Title:  Glam Undone

Author:  Harper

Fandom:  CSI/Showgirls x-over

Pairing:  Sara Sidle/Cristal Connors with hints of Catherine/Cristal and Sara/Catherine

Rating:  PG-13

Disclaimer: I don’t own any of them. I make no profit.

Archiving: This will be at www.realmoftheshadow.com/harper.htm with the rest of my drivel. Thanks to Kim. Anyone else, please ask.

Spoilers:  Vague references to the movie for Showgirls and a shout-out to Catherine’s days as an erotic dancer for CSI.  Nothing in particular, really.

A/N:  For those of you who have no clue who Cristal Connors is, or who haven’t watched Showgirls, she was played by the ever-so-luscious Gina Gershon.  Just imagine her as a topless dancer from those flashy Las Vegas shows, throw in a bit of an animal edge, have her come from Texas and say darlin’ a lot, and you’ll have a pretty accurate picture. I’ll be at Xfjnky2@yahoo.com if you have any comments.

“Jesus… who’d you say lived here again?” Sara muttered, vaguely shooting the words in Catherine’s direction though her head was downcast, a scowl creasing her features as she dug into the bag she was carrying in search of a pair of latex gloves.

The answer came not from Catherine, but drifted down from above, followed shortly thereafter by the source of the words.  “Why, its my house, darlin’.”

At the words, Sara stopped, looking up to catch sight of the source of the voice, brows furrowed in a mix of agitation and confusion.

“And you are?” she asked curtly, wondering absently why the woman was wandering around the upstairs unchecked.  But then, a pair of uniformed policemen appeared behind her, obviously her until then unseen escort, and some of the rigidity went out of Sara’s features.  She wasn’t going to take the heat for shoddy policework, and having some woman meandering through a crime scene would most definitely fall under those auspices.

Once Sara got over the momentary mental pause brought about by the sudden appearance of the stranger still looking down at her with interested eyes, she took her first good look.  The lady in question was wearing little more than a bra and a pair of sinfully tight black pants, but she seemed neither disturbed by this fact or even uncomfortable enough to make Sara think that she didn’t wear things like that all of the time.  Which in Vegas wasn’t all that unlikely of a possibility, but the crime scene tech still couldn’t envision prancing around in little more than her underwear in front of a group of virtual strangers and not feeling just the slightest bit of discomfort.

“Cristal Connors, darlin’… and you are?”

Looking completely unfazed by the fact that her house was practically saturated with various and sundry law enforcement officers, photographers, and crime scene investigators, Cristal remained stopped halfway down the main staircase where she’d paused to answer Sara’s question.  There was a faint smirk gracing her lips, and it made Sara think that the other woman was guarding some great cosmic secret that she was never going to share, that let her in on a joke that everyone wanted to know but only she alone could appreciate.  It was, to say the least, disconcerting.

“Sara Sidle, Las Vegas Crime Lab,” Sara finally managed to get out, slowly dragging her gaze away from the nearly hypnotic stare of the woman who owned the near monstrosity of a mansion she’d been summoned to work.  Being that, well… interesting, ought to be illegal, she mused.

As the vision on the stairs started to descend, the faint click of heels seemed to sift through all of the noise that accompanied a house full of people talking in whispered tones and moving about doing the hundreds of things that needed to be done when there was a dead body laying about, which Sara found extremely odd.  To say that this Cristal Connors had presence would be an understatement, but then again, she wasn’t there to marvel over the natural manifestation of charisma in a woman with more money than taste, so she pushed any further thoughts out of her mind.

“Coming?”  Catherine’s dry voice broke Sara from her haze, and she nodded shallowly, angry at herself for the momentary lapse.  She hated appearing anything less than professional, especially in front of Gil or Catherine, and so with the start of a rather nasty mental self-berating speech starting up, she made her way out through the marbled foyer, past an opulent living room and out through one of a set of glass French doors to the pool at the back.

What she found there was evidence of what had undoubtedly been a good time before death put a kibosh on the party, and with a sigh she lowered her evidence case wearily to the ground.

