Tight, ragged breathing – face into her pillow, feet curled up off the bed so her sneakers weren't on her sheets. She wants to go to him, grab him as he walks past her and having stood up to grab him gently take a hand and bring it to his face. Feel his skin, once so smooth and now covered by the perfectly trimmed beard, her fingertips along his jawbone. Delicate kiss. Just one, whispers of skin, lips on lips so briefly and then away. Because he knew there were more, and she knew there were more, and they could use them as they wished.

And then there he was in her apartment, she didn't know what they were doing or why he was there, but his hand was on her cheek and his eyes looked into hers. She brought her hand up to his face, such a strong intelligent face, and he said something. She couldn't quite make out the words. But then he was saying he should leave. She told him, "You don't have to if you don't want to."

Sara woke up, her mouth dry and she drained the glass of water on her bedside table. She tried to recall a time when she didn't wake up wet and aching for Gil Grissom and failed.

--

"Hi, I'm Sara Sidle. I have an appointment for one o'clock?"

"Right. Welcome Miss Sidle. If you'll just follow me…."

Sara followed the short, perfectly coifed woman to a row of sinks against the back wall. She opened a closet near the sinks and offered Sara a hanger for her jacket.

"Thanks." Sara took off her jacket and put it on the hanger the woman had provided her with.

"Go ahead and take a seat."

Sara sat at the sink at the edge of the row. The woman washed Sara's hair with strong hands and massaged her scalp; Sara's arms prickled and she shivered at the feeling of someone else washing her hair. The woman rubbed Sara's hair and scalp with the towel before gesturing towards one of the styling chairs. Sara sat down and the woman tucked the cap around her neck. "Rodrigo will be right with you. Would you care for an herbal tea or cucumber water?"

"Do you have chilled water?"

"Is Perrier alright?"

"That'll be fine, thank you."

The woman smiled and disappeared into the back while a tall, built, and, frankly, gorgeous man came over to her chair. She had been expecting someone more waifish, the stereotypical gay man from "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" perhaps. This man wouldn't be out of place as a club bouncer. He smiled and extended his hand.

"Miss Sidle, I'm Rodrigo. Catherine told me of your encounter with one of our city's less finest."

"They talk about hazards in my line of work, but this is a bit unusual – even for me." She offered a half-grin.

Rodrigo chuckled. "So I've heard from Catherine." He ran his fingers through her hair, holding it out in the light. "Okay, it looks like what you used dried out your hair some and the less said about your split ends, the better. But I think that I can salvage this." He looked her in the eyes. They were a marvelous shade of green she noticed. "Do you trust me?"

"With my hair? Or with my life?" It was a paltry joke and she knew it. She couldn't help it, she hadn't dyed her hair since she was in high school. Rodrigo just raised an eyebrow and waited. She sighed, Catherine's hair typically looked good….

"Okay. Yah. I trust you."

Rodrigo laughed. "I'm guessing you would like to stick as close to your natural hair color as possible, right? Have to maintain a professional air, especially a woman in your job."

The coifed woman came back and handed Sara a glass with a twist of lemon and the beginning of condensation beading on the sides. Sara murmured her thanks before responding to Rodrigo. "Yah, I don't want high maintenance though. The most time I want to spend on my hair in the morning is ten minutes."

"Okay! We'll do color first and then cut."

"I'm in your hands."

He twirled the chair to face the mirror and placed his hands on her shoulders and said, "You won't regret it."

And for one brief moment, Sara was able to convince herself that it was Grissom standing there before blue eyes changed to green and the crinkle of tin foil broke her reverie.

The brushes looked like something a painter might use, although the tin foil squares accumulated on the top of her head looked like something out of a bad science fiction movie. She sipped on her water but was pleasantly surprised when the woman brought her a fresh glass as she sat flipping through a novel of a magazine. Vogue wasn't at the top of her preferred reading list and she quickly noted that most of the content was derived from extensive ad placements. There were ad spaces that looked like articles and articles that were composite ads. She felt Rodrigo opening some of the foil packets.

