A/N: I was planning to post this on Valentine's Day because A)... well, Valentine's Day and B) it's the official date of when Liv & Amanda's road trip began in Idle Hands. [insert various heart emojis] But I don't like posting on Fridays and I'm also an impatient little shit, so here it is, two days early. There is lots and lots of fluff in this one (and a little smut, for your reading pleasure), guys, but as always, I try to include important plot points throughout and keep it Devilishverse. I'll also tell you, this one is chockablock with easter eggs and references to the long fic I'm working on. It's actually set just after the long fic (or somewhere towards the middle or end, depending out how far I take that one) and there is a direct excerpt from that fic included in this story. You'll know it when you see it. Also, this is a sequel of sorts to chapter 3 of Idle Hands. If you've read it, you'll know why. :) I may have taken some rather brazen liberties with a couple of Central Park landmarks as well, so if you're a New Yorker and you read this, I'M SORRY (but not really hehe). Ok, I think that's everything I wanted to mention. I'll take the rest to Twitter if I think of something else. Oh, wait, just FYI that I changed my watermark thinger on the cover art, so if you see "crystallinejen" from now on instead of "starbuck81" (or Vivi Dahlin or chief_johnson...), it's still me. I just didn't like that the font made it look like "starfuck," lol.
Happy Valentine's Day! I hope yours is as sweet as Rolivia fluff.
"Olivia Margaret Benson, will you be my . . . "
Amanda fumbled with the tiny box as she removed it from her coat pocket. A vivid image flashed before her eyes: the box slipping from her fingers, plummeting to the ground, scattering its contents into the snow. And a frantic detective scrambling to pick up the pieces like Lucy and Ethel facing off against a conveyor belt full of chocolates. Hardly the most romantic proposal on the books.
She dismissed the ridiculous vision, chuckling at her own overactive imagination, and presented the box to Olivia on an upturned, ungloved palm. Yep, smoother than a fresh-plucked peach.
". . . valentine?" she concluded, impish grin in place. She gave the box a shake, rattling the candy hearts inside. Not hard enough to break them—she had hauled her ass halfway to Jersey to find the damn things—but enough to draw the captain's attention away from the kids, who were several paces ahead, Jesse dragging the other two on a sled like a little blonde plow horse. Amanda wasn't worried about them; Frannie and Gigi flanked the small procession on either side, and Lord help the unfortunate soul who came within three feet or less of their young charges.
"Babe, did you hear me?" Amanda asked, rattling the candy again. It was hard playing the saucy blonde bombshell when the dark-haired object of your affection wasn't even listening. "I asked you to be my valentine."
"What? Oh." Olivia snapped out of mama bear mode with a hard blink. Ever since Christmas, she had been extra vigilant with the kids, practically running herself ragged to prevent so much as a paper cut or a skinned knee. A week ago, she had cried right along with Matilda when the little girl fell off her rocking horse and got a fat lip from one of the wildly bobbing wooden arcs attached to its legs.
The holidays had been rough on each of them, Amanda included, but the captain took some of the hardest hits—both physically and emotionally. Though not quite as raw as she had been just a month before, she was still fragile, still mending. Still leaving the role of disciplinarian up to Amanda, where the kids were concerned. God only knew why, after that shitstorm Amanda had created, or at least had a significant part in. Sometimes she was amazed Olivia even put up with her at all.
"I thought you'd never ask," Olivia said, affecting the breathiest tone she could maintain with the chill in the air and the natural rasp in her vocal chords. She always sounded a bit gravelly in this type of weather, as if she were just coming off a weeklong jag of strep throat. It was strangely appealing, and Amanda had the sudden urge to kiss her right on the lips in the middle of Central Park, oncoming foot traffic be damned.
The urge intensified when Olivia squinted down at the candy hearts, attempting to read the fine red print that adorned the bright pink box. She hadn't worn her glasses out of the apartment for their family jaunt and, by some amusing fit of happenstance, didn't have any of her million and one other pairs handy, either. She'd relied on Amanda's near perfect vision to get her through reading the menu at Sunday brunch.
"Does that say what I think it says?" she asked, extending Amanda's hand at the wrist and scrunching up her nose and top lip as she struggled to make out the swirly font. Poor thing couldn't see squat.