“Wish I had enough money to waste like this,” Catherine said wryly, fishing a floating champagne bottle out of the pool.  She hefted it slightly, as if testing its weight, and then waved it under her nose, the feature in question wrinkling delicately as the crisp smell of bubbly drifted up to her.  “This is more than half full.  And its Dom, too.”

“I’m not a big fan of champagne myself,” Sara replied absently, crouching down next to her kit.  “What exactly are we looking for again?”

“Probably nothing.”  The two women turned as if in sync, each catching sight of Detective Jim Brass striding out through the open glass doors.  “The lady says it was an OD.  There were no signs of foul play, and from what I know of this guy, it wouldn’t be out of character.”

Sara arched a brow in question, eyes cutting over to Catherine.  “Then we’re here why?”

Brass paused for a moment, face dropping into a smirk.  “Because that’s your job?”

Catherine rolled her eyes at the exchange.  With a slight cough, she caught the detective’s attention, effectively ending the snipe-fest she could feel brewing.  “You said it wouldn’t be out of character for our vic.  Just who was he?”

“Zach Carey, entertainment director over at the Stardust.  I’ve had to take care of a few problems over there, and the champagne ain’t the only thing that flows freely,” Brass snorted, shooting a significant glance at the bottle Catherine had laid by the side of the pool.

“Cocaine?” Catherine asked, idly noting a fairly large puddle of blood slowly congealing beside a lounge chair.

Brass nodded.  “Among other things.  Conners called it in, but by the time the paramedics got here, he was already dead.”

“She didn’t seem too upset when I saw her,” Sara mumbled sarcastically, remembering the confidence radiating off of the woman on the staircase.

Snorting sardonically, Brass noted, “Yeah, well, I got the feeling that she might not have wanted him dead, but she wasn’t particularly bothered that it’d happened.”

“Doesn’t make her a killer,” Catherine noted, making her way over to the pool of blood.  After collecting a sample, she straightened slowly, taking in the scene with detached interest.

Resisting the urge to massage her temples, Sara sighed, “So again… why’re we here?  If LVPD doesn’t even consider this a homicide, then we can go, right?”

“Gotta follow procedure,” Catherine said sagely before pulling out her cell phone.  “You stay here and clean up.  I’ll call Warrick, get him over here to help you.”

“And you?” Sara asked, brown eyes narrowing as she took in the slight smile curling at the other woman’s lips.

“Me?  I’m going to go catch up with an old friend.”

XXXXXXXXXX

“You don’t believe all this nonsense, do you?” Cristal asked airly, waving Catherine into her personal suite of rooms.  She had a decanter sitting out, glasses at the ready, and poured a splash of dark liquor into one before settling into a plush leather chair.

Shaking her head minutely, refusing the unspoken offer to join the other woman in a drink, Catherine sat gingerly in a matching chair, sighing as her body sank into the overstuffed cushions.  “What, that you killed a man?  Doesn’t seem your style.”

Snorting, Cristal smiled, lush lips parting sensuously.  “Please.  Zach wasn’t worth the effort.”

“Then why was he here?” Catherine asked pointedly, arching a brow.

Shrugging her shoulders in a gesture of studied nonchalance, Cristal said, “Convenience.  Because I was bored and because he was there.  Because he always did appreciate a fine champagne.”

Choosing to let the topic go for the moment, Catherine inched forward in her seat, head tilting to the side as she studied her companion.  “He was entertainment director over at the Stardust.  You used to dance there, but you haven’t been on stage for years.  I was under the impression that you were the star who was never going to stop shining.”

A low, slightly scratchy laugh filled the room, and Catherine leaned back once more.  “Darlin’, my star never did quit shining.  I just burn off the stage now.  Didn’t you hear?  An aspiring young starlet, a flight of stairs, and a broken hip took me out of the game.  And, once I was out, I found that I didn’t miss it so much, not with all the money I had to keep me company.  Now I just back the shows and watch the paychecks roll in.  Only dancing I do now is private.  Speaking of, long time, no see, Catherine.”

