familiar

PART II

I thought it could go away… It didn't.

No, it didn't.

It stayed dormant in her, and she's been trying to keep it that way since he's returned.

But tonight, it burns.

It's an old burn, one that hadn't been allowed to manifest for so long. Tonight, she can't stifle it like she did so many times. It's the burn of burning for him alone. She needs to know that he burns, too. That he always has. That she wasn't the only one enduring lonely nights.

Maybe it's the wine that she's just finished, but her entire body tingles, and she starts to understand what she needs from him.

"Tell me what that means," she finds herself whispering as he stares at her intently through hooded eyes.

"What what means?" he inquires.

She cocks her head. "Everything."

When Elliot speaks, his warm breath brushes her face. "You know what it means," he says with a crooked smile.

She shakes her head defyingly, tenses up. "I know what it means to me."

"Well, there you go."

She smiles, too, but she's visibly hurt. "You're never going to admit it, are you? You're never going to say it."

She starts to move away, but he knows he can't let her. I wish I could trust you, Elliot. His hand wraps around her arm with a hint of desperation that frightens him.

"Okay," he concedes. "I'm sorry. You're right."

Olivia nods, validated, then frees her arm, crosses both of them in front of her chest with another distrusting step back as she waits for him to give her something.

He swallows. "It means you were always the first person I wanted to talk to when anything happened. Good or bad."

He's watching her closely, but there's no change in her expression; that's not it. Not what she's looking for. He needs to dig deeper.

"Means that I love you," he mouths, his voice barely getting past his lips.

Olivia takes a deep, frustrated breath. "You've said that. I don't know what you mean by that either."

Elliot's grin widens. "Come on…" He tries to move into the distance between them, but she secures it. "'Course you do," his voice comes out unsure.

The remnants of Olivia's smile fade completely; she takes another step back, turns around, moving in the direction of the door. "Forget it," she scoffs.

She's not having it. Not tonight. Blunt truths, honest answers — he knows, but he doesn't understand. He gave her the bluntest truth, the most honest answer: he loves her.

Thunder rolls outside again, the flame of the candle trembles.

"What do you want me to say?" Elliot asks cluelessly.

She turns her head slightly in his direction. "Whatever it is that you're desperate to keep to yourself."

Certainly not the I love you; he's been trying to dump that on her for a while now. But tonight, that's not what she needs.

His heart races, and he once again taps into that fear he's so afraid of. The real scary shit that looms in silent hideouts in his brain, camouflaged, obfuscated by the truths that have already broken free. She wants him to face the most dangerous weapons — the sharper blades, the highest calibers. He's mad. It's not like he needs more reasons to bleed.

But her blinding glare hits him square in the chest, and he realizes he's always bled for her. She just wants him to show her the wounds. She feels entitled to them, and he can't argue with that.

Anger still filters out with his words, but he hopes she'll appreciate the honesty.

"I should be grieving, but all I can think about is the fact that you're back in my life. Is that what you wanna hear?"

Olivia does appreciate the legitimacy of his clenched teeth. "Getting warmer."

Elliot swallows, sets his jaw to get a grip on his voice. "You wanna hear about how I lay awake next to my wife night after night thinking about you for twenty years?"

She nods, her unfaltering stare. "Yes."

She's stronger with every answer he gives her, every question she asks. She used to run away from this confrontation — she thought she wouldn't survive it, no matter what truths came out. Now, looking back at twenty years of silenced questions, she knows that the worst thing is wondering.

She's done wondering.

He takes a step forward, and she doesn't flinch this time. "Why?"

Olivia shifts her weight between her feet but stands her ground. It burns like never before, the familiar desire in the pit of her stomach. The longing, the thirst. She feels the fire burn through her veins and reach her core at every inch that is lost between them.

"Because you keep talking about how much I mean to you," she says with confidence, the resolute answer to his question news to her as much as it is to him. "Because I already know how much you need me. Now, I need to know if you want me."

Elliot angles his chin at her as he digests it.

The wind is howling outside, but suddenly there's no trace of that scared woman, driving distractedly in the rain, apprehensive about so many things — her son, his family. No trace of that hesitant woman who shivered when he removed her coat and said she was overwhelmed.

The rain has washed it all away, turned it off along with the Christmas lights and the heater. All that matters right now is right here, in this attic, coated in the dim light of one flickering candle, so tiny against the forest fire that fills the rest of this room when it was supposed to be growing increasingly cold.

And she wants them both to walk right into the invisible flames.

This is it, Elliot thinks. Olivia will be his friend for now, for however long he needs her to be, but she'll never be more than that unless he commits first. It's only fair after the way he left.

"I do," he commits. "I want you."

Her eyes flutter, contrasting with her otherwise steel demeanor; it gives him the confidence to make his way toward her.

"You're right," he says, stops walking when he's right in front of her, projecting his shadow onto the canvas of her figure. "Maybe you should know that there wasn't a single day in Rome that something didn't remind me that I wanted you."

