See disclaimer in Chapter 1. Chapter 4, 4th of July by Vplasgirl.
Chapter 4 - 4th of July
The fourth of July dawned peacefully in the Colton household, but there was an undercurrent of festivity in the air when Dan started packing iceboxes for his traditional Independence Day dinner aboard his boat.
Two days had passed since Gil's midnight rendezvous with Sara. Two days and three restless nights thinking about her, aching for her, and then berating himself for his precarious control over his emotions when she was in his proximity. He'd let the moonlight and fantastic notions about destiny cloud his judgment, and made a rash decision about his living arrangements for the next few weeks.
Belatedly, he had thought about what he wanted, about whether he could risk getting close to Sara again. Meanwhile, he had purposely stayed away from Summerhouse, using an overactive muse as his excuse for spending most of his time in his room, all the time knowing that he wasn't writing one word that wouldn't be erased later. And then, late at night when the house was quiet, he would go out to the porch, his gaze predictably drawn to the gleam of light shining up from the small patio off Sara's bedroom, and he would picture her lying there in the moonlight, wondering if this was a nightly ritual for her, or if she was waiting for him. When the inevitable temptation to cross the yard became too strong, he would retire to his room.
That he still desired her was hardly surprising. He had never stopped. Even as, over time, feelings of love faded, Sara continued to fill his thoughts. He had never forgotten that one night of bliss with her—so of course, he wanted to repeat the experience. But when she wasn't there, in the flesh, tempting him, his memories of months of heartbreak made him want to run as far away from her as possible.
At night, he lay awake, weighing his options, fully aware that what he wanted (or not) may be moot. Sara made it clear that she hoped they would be friends again. But could they be friends now, given how he felt about her?
Dan had just told him she would be joining them on the boat today, and the excitement and anticipation of it was churning in his stomach. Those were not feelings one had for a friend.
"She comes out with us every year," Dan said as he took two large containers of marinating chicken out of the refrigerator and carefully packed them into one of the coolers. He sent Gil a wary look. "I hope you're okay with that."
"Of course." They had both avoided discussing Sara since that first night on Dan's porch. And in light of what Gil had told him about his past relationship with Sara—as little or as much as it was—he could understand his friend treading carefully around the issue. To reassure him, Gil added, "I decided to stay at Summerhouse for the summer."
"Great! Did you tell Sara yet?"
"Yes. I saw her the other night when I went out for a walk."
Dan threw him an inquisitive look, but Billy's sudden burst into the kitchen thwarted further explanation.
"Dad! Aunt Melanie's here."
"Melanie?" Cooler forgotten, Dan took off for the front hall but made it only as far as the kitchen doorway as Melanie Colton Hartley exploded in like a display of fireworks in her fashionable multi-colored Capri and halter outfit, her strawberry-blond curls cascading over her shoulders, and the jubilant blare of her voice as she yelled, "Surprise!"
Dan swooped in for a hug. "Why didn't you tell us you were coming?"
"Surprises are much more fun."
"Yeah, well another half hour and the surprise would have been on you."
"Oh, because I don't know your 4th of July routine?"
Dan sighed theatrically. "I'm so predictable. And, speaking of predictable, you vacationing without Chuck again?"
Melanie rolled her eyes. "He had a trip. A pilot's wife gets used to solo vacations, just like a doc—" She broke off, stared. "Gil? I don't believe it. Gil Grissom." She disentangled herself from Dan's arms. "What in heaven's name are you doing here?"
"Visiting your brother." Gil met her halfway as she came into the room, and then held her loosely as she hugged him. Pulling back, he looked at her. "Time always was in love with you, Mel."
She let out a low, lusty laugh and, with a sweep of a hand, drew attention to her very trim, very athletic figure. "This old bod…" she said, looking up at him coyly.
Gil had to bite back a grin. She knew she looked good, and judging from her perfect complexion and tight skin—not to mention the fact that she looked much younger than she had ten years ago—he suspected she was on very good terms with a Hollywood plastic surgeon.
"Come, Gil…" In an unexpected, familiar gesture, she linked her arms through his and led him to the breakfast bar. "We've got a lot of catching up to do."
"Uh, dad…Sara said she's ready when we are," Billy voiced carefully.
"Yes." Back in motion, Dan threw Melanie a glance. "You'll have to catch up on the boat, sis. We're running late."
"And Sara's joining us again this year?"
"Yep."
Finally letting go of Gil's arm, she rounded the kitchen island and leaned against the counter, looking down at Dan who was quickly filling another cooler with beer, wine, and bottled cocktails. "So?" she drawled.
Dan looked up. "What?"
"Oh I don't know. I thought maybe this year you'd have an important announcement to make."
For a confused moment, Dan only stared at her. Then confusion turned to exasperation. "Melanie—" he began warningly.
