TITLE: Nothing Personal
RATING: Just T, for this chapter. It's a bit more tame.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Thanks again, everyone, for all the reviews! A first foray into smut for a fandom can be a little nerve-wracking, much like writing a first story for a fandom, so I'm glad I was able to make it believable. And apologies for any errors to follow -- I got this done as quickly as possible so I could post another chapter for you guys, so I didn't do much proof-reading. It was more like proof-skimming. Hehe.

"Sweetie, what did I tell you about calling me in on the weekends?" Angela griped, striding into her best friend's office. "I was totally set to hunker down in bed with Keith for two straight days of sex when I got your call. What gives?"

Tempe raised her eyebrows and let out a sigh, watching her friend make a beeline for the couch and plop unceremoniously down onto it. "Booth and I need you to do a facial reconstruction on four bodies."

Angela's eyes widened. "Four?" She then smiled at her friend, devilishly. "And listen you, with your little 'Booth & I's. It's almost like you guys are a couple, that's so cute."

Tempe laughed. "Right. Booth and I... a couple. Please tell me you're joking."

Angela rolled her eyes -- she would never see it, would she? -- and sighed out, "well, let me just boot up my mainframe, and then I'll get started." She made a face suddenly and shifted uncomfortably on the couch. "What the hell am I sitting on?" She dug between the cushions, pulling up the offending object. "A tie?" Her eyes flicked over the silken material, recognizing the pattern immediately... and she looked to Tempe for an explanation. "Sweetie? What, uh... what is Booth's tie doing between the cushions of your couch?"

She opened her mouth to answer when Booth himself strode through the door, holding up a file and wiggling it in his hand. "Alright Bones, here we go! The prepared case-file, as you asked." He tilted his head and grinned. "Or, should I say, demanded."

Tempe gave him a look through her lashes and snatched the file from his hands, ignoring the feigned wince he sent as well as his muttering about paper cuts. As she flipped through the file, Booth turned his attention to the other occupant of the office, smiling at Angela. "Morning."

Her brows twitched in amusement as she held the tie behind her back. "Happy Saturday, Seeley."

"Sorry to drag you away from your newest conquest this weekend."

Angela waved dismissively. "Don't worry about it. Oh, and by the way..." She rose to her feet and approached the handsome agent, holding out the tie before dropping it into his hands. "I believe this belongs to you."

"Oh." Angela watched him carefully, cataloguing the way his eyes nervously flitted between Tempe, and the couch, and he ducked his head. "What is that doing here?"

She couldn't help the grin. "You tell me."

Predictably, that was the moment Tempe chose to stand up, file in-hand, and start shoving Booth toward the door. She tossed a look at her best friend. "We have to go. We've got work to do."

"Sure." Angela smiled at their retreat, eyebrows quirking as she quipped to the now-empty office, "work."

"Bones, what in the hell did you tell her?" Booth asked once they were driving down the highway in his bureau-issue SUV.

"Who?"

"Who do you think? Angela!"

Tempe threw her hands up in an exaggerated shrug. "I didn't tell her anything! She found your tie."

"Great. So she knows."

"Not necessarily."

His eyebrows raised above the rims of his shades. "'Not necessarily'? Bones, she found my tie!"

"So?" she chuckled, not understanding his ire. What was the big deal? "It's not like she found your boxers wedged between the sofa cushions. It was just your tie. You could've easily taken it off and thrown it there while we were arguing."

"Yeah, or while we were..." He trailed off, feeling his face growing warm, and he glimpsed quick at his partner, "you know."

Tempe sighed heavily, feeling a headache coming on, and propped her elbow on the car door as she rubbed her right temple. "Booth, I hate to sound like you, but... could we please focus on the case?"

"Fine." He gripped the steering wheel tightly and clenched his teeth.

"Fine."

Thick silence reigned the rest of the way to their destination.

Several hours later, they found themselves in upstate New York, following the lead Booth was given on where one of the already-identified victims had lived. "How does someone go from living in a huge cabin in upstate New York to being buried behind a bar in D.C.?" he mused rhetorically.

