Summary: Sara and Grissom play poker. The jackpot? A sock (Short fic)

Author's Notes: Big thanks to Amy for the beta-reading.

I wrote this like three months ago and since then I've seen at least two other fics describing the same situation. Anyway, flame me if it stinks and let me know if you liked it too.

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June 2006. Note from the Fic Maintenance Unit (the author): I fixed the formatting and I changed one clichéd phrase, because it was bugging me. And I ate Trix cereal out of the box while doing it. The previous sentence is irrelevant.

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Sara knew Grissom was smiling wickedly behind the five-card fan he held in his hands. That mischievous sparkle in his blue eyes was undoubtedly of a gleeful nature.

Sara's eyebrows kitted in a leery but playful frown.

"I can hear your evil mind ticking, Griss," she said, concealing half her face behind her own cards, just like him.

"Could you turn the heat on? I'm freezing here," Sara asked.

Grissom's house was like a microclimate resembling the North Pole.

Without taking his eyes off hers, Grissom's hand groped for the remote on the table. When he found it, a trembling finger pushed button after button in an anxious quest for the right one while the machine whirred, stopped and clanked, as if complaining about the rough treatment by its nervous user.

Finally Grissom gave with the right button.

He tossed the remote on the table and his hand went back to his cards.

"Ok, no more stalling," he announced in an all-business manner.

"I was not stalling," Sara said as she lowered her cards at the same time he did.

Cards down, Grissom wrung his hands as he declared his latest achievement, Royal flush. Yeah, yeah, he knew it was unfair to take advantage of an inexperienced poker player but she had insisted. It was not easy to tell Sara 'no', especially when you concurred with her idea in the first place.

"Aww, two pairs," Grissom said as he collected all cards. "You're getting better."

Sara threw her cards at him. "Shut up, old man," she replied. "Gimme a week and I'll wipe the floor with your smug face."

Grissom placed the deck of cards in the middle of the table, smiled and winked. "And I'll fire you for bad conduct."

Sara mock-gaped at him.

Grissom leaned back in his chair and drummed his fingers on the table at an impatient tempo. He wagged his eyebrows suggestively.

Sara rolled her eyes.

Men.

"OK," she conceded to the unheard request. She leaned on her chair and propped her long and bare legs on the table. She wriggled her toes under her socks. "Here they are."

Grissom enjoyed the view for a bit. He had an evil lopsided smile Sara could swear made him look like a kid who planned to steal the whole cookie jar and not just one cookie.

He reached out and with extreme pleasure pulled off one of her socks. He tossed it over his shoulder where it landed without a noise on top of Sara's shirt, sweater and pants.

Either Sara was a pretty good incentive or she was losing on purpose because Grissom had only lost his sweater.

When Grissom was about to strip the other foot, the latter recoiled as if acquiring a life of its own and shook from side to side while Sara's teasing voice purred, "Ah-huh Poker boy. Just one sock."

Grissom glanced up at Sara. She was sitting on a chair in his living room in very appealing black underwear and one strawberry-red sock.

Grissom groaned in complaint.

He looked at the deck of cards with disdain.

He looked at her again, his fingers drumming a frantic tune on her ankle.

She shook her head and her index finger.

Grissom groaned more loudly. This had to be the longest game of foreplay he'd played in his life.

Grissom pouted and made himself look adorable. "Please?"

Sara smiled but shook her head and her socked foot at the same time.

"Gil Grissom, get a grip on yourself," she ordered with a husky voice followed by seductive smile.

"Just one sock," she lifted her socked foot a bit, "And then. . .."

She glanced towards the bedroom, enticing Grissom even further.

Grissom eyed her suspiciously as he grabbed the deck of cards and started dealing.

"You know," he said on the second card, "I played poker for many things in college but this is the first time I've been so interested in winning a sock."

The end