A/N: I am sooo sorry it has taken me so long but I had loads of assignments due in then I had Christmas and my family had World War 3 and then my computer crashed and lost nearly all I had worked on and well you don't wanna hear excuses LOL, I'll update soon promise!
Thanks SO much for reviewing guys it really helps! I have no confidence in my abilities whatsoever lol so it means a lot when strangers decide to read and review my stuff! Also I have spell checked etc but I have no beta so sorry if there are stupid mistakes that I didn't pick up…
Blondie: You mentioned that it was depressing because Nick appeared stupid but I wanted to get across the point that Sara has him so 'dumbfounded' that he's not thinking right and he keeps saying and thinking things that are just embarrassing him! But I will try to keep the 'stupid' comments to a minimum (this could just be my brain but hey).
Also this involves Griss being prob OC but hey...
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With that over: hope you enjoy the show…
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Temptation Waits
Chapter 3
By LaydeeBear
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Before you start wondering when I got so long winded let me reassure you, I will get round to telling you how we ended up at my house but I just need to make sure you understand the circumstances first. I will be the first to admit that so far things were not going my way neither were they working in my favour. After I turned round to see Sara had in fact disappeared I was annoyed at myself; yet again I'd lost control and nearly kissed her. Obviously as it turned out this worked in my favour later on because who knows where we'd be if I hadn't done this.
I'm not sure if Grissom sensed something between us but that night he finally put us on different cases and you know this may have worked if it hadn't been for the fact that instead of concentrating, the only thing I could now think of was Sara.
I had to talk to her.
It appeared however that she didn't have to talk to me because by the time shift was over, she had already left. The woman who thought overtime was god was out of the building before shift actually finished.
What to do…
I was halfway home before the answer hit me and I turned the car around making my way to her house.
As decisions go, well it wasn't the best one…
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"Hang on!" Sara grabbed a towel and pulled it round her body before running to her front door hesitating before looking through the peephole. Shit She took a deep breath before puling the door open a crack, "Yes?"
"Sara."
"Grissom." She said, "What's up?"
"Can I come in?"
She looked down at the towel; "I was in the shower."
He nodded but didn't move, "Oh, I could wait?"
"I uh, well… can't it wait until tonight?"
"Well I just wondered if you'd like to have dinner tonight?"
Okay this had to be a joke. "I uh huh?"
"Dinner." He re-iterated.
She'd been waiting for this for ages and now he'd finally asked her… she wasn't really all that sure.
"Well?" He asked.
"Sure, I guess I uh mean when, what time?"
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I had to admit seeing Grissom's car outside her apartment complex wasn't what I'd expected to see neither was it what I wanted to see. I waited for a good five minutes and when he walked out smiling and whistling a semi-cheerful tune I decided to go home.
As much as I want to leave this detail out my mother told me never to lie so whilst I drove home, I will admit that I sulked worse than a kid.
Pathetic yes.
Justified? Most definitely.
I mean come on, he ignored all her advances and knocks her back, acts like he doesn't give a damn and then when she finally starts to get over him he asks her out? Well I didn't know that for sure when I went there but I guessed, well assumed.
Well to hell with it, I'd kept things hidden for months now; I'd just push it down a bit further and forget about it.
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"They're BOTH late?" Warrick asked puzzled, "Sara doesn't know the meaning of the word late."
Nick stared at the doorway knowing that they were more than likely together but pushed it out of his head, "Yeah well, maybe they got caught up."
As he finished talking his supervisor entered the room closely followed by Sara who took her seat quickly, not making eye contact with anyone.
"Sorry guy's I've only one case, Cath's off tonight and Warrick you have your evaluation so Nicky, Sara and Greg can you go to the South Boulevard there was a body found in one of the rollercoaster carts. Brass is waiting for you there now." He looked at Nick and gave him what Nick was sure was a smirk.
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It was like he knew, I mean what the fuck was he thinking? I stared at him for a few seconds and when he eventually looked up he smiled at me. It made me kind of angry that just being around Sara couldn't make him that happy he had to take her out to realise it.
Fuckwit.
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"Nick!"
Nick looked up startled, "What?"
"Who you calling a fuckwit?" Warrick looked puzzled.
"I… I said that out loud?"
"No man I've become a mind reader."
Nick scowled and pushed hiself up, "Have a good night," He said walking out, "I'll see you guys downstairs." He called out to Greg and Sara. Greg looked at Sara frowning, she shrugged slightly and looked down at her hands.
One hour and 57 minutes at the crime scene and Nick had been an ass for approximately one hour and 56 minutes of it.
"Jeese Nick would you quit it already?" Greg asked.
If looks could kill he'd be dead.
"I'm just saying." Greg defended holding his hands up, "It'd just be nice if you could stop snapping at me, what the fuck did I do?"
Nick's face softened slightly before he sighed, "Sorry man, rough night."
"And morning." Greg muttered staring down at a small spot of blood that he swabbed and drew his pen out to label the carton.
"Look…" Nick stopped hiself and rubbed his forehead with his arm, it was damn humid and all he wanted to do was go home and have a cold beer.
