Hope your weekend is treating you well so far. I haven't given my beta a shoutout in a while, so I feel I should. She corrects my typos and gives me lots of wonderful feedback, especially when I'm doubting myself. Thanks, chosenname, you're the best!

Sweets is back in this chapter and the next. Try to imagine him as the more grown-up Sweets we eventually came to appreciate. Even in places where the dialogue is the same, I didn't picture him as a kid in an oversized suit when I wrote it. Happy reading!

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Chapter 7

The Saturday following Brennan's birthday marked their first session of partners' therapy with Dr. Sweets, and it was clear that Booth would have very much preferred to be anywhere else. When they entered his office, Brennan did her best to control her reaction to his obvious youth.

"You weren't exaggerating," she muttered under her breath to her husband. He gave her an I-told-you-so expression and pointed her toward one of the armchairs. Sweets pretended not to catch their exchange and greeted them politely.

"Good to see you again, Agent Booth," he said, wincing slightly at Booth's overly firm handshake. "And you must be Dr. Brennan; it's a great pleasure to meet you." She shook his hand but did not return the compliment. She had agreed to cooperate, but she didn't have to lie. She found no pleasure in being there. Sweets faltered slightly but pressed on. "I've read through a lot of your case files, and I look forward to getting to know you both. I think I'd like to start with a simple trust exercise, if you're up for it."

"Whatever gets us out of here sooner," Booth grumbled. Sweets asked them to stand in a more open area of his office and instructed them to face each other with their palms touching between them.

"Together… A little closer… Okay, yeah. That's perfect. Now, keeping your back straight, I want you each to lean forward," Sweets instructed. Booth and Brennan locked eyes and wore identical smirks as they leaned toward one another. Long seconds passed as they remained in position, communicating in their own private way.

"Is this supposed to be about trust or self-control?" Booth asked with a crooked smile. His eyes kept darting down to Brennan's mouth, and he really wished he could kiss his wife without the adolescent audience. Sweets set his jaw and smiled reluctantly, perfectly able to see the sexual tension between the two.

"Yeah, okay… I guess maybe that's not quite the right exercise for a married couple," he admitted. "Go ahead and take your seats." They did so, but not before Booth placed a fleeting kiss upon Brennan's cheek.

"It's just as well," Booth commented as they settled back into their chairs. "We agreed to see a therapist, not to be action figures for a twelve-year-old."

"I'm twenty-two, Agent Booth," Sweets reminded him. "I have a doctorate in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, where my dissertation on the effects of job stress was published-"

"That's great. I'm sure your mother is really proud of you, Sweets," Booth interrupted. Again, the therapist looked uncomfortable.

"It's Dr. Sweets, actually. Or Lance, I suppose, if you're more comfortable with informality. But I'd prefer, out of respect for each other and the process of psychotherapy, that we at least try to…" He trailed off as Booth rose halfway to his feet again and tried to hand him an ink pen.

"Sign the forms so we can get out of here and back to our lives, please." Sweets pursed his lips and took the pen, but he gave no indication of complying with Booth's request. He looked to Brennan with an expression that might have been pleading for her assistance, but she merely gave an innocent shrug.

"I don't care how young you are," she stated. "I've never believed in psychotherapy." Sweets sighed in frustration. He had hoped they would be more receptive to his process, but it was clear that Booth had no intention of cooperating.

"Agent Booth, Dr. Brennan… This isn't a game. The FBI is considering severing your partnership." Okay, that was a bluff, Sweets thought. However, watching the smile slide from Booth's face was rather vindicating. He needed them to take him seriously if he was going to evaluate them properly or ever be able to help them with anything.

"What?" Brennan asked in alarm.

"Why?" Booth followed.

"Why?" Sweets echoed, looking incredulous. "Dude, you arrested her father."

"He was just doing his job," Brennan defended.

"Yeah, but come on. He arrested your father. He's going to have to testify against him…" Sweets rattled on a bit about the awkward circumstances surrounding Max Keenan's incarceration and impending trial, and Booth scrutinized him with a frown of displeasure. Though he was fairly certain the kid was full of crap, the threat to their partnership had flustered him, and he was having a hard time reading Sweets successfully. "Now, I need you both to fill out these questionnaires and get them back to me. Don't share your answers; it'll help me evaluate whether Dr. Brennan's services should be assigned to a new agent."

