They took the stairs to Speed's second-floor apartment, which was its usual astounding mess. Clothes were strewn across the bed, books piled haphazardly on the coffee table. A red iPod nano occupied a position of honour on the pillow.

Speed cleared the iPod and a couple pairs of jeans from the bed and looked around somewhat awkwardly. His shirt had dried between Opium and the apartment, but that didn't make a difference. He was still gorgeous. Delko couldn't understand how he'd never noticed it before. How had he managed to spend long days in the lab with Speed and develop a crush on Horatio?

Delko had been to the apartment before, but this time was different. He was here in a different capacity, and so he took his time exploring. He moved through the room as though it were his own, unabashedly going through the items of Speed's personal life. Speed, for his part, stood silently by the bed and watched as Delko picked up a paperback and flicked through the pages before dropping it, moving instead to the cupboard, which he opened. He reached inside, fingering the soft fabric of a shirt. He drifted over to the bedside table and ran his thumb absently over the bristles of Speed's hairbrush.

"Eric," Speed said quietly.

Delko glanced up. They were standing on opposite sides of the bed. He couldn't help but wonder if the seduction on the dancefloor had happened at all, or whether it had all been a dream. His eyes followed Speed's torso, remembering the way the wet shirt had caressed the contours of the chest beneath it. Nope. Definitely not a dream.

"You scared?" Delko asked suddenly.

Speed didn't answer immediately. He slid his hands into his pockets and moved to the window, leaning against the wall next to it. A faint breeze stirred his hair ever so slightly. "Not scared," he said at last, and turned to look back at Delko. "Do you know what you're doing?"

"I want you."

Speed exhaled, closing his eyes. "Are you going to hate me in the morning?"

"It is the morning."

"You know what I mean."

Delko admired his friend's profile. The lips were what caught his attention this time. Speed had a sweet, sweet mouth. Delko remembered kissing it, and the blood began to pool in his groin. "No. I'm not going to regret this."

"How do you know that?" Speed turned away from the window and leaned back on the wall, arms by his sides. "I just don't want you doing something and then you can't look me in the eye after and I have to explain to H why my best friend suddenly can't work with me."

Delko tried to speak, but there was just something about the way Speed looked leaning against the wall. The way the white shirt brought out the light tan of his skin and the darkness of his hair and eyes. Those sleepy, sexy eyes. When Speed was off the clock and on his own time, he was a completely different person. Every movement was lithe and graceful, every pore of his being oozed pure sensuality. A sensuality that Delko could no longer ignore. When the words came, his voice was rough. "I'm not going to regret this," he managed, as decisively as he could. "I want you."

"I'll let you have me," Speed said softly.

Delko's heart skipped a beat at the sheer submissiveness in Speed's voice, but he didn't for one moment think that Speed was just going to roll over and play dead. "Come here."

Speed moved to the end of the bed, then swiveled toward the dresser, looking at Delko in the mirror. "I saw the way you looked at me when I spilled your drink on my shirt. You wanted to touch me." He lifted his hands to the neck of his shirt and began unbuttoning it slowly. "Did you like how it felt when we danced?"

Delko's mouth was dry. He didn't think he could speak. Instead, he nodded mutely.

Speed undid the last button and the shirt fluttered open, revealing his chest. He was smaller than Delko, and somehow that was wildly attractive. Delko wanted more than anything to run his hands over Speed's collarbones, to see the contrast of their skins. He knew how Speed's skin would look against his own – like whipped cream on a latte. Speed trailed his hands up his chest and brushed his palms over the dusky circles of his nipples. His eyelids fell shut, eyelashes a smudge of ink against his cheeks. Heat pooled low in Delko's body.

"You've seen me shirtless before," Speed said casually, eyes still closed. "Half-changed in the lockers, or if you got here too early for a night out. But it's different now, isn't it?"

Delko watched, transfixed. He couldn't have looked away if he'd tried. He drank in the details of Speed, the muscles of his back, the flat stomach, the dark trail of hair that began at his navel and disappeared into his jeans. The one vein that ran the length of his bicep. Speed's hand drifted slowly down his stomach and undid the button on his jeans.

