Disclaimer: No Ownage. Never. Not Ever. Except Jay. He's mine.

So...I heard you guys wanted some more?

Well, here it is! Enjoy!

Oh..and I know Sara is a bit OOC, but it'll come full-circle in later chapters!

Chapter 4- Little Mystery

That black ribbon.

Nick had spent fifteen minutes trying to open the door, and he knew it was all because of that little black ribbon around Sara's wrist. He hadn't noticed it at the club, or in the car, but as soon as they reached the front of his apartment, there it was. Her forefinger slid under it with ease, and she was stroking it slowly. Nick knew it was in anticipation, and it led him to a nerve short-circuit. He couldn't believe she was in his apartment (or, at least at the front of it, if he could just fit the key in the damn lock), and he hadn't the foggiest clue where to go next.

After his episode with the lock came to a dramatic close with the door finally swinging open, Nick walked briskly into his hallway. Pent-up nerves were eating at him, and he spontaneously decided to give a verbal tour. His lust had turned into jittery emotion, and he was about as spastic as an ADD child with king-size Snickers bar. He turned around to make sure Sara followed, and began nervously pacing around his apartment, driven with the sudden urge to give a detailed verbal tour of his one-bedroom apartment.

"There's the bathroom," Nick pointed absentmindedly. He made the decision not to face her, partially afraid of the look on her face when she realized that his Don Juan skills had gotten a little bit rusty. "And there's the kitchen over there," Nick walked in quick strides away from Sara and over to the refrigerator, opening it and searching for water bottles, "Man, was it hot in there, I thought I was about to keel over from all that heat." Nick's babbling had reached an amazing level as he backed out and shut the door "I know you've got to be thirsty from all of that—"

He didn't know exactly how or when Sara had stripped down to a pair of black silk panties and a matching bra. Nevertheless, she was ten feet away from him, and Nick suddenly knew why she had committed such an act. The lust in her eyes made Nick instinctively drop the water bottles onto the ground. She took four purposeful strides towards Nick's body and slammed into him in a bruising kiss. It didn't take long to heat up. Over six years of suppressed sexual need filled into the kiss and Nick found himself stroking a patch of pallid skin on Sara's lower back. He slid his forefinger up and down her spine in anticipation, just to show her what kind of feelings she gave him at the front door with her little black ribbon.

Silently, Sara pulled away and grabbed Nick's hand. She made an unbelievably slow and tantalizing walk, leading him to what they both knew would change their relationship forever.

…

Nick flipped over from his stomach in an attempt to grab a few more minutes of precious sleep before work. Suddenly his eyes opened in shock. Was that whole night a blurry, lucid dream? He thought to himself. There was no sign of Sara ever being there at all. He'd woken up completely alone at 4:00 in the afternoon, no trace of her within the immediate vicinity of his room. In fact, he would call the whole thing off as a semi-drunken hallucination if it weren't for the pleasant ache in the back of his spine from hours of great sex. He sat up in his bed, and perplexity took him over. She was here…I know she was Nick continued to repeat in his mind. They had sex all over his apartment, multiple times. The sexual frustration and raw chemistry between them was intoxicating for Nick, and he finally felt alive since the coffin. Sara had raised him from the dead, but she wasn't there to take credit for it.

He'd pulled on a pair of boxers when his cell phone went off. He scrambled around to find it, as he remembered he threw it in the haste of last night. He searched through all of the clothes on his floor, and made a mental note that Little Miss Meticulous CSI hadn't left a single article behind. He made a dive under his nightstand, and answered the newfound phone.

"Stokes." Nick growled into his phone, his yet-unused voice worn from passionate moans and groans that escaped his lips the previous evening.

"Nicky! My man!" Jay whooped in response, "Dude, how was that fine breezy you seemed hung up on last night?"

"Jay…. Did you just say the word 'breezy'?" Nick shook his head and sighed, "I really don't want to talk about last night."

"Oh, I get it. She looked fine with the smoke and all the flashy lights, but by the morning light you realized she was a questionable hookup? Dude, everyone's been there with you! This one time, I was partying in Amsterdam, and the next morning I woke up in the middle of a brothel with a French rower. Have you ever seen French rowers? This girl had these massive arms, and it was clear she didn't shave her armpits—"

"Jay!" Nick yelled into the phone to stop his friend's incessant chatter, "She wasn't questionable at all, She just kind of ran out on me."

"One-time lover?"

"Worse. Coworker."

"Girls that hot work in your lab?" Jay was stunned. "Man, if I'd known that in college, I would've stuck with that chemistry—"

"Jay! Do you not understand, man? Sara's a coworker, a friend of mine, and we had the wildest sex. And I woke up, and she was gone. There's no evidence to even suggest she stepped foot in my apartment."

Nick had risen from his former position and began to pace back and forth in his bedroom. She'd completely left him, and he didn't know how to act about it.

"Evidence? Nick, don't go all Sherlock Holmes on me. She's hot, she's sexy, and she's definitely not a dead body at a murder scene. She probably just got scared about you two getting horizontal, and she backed out of there as soon as she could."

"Jay," Nick said as he walked into the hallway to the living room, "That just might've been the smartest thing you've said since I've known you."

"Thanks," Jay replied sarcastically.

"Look, I've got to sort some things out before I go into work, can I call you later?"

"Sure enough, brother. Just don't get worked up over this Sara chick, she might just be pushing your buttons."

"Thanks, man, I'll talk to you later." Nick hung up the phone and began to process his house for any sign of Sara activity. He scanned his living room, and looked in his bathroom. He ended in the kitchen, where the two water bottles lied untouched since the previous night. He'd given up hope. There must've been some reason why Sara would bail without leaving anything behind he thought. There was nothing: no note, no explanation of why she backed out of something they desperately needed to talk about. Finally, he walked to his front hallway. What he saw spread a mischievous grin on his face.

Tied around the doorknob of Nick's front door was Sara's black ribbon.

There ya go! I hope you liked it! Review as you like, anything is great! Now...time to work on Chapter 5...