AUTHOR NOTES:
Happy birthday, Katie! This is dedicated to you, not because it's your birthday, but because your story "Absolution" is absolutely breathtaking (both puns intended), and it took over my soul to the point that I desperately needed to be part of it and still have no choice but to continue torturing you with daily pleas for the third installment of this Unholy Trinity.
DUE CREDIT: the fics that first took residence in my brain a decade ago were written by whitemouse98K514 and much of the fic I've written has taken some inspiration from her (and a few other writers') stories.
"Contrition" began with a scene entirely provoked by "Deception" — a must read that has inspired many an erotic fic in the EO fandom.
As always, thankful for the kind, faithful, devoted beta that I don't deserve — LivEinziger. And thankful for valued notes from Lujahs.
TRIGGER WARNING! PLEASE NOTE RATING AND TAGS! If you are triggered by implied or dubious consent, do not read this. If you are unsure, please use caution and stop reading at any hint of discomfort.
The following italicized portion is an excerpt from "Absolution" by Lone_Lilly:
He goes back to his wife.
You help deliver his child.
Outside of his wife's hospital room, you pull away from his embrace and reach for his hand instead, squeezing it consolingly. He's slow to release you, and you see a familiar flash in his eyes, and you aren't surprised at all when he drags you into a nearby restroom and locks the door.
Exhaustion claws underneath the pain of your bruised ribs, but your body responds to him instantly as he bends you over the sink. You press your forehead against the mirrored glass as he drives his cock into you hard enough to make you whine.
His fingers slide over your mouth, gripping your jaw to silence you, and you bite down sharply on his palm, not even caring if you break his skin. The scent of his wife's blood has permeated your nose all day, mingled with the taste of your own as you tried to save her. You think it's apt that his will wash your sins away.
Absolution, again.
Your eyes flutter closed in acquiescence, just as his palm descends sharply on your breast. He doesn't give you enough time to process the pleasure as it unfurls down your spine before he slaps you again. Again.
"Look at me," he demands, and you open your eyes, feel your whole body melt at the look in his.
You don't even realize his fingers find your nipple until he pulls, and you gasp out at the pain, sudden and throbbing and exquisite.
"Again," you beg, and he laughs, dragging his thumb over your abused breast, causing heat to flare up under your skin.
"I decide that. You don't."
But he gives you what you ask for anyway. He always does.
"Contrition" — Part II of "The Unholy Trinity"
"Grab Liv; get her out of there."
She's undercover, bait for a rapist, and you're not there to protect her. The news of an outbreak at Sealview comes as a relief, any excuse to have her safely returned to you.
An hour later, they're out, but she doesn't arrive with Fin. He avoids your fiery eyes when he tells you about Harris. He says he got there in time, that Liv's just getting cleaned up, and you don't know it's a lie until she walks into the squad room.
There are bruises on her body, but these are not the remnants of ones she'd asked for. They are vibrant and new, and you did not put them there.
She is watching you as you stare down the wretched bold colors that wrap around her wrist, your heart beating wildly against the wall of your chest. You can't tear your eyes away from the familiarity.
Your body gets stuck there, relentlessly inspecting, while in your mind, you're seeing her — restrained, defenseless — but the erotic memories are distorting into horrors, and suddenly you despise yourself for every mark you've ever left on her skin. Because this one… this one shouts at you how fragile she is — the woman you thought invincible each time you brought that belt down on her body.
You even once admired your own work of art as she undressed for you.
It's not until this moment now that you realize you didn't do those things for her. She'd wanted it, you kept reminding yourself, but she did not create the beast you are; she only unlocked its cage. Your violence was always there — a gift from your father that you'd stifled, rejected, hated until she gave it absolution. Maybe you even knew that she would. You were sure of it from the beginning, even before you hauled her into that alley.
Maybe you're a predator who found the frailty that you needed, a defect in her that you could exploit.
You spend the rest of today at a distance, holding back from your clamoring need to corner her in the dark. But then you do. You tower over her as little as you can manage, keep your mouth as far away from hers as you can stand.
"What happened in the basement?"
It escapes your mouth despite the way you'd bitten down on your tongue for hours to keep from asking it. She lies. You watch a fear you've never seen before rise to her surface; it permeates your own skin. Her fear courses through you like ice water, settling in your bones. It locks up the beast's cage again, makes you regret ever letting it out.
Then she flees from your questions and from you, leaves you bracing yourself against her empty desk, the tendons and veins in your hands nearly bursting through your skin with their restraint.