"If you think it says 'X-rated candy hearts,' then yep." Amanda grinned rather proudly, unable to contain her delight at procuring the novelty gift.
They had agreed that, after last Valentine's Day—which had turned into a literal massacre—they would not be celebrating the pseudo-holiday this year. "I don't need a made-up day to tell you how much—" Here, as they lay naked in rumpled, sex-scented sheets, Olivia had spelled out the words against Amanda's scarred and undefined abdomen with her fingertip: "I. Love. You."
She'd drawn hearts in place of the O's.
And when an innocent late night conversation-turned-confessional revealed that Olivia's first sexual experience had been an assault on Valentine's Day, Amanda was put off considerably further by the idea of celebrating. Even if it was also the anniversary of her first kiss with the captain and their almost-first time together.
But she couldn't forget sharing that first box of candy hearts in the backseat of Meredith Ashton's BMW. That was a memory worth preserving—and repeating. So, when Daphne mentioned her favorite adult boutique, which had killer lingerie, sex gadgets and gizmos aplenty, and a wide selection of sensual candies (the deputy clerk intoned that part in a sibilant whisper worthy of a phone-sex operator, while shimmying her small chest as if it were three times larger), Amanda knew what must be done. She'd gone after work, under the pretense of brushing up at the shooting range. One of these days she would have to come up with a new cover story—by now she ought to be the best markswoman in all of Manhattan.
Daphne had been correct; the boutique, rather extravagantly named Miss Kitty Fantastico, catered to just about every fantasy and predilection imaginable, and then some. Amanda considered actually going to the range afterwards, just to blow off steam by shooting the shit out of something. It was either that or go straight home, bust down the front door, and pounce on Olivia like a coyote on a jackrabbit. Albeit a very sexy jackrabbit . . .
In the end, the price tags were what cooled Amanda off. She had held on with an iron fist to every cent she'd earned since New Year's, and she would be damned if she'd shell out fifty bucks for a pair of crotchless panties that were essentially a complicated ribbon. They would probably dissolve in the wash, anyway; that is, if she ever managed to get them on in the first place. She had been sorely tempted by a scarlet red bustier with garter straps and a matching thong that Olivia would spontaneously combust to see her in—she knew just what her captain liked, oh yes—but self-control and sound judgement won out. Those were two things that got Olivia pretty hot and bothered as well, come to think of it.
The candy hearts, adorned with such romantic gems as Bend Over and DTF, had only set Amanda back by five dollars and that was because she purchased two boxes. One for now and one for later that evening, when they could make good on the activities suggested by each and every one of the little pastel hearts. They had definitely come a long way since last Valentine's Day.
"I thought we said no gifts," Olivia commented, but she had appropriated the box and was biting the glove off one of her hands, speaking with the fingertip pinched between her teeth. Funny, she probably would have removed some of that lingerie from Miss Kitty's in exactly the same manner . . .
Amanda contemplated jumping face first—though crotch first would have been more effective—into the snow bank that lined the sidewalk they were meandering down. But unless she wanted to contract Hep C or Ebola from a mouthful of Central Park snow, she would settle for shaking the erotic imagery from her head. It helped that she had one eye on the kids.
Nothing killed the mood quite like two school-agers and a toddler risking life and limb trying to join Balto the sled dog on his rock outcropping. Mainly, as with all of the kids' most daring adventures, it was Jesse taking the biggest risks—she was close enough to hop on the bronze statue's back and holler, "Mush!" That child would turn Amanda's hair solid white before middle age officially kicked in.
"Jesse Eileen Rollins, get your body down from there if you wanna stay livin'," Amanda called out in her loudest mom voice, punctuating it with a piercing whistle that had served her well at many a noisy sporting event.
"Oh. Wow." Olivia scrunched one eye shut and stuck a finger in her ear on that side. Her sensitivity to loud sounds, particularly yelling, had been more pronounced in the past few months, and with good reason. She seldom raised her voice outside the squad room, but she did chime in this time with a brisk, "Yeah, guys, listen to Mama. You've got two real dogs to play with right here on the ground."
