VII:
Honestly, when Olivia Benson had gotten up that morning, it hadn't been on her list of things to do to seduce Rafael Barba. But the more she thought about it, sitting with him on her beat up old couch in the living room of her apartment that should have been a new start for her life but was now just an expensive pain in her ass, the more she just wanted to throw her to-do list out the window and say fuck it.
And fuck him.
She wanted to silence the panic that rose in her every time she thought about letting someone near her. She wanted to be with someone who made her feel safe. Rafael made her feel safe.
It made sense.
In a terribly fucked up way.
She didn't want to read too much into it, and Lindstrom had cautioned her strongly against rushing into anything, but she was just so tired of living in a hollow shell of herself, screaming to be let out and never being heard. Feeling like a prisoner in her own mind, held hostage by her own emotions and the flashbacks of what William Lewis had inflicted on her.
Now, if only she could quell her nerves about him actually seeing her naked. She had been gorgeous once, great body, knockout, but now she couldn't even look at herself without feeling nauseous revulsion. How could anyone else? Brian's reaction to the scarring and the stitches had been to insist on sex in the dark, and she was already prepared to turn out the lights for Rafael's benefit.
"You're thinking pretty loudly," he said, polishing off his third slice of pizza. He reached for his wineglass and smiled at her. "You get a little wrinkle right here," Rafael indicated the corner of her left eye, "when you're concentrating."
"I was just worrying."
"Olivia, I promise you that it isn't worth worrying over," he said softly. "And if you're that worried, maybe tonight isn't the night –"
"No," she interjected softly. "I was just worrying about whether or not you would want the lights on."
"Let me guess: your ex wanted it dark," Rafael said, his tone filled with disgust. "You know what, Olivia –"
"Liv," she interjected. "You can call me Liv. Everyone does."
"Do you like being called Liv?" he asked, his tone softening. "I'll do it if you want me to, but I prefer Olivia – it's beautiful. Like you. Which is something that man forgot when he kept you in the darkness instead of letting you in the light. What a fucking idiot. If I ever meet him –"
"If you ever meet him, you get the satisfaction of knowing that you're superior," she said.
"That's the thing: I don't want to be superior. I want him to understand how wrong he was to treat you that way."
"You don't know he was wrong," she countered. "That's the thing –"
"Olivia," he said, directing her attention right at him. His eyes were arrestingly green, his face earnest. "The man was a goddamn idiot who didn't know a good thing when he had it. And if I ever – ever – treat you like he did, you have my permission to shoot me."
"You don't understand – William Lewis did things to me –"
"I know," Rafael said softly. "But I don't care. Scars fade. They're a part of who we are and the things in our past that we've survived… but they aren't the whole of who we are. You are beautiful inside and out, regardless of what notions that idiot ex of yours put in your head, Olivia, and I'm going to spend a lot of time reminding you of that till you start believing it." He quirked a little smile that made her stomach do a flip flop. "Even when you're loopy from pain killers and your hair is greasy in the hospital."
She groaned. "Really?"
"Oh yeah."
"I know you mean well, but –" He cut her off with a soft kiss. It quickly escalated into more, with her nibbling on his lower lip and his hands wandering casually over her forearms where her sleeves were pushed up. Eventually, they parted for breath, and she murmured, "Wow."
He chuckled and rested his forehead against hers. "You have no idea how much I want to touch you, Olivia," he exhaled lowly.
"Why aren't you?" she countered.
"Because you're in control," he offered. "Tell me what you want."
Her voice was soft, shaking, when she found it again. "You. I want you," she managed to say. To say more was to invite disaster, and she wasn't about to dance with the devil when she could waltz with the divine. Instead, she moved to kiss him, the motion tentative at first but with a rising passion that surprised her.
She had never been shy about wanting sex or indulging in her own desires. It was one of the things that had been freeing about a career in SVU: she was on an even playing field with both the victims and the aggressors in that she understood and held nothing back. And yet, since her attack…
His fingers came under the waistband of her leggings and she froze; the soft pads of his fingertips came over one of her scars and it was all she could do not to bolt. "Olivia," he whispered against her lips, "may I?"
She reached for her wineglass and drank the remnants in a quick motion. Then she grabbed his wineglass and drank the rest of his wine down. And as she licked away the last droplet from her lips, she said, "Maybe not on the couch, Rafael. My bedroom is just down the hall."
He nodded. "I know."
She tried to keep her voice steady. "Can you give me a minute?"
"Anything you need, Olivia," he assured her, gently tangling their fingertips together even as Liv pulled away and padded down the hall barefoot.
