by November Tuesday

She drives home, the steering wheel hard under the bones of her hands. It is the first time in months that she has left work on time. There is a headache waiting to be born from the clench of her jaw.

She glares at a Toyota that cuts her off. “Fuck you, you prick!” she yells, jutting her middle finger up.

She runs her fingers through her hair, messing it up. Her hair is disheveled and her makeup is smeared and her face is set tight with anger. Then her hand returns to the wheel, and she keeps on driving.

She arrives home and her first sight is a half-dozen beer bottles waiting to be recycled.

...somebody young and beautiful shows up...

She retracts her arm, remembering the mighty power of little league, and throws. Brown glass blossoms and shatters.

One by one, she hurls them at the exposed-brick wall. She throws so hard that with each one she makes a small pained grunting sound.

Now her appetite for exploding glass has just been whetted, and she is out of bottles to throw.

Instead she throws a glass vase, which hits the wall and flies apart.

Damn, that feels good.

She closes her eyes.

. . .The only time we ever touch anyone is when we’re wearing our latex gloves...

She gets up, roughly uncaps a beer, cutting her finger in the process, and then she clunks the beer down on her desk typing harder than necessary as she opens her email account.

Grissom, she types.

You are a self absorbed myopic motherfucker and I want to bash your fucking head in.

Nice. She adds:

You cowardly bastard, I know you want to hold me down and fuck my brains until neither you or I can move.

Yeah, nice. If only.

She rides the delete key with an angry finger, leaving just the salutation.

Grissom,

Okay, good start. Let’s try this again.

Since I have no more OT this month could I take some time off, effective ASAP? I know that Warrick was up for OT so perhaps he could have mine? Pls leave me a VM ASAP to let me know.

SS

Okay. She double and triple checks the message to make sure she got all the vitriol out, just in case, then she hits send.

Then she turns her phone ringer off and for the first time in over a year, sleeps while it is still light out.

She awakens, confused and sleepy in the harsh gold slanting light of late afternoon. She checks her answering machine. One message. She stands naked in the entryway and hesitates, then presses the button.

“Sara, it’s me.” That voice, the voice she dreams about, so smoky and deep and precise. She closes her eyes.

Bastard assumes I’ll know who me is, like he’s the only male to ever leave me a message, and he has me there, doesn’t he? Fucking bastard.

“I got your message. I hope you’re okay.”

She opens her eyes. He has all the gall to sound all concerned. She doesn’t know why, it’s not like she’s a person, just a middle-aged man’s temptation, like a sports car or a big-screen TV. Not as if she were flesh and blood.

“You can have off until Thursday, I’m sorry but Catherine and Warrick already have off so I’ll need you then. Okay. I’ll see you Thursday night, and give me a call and let me know you’re allright.”

“As if!” she shouts and stabs at the button that stops the playback.

The silence is very loud in the late-day sun, which sparkles on the glass embedded in carpet. She turns to get the vacuum cleaner, but changes her mind. She decides that she likes its violent sparkle.

.

She showers and puts on her skimpiest workout gear - low-riding bicycle pants with a black sports bra. She puts her hair in a ponytail and puts on lipstick and drives all the way to the gym. When she gets there she realizes that she doesn’t have any music more intense than Ani DiFranco or U2 so she backtracks back to the record store, buys a few Metallica and Nine Inch Nails CDs, and then goes back to the gym.

The facility is owned by the LVPD. It’s a cop gym, crowded this morning, and everywhere there are guys in various stages of buffness. She sees Hank and glares at him, daring him to speak to her.

She plays Metallica and gets on the elliptical trainer. She works through the slowness and goes faster and faster, until her speed matches her anger. She turns the music up so loud the guy next to her looks over, and this makes her even more angry.

She closes her eyes and focuses on the burn in her calves and thighs, on the manic drumming, on the sweat that trickles down the back of her neck.

...I couldn’t do it...

No, of course you couldn’t, you fucking wuss. You could screw some dominatrix, and probably paid for the experience, but little old me, well, that’s just too much to ask. God forbid you should tackle Sara Sidle. We all know how intimidating I am.

She presses her lips together tightly and angrily stabs the button that increases the speed. Faster and faster. Her fingers stab the handlebars in rhythm with the song. She goes until she feels her heart will explode, then goes some more.

.

She walks to the window. The sky is beginning to darken. She parts the curtains and looks out at the flaming sunset sky.

