SquidgeWorld Archive

Temptation
by Joanne Soper-Cook

Russet brandy in a diamond glass
everything is made from dreams
time is made from honey slow and sweet
only the fools know what it means
temptation, temptation, temptation
oh, temptation, temptation, I can't resist
(Tom Waits: "Temptation")

In the beginning they'd danced around each other: lingering looks over a hundred stale cups of coffee, whispered conferences at crime scenes and over the eyepiece of some microscope. It had taken months for Nick to admit to himself what his subconscious mind already knew: he was deeply and desperately in love with his boss.

Perhaps Grissom had been trying to tell him something late last year, when he'd asked Nick to join him on an investigation. The vic - a gay man - had been murdered in a bathroom at an upscale club on the Strip. 'Dress appropriately,' Grissom had said, 'I'll be at the bar. It's better if we blend in.' Nick hadn't been in a gay bar for years, hadn't cruised or been cruised for even longer than that. Lately, his bed partners had mostly been women, which was fine, but he liked guys, too and sometimes he missed that side of things. Women were soft and pretty and they smelled nice, but sex with a man was different: raw, more urgent somehow.

He didn't want to advertise, and he wasn't cruising or even looking, but he figured he'd let Gris down if he showed up in a t-shirt and his old Levis. He finally settled on leather pants - he'd blown an entire paycheque on them - and a nice shirt. It would have to do. The club was pretty swank, with multicoloured strobe lights and a laser show and dry ice and some fiendishly talented dj spinning the tunes. He gave himself a few minutes, let his body adjust to the unfamiliar surroundings, take in some of the atmosphere. The men were all the same type: lean and slick, with preternaturally toned bodies peeking out of net shirts. He shrugged them off. He'd never cared for the fancy ones, what the guys back home used to call 'butterflies'; his tastes ran more to moths, beautiful in their earth tones, soft blues and browns.

"Dear God." He'd spoken aloud, despite himself. His gaze settled - no, locked - on the man standing a little distance away: tall, upright and gorgeous, authority held ready in the set of his broad shoulders. His blue shirt was tucked into snug black jeans, jeans that hugged and clung to long legs, jeans that caressed that round, sweet ass. Hello, Jeans, hello Blue Shirt, hello Mr. Right or probably just Mr. Right Now but who gives a shit because I gotta get me some of That. Nick took a sip of his beer and nearly choked on it. The man turned around; the man was Grissom. "Nicky, you made it, good!"

"Uh, how long have you been here?" His mind backpedaled furiously: there had to be a reason for it, besides the investigation, there had to be a reason why Gris was so goddamn gorgeous. Don't look at him, he commanded himself. Don't look at the way the silver in his hair picks up the light. Don't look at how that blue shirt (is that silk?) clings to his shoulders. Don't look at the patch of bare chest, no more than a hand-span, left naked by the opened buttons. Don't notice the muscles in his thighs. Don't look at his crotch.

Fuck, I'm looking at his crotch.

"Are you okay?"

Nick blinked. "Fine, I'm fine. Let's get to it."

He smiled now, remembering it: they'd gathered evidence and Grissom had gone back to the lab and disappeared into his office while Greg and Nick ran the DNA until they got a match. "Nice shirt, man." Greg wasn't smirking, not really. Warrick was worse: he kept throwing weird looks at Nick when they were in the break room together, like maybe Nick was going to jump on him or something. "You working with Gris tonight?"

"Working, Warrick, okay? It's just work. There's nothing - " The weird look on Warrick's face shut him up; he found Sara in the garage, gleefully tearing the shit out of some poor bastard's Jeep.

"Where's Grissom?" she asked.

"Why does everybody keep asking me that?" Nick instantly regretted it; he could have bitten off his tongue. "I'm sorry."

Sara slid out from under the car. "Nice shirt," she said. "What's the occasion?"

Nick told her.

"Right," she said, "I remember Grissom telling us about that one." She grinned. "So what happened? You get hit on?"

"Not exactly." He leaned close and spoke quietly. "Did you ever know Grissom to...I dunno, play for both teams, maybe?"

