A Very Bad Idea
By: dharmamonkey & Lesera128
Rated: M
Disclaimer: Ummm, nope, we still don't own anything. We have, however, apparently become squatters in the sandbox that we crashed... so, umm... yeah. So there we go...
A/N: Lesera128 and dharmamonkey want to apologize for the lag time in getting this update up. As you know, we've both been working on fairly substantial solo pieces of our own ("Eighteen Minutes" and "Killing Two Birds" respectively) both of which just wrapped up. Now that those big solo pieces are in the can, we're back, baby!
So, without further ado, let's get back to the Ocala National Forest in central Florida.
Unf Alert: Yes, people. This story will include unfness. Yep, that kind, just like the other VBI scenarios did. The farther you get into this scenario, the more unfness there is. (Surprise, surprise.) If you don't like that kind of thing, we wonder (a) why the heck you put this story on alert, and (b) why you're still reading this A/N and not hitting that browser back button already. If you dig the unfness, then read on, our friends. Read on. This piece is gonna start getting warm. We've cranking up the dial on interpersonal tension up to "11" (apologies to Spinal Tap) and these people are gonna pop pretty soon.
Let's check in on them now.
V. That's Not A Rock, Part III
Pertinent Details on Scenario #5: Set during the episode 4x09: "Con Man in the Methlab."
It wasn't like she didn't know exactly how they'd gotten into this situation.
After all, it was mostly because of the epiphany Brennan had had about her feelings for Booth and what she wanted for both of them in the wake of the evening she'd spent in Jared's company on Saturday night that she decided to act in the first place. However, a large part of what had resulted in Brennan tackling Booth in what could only be called a sack—enough of a dinger that it would've made the NFL's great Deacon Jones proud—was Booth's own stubbornness. Unwilling to see reason about the situation, Brennan didn't know how else to get Booth to listen to her...and believe her. And, in a somewhat rather instinctive move, Brennan had a sneaking suspicion that if the partners left Ocala without settling the topic between them once and for all, they might lose the opportunity to do so.
And, I'm not doing that, Brennan thought. I'm not wasting any more time, losing any more opportunities to be with him, to be happy with him. Now, the question is, Booth, how much of my clothing am I going to have to take off to get you to actually believe me? Hmmm...knowing you, probably a lot. I guess it's a good thing I covered myself in Deep Woods Off this morning while I was naked if I'm going to be doing an impromptu striptease in the middle of a national forest. So, okay...let's see just how stubborn you're going to be about this or not...
"Now," Brennan said, her chest heaving as she gulped for air as she tightened the grip of her legs around his lower torso, effectively immobilizing his legs. Her eyes squinted slightly as the bright sun assaulted her eyes, and she realized that she must've lost her sunglasses somewhere in the course of their initial scuffle. "I don't care what else you do, but you are going to lay there and listen to me."
"You're fucking nuts," he growled at her, gasping for breath as he squirmed underneath her, his wrists pressed into the dry, sandy ground as she leaned over enough to put some weight on her hands, effectively pinning him down. What. The. Fuck. For Christ's sake, Bones, what the hell has gotten into you? You've truly lost your ever-lovin' goddamn mind this time, haven't you? Abso-fucking-lutely lost it. "Get off of me, Bones! Now, right now, damn it!"
"No way," Brennan retorted, thankful that she had rather strong muscle tone in her thighs that allowed her to keep a tight grip on him.
"Jesus, Bones," Booth muttered. "You said it yourself...we're in the middle of a graveyard, and you jump me? Don't you, the holier-than-thou anthropologist, have any respect for the dead?"
Brennan snorted at his comment. "Very amusing. Of course I have respect for the dead. I respect them more than most people—yourself included," she retorted. "But, the fact of the matter is, we don't even know if this is a burial ground. The few headstones I can see are leaning up against trees and shrubs like someone placed them there long after they'd done their task by marking some burial plot. It's quite possible some local gathered them from someplace else and brought them there once they cleared a field for grazing something since we're in the vicinity of the McGreetie cattle run. Without running some ground penetrating radar scans, or consulting the master site file or local land records or plat maps, there's no way to know what this piece of land was fifty years ago, let alone a hundred and fifty years ago."
"You're just making excuses," Booth said. "Admit it. You're still wound up, probably because my limpdick little brother couldn't do get the job done on Saturday night, and now you're so horny that you've zoned in on the closest Booth with a dick that's handy no matter where we are. Well, no way, Bones. It ain't happening. No way, no how. Now, let me up!"
"Oh, no," she quickly retorted. "No way. There's no way in hell that you're getting up until you get it through that incredibly obtuse metaphorical cranium of yours that no matter what in the hell you think, I didn't fuck your brother!"
"Oh, God, we're back to that?" he muttered. "Really?"
"Yes!" Brennan snapped. "And, we're not leaving here until you admit that you believe me."
"Then we're going to be here a long time, Bones," he told her. "I hope you brought your camping gear."
"Booth―" Brennan growled, punctuating her warning with another flex of her leg muscles. When she saw Booth's eyes dart a bit lower down her body, and she knew that he knew what she was doing, she mentally congratulated herself on perhaps having been successful about finding a way of communicating to him that he could no longer ignore.
Fine, Bones, you want to do this...fine. We'll do it. But, don't blame me if you don't like how it turns out, Booth thought.
"Fine―" he grunted. "You really want to talk about this? Fine. We'll talk about it. Why don't we start with the $64,000 question, Bones? Why in the hell should I even believe you?" he finally sneered. "You went out with my brother―in fact, you jumped right out there and volunteered to go with him to that friggin' fancy event. He didn't even have to talk you into it. Hell, he didn't even have to ask you. Then you go out, all dolled up for him, and then stay out 'til dawn with him, and you're saying there wasn't any hanky panky going on? That everything was legit and above board?" Instantly, the image of a writhing and naked Brennan, her skin glistening with sweat and the glow of arousal, flashed in his mind―as did the familiar twist of pain in his gut that he hadn't been the Booth to make her feel like that. He paused and then snorted, "What kind of fool do you take me for here, Bones?" He grunted. "'Cause, you know what? I was born at night, but I wasn't born last night."
Because Brennan as finally ecstatic that she'd broken the dam and gotten Booth speaking on the issue, she didn't notice the significance or inflection of some of his words―particularly about what Brennan had done or hadn't done for Jared...as opposed to Booth.
Shaking her head, she finally countered, "You know what, Booth? I only did all that after you thought I wasn't good enough and put Cam out there first!"
Booth's brow furrowed low over his eyes as he glared up at her, his eyes black with fury. He wasn't even sure what made him more furious: the idea that his asshole brother had boned his partner—his Bones—or that his partner thought so little of him that, knowing his brother was an asshole, she volunteered herself to serve as Jared's arm-ornament at his fancy Washington soiree. Either way, he felt the muscles of his jaw and shoulders tense up. I could just rip that fucking asshole's balls off with my bare hands right about now. Fuck.
"I put Cam out there first," he said, "because I know she knows how to handle Jared and the epic bullshit he's always pulling."
"Talk about epic bullshit!" Brennan snapped, as she suddenly felt an unexpected niggling unpleasantness rear its head whenever Booth's opinion of Cam came up in the course of a discussion.