Shaking her head slightly, the red-head arched an inquisitive brow.  “You still go to the clubs?”

Cristal inched forward, setting her now empty glass back next to the decanter, eyeing her companion speculatively.  “Gotta keep an eye on all the pretty young playthings,” she said, smirking slightly.  “Though I’ve gotta say, I do miss seeing you, darlin’.  You wouldn’t be interested in doing a revival show, now would you?  We can close the doors, tell the boys in blue to take a hike.”

Narrowing her eyes, Catherine replied, “As you can see, I don’t do that anymore.”

“Shame about that,” Cristal pouted, tracing her forefinger in an absent pattern over the leather arm of her chair, her long nail scratching lightly along the surface.  “You probably took home half of my paycheck there for a while.”

“Until you just took me home instead,” Catherine said wryly, crossing her legs.

Cristal shrugged again, a sly look in her eyes.  “It was, by far, the best option.  You seeing anybody now, darlin’?”

After a moment of stunned silence, Catherine laughed, her head falling back against the back of her chair as she gave in to a momentary bout of utter amusement.  “You’re priceless.  I’m here to investigate the death of your boyfriend, and you hit on me.  God, I’d forgotten just how fucking ruthless you were.”

“Ruthless?” Cristal pouted, though the look in her eyes belied the faux innocent gesture.  “He never was really my boyfriend, Catherine.  And besides, I prefer to think of myself as opportunistic.  Or, maybe, as a go-getter.  I see something I want, and I go get it.  Is that really that bad of a quality?  I seem to remember that you used to do the same.”

“I’m flattered, really, but not looking for a fling right now,” Catherine said shortly, her voice bereft of anger.  Instead, she smiled almost softly at the other woman, recalling the number of good times they’d had together, back when she was still young and wild and taking her clothes off every night for a living.

“What about your little friend out there?” Cristal asked nonchalantly, dark eyes narrowing in remembered appreciation of the lithe brunette.

For a moment, Catherine stared at the other woman in abject confusion.  “My little friend?  Who?  Sara?”

“That’s her,” Cristal purred, leaning forward conspiratorially.  “She’s absolutely delicious.  She available?”

For the second time that evening, Catherine found herself in the midst of a bout of heartfelt laughter.  “No offense, but I doubt Sara even really registered your existence.  If you’re not a fingerprint or a piece of fiber evidence, you’re of absolutely no interest to her.  You’d have had better luck with Liberace.”

“Oh, a challenge.  I do so love a challenge.”

XXXXXXXXXX

“Roses?” Gil asked with no small amount of confusion, one gray brow inching increasingly higher up his forehead.  “Who sent you roses?”

Sara took a minute to stare at the man with a mixture of anger and befuddlement.  “You say that like you think you’ve seen a miracle or something,” she said gruffly, eyeing the large bouquet on her desk warily.  To be truthful, she didn’t know who would send her roses either, but she didn’t want Grissom to know that.

The older man sputtered for a moment, before trying to back out of his verbal faux pas as elegantly as possible.  “No, I just mean that I didn’t think you were seeing anyone.”

“Again, with the tone of disbelief,” Sara said wryly, moving slowly across the room.  Plucking the small white rectangle of the florist’s envelope from the bouquet, she flicked it open, drawing out the card inside.

When no further information was forthcoming, Gil stepped forward anxiously, peeking over Sara’s shoulder.  “So?  Who was it?”

“Cristal Connors,” Sara replied, a tinge of confusion coloring her voice.

“Connors,” Gil echoed distractedly, searching his memory for a reference.

Sara nodded her head slightly, easing the card back into the envelope.  “Yeah.  From the overdose we worked last week.”

Biting his lip even as his brow furrowed in thought, Gil pulled the particulars of the case to the forefront of his mind.  “That was ruled no fault, right?  Straightforward OD, no criminal charges brought.”

Nodding her head slowly in agreement, Sara muttered, “Yeah, that’s the one.”