It all seemed very, very real all of a sudden. She took off her leggings and hoodie, leaving only her panties behind – a plain pair of ribbed cotton boy shorts that was comfortable and didn't irritate the delicate, barely-healed scar tissue on her inner thighs – and slid into her thin cotton robe. Better he know right away what he was working with than discover it down the road and accuse her of misleading him.
"Rafael?" she called down the corridor. She heard his soft footsteps – he had toed his shoes off a long time before – and waited for him cautiously by the bed, knowing that he would judge her the moment he got into this most intimate of spaces. His eyes darted around the room, took in the pale oak slat bed, the shades of delicate purple and sage green, and landed on her finally. He smiled.
"You okay?" he asked, his tone softening. His hands were tucked into his pockets, his posture relaxed but he carried some tension in his body that bespoke of the situation they found themselves in.
"Yes and no," she answered, honestly. She sat down on the edge of the bed and patted it, inviting him to join her, which he did, settling next to her. "I'm anxious. Worried. I hate myself."
"You shouldn't," he said quickly, reaching over to take her hand in his, threading their fingers together. "I know it's difficult to open yourself when you've been hurt so badly, but I'm not here to tell you that you are anything other than what I see, Olivia. And what I see is a beautiful, strong, sexy woman that I could fall head over heels in love with if I give myself the leeway. What he did to you doesn't diminish that."
"I can't even look at myself in the mirror."
"You don't have to," he said, squeezing her hand. "But I think when you're ready to do it, you're going to see that nothing has changed but your reflection. The part of you that's you, that everyone loves, they can't even see it in a mirror. So whatever physical damage he did… it doesn't matter. It doesn't diminish you."
She was speechless; all the months of therapy, all of the pain, and he had just effectively wiped out all of her arguments with the gentlest of impassioned speeches. And he looked hopelessly handsome and shy as he did it, impossibly sexy in ways that made her feel a certain kind of way she wasn't sure she had ever felt.
"Do you mean that?" Olivia whispered.
"Yes," Rafael said earnestly. "I speak from experience: my father was an abusive asshole. He was an alcoholic who beat and raped my mother and who beat and… raped me. I have the scars to prove it. I spent more time trying to survive my childhood than I did living it. My mother got away from him when I was five and we came back to the Bronx." He frowned. "I still have nightmares. Flashbacks. It doesn't diminish the man I am or the man I want to be."
She leaned her head onto his shoulder and exhaled. "I'm so sorry."
"I'm not," he said quietly. "I would never have learned to fight so hard for everyone else if I hadn't been a victim first." Rafael squeezed her hand. "My point to you being that I've been where you are. Some days, I'm still there. But I still move forward because you never know if that's the day you'll meet the love of your life in a bar after work."
"I'm not the love of your life," she scoffed with a chuckle.
"You might be," he teased. "Who knows?" Rafael pulled her in for a kiss that left them both breathless and wanting, dazed. "Right now," he whispered, "I want you to be happy. To want pleasure and be content when you receive it."
"And you…?"
He smirked. "Don't you worry about me." He got off the bed, releasing her hand to undress down to his boxers, maintaining eye contact the whole while. Then he lowered himself down onto his knees at her feet and gently parted her knees to lean against her. "Tell me how to love you, Olivia," Raphael said softly.
"Tell you?" she questioned.
He quirked a brow. "Do you like your breasts played with? Or your ass? Are you ticklish? Are your feet sensitive? Do you want to be on top? I – I need somewhere to start." The confidence in his demeanor dropped for just a moment and she felt a pang of dismay.
The dismay turned into a jumble of other things she couldn't unpick and rather than spiral out of control, she did the only thing she could with any kind of immediacy: she yanked at the robe sash, exposing herself to him completely. He was silent for the longest moment imaginable, then he leaned back into her body and pressed a kiss to the jagged knife scar that had barely healed across her right breast and areola.
"I'm scared," she whispered, running her fingers through his hair hesitantly, ignoring the panic at the edges of her consciousness that insisted that she flee him and his touch.
"Me, too," Rafael agreed, pressing kisses down her body, over each scar he could find, before coming back up to kiss her lips. "That you'll find me lacking."
"I am lacking," she breathed.
"Then we're well-matched," he countered. "Lie back and close your eyes, Olivia. Just breathe and feel."
She did as he bade, resting comfortably on the bed, legs dangling off the edge. He tugged her underwear down her body and let out a soft noise of appreciation that made her blush. He kissed his way up her leg, paying extra attention to the back of her knee when she let out a soft whimper.
Oral sex hadn't ever been high on the list of priorities for her partners, and she hadn't pushed the envelope. So when Rafael Barba's attentions turned toward that direction, Liv found herself momentarily stunned, unable to comprehend what he could possibly want from her in return for such an act. But rather than voice suspicion, she gave in to the torrent of desire that washed over her when his lips and tongue descended on her intimately.