She's good, Booth, I'll grant you...but she's not nearly as good as me, and it really pisses me off that you can't acknowledge that fact. From day one when I came back from my vacation in North Carolina and found out that Goodman hadn't even considered me for the position, you've been her biggest advocate...and it's all because of some damn bond that you two think is so damn great just because you two have known each other for so long. Damn it all to hell!
"Ever since the day she came trotting back into my lab, all Cam's had to do is tell you to jump and you ask how high with a smile." As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she was a bit shocked by her own response. However, the point of his prior relationship―and continuing close friendship with the forensic pathologist―had gnawed at Brennan for some time. Shaking her head, she swallowed once before she exhaled heavily and tried to collect her thoughts.
For his part, as Booth processed her words, his mouth fell open and he narrowed his eyes. "What?" he whispered, grunting as he tried to shift his hips under her weight. "What in the hell are you talking about?"
"Nothing," Brennan immediately responded. This isn't about how I feel about you and Cam. This is about what you think happened between me and Jared, so you don't get to try to use Cam to evade. That's not happening, Booth, so don't even think about trying it, she mentally warned him. "This isn't...we're not talking about anyone else here but you and me and what you think happened on Saturday night."
"No, no, no," Booth said, shaking his head. "You can't throw a doozie like that out there and expect me to just let that go. You can't possibly be...wait, are you jealous of Cam?"
Attempting to shift the topic back to the important one at hand, Brennan asked, "And, what's your problem, Booth? Are you jealous of Jared?"
Booth's stare hardened further as he bit down hard on the inside of his lip. "What did you guys do all night?" he snickered. "Play chess? Did you go out for milkshakes? Maybe drive around and look at all the monuments? What, huh?"
"What?" Brennan said as she tightened her knees and pressed harder into his hips. Well, at least we're not talking about Cam anymore, Brennan observed. But, seriously...why won't you believe me? "Do you want a play-by-play of how we left the banquet, rode around in a limo, and fucked each other senseless while driving around D.C.?"
"Is that what happened, huh?" he spat, sickened by the thought as he scowled at the notion that Brennan had finally had a chance to strip a formal dress uniform off of a horny Booth and it wasn't him. I like Kevin Costner, ya know, but even he looks like a fuckin' douche in those dress whites. At least compared to me in full evening dress. In my day, I could fuckin' rock that ol' Army Blue Mess Dress rig. He gritted his teeth as he thought about it. But what does it matter anyway? "I can't believe―"
"I already told you," Brennan snapped. "I didn't sleep with your brother."
"Why did you go out with him then?" he growled. "Why?"
"Because," she told him sharply. "I wanted you to know that I was just as good as Cam and can do anything she can...we both know I'm better than she is even if you don't want to admit it for some completely ludicrous reason."
As soon as she'd spoken, Brennan suddenly bit her lip in frustration as she realized she'd just done the one thing she didn't want to do―bring the issue of Cam back up. Damn it, she thought. Damn it, damn it, damn it!
Booth closed his eyes and leaned his head back, feeling the rough grass underneath as he sighed in frustration. "You are jealous of her," he said, bringing his eyes once more to meet hers. "And I don't understand why."
"And you're jealous of your brother," she replied, refusing to compound her error by talking about Cam any more than she absolutely had to do so.
"Hardly," Booth snarled. "My brother's a fucking idiot. I'm always bailing his sorry ass outta trouble and have been doing so for years―since we were kids. He's never had to clean up his own shit. I love him, but he's an arrogant, irresponsible, self-centered jerk...in a word, a loser." He sighed. "You know, Jared's fooled a lot of people over the years with that charming little thing he does, but you know what? I'd never have thought you would fall for it. I thought you were smarter than that, Bones."
Feeling her frustration increase, Brennan's lips pursed into a tight line as her blue eyes blazed at him. Her nostrils flared again, and suddenly, Brennan knew that talking wasn't get her anywhere. Okay, she thought. I guess I can try one last thing before the clothing comes off. Let's see just how bullheaded you're going to be. Tightening her grip on his wrists, she leaned down and pressed her chest tightly against his, moving her lips so they hovered no more than a couple of inches above his.
"He kissed me," she breathed. "Once at the party, and again afterwards...several times in fact."
"You kissed him?" Booth asked, unintentionally sitting up a bit, and a growl escaping his lips when Brennan shoved him back down in a hard movement. His ears burned as his anger simmered into a full boil. Between the anger that bubbled up in his chest, and the pressure of her weight as she straddled his groin, he felt his blood begin to roar in his ears.
"No," she corrected him sharply. "He kissed me...and I didn't stop him...at first."
"Why did you―?" He narrowed his eyes. "Wait. What? What do you mean?"
"I've spent the better part of the past four days trying to tell you that I didn't have sex with your brother. I didn't have sexual intercourse with him. There were no sexual acts of any kind in which I engaged with him...even though he tried to initiate several with me. I didn't let him get further than second base, to use an appropriate baseball metaphor, Booth, because―even though he wanted me and let me know he wanted me―it wasn't right," Brennan said, her voice becoming rough with emotion. Because he's not the one I want. You are.
It wasn't right. Booth shook his head against the coarse, dry grass. "I don't understand," he muttered, his voice lowering to a quieter decibel than his previous roar. "So you went out with him, but when he pressed you, you balked? Why? Why would you do that? Because, I just don't get it, Bones. What gives?"
"Maybe I need to try telling you this in another language besides English, because obviously the way I'm communicating with you isn't processing for some reason," Brennan sighed, as she wondered if she could keep the tight grip on his legs at the same time she took off her top. That's what I'm going to have to start with, I suppose, since he's being unusually obtuse...even for Booth, she mentally sighed. "Even though he's done what you never did and pursued me because he wants me―"
"What are you saying?" he gulped. He narrowed his eyes. What did she just say? 'He's done what you never did.' What the hell? So wait—she's not saying...no...how could that possibly...what? Seriously? I've been wiping the drool off my chin and jacking off in the shower for the past—I don't even know how long—and she's been sitting here wanting me to make a play all along? This makes absolutely no sense. No goddamn sense at all. "Are you saying you wanted me to make the move on you, Bones? What's your point?"
"I've tried telling you that for years!" Brennan snapped, pleased and relieved that he was finally starting to make the connection, but frustrated that he wasn't understanding what she'd been trying to communicate to him in what she'd always believed was a perfectly understandable manner. Goddamn it—if the past four years of my sex life have been Boothless because of poor communication, maybe I need to give up on professional writing, since it's clear that only idiots must be reading my books and enjoying them, she thought. "Don't you remember right before you hooked up with Cam? After you broke it off with Rebecca? We were sitting in my office, and...God, Booth―I all but sent you the proverbial engraved invitation to you saying that I wanted to give things between us a go, and you turned me down!"
Wait―what? I did what? Booth though in confusion as he remembered things slightly different from how Brennan was recounting them. Seriously? I came away from that case sure that you thought I was some kind of brainless male slut, unable to control my base impulses and thus doomed to act out the anthropological inevitabilities of my biological imperatives, or whatever the fuck squinty-ass terms you used to say that I was basically a slave to my own dick. And now you're saying I screwed the pooch when I could've been screwing you? No way―no fucking way!