It still warmed Amanda's heart to hear Olivia referring to her as "Mama" with the kids. She almost didn't feel the wintery gust that ruffled the strands of her hair and made her eyes tear. Almost. She huddled into the real warmth at Olivia's side when the captain instinctively offered her arm, despite having lectured Amanda about leaving the apartment without a hat and gloves that morning. ("You'll freeze that tiny little ass off, I'm telling you.") They both knew she had done it for this exact reason—to use Olivia as her personal shield against the cold. Her captain was always warm.
"Anyhoo. We did say no gifts," Amanda confirmed, nestling her cheek against the soft suede at Olivia's shoulder. The faux fur trim around the hood of the captain's army green parka tickled her forehead and made her want to sneeze, but she escaped with only a sniffle and hugged tighter to the arm provided. "But you did buy me brunch. This is just dessert. 'Sides, to me, you are a gift."
That hadn't sounded nearly as cheesy in her head as it did out loud, and yet she didn't regret saying it, not even a little bit. When Olivia turned and planted a kiss in her hair, she knew it had struck the appropriate chord for her captain as well. Good. Amanda still had a lot of making up to do for all the heartache she'd recently caused. Candy and sweet sentiments were only a quick fix; if she wanted to restore trust, it would take time, care, actions speaking louder than her own thoughtless words. And the captain could not be bought, of that much Amanda was certain.
"Well? You gonna tear that sucker open or what?" she asked, nodding at the box in Olivia's gloved hand. She was already anticipating the colorful confection dissolving on her tongue, the crumbly sweetness when she cracked the little hearts between her teeth. They weren't even a particularly favorite candy of hers—she preferred something with a bit more kick, like SweeTARTS or Nerds—but sharing them with Olivia was the part she savored most.
Olivia glanced towards the children, who had abandoned rock-climbing in favor of sledding down a small hill a few yards away. They were politely taking turns, the older two splitting big kid duty and riding down with Matilda secured in front of one or the other of them. They doted on the little girl almost as much as Olivia and Amanda did.
"Let's sit," said the captain, leading Amanda over to an empty bench that faced the idyllic scene—their little ones playing happily, not a care in the world other than fun and snow and laughter. When they were settled in, she finally peeled open the top of the box and wedged it between her leg and Amanda's, where they could both pinch inside.
Catching Amanda eyeing the results, Olivia explained, "You know they can spot candy from a mile away. And I am not letting our kids eat something that says—" She squinted hard at the yellow heart she'd plucked from the box and cupped in her palm. "'Lick Me.'"
Actually, it read Lick It, but that was close enough. And hearing those words come out of her captain's mouth made it worth all the trouble Amanda had gone through to get the treats. She grinned as Olivia popped the naughty phrase into her mouth and started munching. Lick it, indeed.
Fishing around inside the box, Amanda snagged one of the hearts with her index finger and made a show of cupping it in both palms like the lightning bugs she used to capture during the humid summer nights of her childhood. She cracked her hands just enough to peer inside, read, and snicker as she quickly clamped them shut. When Olivia eyed her expectantly, she proclaimed, "I'm Horny," at such an enthusiastic volume, a passing elderly couple stopped to stare.
"Honey, I could have told you that," Olivia said, chuckling to herself. She leaned over to steal a kiss on the lips in spite of their gray-haired audience. PDAs weren't really the captain's thing, but then, neither was letting anyone—least of all, some scandalized old fogies—push her around. She slapped aggressive cabbies on the hood, took up as much space as she pleased with her widespread knees on public transit, and kissed Amanda openly and as often as she saw fit. (Just not at work.)
"Are you calling me a sex fiend, Cap'n?" Amanda smirked, but took advantage of their close proximity and rubbed noses with Olivia. It turned out not every part of the captain provided sufficient body heat; that adorable scrunchy nose was like nuzzling an icicle.
"Nah." Olivia pecked Amanda on the lips once more before sitting back against the bench. "A horny little devil, more like," she said, picking another heart from the box and displaying it between her thumb and forefingers for Amanda to read. "But a cute one."