"Okay, let's go rinse this out."

Sara lazily got to her feet and meandered to the sinks, an easy swing of her hips entering her usually purposeful walk. Tin foil fell like shooting stars from her mind, accompanied by the low rumble of water against her scalp. It reminded her of rainstorms in San Francisco – the rain on her roof lulling her to sleep. She never thought she'd miss fog until she'd lived in Las Vegas for five years. The image of small peaks of orange cresting from amorphous grey banks, obscuring the hills of Sausalito, entered her mind. The surcease of water brought her back to Vegas and the present. Rodrigo dried her hair and then draped the towel around her neck before guiding her back to the styling chair.

Forty-five minutes, an inch of hair, and a blow-dry later, Rodrigo was smoothing her hair with slow passes of a hair straightener. He had managed to almost match her natural hair color, leaving it just a bit darker with a sunburst of honey – or maybe amber – highlights at her crown. The tamed hair whispered against her cheeks, the razored ends creating chaos at the end of imposed order. As Rodrigo applied a product to her hair that seemed to erase the fly-aways, Sara found herself beginning to grin. She looked…hell, there was no need for modesty in her own head – she looked hot. I wonder what Grissom will think? She thought as she paid the woman at the front desk. Her grin grew more mischievous, the highlights picking up depths in her eyes that were glinting with something definitely akin to pleasure.

--

No woman should look that hot in jeans, he thought as Sara made her way down the hallway. The dark denim had pink, Pink?, contrast stitching that matched the cotton plaid shirt she was wearing. She had a denim jacket over her arm and she was chatting and…laughing with Greg. She was smiling as she walked past him, a slight nod and a quirk of her lips acknowledged him, although it wasn't the full smile he would have sworn was only ever directed at him. How long had it been since he'd gotten an open smile out of Sara? Of course, then he had to think back to a time when he'd done something to deserve that smile.

That was part of the wonder of her smile though, he never thought he'd done anything to deserve that smile and yet there it was. just like her – always appearing at the most surprising moments. He suddenly remembered Sara in her doorway when he brought over the tomato juice. He had been so riveted by her appearance that he had only now processed her expression as she saw him. She had been happy – her eyes had held his and she had smiled a wide, open, grateful – loving whispered an insidious voice – smile.

Sara and Greg were continuing down the hall and Greg said something that made Sara mock punch his arm. She wasn't walking like she normally did – her stride was still purposeful but there was an extra sway of her hips. And that sway was almost the undoing of Gil Grissom. He typically avoided paying overt attention to Sara, he remembered her running after scent dogs – a smirk crossing his face, concerned that he would become too engrossed in his study of her. It was impossible not to notice her ass in those jeans though – they cupped her cheeks almost as well as he imagined his hands could.

"Looks like someone went shopping," Catherine's voice intruded on his "study".

Which was why he didn't want look in the first place. He flipped a page on his clipboard and tried to act nonchalant and said, "Yes, apparently."

Catherine tossed him a look that clearly stated that she didn't believe him for one instant. "So, Sara getting another plant?"

He glared at her over his glasses. "Aren't you done with your shift?" He said and continued on his way to his office. He sat down at his desk and flipped through the night's assignments but set them down after a moment. He knew he had no right to feel possessive of a smile, of her. Everything he did made perfect sense in his head, it just made the rest of him ache.

He shouldn't know the way her face would fall, the droop of her mouth, the rolled in right shoulder as she walked away. He shouldn't know the way her shoulders moved back, how her chin tilted to the left in inquiry as she reached out to him again. He shouldn't know the pain masked in her eyes when she looked at him.

He wanted to know how she slept – if her body, with its gorgeous long limbs, would wrap itself around him as he had so often dreamed. He wanted to know how her eyes would look as they woke up in the morning, as he made love to her. He wanted to know how her skin would taste after the sweat of passion had cooled on her body.

He needed to know why a woman like Sara Sidle could be in love with a man like him. He needed to lose himself in her.