“So what’s with the flowers?  Thanks for a job well done?” Gil asked, at a loss.

“Flowers?”  A voice from the door broke into the dual trains of thought of currently being engaged in by the two CSI’s, and Sara and Gil looked up to find Catherine lounging in the doorway, a smirk ghosting across her features.

Shrugging her shoulders as if to indicate her lack of comprehension, Sara replied, “Yeah, from Cristal Connors.  You know, the OD case we worked last week.”

There was a momentary pause, and then a soft chuckle from Catherine.  “Jesus, that’s so like her.”

Twin confused expressions confronted that statement, and with a sigh, Catherine elaborated.  “She asked about you, Sara.”

When no look of dawning comprehension made its way over the brunette’s features, Catherine continued, “As in, if you were seeing anyone.”

“Huh?” came the inelegant reply, and Catherine rolled her eyes.

“What I think she’s trying to say,” Gil said, a hint of amusement coloring his words, “is that this Connors woman is interested in you… romantically interested.”

A soft gasp of surprise whistled through Sara’s teeth, and she turned to look at Gil as if he were some alien life-form.  “Interested?  In me?” she squeaked, eyes narrowing in disbelief.  “I don’t even know the woman.”

“It’s my expert opinion that that’s what she wants… to get to know you,” Gil offered wisely, and Catherine snorted.

“Listen, Sara, no offense, but you can’t handle a woman like Cristal.  My advice is to let this go,” Catherine said mirthfully, shaking her head slightly over the other woman’s audacity.  Honestly, two dozen roses…

“But I… Who said I wanted to handle anyone?” Sara shot back defensively, not at all comfortable with the amount of attention being paid her at the moment.

“If it were anyone other than Cristal, I’d probably tell you to go for it, Sparky.  It’s not like you couldn’t use a little diversion,” Catherine said, her voice coated with amusement.

Sara scowled.  “Look, just because I don’t go out every single night…”

“Or ever,” Gil threw in helpfully, sharing a conspiratorial grin with Catherine, who was also enjoying Sara’s discomfort far more than was polite.

“I… You…” Sara stuttered, her cheeks flushing red with anger.  “And Sparky?” she squeaked irately.

But she could only fume in solitude as Gil and Catherine’s laughter drifted down the hallway behind their retreating forms.

XXXXXXXXXX

It was getting hard, after two straight weeks of finding two dozen blood-red roses sitting in glass cut vases on her desk, to find space to put them.  She’d been surprised when the second bouquet had arrived, dismayed when the third one had shown up, slightly irritated when the fourth had appeared complete with an invitation to dinner that night, and by the time no less than fourteen bouquets had met their fate in her office, Sara found herself intrigued despite herself.

She’d ignored countless dinner requests, tickets to various shows around town, and resolutely stayed away from the box of deliciously rich chocolates, but there was something to be said for persistence.  It was a trait that she had to admire, possessing it in her own right, and anyone who would so relentlessly pursue someone who had given them absolutely no indication of a returned interest was someone who knew the ins and outs of persistence.  Of course, it could simply be an intimate knowledge of stalker behavior, but Sara preferred to romanticize things.  Besides, a woman as charismatic as she remembered Cristal Connors to be could have her pick of whomever she wanted, and Sara couldn’t help but feel the pull of her ego at the knowledge that she was the focus of that kind of intense interest.

“You know, a girl could get a complex dealing with you.”  The low, smoky voice drew Sara out of her mental meanderings, and she looked up to find her thoughts come to life.  Draped in her doorway, every ounce of that nearly overwhelming presence brought to bear, was Cristal Connors.

“Ms. Connors,” Sara said by way of reply, dipping her head slightly in acknowledgement of the other woman.  “What can I do for you?”

A seductive smile made its way across the other woman’s face, and Sara couldn’t help but be drawn in by it.  “Put me out of my misery.  Come with me… I’ve got dinner reservations in 30 minutes.”

Chuckling ruefully, Sara shook her head gently.  “I’m on the clock, Ms. Connors.  No can do.”