"You chose Cam instead of me," Brennan continued her rant. "And, then, to add injury to insult, after you broke it off with Cam, you told me I wasn't good enough to be with because of that stupid goddamn line of yours, but Cam was. You were with her, but I wasn't good enough. Do you have any idea how much that hurt me?"
A couple of beats passed in silence between them before a low growl sounded from Booth's throat. You were hurt? What about me, huh? Me.
"Do you have any idea how much you hurt me going out with my brother?" he snapped.
"You're jealous of him," Brennan suddenly realized, her eyes snapping up to meet his bewildered and angry brown irises. I mean, I knew that...I knew you were a bit jealous of Jared, but I never thought you would be this upset...because why, Booth? Is it...is it because you feel about me even a part of what I feel for you? Is that why you're so bothered by this?
"No, I'm not," he snickered, a bit of nervousness coming into his demeanor. So, what if I am? It's not like I'm ever gonna tell you that. "Why the fuck would I be jealous of Jared?
You do care about me, she suddenly realized. You...you, that is―you do care about me? Goddamn it...then why are we sitting here talking about Cam and Jared...why aren't we talking about us?
Shaking her head slowly, she said, "I couldn't figure it out before―why you were so angry at the lab...and now. But, it's because you're jealous of Jared...because you think he had me when you haven't―" She stopped, tilted her head, as she considered her statement. Running it through her mind, after she'd decided that the conclusion was sound, her resolve hardened as she looked down at him. "That's it, isn't it?" Come on, Booth...just admit it. Tell me how you feel...really. Then, we can stop wasting time here and get to some more...diversionary pastimes. And, I don't mean baseball.
"No," Booth responded, just a bit too quickly. "That's fucking nonsense, Bones."
He stopped, swallowed once, and then looked at her. Booth's heart was thumping in his chest and he felt short of breath, whether due to his anger or the fact that Brennan was leaning on his chest, or both, he wasn't entirely sure. Had you? Bullshit. You've been fucking jerking me around for years, Bones, making me feel like a total asshole. A schmuck. Then you all of a sudden decide you want me after stiff-arming me for fucking forever, and now I'm supposed to just crawl towards you on all fours, my tail between my legs, grateful to get whatever you've decided you want to give me? Or take from me? This is so fucked up. I mean, shit..
"You want to know what I was jealous about Jared about?" he asked.
"Yes," Brennan nodded emphatically. "I wouldn't have asked if I didn't want to know, so please―tell me."
Sighing, he pursed his bottom lip for a moment as he stared up into her eyes. What are ya trying to do to me, here, Bones? Kill me? Because that's what you're doing here. You're killing me, he thought with an annoyed sigh of exasperation.
"Fine," he said as he held her assessing gaze. "Fine, then here it is. I may have been a tad bit envious of my troll of a baby brother because I think...hell, I know that his Saturday night seems to have been a whole hell of a lot better than mine was," he told her. "Okay? Happy now?"
"No," Brennan said with a shake of her head. "I'm not."
"Jesus Christ, Bones," he grunted. "What the fuck else do you want from me?"
"I want...I want to know what that means," she told him.
"What what means?" he responded.
"Why do you think Jared had a better night than you did?" Brennan questioned him.
I hate this, Booth thought. I hate this, and I hate that you're making me tell you...admit this part. Who in the hell do you this you are? And, more importantly? Why does it even matter? But you've got that look in your eye, don't ya? You're not gonna let this one go until one of us caves, so fine. If this will shut you up, get you up off of me, and back on our way to merry fuckin' sunshine land so I can go get blitzed on the contents of the minibar in my shitty hotel room all by my lonesome over how shitty this week's been, fine. But that doesn't mean I don't have to like it because I don't. I fucking hate it, and it's all your fault for making me tell you this. Jesus, I hate this. Fuck, Bones. Fuck, fuck, fuck―
"You wanna know how I spent my Saturday night, Bones?" Booth began. "It was real fucking exciting. I sat on my couch, drinking a six-pack of fucking Pabst Blue Ribbon because the liquor store was all out of Yuengling, and all I had for Netflix were the nature documentaries I'd ordered for Parker, each of which I'd already seen twice with him, and I only still had them because I kept forgetting to drop them in the mailbox about thirteen times this week. The only fucking hockey game I actually wanted to watch was blacked out. There's no football on. Baseball hasn't started yet. And the only thing on TV worth even considering was Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives."
He paused and made a face as he considered why he didn't dig in to a show he normally enjoyed.
"And you wouldn't know this since I know you don't have any idea what in the hell I'm talking about anyway, but lemme tell you. Watching that show that night was its own form of fucking torture becausemy fridge was completely empty, 'cause I hadn't had a chance to go to store because of how crazy the case has been going. I ordered a pizza and what do ya fuckin' know? The delivery guy's car broke down on the way to bring me my fucking dinner, so it took two fucking hours to get my pizza. So, all in all, my fucking Saturday night sucked the big one. Alright?"
He narrowed his eyes and chewed the inside of his lip for a moment, then grunted, twisting beneath her as he continued.
"And meanwhile, you're gallivanting around town with my loser-ass brother and probably getting busy while I was so depressed I couldn't even bring myself to jack off―" Because I couldn't even get hard when all I could keep thinking about was the fact that my douche of a baby brother had somehow managed to get the go ahead sign to bat around from you and my ass was still stuck in the on-deck circle. How in the fuck was I supposed to even get it up when all I could think about was the image of him plowing into you over and over when you screamed a Booth's name that wasn't mine? Fuck!
"So how the fuck do you think that made me feel, huh?" he finally finished what had quickly morphed into a fairly spirited tirade.
Wait, what? Brennan thought. Comments about his food and television issues aside, why would he be so depressed that he couldn't become sexually aroused? I don't understand.
"Is that how you normally spend your Saturday nights when you don't have Parker and we don't have a case?" Brennan asked, trying to understand.
"Normally spend my Saturday nights how?" Booth asked, now slightly confused himself at her words. "What?"
"Masturbating," Brennan asked with a curious look in her eyes as she felt the pulsing between her legs start to get a bit faster as she imagined what he could do to himself with his hands when he was naked and aroused...which inevitably led to her thinking what he could to her with those hands.
Booth stared at her as his mouth dropped a bit in surprise at her response. Jesus Christ...of course that's the only word she'd hear in that entire fucking rant. Fuck―
"Is it?" Brennan asked when Booth remained silent.
"Wait...no," he muttered. "Jesus, Bones, no―" Awwww, shit. I think I just dug myself in a little too deep there. Little Miss Anthropological Inevitabilities and Biological Imperatives is never gonna friggin' let me live down that little slip, now, is she? Shit.
"Because, if it is, your sexual frustration as it's contributed to your sour mood is understandable," Brennan said in what she hoped would be a comfortable way. And, should make you even better in bed when you quit being unusually obtuse in your insistence about if I slept with Jared or not. Hmmm...a sexually frustrated Seeley J. Booth...delicious.
"I'm not sexually frustrated," Booth suddenly grunted, his face turning a bit redder as he stared at her in complete disbelief. Well, I am. I've been sexually frustrated since we first worked together on the Gemma Arrington case. A certain corner of my brain got roped off with yellow tape and since that damn case, I was never able to get you―or the fact that I want you―outta my fucking head. But hell will fucking freeze over before I ever admit that to you, Bones.
