Part two: Deserts and Cinnamon

The first time took his breath away.

Grissom pushed open the door to the old bookstore, the windchimes fastened to the top of the door clinking softly. He greeted the old lady at the counter and quickly made his way to the biology section. Spotting the journal he was looking for, he made a beeline for the edge of the shelf, knowing they were sorted in chronological order.

Gil stopped short as a tall brunette scanned the line of magazines, mumbling something he couldn't quite discern. As she got closer and closer to his end of the shelf, he felt brief panic and eyed the issue he'd been after. The slender woman grabbed the one adjacent to it and he relaxed- she'd been looking for the first issue, he already had it. Still nervous that she might be looking to fill other gaps in her collection, he slipped his arm between her and the shelf and pulled out issue #2.

He saw her jump and quickly blurted out an embarrassed apology. He was about to mention something about a particularly riveting article on blood spatter featured in the first journal when she turned towards him and met his eyes.

He forgot everything about blood spatter- or breathing.

The near-golden lighting in the small store caused her irises to shine a deep amber. A rust-coloured band seeped outwards from her pupil and melded into darker spice tones. Shades of both overlapped and intertwined into desert-like dunes streaked with occasional thin strands of bronze. Thinner bands of copper formed rings within the Sahara of her eyes, rippling outwards. They melded into the dark umber rim of her irises, its shade matching the fleck of brown spotting her swirling banks of amber tones.

The light from a nearby red stained-glass lamp caught the edge of her eye and set it ablaze, brown hues instantly warming to bright flames. Her gaze afire, he wanted nothing more than to lose himself in the inferno of her irises, be entirely and completely consumed by them. The words of Rumi came to mind, "Close your eyes, fall in Love, stay there." Yet he found no truth in them, he felt as if he might just stop breathing if she were to close her eyes. As if on cue, he noticed her pupils dilate, giving her a somewhat dazed expression, and he felt his breath catch in his throat.

The sound of books tumbling off a nearby bookshelf pulled him from his reverie and they both flinched. He cleared his head and shuffled his feet, flashing her a timid smile, and glanced down to the magazine in his hands.

"I've got some reading to do." He managed.

Another bang sounded just as he turned to leave and he fought the urge to turn back around to catch another glance of those bewitching eyes.

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The second time rendered him speechless.

Grissom shuffled the mess of papers on the high podium before him and pushed his glasses up his nose. He glanced at the room around him and back down at his notes. He was only halfway through his presentation on the Musca domestica's role in determining time of death and one of his auditors had already fallen asleep. He sighed as he surveyed the bored faces around him and made to resume his lecture when a loud bang sounded. He whipped his head around to find a frazzled looking woman scanning the room for a free seat. Won't take her long, he reflected.

She ran to the front row, cursing, and he cocked his head to the side, finding her slightly familiar. She dumped her bag on the floor and pulled out a ratty looking notebook. Eventually, after scribbling a couple words down, she looked up towards him, confused.

And he knew exactly who she was.

The bright spotlights directly above him accentuated the gloom of the amphitheatre, and her eyes were far darker than they had been the first time he had met them. They were a deep, rich mocha, pecan and walnut hues melting outwards from her pupil. Streaks of dark cedar brushed across the expanse of her iris, branching out towards the pitch-black outer circle of her eye. Its shade matched the spills of lighter brown dotting the outside of her pupil, creating a gradient of mellow brindle.

Spirals of cinnamon dusted the warm chocolate tones of her iris, and he was lost in the decadent richness of the smooth blend of browns. Irregular thin loops of golden brown threaded through her eyes and their soft glint caused his blood to thrum through his temples. The words that came to him weren't his own, but the simplest of phrases from Allan Poe, "I saw no heaven, but in her eyes". And in this, he saw absolute and complete truth, finding himself utterly enthralled by her unwavering gaze.

Suddenly the sleeping cadet in the back row woke up with a start and an annoyed student to his right cleared his throat. He quickly dragged his attention back to his sketches of houseflies and forced his voice back to function.

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The third time, and every time after that, he fell in love.

And as he held her cheek, transfixed by her unfaltering gaze, he knew every time he caught a glance of those bewitching chocolate eyes, he would only fall deeper.

A/N : I'm slowly realising how hard it is for me to stick to a single idea for an extended period of time, so after another chapter or two of Employee Evaluations, I'll be sticking to one-shots. Let me know what y'all thought about this one! :D