“Surely you get off sometime, darlin’.  Let me know when it is, and I’ll pick you up.  Come on,” she said entreatingly, “have mercy.”

“I don’t know,” Sara started, the reply cut off by the insistent bleet of the beeper at her waist.  Pulling it out of its holder and tilting the display face toward the light, she studied the message there with a slight scowl on her face.

Enchanted with the expressiveness of the other woman’s face and not too bothered by the chance to skim her eyes over the rest of her, Cristal waited patiently.  “Gotta run?” she asked innocently when Sara stood up, snagging her jacket from the back of her chair.

The brunette CSI looked at the other woman in confusion, having forgotten for a moment that she was even there at all.  “Oh, uh, I’ve got a case,” she said awkwardly, shrugging into the thin nylon of her work windbreaker.  “Look, I don’t get off until tomorrow morning.  Why don’t you come back around 8?”

Grinning widely, lush lips bracketing gleaming white teeth, Cristal took a quick step forward.  Before Sara could even realize, much less stop, what was going to happen, she found herself on the receiving end of a warm, wet and extremely knowledgeable kiss.

“See you then, darlin’,” Cristal said lightly, turning on her heel at the words, leaving a slightly disheveled, panting Sara to stare at her retreating form.

XXXXXXXXXX

She was exhausted.  An hour spent collecting glass shards from a robbery homicide, two more hours spent fingerprinting the entire house, three hours spent hunched over a table trying to reconstruct a shattered sliding glass door and another hour spent watching the blinking parade of fingerprints flick by, and Sara wanted nothing more than to go home and go to bed.  In fact, that was at the top of her list of priorities, and after digging her keys out of her desk drawer, she was on her way down the hall.

The bright early morning sunlight was harsh, bringing about a squint and a grimace, and Sara paused for a moment just outside the front doors of the crime lab, hoping to give her pupils a bit of time to contract and adjust.  With everything ghosted light gray, she scanned the parking lot, racking her brain to remember just where she’d parked the night before when she saw the lean outline of a limo slide into view.  The door opened dramatically, and a slender heel encased foot stepped out slowly, followed shortly thereafter by an all too familiar form.

“Morning, darlin’.  Eight o’clock on the dot,” Cristal said, smiling.

Startled, Sara stood stock still, her mind trying to comprehend what she was seeing.  Despite her time in Vegas, a city that most definitely lived by its own set of rules, it was still somewhat jarring to see the other woman standing there in a skin-tight blood red dress at eight o’clock in the morning, lazy bedroom eyes not even bothering to try and hide their appreciation.  In comparison, Sara felt like a frump in her horribly wrinkled jeans and sloppy button-down shirt.  She was also fairly certain that she’d managed to spill some fingerprint powder on herself, because she’d glimpsed the black streaks of it running down her side earlier, and the knowledge made her want to close her eyes and groan.  Not that she was looking for approval from this woman.  Hell, she’d steadfastly resisted her advances for weeks, which meant that she should have the upper hand in any interaction between them, but one look at that toothy, slightly vampirish smile on Cristal’s face, and she knew that any advantage she had existed only in the fantasy world of her mind.

“Look, I don’t think this is a good idea,” Sara hedged, eyes flitting nervously to the side in a desperate search for her car.  Maybe she could make a break for it.  Surely she could outrun a woman wearing heels as high as the ones Cristal had on.

The other woman pouted again, her lips falling into a familiar moue.  Moving forward, fluid limbs slinking gracefully across the expanse between them before Sara even had a chance to escape, Cristal closed the distance between them.  One slim hand slid stealthily up Sara’s torso, tracing the line of buttons running down the front of her shirt, and the CSI had to stifle a gasp.  There was absolutely nothing coy about the other woman, despite her teasing glances, and Sara reeled for a moment at the surreal feeling of having an almost virtual stranger practically fondle her in public in broad daylight outside of her place of work.  And, speaking of that, she needed to get out of the doorway before any of her coworkers saw what was going on, because she wasn’t at all sure that she possessed the verbal skills necessary to explain it.

