Author's Note: My muse has been angsty lately, it's been observed, and I thought I would give my dear readers something a little lighter and sweeter to nibble on. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I dream of kissing you/It's all I ever do/But I don't own you or your stuff/So dreaming must be enough.

The first time she kissed me, she tasted like chocolate.

I had finished my lecture nearly an hour previously, and was absently flipping through my notes for the next day at the lectern. My brain combed through the students I found particularly interesting: a whippet-thin boy in the far back corner whose dark hair fell into his eyes every time he leaned forward to study a slide; a very pretty Goth girl with pink streaks in her ink black hair and an intricate spider web tattoo on the side of her neck; the brunette who sat in the second row, her body lanky under an oversized Harvard sweatshirt paired with black dress pants, asking very pointed questions at intervals that made me wonder if she had attended one of my seminars before. I closed up the folder in my hand and slipped it into my briefcase, thinking I should grab some dinner before heading back to the hotel.

"Dr. Grissom?"

I looked up. It was the brunette. I was not even going to pretend to remember her name. "Yes, Ms.—?"

"Sidle, Sara Sidle. I just wanted to give you this." She held out a thick book, her dark eyes a little teasing, a little challenging. I accepted it from her gingerly.

"What's this?"

"A copy of Horsfall's Medical Entomology. The answer to my last question is on page 328."

I scowled at her. Maybe I did not find her so interesting after all. "I have a copy of this at home," I told her, none too gently.

"I'm sure," she replied easily. "But maybe you'd like to borrow it for additional perusal while you're in town."

"And will there be an exam?" I asked acidly. She grinned, and I was unexpectedly captivated by her smile.

"I'm just giving you a hard time, Dr. Grissom," she said gently, reaching for the book. I tucked it under my arm.

"Oh, no, Ms. Sidle. I think I will peruse this tonight. Thank you for your caring concern."

She frowned a little. "You're not going to give that back to me, are you?"

I merely raised one eyebrow. Abruptly, she stepped very close to me, and I could not help noticing that she smelled like vanilla and lavender, and that her eyes were pretty. Without another word, she pressed her lips to mine, startling me so badly that I almost fell backward. Her mouth tasted like chocolate.

She took advantage of my shock to tug the book out from under my arm. Stepping back, she licked her lips, and I stared at her with wide eyes. She smiled again, that beautiful smile.

"You taste good," she murmured softly, and walked out of the room, textbook under her arm.

It took me ten minutes to recover sufficiently to leave the lecture hall.

The second time she kissed me, she tasted like rain.

Blood covered the asphalt, two bodies sprawled across the sidewalk and road, stab wounds opening their bodies to the elements. My team was photographing carefully, combing the street for evidence, when the first raindrop hit my forehead. I screamed to all of them to get a move on as the skies opened up, washing our evidence into the storm sewers. I watched them scramble about frantically, Sara snapping pictures as fast as her finger would move. She dashed up to me at one point, yelling over the deluge, "We're losing everything!"

"Yeah," I agreed with her hopelessly. We stayed several more minutes, taking what we could, loading up the bodies to go to the morgue, interviewing a young man who had performed CPR on the male victim. Then Warrick and Nick crawled into their SUV, and Sara into mine, and we were roaring down the Strip, heading for the lab.

Sara shivered beside me, cranking the heat up to high. Her body was shaking, and her hair clung to her forehead and cheeks. I knew I probably looked like a drowned rat, but she was giving me odd looks out of the corner of her eye that I thought were probably unnecessary.

"What?" I finally barked, stopping at a light that Nick and Warrick had managed to get through. She smiled softly.

"You're all wet," she said. I rolled my eyes.

"Your powers of observation never cease to amaze me," I said sarcastically. Suddenly, she was leaning over me, her hand on my thigh.

"It's really cute," she breathed, seconds before her lips connected with mine.

It had been more than three years since she had kissed me for the first time, appearing before me as the annoying know-it-all student who had entirely too much confidence for her own good. We had become friends, somehow, but not this kind of friends. And now she worked for me, and—damn. She hadn't used her tongue last time.