It's your mind that gets lost this time, on a loop of your own viciousness as your body makes its way up the stairs, past the lockers and beds, and finally halts against the cold metal of the sink. You've come to wash away your sins, but your guilt runs deeper than skin and bone, and you're no more able than Lady Macbeth to clean your conscience with water and soap. Maybe it's your eyes that you should wash — rub them raw for what they've wanted, gauge them out for what they've been granted. It's your eyes that are even more evil than your hands. Your darkness has given them freedom for too long, and now they don't listen when you tell them to stay where they belong.
Time goes by, as quickly as ever, but you move slowly, carefully, thoughtfully. Your eyes are unruly, but your hands don't reach out. Your feet don't follow. Your mouth doesn't make claims. She relaxes into your restraint.
His bruises on her fade; her tiredness fades.
More time, and you begin to see the flickering wildness in her eyes again. The cage rattles. You quiet it.
Neither of you even breathes in the direction of the darkness. It's as though she's never seen it, never felt it, and the sharp electricity between you turns to ease.
"You take the east side; I'll go west," she says as you stick close to her in the crowded train station. You hesitate, watching her walk away as Gitano's knife slices through your memory for the millionth time.
Minutes later, she disappears.
You didn't kill the last man who'd hurt her, but you're ready to kill the next. All of your pent-up aggression sees an escape in Merritt Rook, and you lunge at him when he presses that button a second time. But then you hear the sound, and your body stills, your muscles relax. You sit back down in subtle relief at the game you're now sure you're playing. His tricks won't work on you. You've made her scream enough times to know when it's real.
"You crazy? They could have somebody watching the place."
You forget to be careful with the way you touch her when she shows up at the door of your temporary apartment. You wrench her inside, your fingers finding their place on her skin like they would a favorite amulet.
You know she didn't come here for herself, as much as you wish she had, but the fact that she's here to save your marriage makes you want to throw her up against the wall, just one last time.
She catches it in your eyes. She doesn't look away. The cage rattles. You quiet it.
She takes her clothes off even though she knows what it will do to you. Maybe she wants you to see the blank canvas of her skin, wants you to remember how it looks with your cum on her chest, your bite marks on her shoulder, your handprints on her breasts.
"A hundred to watch, two fifty to join."
Her offer to the other men horrifies and excites you. You imagine them sitting down to enjoy the show, imagine stripping off the rest of her clothing and bending her over the bed.
Later, she'll blame herself for your bullet wounds, but you're certain it was you. You who'd blown your cover, you who'd held onto her when she'd been pulled out of your arms, you who'd burned with rage and terror as he'd forced her through the bedroom door, out of your sight, you who'd nearly collapsed with relief when he'd left her safely outside.
And it had been you who'd sent your partner to your wife in the first place, who'd then sent her back to you.
"I think he's made me. How fast can you get up here?"
Your least favorite thing about being undercover, even if it's only for a moment in an airport, is that you can't behave as though you're supposed to be watching her six like both of your lives depend on it. You have to resist the tendency to intimidate anyone who approaches her with your who-the-fuck-do-you-think-you-are glare. You have to glance away, observe things other than her, but still, you remain diligent enough that when another man's fingers slide against her ribs, you clock it before they've closed around her bicep.
Her eyes snap to yours across the terminal — she wants you to see it. She wants your possessiveness to fester into violence again. But then her eyes change; the man isn't just another suitor, and the look you see reminds you of the day you locked the beast away. It is always quiet when she is afraid.
You can't get to her quickly enough.
Now there are three men with guns aimed at her head, and you're the only one of them that would never pull the trigger. But a bullet is in the chamber because you made a promise to yourself to kill the next man that harms her. Whether it's taking out Rojas along with your career or taking out Porter along with your freedom, you're ready to keep your promise if this goes wrong.
But when she falls, you forget revenge along with all your rules. You let your mouth call out her name again. You let yourself drop to your knees for her again. You let your hands grab her again, your arms pull her into you again, your fingers stroke her skin again. And you let Porter see it. Everyone there watches, but they don't see the darkness underneath the gentle desperation on display. The beast is always quiet when she is afraid.
"You helped me out of that mess with my brother. You saved my life three days ago, and I think it's time I properly thanked you."
Your jaw tightens at her words, well-chosen for Porter, intended for you.
"I think it's time you properly thanked me."
She'd been splayed on her back for you, as you'd stood at the foot of the bed, her body exhausted but still pulsing with ecstasy, her neck bent back over the edge of the mattress, your erection sliding between her lips. You'd bent over her, your cock deep in her throat as you'd kissed her nerves, dipped your fingers inside her, felt her buck against your chest, lurching with each thrust, maybe from pleasure, maybe for air. She had endured it until you came — the proper thanks you'd demanded.