"That's not going to happen," Booth declared obstinately.

"Like it or not, Agent Booth, I'm the therapist in charge of this case, so I suggest that we work in cooperation rather than conflict." He made awkward gestures with his hands as he spoke, and Booth rolled his eyes. While Booth watched Sweets, Brennan watched Booth, waiting for him to give her some indication of how to handle this. When she saw none, she decided the safest option would be to appease the therapist.

"I can cooperate," she said evenly. Booth glanced at her in surprise.

"Good," Sweets approved. "Agent Booth?" Booth stood and did his best to fix a casual expression upon his face.

"Still gonna call you Sweets," he replied stubbornly as he took the questionnaire from the therapist.

Sweets gritted his teeth but said nothing as Booth and Brennan left his office. Booth was as he remembered from their previous sessions, but Brennan had managed to surprise him. He'd done his homework in preparation for their sessions, and he hadn't expected her to be any more cooperative than Booth. His expectations were lowered even further when she had stated her open disapproval of his field.

He had read through a number of their case files, starting with the ones that were best known. Reading through her family's FBI files had taken him the better part of a week. Sweets had been able to deduce that Brennan had been in foster care after her parents had left, but he could only guess at the details of those years. His previous conversation with Booth regarding disturbing events from her childhood led Sweets to believe that she had most likely been abused in some way. This troubled him as much as it intrigued him. As a therapist and a human being, any type of abuse concerned him. As a former foster child himself with his own history of abuse, he wondered just how much they might have in common.

His concern for Booth remained firm, and in that regard, Sweets knew that he would have his work cut out for him. Booth had clear issues with anger, even if he was able to manage them fairly well the majority of the time. The FBI was still concerned about the occasions that Booth had spun out of control, and they wanted him to assess the likelihood for recurrence. Sweets didn't think it was a big enough risk to keep him out of the field, but it was clear to him that there were multiple underlying issues contributing to the problem.

Sweets had also taken a look at their personnel files, particularly in the areas of evaluation and the personal observations of Booth's superiors. Although Brennan wasn't directly employed by the FBI, she had been evaluated as a contracted employee more than once since she'd begun working with Booth. Their partnership was recognized throughout the DC field office as the most successful and productive on record, and nearly everyone had sung the praises of the Jeffersonian forensic team.

Her easy dismissal of the fact that her husband had been the one to arrest her father for murder had stunned him. He had never met anyone who could be that rational. What fascinated Sweets the most, in a purely academic way, was the overwhelming amount of trauma the partners had endured in the last two years alone. Brennan had been kidnapped twice, once by an ex-boyfriend and then again by a sadistic serial killer. She had been the victim of a physical attack while volunteering in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Her novel had been used as a guide for several disturbing murders. She had investigated-and helped solve-her own mother's murder. She had even taken part in the investigation of Deputy Director Kirby's murder, which had implicated her own father. Any one of those experiences would've been enough to cause psychological issues, but taken collectively, Sweets was surprised that she was still functional. He wasn't sure if she was truly coping with her traumas as well as she seemed to be, or if she was simply that good at hiding her reactions.

Whatever the case, Sweets was concerned for both partners, and he hoped that they would eventually trust him enough to accept his help.

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"It's some kind of personality test," Brennan declared as she flipped through the many pages of Sweets' questionnaire.

"Can't believe he gave us homework. Probably his," Booth muttered, grunting in renewed frustration at Sweets' unwelcome intrusion into their lives. He glanced at her from the driver's seat of the SUV and was somewhat surprised that she was studying the quiz so intently. "You're actually going to do it, aren't you?"

"I always did my homework," she replied as she scowled at a page labeled Social Traits.

"Yeah, but you know it's bullshit, right?"

"Of course, Booth, but we need to cooperate."

"I'm surprised you didn't blackmail him on the spot when he suggested severing our partnership. Especially since you were more than willing to blackmail me and Cullen in the past," he reminded her. She sighed and closed the questionnaire booklet.

