A/N A long chapter to start the week-enjoy!
Shopping for Sara
Chapter 8
Separation
Just as Grissom had predicted, the foster dog arrangement turned into a permanent home for one large boxer dog named Hank within a week. He had not had a dog in decades; Sara had cared for an old dog in San Francisco for several years, and both had forgotten the companionship offered by a dog—affection for a dog biscuit.
The well-behaved Hank had his bed and he slept there. Only when they stayed in bed too long would he appear at the bedside sticking his cool nose between covers until he found human flesh. Sara found surprising pleasure in caring for the dog—and Grissom found enjoyment in watching them, because the dog's initial attachment was to Sara.
"It's because he had a female as his first mother," she explained as she sat on the floor, playing with a toy for Hank. "He will love you in a few weeks."
Suddenly time became a cascading cataclysm of one catastrophe after another. Greg was beaten—an intense, personal attack with tragic potential on many levels. Grissom worked, determined to find the source of such violence, but in the end, only one person would be charged and Greg's actions would drag into weeks of litigation. While Greg suffered physically, Sara's own anger and anguish and grief seem to diminish when she cared for Hank.
Eventually, Grissom got home; he found both asleep—in their bed.
He crawled between the sheets, sliding an arm around Sara's waist. She made a soft moan and patted the dog's head.
The second model of a crime scene was discovered, alarming with its implication of a multiple murderer, terrifying with its detailed planning, and worrisome to Grissom that there seemed to be no connections between the two cases.
Yet Grissom and Sara felt safe in their cocoon, protected within walls of their making, sheltered from those heinous forces outside of their home. They laughed, teased, played, and considered themselves fortunate in ways beyond counting. Grissom continued to leave his shoes near the sofa, his pants on the floor, his shirt on a chair while Sara was meticulously organized. Hank learned to trust his male owner—this trust coming on the heels of several hamburgers snuck into the house while Sara was away. They were happy.
From an unexpected source, Grissom received an invitation to conduct a seminar. "Four weeks, I wish I could take it," he said after reading the letter for the third, fourth or fifth time.
Sara looked up from where she sat. "You should, Gil. You talk about teaching—how you no longer have anyone to teach." She glanced at him, and seeing the frown puckering his forehead, she tried teasing, adding, "Except for Greg. I think he may be a little obtuse."
Uncharacteristically, the frown stayed in place. "Greg—I don't know what to do about him." His hand rubbed across his eyes. "I've tried to think of a way to get him out of this and there is nothing—damn, it—nothing I can do."
Sara moved to stand behind him; her hand massaging his neck as she leaned forward and pressed her lips against his hair, quickly. "I'm sorry. What can I do?"
He shook his head and folded the letter. Sara took the letter from his hand.
"Maybe—maybe you should ask," she said. Grissom looked at her. "Ask for leave, teach the seminar." She knew he was worried about Greg which meant he was worried about everyone else. The migraine the week before had been unusually severe. The mysterious crime scene models sat across the room; he was not sleeping well either.
"Yeah, you think so?" He asked. Sara recognized an inflection in his voice that had been missing for weeks. The frown returned. "What about you? How can we both leave?"
She smiled, gave his neck one more knead with her hand, and walked back to the chair. "Silly, I have Hank. He'll keep me company."
Truth was Sara missed him before he ever left. She missed him as he packed and his pants disappeared from the floor. She missed him as they made love knowing it would be a long month before he returned. Before they left for work, his bag packed and going to the lab so he could leave from there, she clung to him and tried to hide her tears. They had already made plans—emails every day, a phone call between her work schedule and his teaching—promising it would be enough. They both knew it was a lie.
As Grissom stood in the doorway of the locker room saying goodbye, Sara hoped he could not see how near she was to tears, but he could feel them. He wanted to pull her close to him and tell her how much he loved her, how much he would miss her every day. Instead, they hardly spoke as he said goodbye.
From the airport he called. "We can meet somewhere in the middle," he suggested.
It made Sara laugh. "No, you go, immerse yourself in academia for thirty days—twenty-nine days." She said, "Go teach everything you know about the Walden swamp mosquito—and come back to me!"
"I love you."
She heard his flight being called. "Wherever you are, Gil, remember I'll love you the rest of my life." She heard his soft chuckle. "Don't be winking at any of those pretty college girls!"
Eleven hours later, exhausted, worried, but excited Grissom drove his rental car away from the airport. He was disconcerted when, gathering his bags, he had found himself looking for his crime scene kit. Leaving it behind was the first confirmation of his decision to separate himself from his long career—for a month. He drove east, purposefully avoiding interstate highways, meandering to Williamstown and the college almost aimlessly through its winter landscape.