Now you pace to lull the raging lust as you hide and wait and listen. She didn't need to put that red dress on to get Porter to her apartment, doesn't need to be using that coaxing voice to get him to relax, doesn't need to have her mouth on his to keep him close enough. She's doing it for you — to you. You're sure of that. She wants your vile eyes to remember the sight of that dress yanked up over her waist, wants your wicked ears to remember the sound of her voice asking your permission to come, wants your entitled mouth to remember the taste of your climax lingering on her tongue.
But she's all business again as she hurries into the room where your every muscle is restrained. She notices, gives you her self-assured eye contact, and you start to wonder if you could let yourself have her again. You think you might show up at her door tonight, drag her into the shower, wash that man off of her skin, and punish her for letting him touch her.
And she watches you think it. Waits for you.
But as she waits, you realize that all of this self-control has become a beast of its own. A power that eludes hers. A new way to punish her, a new method that could shift the power to your side — leave her hungry for your hunger.
And so you'll watch her writhe instead of feeling her writhe beneath you. You'll wait for her need to fester into a desperation that brings her low enough that she might actually ask for what she wants from you, rather than merely allowing you to have it.
Tonight, she gets no more reaction from you. Tomorrow, you're a new calm, an old ease.
You let your shoulders brush hers again, you let her catch your eyes wandering again, you let yourself stay at your desk past dark again. You let her think she's going to break you.
And it goes on like this for weeks: a white-hot, fragile stalemate, invisible to onlookers.
"Ever sleep with your partner, detective?" She doesn't need to be a good liar to give your son the right answer. Never — you'd never wasted any time on sleep.
Your family is testing the limits of your resolve this week: your son in defiance of you, your wife in control of you. It's filling your body with frustration and fury, but Olivia still hasn't asked you to take it out on her.
In the park, you barrel past her to throw your fists against a boy who calls her a bitch, and you're so pent up that when she reaches out to calm your anger, it redirects onto her instead. She absorbs it like she always has, stumbling barely a step back — but she's not against the edge of a mattress like you need her to be, where you would lay her down and give her the rest of your rage and then release it all from her body.
Instead, your anger stays in her, and her hands become rough and forceful against you, her voice harsh and demanding. Now, rather than being your relief, she's just one more disappointed person you love. Your kids, your wife, your partner — all tightening the restraints, making them unbearable.
Until finally the beast escapes, aimed at your son, but at the corner of your eye, you see her there, ready to step in front of it, willing to ask for whatever you require to protect you from yourself. You take a breath; the heat hovers on your skin, then seeps back into the muscles of your arms and spreads itself through you again, where you know it will only have to be contained a while longer. You're nearly ready to surrender.
But nothing cools your fires like the woman who appears in front of you, blocking you from her son, before your partner can.
"I know that men have needs, and when a wife can't fill those needs, men have to look elsewhere, but sometimes those needs are misunderstood. Judged unfairly by society." — She always knows how to make the most of an undercover act, this persuasive partner of yours. She gets off on speaking like this, where everyone can hear her words but only you know whom they are really for.
A couple weeks ago, you actually thought you had her, thought she was ready to crumble at your feet. Today you finally realize that you don't have whatever it takes to penetrate Olivia Benson's invulnerability. She won't ever stoop to ask for anything; she'll just raise the bar higher and higher, subtly choking the suppression out of you.
Ash Ramsey is the perfect tool, and she devotes herself to using it: she makes a show of her want for the things he silently offers her. She knows you can hear the way she keeps deferring to him. She knows you can see how she gravitates toward him instead of you. She knows you can feel the threat of another man who is capable of doing your job.
And apparently you don't hide your reactions very well, because your perp finds out that Olivia is someone you love, and now you've been pacing for hours at the thought of her and her tool locked safely together all night in his apartment.
The morning comes, but you can't read her, can't tell if she's betrayed you. She's elusive and evasive, and you're backed into a corner — exactly where she wants you. You'll have to either stay there or go through her. You know she's counting on the latter.
"You're my partner. If anybody has your back it should be me." But she's giving this to him too — another part of her that is yours, and you can only stomach another second of this by letting your mind run wild with what you'll do to punish her for their sins. As she slips her bag over her shoulder and turns away, you decide on it, and then you plan it all out while they conspire to rid you of your sanity.
You turn the key as though it's your own, no double knock to warn her of what's coming. Her lock clicks open, and so does yours, and it's too late to stop the darkness when you catch sight of him beside her.
She fumbles for words that explain to him why you're here with her key in your hand, but you make no excuses for yourself. This other man already knows that she belongs to you, and he packs up the preface of his briefcase and brushes past you as he quickly leaves.
