Tia

CSI: Miami

Horatio/oc

Disclaimer: I own nothing of CSI: Miami, I do not know anyone connected with the show or with CBS and they do not know me, what a shame.

Dedicated to a lady I know and her friend, Rhonda.

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Hey, red, you think you're hiding back here? Damn! But you look so sexy in that tux." To have come up on the CSI Lieutenant unobserved, Tia Christiansen had to have sidled by the window of the opposite wall and gone behind the other decorative palm.

Since the Miami Mayor's soirée hadn't offered the fine whiskey he preferred for social lubrication, Horatio Caine had been leaning against a wall, indulging in a little people watching, and, obviously, had gotten too involved. Withholding his first response as well as his breath, he finally exhaled, "How long did you plan your route before sneaking up?"

He heard her hard-edged voice soften. "Just long enough, apparently. You forget to hide behind the door when they looked for volunteers for this thing?"

"Tried. Glass doors at the work place, you know. Besides, I'm the only one His Honor can remember. I think it's the hair."

"Yeah, it's why I keep picking on you, too. Wear a hat next time."

"You covering this affair for the paper or signaling ships at sea?" Horatio's eyes rode the simple lines of her flamboyantly red gown that hid nothing of her slender figure.

"No, I'm a close, personal friend of the Mayor's wife," she sniggered.

"Having called her a bitch to her face, I can see why. I'm shocked they let you through the front doors. So, you seem to have three of your favorite people to write about in the same room. No doubt tomorrow's edition will look a bit singed at the edges."

"You're being summoned, oh, victim o'mine."

The tight, close-lipped grin Horatio gave the Mayor and his cronies was what Tia called his silly 'I'm smiling because I was told to' look saying that it was a neon lit 'tell' on his real feelings of ambivalence. He was certain that she would grieve him about it later, but the way she'd do it would sure make showing up at this dog-and-pony-show worth the effort.

"How," he had asked her once, "can you jump into bed with me and then write what you do the next day? Isn't that against the rules?"

With her light brown hair fanned around her head in a curling mass, she'd flashed her hazel eyes up at him, smirked, then, raising her head, grabbed a few of his chest hairs in her teeth, and yanked just hard enough to make his eyebrows twitch. "Rules are meant to be broken," she'd whispered as she'd countered the hair-pull with a caress to his nether regions that elicited grunt of desire and made him forget his temporary annoyance.

Those shifts between gentle and almost painful lovemaking that constantly kept him on guard, plus many other aspects to her behavior, were not only aggravating, but also downright suspicious, even for a reporter. When he'd found out (trust but verify) that, in the past, she'd reported under a variety of pseudonyms in several different cities from Denver to Miami, all of his warning flags had waived like banners. Her explanation that different newspapers required different associated personalities, thus names, didn't really assuage his doubts. Sometimes he wasn't sure he even liked this hardball reporter.

And yet, from that first late night, when she'd cornered him at a new crime scene, he'd felt an irresistible pull to her. She'd come roaring up in a bright blue VW bug from out of nowhere and, before she'd even slammed the door shut, had started taunting him about his investigative methods on his last case, questioning whether he was using the same processes for this new crime. Lights from the signs on the surrounding stores bounced off of the rain puddles in the empty parking lot, giving her lightly freckled face peculiar highlights. Tired and wet from his eighteen-hour day of rescuing evidence from the sporadic rain showers, he was trying to be patient with this yappy woman, who was spouting nonsense. While he was waiting for an opening to excuse himself, she'd suddenly stopped her tirade, looked up him and said, "Damn, but you're good looking!"

Instead of being put off by the obvious ploy at distraction, he was caught off guard. "Excuse me?"

As strident and pushy as she had been seconds earlier, she suddenly became as pliant and yielding, her sharp voice lowering, becoming honey-smooth. "I'm supposed to be up your ass right now, proving to our readers you're a lousy cop in a lousy police department, but seeing you up close like this, all I can think about is how attractive I'm finding you." Ten minutes later, she'd persuaded him to meet her for coffee, after he dropped his evidence off at the Lab, "for just half an hour and no reporter questions."

Not quite sure of whether it was her eloquent flirtations, or if he was just too tired to find an excuse, a rather bemused Horatio stood in a light rain for some moments after she'd driven off, considering whether he really wanted a voluntary encounter with her, friendly or no. The thought was interrupted by an ominous rumble, a reminder that there would probably be another downpour in a few seconds, but before he'd turned the key in the Hummer, he'd known he was going to go meet her.