Her first orgasm was quick and shallow; the second and third were good, but he kept right on going and ran her straight through into a fourth that was strong enough that she wasn't able to hold back a cry as her body tensed and practically levitated off the bed. Rafael smirked at her smugly as she came off her high, panting and a bit overwhelmed. "Good?"
"I need a minute," Liv breathed.
"Okay," he agreed, coming up to lie down next to her. "Do we need a safe word? Condoms, obviously –"
"I'm on the pill," she said.
"I'm not taking the chance," he said firmly. "I always have them on me. Don't read too much into that." He got up and went to get said condom from his wallet. "By the way, you're exquisite. Just so you know. Your ex is a moron."
She flushed, whether from pride or horror she wasn't sure. "Okay," Liv said cautiously. "I'm not sure if that was a compliment or –"
"Your eyes turn the color of amber crystals when you come," Raphael said. "Your cheeks get rosy, and your breasts, and it's the most glorious thing I've seen – Aphrodite come alive under my tongue. It's far more than a compliment, Olivia."
She grabbed him and pulled him to her for a hard, passionate kiss, teeth clashing for a moment with force as they attempted to orient themselves and failed. They fumbled and flailed, trying to find purchase of hands on slightly sweaty skin, but eventually realized that the glide only made the sensations that much better, leaving a thin layer of goose bumps in the wake of their touches.
His hand fell to her breast, cupping the weight of it, caressing her nipple, flicking it, making her bite down on his lower lip hard enough to cause him to wince. But she soothed it with a lick as they fell onto the bed in an unholy tangle. She groaned, realizing he was still in his boxers. "Get those off," she muttered, annoyed, kissing him again.
Rafael complied, yanking them down; her eyes widened at the sight of him. "Really, Sergeant?" he teased.
"I could arrest you for waving that thing around in public," she shot back, laughing.
He raised a brow, smirking. "Really?" He settled back into a comfortable position and she draped her leg over his, pulling him closer. He immediately retaliated by finding the sweet spot on the back of her knee that made her moan aloud shamelessly and press against him.
They kissed and explored each other, drinking in the delights and sweetness of new attraction and – dare she say it? love – until he finally muttered, "I want to be inside you. Olivia, please."
"Condom," she reminded him.
He retrieved it from where it had fallen on the floor and opened the package with shaky hands, before sheathing himself and climbing back onto the bed. "You're fucking gorgeous," he breathed, capturing her lips in a gentle kiss. "Every bit of you, Olivia."
She smiled and whispered, "You aren't so bad yourself, Rafael." She stroked his jawline, despite the stubble that was coming in, and wondered what it would be like to wake up with him every morning, what it would be like if they made a go of it. If they had a family.
Overthinking it. Overcomplicating it.
First the sex. Preferably with no panic attack.
He tucked her hair back behind her ear and smiled. "We still okay?" Rafael asked softly.
"Yeah," she breathed.
They were on their sides, facing one another, bodies pressed so tightly together you could barely tell where one began and the other ended. It was small, intimate, and just the way they wanted it. Rafael hitched her leg up over his hip and pressed against her core with the head of his sheathed cock; they both knew if anything would trigger her, it would be that. But she kept it together and breathed a low moan of startled pleasure into the flesh of his arm as he began the slow advance and retreat into her body.
By the time his hips were flush with hers, she was panting and yanked him to her lips for a hungry kiss. They both began to move; Rafael in a slow, steady rhythm, Olivia in a counterrhythm to make him move faster. The deep, hungry kisses didn't stop, nor the pleasurable fondling.
He lifted her leg slightly higher and thrust at a different angle. "Yes," Liv gasped. "Dear god, fuck yes –" He took that as encouragement and poured on the speed and enthusiasm. He hit the perfect spot and she came so hard she saw stars.
One of his hands was tangled in her hair; the other was dug into her ass, holding her firm as he finished; his profanities and praises spilling into muffled abandon in the flesh of her neck. He was shaking, but, then again, so was she.
"So good," he finally exhaled. But then he was gone, gone from her body, gone from her bed and her bedroom, and she was confused by the shift – only for him to come back from the bathroom naked with a warm wet washcloth. "C'mere," Rafael instructed gently, gesturing. He opened her thighs and gently washed away any trace of mess, then cleaned himself up and dropped the washcloth into the hamper. "Now we cuddle."
"You want to cuddle?" Liv murmured.
"I want you to be happy," he said simply.
She curled up in his arms and whispered, "I… I am happy. For once, I am."
"Good," he replied. "Was it the sex or –"
She shook her head. "I think it's just you."
She let him have his moment to preen; he deserved it.
TBC...