"But, you just said―" Brennan began.
"I'm not the one who's sexually frustrated here, Bones," Booth growled.
"Oh, really?" Brennan started to counter, a sarcastic lilt to her voice. "Then―"
"I think you might want to take a look at the one who just tackled who and is straddling the other one before you touch that one with a ten-foot pole, huh, Bones?" Booth cut her off. "Now, look―I know that you're horned up or something since apparently my itsy bitsy squidy sibling couldn't get the job done, but seriously, you calling me sexually frustrated is really fucking rich."
Now it was Brennan's turn to stare at Booth for several long seconds in abject frustration. Seriously? He still seriously thinks this is about Jared and me? How can he be that goddamn dense?
"What do I have to do to get you to believe that I didn't fuck Jared?" she breathed suddenly, the edge in her voice becoming more and more dangerous with each word she let fall from her pouty lips. "Seriously, tell me. What do I have to do to get you to believe me? Because Booth, the bottom goddamn line is, I didn't comply with his suggestions because―well, because he isn't the Booth brother I want to have sex with, okay?"
"You've got a lot of fucking gall, Bones, to talk to me about how much I've hurt you, when you pull that bullshit with my idiot―"
He stopped, his breath catching in his throat.
"Wait...what did you just say?"
This must be one of those science fiction type situations where you step through a wormhole into an alternate universe, and then the minute you get into that wacky universe, you can't find your way out again, so then you spend the rest of the episode or movie trying to figure out how to get back to the real world. He looked around and narrowed his eyes. Except...wait...did she actually say what I thought she said? She wants to have sex with me? She wants to have sex with me. With me. Sex. Mmmmmm. Sex. With me. Bones. She wants to have sex with me. Bones wants me. Bones wants to have sex with me? Okay...if I just walked through some kind of weird wormhole, maybe when I took the wrong turn off the path 'cause I wasn't paying close enough attention to Ranger Rick's instructions, but now I'm in this weird alternate universe where Bones is sitting on my crotch, straddling me, telling me she wants to have sex with me—sex with me, Seeley Joseph Booth—well, then I'd have to be a fucking idiot to spend another goddamn second looking for a way back to that other end of the wormhole. He blinked. Or maybe I'm a little dehydrated and I'm starting to hallucinate.
"Seriously?" she blinked at him. Okay, I think I've had about enough of this. That's it. Screw trying to talk this out. The clothes are coming off and body parts are going to start touching. Now, right now. "You really need me to repeat what I just said when you're laid out flat on your back, I'm straddling you with my breasts pressed up against your chest, and my lips are this close to yours, Booth? Seriously?" She stopped and then tilted her head as she asked, "What, do I need to diagram this for you?"
He swallowed, his cheeks flushing as he realized the truth of what she'd just said. Yeah, okay. Maybe I'm not hallucinating. Or maybe I am, and this is a really good hallucination. Better than that one time...well, never mind. She seriously wants to do this? To do me? To have sex...with me? Hmmmmm. This is unreal. Un-fucking-real. Potentially awesome. But still...this can't be real. Where's that canteen? "Umm...wait, are you, uhhhh―"
Nope, Brennan thought as she suddenly realized what Booth was doing. You're not...no. Don't even think about doing that. It's not happening. You aren't talking yourself or me out of this one, so that's just not happening, Booth.
Shaking her head, Brennan bit her lips before she let out a sigh of exasperation and narrowed her eyes as she stared at him. She blinked―once, twice, three times. And, then, tightening her grip around his torso, she leaned down to close the small amount of space between them at the same time she yanked him forward using her loose grasp on his hands and then proceeded to smash her lips against his.
In the end, it turned out both of them were taken slightly aback by her initiation of the kiss.
For her part, Brennan began to lose herself in the feel of his hungry lips on hers. The rightness of the feeling, combined with the incredible physical response she was having to his touch might've been enough to scare her under other circumstances. However, as her brain dealt with the fact that she was finally kissing Booth, it didn't have much room for any other operations beyond the mandatory ones such as keeping her heart beating and her lungs filled with air.
For his part, Booth couldn't do much more than make a moan unintelligibly as he realized that his partner's lips were attached to his, and she didn't seem inclined to remove them at any point in the near future.
"Unnnnggttthhh," was all he could reply as he felt her lips press hard against his.
In that instant, as he felt the soft flesh of her breasts against his chest, and her thighs straddling his waist, her weight pressing hard into him, he felt lightheaded, and his mind was a swirl of sensations that drowned out any of the thoughts that sputtered there. He parted his mouth slightly as he moaned quietly into her lips.
Reluctantly pulling her mouth away from his so that she could swallow a breath of much needed oxygen, the lightheadedness she felt had made the world spin slightly. She braced herself as best she could by bracing herself against his chest. Brennan gulped in air as she struggled to speak. Eventually, she managed to sharply draw a breath before she muttered, "Now...do...you...believe...me?"
"Yes," he whispered into the tiny space between their faces, lifting his chin as he clutched at her lips with his. She pulled away slightly with a wicked grin, then lowered her head and met his lips, opening her mouth as she felt his warm, velvety tongue slide across her teeth. For several long seconds, their tongues twirled together as their lips fused, then they parted. "I believe you," he muttered. I don't know what this means, he thought to himself. But there's no doubt in my mind that she fucking wants me. And holy hell, she's a great kisser. Damn. Better than I remembered. And if she's kissing me like that...oh, Jesus, maybe she really does want to take this all the damn way. Wow.
"Who knew that it would only take me tacking you to the ground, huh?" she told him, her breaths coming in rapid succession as she panted for some relief―both because of the lack of air and because of the increasing physical arousal she felt because of him that had only been made worse once they'd finally kissed. "God, you can be an infuriatingly stubborn male."
"Sacking," he corrected her as he let his head fall back on the ground, and he too struggled to find a deep breath, made increasingly more difficult by the rush of blood to his groin and the light pressure of Brennan's body on top of his. "You sacked me," he clarified.
For once, Brennan didn't take any offense whatsoever at his correction of her. She merely grinned as she said, "And, I was pretty good, too, huh?"
"I'm not an easy guy to take down," he grunted, as he lifted his head back off the ground slightly and looked at her. She'd lost her sunglasses at some point, and her Atlanta Braves ballcap sat askew on her at an adorably awkward angle. Man, I don't really want to admit it, but― "So, yeah, you getting the drop on me wasn't too bad."
Brennan raised herself up on her haunches again, freeing his hands but increasing the nearly maddening pressure on Booth's groin. For an agonizing moment she looked down on him, her mouth twisted into a half-grin as she slowly caught her breath again.
"Booth?" she asked, a lightness dancing in her eyes.
He gazed up at her, into her pale blue eyes, and saw something that flickered in those eyes that made his heart skip a beat and his own, warm brown eyes twinkle with hope.
A dark voice in the back of his head whispered away, tugging his attention away from the way her weight felt against his hips. She's playing you, boy, the voice hissed. She's just jerking you around. If she really wanted you, she'd have come at you like this a long time ago. She's toying with you.
"Yeah, Bones?" he replied, a sudden edginess in his voice as his brain and heart waged a silent skirmish inside his head.