If Elliot gets any closer, their lips will touch. In this moment, Olivia understands exactly what she needs from him tonight. On some level, her mind is already aware that he loves her. Even her heart already feels it.

Tonight, her body needs to believe it.

He bends his head to the right, lets his mouth settle on her neck, brush against it as he speaks. "You should know that there wasn't a single fight your name wasn't mentioned. That I mumbled it in my sleep sometimes."

He feels the goosebumps rise in her skin as he presses a slow kiss on her pulse point. His hand clutches at her hip possessively, numbing the pain when her mind plays back hundreds of flashbacks of the echo of his name bouncing off the corners of her mind.

He pulls back to find her eyes again, cups her neck. "You should know that I've always wanted to…"

He closes the remaining distance, and she lets him.

It starts slowly, but inevitable. He leans in like gravity is pulling him, and she receives him like the ground that receives the rain, now intensified again, just like his lips, that start gentle, then become demanding.

"I've wanted you for twenty years," he mumbles, moving her mouth with his, then picks up where he left off, tastes her, anchors his other hand on the small of her back, pulling her flush against him.

"God, El," she whispers, and he hardens the same way he's hardened for her so many times before, back when it was forbidden, when he couldn't make her feel it, couldn't rub it against her hip.

Now, he makes her feel it.

"What else do you wanna know?" he rumbles, and Olivia isn't sure if it's just his voice or if thunder is also rolling outside, but it doesn't matter because he kisses her again, and this time he slips his tongue into her mouth.

When releases her lips, she remembers he's expecting an answer.

"Tell me the things you've always wanted to do to me."

Elliot sighs. "Liv…"

"You said everything," she argues. "I wanna know everything." She pulls back to capture his gaze and starts opening the buttons of her blouse. "Tell me it wasn't just me."

She needs to see the thirst in his eyes; tonight, mattering to him is not enough. She needs him to acknowledge that his irrational side belongs to her as well. That he won't continue to give her only his noble, his dignified love, while he saves his imperfection for the Angelas, the Fluturas. That he won't continue to fuck them the way she needs him to fuck her.

She wants everything, like he promised her.

He watches her shirt open up, one button at a time. When she's done, she lets the fabric slide down her shoulders and arms. His eyes lift to her large breasts, firmly clad in lace, and he involuntarily licks his lips.

"It wasn't…" he forces his eyes to meet her stare. "It wasn't just you."

She walks up to him, cups the back of his head with both hands

"Then show me."

His head hangs until his nose slides into the gap between her breasts. He breathes her in while his hands snake up her sides and settle around them, kneading roughly, thumbs rubbing at her nipples through the rough lace. He can't believe he's actually touching her like this. He can't imagine that she didn't know how much he wanted to.

He hooks the straps with his index fingers to pull them down, yanking the bra to free the mounds of flesh. His mouth wraps around her nipple, sucking hard while he sinks his fingertips into the skin of her other breast so hard it leaves moon-shaped impressions.

He'd never thought about it, but she's right. If he only focuses on everything she means to him, he won't be able to admit that his cock is twitching at the thought of the bruises he's leaving.

He'd never realized that he loved her too much to admit that he also wanted her body.

And God only knows how much he had always wanted her body. The shape of Olivia Benson's nipple is almost familiar to his tongue because he's secretly dreamed of this so often.

She takes a step back, and he revels at the redness of her breasts, spilling out over her bra as she removes his tie and starts unbuttoning his shirt.

"Every time I watched you change in the locker room…" she trails off, letting him finish getting rid of the garment while she starts kissing his neck, his shoulder, his collarbone.

Her hands travel over the expanse of his chest, her fingertips tracing every detail as though she's painting his picture. She places wet kisses everywhere, licks his nipples as he watches in disbelief. A moment later, she drops to her knees.

"What about this?" she asks, fingers expertly undoing his belt and pants.

His breath catches in his throat, her name comes out strangled. "Olivia."

"You never thought about me doing this?"

She pulls down his pants to free him: he's rock solid and throbbing, and she feels moisture pooling in her panties at the confirmation that he can get this hard for her. She had always wondered. She looks up at him, restraining herself from touching him until he says it.

"Yes," Elliot confesses.

"How did you imagine it?" she asks before swirling her tongue along the ridge of his tip.

He groans. "In the squad car at night."

She sucks hard at his head once, releasing it with a pop. "What else?"

"On your knees under my desk."

She moans involuntarily at the thought, rubbing his head slowly along the ridges of her palate, torturously slow, her tongue lightly massaging his underside. She does it for so long that he thinks he's going to lose his mind. Before he can beg, though, she lets him slide down past her uvula for the first time, then backs all the way out, lips closing around the head in a sucking motion before she swallows him whole, like her throat is already acquainted with his anatomy.

"Jesus Christ," he breathes when her head moves back and forth a bit faster this time. "I used to dream of this," he marvels, watching himself finally disappear into Olivia Benson's mouth, but as much as he's pictured every single version of her over the years on her knees like this, he could never have imagined what she actually feels like — rough and velvety at the same time.

