Thanks Kirsten for the beta.
Numb, that's how her lips felt, completely and utterly numb. Even as she brought the steaming mug of tea to her lips, the delicate skin protecting her nerve endings didn't register the heat. Only when the searing liquid touched her tongue did she realize that she couldn't feel.
Gil Grissom had quite literally kissed her senseless.
Placing her beverage on the table, she brought her fingers to her lips and passed over them a few times. He knew how to kiss, so well, so incredibly well. He'd seemed to know each little crevice on her body that, when touched, brought a pleasure so extreme her knees had threatened to flutter off and leave her.
But could she trust him? He'd said the words, but that was it. Words were words, nothing more. However, from the depths of his gaze, the flavor and ardent passion of his kisses had attempted to sway her completely in his favor. His mouth had been a manner of persuasion, whether it be with words or not.
Leaning against the leather back of the couch, she thought how the material wasn't really conducive to long make out sessions or lazy afternoons simply reading with one's... one's what? One's lover?
The word struck a chord with her and she shivered at the distant, yet not wholly unwelcome thought. If he was her lover...
Anyhow, the leather just wasn't appropriate for laying back and doing the Sunday Times crossword puzzle.
Once she'd downed the rest of her luke warm passion tea, she found herself on Pier One's website, clicking around, inspecting sofa stats – paying special mind to fabric color and softness quotient.
"Peaches with paprika," he thought, thrumming his fingers against the softly-worn leather of his steering wheel. God, she'd felt, she'd tasted, she was just... everything that he couldn't think of.
No, no, that wasn't right. She tasted like... what did she really taste like? Grissom's tongue registered the faint flavor of spring rain, basil and rock candy. But no, that wasn't correct either. Perhaps it was Dr. Pepper, peanut butter and Sweet N' Low. That wasn't it...
It was something though. Sara tasted... like... she tasted like a string of pearls felt. If there were only apt words to really make her mouth palpable to his mind.
Perhaps the kissing wasn't really advantageous to the entire plan of giving her time. Then again, he hadn't been the only one clawing at the other to get closer. So...no, it wasn't entirely his fault that things had happened. And he didn't regret it (he doubted she did as well).
And... it hadn't been bad, the experience that they'd shared. It was just that... damned, he didn't know what it was. It just was.
It had been fantastic, the kissing. He'd somehow drifted away from himself and into her as he skimmed over the delicate frame of her body.
Yeah, that would have to happen again.
Two days and all she could do was touch her lips, lick her lips, draw attention to her goddamned lips.
'Stop it, stop it, Jesus STOP IT SARA!' he screamed to himself over and over, glaring at her over the top of file folders.
And he, well he would pull at his beard, absent-mindedly bite on the end of a pen, smooth down the prickly hair on his cheeks. 'Grissom, you are SUCH a jackass,' she would mutter to herself and wonder how his lips would feel lowe-– oh, a hit through CODIS.
The little mind game, tug of war was back at its best, with a few stolen glances and brief touches thrown in for good measure.
Sweaty hair tangled at the base of her neck and she tossed herself onto her back, effectively rousing her from the tempest that the nightmare had brought. Her mouth was dry, all of the moisture in her body having been sweated off, in her cleavage, in her hair, in the palm of her hands.
Briskly, she wiped her palms against the comforter, the friction radiating even more heat through her body. Wrong.
Frantically, she pressed her hands against her cheeks and breathed in deeply. Her brain, not connected with the searching of her hands, hummed along in complete ignorance of her agitation. Fingers danced quickly, agilely over the buttons of her phone until she heard a familiar voice call her from her frenzy.
"Brass?" His first thought, work. That had her reeling again and she had to swallow and tempt the saliva back into her mouth.
"No I-"
"Sara?" His voice was immediately alert and she could just see, see him wiping the sleep from his eyes. Damn, she wished she was there to see it.
"What's my favorite color?" she whispered, clutching the edge of the sheet between her forefinger and thumb. This was a completely illogical thing to do at such an hour. Though she knew she shouldn't be calling him, her hand was wrapped around the phone lovingly yet possessively.
Grissom stuttered on the other end of the line, wondering if he was missing a vital piece of the conversation. "What?"
"What's my favorite color?" she demanded with more gusto, her knuckles going white as the sheet became a security blanket keeping the real world out of her buzzing brain.
"Red," he said through what was a wad of sleep, stuck in his throat.
Her smile cooled the sweat on her skin, tickling her back into real time, into consciousness. "Good. Vegetable, what's my favorite?"
He sighed into the phone; she could just see him passing a hand over his face, rustling the hair of his beard, making little scratching little sounds. Delightful, she was sure. "Broccoli, I'm pretty sure anyway."