Sara's eyes widened. "You got hit on by Grissom?" She slapped his arm. "I hate you!"

"I didn't get hit on by Grissom."

The sound of his boss's voice immediately reduced his knees to water. "Would you like to?" Grissom wasn't smiling.

Sara turned a fetching shade of pink. "We were, uh..."

Grissom handed her a slip of paper. "Sara, you and Catherine are together: a convenience store over on Washington." He waited till she'd left. "Care to tell me what that was about?"

Nick swallowed hard. "Absolutely nothing."

Grissom nodded. "There's been another murder. You're with me."

*

Grissom was silent on the drive, and Nick wasn't about to open his mouth. It was bad enough that he'd embarrassed himself, but he had betrayed a confidence of sorts: nothing had been said, but Nick knew that Grissom was disappointed in him.

"You're a fucking idiot sometimes, Nicky." Grissom's use of the diminuative of Nick's name meant he wasn't about to die a horrific, bloody death - at least, not right then. "That conversation with Sara: was that necessary?"

Nick dropped his head. "I'm sorry."

"I invited you because I wanted someone I could trust to be discreet. I have nothing - absolutely nothing - against homosexuals, Nick. But some of the people I work for do. I took a risk going to that club, and all it takes is some idiot like Ecklie to start a rumor."

"You're scared of Ecklie now?"

"That's not the point."

"Who gives a shit what Ecklie thinks, man? He's a fucking idiot." Nick's face was hot; he was getting a lot more worked up than he'd intended. "Ecklie can't hold a candle to you and he knows it. The only reason he's on dayshift is because nothing ever happens during the day. Man, Vegas is a nighttime town, and that's when all the crazies come out."

Grissom bit on the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling. He was secretly grateful that Nick would choose him over Ecklie. It was small of him, he knew, but getting one up on Ecklie, even something as small as this, was immensely satisfying. "Just exercise a little more discretion in the future, alright?"

"I'm sorry."

"So you've said." Grissom pulled the Tahoe up in front of a burned-out house and got out. They were in a part of Vegas that Nick took care not to frequent. The area was the absolute bottom, a dead-end street littered with car wrecks and used needles and the remains of too many Molotov cocktails; the buildings were tenanted by the drunk, the broke and the addicted, and the rats.

"Charming little domicile," Nick muttered. His boots crunched on broken glass.

"Careful where you're stepping," Grissom said.

"Right - sorry. I'm stomping all over the place."

"You'll cut yourself." Grissom smiled at him, and Nick could breathe again. They found the victim lying in what was once the hallway: a young woman about eighteen with stringy blonde hair and the emaciated figure of the chronically addicted.

Nick watched as Grissom bent low over her. "Does it ever get to you?"

"Does what ever get to me?"

"This." Nick nodded at the girl. "Her. This work."

Grissom looked at him. He didn't answer right away, but the hand holding his flashlight shook a little bit. "I try not to," he admitted finally, "but yeah, sometimes it does."

Nick fell in love with him, right then. "I'm -"

"Sorry?" Grissom smiled gently. "Sorry that we have to do it? Sorry that this poor girl died the way she did?"

"Yeah."

Grissom stood up, wincing as his knee joints popped. "We can't undo what happened here. So we owe it to her to find out what that was."

For the next three-quarters of an hour they worked side-by-side, mostly in silence. Nick mapped and catalogued the scene, and bagged a few pieces of cloth for evidence, along with a shoe and some plastic spoons. He waited while Grissom called to request pickup of the body, then they left. "Pull a double?" Nick asked. He didn't want to leave Gris; didn't want to go home to his lonely rooms. For some reason, he was afraid - not for himself, but for Grissom. He had an eerie sense of impending danger.

"No, this can wait till tomorrow." Grissom glanced at him. "What are you doing after work?"

A warm flush crept up Nick's throat; he was grateful that it was still dark. "I dunno: what am I doing after work?" It came out a bit more tartly than intended. "I don't mean it that way."