You are pure stoicism as you ignore her piercing gaze and walk slowly down the hall and into the bathroom. You run steaming water into the deep tub that stands in the corner, and you feel her cautiously behind you, her hand against the doorframe as she watches and waits. You don't look up from the rushing faucet.
"Get in."
"Why." She whispers, because she wants to hear you say it.
"Get in." Still, she doesn't comply.
"Elliot. We didn't—" She wants to claim she's innocent, now that she's certain she has you, but she's made her bed, and you're going to lay her down in it.
"Get. In." This time, it's a warning, your eyes firmly on hers, and this time, she obeys, but there's a defiance in the way she boldly undresses for you. She lets her clothes fall in a pile between your bodies, and then she steps into the bathtub, her skin pinking at the heat, her eyes unreactive to the way yours linger on her nipples as the water settles around her.
Your fingers ache to touch her, but you are patient with your plan. She focuses on the faucet, watching from the side of her eye as you unbutton your shirt and toss it aside. She swallows at the clanging of your belt and doesn't gaze eagerly like she used to as you free your length for her to see.
Your palm rests gently around the back of her neck and nudges her forward, her knees tucking against her chest. Lowering yourself behind her, your calves and thighs slide past her hips as you cage her between your legs. When the water threatens to spill over the edge of the tub, you lean over her, your chest bumping into her back as you turn it off. You feel her full-body shiver as she watches you take a bar of soap in your hand. You rest your back against the tub and trail your eyes down her spine before your fingers follow, the bar of soap pressed between your palm and her skin.
She jolts at the lightness of your touch, goosebumps rising along the paths that your fingers. When you're done, you set the bar of soap aside and use both hands on her skin, kneading your thumbs into the tight muscles at the base of her skull as you listen to her exhaling in stifled relief. You move lower, pressing deep on either side of her spine, and her body unfurls, her back straightening, her hands relaxing against your legs.
"Lean back," you rasp, and her shoulders fall to your chest while your hands make soapy paths across her clavicle, between her breasts, over her stomach, and along her sides. Finally, you let your palm brush over her piqued nipples, and she forgets to hide a moan that makes your erection pulse against her back. Your fingertips tease in soft slow circles that make her arch into your hands. You palm her breasts roughly, your thumbs and pointers squeezing her nipples until they slip from your grip. Your throat hums at the wincing sound she makes, so you do it until she's openly moaning, until you feel her hand reaching behind her back to stroke you.
Your right hand leaves her breast, and an instant later, she cries out at the sudden force of your fingers yanking down on her hair.
"Ask." You growl.
She moves her hand away instead, but you don't mind waiting to hear her beg. You slide your hand back down her chest, her stomach, her thigh, and over her bent knees.
"Open your legs." You know she'd prefer you just use your hand to force them open, but you like to make her obey you. You hear her swallow, and then she does. She lets her knees rest against the sides of the tub as you smooth your palms along the insides of her legs. You feel her body tense when your fingertips graze over the crease of her thigh and then glide slowly closer to her core. The pad of your thumb pauses to brushes over her nerves, letting a couple torturous minutes go by before you press two fingers to her entrance. You feel her tighten around them as you slowly push into her. Her hands grip your legs as she instinctively lifts her body for you, her head falling back against your shoulder, but you don't feel her lips on your neck, don't hear her moans of approval in your ear.
She's not yet ready to surrender.
You pull your fingers from her and wrap your arm tightly around her waist, turning her onto her side and pressing her chest to the wall of the tub. Now your fingers have the space you need to fuck her pussy from behind. She cries out once when you shove them quickly into her again, but then her hand grips the edge, and she clenches her jaw as she takes your forceful thrusts with only the resolute sounds of quiet gasps until the muscles in your arm tremble with exhaustion. You hear her ragged breath of relief when your movements pause, your fingers resting deep inside her.
Before she can inhale, you provoke her with your thumb against her other entrance, making her lurch, coaxing her to beg you for mercy, to do what she must to earn your tenderness, but instead she grabs angrily at your wrist, digging her fingernails into your skin as she clings to you, keeping tension on your arm as you threaten to go further, to push into her.
But you don't. You just hold her there, letting her muscles slowly give out from the effort of holding you back, reminding her that she can't match your strength, no matter how much willpower she has.
"I'm sorry," she finally relents in a whisper, then apprehensively, carefully lets go, returns her grip to the edge of the tub, where she rests her forehead over her knuckles and hopes for your forgiveness. As your fingers maintain their dominant hold inside and against her, you press your lips to her neck, and you can't help but leave a bold mark that another lover would find. She doesn't complain, and that appeases you.
"Stand up." The low timbre of your voice echoes into the quiet room as you release her. You watch the steam rise from her skin as she cautiously complies, and then she waits as you give your hands time to skim slowly over the back of her thighs before you turn her gingerly around.