"Oh come on! She's fantastic; she's obviously crazy about you and Billy. What are you waiting for?"
Dan met Gil's gaze furtively then glanced at his son who, wide-eyed, waited for his father's answer with keen interest.
Gil's insides twisted into one big knot. He tried to school his features, pretend obscurity, or indifference, but what he really wanted was to be anywhere but in this room.
Dan glared at them. "Stop it…both of you, or you'll be spending the day on the dock."
Melanie winked at the boy as they shared a conspiratorial shrug, letting the matter drop, much to Gil's relief.
But as they loaded Dan's SUV and scrambled in, Melanie and Billy in the back, Gil in the front passenger seat, he couldn't help feeling as though he had been sucker punched. Dan told him that he wasn't involved with Sara, and he believed him, but he had never considered the possibility that Sara might have feelings for Dan.
A few seconds later, they pulled up in front of Summerhouse. Gil didn't delve into his motives when Dan started to unclip his seatbelt and he beat him to it, saying, "I'll go get her." He felt three pairs of eyes on his back as he sprinted up the pathway to her front door, but he didn't care.
Gil rang the doorbell then looked back over his shoulder at the garden. There were many rose bushes now, all of them well tended, most of them in bloom, their fragrance reaching him on the front portico. He heard footsteps on the tile floor in the front foyer and unconsciously sucked in a steadying breath—and felt it slip away when she opened the door and stood in front of him, a warm, welcoming smile digging pretty dimples on each side of her mouth.
"Hey," she greeted softly, a hint of weariness in her tone, her face looking fragile and pale. "Come in. I'll just get my things." Gil watched as she went to the kitchen, his masculine gaze naturally drawn to her tantalizing curves, barely concealed by the white shorts and unbuttoned blouse she wore over a bright orange one-piece swimsuit. His eyes caressed her long, tanned legs, still perfect, and then paused on the stylistic flower tattooed on her ankle.
| MAY 2005 |
"I'd like to tell you it was a celebration of my freedom. But it wasn't anything that deeply meaningful. More of a silly ritual between two sentimental roommates getting matching tattoos as a symbol of everlasting friendship."
"That's meaningful."
"Not when all that sentimentally came from a very cheap magnum of Champagne."
Gil chuckled. "Do you still keep in touch?"
"Nope. I guess I'm not cut out for long-term relationships."
| PRESENT DAY |
In retrospect, Gil wondered if the outcome of their relationship would have been different had he bothered to pursue that conversation with her that night, or any other they might have had, had his purpose not been singly to feel alive; to feel her alive. They had just found Nick, a breath away from death, and Gil had taken Sara home because he couldn't bear to let her out of his sight. He held her hand in a desperate grip the entire way, finding comfort in her touch, feeling not quite so alone. Still caught in the horror of Nick's abduction, neither spoke until he stopped the car, and even then it had been only her murmured invitation up for a drink—which he accepted because he wasn't ready to be alone with his thoughts.
And he wasn't ready to part with her.
He followed her up the stairs and stood close to her as she opened her apartment door, so near that he could smell a hint of her under the shroud of dirt that enveloped them both. Her hair was dusty and hung in mangled strands to her shoulders. Her shoulders were stiff; her hands, shaking as she inserted the key into the lock. Once inside, she went to the refrigerator and took out two bottles of beers, apologizing for not having anything stronger. After taking a sip of her own, Sara had wrinkled her nose in distaste, and shuddering, told him she needed a shower.
She had left him standing in her living room, bone-tired and shock-cold, envious of the hot water that would warm her flesh, then jealous of every droplet that would caress it. As he listened to the sounds of her shower, he gave his imagination free reign, providing images he had always denied himself when in her vicinity, but which he no longer had the strength to will away. He pictured her face turned up to the shower head as she lathered shampoo in her hair; her breasts full and thrusting upward, a bead of water teetering on the tip of a hardened nipple—and how it would feel against his tongue as he licked it off. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, smelling the light perfume of her soap, the tangy sweetness of her shampoo, picturing the rivulets of water cascading down her pale skin. And then it wasn't water caressing and heating her flesh, but his hands and his mouth.
No longer willing to be cautious, he had refused entry to the inner voice that had always steered him to a safer place whenever his desire for her began to build to overwhelming proportions. But something had happened to him that night; something he had refused to question or analyze. He had wanted and needed, and refused to deny himself, if only in his mind.
| MAY 2005 |
Gil let his imagination soar, his images of her borne out of years of sexual fantasies. Only his mind knew precisely the shape of her breasts, or the taste and texture of her skin, or the soft gasps that escaped her lips as he brought her to orgasm.
"Are you okay?"
His eyes flew open and collided with a vision that could have been straight out of his fantasy. Only it wasn't. She was very real, standing barefoot in a short, flowery robe, with her skin scrubbed to a rosy sheen and her hair falling around her shoulders in a mass of damp curls. For a moment he couldn't speak, only suck in shallow breaths as his senses sharpened and his body tightened.