She tasted like cold rain. She was kissing me, really kissing me, like she wanted me to take her anywhere but the lab. I was breathless and a little lightheaded, but I could not let her continue. I put my hand on her shoulder and lightly pushed, separating us. She looked deeply into my eyes, her lips slightly swollen.

"Don't, Sara," I whispered, and she looked crestfallen. Nodding slowly, she settled back into her seat as the light turned green.

I licked my lips as I stepped on the gas. They still tasted like rain…and her.

The third time she kissed me, she tasted like mint and coffee.

I followed her out of the lab after her little speech. She had asked me to dinner, and I had been so shocked that I had turned her down almost condescendingly. My brain flashed back to the kiss in my SUV two years before, the little comments and smiles and everything else that had followed it, at least before and after Hank. My brain still seized up when I thought about the paramedic, though I was not ready to admit to myself why, exactly, I cared so damn much. But as she stood there, asking me to just give a shot, to see what would happen, I shut down. Whatever this was, whatever she wanted, I didn't know what the hell to do about it. And I told her so.

She left me standing there, staring after her into the darkness. Too late? Too late for what, exactly? What the hell was she offering me, anyway?

I followed her down the hall, out the door, into the stifling heat. She was halfway across the parking lot, nearly obscured in shadows, by the time I caught up with her. "Sara, wait."

"I know you didn't figure it out this quickly," she said in a low voice, without turning around. "That would be too easy."

"Don't be angry with me," I pleaded. Whatever I had been intending to say, that was not it. The words hung between us, heavy in the air.

"I'm not," she said heavily. "You can't help it. You've always been like this."

She turned to me then, and a sheen of tears sparkled in her beautiful eyes. I felt a tightening in my throat at the sight, but I did not have the words to make them disappear. She smiled wanly.

"Who am I kidding, Grissom? It's probably already too late."

And with that, she surged into my arms, her fingers tangling in my hair, her hips and lips pressed tightly to mine. Her mouth was hot and eager and she tasted like coffee and mint gum. I could feel the roughness of the bandage on her hand against my scalp. She slid her tongue between my lips and tasted me, seduced me, caressed me before letting me go as abruptly as she had taken hold of me. She looked at me sadly, brushing a strand of light brown hair out of her face.

"I'll see you tomorrow," she murmured, and got into her SUV.

I stood staring at the spot she had stood in for long minutes after she was already gone, wondering if I could make her reappear just by wishing hard enough.

The fourth time she kissed me, she tasted like vodka and strawberry lip gloss.

I took her hand in the station, seeing the humiliation and devastation evident on her pale face. "Come on. I'll take you home," I told her gently, and her head dropped in defeat. When she lifted her face to mine at last, her cheeks were dry, but her eyes were glistening. She nodded once, and I led her from the station, absent-mindedly continuing to hold her hand until we reached my vehicle.

She tugged her fingers away as I opened the passenger side door for her, and it was only then that I realized what we must have looked like: law-breaking CSI leaves police station with alcohol on her breath, hand in hand with her boss. Great.

I drove her home in silence, and she spent most of the drive with her forehead leaning against the window, staring out into the warm, clear night. When I pulled into her parking lot, she roused herself and had the door open, almost before I could come to a complete stop.

"Sara, wait," I said. She stopped, but did not turn to me.

"Look—" I licked my lips nervously. What the hell could I say to her? "Look, you're going to need some PEAP sessions, okay?"

"Yeah. Sure." Her voice was dead.

"And some time off."

"No."

"It's not an option anymore, Sara. Vacation time, starting tomorrow."

"I don't need time off, Grissom." She finally turned to me, and anger was blossoming in two bright red blotches on her cheeks.

"Yes, you do," I contradicted her gently. "Whatever this is about—"

"Oh, you know what this is about," she snapped, and my eyes widened.

"So this is my fault?" I asked, unable to keep my own anger from rising slightly. "You don't get your way, and I'm to blame for how you handle disappointment?"

"It was just dinner."

Damn. She was still angry about that?

"I assumed you were talking about the promotion," I said slowly. Her eyebrow climbed for her hairline.