...I couldn’t do it...

She thinks of butterflies. How perfect. Not butterflies in the air, or even in a cage, but specimen after specimen, pins transecting delicate bodies, under glass, fixed and beautiful and preserved chastely forever.

She closes her eyes and imagines taking a frame down from his office wall. She imagines herself holding the carefully constructed wood, and with the flex of an arm freeing his butterflies in a beautiful explosion of glass and splinters. She imagines frames hitting the walls of his office, taking jars and cages with them, ultimately hitting the glass wall and infusing it with spider web cracks. She pictures it happening in slow motion and can almost feel the throw in her arm.

She imagines his face, seeing years of his handiwork in a collection of flattened wings and thoraxes, the blinking owlish wonder, and yes, it satisfies.

Then she imagines a yellow wing falling deadly to the floor, its flutter gone, and she knows that the butterfly is her. And she crumples, sliding down the wall to sit on her floor amid brown glass, sobbing.

.

She brews herself a pot of coffee. She throws out the dregs of the old, and starts fresh. The phone rings. And rings. And rings.

She hears her own voice. “Hi, it’s Sara, you know what to do.” Beep.

“Sara? Sara, if you’re there, pick up.” Him.

Silence. She feels the anger return and for a second it is so intense she fears it will never stop, that she will always be powerless in its undertow.

It isn’t like her. It frightens her.

“Okay, well I’m worried about you. Please give me a ring and let me know if you’re okay.”

She snatches up the phone.

“Hello?”

“Sara?”

“I’m fine, Grissom.”

“Are you sure?”

“Why wouldn’t I be? Look, I just got out of the shower; can we resume this conversation on Thursday?”

Silence. He waits just a second too long to respond. She grins.

“Sure. Enjoy your time off.”

She hangs the phone up.

She takes a jagged breath and imagines she is wet and naked with his eyes on her. It excites her, makes her shiver, tightens her nipples.

Yes, all bets are off.

He thinks he knows what temptation is. She’ll show him temptation.

.

She inherited the leather pants back in Boston when a roommate left without paying her utility bills. She stole them from the piles of packed clothing with a smile, taking a handful of CDs for good measure. It is Tuesday night and she is admiring her ass in the tight leather, enjoying the long lines of her bare back.

She never wore the top before and she sure as hell is going to wear it now. It is a black leather bodice with straps and a tiny bit of shocking violet lace peeking out from under. She feels a fissure of excitement inside her as she laces the drawstring up tightly. The leather is tight over her ribs and this is arousing.

She puts on her usual eyeshadow and lipstick and stares at herself in the mirror.

...young and beautiful...

She turns her head from side to side, giving the image in the mirror a fuck-me stare.

She picks up the black eyeliner and applies it more heavily. Her eyes look smoky and dangerous. She wipes off the tinted lip gloss and reaches for the burgundy lipstick. She puts it on, imagining that he can see her. Would he like what he saw?

She runs the brush through her hair, then sinks her fingers into it and ruffles it in every direction. She does this until she has a tousled and freshly-fucked look and then she uses some hairspray to preserve it.

She thinks about the rumors. She thinks about being pinned to a bloody sheet, his hands around her wrists, below where the gloves end. She wonders what the dominatrix looks like.

She rushes into the bedroom and combs through the contents of her jewelry box. She finally picks a black lace choker, simple and severe. She clasps it around her neck, feeling the tight constraint of the leather encasing her breasts. She avoids her image in the mirror and digs in the closet for the right pair of shoes. They are her only expensive pair, Manolos purchased on Ebay in hope of going to a formal event, and never worn.

She slips them on and steps in front of the mirror.

She is a long, lean dark vixen with curves and lines and beautiful dark eyes. She stares at herself for a long time, awestruck. She wants him to see her like this so bad it hurts. She will go out dressed this way every night of the year, on the off chance that he is out somewhere and sees her in this tight slinky leather.

.

The club is goth and dark, full of smoky blue neon and house beats, singers screaming overtop. She pays her cover and walks directly to the bar. She orders two whiskey sours and downs one immediately.

She carries the other to a corner where she nurses it slowly, watching the writhing crowd, feeling eyes on her and imagining that they belong to him. She sees the night through darkened eyes, under heavy black lashes, and though this scene has never been her, it feels so right.

She senses someone approaching on the periphery of her right side and she downs the drink and walks away in the opposite direction, leaving the glass full of ice on the ledge to collect the blue-violet light.

