A/N: I got so eager to post the next couple chapters, I almost forgot this one kicks off part three of the story. New cover art is posted on my DeviantArt page (crystallinejen) and Twitter (same). There's a lot going on in this section, and some of y'all probably aren't going to be too happy about it. But before we have Amanda drawn and quartered, please try to remember she's been through a lot of trauma recently (and in past stories and her canon history), too. Hers manifests very differently from Olivia's; Olivia projects hers inward, Amanda's explodes outward. I've had a lot of requests to write about Amanda's trauma, and this was the result. Sorry if it doesn't line up with your view of how it would be, but I write 'em like I see 'em. That said, there is a lot of questionable behavior in this and the next chapter especially, so I'm issuing a light TW for possible dubcon and referenced domestic violence /TW just to be safe. To those who've been requesting sex, well... be careful what you wish for. }:)

PART III: THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL

. . .

CHAPTER 21: East of Eden

The belt slithered from its loops with a faint hiss when Amanda pulled it free of her waist in one swift motion. She held it by the buckle for a moment, allowing it to dangle, snakelike, in her hand. A few kookier members of the Rollins clan were snake handlers, or so she'd heard tell over the years. Purportedly, they lived way out in the sticks, someplace that made Loganville look like a major metropolis. Evangelicals, of course. She had never met them and likely never would, even if she did make it back to old Hock-A-Loogieville someday. And why she would want to do that was anybody's guess.

She tossed the belt onto the overstuffed armchair that served no purpose in the room, at least not that she could tell, other than a fancy laundry basket. But Olivia liked it there—made the room homier, she'd said—and Amanda hadn't seen a reason to complain at the time. So what if it took up space, no one ever sat in it, and she stubbed her toe on the wooden legs every time she walked by it in the dark? Big damn whoop.

Sighing heavily, she nudged her shoes off under the chair. She had taken a page from Kat Tamin's handbook and worn a pair of two-toned Oxfords (Amanda had always called them saddle shoes, but these were caramel and cream, rather than traditional black and white), which she combined with buff-colored trousers that cuffed above the ankle. Olivia had commented about wearing cropped pants and no socks in winter, but that had only made Amanda more determined to do it. She damn near got frostbite on her exposed ankles walking to and from the auditorium, and her feet were like two blocks of ice, each toe an individual cube, during the entire play. But she'd made her bed and intended to lie in it, no matter how cold and lonely it might be.

At the thought, she gazed askance at their actual bed, neatly made by Olivia that morning, and sighed again. They had used it for nothing other than sleeping for almost four weeks. Granted, most of that was because of Amanda's brush with death and the subsequent hole in her stomach, but that was healed now—more or less. Honestly, she had expected some make-up sex after the shitstorm on Christmas Day. She'd even tried to initiate it, a hand halfway up Olivia's shirt when the captain had placed her hand on top and requested that they just hold one another. "You're still on the mend, sweetheart. Come here, be my little spoon."

To which, Amanda had obliged . . . and then kept on obliging every night since. Except they weren't cuddling anymore, either. Oh, at first there were hugs and kisses and I love you's, murmured when the lights went out. But they woke up with their backs to each other in the mornings now, and Olivia dressed for work in silence, claiming she didn't want to disturb Amanda's rest. She'd been claiming a lot of things lately: headaches, feeling "just tired" or "not hungry"—Amanda was keeping her eye on that one, and they had squabbled over a plateful of uneaten pizza rolls, of all things, the previous evening—and only wanting "one more" glass of wine before bed.

Speaking of wine, Olivia was already on her second glass that evening, the first poured before the kids were even in bed. She hardly ever drank in front of them, so it had come as a shock to see her uncorking a bottle of red moments after they got home from Noah's dance recital. The glass had barely left her hand since, accompanying her into the girls' room for goodnight kisses ("That stuff is stinky, Mommy," Jesse could be heard commenting as Amanda returned from taking the dogs out to potty. "Does it taste bad?") and into Noah's bedroom, once he was finally persuaded to change out of his leotard and into pajamas.

That boy loved his dance classes, and though Amanda didn't know a plié from a pirouette, she thought he was pretty damn good. She'd made sure to tell him so—paraphrasing, of course—several times over on the drive home. He might be calling her "Ma" with complete confidence these days, but she owed him big, after her behavior at Christmas; he had called her mean that day, and it was true.