"I thought about it and nearly did say something to that effect, but I couldn't tell if he was being serious or not. Normally when someone makes a comment like that, I would just threaten to end my FBI contract if they separate us…"

"So what stopped you this time?" he asked, watching her as closely as possible while he drove. She seemed to consider her answer carefully before she gave it.

"I want to work with you because I still think you're the best, but I've also become rather attached to the work we do together. I like helping you solve crimes, putting the bad guys in jail… helping you with your cosmic balance sheet. I value our work too much not to take the threat seriously. Even if it was made by a teenager in a suit," she added with a smirk.

Booth grinned back at her, feeling adequately reassured. Sweets' threat had bothered him as well, and he couldn't help but wonder if Cullen really was considering severing their partnership. It had been a real concern back in the early days of their romantic relationship, but that was nearly two years ago. Surely they'd proven by now that they could maintain a professional relationship without their romantic one causing conflicts.

The chirping of his phone startled him, and he fished it out of his pocket quickly. Crime scene, he mouthed to his wife, sighing with a fair measure of disappointment. He'd really been looking forward to a quiet night at home together. Brennan glanced at the back seat behind her to check that they had her forensic kit, and she tossed Sweets' questionnaire into her messenger bag.

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Cam was already on the scene with a score of FBI forensic techs. The body had been literally stumbled upon by a couple of teenagers who had been attempting use the privacy of the abandoned property for romantic purposes.

"Definitely not homeless," Booth observed, aiming his flashlight beam at the body. "Nice watch, good shoes...at least what's left of them."

"Male, middle-aged," Brennan announced. "The level of decomp would suggest he's been out here for a few weeks, but…" She trailed off, knowing that the theory was highly unlikely.

"I don't get it. Kids coming down here every night, and they're just noticing him now?" Booth wondered aloud. Cam suggested that the victim might have been dumped at the top of the hill only to roll down to the bottom, which would have explained the fresh leaves and mud covering the body. Brennan was only half-listening, her attention caught by another anomaly.

At first glance, Brennan thought it looked like just about every other set of human remains in advanced decomposition she'd seen. However, when she got close enough to actually touch the body, she was alarmed to discover that the body was radiating an abnormal amount of heat. Upon Brennan's request, Cam took an internal body temperature. Booth's mind seemed to have wandered.

"We used to use the local golf course," he mused nostalgically. "I remember taking Mary Ann Milano to the ninth hole sandtrap… She had long hair all the way-"

"You are so going to regret telling this story," Cam warned, interrupting his reverie. Booth glanced sheepishly at his wife, who was giving him a very well-learned stare-down. She didn't look away until the thermometer in Cam's hand beeped to announce the victim's core temperature. The display indicated a temperature of one hundred and twenty-seven degrees Fahrenheit, leading the two scientists to agree that the body had been cooked.

Though Brennan showed signs of wanting to return to the lab with the body to begin her in-depth analysis right away, Booth was able to talk her out of it. They compromised on the understanding that she would go in early the following morning. When Brennan arrived at the lab shortly after dawn, she was only mildly surprised to find Zack already on the platform. Since returning home, he seemed to spend the majority of his time at the lab. Though some of their colleagues found it odd, Brennan wasn't fazed. Zack's impressive work ethic was nothing new, and she herself had spent the majority of her adult life in one lab or another.

The two of them worked in companionable silence for several hours, speaking only to relay their findings. By the time Hodgins and Cam joined them, they were both on their second cups of coffee. Hodgins was able to extract several different species of insects from the remains before retreating happily to his office, and Brennan eventually left Zack and Cam to handle the defleshing of the bones.

Angela was able to identify the victim as Franklin Curtis, a fifty-four-year-old organic farmer from Virginia. The man had founded a chain of organic supermarkets.

"Totally overpriced," Booth declared. "A carrot is a carrot." He'd gone many rounds with his wife on this particular argument, but she'd never been able to change his mind.

"Hey, it's worth it," Angela decreed, quickly joining Team Brennan. "Organic, no pesticides. It's from sustainable farms… Every time I buy something there, I feel so virtuous." Booth did his best not to roll his eyes.

"The guy started off with a single roadside produce stand, which he grew into a nationwide supermarket chain. Ambition like that is bound to create a few enemies," he reasoned. Hodgins joined them and announced that he'd discovered something Booth had never heard of on the victim's pants. The name of the unknown substance had his wife's face squinting even more than usual.