She boldly penetrates the crowd, insinuates herself into the flesh of it, and commands the center of the dance floor. In the expanse of a second between beats, she begins to dance.

She closes her eyes, and moves. She doesn’t see anyone around her, she doesn’t care, there is nothing but her dancing in space, swirling, thrashing, breathless, anonymous and dizzy.

She is angry, sensual, hurt, in love, and a million things all at once, all of them equally her, and the sense of identity is like deliverance.

Her hand clutches the curve where waist meets hip, moving slow and heavy down her own side. This sudden possession of her body thrills her. For too long she has been what other people expect. The whiskey rushes to her head, and she is buzzing, moving, alive.

She dances until her movements are like water in the path of least resistance, running smoothly and vigorously down a groove. In the space of this freedom she is without choice or volition and she is free to merely be, to feel, to work from her pores the things that have been welling like sweat for so long. She moves and moves, and feels a trueness to her self that she hasn’t felt in years.

She frees her self, yet at the same time imagines a thousand times over the sensation of his eyes on her, watching her from the blue depths of the night, and in her peripheral vision every standing shadow by the wall is him, and her mind fills in their darkened faces with blue eyes, and sensual lips, and lust.

She dances until a man presses up tight into her space. He is the wrong height and he is too dark. She lets herself imagine for a second that the man is him, and moves in ecstatic pleasure in the seconds she can pretend it. But he is too young, and she turns away.

Later, as she walks to her car on aching feet, ringing in her ears and a new euphoria lying low and content in her belly, she smiles slightly.

She sits inside her car, and drinks deeply of the bottled water she brought. She locks the door, and sits for a moment, leaning back, enjoying the twitching of muscle in her legs, the cooling sweat on her body.

Her cell phone is ringing.

“Dammit.” It’s a trunk line. Someone from work. She realizes that there have been numerous calls tonight.

“Sidle,” she snaps.

“Sara? I’m not waking you, am I?” His voice. It doesn’t seem out of place in this night where she has imagined him so many times.

“No.” She punches the keys into the ignition, turns it over, and pulls out quickly onto the street, smoothly checking for oncoming traffic and wondering what the hell he wants.

“I’m really sorry to bother you on your night off, but I need your timesheet.”

“What? Can’t you do it for me?”

“I’d be happy to, but the last time I did I caught hell.” He did truly sound apologetic. “You can come fill it out in the morning if you prefer.”

“No, I’ll be in in twenty. I’m already out.”

He’s quiet for a beat. Yes, Grissom, I’m out, deal with it, she thinks. “Okay. I’ll be here.”

She hangs up. Like hell you will, she thinks.

She glimpses her reflection in the mirror. Her hair is even more tousled. The sweat has brought out the natural curl, and she scowls. She wonders why she can’t always get it to look like this.

Suddenly warmth overtakes her. She will be getting her wish. She can inflict the tight leather and stiletto reality of herself on him tonight.

She stops on the strip, crowds of tourists crossing in front of her, and pulls out her lipstick. She slathers it on, then blots it with a tissue, and hits the gas. She feels dangerous and delicious.

The very motion of getting out of her car is sexual. She doesn’t bother with her purse, just keys and badge. She opens the doors of the PD building and feels the night like a shiver up her spine.

“Evening, Max,” she says to the guard.

“Hey. You’re a little overdressed.”

“I forgot something,” she says, striding, grinning at him, turning around as she stalks down the hall, then turning to walk to the elevator.

It should be illegal to feel this good.

In the elevator she regards herself in the reflective brushed steel doors. She pulls her hair aside and it falls to one side of her neck, baring an expanse of skin cut by the black collar. She shifts from side to side on her heels and admires her sleek lines. She presses her lips together and when the second floor dings, she feels as if her heart might pop.

No one is in the hall. She can feel her pulse in her throat as she approaches Grissom’s office.

He is sitting at his desk, gaze fixed on his computer screen. “Evening,” she says tersely, only glancing at him for a second. She walks directly to the filing cabinet with the timesheets. Her back is to him, but the walls are glass and in the reflection she can detect the exact second he turns from the computer.

It takes him several seconds after that to reply. “Good evening, Sara.”

She retrieves a timesheet and turns around. She can feel his eyes everywhere and she wonders, if this feeling were heightened enough, could it alone make her come?