She'd never yelled at the kids before that, not even her biological wild child, Jesse. The looks on their faces when she snapped her fingers at them had taken her right back to childhood, she and Kim staring up at their daddy—up at Mean Dean Rollins—with huge, frightened eyes when he made that same gesture and told them to get their asses upstairs if they didn't want the belt. Meanwhile, their mother sobbed and bled on the living room floor or the kitchen floor or the bathroom floor or . . .

Shit, she would sure as hell like to down two glasses of wine herself, if not for the pain medication she was still taking—only as needed, but she had definitely needed something to get her through the week so far. And if they were really being fair about it, Olivia shouldn't be mixing alcohol and her anxiety meds, either. But who ever said life was fair?

Amanda glanced over to the full-length mirror where Olivia stood, in a partial and very tame state of undress. Her wedge boots teetered together sideways next to the dresser, like a couple of drunks trying to prop each other up outside a bar; weird, she never put her shoes there. The suede plum-colored blazer she'd worn to work that morning was hanging from one of the dresser knobs too—another anomaly. She always took it straight to the closet on a hanger. Her hair was about to spill from the butterfly clip into which she'd loosely gathered it at some point throughout her busy day, and her gauzy cowl-neck blouse was untucked from her dark trousers. Not once did she look at her reflection in the glass she was facing.

But she did reach for the wine glass atop the dresser, right next to the watch she'd slipped from her wrist and laid out flat a moment ago. That was a new development too, taking off the watch. She used to wear it at almost all times, except in the shower or during messy activities with the kids. In this life, nothing was certain but death, taxes, and Olivia Benson's Breitling. Or so Amanda had believed when she bled herself dry to have it repaired.

She breathed her third and heaviest sigh yet, in unison with the hearty mouthful Olivia drained from her glass. The captain half turned to look, cheeks bulging with Merlot, while Amanda unzipped her stupid short-legged pants and shimmied out of them as vigorously as she dared. Her abdomen wrenched in protest, but she refused to flinch right then. Not while she stood there, pants around her cold ankles, the wrinkled flaps of her white button-down all that shielded from Olivia's sidelong gaze the plain white cotton panties Amanda had chosen earlier, because she probably wouldn't be getting any again tonight.

"What?" Olivia asked, in a tone just shy of snippy. Her lips were stained a deep berry red from the wine and the remnants of her lipstick. The only other makeup she wore was a touch of eyeliner and some mascara that lent her eyes a heavy, sultry look. Or maybe that was the wine as well.

It was annoying how attractive she was without even trying. And especially annoying how attracted to her Amanda was, even while royally pissed. "Nothin'," Amanda muttered, shaking the pants off her feet and punting the heap aside. She struggled out of her fitted tweed jacket, tossing that on top of the belt on the armchair. She was sick of looking at the thing, which she'd only worn because Olivia commented that a belt might not be a wise choice, given her injury.

The captain had been right, of course. The captain was always right.

The captain also raked her gaze up Amanda's bare legs before turning back to the mirror, humming a thick, sarcastic little, "Mm'kay." She put the wine glass down heavily on the dresser top and freed her hair from the clip, giving the locks an extravagant toss and fluffing them about her shoulders. She did that often in bed, that hair sweep—usually while straddling Amanda, sometimes while riding her thigh or the strap-on, knowing full well the tantalizing visual it provided. It was one of the few ways Olivia actually showed off.

It couldn't be a coincidence, not after the once-over she'd just given Amanda. Perhaps Olivia didn't have quite the overactive sex drive that Amanda boasted, but they were in no danger of lesbian bed death any time soon. In fact, prior to the shooting, the sex was just about the best it had ever been. There were a couple of missteps here and there—some roleplays gone wrong, some triggers pulled—but those were to be expected in any sexual relationship when you were still working out the kinks (ha ha). She knew for a fact that Olivia got as horny as she did sometimes, and this dry spell had to be killing her, too. Maybe that was why she'd been so bitchy lately. As if Amanda had any room to talk. If she didn't get fucked soon, she was going to rip every single godforsaken blonde hair out of her own damn head.

Tonight had to be the night. Even when they were on the outs with each other, Amanda had a serious jones for an Olivia fix. She had a serious jones for a lot of things at the moment, none of them healthy, but Olivia was the safest place to satisfy those cravings. The captain was her biggest gamble yet, and somehow Amanda kept beating the house. With any luck, her winning streak was about to continue.