The town was a tangled thread of streets, roofs glittering in the afternoon sun. He began to recognize landmarks from his map and a gently curve in the street brought him to the campus. Grissom thought any new arriving visitor would recognize the mixture of peaceful appeal of architecture and landscape. He followed his directions until he found a pair of cottages connected by garages, one open and empty. He drove into the space; this would be where he would spend his nights away from Sara.
Expecting no one to greet him, he opened the door and stepped inside to a warm, bookish, a bit musty, space of a small kitchen. He pulled back curtains and light streamed into the room. Opening more curtains, he discovered his living space, a large wood desk, several high backed chairs, a sofa covered with a frayed quilt. The small bedroom had two beds, dorm style from decades ago, he thought. Both beds were made—clean sheets, blankets; his hand pressed the pillow and realized these were new. Retracing his steps, he explored the kitchen and found evidence he was expected. An unopened bag of coffee, a box of tea, several cans of food staples were in a cabinet. The refrigerator contained more—juice, apples, butter, a six-pack of beer—and a note. He reached for the note when he heard footsteps at the door and a woman's figure framed against the screen door holding a cup in her hand.
"Hello! You've arrived!" She spoke with a trace of accent. Not waiting for an invitation, she entered the house. "My name is Evelyn Sims—your neighbor," she extended her hand. "Dr. Mitchell said to expect you—he brought the groceries. And I brought you a hot toddy. It's colder here than in Las Vegas, I imagine."
His welcome to the college followed a similar path; everyone he met expected him. Old mixed with new as he familiarized himself with the campus, the faculty, and the different way of life on a small campus. College—classes, textbooks, instruction, students—had not changed much in thirty years since his graduation. The way of instruction—using a laptop for classroom lectures, communicating with on-line students—was different and his first few days were spent learning as a novice but by the time twenty students showed up for his first lecture, he was competent enough to stand in front of them and introduce the subject.
In five minutes, he was talking about insects from around the world to wide-eyed, open mouthed twenty-year olds. Talking about the sex life of bugs had gotten the same reaction nearly three decades when he had been a graduate assistant substituting for his graduate professor. It worked again to captivate his audience as he finished up with a few comments about mosquitoes. They would return the next day, and the days afterward, filling his days with questions and curiosity of the young.
One afternoon, wandering near the college's forest, he found a cocoon, rolled tightly against a twig of a hardwood tree, wintering until the sun warmed its casing. Carefully studying its shape and color, he was certain he knew the species—Actias luna—size was an indicator. He opened his pocket knife and clipped the twig. A luna moth, one of the largest moths in North America, beautiful with its pale luminous color, would amaze a certain pair of brown eyes in Vegas when it opened. He grinned as he turned the stick; perhaps she would also understand the symbolism he had difficulty putting into words—she was his magical place and with her his life was transformed.
They talked every day, sent emails, laughed at shared stories; Sara was often vague about work saying she did not want him to be worried with what he could not explain or solve from a thousand miles away. She listened to him talk about teaching and research and began to recognize a forgotten passion in the man she loved.
In a small antique shop, he found an unusual string of red stones and held them up to the light.
"Red amber," the saleswoman said. "the real stuff. These came on a chain, which broke so I put jewelry wire in place of the old chain. Can you see how each one is different? I keep thinking I'll do something else with them."
"I'll take it just as it is," Grissom smiled. Sara loved simple necklaces and he liked the tiny insects in each stone. Without a word, he would announce their relationship; for him, it was better than a diamond on her finger—which he knew she would never wear. And it was not exactly a public proclamation, more a very private link to their bond.
As swiftly as he had left Vegas, he arrived, earlier than expected by working half the night to get grades posted and changing his flight connection at the last minute. The taxi left him at the lab and Sara was gone. Not gone, but away from the lab looking for evidence in an illegal garbage dump so he picked up his case and headed out to help Warrick. And the night went from collecting evidence to the search for a rogue cop—Keppler's tragic history and life had ended in Vegas.
It was mid-day before he parked his vehicle beside Sara's car in their garage. Opening the door into the kitchen, the familiar smells and appearance of his home pushed the time he had spent in Massachusetts into deep recesses of his brain. That time no longer mattered in this space as a shiny brown animal came to him, dancing around his legs as he bent to pet Hank. A minute later, his eyes noticed another pair of legs coming to him.
He stood and reached for her. In a quick, smooth movement, her hand passed in front of Hank's face; her finger pointed to the dog's bed, and instantly the dog obeyed her unspoken signal. When his fingertips touched her, it was to untie the ribbons across her breasts. His mouth met hers with a fierce longing that had been growing inside him for days. Her arms wrapped around his neck and as she pressed against him, he felt a storm rising within her even as thunder rolled though his own veins.
Sara tightened her hold on him; her hips nestled intimately against his thighs as he explored the secret, scented, erotic place at the nape of her neck. It worked as he remembered; she shivered.
Words formed in his throat, some sound was made. Sara broke away from him and placed her fingertips against his lips.