She smiles briskly at him and quickly sits in the chair opposite his desk, leaning over it to write. His eyes don’t leave her as she writes the date and departmental cost center.

His gaze feels like the pinpoint beam of a magnifying glass, every color of the rainbow concentrated into singular white intensity, and she is the tiny entity that will burst into flames at any time.

It’s not an altogether unpleasant sensation.

There is a voice in the doorway.

“Grissom, I have the results from your... whoa.”

She turns to see Greg standing in the doorway, staring stupefied at the expanse of skin between her pants and top.

“Hey Greggo.”

“Damn, Sara, what are you trying to do to me?”

“Just filling out my timesheet so I can get paid,” she says, glancing over her shoulder, then casually scribbling her name.

“God damn.”

“Greg, do you have a point?” Grissom snaps.

“I got the results. They’re not a match to the mom.”

“Thank you Greg,” he says coldly, holding his arm out for the printout. Greg scurries forward to hand it to Grissom, knowing a dismissal when he hears it. Grissom’s arm is, for a second, quite close to Sara’s naked shoulder.

“No problem. Good night, Sara.”

“Night,” she smiles, scribbling in the days she worked and trying to remember what shifts were doubles. Grissom is staring at her and once again she gives serious credence to the thought that his looking alone could drive her to orgasm.

She double checks the dates, tilting her head to the right so she can better see them, causing the damp curls to fall from her shoulder. The light in Grissom’s office feels like a physical caress.

“Can I see your calendar?” she asks innocently, for the first time tonight letting her eyes meet his. His eyes are stormy and violent and she wonders if he likes it on top, if he likes it rough. He wordlessly hands her his Far Side daily calendar, she notes the familiar strength of his fingers and finds herself jealous of an inanimate object. How far gone am I, she thinks, but then she sees the muscles in his jaw clenching. She is disturbing him. She looks away, trying to remember the last day off she had. It’s not easy, with his eyes on her that way.

She finally makes some sense of her timesheet and scrawls her signature at the bottom. She smiles at him and hands it over.

He doesn’t take it. He is staring at her angrily. She stares back. Before hearing his interrogation of Lurie, she would have looked away, but not now. The feelings of humiliation from the interrogation room flood back, and she is too angry.

“Grissom? Is there a problem?”

“Why did you come in here looking like that?”

She blinks, not expecting this. He still refuses to take the sheet of paper so she drops it. It flutters down to his desk like a butterfly wing and she looks away from it.

“Because I have plans tomorrow and I would rather get this out of the way tonight than drive back here tomorrow.” She neglects to mention that her plans for tomorrow are simply to be nowhere near this building.

He is quiet, she can see the anger rising in his eyes. She sees desire there too, and it is the only power she has felt in months.

Something in her snaps, and she decides to drive this knife in to the hilt.

She leans close to him, aware that the leather is cupping and offering her breasts, that the soft dim light of his office is shadowing the hollow between them, and she leans so close that he can smell her breath.

“Why, Gil, is that a problem?” It is the first time she has ever used his name. It sounds breathy on her lips, but his steely mask hides the fact that this hits home like a kick to the solar plexus. “Am I... bothering you? Surely someone of your focus and dedication, with a life consumed by work, wouldn’t be bothered by me.”

Never, never, has she played the temptress, and she has certainly never thought she could pull it off. But she is, and she is reeling with her own boldness. and the two contingencies foremost in her mind are being pinned to his desk and being fired. At this point she isn’t sure she cares which happens.

“I mean, what am I, just a little student, you surely wouldn’t throw away everything you’ve worked for on me. I am, after all, your mere subordinate.”

She is satisfied to see that his skin pales a bit. Yes, I heard you in that room, she thinks.

He opens his mouth, but she speaks first. “Didn’t you tell me that I get too involved, too entangled? You wouldn’t do that, would you?”

“Get. The hell. Out. Of my office.” he hisses.

It is pure fury, and it’s almost like hearing him cry out during sex. Her eyes close slowly with pleasure. She can't believe that this is really her, Sara Sidle. She draws a slow and deep breath that he can hear.

“What’s wrong, do you want to punish me? Am I being bad? Provoking you?” She realizes that there is a vein throbbing on his forehead and his face is red and for a second she is afraid she will kill him.

“Out.” He actually bares his teeth, and she finds this to be bizarrely arousing.

“Be careful what you wish for,” she whispers.