He can't help himself; his fingers tug her hair at the roots as he helps her move, watching her throat bulging with his tip, and he grunts when he feels her vibrate from the inside with a long moan. Eventually, he pulls her off of him, before he gets too close.

He helps her up, kisses her deeply while he finishes removing her bra, then pushes her onto the single bed with a thud. He crawls on top of her to claim her breasts with his teeth, making sure to leave new marks before trailing kisses down her stomach.

Olivia closes her eyes; the sensations are overwhelming, and her core aches because he's finally treating her body as his possession, leaving his initials all over her skin now that he knows that he can. That he must.

"I've always wanted to taste you," he whispers, haphazardly getting rid of her shoes, pants, underwear.

He looks at her for a second, wide open in front of him. So wet for him. His cock aches with want while he dives in to latch his mouth onto her sensitive skin. She tastes wonderful, sweeter than he had ever imagined. Sweeter than anything else he's ever tasted.

He emerges to look at her, completely naked and at his mercy, her eyes trained on his as he licks her wetness off his lips. Both smile.

"I always wondered if you ever got wet for me," he says, and it's an echo of her own questions, the ones that would keep her up at night.

"I did," she whimpers when his index and middle finger slide between her lips a few times then dip into her, knuckles rough against her walls. He circles around her clit with his thumb while he fucks her with his fingers, and she starts writhing beneath him.

"Don't come yet," he instructs, removing his hand and positioning himself at her entrance.

Without any other warning, he thrusts into her, invading her inch by inch, molding her so tight around him. He pushes deeper and deeper against the resistance, claiming his space until his tip reaches her cervix. He pulls back out slowly, then dives in a little faster, pushing through her tight grip as her walls clamp down on him, her own way of claiming him, and they hum in unisson. He removes himself completely, rubs his tip along her clit and around her entrance.

"El, please," she whimpers, and he enters her forcefully.

Olivia bites her lip to keep from crying out, suddenly remembering that Elliot is fucking her in his daughter's house, that her own son is sleeping downstairs somewhere. Elliot's pace is slow as he pulls almost completely out, then slams back into her time and time again.

He wraps her legs around his waist as he leans down into her to capture her lips while he continues pounding.

"You know what I used to fantasize about?" he whispers, now not only comfortable with these admissions, but also eager for her reaction.

"What?" she moans.

He kisses her neck languidly before speaking into her ear. "Bending you over in the interrogation room."

She gasps when he increases the speed, the image of him fucking her from behind over the table in the interrogation room almost sending her over the edge.

To his surprise, she disentangles from him, then rearranges on all fours, offering herself to him blindly. "Like this?"

He grabs her hips with both hands and starts fucking her again in a punishing rhythm. He's thankful for how loud the rain is right now, otherwise someone might hear the headboard smacking the wall.

Olivia is really close now, and Elliot drapes his chest over her back, his hands swimming in the flesh of her breasts again like he can't get enough. When he's close himself, he pushes her back onto the mattress, using her for leverage while his other hand pulls a fistful of her hair to make her look at him over her shoulder.

"I wanted you exactly like this," he grunts, slapping her ass with his hips as he gets impossibly deeper.

He lets go of her hair to put his hand over her mouth, muffling her screams when she finally comes undone. Her walls clench him hard, triggering his own orgasm and bleeding him dry as he spills into her.

"So did I," Olivia breathes when Elliot releases her mouth and lies down, pulling her on top of him on the narrow mattress. "So did I."

When their breaths and heartbeats slow down to a normal rhythm, the sounds of the rain fill the room again — so concrete and palpable like reality. It takes them both a minute to reconcile that what has just happened is just as real now, palpable like these walls, undeniable like the rain.

Olivia almost wishes that lying on top of Elliot's naked body doesn't feel so familiar — it hurts to know that all of this was right there from the beginning, within reach.

Sleep is trying to whisk her away while Elliot secures her body against his, but she starts thinking about what comes next.

"Maybe you should get dressed and go sleep downstairs on the couch. Maureen and Carl will be looking for you."

"I'm not leaving you," he replies calmly, running his fingers up and down her back in no rush. "Let me worry about the morning."

"Maybe I should go check on Noah," she thinks aloud.

"Liv, he's fine," Elliot squeezes her harder in his arms, surprised himself that there's no sign of his own fear, so powerful just a while ago. "Everything's fine," he adds, thinking that maybe this is how things will settle — that they will make each other's fears go away as they go.

"Okay," she whispers.

"Besides, I'm not done with you."

Olivia hoists her head up so she can look at him, and he smiles.

"You wanted me to show you everything, didn't you?"

She bites her lip. "Yes."

Elliot pulls her into him for a slow kiss. "We have time."

She rests her head on his chest again, closing her eyes and letting her worries dissolve as the cool air teases her warm skin, covered in sweat. She'll deal with the morning when it gets here. She'll deal with everything one step at a time, just like she had told him.

Tonight's not over — several hours still separate them from Christmas morning.