"Why the pinchy face, Bones?"

"Franklin Curtis built his whole career on organic produce, and chloropicrin…"

"Is a pesticide," Hodgins finished. Booth was the only person in the room who didn't seem particularly troubled by the revelation. In his opinion, things that didn't quite add up were always the best places to start in an investigation.

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Booth and Brennan ended up spending the majority of the day in Augusta County, Virginia, speaking to those who had interacted with the victim on a regular basis. They began with Curtis' wife and teenaged daughter, Margie and Kat. Though Margie promptly denied the possibility that her husband might have had any enemies that could've done him harm, Kat revealed that her father had been in the habit of pressuring other farmers to go organic. If someone refused, Curtis would pay his legal team to find a different means of forcing them out, either through property taxes, zoning violations, or some other contrived infraction.

One particular local tobacco farmer, Andrew Harding, had been persistently stubborn about resisting Curtis' efforts. Although the man's clear dislike for the victim wasn't enough to justify a search of his property, his use of chloropicrin most certainly was. On their way back to DC to retrieve a search warrant, Brennan turned their conversation back to the organic vs. non-organic debate.

"You know, if pesticides are so bad for us, then why do people live longer now than they did before they used pesticides?" Booth asked, smirking at Brennan's predictably flustered response.

"You're over-simplifying an enormously complex issue."

"Meaning you don't have a good answer."

"The arguments in favor of organic farming aren't just about food safety. They're also about prevention of soil erosion, protection of water quality, carbon emissions from shipping, not to mention-"

"Whatever. You know what? You're not going to see me paying four dollars for a tomato," he declared. She lifted a challenging brow in his direction, and he backpedaled slightly. "Unless it's your birthday," he mumbled.

"You know… A researcher at the University of Florida proved that alligators who swim in pesticide contaminated waters have smaller genitalia than their clean-water counterparts," she said lightly.

"Yeah, you've said that before," he grinned. "And my answer is still the same. I'm pretty sure you don't have any complaints when it comes to my proportions." He held her gaze for a moment, waiting for her to crack. It didn't take long. She rolled her eyes but allowed a rueful smile to grace her features.

"I'll admit I do find your anatomy to be extremely satisfying." Brennan turned her eyes back to the road but shook her head when she saw him sit up a little straighter in her peripheral. The smile didn't leave her face as she mentally compiled more facts and research for their next discussion. After ten or fifteen minutes of silence, however, Booth noticed that her expression was no longer amused, and her mind seemed to have drifted in another direction entirely.

"Bones? You okay?"

"Tobacco has to be cured," she said absently, still zoned out. "It's done in curing barns, using indirect fired burners."

"Oh," he nodded, catching onto her logic. "So if Frank's body was in Harding's curing barn, that would explain how it got cooked." Brennan nodded and answered a call from Cam on her cell. Booth waited patiently while Cam filled her in on the most recent findings, and he was slightly concerned to see Brennan's eyes widen in alarm.

"What? We got big news from the nerd posse?" he asked, attempting to lighten the mood.

"When we search the tobacco farm, we'll be looking for more than the murder site. We'll be looking for a second victim."

"What made Cam think that?"

"Skin slippage," she replied. Booth looked a bit green but still confused. "There's evidence of a second body being pressed up against Curtis' body as it decomposed." Booth grimaced at the mental image.

"Fantastic."

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The search of the Harding farm was a bust, aside from the information Booth was able to coax out of Harding's loquacious wife. Lizbeth Harding prattled on that Curtis had been a notorious flirt, making passes at her in the hopes that she might talk her husband into selling their farm. Harding looked intensely uncomfortable at his wife's rambling and merely muttered that it hadn't seemed relevant during their earlier discussion. Afterward, one of Hodgins' findings led them briefly to a pineapple grower in the county, and yet another tip pointed them in the direction of a local composting facility.

"Compost, of course," Hodgins said when Brennan called from her cell. "The identifying organisms would have started dying as soon as the body was removed from the heat."

"But how high do the temperatures get?" Brennan asked, switching the phone to speaker mode.