She regards him for one last minute, standing up, regaining the long lines of her body. He is staring at her, eyes almost hurt.

“You have until noon,” she says. “After that, it’s too late. I‘m done with this.”

She turns and walks from his office, racing heart whooshing in her ears, wondering where in the hell that came from.

She had no intention of ever giving him an ultimatum. All she wanted to do was to hand in her timesheet.

She gets in her car and drives home. Her hands are shaking. Either this morning is going to be very interesting, or she will be out of a job, or both.

She feels the exhaustion of freedom in her muscles and bones and she showers and crawls naked in to bed. Impossibly, just before four, she falls asleep.

.

She expects nothing.

Either nothing, or a tentative knock on her door sometime close to noon, and avoidant stammering that he can‘t cross the line.

As much as she forbids herself from obsessing over it, the possibility creeps into her dreams, mingling creepily with crime scenes and occurring, inexplicably, at her high school.

The one eventuality she isn’t prepared for is that she will wake up and be covered in solid pouncing weight in the harsh light of day.

She screams before realizing that it is only him. He is on her, eyes rageful, fixed on her face, and her first thought is fear. She has seen that look on the faces of perps.

Her next thought is joy, pure adrenal ecstasy that washes through her like quicksilver. It worked. He is on top of her. He is on her bed. He has obviously used the spare key she gave him four years ago.

He is already hard. She can feel it. She meets his eyes, her gaze not wavering, and arches her hips up to tease him, not speaking a word.

He kisses her so violently that she’ll bruise. She kisses back, happily moaning, thinking all the while oh my god it's Grissom, it's actually him, he's actually kissing me and oh, god, he's hot. Her hands grapple to touch him, but he grabs them in a single fist like iron and he hisses at her.

“Is this what you want, Sara?”

“Yes.” she enjoys the fricative hiss of the word.

“Yeah? Is this what you think you want?” he said, biting the skin of her neck, hard.

She yelps, then meets his eyes. They are so steely, so dangerous, so blue. She lets him see her surprise, her delight, anger and rebellion.

“That,” she hisses, “is what I know I want.” She punctuates this with an upward thrust of her hips and narrowing of her eyes.

He clasps her hands hard above her head, and yanks down her sheets so hard that the fabric chafes her skin. She is shaking and delighted.

Finding her naked underneath the covers angers him, and he sinks his head to a nipple, and then sucks it roughly, relentlessly, then bites, hard.

She shrieks, and when the shriek ends in a happy whimper he becomes even more angry.

She meets his anger with joyous defiance. “This is what I want, Grissom. Of course if you don’t believe me you can always be scientific and experiment to find out just how excited I am.” She humps up toward him again, shamelessly and rhythmically.

His hand scrambles down between her legs, then he thrusts his calloused fingers roughly inside her. She cries out in delight.

She is so wet, it coats his hand. He pulls it out and holds it to her face, fingers glistening with he moisture.

“Lick it.”

She looks up at him slowly, eyes defiant. She opens her mouth, very slowly, eyes never leaving his, and flickers her tongue across his fingertip. He nearly comes when he sees that tongue come out and obscure the gap in her teeth. His eyes flutter shut and he lets himself lose control as she hungrily sucks more of his finger into her mouth. With his slick middle finger he traces the line of her lips, slathering her with her own juice as if it were lipstick. She appeases him and licks it all, then violently reaches for his hand and grasps it hard so she can suck the webbing between his two fingers.

“You look like a whore,” he whispers roughly.

She smiles. “You couldn’t afford me. Now as much as I enjoy licking my juice from your fingers, are you going to fuck me already, or do you not have the stones?”

She can't believe she just said that, that it rolled off of her tongue so effortlessly. Perhaps it's that she is simply too pissed off to let her inhibitions stop her. Whatever it is, she feels as if she is Sara and someone else, someone dangerous, all at once, and she likes it.

He gathers her wrists in one fist again, noting the pleasure sparking in her eyes as he again forces them down high above her head. He holds them down with all his weight while he fumbles with his zipper. He barely unsheathes himself, then slams himself deep inside her.

It is rough and violent and exquisite. The anger never leaves his eyes, even as he lets her hands go and bolsters himself up on his arms.

Her head is moving from side to side, and she is crying out a little with each brutal thrust. This excites him beyond words and he stills her face with one strong hand. He forces her to look at him and she does, rebellious and obedient all at once.