Amanda ducked her head and gobbled the candy right out of Olivia's fingertips ("Hey!" the captain protested), smiling wickedly as she crunched. "Good call. 'Cute Butt,'" she recited around the mouthful, shimmying her backside on the wooden slats below. She'd been spending far too much time with Daphne Tyler lately, and it showed.
"Just because it's cute doesn't mean I won't spank it." Olivia reached over to poke Amanda in the ribs, then thought better of it and jabbed at a thigh instead. Since that day in December, she'd been treating Amanda even more gently than the kids, especially when it came to touch. Well, most of the time, anyway.
"Ooh, yes please." Amanda waggled her eyebrows like Groucho Marx. Yep, way too much time with Daph.
"Incorrigible."
Grinning at Olivia's favorite—and accurate—descriptor of her behavior, Amanda rooted through the candy and pulled out another, concealing it as she had the previous one. Only this time, she blew into her hands and shook the contents as if it were a lucky die. She let out a triumphant hoot when she opened her palm to reveal: "Nice Tits."
"Would you please shh," Olivia hissed, covering Amanda's mouth with the hand still gloved. She was laughing, though, and that felt like even more of a success than the highly appropriate candy selection. The captain cast a stealthy glance towards the kids, who were too busy teaching Frannie how to sled down the hill (Gigi hung back, looking skeptical) to notice their mothers' antics.
Satisfied that they weren't under observation, Olivia took her hand from Amanda's face and opened her mouth for the candy to be inserted. It was a silly, innocent gesture, and Amanda wasn't one to place more significance on a thing than it warranted, but she couldn't help feeling bolstered by that small act of trust.
The captain didn't let anyone near her mouth. Amanda, sometimes Matilda—she liked to feed Mommy her Cheerios—and Gigi, if the dog managed to sneak in a kiss when Olivia's guard was down. Otherwise, that part of her remained off limits, even to Noah and Jesse, whose offers to share a spoon- or forkful of food were always sweetly refused.
Of course, Amanda couldn't pass up a perfectly good opportunity to tease, either. She feinted placing the heart on Olivia's tongue, then redirected at the very last second and beelined it into her own mouth. She almost choked on it, cackling at the indignant sound her captain made.
"Serves you right," said Olivia, but she patted Amanda on the back anyway, a watchful look in her eyes. They were a brilliant golden brown, lit from above by the February sun, and below by its refraction off the snow, until they appeared translucent as amber. Until the soul within was practically visible to the naked eye. Her hair was rich chestnut brown, caramel-colored strands woven in, gleaming like the rays that filtered down through the clouds.
Lord, the sunlight never looked so good as it did shining on her.
When Amanda's hacking fit gave way to some residual coughs and throat clearing, she trapped the pink heart between her front teeth—its lewd little missive, though probably washed away with her saliva by now, was much better suited for Olivia's generous attributes—and offered it over. Much to her surprise (and her delight), the captain accepted, delicately gathering the candy into her own mouth by teeth and tongue, then settling back to chew it up, as casual as you please. She gave Amanda a deliberate wink and rummaged in the box for their next clue.
Amanda took one look at the blue heart, snitched it from Olivia's palm, and tossed it over her shoulder into the virgin snow behind them. It sank beneath the powdery surface, bleeding blue dye, a single forget-me-not blooming in a blanket of white. A teardrop on a pallid cheek.
One eyebrow cocked higher than the other, Olivia glanced around at the discarded heart, then back to Amanda. "Explain."
"Pull My Hair," Amanda said quietly, unable to disguise the reluctance in her voice—and the guilt. It had been well over a month ago, and Olivia had forgiven her. So, why the hell couldn't she forgive herself?
Because you sure as shit don't deserve it, pal, she thought, a brief, disgusted snort escaping out loud. She faked a cough to cover it up.
"Oh." Olivia exhaled the small word, her breath a visible cloud as it departed her lips. She pursed them tightly for a moment, those lips, and gazed down at her hands. The left glove was still on, the right tucked into a pocket somewhere in the green parka. She stayed silent for so long, Amanda began to wonder: was it really forgiveness, or was it that same knee-jerk reaction Olivia had to every crisis, every trauma? I'm fine. I can take it. I forgive you.