"Inside a large compost heap, as high as a hundred and seventy degrees."

"That's hot enough to cook a body," Booth agreed.

"Hey… Are you guys going to check out a large compost pile?" Hodgins asked, his tone reminiscent of a small boy on Christmas Eve.

"It's wrong how excited he sounds," Booth whispered. Brennan grinned and ended the call as they drew nearer to their destination.

Franklin Curtis, it turned out, had made varying impressions upon the men who worked at the compost facility. The supervisor, Gavin Lee, introduced a couple of the local farmers who contributed waste to the site. Lee, Tim Peck, and Charlie Rogan all seemed to have a fairly positive opinion of Curtis, but Clay Ainsley dismissed him as a capitalist as opposed to a naturalist like the rest of them. Charlie Rogan volunteered that he had dated Kat Curtis while the two were in high school.

Brennan explained that they would need to close the facility while it was searched for a second body, and her statement effectively ended the men's cooperation. Lee insisted that they return with a warrant. Booth placed the call as soon as they were back in the SUV, and he was somewhat relieved when he looked at the clock. It would be after six by the time they got back to DC, which meant that they could go home rather than back to one of their offices. Brennan was feeling the effects of their long day as well and didn't argue when he announced their destination.

They had another appointment with Sweets the following morning, so they spent the evening completing their 'homework' assignments. Though Booth grumbled noisily from his recliner and made many attempts to compare answers, Brennan insisted that they follow Sweets' rules, at least for the time being.

Brennan watched with a smirk as Booth pulled on a particularly colorful pair of striped socks the next morning, and she wondered what Dr. Wyatt would think of Dr. Sweets. She had been able to put aside her distaste for psychology enough to form a respectful opinion of 'Gordon Gordon,' particularly in light of the fact that he had been like no other psychologist or psychiatrist Brennan had ever encountered. She was withholding judgment when it came to Sweets, however. His youth didn't really bother her the way it irritated Booth, especially since she had been a prodigy herself, but it was clear that her husband didn't like him. Brennan trusted his judgment implicitly; she even trusted his 'gut' most of the time. Only if Sweets was able to win him over would she then consider giving her tentative approval as well.

"Bones?"

She looked up from the task of pulling her boots on and narrowed her eyes at the expression on his face. She knew that look.

"Yes?" she asked, feigning ignorance.

"Uh… Nothing." Booth's eyes never quite met hers; they were focused about ten inches too low. His wife had chosen one of those shirts. It was one of the many articles of clothing that had driven him to distraction during the months they'd spent 'taking things slowly.' It was scooped low over her breasts, revealing just enough of the smooth curves to make his pants rather tight. It also gave him another reason to consider canceling on Sweets that morning.

"You sure?" she asked innocently, standing up when she was finished with her boots. She crossed the room slowly toward him, biting back a smile at his ambiguous expression. He was clearly in the midst of some sort of argument with his subconscious, and she wasn't sure which side was winning. "We don't have time, Booth."

He looked sheepishly back at her, actually making eye contact this time. Brennan chuckled as his bottom lip jutted out slightly, and she leaned up to kiss him softly, unable to resist gently pulling that lip between her teeth. Booth groaned and kissed her without reservation, no longer debating whether or not to call off their early session with the pre-pubescent shrink. His passion caught her slightly off guard, and by the time she had regained her senses, Booth's hands had tugged her shirt from her jeans and begun their journey north to her breasts.

"Booth," she chastised, slipping deftly away from his roaming hands. "We don't have time."

"We can reschedule," he insisted.

"No, come on." She motioned him toward the door, donning a blue jacket and a no-nonsense expression. "We don't need to give Sweets a reason to penalize us, especially if Cullen's really thinking about separating us. Let's go."

He sighed, inwardly cursing the shrink as well as his boss. This was going to be a long day.

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Booth sat irritably in Sweets' office, peeking occasionally at his phone to check the status of the warrant for the compost facility. He gave a half-hearted attempt at being covert about it, but neither of the other occupants of the room was deceived. Sweets was saying something about 'independent people,' but Booth was clearly not listening.

"The judge will call when the warrant is issued, Booth. Pay attention," Brennan admonished him.