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Right then all I wanted to do was go home and have a beer. Instead I had to spend what totalled 3 hours at the damn crime scene. 3 hours watching a full head of curls bounce around as Sara walked from one spot to another and proceeded to bend over in front of me giving no regard whatsoever to the tight jeans I had on.
And she hadn't even spoken to me.
It sucked more than a damn vacuum.
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"Nick did you bag the knife?"
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Okay so she'd said six words to me.
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"Nick?"
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Seven. What the hell was wrong with me? All I could do was stare at her face. I couldn't even manage a noise.
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"Hey earth to Nicky!"
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God I love it when she says my name like that. For only god knows how many reasons, I still hadn't replied so she did what she always did to get my attention and I hated that she knew about it, I hated that she could get away with it and I hated the effect it always had on me.
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"Hey cowboy." Sara waved her hand over his face bringing him out of his reverie. As he focused back in on everything he saw two soft brown eyes staring at him and a toothy smile grinning at him, a tiny gap no less than 6 inches from his face. He swallowed, clearing his throat and took a step backwards snapping his gloves off. She frowned slightly, "Nick?"
"Yes I got the damn knife." He scowled.
She stared at him for a few seconds then snapped her own gloves off, "Fine. Just… fine. Maybe we'll talk later when you feel like having a proper conversation." She sighed shaking her head as she walked towards the car.
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Definitely not the effect I was going for. On the up side it meant that I didn't have to deal with… well with either Sara or the situationfor the rest of the shift. Only it seemed to have a longer lasting effect than I first thought it would have.
In fact two shifts and another day off later we still hadn't spoken and apparently there was tension between us.
Me being the bigger man (okay and the one who started it all) I decided I would break the ice and smooth things over. All it took was an ultra quiet night and Sara's night off and I found myself parked up outside her apartment complex again.
I have decided I will stop having ideas.
I mean I have the occasional illuminating mega watt ideas and they turn out well but you know when you have those 10 watt ones that just keep flickering out? Well I'd been having a lot of those lately and this was yet another joining the long line.
He was there.
Again.
What the heck was going on?
What is it about the guy?
He is olding; balding, middle aged spreading and well just… look not to pull my own chain but I wasn't exactly hard on the eyes. Okay a quick check in the mirror and yeah you know not too bad. I guess I could definitely use a hair cut but I certainly didn't have a spare tire round my mid section and well I guess my arms were a bit skinny but… Well needless to say I went home yet again to my cold, empty, dark apartment that hadn't felt like home since I'd moved in after a brief episode with the psycho stalker from hell Nigel Crane.
I swear it couldn't have been more than 10 minutes before the silence in the apartment was interrupted by the dulcet tones of my pager and cell phone, the latter of which appeared to have 7 missed calls. It was Grissom – great. It took all of my restraint to not lay into him right there and then but hey I'm a nice guy and a gentleman and well he is my boss so I stayed quiet, dragged my ass off the couch and went into work.
I love my job, I ever say that? And there really is nothing like solving a good murder or two. Yeah sure I love my job, however 20 minutes later when I arrived at a rather… 'fresh' crime scene I wasn't thinking this, in fact it was the last thing on my mind especially as I saw paramedics walk away from one victim whose blood hadn't quite finished dripping. The smell of blood invading your senses is never nice and just as I thought that maybe it wouldn't be so bad, I found out there were two more victims upstairs, well 3 if you include the one that fell on Catherine as she opened a closet door. I figured my night couldn't get any worse, of course we all know how my luck pans out don't we?
Yeah my night really couldn't have got worse but I was still smiling, even when I got guts on my shoe I still smirked at Warrick's jokes and laughed at his and Catherine's banter. I was Mister Happy, that is until I stood up to get some air and body slammed a slightly weary and bedraggled Sara into the wall.
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"Jesus Nick!" Nick stood back letting Sara breathe for a few seconds.
"God Sara I'm so sorry, you okay?"
She blew her cheeks out and then let one loud breath out doubling over for a second, "Yeah I'm great thanks, jeese what do you weigh?" She asked, rubbing her chest.
"Slightly more than you apparently." He laughed uneasily.
As she stood up straight she realised how close Nick was and stared at him for a few second before biting her lip and moving to the side a little to distance herself from him. "Hmm, so you're talking to me now…"
"Is it raining?" Nick asked taking in her appearance and ignoring her question.
She looked up then realising he was talking about her hair she answered not before self consciously touching her soggy hair, "Oh umm yeah,"
"Oh…" He paused then went to speak again, "You feeling okay?"
Sara considered this for a few seconds before nodding, "Yeah, why?"
"You uh…"
At that second Greg walked past glancing at Sara on his way, "You look like crap"
Sara raised her eyebrows, "Well uhh gee thanks Greg, nice to see you too." She turned to Nick, "I really look that bad?"
Nick stared at her for a few more seconds before shrugging, "I got work to do." She sighed; watching him leave, at least he was talking to her now without biting her head off.