You take her wrist, nudging her down onto you as you move forward, leaving space for her legs to wrap around your waist. She settles into your lap, her mound pressing against your cock, testing the patience of your plans for tonight.
Her brown eyes are fixed on you, hints of arousal showing through her determination to hide it. Her mouth is closed, the space above her top lip glistening with sweat even as the water cools and goosebumps appear on her arms. For a minute, you forget the need to punish her as you lift your hands to her face. For a minute, your thumbs trace her cheekbones as you pull her mouth to yours, and when your arms drop down to wrap around her waist and haul her stomach and chest tight against yours, for a minute, you're the version of yourself that isn't all pain and purging, that would offer this woman so much more than just one monstrous version of you. For a minute, while you lift her just enough to slide your cock inside her, you can access the person you'd destroyed with all these years of your choices. She sinks into you, her arms around your neck as she opens her mouth to your tongue, yielding the version of herself she'd once freely offered, before she knew you'd never choose her.
But it is only a minute before you feel the subtle shift in the way she kisses you, the way she takes herself from you again for all the wrong you've done. The small space she creates between your bodies and your souls makes you angry: she somehow holds all the power, this woman who has mastered the art of completely submitting herself to you, physically and mentally, while still refusing to give you what you want most.
"What would've happened if I hadn't shown up?" you ask into her mouth, not letting her pull further away as you rock your hips up. She arches her back to lessen your depth, her fingers digging into your shoulders as you press her down, burying your cock deeper into her heat.
"He's just a friend," she carefully breathes under your fiery, attentive gaze.
Your right hand travels up from its secure hold on her waist and flattens against her collarbone, your fingertips tracing the base of her throat.
"Answer my question," you command.
"Nothing would've happened," she tries to assure you while your palm inches up higher, feeling her swallow beneath her lie. You smirk to let her know that you're not fooled, that you're going to get the truth from her.
"You weren't going to fuck him?" the beast growls and lifts her up enough to slam back into her, savoring the pained sound she makes.
"No," she says unwavering, grinding her hips against you in willful deference, her eyes as cynical as yours. "Why does Ash bother you so much?" she digs, alluringly brave as always.
"Ash," you scoff at the nickname. Your eyes inspect her neck, a threatening smile on your lips as you tilt her head to the side, your thumb putting unnecessary force under her chin. "You made sure that son of a bitch bothers me. Didn't you?" Your mouth finds her quickening pulse point, and you run your tongue and drag your teeth over it and up to her ear, feeling her flinch as you bite down on the soft skin there.
"I didn't—" she argues, a new frustration in her tone.
"You wanted me to be jealous, huh Liv? You win." You interrupt her, hissing through gritted teeth against her ear as her fingers clutch the back of your biceps to anchor herself. "You know what that means for you." Your voice rumbles, your hand tightening around her throat, your cock pulsing with anticipation inside her.
"Not everything is about you," she bites back, suddenly wrenching her neck away from your hold as her forearm shoves yours away from her body. You smile as she moves to lift herself from your lap, tries to unwrap her legs from your waist in the resolutely calm manner of someone who thinks you'll let her. You merely lock her knees under your armpits, keeping her legs around you as your hands easily hold her hips in place.
"So all that was about him then?" you question her, closer to the edge of your breaking point than she can see. "Have you slept with him?"
"What if I did?" she mocks angrily, her body and yours locked in tension as you hold her still, a caustic grin on your face. "You want me to tell you about it? You want to hear about all the other men I've fucked, Elliot?" She is daring you, amused and unaware of how soon she'll wish she hadn't lit your fuse. "Or should we talk about your sex life?"
Your quieted rage bursts through its exhausted barriers. A white heat storms through your limbs, numbing and blinding you to all else as it takes control.
In the next clear breath, you see that your hand is locked tight around her throat, the back of her shoulders pressed to the bottom of the tub. You feel her fingernails digging into your forearms as she holds onto you, trying to stay calm, like you'd told her to the first time you'd held her underwater. You hear the light splashing from the way her body instinctively arches and twists in vain, making your climax nearly inevitable as you keep holding her down in the deep tub. Your head reflexively falls back as her writhing brings you to the verge, but then you feel her fingernails moving up your arm, where she squeezes desperately on the inside of your elbow. At this signal, everything else stops, a testament to your practiced self control, and you tear her up out of the water as quickly as you'd driven her down, hauling her heaving chest against yours.
While she's still gasping for air, you secure one arm around her back and one against the edge of the tub, lifting her up with you as you stand and step watchfully out of the water alongside her. Shakily, she pulls away from you, her breathing still ragged as she disappears into the hallway. You follow quickly behind her, catching her bedroom door against your palm as she tries to close you out.
