Hodgins was indeed disappointed with the outcome of the case involving the death of Lee Coleman, especially when it was his examination of particulate evidence found on the body that provided the first link to an all-too-human culprit instead of the hoped for chupacabra. After a token period of bitter complaint, he took it in stride - he was a scientist after all, despite his sometimes outlandish skepticism. As Booth had suspected, the innkeeper and his employee were involved and soon enough, both were under arrest.
Life moved on as well, and for Booth and Brennan, it included an ever-deepening intimacy. They worked together, opening and closing murder cases with an almost easy regularity. On the weekends, they ran errands and during the week, shared their meals. Breakfast one day, lunch or dinner the next, and sometimes, all three within the same 24-hour span.
Still smarting from Booth's teasing comment about the TV stored in her closet, Brennan finally allowed him to set it up, an exercise which proved to be mostly fruitless, given her adamant refusal to have cable tv installed, too. She did have a DVD player, though, which meant take-out and old movies, sitting on her couch.
What they did not do was make love, but as the bright spring days lengthened and the temperature outside rose higher, the heat between them also grew. One kiss led to another. A hundred caresses merely became a hundred more. Hungry for each other, aching to touch and be touched, they danced on the razor's edge of restraint.
Like teenagers intoxicated with the first taste of passion, they ignored their own self-imposed barriers. His hands learned the shape of her breasts, reveling in the lush fullness that spilled out of his palms as he savored the taste of her nipples, suckling until they tightened into the sweetest of berries. She learned the feel of him within the curve of her fingers, thick and hard and hot, and felt the pulse of rigid steel beneath smooth velvet skin as she stroked and squeezed.
Chaste intentions disappeared; fully clothed, even if that clothing was disheveled and in disarray, almost every night ended with their bodies pressed together as they mimicked the act of love. It was never enough. Even when his fingers found the damp heat at her core . . . when he brought her to a shattering climax as he pumped his own release into her hand, it was never enough. The line they'd drawn - the line that Booth had drawn - grew ever more faint. The solitary beds they inevitably went home to, ever more lonely.
"I should go home."
They were lying on the floor beside the couch, where they'd landed when that piece of furniture proved too small for their intimate gymnastics. Shirts were unbuttoned, trousers unzipped and loose, and their breathing just beginning to slow to a normal rate when Booth spoke.
Brennan sighed and rolled away from the comfortable nest she'd made in the curve of his body. "No, you should stay. This is ridiculous. We're both adults. It's not as if we haven't been in sexual relationships before."
They'd had this conversation before, too. His head turned toward her. Her hair was mussed from his greedy, eager hands, and the pale skin of her neck showed patches of red from the scrape of his unshaven beard. He thought her impossibly beautiful. "Do you love me?"
Their eyes met. When she hesitated, he saw it, and she saw the brief flash of hurt it caused.
"That's why I'm going home."
"Yes!" she cried, and then immediately equivocated. "I think so. Maybe . . . I don't know." She propped herself up on one elbow, frustrated with herself and with him as he stretched out, hips flexed, to adjust his pants and zip up. "Don't you think I want to define these feelings? To label them? I just . . . can't. I don't know what it is I feel."
The mulish set of his jaw was all too familiar. "Sex won't help you figure it out."
Her gaze skipped down the length of him. The memory of his long, powerful frame covering her body was imprinted into her skin. "We are having sex."
Booth snorted. He caught a glimpse of a crumpled tissue half-hidden beneath the coffee table they'd shoved out of the way, and scowled. "Dry humping like a couple of kids? This isn't sex. This is torture."
The impasse was a familiar one. They sighed, almost in unison, then reached for the other's hand. His thumb stroked her palm as they lay side by side on the floor of Brennan's living room.
"I love you."
Blue eyes shimmered behind liquid stars when she looked back at him. "How do you know?" she whispered. "How is it that you can be so certain?"
One corner of his lips quirked in a smile filled with gentleness. His voice, already husky and deep, dropped lower.
"When I walked into that auditorium seven years ago, my whole life changed. I didn't know it then, but I do now. You're the first thought I have every morning and the last one I have before I fall asleep. And when I wake up and the pillow beside me is empty because you're still not there, my heart breaks every time . . . just a little."
A tear slipped free, a fat silver drop that slid over the bridge of her nose and disappeared below her temple.
"When I think about growing old, I see you next to me. And this . . ." He raised her hand and held it against his chest, over his heart. "Feel that? Every beat says your name."
Brennan drew a shuddering breath as more tears fell. He leaned over and kissed them away, then pressed his damp lips against her fingers.
"And here's what else I know," Booth said, staring into her eyes. "You love me, too."
Her gasp of surprise turned into a watery hiccup. "Then why are you insisting - -"
"I need the words, Bones," he answered, his countenance so grave that even her tears faded. "And so do you. You need to say them. You need to say them because Temperance Brennan doesn't make a pronouncement like that unless she knows it's true."
Her silence told him he was right.
He leaned over again for a kiss that was sweet and gentle, then sat up and, with his knees crackling in protest, got to his feet. Once he was upright, he found his shoes then arched his back with a groan. "Let's stay on the couch next time, okay?"
Brennan accepted the hand he offered and stood, too. When she'd righted her own clothes, he pulled her in close and held her wrapped tight in his arms.
"Breakfast tomorrow?"
Her hair brushed against his jaw when she shook her head. "Lunch. I'm expecting a delivery of remains discovered in an abandoned 19th century silver mine in Colorado. They appear to be in excellent condition, at least from the photos I've seen. I'm very excited to get started on them."
He drew away just far enough to let her see his smile. "Well, I guess I can't compete with that."
Goodbye was always the hardest part of their time together, as it was now when they simply stood together, holding each other as the minutes ticked by. It was Booth who finally, reluctantly, pulled away.
At the door, he stole one last kiss from her lips, then pressed his own against her forehead. "Sweet dreams."
Then he went home, to an empty apartment and an even emptier bed.
And she went down the hall to her own.
And it was a long time before either slept.
.
.
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So for my next trick, we're going to Florida to meet a guy named Walter Sherman - who most decidedly will not be sitting on the toilet in that chapter. Ugh.
Thanks for reading!