care, Bones. Either one."
Brennan huffed. "You're no help at all."
"Oh, I'll help. I'll help rid you of that blouse you're wearing. And I'll help strip those pants from your body." Booth pulled into their driveway and turned to give her his most intense predatory look. "Times up, Bones. Better run, 'cause here I come."
"Red," she said tearing open the box and extracting a single foil pack as she jumped out of the car and ran for the front door, Booth hot on her heels.
True to his word, he had half the buttons on her blouse undone by the time she got the door unlocked. They burst through the opening, giggling like a couple of teenagers, and as soon as they crossed the threshold, he spun around pressing her against the door as it closed. Booth bent his arms at the elbows and leaned his forearms against the door on either side of her head, caging her in. He pressed his whole body up against hers as he aggressively dove in to steal a heated kiss from her lips.
Brennan let the Walmart bag with the many boxes of condoms slip from her fingers and crash to the ground unheeded while still holding on to the single foil package she selected as their winner for the afternoon clutched in her left palm. Lips, tongues, hands – they all seemed to have missions of their own, touching, pulling, tugging, squeezing. Clothing seemed to simply melt from their bodies. It was there, and then it wasn't. Booth had helped to remove her blouse, her pants, and everything else she was wearing, then went to work on his own clothes.
"Bed," she grunted at one point when Booth released her lips and started trailing wet kisses along her jaw and down her throat. After all, their bed was only twenty feet away from the front door, max.
"Sure," he responded, but he didn't step back and she just twined her arms tighter around his neck, hitching one of her legs around his waist as she tilted her head back against the door, baring her throat to him.
They didn't need a lot of foreplay. The whole afternoon had been foreplay. She slid one hand down his chest, scraping her fingernail across his nipple, then his abdominals, until she could tangle her fingers in his pubic curls, cupping him, and stroking him. "You're already so hard."
"Locked and loaded." Booth took a nipple between his teeth and worried it back and forth. "Target identified. Definitely ready to go."
She chuckled. "Then I guess it's up to me to dress your sniper." Using her teeth, she tore open the condom package, then pushed Booth away, just far enough that she could watch what she was doing as she sheathed him in fire engine red. "All done."
Booth reached down and hoisted both her thighs up around his waist, using his body and the door at her back to hold her off the ground as he lined himself up and slipped in between her wet folds. "Fuck. I needed this. I needed you."
"Booth. Oooh. I love how you feel inside me."
It never got old. Year after year, no matter how many times they'd performed some variation of this particular dance before, it was always still so exciting, so satisfying. He knew where to touch and she knew where to stroke, but every move they made still expressed the undeniable love and desire they felt for one another. The emotions behind their actions kept the activity from feeling dull or routine.
He suckled, she moaned.
She squeezed, he hissed.
It wasn't going to be one of their longest sessions ever, but neither one cared about that. He thrust, in and out; she rotated her hips, clamping down on him to hold him close. Booth could feel that tell-tale tingling at the base of his spine and knew the end was approaching. "Bones."
"I'm with you."
"Almost . . . oh, God."
"Harder, Booth . . . . aaaah, yes, just like that. Oh . . . Oh, yes . . . now."
Booth impaled her with his cock, freezing in place once he was as deep as he could go and felt his body release while hers contracted all around him. They clung to one another as they rode out the storm, sharing the intimate experience in the most elemental of ways. Slowly, the tension they'd both been feeling all day seemed to slip away and they both relaxed, foreheads pressed together as they exchanged soft, tender kisses. Finally, Booth pulled out and stepped back, letting Brennan's legs fall to the floor so she could support herself against the door. She watched as he reached down to remove the used condom.
"I've always thought that red's a good color on you."
.
.
THE END.
A/N: Shout out to FaithinBones for the gumbo recipe idea! Feedback is always appreciated.
