"'Love' has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get—only with what you are expecting to give—which is everything." –Katherine Hepburn

"Would you like to have breakfast when we're finished here?" Grissom had asked. He kept his voice low, even though the only cop left to guard the scene was outside the heavy wooden door. No point in taking chances.

Well, any more than they already were.

Sara studied the bottle she was photographing, playing for time. Breakfast. They'd had four months of strange, enjoyable, fun, torturous breakfasts…or occasionally dinner, or lunch. Breakfast meant one of two things: conversation and meaningful eye contact at a diner off the beaten track, where they didn't have much of a chance of being caught, or take out, conversation, and meaningful eye contact at some out of the way picnic spot. This was a slight improvement over the diner, because it meant that breakfast occasionally included…well…

Possibly she was overanalyzing. Okay, she was definitely overanalyzing. But she'd never spent so much time at the kissing stage of a relationship in her life. She'd never met a guy who wanted to spend so much time there. Grissom, however, seemed content to go at her pace, and she took her time, stealing pecks between sips of coffee, sharing good-bye kisses against the car before they drove home, losing themselves in each other in the shade of a tree one particularly sweltering morning…and generally getting to know one another as intimately as two people can who do all of their dating in extremely exposed, public places. Places where they always remain fully clothed and never allow their hands to stray anywhere…well, anywhere.

Fine. As much as she was loving every single hard-won second of it, it was driving her crazy.

"You're off tonight, right?"

He nodded.

"Me too. Come over." To my nice, quiet, private apartment, she thought. " I'll make dinner."

Grissom raised an eyebrow at her. She swallowed a smile. "Don't look so surprised. As long as I stick to pasta and vegetables, we shouldn't go hungry."

He held her eyes for a moment. Then, silently, briefly, he nodded, and they went back to processing the scene.

She changed her sheets and thought about men. And seduction.

Sara liked to be in charge. She liked to make the first move, have the guy follow her lead. Sara had never wanted to be one of those women…totally strong and independent until the "right" man came along, when all of a sudden they wanted to be tiny and fragile and swept off their feet.

She would never be tiny, and she was fairly certain that no man who'd ever seen her dismantling a jeep would find her fragile. She liked herself the way she was, standing firmly on feet she'd never let anyone try to sweep her off of. She was the seducer. And she'd found, generally, that men didn't really mind being seduced.

Her strategies were different than other women's. That didn't mean that she didn't have any – or that they didn't work.

She took a bath, shaving and scrubbing and polishing. Female rituals anyone at the lab would have been surprised to see her indulging in. She stood in front of the mirror in her bathrobe, fussing with brushes and tubes, and when she was done she looked…exactly the way she usually looked. A tiny bit more polished, maybe. Which, fortunately, was just want she wanted.

Her favorite jeans, the ones that also happened to make her legs look longer than ever. A black tank top that dipped a hair lower and had thinner straps than the ones she wore to work, which she covered with an old purple cardigan worn into comfortable softness. It had an (un)fortunate tendency to slip off her shoulder if she didn't pay attention. She left her feet bare and her hair curly.

When she opened the door, Grissom felt like he'd been punched in the solar plexus.

He couldn't put a finger on anything specific that was different about her – she was just…Sara. My Sara, he found himself thinking possessively, as something very primal and testosterone-based that he hadn't felt in a while kicked in. He struggled to control it. But then she pulled him into a kiss just a fraction deeper than anything they'd shared before, and he momentarily lost track of which way was up.

Gil Grissom did not trust attraction, in any form. Physical attraction was slippery, and easy, and could often be mistaken for something it wasn't. And it was never enough. No matter how much of it there was, it was never enough. Mental attraction was better; more solid, more to build on. But still not enough. There was always something missing.

Whatever it was, Sara had it. Whatever it was, when he was with her, he wanted to give in to everything else. To the speed at which her mind worked, the way she could catch up with him in the middle of a thought process, the fact that she could do math in her head faster than he could do it on paper, the endless legs he caught himself imagining wrapped around his waist, and the smooth, soft skin he wanted to feel against his. And most of all, to her wicked, knowing smile and the softness in her eyes.

For just a minute, he nearly let go. And then he pulled back. It was too easy, being with her. Too easy to lose control, for one of them to get hurt. Better to keep it slow, steady…safe.

As they separated, Sara cocked her head to one side, looking at him in that way she had that left him feeling uncomfortably exposed. Then she smiled and kissed him once more, lightly. "C'mon," she said. "Dinner's almost ready."

Sara put her empty plate on the coffee table next to Grissom's and propped her feet up on the edge. As she did, Grissom's hand snaked out and caught her ankle. "What's this?" he asked, pushing up the leg of her jeans.

She laughed. "What does it look like? It's a tattoo. I got it when I solved my second case."

He lifted his eyebrows, his thumb rubbing lightly over the sunburst design. "Second case?"

The feel of his hand on her skin had her shivering. She was almost positive he wasn't doing it on purpose. "I got tattoos for the first three."

Grissom slid his hand a little further up her leg…and stopped. Just resting there. Warm, heavy, intimate, but not going any further. Still safe. He studied the blue ink of the tattoo on her white skin. "And where," he wondered, his curiosity getting the best of him, "are the other two?"

Sara smiled. "One's on my back." She leaned in, brushed her lips over his. Wanna see? she almost asked, but the look in his eye stopped her.

