Chapter 2

He started with daily phone calls. Would she please talk to him? Would she please just tell him why? Didn't he deserved that much of an answer?

Finally he called Heather.

"Hello?"

"Hello."

"What happened with Sara and the interview?" He asked in a hoarse whisper. He had cried more in the last week then he had in his entire life. He could only sleep on the couch and even that was becoming difficult.

"Interview…Oh dear. Sara is your...Oh dear. Gilbert, I should have known."

He listened to her breath for several moments. "What happened? What did you say?"

"The case. The submissive was killed and I said that I thought one or even both of them had fallen in love. Gilbert, I am sorry. I was distracted. I knew that she was probably in a contract with someone. She seemed so confident and cared for I knew that there was soon to be a problem. I just wanted to warn her that she needed to get out of the contract. Not that she needed to leave her lover completely. It was simply time for the contract to end and if there was to be something else they could do it freely. It's not safe for love to enter these kinds of relationships. Someone always gets hurt."

Gil thought of their night together and the subsequent trouble that had followed.

"I should know better." He said in hard voice.

"Yes you should." Heather agreed. "She released herself from the contract?"

He nodded though she could not see him. "She left me completely. She won't talk to me except at work."

Heather thought for a second. "She's very strong. Much stronger than people give her credit for. What are you going to do? She's self possessed. That is a gift you gave her."

"Doesn't feel like a gift." He snorted.

"You have been crying." Heather whispered in his ear.

He gave another silent nod despite the fact that she could not see him.

"She gave you the gift of feeling again."

XXX

He was outside her apartment. He had no idea what he was going to say or do. She wasn't home. Her car was in the parking lot but the lights were off in her apartment. He would make her talk to him. He wasn't sure how but he would.

He had washed the Scotch and clove cigarettes from his skin and hair. He had trimmed his beard and run some product through his hair. He was surprised that the past two weeks of drinking and little sleep had not taken more of toll. Still Sara would be able to tell.

Sara walked up the staircase followed by Tim Speedle, a friend and CSI from Miami. He and his supervisor, the ghost-like Horatio Caine, were in town and attending a seminar that Grissom was lecturing at.

She smiled as she turned her doorknob. "All I have to drink is coffee, Australian wine, water and skim milk."

"Whoa. That's pretty good for a single person. I just have water and apple juice in my fridge. I will take some wine," he replied as he settled himself on the small couch.

Sara was nervous and edgy. She had no intentions of sleeping with Tim. Still it felt odd having someone in her apartment other than her guys and Grissom. She poured the wine.

XXX

Grissom guessed that Sara had come up the back stairwell. He wondered where she had been. Probably out with Nick or Warrick. He turned the key in his hand. They were only supposed to use the keys to let themselves in for an agreed upon appointment.

He looked at the door. He didn't want to scare her but he didn't want to chance her not letting him in. He would suffer her temper if it meant he had a few moments to plead his case.

Sara watched in horror as the lock turned.

Grissom. Shit.

Tim remained pleasant. "I didn't know you had a roommate."

As he turned the door Grissom looked into Sara's face. He spoke softly. "I know you are but can you just hear me out?"

Tim turned at the sound of Dr. Gil Grissom's voice. His boss' words came back to haunt him when Horatio Caine had realized that Tim was interested in the leggy brunette.

"Speed. You don't want to get between Gil Grissom and that woman."

"She said they aren't seeing each other."

"I repeat Speed. You don't want to get between Dr. Grissom and Sara."

Gil watched the young man as time moved slowly. He raised his eyebrow to a precise point.

"Mr. Speedle."

The other man stood hoping that youth and height would give him some advantage. It did not.

"Dr. Grissom." He looked at Sara. "Maybe I should go."

Sara leveled him with a gaze. "Sit down Tim."

She pushed Gil into the hall. He savored the hot whisper and the spray of saliva on his face.

"Leave Grissom."

They huddled in the dark hallway of Sara's apartment building speaking in short angry bursts. Gil was thrown by the sudden equality of their conversation. She did not harbor all the power any longer. She could utter no safe word to make him stop.

"Don't I at least get some kind of explanation? Dammit Sara, why won't you even talk to me?"

"I can't talk to you." She flexed one long elegant foot, her purple rhinestone studied flip flops offered a subdued glint.

"Sara…" His voice was soft and sweet. He was close. He touched her face then moved his hand away. His body followed. She silently thanked him for the distance.

"Grissom…I should have never agreed to the contract. You knew better. I didn't know enough. You took advantage of my inexperience with this…"

He looked at her closed apartment door surprised to find that he harbored very little jealously with regard to the man that sat in Sara's home.

He sighed with a melancholy that only those who have known true love are capable. She was right. He had lured her into the contract after a case involving bondage knowing that their feelings were far too volatile for such an arrangement. They could not create unforgiving lines and boundaries.

She started speaking again. "Our lives. We work together. We were in this thing together. You knew better Grissom. I didn't. I know better now."

His Sara. The eternal student. It was only a matter of time before she uncovered his unspoken lies.

"Dominants and submissives shouldn't work together. They shouldn't have over a decade of history. Every book. Every expert. They all say the same thing Gris."

"Sara…"

Her chin jutted out in an unforgiving line. "Gil, I had never felt so…I have never felt so special in my entire life."

He touched her face again. She kissed his palm without any conscious thought. She always kissed his hand when he touched her face. The dance between them could never be forgotten, the adoration of one another. "Then why?"

"Someone was going to get hurt. Physically hurt Gris, not just the emotional volleys we keep hurling back and forth."

The next words were the only ones that would make him retreat. "You love me more than Dr. Lurie loved Debbie."

It was not a question. It was a fact.

He turned and left. She could not bear to watch him walk away. She ignored the tears in both their eyes.

Over. Safe.

TBC