"What? I'm in the middle of an investigation; I get distracted."

"So it's not my investigation too?" she challenged.

"It's too early in the morning for this," Booth sighed, fervently wishing they'd stopped for coffee on the way to the Hoover.

"No, no, no. This is good," Sweets insisted, jumping onto what he perceived as an opportunity to get his clients engaged. "Let's talk about conflict. When you guys argue, how do you come to a resolution?" Booth and Brennan stared back at him, both looking thoroughly mystified.

"We don't argue," Brennan replied simply.

"Come on, remember: zone of truth, right here." He gestured ridiculously with his hands, and Booth rolled his eyes.

"Fine. We might bicker a little bit," Booth said, holding his thumb and forefinger an inch apart. "But that's not arguing."

"Bicker? I don't bicker," Brennan denied.

"No? What about the whole environmentalism thing?"

"That was a discussion," she shrugged.

"You pretty much told me my penis was going to shrink if I didn't eat organic food," Booth reminded her, doing his best to keep a straight face. Sweets watched them in the manner of a man observing a tennis match.

"That's not bickering; that's being a good spouse."

"My penis is just fine, thank you."

"I know," she replied, perhaps a little too loudly. They held each other's gaze, communicating in their silent way for several moments before Sweets broke the tension.

"Now we're getting somewhere," he said enthusiastically. "Alright, I think we're in that truth zone."

"Stop with the whole 'truth zone' thing, alright?" Booth snapped. Bickering with his wife was one of his favorite pastimes; wasting time in the office of a juvenile shrink was not. "Bones and I are trying to catch a guy who cooked a treehugger, so just score the personality test so we can get back to crime fighting."

"Yeah, that's good, Agent Booth," Sweets encouraged theatrically. "Now let the anger lead you to the fear. You can't be whole, you can't do your job to the fullest, unless you get in touch with that fear you feel." Booth and Brennan exchanged a dubious glance as Sweets closed his eyes, continuing to instruct Booth on how to 'feel his anger softening.' By the time he opened his eyes again, both partners were snickering at his antics. "Very mature, guys."

Booth wanted to make another well-timed comment about Sweets' youth, but his phone alerted him on the status of the search warrant he'd been expecting. He didn't bother to contain his smile as he stood and ushered his wife toward the door.

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While Zack secluded himself in the Bone Room, Hodgins tagged along with the forensic team for their search of the compost facility. After the truncated session with Sweets, Booth and Brennan returned to the compost facility as well. Hodgins looked positively radiant as he expounded upon the entomological wonder of the massive compost heap. As he was stepping from one area to another, however, something crunched beneath his feet. He and Brennan carefully excavated a small portion of the heap and found the skeleton of the second victim.

Brennan quickly identified her as a female in her early twenties, and both she and Hodgins agreed that the time of death was approximately the same as with Franklin Curtis. Brennan decided to return to the lab with the body, while Booth went back for another chat with Margie and Kat Curtis. The second interview with Margie was rather uncomfortable. She admitted that she had known about her husband's affairs but insisted that she'd loved him enough to accept his faults.

"If you were so forgiving of your husband's infidelity, why didn't you mention that in our first conversation?" Booth asked.

"Kat. I couldn't do that to our daughter. She idolized Frank. I can't ruin that, especially now," Margie replied tearfully.

"Mom." Kat stood in the doorway next to Charlie Rogan, tears shimmering in her green eyes. Charlie spoke up anxiously.

"Mrs. Curtis, I… I came over to tell you and Kat how sorry I am. Gavin said he'd try to stop over later. I didn't mean to interrupt." The young man looked wretchedly uncomfortable, dithering on the spot as though he couldn't decide whether to stay or go. The tension in the room only increased when Kat addressed her mother again.

"It's okay, Charlie. Stay. Mom, I've known since high school. Charlie knew, all my classmates knew…"

"Oh, God," Margie sighed, her expression crumbling.

"I pretended I didn't. For you." The two women held each other for a few moments before Booth hesitantly voiced his next question.

"Do any of you have any idea where Frank might have conducted his affairs? Or who he might have been seeing at the time of his death?"

"He kept an office in town," Margie answered with a quiet sob. "So far as I know, that's the only other property in his name."