Grissom - amazingly - was laughing. Nick rarely saw him laugh, but he liked it. "I know this place. It's a bit of a drive, but if you're up for it...?" He was asking for something. Grissom never asked anyone for anything. Nick at once loved and hated the flash of need he saw in the other man's eyes. He hated to think of Grissom asking for something and being refused.

"I would love to."

"It's a seafood place. Is that okay?"

"If they got beer, it's okay."

"They have beer."

"Then it's okay."

*

They found a table near the water, but instead of beer they ordered coffee, and watched the sun come up. "Everything is made from dreams," Nick said. His fingers toyed with his coffee spoon; out of the corner of his eye he could just see Grissom's forearm, pale and defenceless against the tabletop. "That's Tom Waits."

"It means something to you." Grissom's level gaze took him in, enlarging him, reflecting him back to himself bigger than he'd suspected.

"The song's called 'Temptation'." Nick looked up as the waitress arrived with their breakfasts. "It's a weird song. There's nothing overtly sexual about it." He stopped short, his heart in his throat. Why did he say such stupid things?

"But it's very erotic all the same." Grissom's mouth curved around the tines of his fork, and Nick couldn't look away. "Something about the cadence..." He tapped his hand against the table, humming softly. "Time is made from honey/slow and sweet." He smiled. "I knew a guy, when I was an undergraduate. He said it was the perfect 'fuck song.'"

Nick burned his mouth on his coffee.

"Oh, Nicky..." Grissom tutted at him, reached across the table with a napkin. "Poor baby."

"Bless my soul, Gil, if you keep that up - "

"Say it again." His blue eyes flashed at Nick across the table.

"Gil. Gilbert. Gil Grissom." Darling, baby, honey, my sweet pumpkin.

"Nicky, are you particularly tired?"

"No."

"But Nicky, are you tired? Because there's no point in renting a room if you're not tired."

He finally got what Grissom meant. "Oh. Well. In that case, I am exhausted."

*

Grissom stood behind him and wrapped his arms around Nick's waist, laid his chin on Nick's bare shoulder. They could see themselves in the mirror, they would get to watch themselves as they undressed each other, as they made love. Made love: the idea made Nick's cock jump inside his boxers. "You are so beautiful." Grissom's mouth was hot against his ear; Gris was watching them, watching his own hands as they slid down Nick's chest.

Nick wet his lips. "Oh, God, please!" It came out ragged, needy; Grissom turned Nick in his arms and kissed him, long and slow, with heat and tongue. That talented mouth gently traced a line of kisses down his neck, paused at his shoulder. Grissom's hands were cupping his ass; Grissom's cock was hard, hard as steel against Nick's hip. Nick disengaged and slid down, down on his knees and pressed his mouth against Grissom's body. Grissom's hands clenched at his sides, hovered, then descended on Nick's shoulders.

Nick unzipped him, freed him, and swallowed him whole. Grissom trembled, a shudder running through his entire body. Nick stole a glance at him: eyes closed, his whole face contracted in an _expression of intense concentration. It was the single most erotic thing Nick had ever seen. But he wanted more. He let Grissom's erection slip out of his mouth, took his lover's hand and led him to the bed. Nothing too fancy, Nick: you don't want to scare him off.

"Ah," Grissom said, as Nick's mouth fastened on a nipple, coaxed the tiny pebble to hardness. "Ah," he said again, when Nick did the same thing to the other one. He mapped Grissom's body with kisses; his tongue laved the hollow at the base of Grissom's throat. He laid his cheek against the flat planes of his lover's belly and hovered over Grissom's swollen cock, mouth open. The older man hissed as Nick's mouth descended, suckling furiously; the back of Grissom's head slammed hard into the pillow as he came, his fists clenched in the sheets. Nick slid up his supervisor's supine body and drove himself between Grissom's thighs. He felt Grissom's hands on his back, holding him, and several times they kissed, and when Nick came he saw white lights bursting behind his eyelids.

Someone was crying; he was crying. Grissom was holding him, stroking his face.

"Gil." He stopped crying. He looked into Grissom's eyes. "Is it okay?"

"It's okay, Nicky." Grissom kissed him. They held each other as the morning turned into the day.

The End.