Disclaimer: Don't own Bones. Much to my dismay.

Enjoy!

The Way I Think Of You

"Your tie is crooked," Brennan pointed out, reaching up automatically and adjusting the patterned fabric. The minute she touched him, his hand came up and wrapped around her wrist, keeping her hand from dropping down again.

"Booth?" She didn't try to pull away from him but frowned at the stricken look on his face. "What's wrong?"

"I … Bren," he whispered and she nearly gasped out loud at the name that passed so naturally through his lips.

"Booth?" she repeated, fear and worry rising through her. "I'm not … do you know who I am?"

"Yeah, Bones," he assured. "I know who you are."

"Then why …" Brennan moistened suddenly dry lips. "You just called me Bren." She said the name in a hushed whisper, almost as if afraid of his reaction if she said it too loudly.

"I know," he acknowledged, thumb rubbing unconsciously over the pulse-point over her wrist. "But not because I don't know who you are."

"Then why …" she repeated, her eyes going wide at the way his darkened; her lips parting in a tiny gasp of surprise as he raised her imprisoned hand and pressed his lips against the inside of her wrist.

"I'm not sure," his voice low and intense, Booth took a step closer until his chest was brushing hers and their lips were less than half an inch apart. "But I have some theories, wanna hear them?"

Brennan fought to keep her eyes open, to keep herself from melting against him right there in the middle of her office. She felt dazed. How had this happened? He had walked in to go to lunch, she had stepped away from her desk and moved in his direction when she noticed his tie was misaligned; she had stepped closer to fix it and then he had gone into a trance.

And clearly she had too, because instead of demanding he come to his senses, Brennan simply answered yes in a breathy whisper she didn't even recognize.

"Maybe it slipped out because I can't stop thinking about touching you in all the ways I was allowed to when I could call you Bren," he theorized first. "Or maybe it's because when I say the name, it sounds right, it sounds intimate and I like that."

"It was a dream," she reminded him in a barely audible voice that hitched as he finally lowered her hand only to trail his up her arms.

"Yeah," Booth agreed softly, holding her face gently between his fingertips. "This is my favorite theory, maybe the reason is that the way we were in that dream, I don't want it to stay in the dream, I want it to be real."

"Real?" she mouthed, mesmerized by his soft voice and shining eyes, by his thumb scraping along her bottom lip.

"Real," he asserted, kissing the right corner of her mouth. "When I think Temperance, I'm usually on the verge of strangling you, or I'm desperate to comfort you, or sometimes I'm just plain desperate for you and for some reason it makes me so hot to think of screaming your name out in the most exquisite pleasure."

Brennan gasped and he caught the sound with his lips, using his thumb to press her bottom lip down and swipe his tongue over the tender inside flesh. Her hands settled on his waist and Booth pressed a kiss on the left corner of her mouth as he continued his seductive explanation.

"Bones is just between us, only I get to call you that, no one else would even dare. When I first used it I was trying to piss you off, but now it reminds me that there is this thing between us that no one can take away, that no one can ever be a part of. And it makes me so outrageously smug that I'm the only one that gets to have that with you, I'm the only one that's allowed to go there with you."

His kisses rained over her face like sweet benediction, his hands going up to thread amidst the dark strands of her hair.

"And Bren is what I think about now when it hits me how desperate I am to make you mine," he whispered, capturing her bottom lip gently between his teeth. "Only this time, for real, not in a dream, not in a coma, but just in our reality. This reality."

Finally he swept his tongue inside, mapping out every inch of her. She tasted deliciously familiar and excitingly new all at the same time. Her tongue touched his hesitantly and he moaned softly, his fingers tensing imperceptibly in her hair, his mouth moving hungrily yet tenderly on hers.

"Temperance," Booth gasped, breathing some air before burying his face in her hair. Her arms had gone around his waist, holding him close and she turned her head, placing a kiss on the line of his jaw.

"Only you can make my name sound so luscious," she confessed.

"Bren," he whispered, placing a sucking kiss on the side of her neck and trying that one out next.

"Okay, you can make anything sound luscious," she conceded, nipping at him playfully. "Should I start thinking of additional names for you other than Booth?"

"Oh, Bones," he laughed at her serious tone, untangling his hands from her hair and draping a friendly arm around her shoulders. "How about we discuss this over lunch?"

"Fine," she agreed. "But I'm warning you, I like Booth, it has a nice cadence to it." Still laughing, he turned them towards the door and suddenly they both froze.

Various Jeffersonian employees, including Hodgins and Cam, stood watching in shock what had taken place inside the glass walls of her office. As they exited the office, everyone scattered like ants, except for Cam and Hodgins who wore identical smirks on their faces.

"Thanks for the show," Cam deadpanned.

"Angela's going to be upset she missed this," Hodgins predicted.

Fighting a blush, Booth slid his hand down to the spot at the small of her back and steered his partner past their amused colleagues. He snuck a glance at her to gauge her reaction but she looked calm and serene as always.

It was when his hand moved along her back in a soothing caress that he saw her smile.