The sharpness of his tone caught her a bit off guard. She tilted her head as she attempted to discern what was going on in his mind. As he blinked at her, Brennan fought against narrowing her eyes in suspicion.
Ummm, he's not happy, Brennan observed silently. I-I...ahh, I thought he'd be happier about this―right? I mean...I can't be that bad a kisser. I know I'm not. And, I can feel his erection pressing against my ass, so...what is it? What's wrong? As Booth continued to stare at her, not saying anything, Brennan continued to feel a growing unease in the pit of her stomach grow. What is it? What's he thinking?
Booth's mouth fell open and his jaw clenched as he tried to decipher the gleam in her eyes. She's bullshitting you, the voice of doubt grumbled inside of him. Maybe she's telling the truth about not fucking your brother, but she's jerking you around about the reason why. Your asshole brother probably led her along the path and kicked her to the side just to spite you, and she's been fuming about it for days. Maybe, like you said, she's been all horned up, and you're just the first clear opportunity she's had to do something about those anthropologically inevitable biological imperatives or whatever the fuck squinty term she uses to dress up the fact that she's just turned on and doesn't have any other dick handy to scratch her itch. Booth leaned his head back against the dry grass and rolled it from side to side, a slow shake of his head in response to the meddlesome voice he heard. Okay, so maybe she wasn't lying when she said she took that date with Jared to show you she was as good as Cam was. But, that doesn't have anything to do with what came next. The plain and simple fact of the matter is that when she couldn't get what she wanted from your brother, now she wants it from you. And it's just fucking icing on the cake that if she fucks you, she gets to even the score with Cam, to take the one last thing that she's never had that Cam had once―you, in the Biblical sense. Because she's jealous. She's...jealous? Holy shit. That's it. All of this has happened because she's jealous? Really? Fuck, Booth. How could you have missed that? Naaww...it can't be that...can it?
"It just doesn't make any sense," he muttered, not realizing until the words had passed his lips that the internal dialogue he had been having with himself was no longer internal.
"What?" she replied, her forehead crinkled in confusion and surprise as he finally spoke. "What doesn't make any sense?"
"Why did you tackle me?' he said as he shook some of his thoughts away, and he levelled his gaze at her. He tried to use his forearms to give himself some leverage against her weight as he tried to sit up, and found that there wasn't much he could do as she continued to press herself against him. "Huh, Bones? Why did you just do that?"
She felt an acute sense of surprise at his question. My God, Booth...how can you even ask me that? Don't you know I did that because of how I feel about you, and I don't know how else to show you how you make me feel? That I only want to make you feel the same way? I mean, I think you already do, but if I can admit it, why can't you? She finally responded, "I told you. You weren't believing me...and I had to get your attention somehow."
"So, that's why you tackled me?" he clarified.
Slowly, she nodded.
"Okay," he conceded. "Fine. You wanted my attention so you tackled me. Is that right?"
Brennan again nodded.
"Right," he said. "Then...once you'd gotten my attention, why did you just kiss me?"
"Because," Brennan started to explain, but then let her words trail off as she suddenly found herself at a loss for how much to tell him in that one moment. Because I wanted to...I wanted to feel your lips on mine. I wanted to feel your arms around me. I wanted to feel your hard cock pressing into my ass. I wanted you. I want you now. I want it all. And, I want to tell you that...and that I'm in love with you, but you won't give me the opportunity to tell you, you asshole! "Like I said, I wanted to get your attention―"
"Yeah," Booth said, the impatience he felt clearly creeping into his voice. "I know. You said that, and I got that part. But, now you've got my attention...so the real question, here, Bones is why did you want it?"
A look of incredulity crossed her face as her mouth widened into a small o-shape. Are we back to this? Really? How can you not know about how I feel about you? How? How can you not know? I mean, it's one thing if you're just in denial because you're being stubborn, but really...do you not know? Really? "Really?" she asked, the word out of her mouth before she'd even realized that she'd actually said it. Her voice became a bit quieter as she asked, "You really have to ask me that?"
"Yeah," he said. "I do. I want to understand what's happening here, Bones. What's going on in that scary-smart brain of yours, because you've got me confused. I'm lost, and I don't mean the I-took-a-wrong-turn-in-the-woods kind of lost." He paused and then said, "I mean, it's not a bad thing, umm, feelin' you on top of me like this. It feels nice, to be honest, but..." He squirmed as if to punctuate his statement. "But, I think I sorta want to go back to what you said a little bit ago."
Brennan's nostrils flared a bit as she said in a sharp tone, "And what's that?"
"I think you mentioned something really interesting just a couple minutes ago, Bones―something about you and Cam...and, well, I don't know why I didn't see it before, but―"
"But, what?" she asked through teeth that had somehow started to clench as her frustration and anger towards him grew with each passing second.
"You're jealous of Cam, aren't you?" he asked. The curious, undecipherable flicker that had been twinkling in Brennan's blue eyes suddenly flashed dark.
"I'm not jealous of Cam," she snapped instantly with a sharp shake of her head. "That's ridiculous."
Booth laughed, then coughed as Brennan ground her hips against him and kneed him in the side.
"Ugh," he grunted with a shake of his head. "No, no it's not. You all but admitted it," he smirked.
"I did not," she retorted. "I said no such thing."
"I can't believe you," he snickered. What's the big deal? You're so much better than Cam. You always have been. There's no point to you feeling that she's got one up on her...unless, no. That's not it, and we're not going there, so... "Jesus, Bones, really? Insecure much?"
"I'm not insecure," Brennan snorted. "I know I'm more intelligent, more accomplished, and definitely more physically capable than she is."
Booth's jaw hardened as a wicked smirk cut across his lips and he recalled a half-dozen occasions when he caught his partner shooting a glare at the Jeffersonian's pathologist, a look so cutting that it couldn't have been a mere expression of professional rivalry. "That's not what I was referring to."
"Oh, really?" Brennan said suspiciously. "Then, why exactly do you think I'd ever be jealous of Cam, Booth?"
"Because," he said, reaching his hands up to cup her face between them, pulling her lips to his and swallowing her breath as he kissed her hard. "She's had this," he hissed as he pushed her face away from his just far enough to be heard. "And this," he whispered, thrusting his hips up against her, knowing full well how aroused he was and how obvious that arousal would be to her as he pressed against her. "She's had me, and you haven't, and you envy her for that. And I'm not really sure why, but you think I chose her over you, don't you? That I put her ahead of you."
She rolled her jaw to one side as her narrow-eyed glare grew even icier at his words. At a loss for how to counter the utter truth of his words, she couldn't think of any retort but honesty in turn. Shrugging, she refused to let him know that she felt that he'd all but cornered her. I'm not giving up this fight, Booth, because if I do that's the same thing as giving up on you...giving you up, and that's just something I'm not willing to do even if you're being a pig-headed idiot, she thought. So, fine. You want the truth. Fine. "So what if I did," she growled. "So what? That doesn't matter. It doesn't matter at all since it's true, isn't it?"
Booth laughed. "No," he grunted. "It isn't. Moreover, it's stupid. You're a fucking genius, but in this, you're so abso-fucking-lutely far off base it's not even funny." He stopped and then smirked at her. "Well, it is, a little, but in an amusing, almost ironic kinda way."
