Grissom's voice cut him off from the doorway, "Nick, I need you and Warrick to take on the Mather's case."
Hodges froze and turned around swiftly, trying to look busy, but only looking put out.
Nick turned his head slightly, sighing in frustration, "Okay, Grissom. In a second."
Grissom nodded and was gone, leaving behind the same feeling he had gotten when his mother had caught him with his hands down his pants.
"I'll be back later."
Hodges nodded, still vainly attempting to seem busy, and still failing miserably at it. Nick could literally feel the man's emotions, they rolled of in such strong waves, and he could drown in them if not careful. The mournful look cast in his direction, as he moved to leave, was undeniably like public breakups and scalding hot stream and being trapped in that coffin all at once, and he vowed to himself that he would return after the case was solved.
Later, when it was found that the Mather man had killed himself by accident in a bid for attention, Nick returned to the lab where Hodges' was still working. He could see Hodges' shoulders and neck were tensed, and he had a surprising thought about massaging all those worries away… Well, why the hell not?
He slowly approaches the unsuspecting lab tech from behind and places his hands on Hodges' shoulder, rubbing at them gently, and enjoying the shudder from the other man. He can feel the heat and tense muscles underneath his fingertips, not even the cloth barrier can prevent that, and it seems almost unbearably intimate.
"Guh…" is the only sound Hodges makes.
He moves his hands to the especially tense muscles and applies harder pressure to the knots in the Trapezius, moans come from the rigid man underneath his hands, and all he can think is that this is David, not Hodges. He imagines that somehow, in this very room, something had changed about them. Hodges to David, coworker to…
"David…" He leans forward, breath dancing across David's ear.
"Huh?"
He smiles at the dazed look on David's face. God, he can't stop thinking the name, now that he can, David, David, David…
His palms dance over the Teres Major and Minor as they head towards the Latissimus dorsi. He kneads the flesh there through the cotton shirt, enjoying the breathy sighs and moans that he gets in response. He carefully moves from the bottom of the vertebrae to the top, digging his fingers into the places between the bumps, and rotating his knuckles over them as well. All of his focus goes into destroying any lingering pain from David's memory.
The necks is such a wonderful place, Nick thinks as he begins to rub it, fingertips moving in fast circles, because there's so much tension to release and he knows they have time constraints. When he reaches David's hair, he slows and lengthens his strokes, knowing that he can set off nerve endings there that will leave tingles down the spine, and enjoying the trembling that he can feel beneath his fingers.
David whimpers, mumbling something incoherent, and the sound makes Nick stop massaging and begin to just…explore the body under his fingers. He splays one hand on David's back and the other he lets get tangled up in David's hair. He can feel the energy between them crackle and leans forward slightly, because in this perfect moment…nothing but kissing David matters, nothing should.
tbc...