"Oh. Yeah, that too."

"Wonderful. Well, then you have a few weeks to sulk about what a bastard I am," I said coldly. "And set up your PEAP appointments."

"Fine." She started to get out of the SUV again.

"You're lucky, Sara," I said quickly. I probably should have just driven away, but I needed to get in the last word. "You could have been arrested, and it would have been the end of your career. You need to find another way to deal with your problems."

She turned abruptly and lunged for me, her hands clasping around my head, thumbs digging into my cheeks slightly. She kissed me hard, so hard I felt her teeth bang into mine. She tasted like strawberry lip gloss, and when she shoved her tongue between my lips, I could also taste the vodka she had been drinking. The kiss was more punishing than passionate, but I could taste desire along with the desperation. Brief, forceful, she took my mouth with hers and then jerked away, wiping the back of her hand along her mouth.

"You're my problem, Gris," she hissed out. "And I don't know how to deal."

The slamming of the car door made me wince, and I slumped back into my seat as I watched her stride away. I never had the last word.

The fifth time she kissed me, she tasted like tears.

Her mother killed her father. Fuck.

How could I have known Sara for eight years and not known that her father was dead? She never even alluded to losing him at a young age, something I could have identified with, at least on some level. But this—who could not be angry when you lose both parents in one night the way she did?

She told me that her father had been an alcoholic, that he had beaten her mother and brother regularly, and her occasionally. But when her mother had caught him slipping into her room one night when everyone else was supposed to be asleep, she lost it. Sara had run for the closet and hid as her mother ran into the room, brandishing a knife and screaming. And when she peeked out at last, her father was dead, his blood splattering the room.

I held her hand while she sobbed, then eventually pulled her over to the couch and held her. It was probably crossing some damn line I needed to keep in mind, but I couldn't just sit there while she cried like her heart was breaking. I stroked her hair and rubbed her back and just held her, wishing for the life of me that I could do something to ease her pain.

And then her cold hands slid around my neck and she kissed her way up my jaw, across my chin, finally landing on my mouth. Her lips were warm and salty, and she barely moved them, never deepening the kiss. She merely brushed them over mine, over and over again, as if trying to reassure herself that I was really there.

Finally I pulled away, trying to ignore the hurt in her eyes, trying to tell myself that it was for the best. I squeezed her hand and slipped out the door, slumping against the wall in the hallway of her apartment building and slamming my eyes shut against the regret.

I had been really there. But it was never enough.

The first time I kissed her, everything changed.

I brushed my fingers over the tiny cut that rested menacingly over her pulsing carotid. I felt the blood surge through it, rhythmic, hasty due to my nearness, and exulted in it—both the speed and its very existence. I had so nearly lost everything that mattered to me before I realized how very important it was, thanks to a delusional rapist with a homemade knife. I felt the warmth of her skin, the ecstasy that was her still-circulating blood, and all the reservations and fears I had nursed in the quiet darkness of my lonely nights vanished underneath the swell of overwhelming joy.

"Grissom," she whispered, her own fingers feather-light against my cheek. "What is it? You look like—"

"I love you," I replied softly, sincerely, and watched her entire face shift from confused concern to barely veiled delight mixed with uncertainty. I wanted that delight; I wanted to banish that uncertainty. There was only one way.

"I remember every kiss you've ever given me," I breathed, inches from her mouth. I could hear the quickening of her breath and feel the pulse beneath my fingers race even more at my words. "I remember what you looked like, what you tasted like. Your tears, your coffee, your last drink. You thought they were mistakes, or that they meant nothing to me—or at least not what they meant to you. But they meant everything to me, Sara." I sucked in some desperate air. "You mean everything to me."

I leaned forward those last few inches and kissed her, really kissed her. Her mouth was soft and warm, her lips pliant, then eager. Her hands toyed with my hair and caressed the back of my neck, my arms, trailed down my chest and back. I let myself drown in the sensations of kissing Sara, touching Sara, being with the one person I could no longer imagine myself without. It was the most perfect moment of my life.

The first time I kissed her, she tasted like home.

FIN