"Oh, please," Brennan grunted. "It's not funny. It's not funny at all."
"See?" Booth said as he pointed at her. "There it is."
"What?"
"Right there," Booth nodded. "You're getting your panties in a bunch, and the funny thing is, you're wasting a lot of time and effort here when you have absolutely no reason to feel threatened by her...or about her and me and what happened to us."
Brennan snorted "Oh, really? Is that so?"
"Yeah," he responded. "It is."
"So, what you're saying is that I shouldn't feel pissed off or threatened because you didn't actually chose her over me when you decided to sleep with her?"
For a moment, Booth lay still beneath her in stunned silence at her confession. The hard sarcasm that had held tight rein over his features fell away and a softer, almost sympathetic mein washed over his face. "No, you shouldn't," he admitted. "Because, I never chose her over you, Bones."
Brennan felt her heart skip a beat and her throat tighten as he made the admission. Her eyes flashed as he continued to poke and prod what was a very raw and delicate point of issue for her.
"Yes," Brennan finally managed to snap. "Yes, you did. If you expect me to believe that you didn't engage in some type of prolonged sexual relationship with Cam―"
"Come on," Booth sighed. "That's not what I'm saying, Bones, and you know it."
"Apparently, according to you, at least, I don't know as much as I think I know," Brennan volleyed back. "But, the simple fact of the point is that you chose her when you could've chosen me, but didn't."
"No, Bones," Booth sighed. He paused as he struggled to find some type of explanation that would appease her when he finally said,"That's not...look, that's not how it was."
"Oh, really?" she muttered. "So that wasn't you who was fucking her on the rebound from your last catastrophic fuck up with Rebecca?" Brennan stopped, her face hardened, and then she shook her head again as the painful memory played in her mind. "God, I hated you for that. How could you do that? How could you choose her and not me?"
I didn't choose her over you, Bones, Booth thought to himself as he suddenly realized what she was trying to tell him. At that point, it didn't look like you had put yourself out there for the choosing. If you wanna be out there, you gotta make it known you're in the field, otherwise, well, you'll never get drafted.
"Jesus Christ," Booth muttered. "You're the one who thinks I'm obtuse? Geez, Bones. You're so goddamn dense sometimes it's not even funny. Yes, I was sleeping with Cam, on the rebound after the cluster fuck with Becks. But, I was only with her because she came after me, and―well, it was easy. It was so fucking easy just falling into things with her like I did."
If I'd have known, Bones, that you had any interest in me, the whole series would've played out differently, he told himself. Fuck―it would've been a completely different pitching match up...an entirely different line up for that matter. But your signals, assuming you even gave me any, were apparently way too fucking subtle for this dumb cop from Philly to figure out. I wanted a signal...any goddamn signal―run, or hold―but you didn't give me shit. So I made the best play I could at the time with the info I had.
He felt Brennan tense again as he spoke and tilted his head as he sought out her gaze. "You know what? What happened between me and Cam happened. I don't want to talk about it. Maybe I made a mistake, alright? But it's done, in the past, and frankly, it's none of your fucking business, Bones―"
Oh, no you don't, Brennan thought angrily. You don't get to bring Cam up and this just dismiss it. You don't get to do that, Booth, any more than you get to still be a completely obtuse and dense asshole about what didn't happen to me and Jared on Saturday night, despite your best efforts to make me out into some type of amoral slut with no class whatsoever. God, why are you doing this? Why are we even talking about other people like Cam and Jared when all I want to do is to talk about us? And, then, pretty soon stop the talking and get to the touching part?
"Booth, look," Brennan sighed. "I―"
"You know, Bones," he said, exasperation edging the timbre of his voice higher. "I don't want to talk about Cam. I'm done talking about Cam. It's done, and the sordid details about what we did or didn't do are none of your business."
"Then, using your logic, what did or didn't happen between Jared and I is none of your fucking business, Booth," Brennan said as her jaw clenched in pain.
"Like hell it isn't," he growled, and he thrust his hips up into Brennan's core, making her all too aware of how he was making her feel. "I was with Cam over a year ago...almost two years, Bones. Jared happened less than a week ago. And, besides, he's my little brother―"
"And, Cam's my boss!" Brennan snapped, surprised that she was able to string together a coherent thought as she felt the pulsing in her stomach begin to unfurl its warm and steady fingers throughout her pelvic region.
"Oh, please," Booth snorted as he gave her an exasperated, knowing stare. "Why is it that you only remember that part when it's convenient for you?"
Brennan opened her mouth to speak, but was quickly cut off as Booth continued speaking.
"You know what else, Bones?" he told her as he lifted his hand and used his index finger to poke her in the chest. "After everything else, the part here that I know's stuck in your craw the worst―the part about you thinking I didn't have your back even when I was with Cam? Well, you know what? That's bullshit. When the chips were down, Bones, I chose you. You. And, the thing is, you don't even fucking know it."
"What are you talking about?" she said as her eyes narrowed, barely looking at him as she felt a wetness begin to build between her legs.
"Remember that case, not long after Cam started at the Jeffersonian, when we found that teenager wrapped in that shroud? The one where it turned out the younger brother of the vic's girlfriend was the one that did it?"
"Yes, I remember it," she told him vaguely.
"I was over at the lab one day, when we were in the middle of that case, and I was in the autopsy room with Cam."
"Oh, please," Brennan snorted, suddenly her focus shifting away from her physical arousal to the anger she felt as the image of Booth bending Cam over one of the metal exam tables and plowing into her from behind as he grunted and groaned her name stirred tremendous anger in her. "Now look. If this is about you and Cam fucking each other senseless in the autopsy suite because the platform, the lounge, and the bones room were occupied, I don't think I want to hear it."
"Just listen, will ya?" Booth snapped. "So Cam basically asks me what I'd do if you left the Jeffersonian. I was like, 'what?' 'What if I fired her?' she asked me."
"'Her' meaning me?" Brennan asked for clarification as she tried to keep her anger as he talked about Cam in check.
"Yes," he confirmed. "She wanted to know what I'd do—if I'd still work with the Jeffersonian if she canned you."
"What did you tell her?" And, you better hurry up in telling me, because this is about to go from what I'd envisioned us as making love for the first time to what I believe is termed a grudge fuck if you keep talking about you and Cam.
Booth pursed his lips as he noted the flicker behind her pale eyes. "Well, I told her the squints would probably all quit, for one thing." He paused. "And I told her I'd walk," he encountered as he remembered the conversation in question.
"Oh, really?" Brennan said with narrowed eyes. "Is that so?"
"Yeah," Booth nodded. "I remember exactly what I told her. I said, 'I'm with Bones, Cam. All the way. Don't doubt it for a second.' She was gonna shit-can you, Bones. And not to put too fine a point on it, but I'm pretty sure that if it weren't for that conversation I had with her, she'd have fired you, probably right in the middle of that case."
"You mean, she would've tried," Brennan snorted disdainfully as she quickly dismissed the idea of Cam having any serious control over her life and/or career as laughable.
"Goodman made her the head of the lab, Bones," Booth grunted. "If she wanted you gone, you would've been gone. Gone. Like that." He snapped his fingers to illustrate his point.