For a moment, time stopped.
"No," he finally said hoarsely, blindly laying the untouched beer on the counter behind him. Two long, deliberate strides brought him to her. Raising a hand, he lightly brushed the tip of his fingers to her hair.
"Gris?"
His entire body shook with need and the knowledge of what he was about to do. He ignored the questions in her eyes. She wasn't moving away and that was all that mattered. Slowly he traced her jaw with his index finger, pleased that he had imagined the texture of her skin so well. His thumb traced her lips and her mouth parted on a gasp, not unlike those of his fantasies. Their eyes locked, and again he refused to answer the unspoken questions in hers. He had wanted her in silence for years; surely he could to do so one more time.
Gil dipped his head slowly; there was no mistaking his intentions. She could have said no, pushed him away, or stepped back, but she didn't, and at the first touch of his lips to hers the wall of fear and ethics that had held him back all these years suddenly disintegrated within him with such force, he gasped and crushed her body to his.
His heart pounded when she wrapped her arms around his neck and opened her lips to his. She greedily welcomed his tongue into her mouth, giving as fiercely as she received, grinding her pelvis into his groin, her ardor delighting him, but not surprising him. He had always known she would be this responsive given the chance. It was his own passion that stunned him. In his fantasies, he was always in control, giving her pleasure the way one offered a gift. He was anything but in control now. Her body was the gift, and he was the needy child who couldn't wait to tear into it, and discover all that was hidden under the delicate wrapping.
His hands moved uncontrollably down her back, over the curve of her ass to palm the back of her naked thighs. He lifted a leg and guided it around his body as his free hand worked its way up beneath her robe, encountering the rough texture of lacy panties. His thumb traced the seam down between her legs and slipped inside to apply pressure to her clitoris. Sara cried in pleasure, fueling the inferno already burning inside him. He lifted her and made it as far as the closest soft surface, and came down on top of her on her couch. He then buried a hand into her hair and pulled her face up to his for a bruising kiss.
Never, even in his wildest of fantasies, had he ever been anything but gentle with her. But his fantasies had always been based on his reality with other women, and on what his mother had instilled in him as early as puberty. Women were softer creatures deserving of a man's gentle touch. But nothing had prepared him for how desperately he could want her. He was almost fifty years' old and he had never experienced anything this powerful.
It frightened him.
With a harsh breath, he sought a modicum of control, forcing himself to slow down, to soften his caress. He looked at her and she smiled, and a feeling of tenderness overwhelmed him. He shifted a little of his weight off her and ran his hand down her leg, noticing her tattoo for the first time. Something in her explanation of it sent a twinge of uneasiness through him, but he refused to dwell on it. He was aroused, needy, and he wasn't about to ruin the moment with his insecurities. His head dipped to the deep vee of her robe. He pressed his lips to the space between her breasts and she sighed.
"Why did you wait so long?"
"Because I knew if we started this, I wouldn't be able to stop."
"And you want it to stop?"
"Yes…but, God help me, right now, I need you."
He didn't notice the change in her until he sought her lips again and she turned her head to evade him.
"I think you should leave."
The bottom fell out of his heart. "Why?"
"This is about what happened to Nick," she said, shifting her body from beneath his and scrambling up and off the couch.
Was it? Her back was to him and she was straightening her robe, tightening the sash around her waist. He wanted to tell her it wasn't true, but he couldn't. He sat up and rubbed a hand down his face. Then, she was looking at him with something resembling disappointment in her eyes—and something else he'd never seen before, but that tugged at him, frightened him even more, though he didn't know why.
"Sara, this thing between us—"
"Is not what you want."
And he wished he could disagree with her, but he knew he wouldn't have been back tomorrow. "No," he finally admitted.
She drew in a sharp breath and clenched her jaw. "You should go."
He nodded and got to his feet, walked to the door, all the time fighting the urge to tell her what she wanted to hear. But he couldn't, and without a backward glance, he left.
| PRESENT DAY |
"Are you okay?"
Gil flinched, then clearing his throat, said, "Yeah." He noticed the medium-sized cooler she was carrying, and took it from her. "I'll carry this."
Sara gave him a grateful smile. "Are you sure you're okay?"
He looked at her, really looked at her. No. He wasn't okay. He had just figured out precisely when and how he had fucked up with her. All these years, telling himself that she had abandoned him, when all along it was him who had cast her aside. Sara was stoic. Strong. Forgiving. Why she had slept with him on her last night in Vegas, he couldn't even fathom. Why she was smiling at him now awed him.
"Yeah, I'm okay," he said. What else could he say? I'm sorry I hurt you. Sara had healed. She was happy.
He was the only one still hurting.