“You’ve gotta eat, don’t you?” Cristal asked plaintively, breaking into her thoughts.  “Come on, just a little breakfast.  It won’t kill you, darlin’.  Besides, you promised.”

It was the sight of Nick headed down the hallway, head turned to the side as he replied to someone behind him, that made up her mind.

“Yeah. Sure,” Sara muttered, ducking quickly into the still open door of the limo before her coworker could see her. “Breakfast.”

Shrugging her shoulders nonchalantly, charmed despite herself at the girl’s apparent complete lack of social graces, Cristal slid gracefully into the limo behind her. Letting the driver close the door, she instead inched closer to the corner where Sara was sitting, eyeing her warily.

“So nice of you to join me, darlin’,” she drawled, placing a slim hand on the other woman’s knee.

Swallowing nervously, staring at the hand as if it were a cobra in her lap, Sara mumbled, “Thanks for the flowers. They were nice. Kind of overwhelming, particularly around the end of the first week, but nice.”

Smiling devilishly, easing her hand further up the other woman’s thigh, thoroughly enchanted by the uneasy flex of muscle beneath her fingers, Cristal murmured, “I was going to switch to orchid’s next. I thought you might appreciate a little variety.”

“Jesus,” Sara yelped when the other woman’s disclosure was followed by yet another encroachment up her thigh.

Leaning in even closer, lips so close as to brush Sara’s neck like the softest of silks, Cristal whispered, “Not quite, but I like the way you think darlin’.”

Not quite sure how to handle the situation, Sara sputtered, “But we haven’t even had breakfast yet!”

Placing a soft kiss at the juncture where Sara’s jaw met her neck, Cristal merely smiled. “I promised breakfast and I’ll deliver. Only question is, wouldn’t you rather have it in bed?”

XXXXXXXXXX

“Don’t you move, darlin’,” Cristal commanded, shooting a mock glare over her shoulder as she sauntered leisurely from the bedroom, seemingly unconcerned with her nudity. Sara merely snuggled down deeper into the bedding, oddly content and certainly sated, and wondered for a second if she should regret giving in to the other woman’s predatory advances.

She quickly decided she couldn’t think of a single reason why she should feel bad about having slept with the former dancer before they’d even made it to breakfast. Cristal, after all, was all about sex and unafraid to use her prodigious knowledge to its best effect. The rogue hand had slipped all the way up to the juncture of her thighs after the other woman’s final question in the car, and combined with the mind-numbing kiss she’d rather carelessly delivered had made up Sara’s mind for her.

“After,” she’d husked, surprised to find Cristal hovering over her, having straddled her waist at some point. She wasn’t quite sure if the sentiment had made any sense, but Cristal’s leonine smirk made her think it had, and she’d stretched up, searching for another kiss.

When they’d arrived at the house, she wasn’t sure if she should have taken affront to the other woman’s arrogance in not even instructing her driver to make a token effort at driving them to breakfast. She’d found it rather difficult to take anything, though, with Cristal’s deft fingers making quick work of her buttons. The shirt had been left in the landing, her jeans and shoes were somewhere on the stairs, and she had a sinking feeling that her panties might just be hanging from the chandelier. She’d known it was a bad idea when Cristal had rather nonchalantly tossed them over the railing, but she’d been too busy with other things to voice her disapproval at the cavalier treatment of her undergarments.

Everything past that was an experience she hoped never to forget. She imagined that the other woman’s lithe grace must have come from her years of experience as a dancer, but Sara was quite sure she’d never seen something so utterly dripping with sex as the slow crawl Cristal had done across the bed toward her. The other woman was shameless when it came to her enjoyment, and Sara might have been rather embarrassed by some of the things they’d done together that morning had she not known her partner had enjoyed it, and if Cristal herself hadn’t put the word uninhibited to shame.