You can think that, Brennan wanted to say. And, it may or may not be true. But, in the end...does it matter? Because you still ended up in her bed and not mine even after that point because... Suddenly, several thoughts rattled in Brennan's head as she narrowed her eyes and tried to pull enough concentration together to see if she could remember their case chronology right. Because that case with the foster children came before the case with the bigamists...and that's about when you started up again with Cam...so―son of a bitch!
Brennan stopped and considered his words for a long moment before she said, "Was this before or after you started sleeping with her?"
Oh fuck, he cursed silently. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Damn it. That wasn't a fire ant. It was that fuckin' attention to damn detail thing of hers that just bit me in the ass. I'm screwed, and not in a good way.
"What?" he asked, suddenly taken off balance a bit by the directness of her question.
"It's a fairly simple question, Booth," Brennan said, her voice low and silky smooth in the danger that lay hidden just below the surface. "Was this conversation, when you so gallantly had my back, before or after you resumed having sexual intercourse with Dr. Saroyan?"
Taking a deep breath, Booth's nostrils flared a bit as he looked away from her.
"Ahh," Brennan said with a knowing stare. "I'll take that to mean that to mean it's as I suspected and you had this conversation before you started sleeping with Cam again." She paused and then said, "So, in a way, I was right. You've never really had to make a choice between her and me and chosen me." She stopped and tilted his head at her and then a thought occurred to her. "If you had it to do all over again, would you do anything differently?"
"What?" he asked, clearly taken aback by her question. Wait, what are we really talking about here?
"If you had the chance to do it over again knowing that I wanted you and was offering you the chance to be with me, who would you choose―Cam or me?" Brennan blinked at him.
"What the fuck does that mean, Bones?" he sneered. "It doesn't matter―"
"Yes," Brennan insisted. "Yes, it does. Because, remember, Booth―nothing happens in this universe once, so who would it be? Cam or me?"
"This is complete bullshit," Booth muttered.
"Answer the damn question," Brennan insisted. "Would you have chosen me?"
"Is it too late to go back to bed, crawl under the covers and start this whole damn day over?" he asked with a throaty sigh. "Because I really don't want to be having this conversation, Bones."
"You wouldn't choose me," Brennan made it more as a statement than as a question. "You wouldn't, would you?"
"Why does it even matter, huh?" Booth pressed her.
"Because!" Brennan snapped, feeling the tenuous hold she had on her roiling and scattered emotions slipping out of her lose grasp. "The bottom line here is, right now, you're here, I'm here, and Cam's not. But, if you don't want me, fine. But, this time it's going to be on you...not me. There won't be any way you can blame this on anyone but yourself for whatever happens next―not me, not mixed signals...just you because I'm letting you know..." She took a deep breath and then leveled an intense stare at him as she said, "I want you."
"You want me?" he coughed. "You want me? I don't understand. Why now, after all this time?"
Now that Brennan had finally made the beginning part of her confession, she found she couldn't stop the words from spilling out of her mouth as she hastily grabbed for his hand, intertwined his fingers with hers, and rambled on a bit more. "I'm offering you the choice. I'm here, and I want you, and the decision is yours―all you have to do is make the choice." She stopped, and gave him a rather cocky look of her own as she said, "So, I may have come into this case feeling slightly, albeit undeservedly, inferior to Dr. Saroyan, but I think I won't leave it that way. I think...if I'm right, that I won't be leaving this case feeling in any way insecure about her...what she's done, where she's been, or who she'd had."
"So this is a do-over, huh?" After all that wind-up, what she wants is a fucking do-over, the angry voice in the back of his head said. He narrowed his eyes and pondered the situation. A do-over, or to borrow from another pasttime, a mulligan? If this isn't what I've been waiting for, hell, for ages, I'd laugh out loud. Goddamn, you're a piece of work, Bones. You left me hanging with no idea of what you wanted, but now that you've decided at long last what you want, you want to turn back the clock and have a do-over? And what's better is, though there's a part of me that thinks this is fucking nuts and possibly a huge mistake, I'm probably gonna go for it. Because how could I not? I want you. I've always wanted you. And if you're really saying you're ready to get in the game, I'm not gonna let you go―but only if you're really in this thing because of you and me. So are you? Are you really in? "Is that it? I don't know about this, Bones. I mean..."
Stopping, Brennan looked down at Booth, the thoughts racing through her brain at a blazing fast speed. Why are you being like this, Booth? I know you want me―I know you do. I can see it in your eyes, I can feel it poking me in my ass. I know it. So, why can't you just admit it? Why can't you tell me? Have I not convinced you of how I feel about you, what I want from you? Is that it? Because, that's not leaving me much of an option of what I can do next. I've tried reasoning with you, I've tried tempting you...I've tried being direct with you...but, is that it? Maybe I'm not being direct, enough, both verbally...and physically.
"I don't get it, Bones," he was suddenly saying. "I just don't get it. Why now?"
Looking down at him, she tightened the pressure of her knees as she stretched her legs her further into his sides. She let his hands loose and shook her head. "Okay, Booth. That's it."
"What?" he suddenly blinked at her. "What's it?"
"No more questions," Brennan said. "No more questions...just one more very important statement I think."
"Oh, really?" Booth snorted. "And, what's that, Bones?"
"I've come to the conclusion that I'm not being direct enough with you, I think, Booth―"
She paused for a second, letting her wet tongue dart out as she unconsciously licked her bottom lip. Okay, here it goes. I didn't want it to have to come to this, but...oh, wait. I did. So, yeah, let's see how you try to talk us out of this one.
Her gaze then softened as she let some of the sensuous desire she felt for him flood her eyes as she reached up and pulled the white cotton overshirt she was wearing off of her body. Tossing it to the side, she then quickly gathered a fistful of the ribbed cotton of her tanktop in each hand before she tugged it up and over her head.
"Jesus," he whispered as he felt a hard tugging sensation behind his navel.
Oh, damn, a clearly impressed voice echoed in his brain. I mean, I've always known she's got great tits. I got a real good look at 'em when we were in L.A. for that case where they found the body on the airport grounds and―oh, man―she was in that lab, jamming that plastic surgeon's instruments into clay, and she was wearing that, nnngth, white shelf tank-top thingy with that brown one over it, and they pushed those babies together like nobody's business, and they looked so fucking juicy and delicious I just wanted to put my finger in between 'em and―oh yeah. Aw, and then fuck, last year, there was that case on Halloween, and she was dressed up like Wonder Woman with that bustier that she was spilling out of all over the damn place. But this—oh, Jesus—I can just reach up and touch 'em. And I really wanna touch 'em, too. Fuck. God, what's she done to me? Fuck―and, unless I've caught some kind of delirium-inducing disease from the damn ticks around here, I think she wants me to touch 'em. I mean, that's why she's stripping in the middle of a goddamn national forest, right? She's doing it right in front of me, too...because she wants me? Does she really want me? I mean, after all this bullshit...is that it? Does she want me? And if she wants me, is she gonna whip off that bra of hers and take out those awesome ta-tas of hers because she wants me to touch them? Is that it? And, if it is...should I do it? 'Cause, I think I really want to...especially with her bouncing them up and down in front of me like that. Oh, yeah, baby―yeah.