Reading Amanda's mind—just as she always seemed to do—Olivia removed the other glove and slid the back of that hand into Amanda's palm, interlocking their fingers. It left Olivia's hand belly-up against their knees, the open and empty palm somehow vulnerable. Amanda brought it up and kissed it. If she had to spend the rest of her life apologizing, she would gladly do so. She would do anything for the woman by her side.
"Try again," she prompted lightly, reaching up to stroke Olivia's hair, once again admiring the way it gleamed in the sunshine. She had retained next to none of the poetry she'd slogged through, moaning and groaning like a dying old man, in high school English class, but there was one poem whose lines she never did quite shake, if only because she couldn't make heads or tails of them at the time:
Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny
I am looped in the loops of her hair
Now she knew exactly what Yeats had been yammering on about. She twined a lock of Olivia's hair securely around her finger and leaned in, chin resting on the captain's shoulder, to read the green heart currently on display.
"Mm, Lap Dance." Amanda flushed at the thoughts that simple declaration put into her head. She had a fertile imagination, at least when it came to the things she wanted to do to Olivia, or have done to herself, in the bedroom, and a lap dance had just shot to the tippy-top of the list. She could almost feel Olivia's ass grinding into her, that delicious longing in her belly as the anything-but-subtle curves, barely contained by some trifling bit of lace, pressed against her in all the right places . . .
"Earth to Rollins. Come in, Rollins." Olivia flourished the candy in front of Amanda's glazed eyes before placing it to her slightly parted lips again. When it was received, as reverently as Sunday communion, she chuckled with obvious affection. "Thought I lost you for a minute there, little pretty."
The nickname wasn't new anymore, but it still warmed Amanda right down to her toes whenever Olivia used it. She remembered its inception well, even if the days immediately before and after were somewhat fuzzy:
"I stink."
"No, you don't." Olivia kissed her on the forehead, then bent closer to take a whiff. Crinkling her nose, she said, "Okay, yeah, you kinda do. But it's not that bad. You're still my little pretty."
"That's a new one," Amanda said, a faint smile crossing her lips. She tugged at Olivia's peacoat, urging her to take it off as well. "At least you didn't call me your little stinky."
Slipping out of the thick woolen jacket, Olivia tossed it onto the storage bench at the foot of the bed and sat down beside Amanda. "Thought about it. But I don't need stinky. I just needed a little pretty to get me through these past few ugly days, and I couldn't seem to find any. Then it occurred to me . . . " She reached up to stroke Amanda's cheek, pure love shining from her expressive brown eyes. "It's you."
"Nah," Amanda said, ruminating on the sweetness in her mouth and seated beside her. She was wedged in behind the captain's shoulder, soaking up as much body heat as she could from the arm draped across her like a safety belt. She burrowed in a little deeper, hugging Olivia's arm to her chest. The cold gave her the perfect excuse to play the clinging vine, and she planned to milk it for all it was worth. "You ain't ever gonna lose me, city girl."
"Good." Olivia's voice rumbled as if she were purring, and Amanda felt the vibration go straight through her. Olivia Benson always had a knack for going straight to the heart. And other places. "Because you owe me a lap dance now," she added, with a sultry smirk over her shoulder.
Butterflies erupted in Amanda's belly—which was a damn sight better than anything else that had erupted there as of late—and she shook her head decidedly. "Nope. No, ma'am. You picked it, so that one's all you, babe. How 'bout you wear that little gold number with the see-through slip thing? I'll bring the fifties."
"You've given this some thought, I see," Olivia said, a touch of humor in her tone and a glint in her eye that wasn't from the sun.
"Just came to me, actually." Amanda breathed on her fingernails and buffed them against Olivia's coat with a playfully smug air. "Call it divine inspiration. That's what happens when your lady's an absolute goddess."
"What a load." Despite the statement and a dismissive laugh, Olivia grinned and watched intently as Amanda selected another heart from the box, using the fingers that were tangled up with hers.
It required a tricky bit of maneuvering to pinch the candy just right, but Amanda was quite dexterous with her hands, as the brunette at her side could attest. She snickered at the little white nugget she withdrew, in her amusement forgetting to read Olivia the tiny red lettering. Or numbering, in this case.