Sara laughed, cackled into the phone. "What my fav-"
"Animal? That penguin, the one with the weird head... the one that Nick likes too." He yawned and just as she was about to speak, "Movie? You'd like people to think something suspenseful like "Silence of the Lambs" but I can guess that it's actually "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" and your favorite music? You don't have a favorite band but you listen to blues and hum bad pop music when you think no one's listening, Sara what does this have to do with anything."
"Book?"
"I've seen you read Faust, three times since I've known you and you enjoy Shakespeare, but just his comedies." He was no longer tired; he had that shine in his eye, damn, she could tell.
"What's my favorite color?"
"You said that already," he commented.
"Red," she whispered, running the tip of her index finger over the receiver.
Grissom cleared his throat and answered. "Yes."
A sigh escaped her lips and she felt the itchy feel of dried salt on her skin. "I want to know your favorite color."
"It's-"
"No, not like this. I can't tell like this." Sara fell back against the pillow and finally felt the true weight of no sleep etch itself into her bones. "Come here, tell me."
"How much sleep have you had in the past week Sara?"
Simply, she sighed and rolled onto her side, cradling the phone like a lover or perhaps a dear child. "I want to see it in your eyes, the color."
"You haven't really slept, have you?"
"I want to... but, I have to know," she blinked slowly, sleep wanting to invade her but finding it impossible with six days of agitation left in her bones. "I have to know that color."
Passing his hand over his face once more he looked at the clock. One o'clock in the afternoon, prime sleeping time.
"Sara..." He wanted to hesitate and think it through, but the push/pull, tug of war that was going in his head had to end. He cut the cord. "I'll be there in twenty minutes."
"Kay, I'll leave the door open." She sounded so adorably sleepy and he could just imagine her, wrapped up in her pajamas, anxious, waiting for him. Cute.
Grissom's face broke out in an amazing smile. "I'll be there in ten, then."
And with that, he went off to brush his teeth.
He didn't smile on the way over, he didn't dare. The way things were looking up, he, the ever logical scientist, didn't care to tempt a little thing called fate. So, he didn't speed through the yellow lights or take sharp turns. He took it slow; slow was the way to go. Slow was the motto.
Upon his arrival at her apartment, he didn't bother to smooth his hair or check his appearance in the mirror. Before he had left he hadn't bothered to change into respectable clothes, just tossed a pair of sweats on over his boxers and absently pulled at some of the wrinkles on his tee shirt. On his way out the door, he grabbed the first jacket he could find, a brown suede one, and shrugged it on. His last addition was his sunglasses, which battled against the harsh morning sun.
Making his way up the battered granite steps of her complex and he slipped inside, and walking walked briskly down the hall to her apartment. About to knock, he remembered that she had left the door unlocked and tried the knob. Just as she had promised, the knob acquiesced under his motion.
When he stepped forward, he was thoughtful enough to shut the door quietly.
Immediately, he was enveloped in her scent. Cinnamon! That was it! Cinnamon and winter, that's what she was and Grissom stepped forward slowly, listening to the creak of the floorboards under his feet. He wondered for an instant if it would make the same sound if he were sneaking out to her kitchen for a midnight snack. Another thought came to him then: what would it sound like with her creeping up behind him, deliriously naked, enticing him back to bed?
But all that floated away as he made his way into her hall and searched out her bedroom.
He found it, last door on the left.
"Sara," he called softly, expecting her to be waiting. But... she wasn't.
Sara was a heap on the bed, pillow clutched to her chest with her left arm. Her right was twisted up under her head, phone clutched tightly in her hand. Her hair was all mussed and her lips turned into a severe pout, a reminder of the tiny one she almost always wore.
If Grissom had been one to use the word adorable, that would have been the most appropriate moment. He wondered for a moment if he should put it into the rotation.
Not knowing what to do with him, he placed himself down on the edge of the bed and after a moment's hesitation, brought his hand out to touch her hair softly. His fingers took up a gentle stroking motion and a sigh escaped the confines of his throat.
"Maroon," she moaned sleepily, "To go with the little brown fleck in your iris."
Sara reached up and pulled his lips down to hers, dragging him into bed with her. "Just sleep with me," she muttered, sloppily kissing over his neck. "Just sleep."
Chuckling, he followed her down underneath the covers wrapping an arm around her lower back. "Hmm, so this is the adventure part, right?"
"Sleeping?" she asked. "With you?"
"Yeah," he said, curling into her.
Sara yawned, placed a palm over his heart and smiled. "Oh yeah."
Grissom too yawned, "How many days left?"
"Mmm, five? Three, twelve? Seventeen thirty thirteen?"
"Whatever," Grissom muttered just before falling to sleep, with his lips resting over her cartoid artery.