Hesitation. The barest, tiniest hint of hesitation.

One kiss – the right kind of kiss – would push past it, and she could have her hands all over him, like she'd wanted to since god-knows-when. But instead she found herself getting…tired. Just tired of wondering if he really wanted his hands all over her, of trying to interpret those meaningful looks and loaded sentences.

It must have flickered across her face, because his forehead creased suddenly. "What's wrong?" he asked.

Sara managed a smile and kissed his cheek. "Nothing," she said quietly. "I'm just going to rinse the dishes." She started to gather up the plates.

"Let me help."

She was already heading to the kitchen, and she tossed another smile over her shoulder. "No, stay where you are. I'm just going to rinse them off." Dumping the plates in the sink, she pushed up her sleeves and grabbed a clip from the counter to anchor her hair up on her head, out of the way. Silly, she told herself.

Somehow, she'd expected it to all go according to plan – her plan. Then again, since when had Grissom ever fallen in line with any of her plans? From the beginning, she'd known it wasn't going to be like it was with other men. She hadn't wanted it to be.

Sitting on the couch, Grissom traced the exposed line of her neck with his eyes. He'd been looking at her neck – when he could – for a long time, he thought idly. How many years? Four, six, seven…seven years…When he looked at her, he could still see a girl, twenty-six, passionate, eager, with a steadiness and a quietness her contemporaries lacked. Looking across at him with a wicked smile and soft eyes and just a glimmer of unprofessional interest. Asking questions so long he would have thought she was just trying to keep talking to him, if the questions hadn't all been so relevant. His fingers itching to touch the long, smooth curve of her neck revealed by her ponytail as she bent over the desk to scribble her email address on a scrap of paper.

Seven years later, his fingers still itched whenever she put her hair up.

One touch would be simple. Stopping after one touch would be anything but. We're happy the way we are, he reminded himself. Finally. There's no point in rushing into anything.

It could go so wrong, he thought. But somehow he was standing behind her, and his finger reached out to skim down her neck. So incredibly wrong.

Her skin was softer than he'd imagined, and smelled deliciously of…something. Her. Just her.

And he was lost.

The touch made her start, and she glanced over her shoulder. He was staring at her so intently her breath caught in her throat.

"I've wanted to do that since the first day we met," he said softly, the words slipping out seemingly without his permission. His fingers were gentle and ever-so-slightly rough along her face. "Sara…" He brushed his thumb over her bottom lip. "You are so very beautiful."

Sara turned toward him, gripping the edge of the sink with one hand. Something solid and steady to hold on to, because the feet she was so good at standing firmly on were attached to knees that were suddenly very weak.

She hated and detested being weak.

He slid his hands along her shoulders, down her arms, and found her fingers tightly clamped onto the counter. He tugged, lightly. "Why are you holding on to the counter for dear life?"

Swallowing hard, she focused on the feel of his hand on her wrist. "Because." She swallowed again, tried to pull herself together. "Long day…I'm tired. Afraid I'll fall asleep standing up and fall over." She tried a smile. He was not going to have this his way, like everything else. Not.

He pulled on her wrist again. "You don't trust me to catch you?" It was one of those unexpectedly sweet things he would just say, as though he said them all the time and it shouldn't startle her or make her heart melt and her breathing stutter. He was gently prying her fingers off the sink, guiding her arms around his neck.

His sudden confidence would have irritated her nearly as much as his prior hesitation…if she hadn't felt the tremble of his hand on her wrist. Suddenly, it wasn't about control or confidence or weakness, and it didn't matter than her knees would barely hold her, because Grissom had his arms tight around her and she was almost positive he wouldn't let her fall.

"Don't –" she gasped suddenly when they parted for air, and then caught herself. Taking a long, shuddering breath, Grissom pulled back ever so slightly. "Whatever you want, Sara – "

" …stop," she finished. "Please," she fought against the quiver in her voice, "don't stop." Looking into his eyes, she saw the hesitancy creeping back. "Ever," she said firmly.

"Sara." Her name came out in barely a whisper, and he leaned his forehead against hers. "What if…"

"What if what?" she challenged him. "What if we wake up tomorrow and this is awkward as hell? What if I'm not twenty six anymore and you have a little more grey hair than you did when we met? What if what, Grissom?" Tired, she buried her face in his shoulder for a moment.

"Do you – " love me? she wanted to ask, but didn't. Partly because she wasn't ready to hear it, partly because she knew he wasn't ready to say it, but mostly because deep inside her, she knew that neither of them would be here if they didn't love each other beyond any words. " – want me?" she asked instead, because wanting was easy...or at least easier.

His arms tightened around her, and his kiss was warm on her temple. "Yes," he said roughly, after a moment of silence. The sigh he gave was barely audible, but she heard how much the admission cost him. "Yes, I want you."

Sara pressed her lips to the pulse in his throat, feeling it quicken beneath his skin. Raising her head, she met his eyes. "And I want you. So much."

She tasted like the wine he'd brought for dinner and the chocolate cake they'd had for dessert, and he never wanted to stop kissing her.

Suddenly she pulled away from him, and backed up a few steps. He stayed standing where he was, confused. Taking his hand, she stepped back again, pulling him with her.

Her smile was wicked, and her eyes were soft. "Come to bed, Grissom."

FIN