"Sixty-nine?" Olivia guessed, after leaning in for an eager glimpse that narrowed into a hard squint, her dark lashes intermingling, top and bottom, with the effort. Her frosty pink nose still crinkled, she looked to Amanda for confirmation and opened her mouth automatically when the candy neared it, reminiscent of a baby bird awaiting dinner.
Charmed by the cute visual, Amanda opted not to tease this time. She placed the heart at the center of Olivia's tongue and curled their joined hands inward, tucking them beneath her own chin. "Yup."
"Well, we've already done that," Olivia said in a low, throaty voice that belied her nonchalant shrug. She might be cool as a cucumber in the interrogation room, but she could rarely hide her desire when it came down to what she and her detective practiced in the bedroom. She didn't have to—Amanda was right there with her.
In fact, Amanda was presently so caught up in the memory of that mid-afternoon romp—balanced above Olivia on knees and elbows, face buried between the captain's thighs, every flick of the tongue matched stroke for stroke from below—she almost missed her golden opportunity.
"You know me, I'm a repeat offender," she husked, and dove greedily into the kiss Olivia offered, head inclined towards Amanda, throat exposed to the cold, to the whole of Central Park. She slid her hand, warm from looping in the loops of Olivia's sun-bathed hair, to rest at the captain's neck, curving lightly around the delicate spot. That was another place only Amanda had access to, and she didn't intend to take it for granted. Not ever.
Her toes curled up inside their insulated leather boots when Olivia slipped her the candy heart, gliding so softly into her mouth she felt it in every square inch of her being. Amanda had always considered herself a skilled French kisser—her go-to party trick was tying a knot in a cherry stem with her tongue, if that was any indication of talent—but then she'd made out with her captain for the first time and realized she had a lot to learn. There was this little thing called finesse, and Captain Benson had it in spades . . .
Jesse Rollins, however, did not. "Ewww, they're kissing again!" the little girl shrieked, following up the announcement, which was probably heard by half of Manhattan, with a series of retching noises.
Olivia broke from the kiss, breathed a long and heady sigh, as if she'd just taken a hit of some primo cannabis, and called back, "Mind your own beeswax, Jesse Eileen." The response was laughter, from the kids ("beeswax" was their new favorite word and considered the height of comedy around the Rollins-Benson household) and from Amanda, whose mouth Olivia's gaze remained fixed upon. Children? What children?
"That's a yes, I take it," Amanda said, extracting the last bit of crunch from the candy before it turned to wintergreen-flavored mush between her back teeth. She chewed a while longer than necessary, enjoying Olivia's transfixed expression too much to interrupt.
Finally, licking her lips, the captain snapped out of it and queried, "What? Oh, well . . . it is the year after my birth. And I did just celebrate that, so maybe we could squeeze it in." Her free hand coasted along the inseam of Amanda's tight, bleach-wash jeans, stopping just short of a lewd conduct violation to squeeze at her upper thigh.
Amanda couldn't argue with that logic; she couldn't argue with much of anything right then. Instead, she crossed her legs firmly, trapping Olivia's hand in place for a retaliatory squeeze. "I been meanin' to get you a few extra birthday presents. Sixty-nine sounds like a good amount to me."
"I just bet it does," Olivia said, with an appreciative hum. She groped at Amanda's thigh one last time before retracting her hand and rescuing the box of candy that was being smashed between them, due to all the extra squirming. There were only two hearts left, and she tapped them both into her palm like she had reached the dregs of a pill bottle. A pink and a yellow.
Blue would have been more fitting, if you asked Amanda. Her irreverent little gift had turned out to be a rousing success after all. (And the jeans weren't helping. Had they been this snug when she left the apartment? She thought not.) She eyed the remaining messages, debating which one would work best in her favor—it didn't take a genius to figure it out.
Via fingertip, she scooted the yellow heart along Olivia's palm until the captain picked it up with the opposite hand, claiming it like a lucky penny off the sidewalk. She raised her eyebrow at Amanda, awaiting instructions as if she already knew exactly what the heart wanted.
Oh hell yeah, she knew.