She only wished she'd worn sexier underwear. But she could work with these. They weren't dingy or full of holes, just plain. They did go well with the Oxford shirt, of which she flipped open an extra button or two. If she'd learned anything from her captain about the art of seduction, it was that the simple things were often the sexiest—a soft sigh of pleasure, a lock of hair positioned just so. A pair of plump, wine-stained lips; a glimpse of deep, dark cleavage in the hollows of a loose-fitting neckline, as a reflection momentarily dipped down in front of the mirror to brush something off her foot. Had there been anything there at all? Amanda didn't think so.

She sauntered up behind Olivia, not exactly sneaking, but also not making her presence known until her arms closed around the captain's waist. It felt smaller than Amanda remembered, although that might have been an illusion from going weeks without doing this, without pulling her fiancée in and making her intentions known. Olivia started, but just barely. More like she had heard a loud crack in the distance than a nearby gunshot; more like a swat on the hand than a slap across the face. It was subtle enough for Amanda to ignore without feeling very guilty. She was tired of apologizing every time Olivia twitched.

"Hey, baby," she murmured, exhaling in Olivia's ear, chin resting on her shoulder. She had to stretch a little bit to do it, although not much, with the captain in her pretty bare feet. Her toenails were painted a silvery color, probably in honor of New Year's. They glinted in the lamplight from the dresser, reminding Amanda of scattered coins. "Mm, you smell good."

She did. She smelled like shampoo from her morning shower, talc from the baby-scented doll Jesse made them kiss at bedtime, her trusty Merlot, and the faintest hint of sweat, from a day spent busting perps and being packed in shoulder to shoulder inside a stuffy auditorium. It was a sweet-dirty smell that turned Amanda on all the more. She could dirty up her sweet little captain in no time.

"I smell like a beat cop," Olivia said, patting the back of Amanda's clasped hands briskly, signaling for release. She gave all the pretense of being busy, but with none of the action. After ten minutes in front of the mirror, her belt still wasn't undone.

"Well, you sure don't look like one." Amanda let go of her wrist, leaving an arm hooked around Olivia's middle, and slipped the opposite hand just inside the woman's low-cut blouse, resting on the generous swell of her breast. "And you definitely don't feel like one. Betcha don't taste like one, either. Lemme see . . . " She nuzzled away a lock of dark brown hair and licked the side of Olivia's neck with a long, sensual stroke.

"Mmm, nope." Amanda smacked her lips together appreciatively. "Never tasted me no beat cop that good before."

"Tasted a lot of them, have you?" Olivia quirked her eyebrow at Amanda's reflection in the mirror, reacting to the lick with little more than a passing glance. Absentmindedly, she wiped the saliva from her neck with the backs of her fingers, as if it were a regular occurrence—cleaning Amanda off of her.

The question, undoubtedly rhetorical and probably not meant at all the way Amanda first took it, stung like a sonuvabitch. She had heard just about every iteration there was of being called a slut since high school, and she ought to be immune to it by now—mostly she was—but hearing it even remotely implied by Olivia cut deep. Far deeper than the needle that had etched that name into her skin, reminding her of who she was: (Mean) Amanda Rollins.

Scoffing, she removed her hand from inside Olivia's blouse and reached for the glass of wine. Screw it. "Yeah, guess I have," she said, and downed the remaining liquid in one go. She practically snapped the slender stem when she set the glass down like a beer bottle, rather than delicate crystal. Olivia hadn't uttered a word or sound of protest, but her eyes followed every movement in the mirror, and she was clearly pissed about the wine. Even more so when Amanda added, "Kinda like you and your reds, huh?"

"Excuse me?" The captain tried to turn, but Amanda held fast to her waist, feet planted apart and refusing to budge. To face the other way, she would have to use force and that was something she never did with Amanda (except maybe a few times in the Catskills, to save her life), let alone after a recent injury. She shot a dirty look into the mirror, but remained facing it. "What the hell's that supposed to mean?"

Her tone indicated she knew exactly what it was supposed to mean, and normally it might have cooled Amanda down. Tonight it only made her hotter. She always tried hard not to anger Olivia, but truth be told, the captain was sexy as hell when she was mad. When she stopped worrying about what was right and good, and refused to take anyone's shit, including Amanda's. It happened at work occasionally, that last part—although not as much as it used to—seldom at home, and almost never in the bedroom. And damned if Amanda didn't want to find out what would happen if it did.

