A/N: This installment's super short and much fluffier than the next chapter will be—school is just crazy busy as we race towards graduation, and this is all I could squeeze in this week. It's hard to believe I actually started writing Problem Solving right around this time last year. When did I find the time? More hijinks and innocent fun to come, along with the diagnosis. Stay with me, please. =) Thanks to everybody who read and reviewed the previous chapter.
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Fortunately, the speed limit was one law Booth never had qualms about breaking. Brennan didn't try to hide her smirk as he floored the accelerator and held it down for 5 miles or so, before peeling onto an offshoot of the main road so unexpectedly that the wheels scrambled for traction on the gravel surface.
"I would prefer to arrive at our hotel with my bones in their present state," she commented mildly as he picked up speed again.
Booth didn't reply, but Brennan was fairly certain she saw his hands tighten on the steering wheel. He was typically such a prude when it came to all things related to sex that she couldn't help but enjoy his reaction to their imminent consummation. Even though her desire was a definite match for his, she couldn't resist a little more needling.
"Sexual intercourse will prove much easier if we're not both in body casts as a result of injuries from an overturned SUV."
He didn't take his eyes off the road, but the threat was clear in his tone. "Keep talkin', Bones. Payback's on its way for all those times you sent me home sleepless."
His blunt revelation only egged Brennan on as he veered left without slowing through a dirt path hidden in a small grove of trees.
"You are implying that you intend to use delayed sexual gratification as punishment for the frequent physical discomfort you suffered while working with a beautiful partner whom you considered off limits sexually."
The SUV hurtled forward, closing in on several small bungalow-style buildings separated by a fair amount of space, but clearly laid out in a U-shape around a trio of fountains and raised flower beds.
"First off, I'm not the only one who suffered 'physical discomfort," Booth retorted pointedly. "You're hot, I'm hot; we're the hot partners." This statement was punctuated with an aggravated hand wave. "It generates a lot of steam being in the middle of that kind of a heat wave. Y'know? And second—" This time Booth did take his eyes off the road, just for a moment. The look on his face corroborated his statement about physical heat being generated between them. "Second, if you actually think I'm going for even more delayed sexual gratification, then you need to turn in your genius credentials to Mensa."
"I'm not a member of Mensa."
He pulled to a stop in front of a turquoise-sided building on one of the long sides of the U.
"I'll give you the tour later," Booth promised, unbuckling his seatbelt and pushing open the door. "Right now, I'm interested in a guided tour of my own." He got out and missed Brennan grinning like what Angela would have called a Cheshire cat. She'd barely gotten her own belt undone when he appeared outside her window.
"Fell into his arms" might have been a hyperbolic description, but only slightly. Booth pulled open the door and Brennan acted on years of delayed impulses. She scooted to the edge of her seat, grabbed the front of his shirt and yanked his head down to hers. Her forward momentum was sufficient that she would have fallen sideways out of the car if Booth's arms hadn't already been around her, maneuvering into a vertical position on the pavement.
Their wet bodies plastered together, they kissed frantically, the dam finally breached completely and everything pent up between them spilling over dangerously. Always before, Brennan had been afraid of being dragged under by emotional riptides. This time, there was no fear of drowning. Just as she had done earlier in the ocean, she dove straight under the wave.
Booth's arms pressed her tightly against his chest, anchoring her to his solid strength. Through the damp fabric of his t-shirt, she could feel the firm outline of his pectoral muscles. As many times as she'd seen him shirtless, she'd never before been allowed to touch him freely. She reached between them and braced a hand on the hard wall of his chest, trailing downwards over his ribcage. The hard ridges of his abdomen contracted under her hand as she went lower still, reaching for his belt buckle.
"Ga-ahhhh, Bones …" His own hand slid underneath her shirt, his long fingers splaying warmly across her stomach.
Brennan's body tensed with anticipation as he teased her with his fingertips, stroking her skin in concentric circles. Her need for him grew with each circle, like the gradually widening ripples on a pond when a stone has been dropped into it.
His buckle finally came undone and Brennan was reaching for the belt itself when Booth broke the kiss and dropped his forehead to hers, breathing heavily.
"Wait."
"No." Unwilling to return to the surface, Brennan reached for him again. He dodged her attempt to kiss him again and held up the plastic room key, then reached behind to insert it in the electronic reader. Brennan twisted in his arms to see the light blink red. He scowled then swiped it again, with identical results.
"Crap."
As he fumbled with the lock, Brennan did her level best to distract him. His shirt was now free of his pants and she pulled it upwards, then leaned down and began to kiss her way across the smooth musculature of his abdomen. This time when his abs flexed, she felt the contraction with her lips and teeth.
"Bones. Bones. Bones-wahh, ahhhh, whoa, God. Jesus!"He jerked backwards as she popped the button of his jeans and reached inside his boxers. "Bones, the key."
She sighed and straightened, shoving the hair back from her face. "What?"
Booth dragged his hand down his face before replying. "It doesn't work."
"Let me try." She grabbed the key away from him and turned toward the door. "You're probably swiping it too fast for the electronic eye to read the signature. You can be very impatient."
He stepped up close behind her and began he to kiss his way down the side of her neck, his warm breath teasing her skin like his fingers had a moment ago. "Why would I be impatient?" he murmured in her ear, very slowly dragging his teeth down her earlobe, then pressed a kiss into the sensitive skin directly behind it, Brennan couldn't hold back a gasp of pleasure.
"Like that, huh," he mocked, deliberately moving away from the erogenous zone.
Struggling to focus on getting the door to open, Brennan reached back and clamped a hand around his waist, dragging him back into her. She was never shy about asking for what she wanted.
"Do that again."
"What?" Booth teased, kissing his way along her jawline. "You mean this?" He nibbled his way along the outer shell of her ear, pausing occasionally to drop down and sweep his lips across the nape of her neck. All the while, his hands played up and down her sides, occasionally venturing a little further inland to caress her stomach or the underside of a breast, then retreating just shy of the target so that she moaned in frustration even as the lock refused to cooperate.
Brennan was on the verge of deciding that car sex would be every bit as good as hotel room sex—and was debating what coercive technique she could employ to persuade Booth of this-when the door swung inwards. The intertwined partners staggered forward, almost landing on top of each other in the middle of the carpet.
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A/N: Partial hotel hijinks, I know. More to come—just remember, I don't do "M" stuff. The middle school teacher in me just feels funny getting quite that graphic. That said, I have a lot of fun with a redhot T-rating … =)