"Talk Dirty," Amanda said, posing it as a challenge. Olivia could never resist those, most notably when Amanda was the challenger. And you could take it to the bank that whatever the captain's response, she'd give it a hundred and ten percent.
"Hmm." Olivia deposited the treat between smirking lips, sucking at it lightly as she mulled on the artificial banana flavor and the prompt that was melting on her tongue. She gazed thoughtfully ahead for several moments, puckering her cheeks as if the candy were tart, rolling it around in her closed mouth, until a slow and mischievous smile unfurled.
This was gonna be good.
She faced Amanda again, hooking a finger over the zipper of her plush brown coat—the one that had incited many a teddy bear joke since its purchase ("If I had known you were a furry, Detective, I would've worn my kitty costume", "How many Teddy Ruxpin's did you skin to make that thing?", "When I said I wanted you to wear a teddy, this isn't what I had in mind . . . ", and so on and so forth). After reeling Amanda in, Olivia cupped a hand to the side of her head, nuzzled the hair on the opposite side, and spoke directly into her ear.
"You see that arch over there, just past where the kids are playing?" she asked in a whisper that somehow reminded Amanda of the lyrics to one of her favorite songs, "Black Velvet":
A new religion that'll bring you to your knees
Black velvet if you please
"My three o'clock."
Clock. Amanda felt that one way down deep. She flicked her gaze in that direction, spotting the arch in question—the Willowdell, if she remembered correctly—and gave a brief little nod. She had seen the arch a million times before, never giving it much thought; but now, senses in overdrive, she could probably describe its every characteristic, right down to the number of voussoirs that gave it form, if quizzed on the subject.
"What does it remind you of?" Olivia asked, toying with the strands of Amanda's hair, fingernails just barely grazing her scalp.
Okay, maybe not every characteristic. Amanda glanced back to the structure, searching for a clue among the faded patches of pink brick, the shadowy tunnel underneath, the cast-iron guardrails above. She racked her brain for an answer, not wanting to puss out on this competition she herself had created. Now she was the one who squinted, trying to bring into focus anything other than what she saw: a plain old Central Park arch. "Ummm . . . "
"Don't you think it sort of looks like a woman lying on her back?" Olivia supplied, coiling a lock of hair around her finger and letting it spring off, the way every cell and synapse in Amanda's body leapt just below the surface.
Looped in the loops, if you please.
(Black Velvet, Brown Penny.)
"Her legs are spread apart, inviting you in. Begging you to fuck her." Olivia overpronounced the crass term for an act she typically spoke of with much more subtlety, more finesse. Her breath was as hot as Georgia summertime against Amanda's ear. "See how the snow on either side looks like her thighs? Pale, like yours, when I eat you out. Those little hillocks in the distance are her tits, perfect and smooth, like yours, too. And the keystone is her clit, just waiting to be teased. Can you see it, Amanda Jo? That tight, wet pussy, and the city at her back, ready to take her from behind?"
Amanda gulped, incapable of forming words at the moment. A small whimper may have escaped, but the blood was rushing too loudly in her ears—and elsewhere—for her to hear it. Olivia used the expression "tits" sparingly, and Amanda could count on one hand the number of times her captain had said "pussy" out loud in the ten years they had known each other. She had indeed pulled out all the stops, leaving Amanda damn near breathless.
"Y-yeah, I see it," she said, clearing her throat to no avail. She realized she was clutching Olivia's knee for dear life and quickly eased up, flexing her fingers several times until feeling was restored. That part about the city had really sent her over the edge. Olivia Benson was so interwoven into Amanda's perception of the city—its very fabric—the two were practically synonymous. Her city girl.
Who it turned out had a very filthy imagination.
"You know what I would do if the kids weren't with us?" Olivia slipped her hand inside the veil of blonde hair at Amanda's shoulder, fingers chilly against her neck, sending icy shivers down her spine. She pulled Amanda closer still, mouth flush with her ear now, the juxtaposition of hot and cold almost as stimulating as the words whispered: "I'd take you inside that tunnel, push you up against the wall, unzip these skinny little jeans, and fingerfuck you until you couldn't walk straight at work tomorrow."
There was definitely a whimper that time.