Besides, she couldn't be good all the time like Olivia was. She had proven that weeks earlier when she scratched off that lottery ticket. She was the same old
(don't forget mean)
Amanda she'd always been: weak, impulsive, ready to throw away everything she had worked so hard for on a few measly bucks. To top it all off, she was a liar, something Olivia loathed. On Christmas Day, Amanda had come so close to telling her fiancée about the gambling slip. The confession had been on the tip of her tongue, right up until Jesse interrupted. And then: the sweetest relief. It was almost as good as an orgasm, the feeling of not getting caught.

Almost, but not quite. She was going to get the real thing first, and maybe afterwards she would have the balls—no longer blue—to admit her transgression. (But was it really that bad? She was addicted to the hard stuff: cards, chips, dice, stacks of lovely bills. Things you held onto, until eventually they became an extension of yourself. To Amanda, playing a scratch-off ticket was like a recovered heroin addict taking a hit off someone's joint. Not worth mentioning. Not worth the trouble it would stir up.)

There was plenty of trouble she would rather stir up elsewhere, and her hand was in the process of doing just that as she slipped it back inside Olivia's blouse. "It means I think you've had enough, Captain," she said matter-of-factly, but not without a hint of the sass she knew Olivia secretly enjoyed. "That stuff gives you headaches and bad dreams. At the very least, it makes you sleepy. And I need you wide awake and lucid for what I'm gonna do to you."

"Oh?" Olivia inclined her head at the mirror as if she were looking over the top of her glasses, though she wasn't wearing any. And much like the text she needed the missing frames for, her response was difficult to read. She appeared neither pleased or displeased. If anything, she seemed surprised that Amanda was in the mood. It never used to surprise her. "Is that right?"

"Mm-hmm." Amanda bypassed a bra cup, reaching in to stroke one soft, formless nipple. After some coaxing—a little more than usual—it finally began to stiffen beneath her fingertips, along with the rest of Olivia's body.

The change had been almost imperceptible, and it was even easier to overlook than that first cringe. The captain generally carried a lot of tension in her statuesque frame; she just needed some good lovin' to help her relax. A few minutes under an attentive pair of hands, and she'd be as soft and malleable as warm butter. Cradling Olivia's breast in her palm, Amanda rubbed her thumb back and forth across the nipple, then gave the surrounding flesh a gentle but noticeable squeeze.

"I miss you," she murmured, trailing kisses along the delicate skin she'd licked a moment before. The neck was an especially sensitive spot for Olivia—then again, most of her body responded to touch the way a flower opened to the sun on its petals—but Amanda didn't like to think about why, at least not while attempting to seduce the captain. (How deprived of touch did one have to be to react so eagerly when it was given? How much of that sensitivity came from the abuses acted out on this beautiful, velvety flesh?) "Want you."

A small, indistinct sound came from Olivia's lips when Amanda slid her hand to the other bra cup and squeezed again, the cushioned shell tempering her insistence only a little. She continued kneading, her eye on Olivia's reflection, watching for signs of . . . desire? Frustration? Refusal? Anything but the apathy she found there.

When Olivia tilted her head back, eyes rolling up to expose the whites a second before the lids closed over them, Amanda was certain she had her. God, her mouth was sexy. Sometimes just picturing it made Amanda wet. But then: "It's been a really long day, love. I'm tired. And you're still recovering. No strenuous activity, remember?"

A long day, she said. A long day was sitting at home in your pajamas, hair and teeth unbrushed, watching hour forty of Nickelodeon shows because the kids didn't go back to school until after the new year; a long day was waiting for your soon-to-be wife to return home from getting to do her job, like you were goddamn June Cleaver living vicariously through your spouse's tales of the office; a long day was sitting through an hour-long dance recital with that same spouse's thigh rubbing against yours, and hoping maybe, just maybe, she would finally open her legs for you when you got home afterwards. Amanda knew about long goddamn days.