At the coffee shop, he met a rather stimulating person who seemed to know exactly how to pique his interest even further with nothing more than smiles and eyebrow shifts as she confessed to being dumbfounded at an attraction to him. When she'd insisted on leaving at the half hour, as much to extend the moment with her as anything, he'd asked her out to dinner for the next evening. Still, she stayed no longer than it took to scribble her address and phone number on a piece of paper and was gone.

Then, that next night, yet a completely different personality greeted him. If she'd been dressed in leather and carrying a whip, she couldn't have more clearly signaled she expected only compliance from him. Not being of the compliant sort, Horatio was tense throughout the meal, but allowed the evening to continue only because he knew the dominatrix' role is to arouse sexual feelings, and he wanted to see how far she was going to go with this. After dinner, he was a little intrigued that she insisted they go for a stroll on a crowded beachfront walkway, thinking she would find some barely secluded place along the way and make sexual demands of him, but instead, after an hour of strained conversation, she demanded to be taken home. Sure she was going to require he enter, he wasn't surprised when, after thoroughly and suggestively kissing him outside of her front door, he nearly came to orgasm, but he was completely amazed at her evil little grin when she said goodnight, backed away, and closed the door in his face.

On the phone the next day, expecting a sultry voice daring him to invite her out again, he heard, instead, her reporter's brisk no-nonsense reply and nearly forgot why he'd called. She so offhandedly accepted another date with him, he thought maybe she was in a situation where she couldn't talk, but he found out later how mistaken he was. Instead of the dominatrix on the next date, she was a playful, sophisticated socialite. He finally realized Tia simply enjoyed role-playing and eventually got used to never being sure of what personality he would next encounter. Once, she was a computer geek in twin ponytails with tats on her arms, but next, she was back to being the reporter, trying to get information from him, which didn't go well at all. Then, she seemed to be some sort of a proud dowager who insisted on good manners and reminisced on how things 'used to be'. Strange to say, he was absolutely attracted to each persona she presented because, underneath, it was always her and he liked her, although he couldn't say why.

When he questioned her about the behavior, the casual explanation was, "Different nights, different moods, is all. I bet you like the variety, anyway." She'd refused to answer all of his inquiries on the subject after that.

The first night that he took her to bed, she was an irresistible little minx who wriggled, giggled, and obviously enjoyed his every touch. Several nights later, she was a virgin on her wedding night, anxious to please and eager to learn, but the next, he encountered the dominatrix who correctly proved his theory of the purpose of control being sexual arousal. Each diverse encounter, always sexually rewarding, if sometimes perplexing, certainly fed his love of enigmas, a criminalist's basic sustenance, and proved her comment about variety very true.

Three months after the Mayor's party, they were dining at the French café, Les Chinoise, and as their main course was being served, she quietly said, "I'm moving to Houston, leaving tomorrow."

None of the evening's conversation had given warning this was coming which elicited his, now, most common response, "Excuse me?" And then he asked, "For how long?"

"Forever. Its time, is all." She eagerly tore into her duck l'orange.

The ambient restaurant sounds dominated their table while Horatio ruminated over his steak au poivre. Should he be cute and ask if it was something he'd said? Should he inquire as to when she'd made the decision and why he hadn't been warned sooner? Was this, perhaps, a new personality she was trying out, a trickster who would suddenly declare, 'Gotch'a!' in a few moments? Was she waiting for his expression of dismay and sadness so she could encourage him to plead with her to stay? Suddenly, he was weary of the constant guessing games.

"I wish you every success, Tia." Not sure what response he expected, he wasn't prepared for her happy nod as she took another bite of the gooey meat from her plate.

They didn't speak another word through dinner or on the drive to her apartment; he couldn't think of anything appropriate and she seemed oblivious to everything, content to be in her own little world. When he turned off the engine, she was so quick to get out and close the car door, he didn't even have time to reach for his own door handle. Peering after her through the passenger window, he watched her hips twitch bewitchingly as she walked quickly toward her building. She never looked back. Seeing that she had safely entered the secure lobby area, watching her disappear into the elevator, his sigh was either one of relief that it was over or for the loss of an amazing lover, but he wasn't sure which.