"Would you like that, my love?" Olivia asked, scritching gently at the nape of Amanda's neck. She would never in a million years do what she'd just suggested—at least not while Central Park was open to the public, the children's zoo a mere stone's throw away—but hearing it narrated in that black velvet voice of hers, knowing it was intended for Amanda's ears only (all these poor schmoes passing by had no clue what they were missing, that some little hick from Loganville had rode into town and snatched the most valuable prize in NYC right out from under their snobby Manhattanite noses) . . . it was almost better than sex, to be honest.
"Yes," Amanda hissed. Better than sex or not, she was still human, and the picture Olivia had painted so vividly in her mind was about to make her pop. "Hell. Yes."
Olivia's teeth came down on her ear, nibbling at the lobe as if it were one of the sweet morsels they were sharing. "Too bad. This was all you're getting," she purred, delivering one final nip that made Amanda shudder from hatless head to teddy bear coat, and straight on down through the tight jeans, into the toes of her boots. "Happy Valentine's Day, little pretty."
Amanda needed a minute. Although, two may have passed before she finally said something that sounded like, "Sheesh a'mighty," and slapped her own thigh so hard it stung. "What— I— Who are you?"
She gazed in wonder at Olivia, whose shit-eating grin and merrily twinkling eyes couldn't possibly get any cuter—that was, until a lock of brown-penny hair fell across her face. Amanda scrounged the cell phone out of her back pocket, snapped a quick photo, and declared, "I'm callin' that one Devil Woman."
A loud, boisterous laugh from Olivia alerted the kids to the fun they were missing out on, and they began the short trek down the hill and over to the bench, sled and dogs in tow. "Uh-oh," Olivia said, flicking the errant hair aside and straightening to a more motherly posture as the group approached. She nudged Amanda with the hand still holding the last candy heart, the hand still cradled by hers. "Hurry, what's it say?"
"I'm Wet," Amanda replied, plunking the heart onto her tongue and chewing it up hastily, seconds before the kids arrived. Never had there been such an accurate composition written on a single piece of candy. Nor had there ever been one quite so prescient.
When the first snowball hit, nailing Amanda directly in the face, she let out a squawk worthy of one of the exotic birds from the nearby zoo. Olivia was pointing and cackling too hard to notice the second missile—right up until it collided with the side of her head, bursting like a water balloon and sprinkling ice crystals all through her lovely dark mane. Their children would have perfect aim.
"Wow, okay." Olivia blinked as if stunned by a bright flash of light, and sloughed the wet chunks from her hair. The snow was the perfect consistency for packing—not solid enough to cause damage, not so soft it turned to powder in your hands. Just right for a Sunday snowball fight in the park.
"You thinkin' what I'm thinking, Mama?" Olivia asked, eyeing the giggling trio in their bulky snowsuits, puffed up as marshmallows, and their elfin stocking hats with the pompoms at the end. Six of the rosiest cheeks and bluest eyes in the city shone back at her.
"Oh-ho-ho, it's on, Mommy." Amanda pounded Olivia's side-turned fist with the edge of her own. When the gesture was returned, they bumped fists again, at the knuckles, and exploded their hands outward, fingers splayed. ("Ugh," Jesse groaned.)
A moment later, the older children ran screaming in opposite directions as both women launched off the bench. Matilda, serene as ever, calmly raised her arms to be picked up by Olivia. The captain scooped her up mid-dash, along with a handful of snow, and chased after Amanda, the kids, and two exuberantly barking dogs.
By the time a truce was called—the kids had actually won, although Amanda got in a couple good snow noogies ("Hit me with your best shot!" she'd taunted, dodging aside until her victims drew just . . . close . . . enough . . .) and Olivia used the baby as a tiny human shield ("You can't throw things at me, I am holding a child!" became her battle cry)—they were all winded and sopping with every step.
Intent on taking the fastest route home, Amanda was leading the kids, fur-covered and not, back the way they had come, when a tug at her frosty fingers surprised her. It was Olivia, her hand warm despite Winter Games 2021.
"Let's go this way, guys," she said, and nodded to the arch up ahead. Then she winked slyly at Amanda. "I want to take your mama inside the tunnel."
. . .
The End