"Doesn't have to be strenuous," she said, bringing up her other hand to massage both of Olivia's breasts in unison. The cowl of the captain's blouse hung low, pulled down by the motion, and it showcased her tits nicely in the mirror. She'd worn one of her more revealing bras to work, and that seemed significant. Why bother wearing something so hot if you didn't plan to use it later? "You could take care of me. I can be your poor, helpless patient, you can be my naughty nurse . . . "

Olivia didn't appear to have heard the roleplay suggestion. Her gaze had turned inward, instead of focusing on the mirror, and her brow was furrowed as if she concentrated deeply. Amanda probably should have phrased it differently—the things they saw at work on a regular basis (or at least Olivia did, while Amanda sat on the couch and finished off another pint of ice cream) took some of the fun out of sexualizing certain scenarios, such as a helpless patient being "serviced" by their caregiver. But if they ever wanted to enjoy sex, they had to be able to leave those cases at work, not drag them into their bed. Amanda could do it; she'd done it all the time, prior to her (completely involuntary) extended leave.

"Or naughty doctor, if you prefer. I know how you like to be in—" Amanda swallowed the conclusion abruptly when Olivia took her by the wrists and forced her hands down. Not rough, but not as excessively gentle as Olivia had been with her these past few weeks, either. The captain meant business, and it stirred in Amanda a complex set of feelings, chief among them: lust. And second, a flaring sensation in her chest and a little behind the eyes, which she instantly recognized as her rebellious streak coming to life full-force. It was easily recognizable after spending the majority of December with Beth Anne.

That had been its own special kind of hell, designed solely for Amanda's benefit. She had felt herself regressing, backhanded comment by backhanded comment, into her old teenage habits of mouthing off to her mother, mocking Beth Anne behind her back, or flat-out ignoring her altogether, and was powerless to stop it. Every morning for two weeks she'd stolen away to the rooftop and smoked a cigarette, shivering and cursing and coughing until she almost blacked out from the agony in her gut—she threw up the first time—then tiptoed back into the apartment and bathed like a cockroach trying desperately to cleanse itself of human touch. She could have sworn Beth Anne smirked knowingly at her every time she performed the ritual, and once had even called out that there was some toilet water in her toiletry bag if Amanda needed it. ("Toilet water in my toiletry bag," Amanda mimicked to the medicine cabinet mirror, her voice pitched roughly the same as a cartoon mouse. "Not usin' anything of yours with the word 'toilet' in it, you—")

But she had always smelled fresh as a daisy, or at least a bar of soap and a capful of mouthwash, by the time Olivia got home after work. The captain, as far as Amanda could tell, suspected nothing of her rooftop rendezvous, and by some miracle from high above the clandestine retreat, Beth Anne hadn't let the secret slip. There were still five cigarettes left in the pack. Amanda had been sorely tempted to call Lucy or Sienna to sit the kids for half an hour or so, in the days since her mother's departure, but both nannies were spending the holidays with their own families and she wouldn't disturb them for a quick nicotine fix. Oh, but Lord, how she'd wanted to.

It had come as no surprise to Amanda when Beth Anne's visit culminated in disaster on Christmas Day; or, as Beth Anne called it, in a saccharine yet pious tone that made Amanda's skin crawl, "Jesus' birthday." The woman loved a dramatic exit almost as much as she loved causing a scene or sowing mistrust, spite, discontent. And what better time to do so than on the birthday of our Lord and Savior, Jesus H. Christ? Amanda hadn't seen that slap coming, though. She knew her mother was an unbalanced and intolerable bitch, but physically assaulting Olivia was a whole new level of crazy. Beth Anne had sometimes lashed out at her husband during fights—usually in defense, occasionally to provoke—and she'd scolded Amanda and Kim with a sound pat on the lips, the other hand cupped to the back of whichever blonde head was dodging away, whenever they sassed or swore at her.

But the slap she'd hurled at Olivia had been hard enough to redden the captain's cheek for the rest of the day, putting Amanda completely off the Christmas feast her mother had left to languish in the oven, including the dried-out, slightly charred casserole. It might have been her imagination, but she could have sworn she was able to distinguish individual finger marks in the faint bruise Olivia had the next day. She felt sick about it even now, all evidence of the blow long since faded. She'd been the one to tell Beth Anne that Olivia's mother used to hit her. Had that, in Beth Anne's warped mind, been an invitation for more abuse?