He couldn't help but notice the look in her eyes but he was still angry; how could she go crawling back to Grissom like that? He wondered the reason why she looked like she hadn't slept then shuddered at the thought of anything remotely sexual happening between Sara and Grissom. He wasn't sure if the shudder stemmed more from disgust at the way Grissom had treated Sara in the past, from disgust at the thought of his supervisor 'getting it on' or disgust because HE wanted Sara. But right at that moment he really didn't want to pay dues to the thoughts in his head and continued his gruesome task of trying to locate the missing body parts of the 38 year old female victim.
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It was hours before any of the CSI's made it back to the lab for anything other than an evidence drop and even longer before any of them got to sit down for a much needed coffee break. Nick slipped a couple of pain killers into his mouth and gulped them down in the vain hopes of warding off the beginnings of a headache, just before he swallowed he was startled as a hand nudged his arm and a voice rang out behind him;
"Any left for me?"
Instead of spitting the half-ingested coffee out, he took a huge breath in forcing a large number of coffee drops down his windpipe and making him cough like there was no tomorrow.
Concerned, Sara watched for a few seconds making sure Nick was okay before smirking a little, "Guess I got ya back for almost breaking my ribs in half earlier."
Nick rubbed his chest mirroring her previous actions from the crime scene and frowned at her,
"Yeah, I guess you did." He griped before grabbing the coffee jar and filling his mug up and walking over towards the couch, slumping own onto it.
Sara sighed before turning back to him; "Okay look, Nick you were the one who asked me not to be weird with you! Now you're doing it to me!"
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I'll admit she definitely had a point there but well... okay so I couldn't really come up with a reasonable argument, I hoped she might drop it…
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"What is it Nick? I haven't done anything wrong, we've hardly spoken for days and when we did speak you snapped my head off, you're treating me like I killed your dog or something."
He scowled, "That's an awful metaphor." He said a deep frown on his face which she couldn't help but think made him look like a teenager.
"Yeah well it's all I could come up with in 5 seconds." She paused to let that sink in and when he didn't reply she walked over towards the couch, her mug now full of coffee also.
He looked down at his mug trying to ignore her presence which only served to make her smirk and move in front of him to sit on the table.
"Come on Nick how long have we known each other? This is ridiculous, we're friends and you're acting like a child." She watched his face and couldn't help but think he actually looked hurt, not angry, as had previously been her assumption. She rolled her eyes, "Fine, whatever."
As she stood up to leave, Nick finally found his voice, "How could you do it Sar?"
She stopped and turned round smiling in her confusing at what he'd just uttered. "Huh?"
"Go crawling back to him after all he's done." Nick stated simply.
"Uhh…" A few things went through her mind. Who had she crawled back to? No one as far as she could remember… Hank? Nope not a word in over 4 months. Previous boyfriends? Hmm none that Nick knew of…"
"Grissom!" Nick prompted her, now standing up and pushing his mug into the sink before leaning back on the surface, his arms crossed.
Ah there could be that of course… She looked at him and sighed, "Nick I didn't go 'crawling back' as you so delicately put it, we had dinner, that was it." Nick's scowl was back and he 'harumphed' before she smiled slightly, "You're jealous?"
"Disgusted more likely." He muttered although the slight red blush creeping over his cheeks gave him away and told her she'd hit the nail on the head.
"Nick what is your problem?" She pressed. "We had dinner, nothing else." She wasn't sure why she felt she had to justify her actions but she felt compelled to; Nick was her friend and she didn't want him angry at her.
"Uh huh sure you did, that's why he's been round your house twice in what, a week? Sure just dinner."
She couldn't quite believe her ears at what he'd just said and she wasn't sure if she wanted to laugh or smack him upside the head.
"Nick…" She tried.
"Come on Sar you have to admit you're…"
"Nick, he came round asked me to dinner then left, we had dinner; it sucked the food was awful it made me sick."
"Yeah then I'm sure he came round to make it all better right before tonight's shift."
She walked closer to him cocking her head to one side, "Nicky I think the real issue here is what were 'you' doing outside 'my' apartment on more than one occasion and for long enough to notice Grissom coming and going."
He looked at the floor for a second and opened his mouth a few times to speak whilst meanwhile Sara tried her hardest not to burst out laughing.
"Yeah I figured, so if you're done with the fish impression Nicky maybe you could lay off me. And for your information he came round tonight because I didn't answer my pager and he wanted to get me out to the scene."
He opened his mouth once more before shutting it.
"I just assumed…"
She grinned at him and leaned over him to put her empty mug beside his, "You know what they say about assumption right Nicky?"
He swallowed hard breathing in her light perfume as she leant over him. "Uh what's that?" He asked trying to keep his voice level.
She looked at him, her face no more than a few inches away from his; "It's the mother of all fuck ups!" She said grinning and raising her eyebrows.
With that, Sara Sidle turned and walked out of the lab and Nick couldn't help but stare at her ass, which he was almost certain, gave a slight wiggle as she rounded the corner out of sight.
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Loved it? Hated it? Let me know! Don't forget to review!
Jen