"I'm not done with you," you call after her, taking a few wide steps to catch up as she reaches into a basket of clean laundry. You close in on her, snatching a towel from her hands before she can finish wrapping it around herself. As she looks up at you in disbelief, you nod toward her bed, but you don't give her the chance to resist your directions — instead, you yank her toward it, whip her around to face you, and toss her back onto the mattress.
"Where are they?" You ask, after rounding the bed frame to rummage through her nightstand. She doesn't answer, familiar enough with your impatience to know you'll find what you're looking for a second later in the far right corner of the top drawer.
With her handcuffs gathered, you return to the bottom of the bed where she sits now, calmly waiting for you. She fearlessly meets your eye as you tower over her, never one to cower at your intimidations.
"Ready to answer my questions?" you prod, showing her the cuffs in your palm before you sweep the back of your hand tenderly along her jawline. She lets her cheek rest ever so slightly against your knuckles, priming you for her own revenge.
"If you're ready to hear my answers," she coos, her lips brushing your skin as she speaks with rekindled defiance. You smirk as you crouch down, placing your hands on her knees as you meet her eye level. You raise your eyebrows and nod at her, conveying both that she should go on and that she should do so carefully. "I slept with Ash the night we met him."
You use your fingertips to ground yourself, inching up the steely muscles of her thighs.
"Right here in this bed," she continues, looking casually over her shoulder as water drips from her hair and snakes down her chest. "And then again in his, while we were in lockdown." You slowly stand up straight, bristling and chuckling at the irony of how she'd ended up in that lockdown: being the "someone you love" yet another perp had used to rattle you. They've all known that Olivia is yours — every other violent person who's dared glance in her direction.
You doubt they'd have so easily seen the same returned in her eyes, given how coolly she looks past your naked body now, as if trying to recall mundane details.
"A few times actually… we couldn't sleep." A little smile plays on the corner of her mouth as she spurs you on, and you smile back in the way you reserve for an arrogant perp you're about to take down a notch.
"Did this to yourself," you chide as you hold your empty hand out to her, gesturing for her to give you something she owes. She places her wrist in your palm and lets you lock it into one of her handcuffs and then the other.
"Get up," you demand, staying close enough that your erection rubs against her stomach as she stands in front of you. You take hold of her hips, feeling the hard ridge of her bones in your palms as you turn her around to face the bed, pressing her thighs tight to the mattress.
"Bend over," you whisper in her ear. "Hands above your head," you add as she starts to lean forward. You groan, grinding yourself against her ass as she rests her stomach and chest on the white sheets.
She watches you as you move back to the nightstand, where you take hold of a charging cord that stretches from the nearby outlet, and you wrench it from the wall before returning to her side. You loop the cord between her wrists under the chain of the handcuffs and then wrap it around the familiar metal frame that runs along the top of her bed, tying it with military skill after you pull her body taut. You round the bed once more and stroke yourself as you take in the sight of her from behind, jealousy bubbling inside you at the thought of his eyes leering, his hands touching what doesn't belong to him.
"You belong to me," you growl as you step forward, letting her feel how you're ready to take her. Your hands grope at her hips. "This belongs to me," you emphasize as you squeeze her flesh roughly in your palms and press your tip against her wet entrance. She stays silent, not agreeing with you like she'd once been trained to do, so you plunge into her, hearing only a harsh intake of breath through gritted teeth at your impact. You fuck her hard, your hips pummeling her ass as your hands bruise her hips, but still she doesn't make a sound.
You let go of her skin, leaving colorful echoes of your fingers on her sides as you smooth your hands up her backbone and over her shoulders. You lean over her, your left hand wrapping gently under her throat; your right traveling further up to grasp her jaw, and then you wrench her head back, bending her spine, stretching her neck up toward you so you can reach her lips with yours. The restraints pull at her wrists as she struggles to support the weight of her lifted body, her independence always fighting your control.
"Say it," you hiss into her mouth, your hips pushing forward, pressing your length as deeply into her as you can. Her cervix rubs over your shaft, adding another layer of pleasure as you rock tightly against her body, giving her a moment to consider her options. She lets out a small groan at the tension burning through her joints and muscles, but no words follow, despite the punishment she knows will come.
After a few silent seconds, you place an apologetic kiss on her temple and release her throat, letting her chest fall back to the bed. Then slowly, you pull your cock from inside her, and you can't help but smile at the hitch in her breath as you step away entirely, leaving her secured to the bed frame, bent over, splayed out for you.