Better yet, why wouldn't Olivia talk to her about it? By the next day, the captain was barely acknowledging the slap had occurred at all, and she shushed each of Amanda's attempts to apologize. It wasn't her fault, Olivia said—and besides, she was perfectly fine and Amanda needn't feel guilty or responsible. Her calmness and refusal to admit anything wrong had happened only succeeded in agitating Amanda more. As far as she was concerned, Olivia should be pissed at Beth Anne, not excusing her behavior. Excuses were what Beth Anne had always made for her husband, for why she couldn't leave him. Amanda hated excuses.

"Don't be like that, darlin'," she said cajolingly, but kept her hands at Olivia's midsection for the time being, rubbing in slow, enticing circles. She was really pushing her luck right now, and under normal circumstances she would have backed off, moped away with her tail tucked in like Frannie being denied a slice of bacon.

These weren't normal circumstances. She had that itch. The one she got when the dice were so hot they practically burned her fingers, or when the deck seemed stacked in her favor and she just wanted one more round . . . . The look on Olivia's face told her it was risky, but that only made it more exciting. She could win this hand. All she needed was her queen and she'd have a royal flush.

"Don't you miss me? Touchin' me?" She delved under the loose hem of Olivia's blouse to stroke her soft, unblemished belly, her tender and ticklish sides. Though they weren't at ease, neither were they as tense as they had been just moments earlier. "Lovin' me?"

Olivia licked her lips before she could begin. She often did that when she was turned on. (She also did it when she was angry, anxious, or choosing her words carefully, but Amanda preferred to think it had a sexier connotation right then. It definitely looked sexy.) "Yes, but—"

"Uh-uh, no buts," Amanda said lightly, slipping a hand out to catch one of Olivia's, draw it behind them, and place it firmly against her backside. "Asses I'll allow.

"Oh, you'll allow, huh?" Olivia's tone had a vague edge to it, but hints of a smile played about her lips and she dug her fingers into Amanda's ass cheek like it was a large, succulent apple to be brought to her mouth for biting. Her fingernails had grown out since the last trim, and Amanda hissed with pleasure at the sharp little needles in her flesh. Olivia was tattooed on her skin just as surely as her own name.

"Mm-hmm." Amanda returned her hand to Olivia's bare belly, gliding gradually upward to palm her breasts, testing the response with a subtle squeeze. "And tits. I'll allow those, too."

The smile slipped from Olivia's lips by a fraction of an inch—the same measure that had stood between Amanda and certain death when the bullet ripped through her core—but it hadn't been that pronounced to begin with. Absent any readable expression, the captain closed her eyes and exhaled heavily through her nose. It wasn't a no. Her hand still cupped Amanda's ass.

Amanda hesitated only a moment before moving to the belt buckle below. Foreplay had never really been her thing, until she started sleeping with her captain and realized how much fun it could be. Tonight, she didn't have the patience; she wasn't in the mood for fun or talk or fooling around. She wasn't in the mood for slow and gentle.

When she started loosening the buckle, she felt Olivia's gaze fixed on her and looked up to see two deep brown eyes reflected steadily back in the mirror. Well, usually they were deep. Right then, there was something flat and unknowable about them. A wall had gone up, and Amanda was too preoccupied constructing her own walls to notice—or to care. The safeword was still in place. If Olivia wanted to stop, she knew how to use it. (But would she?)

(Would she?)

The buckle separated from the strap, clinking as it came apart in Amanda's greedy hands. She almost froze then, overwhelmed by a flood of images to which that sound was attached—her daddy, handsome as the dickens, favored big, heavy buckles that made a lot of noise just like he did; his most prized piece was a sterling silver clasp with a relief of the Jack Daniel's logo that once left a perfect imprint of the "Old No. 7 Brand" in Beth Anne's back for a month—but the very next moment, they were gone. Or at least buried safely beneath the shifting sands of memory, far from her grasp. There were real, tangible things to hold onto in the present, and so far they hadn't slipped away from her: the zipper to Olivia's pants, which slackened at the hips when she pulled it down; the hips themselves, full and unapologetically feminine, so unlike her narrow, boyish set; the warmth that waited beneath a practical pair of bikini briefs she recognized by touch alone.

"Aman—" Olivia cut the rest short with a soft gasp when Amanda tugged aside the cotton crotch of her underwear and scrubbed two fingers roughly across her clit. With the hand not clutching Amanda's ass, she reached forward and grabbed the mirror, her engagement ring clacking on the tall glass frame. It was screwed in securely to the wall, otherwise she might have brought it down on top both of them.