“Is this how you want it?” It is a challenge. She might have known that when he finally gave it to her that he would do it as a challenge, trying to get her to reject him. She fights the urge to roll her eyes.

“Yes. Exactly.”

“Tell me.”

He sees the tiny smile that flickers over her face. “I love it when you take me like this,” she whispers.

He continues moving, rough, masterful and oh so slow inside her, his eyes never leaving her. Each thrust is like a single sentence, punctuated in anger.

“I love when you hold me down rough and fuck me hard, I’ve wanted it for years. I’ve wanted you to bend me over your desk and fuck me senseless. I’ve wanted you to tie me up in leather or duct tape or... whatever.”

She feels as if her taunting is wavering, but then another idea occurs to her. “I knew you went to that woman and I’ve wondered for hours who was the top and who was the bottom. Did you do her like this, I wondered, or did she tie you up and ride you until you screamed?” Her voice is whispery and low and very quiet and she is totally, utterly in control. “I would do either, personally. It would be fun to tie you up and watch you squirm.”

He stops moving and stares at her. He tries to catch his breath. She is impossibly beautiful.

“Most of all, I want to see you come,” she whispers, defiance gone. “I want to watch your face as you go over the edge and shake and scream and let go, and I want to feel you shoot inside me.” She is making movements, slight little undulations with her hips that are beyond erotic. He is going to lose it soon.

He is shaking now, moving more and more quickly, grunting like an animal.

“You bitch,” he whispers, and kisses her roughly, biting her lip, swallowing her smile.

He feels himself tighten inside and he wants to cry. No matter what he does, it just won’t break her.

He has wanted this for so long that it is like an infection in his blood. He can’t stop moving any more than he can stop breathing.

But then she is moving her hips in wider and wider circles and despite himself he quickens and screams and pours himself into her.

He collapses then, and she feels his weight on her, and it is a kinesthetic sense more intimate than touch to cradle him in this most fundamental, basic way, just him, heavy, spent weight. He shudders with an aftershock and gasps for breath. His skin is covered in cooling sweat and she wraps her arms around him and licks the sweat from the skin below his ear.

“Sara,” he whispers, his breath slowing. She gently, lovingly runs her fingers through his curling hair.

“That’s what I wanted," she smiles like a cat, "all these years, to feel you let go and for once lose that goddamn control of yours inside me.”

He laughs quietly, or sobs, she isn’t sure. It doesn’t matter. She wraps her arms closely around him and gently draws circles on the skin of his back.

“What are you trying to do to me?” He says it with desperation and as she looks at his face she realizes that he is seriously bewildered.

“I’m trying to love you, Griss. It’s all I ever wanted.”

“I hurt you,” he says, bravely looking into her eyes, his own eyes darkening with remorse. Tears have made his voice thick.

“Yeah. You did for a long time. But all I want is for you to stop denying me.”

He gently touches the bite mark on her neck. “No, I mean I physically hurt you.”

“Yeah,” she smiles. “And I liked it.”

“God, Sara, I can’t believe you said that.”

She rolls her eyes. “Don’t tell me it’s so foreign to you. I know about you and how you went to Lady Heather. I don’t know if I’m on some pedestal to you and I don’t know how much clearer I can be: I like it. I like it when you fuck me rough. For the same reason that you like to fuck me rough. Don‘t deny it. Don’t deny me. Don‘t be ashamed. Give in to it.”

He stares at her for a long time. He sees acceptance of his violence in her eyes and feels it in the touch of her fingers as he tries to get past remorse. Slowly this wall crumbles, but there is another.

He is hard again from her words, just like a teenager, and as he leans in and whispers slowly to her, she can feel it.

“And what if I were to make love to you?” He is seductive and suddenly so masterful. "What if I took you slowly and hard and very, very deliberately, stopping to taste every inch of your body along the way?" The tone of his voice alone is making her shiver. She makes a startled whimpering sound which he ignores. “Would you like that also, Sara?” He licks her neck softly, then nips her earlobe. He raises his gaze from her body to her eyes, and the passion there is so intense he is like a different man altogether.

"Yes," she whispers. Her tone is soft and actually reverent. She clasps her fingers around his neck and kisses him again. This time it is slow and decadently, unbelievably erotic. They do it with eyes open, needing at times to look away because the thing between them is so intense.

It is somehow even better than the violence of their first consummation, and when they come together, the tension of years is gone, leaving them to begin again on even ground, and rise from the place they started.