"Not now," she whispered. "Later, tell me everything."
"A shower," he managed to croak. "I need a shower, honey."
Laughter welled up inside her. "Quickly, then."
He tipped her face and gazed into soft, brown expecting eyes and at that moment he dismissed his plans to make slow, deliberate love to her. "Yes," was the only word he could say before he literally ran to the bathroom where she had already unpacked his things, a fresh towel lay beside his toiletries. His shower set a record for speed.
The bedroom was ready for intimacy. The mid-day sun had been concealed; only one dim lamp cast a shadow on the high ceiling. And Sara—she was bending across the bed, folding back the coverlet. The golden color of the robe she wore seemed to radiate its own light as it moved with her body.
Some instinct told her he was standing in the doorway. "You've finished," she laughed as she walked toward him. She kissed him with unabashed enthusiasm as her hands removed the towel from around his waist. Her nose buried into his beard as another laugh formed. "This will take getting used to." Her lips nibbled against it. "It's softer than I expected."
Grissom grinned into her hair. And the next thing he knew, they were shrouded in pale blue sheets; her gown was gone and her warm skin seemed to melting into his. Dear God, he thought, this is what I've missed. He looked at Sara and found a sweet yearning in her expression that made him catch his breath.
His hands gathered her to him and they kissed until he freed her mouth to breathe and moved along her neck to the rosy nipples of her breasts. His whole body clenched as he kissed and tasted until she made an eager moan. He moved downward, using his hands, fingers, and lips to trace a tantalizing path to the triangle of dark curls that shielded her sex. He groaned as he bent his head and placed a kiss on the inside of her thigh. Her scent was intoxicating, and as he closed his hand around her, cupping her, softly running his thumb along her clit, he felt her turn to liquid against his palm and thought nothing had ever thrilled him as much as this intimate act.
Sara's nails sunk into his shoulders as shivers rippled through her.
"Gil, please." He heard her words. "I need you."
He stroked her, gently, and felt her soften and open for him as he slipped one, then two fingers inside her body. With her moisture he tenderly massaged the dainty pearl that throbbed above her entrance. She moaned.
"Open your eyes, Sara. Look at me."
A passion-dazed gasp came from her. "I can't wait."
He felt the beginning ripples of her orgasm, quickly fitted himself to her and pushed his erection into her damp welcoming passage as he came face-to-face with her. Her muscles seemed to pull him into her with such force he had to wait a few seconds to ease himself slowly out. The sensation was an indescribable, exquisite pleasure as she trembled and convulsed beneath him.
"Tell me you missed me," he whispered as he tried to slow his movements.
"I love you," her fingers raked through his hair. She lifted her hips as he pulled away and her tight muscles closed around him. "Don't hold back—not this time. Let me have all of you." Her words caused the last of his self-control to disintegrate.
He swam into her sea, plunging deeper, allowing himself to fall into euphoria. It stole his breath and left him damp, weary, sated, and alive.
A fragment of a dream dissolved in a heartbeat when Sara opened her eyes and found two beautiful blue ones watching her. She smiled. "I was dreaming of you."
"I have a gift for you," Grissom said, his words barely a whisper.
She did not think he had gotten out of bed, but he was on the opposite side of her body from the position she last remembered. She raised her head enough to see the clock. "It's an hour before I'm supposed to be at work. Where did the time go?"
He gave her a devilish grin. "I think we made up for a month of separation."
She pulled her mouth into a grimace. "My boss will never understand why I'm late." Her fingers caressed his bearded chin.
"I have something for you—a gift."
She sensed that he was trying to tell her something. He pulled a small bag from underneath his pillow and held it to her. She pushed up and opened the bag, touching smooth stones before pulling the necklace out of its bag. The dark red stones cascaded into her palm.
"It's beautiful," she whispered.
"Hold it up—to the light."
As she did as told, she frowned. "Is this amber? Colored red?"
He lifted one shoulder in a small shrug. "I think it is very old, true red amber—Baltic amber. Look closely—each piece is more of a bubble than a stone and each one contains something—an inclusion is the official term."
"Like an insect?" She asked, her eyes wide as she studied a small stone. Her eyes met his. "I saw Jurassic Park—read the book, too."
"I'm glad to hear that," he said with a laugh.
Sara let the beads drape through her fingers. "Why have you given this to me?"
He picked them up and placed them around her neck. "Because I love you—because you saved me from myself, Sara." He fumbled with the clasp for a second. "I'll love you for the rest of my life and beyond."
Sara wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down on top of her with blissful enthusiasm. The lab would wait; the world would wait. The stack of mail and paperwork on his desk would wait. She had an inkling he had just marked her as belonging to him should anyone lift their eyes from a microscope and notice what was around her neck.
A/N: Thanks for reading-now send a review-this story will probably be 15-16 chapters. Thanks so much!