"Jesus," she said a bit raggedly, her breathing shallow and shaky. Her knuckles were already a lurid shade of white from gripping the mirror. Sometimes the bodies they pulled out of the river were that color. "Fuck."

"If this is too much for you, I can stop," Amanda said, her tone flat and dispassionate. Its one feature was an implied taunt: Can you take it, Captain? Are you strong enough? She didn't even see herself in the mirror anymore—just Olivia, long hair draping off her shoulders, parted straight down the center so that only her face was visible when the strands fell forward, and most prominently of all the features reflected were her dark eyes, still locked on Amanda, still someplace far away. Her ability to be entirely out of reach, even with Amanda's arms around her, fingers rotating her clit, was maddening. It must be nice to tune out like that when real life got to be too much.

Appearing to overhear the thought, Olivia brought her gaze into focus and clenched her jaw as if she were about to have a limb amputated without anesthesia. Through her perfect, pretty teeth—Serena sure hadn't scrimped on her daughter's orthodontia—she gritted out, "No. Don't stop."

Before Olivia's lips fully formed the last word, Amanda pushed inside of her with the same pair of fingers as before. She had known she wouldn't be refused. (But she'd hoped. Lord, had she hoped.) For all that talk of waiting, Olivia was good and wet, and a small, girlish whine escaped her on that first thrust. She bent forward slightly, still holding onto the mirror, but caught a glimpse of herself in it and quickly righted her posture. Her nipples had pricked up beneath the airy fabric of her blouse, too prominent to go unnoticed, especially when she rolled her head back, chest expanding, hair spilling out behind her.

The soft brown locks tickled Amanda's cheek, luring her onward with their gossamer touch, and for a moment she was lost in the sweet, familiar sensations of her captain, her Liv, so warm against her and liquid honey in her hands. For a moment, it didn't feel wrong, like she was making the biggest mistake of her life—and charging at full speed, head down, feet slapping the pavement, to get there. Then she looked up.

Olivia had covered her reflection with the hand that was on the mirror, head resting against her outstretched arm, face obscured by the odd angle. She was biting into her other hand, the one that had grasped Amanda's backside just seconds before, near the fleshy spot beneath her thumb. Hard enough to break the skin, from the looks of it. And a closer glimpse over her shoulder confirmed Amanda's suspicion: there were tears streaming down the captain's cheek. Her body wasn't shuddering with pleasure, but with silent, suppressed sobs.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Amanda growled, jerking her hand back from Olivia and wiping it across the front of her white shirt. The scent on her fingers, like a fine and exotic spice, usually made her mouth water. Now it felt incriminating, as if she'd been caught with a blood-dripping knife in her hand. She fell back a step and began pacing to and fro behind Olivia, who had flinched as if she'd been
(shot)
slapped all over again when Amanda pulled away. She shook her head bitterly, hands planted on her hips. "What the hell, Olivia? You're crying during sex now? Is that supposed to turn me on?"

Chest heaving like she'd just run up all five flights of stairs to their apartment, Olivia took her hand off the mirror and checked her reflection with a quick, tentative glance before turning her back to it. She seemed genuinely surprised by the moisture on her cheeks, and she swiped it away quickly with the heel of the palm she'd been biting. The flesh there was pink and inflamed, teeth marks clearly visible when she lifted both hands in a pissy little shrug. "It doesn't mean anything. It's just a release. I told you not to stop, I'm fine."

Amanda gave a shout of harsh, humorless laughter, cutting it off almost as soon as it began. She always got loud when she was mean, and vice versa. Daddy's girl, through and through—like a bullet to the gut that left you scarred for life. "That why you were biting yourself? Because you're so damn 'fine'?"

"What the hell else was I supposed to bite when you had me pinned to the fucking—" Olivia flung a gesture at the mirror, but let the rest fall flat, along with her hands, dropping them spiritlessly against her thighs. "Fuck this," she muttered, and tried to shoulder past Amanda. "I'm going to bed."

What Amanda wanted to say was that (I'm sorry) Olivia didn't get to just walk away in the middle of an argument. What she wanted to say was that (I love you) Olivia should lay off the sauce, maybe then she wouldn't be ready for bed before nine o'clock at night. What she actually said was (I think I need help), "Pinned? You kiddin' me? That wasn't pinning you."

