Wow guys, thank you so much for the great feedback. I'm really glad you're enjoying the story, I always get all worried when I'm writing and its good to hear that the results are liked. Here's some more for ya:)

The sound of a cell phone ringing penetrated Booth's consciousness and he opened his eyes. The room looked unfamiliar and for just a moment he didn't know where he was. Then, all of the memories came flooding back in disjointed images. Bones coming on to him at the mixer, Bones answering her door in a nightgown.

Bones naked and writhing beneath him in the candlelight.

"Dr. Brennan."

The sound of her voice had him turning his head to see her standing by the bed, her cell phone balanced between her chin and her shoulder as she zipped up her jeans. She'd clearly been up for a little while as she was almost completely dressed. He was still naked, which wasn't helping him to feel any more comfortable with the situation at hand.

"I'll be right there."

She clicked the phone shut and he pulled himself up to a seated position in the bed, the covers concealing him from the waist down. They looked at each other for an uncomfortable moment.

"Bones, I-"

The ringing of his phone interrupted him, which was just as well because he had no idea what he was going to say. Her expression was completely unreadable as she stood looking down at him and he reached over the side of the bed to grab his phone from his pants pocket, relieved for the time it would buy him.

As the voice on the other end of the line began relaying information about the body in the empty lot he was sure that this was the same information that Bones had just gotten on her cell. Part of him was a little miffed that she'd gotten the call on her cell phone first.

She walked briskly out of the room as he took a mental note of the location where the body was currently resting and then hung up just as she reentered with her jacket on and her purse on her arm.

They looked at each other for another awkward moment, the entire previous evening hanging between them.

"Body in an empty lot." He said, breaking the silence first with anything that wouldn't involve discussing what actually needed to be discussed.

"Yeah, that was Cam. She's there right now. I guess the level of decomp is advanced enough that she wants me there as well."

The silence stretched out again and it was beginning to get excruciating.

"We're going to need to talk about this Bones." He said quietly, the look on his face one she'd seen many times before when he was trying to tell her something he knew she didn't want to hear. It was a patient look, an understanding look, and it made her want to scream.

Instead she shrugged her shoulders indifferently. "There isn't anything to discuss Booth, there was an issue between us and we took the necessary steps to resolve it."

He folded his hands in his lap and continued to meet her eye. "And you feel it's been resolved? Everything is all tidied up for you now?"

There was an edge to his voice but she didn't seem to notice it as she regarded his words for a moment and then nodded. "Yes. I do."

Booth smirked humorlessly. "Wow. Good for you."

Bones eyed her partner sharply, signs of temper brewing beneath her eyes. "Booth, I'm sorry if you feel I've somehow misled you but I felt I made my motivations perfectly clear last night. If you can't handle it, that isn't my problem." Acid dripped from her words and she looked away from the angry expression on his face to fish her keys out of her purse.

When she looked back up she directed a bland, condescending smile at him. "Thank you for a lovely evening Booth. It was a pleasure."

This time it was his turn to be acidic. "Oh, the pleasure was all mine Temperance."

She glowered down at him for a moment before she turned and disappeared through the bedroom door. He waited until he heard the front door slam behind her to fall back on the bed and press the heels of his hands into his eyes.

So, that was that. It really had just been about the physical for her. She'd gotten the taste she needed and now she was ready to move on. Except, for him, the entire experience had been like ripping open the door to a vault that had been sealed for a hundred years and all of the secrets inside were out, unable to be contained again.

He'd known this would happen and he'd been too weak to stop it because there was a part of him that had desperately wanted that door open, had desperately held onto the thought that maybe she would realize that they had a connection that went far deeper than the flesh.

Well, he was just going to have to live with the consequences of his actions, no matter how torturous it would be now. Swinging his legs out of the bed that he'd only just hours before shared with the woman who was currently carving a hole into his heart, he pulled his tuxedo pants and undershirt back on. He had a job to do first and foremost. If he just concentrated on that, maybe he would somehow make it through what was promising to be a hell of a day.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Bones mashed the button for the keyless entry on her car bad temperedly, throwing her purse onto the driver seat and slamming the door behind her when she took her place behind the wheel. Her hands were shaking and her heart was slamming in her chest. She told herself that is was merely adrenaline from the tiff she'd just had with her partner. What she couldn't explain to herself was why she was gasping air and fighting back tears. She and Booth squabbled all the time, one of the many reasons that they wouldn't make a good match, but she never felt on the verge of tears after one of their little battles.

Taking a deep, steadying breath, she pushed the thoughts from her mind and started her car with a scowl, intent on just getting to the crime scene to meet up with her boss and kick off yet another murder investigation for the FBI.

An obnoxious morning show disk jockey came over the radio reporting the traffic with equally obnoxious sound effects and she punched the dial irritably to find something calmer to listen to. Her nerves were completely frayed. Normally after she'd experienced an evening that culminated in sexual release she felt refreshed, even energized the next day. But from the moment she'd woken up this morning her mood had been fowl and cranky. She'd hoped to just slip out of the apartment without waking him. She'd wanted to avoid him until she got her mood under control, but no such luck.

Maybe she'd just slept poorly, she reasoned. There had to be a fairly mundane and reasonable explanation for her bad temper, she was just too irritated to figure it out.