Tempe sighed to herself, watch Booth pull in to a parking space at a tourist lodge. "Let's just get this little adventure over with."

After checking in at the main lodge, Booth and Brennan where shown to their cabin, just yards away from the lodge. Though it was small, it boasted two bedrooms, a kitchen, a den, and a shared bathroom. "How long are we staying here, anyway?" she asked, tossing her overnight bag onto the small sofa in the den.

Booth shrugged lethargically. "Until our work is done, Bones."

She rolled her eyes. "Great."

"Y'know what I don't get about you, Bones?"

She huffed. "No, but I have a feeling you'll tell me anyway."

"If our case deals with anything that's just remotely interesting to you, you're all over it -- staying up all night to work, putting forth extra effort, all of that. But if the case concerns stuff that's interesting to me, you drag your feet on it! You act like you could really care less whether we solve it or not!"

She took a step toward where he stood leaning against the small breakfast bar in the kitchen. "Are you accusing me of not giving a hundred percent on the job? Because I have never given less than everything I have for a case, Booth! You know that."

"Do I?" He folded his arms across his chest and leaned more heavily against the counter, crossing his feet at the ankles while he regarded her through his lashes.

Tempe's eyes widened. "How can you even ask that! Who was the one that stayed up for forty-eight hours trying to compile evidence to save a man from being executed? Who was the one who followed you to Washington state to ID a hand that was found inside a bear? Huh?" She gestured to him with an upturned palm. "Meanwhile, you were the one on that death row case unwilling to help me dig because you might ruin your damn suit! If anyone here's not giving a hundred percent, it's you!"

It took two strides for Booth to reach her, and two more seconds afterward for him to grab her face and pull her in for a breath-stealing kiss. Tempe struggled against him, pressing her fists into his chest... but this only succeeded in him pulling her in tighter, his awakening arousal making itself apparent against her hip. He dragged her toward the bedrooms, refusing to break the kiss, and a comical moment ensued as they continually bumped into various sections of the wall... taking turns pinning each other along the way.

Once inside one of the bedrooms, Booth flopped backward onto the bed, pulling Tempe down with him and smiling when she yelped against his lips. He expertly rolled her beneath him and began working the buttons of her blouse, propping himself up on one elbow to do so. She gave a self-satisfied grin when she spotted his furrowed brow and the way he'd taken his lower lip between his teeth -- "Having some trouble?" she quipped, and finished unbuttoning her shirt for him.

He glared at her. "I was doing fine, thanks."

"Please. A few more seconds and you'd have been looking for a manual." Tempe gently shoved her partner off of her so she could sit up and remove her shirt, tossing it over his shoulder, toward the vanity table at the other end of the room.

"Just shut up, Bones." Booth found himself unable to stop the wide grin from spreading as he maneuvered her back against the pillows, his lips nipping at hers. As they alternated from deep, wet kisses to playful pecks, Tempe reached for his tie, this time undoing it gently, untying it completely before she pulled it from beneath his shirt collar.

When he reached up with his free hand to undo his own shirt buttons, still bracing himself on his elbow, she smiled. "Way to take charge, Booth."

He quirked an eyebrow and leaned close, the tips of their noses bumping. "What did I tell you? Shut up." He silenced her with a kiss, leaning into her and settling himself in the cradle of her hips. Deftly undoing the clasp on her black dress pants, he dragged the zipper down, the sheer sound of it cutting through the silence increasing his arousal.

Tempe locked her knees on both sides of his hips, delighting in his groan, and used her strength to roll them just as expertly as he had... now sitting astride him. She grinned down at his look of surprise while spreading open his shirt... fingertips dancing across taut skin and toned muscle. She always figured Booth for someone who would be vain enough to keep in shape -- even before she dropped by his place early-on and saw him sans shirt. She knew he did sit-ups, push-ups, pull-ups -- he'd told her so once when she'd accused him of being tense. And she remembered his response verbatim: 'Because we're talking.'

She leaned in to nip at his neck as she smiled to herself -- they now had a new way to relieve tension. One that she realized, as Booth trailed kisses along her shoulder, she was fastly becoming addicted to...

TBC