She caught Olivia by the arm in mid retreat and walked her backwards several steps, until her back met abruptly with the tall dresser. Not hard enough for her head to hit the ledge behind it, but hard enough that the wine glass toppled off the wooden stand and landed sideways on the carpet, trickling bloodlike drops onto the dense pile. Amanda braced her arm across Olivia's chest, leaning into it with her full weight, trying not to think about
(Old No. 7 Brand)
the drawer knobs digging into the captain's spine.

"This is pinning you," she said hotly, face inches from the other woman's. Their bare feet and the give in the carpet almost put them at a level height. She could feel Olivia's breath against her lips, smell the Merlot on it, tart and sweet. If not for that wine and the element of surprise, she never would have been able to capture Olivia so easily.

They were playfully competitive about who had more physical strength, and though Amanda had stamina and litheness on her side, she couldn't quite generate the same force as her captain. Olivia drew her strength from somewhere deep inside that Amanda had never tapped into. (Had their roles been reversed on that cliffside in the Catskills, she truly didn't know if she could have saved her fiancée.) The pain and weakness in her abdomen, the muscle atrophy from a month of no exercise, made it even more unlikely she could hold Olivia in place for very long.

But the captain didn't struggle. In fact, she didn't look particularly surprised at all to find herself pressed up against the dresser, her detective—the woman she was going to marry and raise her children with—restraining her like she was a perp. Why didn't she struggle? Why didn't she tell Amanda to get the hell off of her?

"See the difference?" Amanda goaded, pushing into Olivia's shoulders with her elbow and fist, trying to incite something besides passivity. Even the crying was preferable to a complete lack of emotion; at least then she might have been able to tell what was going on in her captain's head.

If Olivia would just yell at her, push her away, anything—at least then she might be able to justify her behavior. She would have a reason to see this thing that was happening through to the end. She'd felt it many times before, the rage that spurred her on, making her say things she didn't mean, take things further than she meant to go. It had manifested in many different forms over the years, but with much the same result each time:

As a kid they had called her reckless because of her tendency to dive headfirst into any situation, no matter the danger. While all her friends were on the ground, daring each other to climb the Loganville water tower, Mandy Rollins was already halfway up the ladder. She was also the one who ended up with her arm in a cast and the doctor telling her she was lucky to be alive after such a fall. (Jesse had some of that in her, and it worried Amanda more than she let on.)

When the boys in high school wanted an easy lay, they knew whose number to ink into their palm from the back of the bathroom stall door. By then, she held the title as school slut and figured if they were going to call her that anyway, she might as well oblige. She hadn't slept with every guy who claimed she did, but enough that people took their word for it over hers.

In adulthood it was the gambling. It had started out small, just taking her college friends to the cleaners at poker or betting on a few championship games here and there. But like everything else, she took it too far and ended up dodging loan sharks, owing thousands of dollars in debt, putting her life and career on the line.

It was the same feeling that had lead her to sleep with Nick Amaro and then drunkenly provoke him
(just like Mama)
to see what he would do, to prove he wasn't the Boy Scout he pretended to be; the same feeling that had drawn her into an underground casino, where sheer dumb luck kept her from being blackmailed into sex, evidence tampering, and facilitating rape; and it was the same damn feeling that had seen her raging in a courthouse waiting room, ready to send a psychologically abused woman to prison because of her own mommy issues.

Different ways of presenting itself, but always the same result, this anger of hers: she broke things. No matter how much she cared about someone, she found a way to hurt them.

"I've been pinned down before," Olivia said in an even tone, voice catching only at the last moment. She gave her hair a sharp flick away from her face, as if that would distract from the chink in her armor. Her lips were parted almost imperceptibly, her chest hitching so slightly Amanda wouldn't have noticed, were they not so close together. She was frightened, after all. "I know the diff—"

Amanda shut her up with a bruising kiss on the mouth, if a kiss it could be called. It felt more like a punishment, her lips and tongue plying at Olivia's, allowing little opportunity to reciprocate. It was the way most men kissed, without regard to their partner's satisfaction or gag reflex. The guys in high school had kissed that way; her father had kissed her mother that way, typically after slapping the hell out of her (or sometimes in the midst of it, sometimes while pinning her down . . . ). Until Amanda had slept with a woman for the first time—not the high school and college trysts, but the handful of times she'd fallen into bed with Sadie, her fellow rookie in Atlanta—she had thought it was the only way to kiss someone. Urgent and hard and mean.

Above all, mean.

. . .