After all, the sex with Booth had been amazing if she was being honest. He was just as good of a lover as she'd imagined he'd be, better in fact. Her mind brought images to the fore of his body and how it looked over her with its coiled strength. He was so strong and yet every touch had been so gentle, so soft. Her lips tingled at the memory of how his had felt against hers and a slow burn began making its way from her belly down to her legs, making them feel wobbly as she navigated the streets.

She punched the dial on the radio again in frustration as a loud car dealership commercial blared from the speakers, her mood growing blacker with each passing moment. Somewhere in the recesses of her rational mind she knew this was completely unlike her, but she was in no mood to analyze that right now. Right now she just wanted to immerse herself in work, the only sure fire way of distracting her when something was amiss.

Yellow police tape and several emergency vehicles caught her attention up ahead and she pulled her car off alongside the scene.

She was excellent at compartmentalization, she told herself. It was time to switch into work mode.

Cam had told her the body appeared to be about three days old, yet the rate of decomposition was more consistent with a body that had been left for more than two weeks. She pulled her jumpsuit on and made her way over to where her boss was photographing the remains, flashing her credentials to the police officers who had secured the scene.

The empty lot was overgrown with weeds and brush. Empty beer cans, plastic shopping bags, cigarette butts and other detritus littered the area, further proving that there hadn't been anything here in quite awhile. Bones made it to Cam's side and saw what appeared to be a white man in his late thirties; his clothes were partially deteriorated, as was his flesh. Cam had been right, on the surface his remains appeared much older than they actually were.

"Good Morning Dr. Brennan." Cam smiled good-naturedly at her subordinate upon noticing her at her side.

"Do we know anything concrete about this body other than what you've told me so far?"

Cam smirked a bit at Dr. Brennan's lack of greeting, used to her blunt and straight- forward personality by now.

"There was no id on the victim, that's why they called us in. Seems that he was killed somewhere else and then dumped here."

Bones knelt down to get a closer look at the body, looking over the parts where the skin was so badly eaten away that she could see bone. The right side of the victim's face was affected as was much of the right arm and various other spots that appeared random on the right side of the torso.

"It appears to me that some kind of chemical was used to do this level of damage to the remaining flesh. It appears to be an anti mortem injury." She turned her attention to the top of the victim's head. "Also looks like there is trauma to the skull, but I can't say conclusively until we get him to the lab."

"We've got crews standing by to transport the remains and some ground samples for Hodgins, just need the okay from Booth as this is officially his crime scene when we get called in. Where is he anyway?"

Bones stood up, flashing her boss an incredulous look. "I don't keep track of him every minute."

Cam's eyebrows shot up at the unusual irritation in the anthropologist's tone and she could do nothing but stare in confusion as Dr. Brennan turned on her heel and began walking away, tossing an "I'll be at the lab," over her shoulder as she went.

Cam watched in stunned silence as Bones got back into her car and drove away, her tires skidding slightly upon her departure. She was relatively sure that she hadn't said anything to offend the good doctor in the two sentences that she'd spoken to her in the brief time they'd interacted that morning, so something must have happened between she and Booth. She'd known them to bicker on occasion, but she'd seen them dancing at the mixer and they'd seemed just fine.

As if summoned by her thoughts, Booth's SUV pulled in. Jumping out he flashed his FBI badge and then walked toward her, his hands stuffed into his pockets. Her eyes narrowed. On the outside he looked like he always did, fashionable in jeans and a brown leather jacket, but she'd known him for years and she wasn't fooled. He wasn't clean-shaven and his eyes had dark smudges under them. Something was wrong.

"Whadda we got Cam?"

Cam didn't take her eyes off him. "Caucasian male, late thirties, dumped here. Estimated time of death between seventy two to forty eight hours. What did you do to Dr. Brennan?"

Booth snapped his attention up from the body to Cam so fast that her eyes narrowed with further suspicion. "Do? What do you mean? I didn't do anything, did she say something?"

Shaking her head Cam signaled for the crew to come over and begin loading the remains up for transport to the Jeffersonian. "I have a feeling this is one of those things that I don't want to know about. Just fix it, whatever it is, so I can keep my head intact at work. See you at the lab."

With an empathetic smile she patted her friend on the arm and began to make her way to her own car. Booth kicked absently at some stones and then moved out of the way of the crew.

He didn't know what to do. The idea of going over to the lab made him anxious but he knew that they were going to have to face each other eventually. The idea of losing her as a partner over this made him sick. If he had to swallow his feelings back down every time he saw her, well, he was just going to have to do that if it meant still working with her everyday.

Turning to walk back toward his car he took a deep breath. He wanted to kick himself for letting this happen, he'd known what the outcome would be. He felt weak and stupid and, much to his disgust, heartbroken.

Getting into his car he blasted the heat, driving the chilly autumn morning out of his bones. Irritation began to prickle him as he pulled back onto the road and angled his car toward the Jeffersonian. She could act as cold and unfeeling as she wanted to, but he knew what they'd had last night. She'd had fire in her eyes for him, had touched him and kissed him in a way that you didn't with a casual lay.

She'd held him in her sleep.

She was trying to push him away and, at the moment, he didn't much care what her reasons were. All he knew was as each second passed he started to get more and more pissed. So, she wanted to play it distant and aloof, huh? Well, two could play that game.

With a renewed sense of purpose he stomped on the accelerator.