Delko crossed the room in a second and was standing behind Speed, his hands on his wrists. Speed opened his eyes lazily, not at all surprised. Delko pulled Speed back against him, ducking his head to inhale against his face, and reached down. His breathing was a harsh hiss as he lowered the zipper of Speed's jeans. Delko himself was wearing ordinary slacks, so hiding his own arousal was not an option – and he was incredibly turned on. He slid his palm down Speed's abdomen, feeling heat and hardness beneath the denim. Delko looked at himself in the mirror as he stroked Speed's erection, saw Speed's chest rise and fall as his breathing quickened and roughened. Delko thought he would come in his pants just watching it.

He withdrew his hand and Speed's eyes opened immediately. "Off," Delko said shakily, motioning to the jeans. He didn't think he could trust himself to speak in full sentences.

Speed knocked Delko's hands aside from where they had been fumbling with the buttons of his shirt and undid the first two easily. Stepping forward, he closed the distance between them and brought his mouth down on the base of Delko's throat. His tongue slipped into the depression between the collarbones, teeth just lightly grazing the flesh even as his fingers worked on the buttons.

Delko felt like he would explode. He ripped open the rest of his shirt, shrugged it off and jabbed Speed in the centre of his chest with one finger. "No games." His voice was trembling. He didn't care. "No games, Speed."

Speed held up both hands in what might have been surrender. "No games."

Delko gave him a light push and Speed fell backward onto the bed, dark hair just visible in the V of his open jeans. Delko's breath caught in his throat. He climbed onto the bed, a knee on either side of Speed, and crushed their mouths together, one hand with a tight grip on Speed's hair, the other sliding into his jeans to resume its earlier action.

Speed's hips jerked forward suddenly, and he bit down on Delko's lower lip, almost drawing blood. "God," he hissed. "Right there."

Delko grappled with Speed's jeans. Christ, the man was packing. Delko didn't have his ruler, but he was pretty sure that was well above average. He pulled Speed's jeans down and made quick work of his own pants.

They were a furiously tumbling tangle of limbs that splayed every which way across the bed, hands and mouths everywhere, backs arching and epithets hissing from slack lips. Bodily fluids sprayed between them multiple times and neither cared to clean up. Chances were that nobody would notice a couple extra stains on Speed's sheets anyway.

Delko eventually stopped when the aching of his muscles became too much to bear, and rolled off of Speed with a grunt. Speed sat up, retrieved a Kleenex from a box on the bedside table, and leaned over. Delko, who had exactly zero energy left in him, was still trying to catch his breath. Speed cleaned them both up and lay back on the bed, clearly exhausted. It was a couple minutes before either of them could speak.

"It's H, isn't it?"

Delko's brain strained to put the question in context. Belatedly he remembered his crush on his redheaded boss. "Yeah. Yeah, it is."

"Mm." That seemed to be the extent of Speed's speech capabilities.

Delko turned his head and looked at his friend. "So what now?"

Speed shrugged. "I don't know."

"Technically, we didn't have sex."

"Very technically."

Delko sighed and settled himself a little more comfortably on the bed. "That was nice."

"Nice?" Speed raised an eyebrow. "You just came five times in two hours."

"Five? That's not fair. You got six."

"Yeah, but I'm the one who has to wash your, ah, biologicals out of my hair."

Delko had to admit that that was a very good point. He looked up at the ceiling. Life was a funny thing. The day had started off with him trying to come to terms with having a thing for Horatio and it seemed that it was going to end with him trying to come to terms with having had a near-sex experience with his best friend. Needless to say, this was not at all what he had expected.

But if you put it in perspective, this could be a good thing. He was attracted to Speed – the fact that Speed had just given him five orgasms might have had something to do with that, but if he were honest with himself, he'd been attracted to Speed long before that – and Speed was attracted to him. Hell, they'd just ravaged each other mercilessly without a care in the world.

"Eric."

Delko glanced over. "Yeah?"

"What about Horatio?"

"What about Horatio?"

"You want him."

Delko didn't deny it. "You can't always get what you want," he said, rolling onto his side and studying Speed's contented face. He leaned down and gave the swollen lips a tender kiss. "But if you try sometimes –"

Speed smiled. "– you just might find –"

"– you get what you need." Delko touched Speed's mouth, overcome by the strangest feeling of gentleness. It might have been a quote from a Rolling Stones song, but that didn't stop it from being perfectly true. This had been exactly what he needed.

"And am I what you need?"

Delko smiled. "You are, Speed, exactly what I need."