The buckle of your belt clatters against the tile as you lift the pile of your clothes from the bathroom floor and carry it the few steps back into her bedroom. It's there just behind her that you loudly slide the leather out of the belt loops and let the clothing fall back to the rug. You can see the strain in the muscles that run along her spine, the tremble in her calves, the anticipation of your next touch. The worn belt folds in half easily in your hands, and she flinches when you lightly snap it, checking that it's ready to do its job.
"Obey me, Olivia," you offer once more. She braces herself instead.
The thick line of red that blooms across the back of her right thigh is instantaneous, the crack so loud that you barely hear the yelp she tries to muffle against the bed sheets. She shifts her legs, trying to shield the already-bruising thigh, but the second whip comes faster than she expects, too fast for her to hide the scream that comes out against her will. The new mark barely spreads beyond the lines of the first, and you consider testing your aim once more but instead choose a blank part of your canvas. The leather strap melts into the supple flesh of her ass, and you watch her angry skin swell as you crack the belt down again on the other side. When you leave a fifth welt on her left thigh, she moans so pathetically that you decide to give her another chance to surrender.
You hear the shift of relief when the weapon falls to the bed beside her, and you step forward, pressing your thighs to hers again and feeling the heated shapes you've left there. You rest your hand over another of the marks to feel the warmth of it on your palm.
"You belong to me," you firmly repeat in a low, quiet tone as you begin to trace the outline of the welt. Over and over, your finger drags along the sore edges you've made on her soft curves.
"I know," she mewls into the damp skin of her arm.
"Not good enough," you caution her. For a week, she's had you pressed under her thumb, and now finally you have her under yours, and you'll get what you require.
"Don't… please just don't." Her voice is a muffled protest, but the aching contempt in it is unmistakable. She resents you for insisting on this tonight, after years of belonging to other people, years without the shame of voicing this wretched truth: that she is entirely yours. But she is the one who disturbed the quiet she'd grown used to. She's the one who made a display of giving herself to another man, made a show of your jealousy, and you are here so that she can atone for that. You'll leave her reeling just as she's left you.
You step back for only the seconds it takes to flip her over and shove her further onto the bed. Then you climb on top of her, spreading her legs around your waist. In an instant, you force your cock back inside her, and before she takes in a full breath, your fingers clamp onto her nipples, making her cry out in pain and pleasure, her eyes brimming with tears at the sensation. You fuck into her and pinch her harder and harder, watching her pull uselessly at the handcuffs and hearing her whine despite her resolutely sealed lips.
"Say it," you rumble, twisting your grip to break her resolve, to make her scream as you rail against her.
"Okay!" her shrill plea finally comes, stopping your hands and thrusts immediately. You watch an unruly tear spill down her temple as she squeezes her eyes shut, catches her breath, and wills herself to submit to you. You give her an extra minute of mercy, lowering your mouth to her breasts as they rise and fall. You take one of her tender nipples and then the other into your mouth, letting her feel your teeth carefully graze her skin as you soothe them with your tongue.
"I belong to you," she stubbornly whispers, earning awhile more of your gentleness.
"Again," you hum as you move down her body, settling your waist between her legs as your lips land softly on her ribs, her stomach, her hip bone.
"I belong to you," she repeats a second later, her resolved voice so quiet that you barely hear it above the sound of her breathing.
Pacified, you lower yourself further, spreading her open, your hands on her ankles as your mouth explores between her thighs. You stay there despite the way your erection throbs for release at the sound of her pleasured moans, your fingers slipping inside her as your tongue expertly guides her to the verge of her orgasm. You pause there because you can't help but make her whine your name before you hungrily steer her over the edge, feeling her thighs tighten around your head as her walls squeeze your fingers. When she's trembling and curling away from you, you hold her down a moment longer, reveling in the way she shudders when your lips graze her sensitive core. You open her legs wider as you climb back up her body, dragging her knee up and tucking it under your arm where you can hold her still as you sink back into her and grind hard against her clit, making her gasp and moan at the overstimulation until she's contracting around your cock again, her eyes closed and her mouth open as her pleasure pools on the bed beneath you, and then your restraint is spent. You pull away only to drive into her, again and again, reveling in the way she keens as you near your own ecstasy.
"Elliot… Elliot, wait," you hear her stammering between your thrusts. For this woman — who would sooner say "I belong to you" than admit defeat — there's no safe word needed. A word as rare as "wait" brings you to an abrupt pause as you search her averted eyes. "You have to pull out," she informs you in one hurried breath, and the words and all of their nonexistent history slice into you, clawing at your pride and then cutting deeper.