Again tossing the second garment she'd removed and let fall to the ground, Brennan stared down at him clad in a mocha-colored cotton t-shirt bra with her hair still pulled into its ponytail through the Atlanta Braves ballcap she wore. Tilting her head as she looked at him and said, "Now, can you honestly tell me that you want to talk about Cam or your brother or any other thing but you and me being where we are about to do what we could be doing if you want to, that is, right now? Because, well―" she paused and gave him a wicked grin. "If you did, I'd know two things about you, Booth."
His voice was thick as he managed to rasp, "And what's that?"
"One," she said as she looked at him over the tip of her glasses, "I'd know that you were full of shit," she said. "And, two, the reason I'd know you were full of shit is because I'd know you'd be lying if you said you wanted to talk about anything more than you, me, and the fact that I'm straddling you in nothing but a bra, a pair of dirty cargo pants, and a pair of increasingly wet panties."
"Huh," he grunted, raising his arms and reaching around her back to unclasp her bra. At that moment, his mind was buzzing with a thousand thoughts, none of them worth articulating, although it didn't particularly matter, since his ability to formulate a coherent thought crumbled as soon as his mind caught up to her reference to her panties. Her wet panties...that's what she said―awww, fuck.
She reached up and held his hand for just a fraction of a second.
"So, are you going to admit it finally?" she breathed, letting her fingers caress his arm.
"It?" he choked.
"You want me," she said pointedly. "Admit it. Say that you want me." And, it's not just because I'm basically throwing myself at you or because I'm a half-naked female that's pressed up against you right now. She again wiggled her ass in a tortuous slide across his groin. She could feel his erection pressing against her, and it made her a bit lightheaded. "Tell me," she insisted. "Tell me."
"Yeah I want you," he hissed, jerking his hips against her thighs. "I fucking want you." His breathing became harder and more irregular as his fingertips moved in tiny circles against the smooth fabric of her bra. "I want you. I've wanted you for a long time. And, hell, you've made an excellent case in defense of the idea that I should do something about it. Right about now. 'Cause, yeah, I want you. I really do."
"Me?" she insisted on clarification, stubbornness clear in her voice. "Tell me that you want me because I'm me and this is about us."
"What?" he choked. He grunted and shook his head in frustration. "Of course I want you because you're you and this is about us." He paused and a confused look furrowed his brow. "Why else―what are you even talking about? Why else would I want you?"
"You're not just doing this because I'm a female with a great pair of tits, to use your parlance, who's propositioned you?" she asked with an arched eyebrow.
"Well," he said with a spreading grin. "You do have a fucking great pair of tits, and you've propositioned me, but―no, that's not the only reason. Not by a fucking long shot."
"You sure about that?" she breathed. "Because you had your line, and this is mine―no going back from here if we go forward." She stopped as she tilted her head and said, "Are my signals clear enough?"
"Charlie Alpha Foxtrot Bravo, Bones," he laughed. "Clear as a fucking bell."
"Okay, then," she said with a soft laugh. "Then, now that we appear to be on the same page―what do you want to do here?"
Booth narrowed his eyes as he thought about it for a moment. "Put me in the game, coach," he grunted as he struggled to sit up and reached his hands around to unclasp her bra. As he did so, the cups loosened their hold on her breasts, and he stared for a moment at them before sliding his hands across her shoulder blades and pulling the straps of her bra off her shoulders. As the pale chocolate-colored cups fell away and she shrugged each of her arms out of the straps, he gasped at the sight of her rosy nipples. "Oh, fuck, Bones," he whispered, bringing his hands around to the front and palming the round underside of each breast, as weighing them with his hands. "I kinda always knew you had fantastic tits, but shit―" He squeezed them in his hands, dragging the calloused pad of his right thumb across her nipple.
Brennan sucked in a breath at the sensation. "Like what you see?" she asked, her question disappearing into a sharp gasp as he rolled the bud of her nipple between his rough thumb and forefinger. She leaned forward, bringing her chest closer to his face as the expression of open-mouthed awe on his lips quickly changed into a toothy, lascivious grin. "What you feel?"
"God, yes," he whispered as he closed his mouth around her pebbled flesh.
"Want to see more?" she breathed, her question quickly slipped into a moan as she rolled her head back and brought her fingers to the back of his head. Interlacing them at the base of his skull, she ran her fingers through his hair in an up and down motion at the same time she pressed him more firmly to her chest. "Oh, God, Booth―unnnggglll..."
"All," he sighed as he let her nipple fall away from his mouth. "I wanna see it all. I want it all. All of you...although, I gotta admit, Bones...do you know you taste funny?" He made a face as he smacked his lips together in a displeasing way.
Brennan outright laughed as she saw him spit out some of the bitter tasting concoction that he'd licked away from her body. "That's not me you're tasting," she chucked. "That's Deep Woods Off."
"What?" Booth muttered as he spat again. "Don't you know that stuff can cause cancer?"
"You're spitting it out, so I don't think we'll need to call the Center for Poison Control," Brennan pointed out. "You'll be fine."
Booth grumbled a bit more, and Brennan laughed a bit more before she spoke again, her tone more gentle than before. "Do...you...trust...me?" she breathed.
He hesitated for a brief moment. You mean when you aren't trying to poison me, Bones? "Yes," he finally answered.
Brennan twisted against him, eliciting a low hiss from him as the vague sensations he'd been feeling―which he'd held at bay for long enough―seemed to roar through the thin veil of his consciousness to overwhelm him.
Her hands came up and tugged at the edge of his shirt. Very quickly, as she pulled at the t-shirt, she looped the fabric so that she pulled the front of the shirt over his head and let it rest behind his neck, leaving his chest open to her itching fingers.
"You―you're not gonna take it off?" he gasped, rolling his shoulder a little at the way his arms were constrained by his shirt, though a tiny whisper in the back of his mind suggested that it might not be all bad to have things that way.
"I think," she said as she brought her hands to his chest and slowly raked parallel lines down over his pecs and through his torso in a straight line. "I'm quite content to work with what I've got here for now."
He sucked in a hard breath through his teeth. "Oh, fuck," he hissed, his hips squirming beneath her as the sensation made his groin tighten even further.
"I think can make it worth your while," she purred. "As a matter of fact, I'm fairly certain I can."
"Yeah?" he asked with an arched eyebrow.
"Lay down," she said firmly, the evil glint in her eyes knowing that Booth had already been sent to either heaven or hell―he just didn't know which. "Lay down...and I promise...it'll be worth it."
A/N: Yes, yes. We know. You want to kill us for ending the chapter there.
But you know what that means. The next chapter's gonna be effin awesome. Which, of course, it will be. Totally epic. Because, true to classic Dharmasera form, that's where the good stuff is. Yeah, that good stuff. The kind that makes you blush.
And, as if that next chapter weren't enough to entice you folks to leave a prompt and lovely review, do know that there's actually a Scenario #6 that's teed up and ready to go, entitled "Signs and Signals." It's a one-shot (a really long, Dharmasera-style one-shot) that's the baseball-themed sequel to "That's Not A Rock." It's also B&B sexiness at its best, set at a baseball game.
So, you know what to do. Tell us what you thought of this chapter. Leave a review, and we'll get that Part IV up in short order.
Just click that little "review" button down there. Yes, that's the one. Uh-huh. Do it. All the cool kids are doing it.