“Breakfast, darlin’,” Cristal drawled, sauntering back into the room with a fully loaded tray. She’d managed to pick up an indecently short black robe somewhere along the way, and was beaming at the brunette in her bed as if she’d discovered a rather unexpected, yet obviously much desired, treasure. “I had the cook make pancakes. Figured you might want something hearty.”

The pancakes were accompanied by a small crystal decanter full of gleaming amber syrup and a tall glass of what appeared to be freshly squeezed orange juice.

“Aren’t you going to eat?” Sara asked, voice a hoarse near whisper after the exercise it had received only a short time earlier.

Smiling, shaking her head, Cristal murmured, “No right now, darlin’. I think I’d rather watch you.”

Shrugging, not quite sure what to make of that, Sara poured a slow drizzle of syrup onto her pancakes. Taking a bite, she studied Cristal closely. “So, what now?”

Licking her bottom lip in an unconsciously sensual gesture, the former dancer said innocently, “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Sara continued, pausing to finish her bite of pancake, “now that your little seduction has worked, what’s next? You drop me off at the lab and I never hear from you again?”

Tilting her head to the side speculatively, Cristal pouted her lips in a practiced moue. “Now what makes you think I’d be that cold?” she said, not a hint of disappointment in her tone. “Or that silly, really. You find a good thing, you keep it around for a while, darlin’.”

“So I’m a playtoy now?” Sara asked, reaching for her glass of orange juice.

Shrugging carelessly, Cristal drawled, “Well, I’m not really one for relationships. But, my door is always open to you, darlin’. You can come knocking any time you want.”

Spearing another bite of pancake, Sara took a moment to wonder whether or not she was insulted by the admission that her bed partner was more than willing to have sex with her but didn’t really want anything more.

Not at all unnerved by the silence, Cristal continued. “You want a relationship, maybe you should talk to Catherine about it. That woman knows her stuff, on-stage and off. She’s got a kid, too. Far more home and family than me, darlin’.”

Sara nearly choked on the tail end of her juice. “Catherine?”

One brow arched with mischievous glee, Cristal nodded. “She likes brunettes, didn’t you know?”

“No. I, uh…” Sara paused, taking another quick gulp of juice, “did not know that.”

“Well you think about it, darlin’,” Cristal smirked. “And give me a call if you ever work it out. I’d love to watch.”

That said, she gingerly removed Sara’s tray, silk sliding against Sara’s skin as she crawled up her body. “Now, enough talk about you with other women. I’m not done with you yet, darlin’.”

It was time for her shift to begin by the time Cristal dropped Sara back off at the lab, her clothing washed and pressed though still obviously the same outfit she’d worn the day before. Sara wasn’t sure who had been put in charge of retrieving her underwear, but could only be glad that someone had as she sauntered in, trying to look as if it were a normal, regular day and not one that had been filled with some of the most sinfully delicious sex she’d ever had.

She nearly confessed it all at Catherine’s imperiously arched brow, but instead worked overtime retaining her composure in the face of the other woman’s knowing stare. Not that she could really look at her anyway, not with Cristal’s words chasing one another through her brain. She tried to picture it, Catherine and Cristal together, and found, much to her dismay, that she was able to picture it all too well. And, it was hot, and entirely inappropriate for the meeting they were both attending, and if she thought about it for too long, she was afraid that she’d need that same servant to conjure her up a new pair of underwear instead of simply retrieving her old ones.

“Enjoy your day?” Catherine asked slyly as they slipped out of the meeting, eyes full of mirth. Sara struggled in vain to remain unruffled, or at least to look as though she was.

“Uh, yeah,” she grunted, eyes focused with laser-like intensity on the papers in the folder in her hand.

Smirking, Catherine said humorously, “Word of advice, Sara. Don’t get caught up in it. You’re not the first, and you certainly won’t be the last.”

Blushing bright red, Sara pretended to ignore her, until Catherine sighed softly and moved on, leaving her alone.

When she was sure she wouldn’t be caught, Sara looked up, grinning softly. “Maybe not,” she murmured to no one in particular, “but I’ve got a hell of a back-up plan.”

The End