You hadn't missed the line of condoms in her drawer all these years, hadn't been unaware of the little pills she usually remembered to take, but those were things for other men. The two of you have never once acknowledged the reality of what you're doing, the potential outcomes. Maybe a sick part of you even hoped that she'd been unfazed by the potential consequences. With an unplanned baby already at home, it's shameful how settled you've always been by the risk of fathering a child with the partner you liked to bend over into the back seat of your police cruiser.
Maybe you'd even been waiting for it, trying for it — the only bomb that could implode your catholic marriage.
Your fingernails dig into the nape of her neck as your thumb presses her chin up. You hover over her, her heat on your breath just above her mouth as she waits for your reaction. And then you kiss her hard, your tongue shoving past her lips before you pull away and drag your mouth down her jawline.
And it's right here and now, your body entangled with your partner's that you realize there's no end in sight. No beginning around the corner. You can keep banging down the door to this apartment for another ten years, but you'll still have to go home unsatisfied to your unhappy wife, because you're not getting any closer to some inescapable force that will rearrange the women in your life: yours to not yours, and yours to all yours. You're getting further from it. Further from her.
Your anger does the job it was built to do, boiling up inside you to cover up this thing her words have cut into — the pathetic seat of your rage: your corrosive need for her, your oppressive desire for her. And it's the thought that she does not want more than this — that she would rather toy with the caged animal inside you than tame it — that makes you want to humble her.
"Turn over," you mutter into her ear, and you let her struggle with the restraints and dig her heel against the bed to twist around while still penned underneath you. Your hand stays around her neck as her body turns over, your thumb now at the base of her skull as her throat swallows against your fingertips.
With your knees on either side of her waist, you reach into the open drawer of her nightstand to find the key for her handcuffs. You unlock one and release the cord that's been stretching her body out over the bed, but you don't let go of her hands. Instead, you pull her arms behind her back, cuffing her like a perp you've tackled to the ground. She doesn't waste her breath or energy on struggling against you, knowing it's no use when she's entirely at your mercy.
You take her with you as you get off the bed, grabbing onto her waist and and hoisting her up to her feet in front of you, and as soon as her ear reaches your mouth again, you give her your next command.
"Get on your knees."
You watch closely for hesitancy, because you're aware of the things she once refused to tell you, but you wouldn't dare treat her with any delicacy she did not ask for. There is none. She gets on her knees as though she's thankful, as though she meant to incite this degradation for the distance it offers. Your fingertips rake through her hair with enough force to tug her head back, and she looks up at you with all the shades of someone caught trying to escape. You'll pardon this one trick of hers for the sake of seeing her kneel before you, her hands behind her back, your cock inside her mouth.
When you come, you let her taste it on her tongue before driving forward, spilling yourself down her throat. You feel her constrict hard around your shaft as she tries to breathe, tries to pull away, but you don't let her, so she swallows again and again to keep from gagging as you pulse against her lips.
You release her when you're ready, giving her a moment to gasp for air before tangling your fingers back into her messy hair and making her eyes meet yours. Your thumb gently swipes over her mouth, wiping a drop of your cum from her lips as you bend down to kiss her goodnight.
You lock her apartment door behind you, having left the key to her handcuffs in her palm after you'd gotten dressed while she waited on her knees.
Tomorrow, she'll find excuses to avoid you.
A week will go by before she looks you in the eyes again. It will be two months before she touches you, a year before she seems entirely at ease, and it's then that your old partner Jo Marlowe will show up and rattle you both.
You find yourself reaching over the console as you drive, reminding her that she's yours with your fingers between her legs.
You press her forehead to her locker as you shove into her from behind.
You catch her on the roof and put her on her knees.
You show up at her door, fuck her quietly in her bed while Calvin sleeps in the other room, and you are careful not to bring attention to the way she's letting you comfort and not just punish her. You're unaware that it's an ending, that it's the night before the lines all blur.
"I found the swab yesterday, I know that you didn't send in Calvin's DNA..."
"Well, Liv, make a decision. Your call..."
"Liv, it was always temporary…"
After that, she pushes you away, tells you to keep your hands off of her, and you do because you know you can't fix the pain she's in this time. And you know you've played your part in causing it.
You stay away until your own pain brings you back to her door, ready to be the one that falls at the other's feet, ready to ask for what you really need. And it's in this desperate moment — the shooting of a grieving girl on your conscience, her blood still on your knees — that the key does not turn in the lock. You try again, and still the mechanism doesn't work. You turn the metal ring over in your hand, checking that you have the right key before you try once more. The door doesn't open.
You don't know the new locks aren't there to keep you out — that it had taken her landlord months to finally change them after Brady Harrison had broken in. You don't know that only a few feet away, just inside her apartment, there's a drawer with an extra key she hadn't been brave enough to give you.
You don't know that she is waiting for you, that she'll keep waiting for a decade.