Booth thanked them for their time and called the Bureau on his way back to DC. By the time he reached the lab to check in with the squints, Charlie had managed to track down some information on Frank's office. It turned out to be an apartment where, presumably, Frank had conducted his romantic liaisons. Booth convinced Brennan to come with him to check the place for evidence, and neither was disappointed.

"These sunglasses are made of bamboo," Brennan commented, lifting up the light brown frames from their place on an accent table.

"Is that weird?" Booth asked, uncertain as to why she was telling him about sunglasses when she should've been looking for more obvious things like blood. She shrugged and simply replied that most frames were made out of plastic or metal. Booth scoped out the bathroom and was unsurprised to find feminine toiletries and other items. This was clearly a woman's home, at least on occasion.

"Dried blood on the coffee table," Brennan announced from the living room. She shined her UV light at corner of the low table and revealed a pattern that was most concentrated at the pointed edge.

Booth found a credit card receipt bearing the name of Emma Billings, and a closer look at the refrigerator door made him certain that both Emma and Frank had been in the apartment together at some point or another. A small photograph was mounted to the refrigerator, depicting Franklin Curtis with his arm around a young, strawberry blonde woman. Brennan compared the picture with Angela's reconstruction.

"I think we have our second victim."

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Booth and Brennan decided to return home for the evening after ensuring that the coffee table, photograph, and a few other pieces of evidence had been shipped back to the Jeffersonian. Booth had been somewhat distracted all day, still frustrated at the fact that his plans for morning intimacy had been waylaid by Sweets. Brennan's shirt was off within five seconds of the door closing, and Booth captured her lips in a heated kiss.

"That shirt might need to be reclassified to not-safe-for-work status," Booth murmured against the soft skin of her throat. Her sultry chuckle vibrated against his lips, and the sound made him even more aroused, if that were possible.

"At this rate, I won't have anything left to wear to work." He coaxed her slowly backward until she was trapped between the wall and his muscled body, and within another sixty seconds, the rest of their clothing had joined her shirt on the floor.

"Wall, couch, or table?" He grunted the question in the split second before his lips wrapped around the rosy peak of her breasts, sending her fingertips into his hair.

"We do have a bed," she reminded him.

"No way we're making it that far," he declared, his tongue tracing circles over her nipple. Brennan moaned and pressed her thighs together in a vain attempt to sooth the ache between them.

"Table, then," she panted. He didn't need telling twice. Brennan found herself bent over the edge of the dining room table before she had even registered that they had moved at all. "Yes…"

"Hold on, baby." His hands crept around to palm her breasts, grasping firmly as he entered her from behind. They both expelled a cry of pleasure at their joining, thrilling at the joy of the connection they'd been craving all day. Booth set a pounding rhythm, encouraged by the noises she was making. Her throaty moans and gasps had always had the power to drive him mad with desire, and being inside of her at the same time only intensified the effect.

Brennan held on firmly to the table, clutching the edges so tightly that she broke a nail when her climax washed over her. The clenching and spasming of her inner walls sent Booth over the edge as well, and he came hard within her. Tiny lights popped behind his eyelids as he struggled to slow his thundering pulse. After a few moments, he regained enough awareness to recognize that he might have been too rough with her. Generally speaking, that was something they both enjoyed, and Brennan had been more than ready for him physically. But that didn't stop him from worrying that he might have hurt her somehow. He slipped out of her, and she whimpered slightly at the loss.

"Are you okay? Was I too rough?" he asked guiltily, helping her to stand. She promptly turned and wrapped her arms around his neck.

"Of course not. If you were, I'd have stopped you," she assured him. They shared a loving smile and a kiss that left them nearly breathless once more. "I am hungry though…" Brennan trailed off thoughtfully, glancing at the clock. "It's early enough to make mac-n-cheese," she said temptingly. Booth groaned in appreciation.

"You know, if you're trying to get a second round out of me, bribery is totally unnecessary. I'm a sure thing." They laughed in harmony as she tugged him toward their pile of abandoned clothing.

"Of that, I have absolutely no doubt."

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I don't know about you, but he can bend me over anytime and... uh, sorry. *cough* Anyways...

Review! :) See you Wednesday!