Chapter 7: A Whole New Level

"I'm sorry for taking the bathroom for so long, handsome," Calleigh said upon leaving the room in question in her sleeping attire, her hair rolled into a towel. Even at night time, all her makeup gone, Calleigh Duquesne looked breathtaking, and as she halted by the door just when he meant to walk in, he was sure she had noticed his gaze upon her figure, had maybe noticed his mouth open slightly. No, Horatio told himself. He shouldn't let his mind wander in this direction. She did not share any romantic feelings for him. She had only nearly died a couple of days ago, too. This was just not in the cards – not tonight if at all.

"No worries," he managed, swallowing visibly, moving to walk into the bathroom before he did something incredibly stupid: this being either hugging her, kissing her, carrying her to his bed, carrying her to the bed in the guestroom… just when Calleigh leaned her hand against the doorway so that if he wanted to get through, he would have to bow his head.

"I have seen you looking at me, handsome. I have seen you looking at me multiple times – in the way that I longed for you to look at me for so many years… I just–"

"Why tell me now then?" Horatio wondered, no longer interested in leaving his spot by the door of the bathroom or the shower which he initially had meant to have there. Instead, he just watched her with his clear blue eyes.

"I was scared…" she admitted. "You got married to Marisol, and then I barely saw you at all even at work. I believe I've seen those looks return to me in these past few days, though. Maybe I see what I long to see too much. After all, you–"

He reached over and raised her face to his. "You don't," he assured, a smile on his lips. "I've been feeling more than friendship for you for so long I can hardly remember a time where I didn't love you, and those feelings never stopped. One of the reasons why I never said anything was because of the other men: John, Peter… another reason is the policy at CSI. I didn't want us to be separated for loving each other. Between colleagues, relationships aren't, technically allowed either, but they're more willing to overlook it. I've seen many get fired or at least permanently separated for having a relationship or even flirt with their superiors, though. I don't want that to happen to us."

"Of course," Calleigh said, nodding with her understanding. "I don't want that to happen either. I'm sorry – I wasn't even thinking that far."

His forefinger gently trailed the length of her jaw line and his blue eyes caught on her teal green eyes. "I'm not sorry," he said. "I'm not sorry at all. I'm just sorry we had to discover like this, so many years later and a few relationships and a marriage later. I regret you never having told me of your feelings, but… then again I didn't tell you anything either, so I'm as much to blame if there is any blame. I thought you wouldn't want an old guy like me. You're so young, so beautiful… so lively."

Calleigh immediately shook her head, moving her fingers over his lips. "Never blame, handsome," she said. "Plus, I quite like the lines of age on you. They make you look less of a school boy."

"Oh, you believe I looked like a school boy in my younger years?"

"I didn't say that…" she said, letting her hands fall on his chest and trail up to his shoulders slowly. She then stood on her tiptoes to kiss him, barely touching his rough lips with her own before slowly moving away, a look of what he interpreted as longing in her eyes.

"Calleigh," he choked. "We can't do this…"

"We can and we will," she replied. "We can always be careful… very careful and very slow."

"Calleigh, really," Horatio interrupted, hands falling to her hips and sliding to her lower back, dangerously close to her ass and lingering just a few inches above it. Truth was, he was longing very much to just push Calleigh against the wall and to make love to her with this suppressed longing of so many years. He knew that he couldn't, though. While she would deny still being weak, he didn't know what intercourse would do to her. He intended to leave her so breathless if they did, and maybe… that just wasn't done given the situation.

"Horatio. I need you," she said. "I know you will be careful. That's enough."

Then his eyes fell shut and a groan left his mouth as her warm hand cupped him through the fabric of his formal trousers. Oh, how Horatio wanted her… but they couldn't do this now or anytime soon anyway. They hadn't spoken to each other in years. Then she had nearly died and had woken to him. Then he had taken her in. Then they admitted having loved one another for years suddenly while clearly still having been with others on the way even until very recently in her case, and they were just looking at one another there, aroused by one another, much like two teens?

If he lined it all up, it seemed ridiculous enough; like a soap opera for grannies. Yet as his eyes fluttered open again and clearly saw the burning need she still held within teal green, the longing for him in them, and felt her warm hand still upon the evidence of his burgeoning need, he knew no matter how surreal it might sound to a reader if he wrote it down on paper or a listener if he recounted it verbally, it was fucking true.

He blamed his hormones for letting himself be lead back that easily into his wide bedroom, her pinkish lips on his and tongue in his mouth, her fingers snared in his red hair, guiding his head against her, and the smell of her shower gel in his nostrils. In no time at all, she had pushed him back on the high mattress and undressed him while she continued to kiss him. He later wondered where the devil his own hands had been at the time; why he hadn't used them to push her off or at least stop her or slow her down.

They fell upon naked flash suddenly – she seemed to have divested herself of her own clothes as well: it was at this realization that he found the breasts squashed against his bare ribcage were bare as well, and he felt his head swim. He felt sloshed and high if he had even known how it felt like being high. To know, he would have had to ask her since Calleigh had accidentally gotten high on a case once… Oh, the irony of it all.

Another bout of irony was that he was usually so observing, and now she had gotten them undressed without him even having realized so until later. He tried to gather his thoughts and all, but that was very hard when an attractive woman had managed to pin you down naked to your bed and was kissing the air from your very lungs as if her life depended on it. He finally managed to gather enough of his mind to turn his head away and catch his breath, enabling her to catch hers as well.

He shifted his pelvis slightly somehow and… felt her. Mischief gleamed in her eyes as she realized he knew. "Very slowly…" she whispered, followed by a groan just not loud enough to be louder than his.