Olivia's different like this.

Her voice is deeper, guttural. She's vocal, a little vulgar. Demanding.

Moves against him, moans, just that little more responsive as he fucks her with two, then three fingers ("Three," she'd panted against his lips, sounding hoarse. "Fuck me with three."), riding his hand whenever he dares to slow, when his wrist nearly spasms with the odd angle and strain. It's fast (the build up wasn't), but she's wholly into this.

Her hands are placed on his shoulders, nails digging into the material of his shirt, his skin. Olivia's certainly going to leave marks, and there's something highly erotic about the idea of crescent moon shaped red indentations on him.

When she clenches and makes more high-pitched sounds, she grabs his arm, makes him stop, her mouth hanging open, quivering, and he waits for that shudder of her body, for her eyes to roll fully back into her head in a final release of pleasure, but she doesn't come, fights it and lets it ebb away instead.

"Fuck. Shit," she gasps, her eyes slipping closed as she draws in a few breaths and rocks herself against his hand with delicacy, riding out the waves of that almost-but-not-quite climax. "Okay. Keep going," she hums.

Elliot gets it then: she's edging herself, denies herself the climax, now to make it more powerful when she comes. It makes him go from hard to painful, aching for some relief. It's getting harder and harder not to just flip her and drive into her in the way he really wants, no matter how much he enjoys the sight of her unraveling in front of him, for him, her skin shimmering golden in the heat of the fire and her face flushed and wanton.

By God, she doesn't remember the last time she felt this kind of rush that wiped her brain clean from anything else in existence other than this very moment. She feels completely boneless, lightheaded from the way she's panting and gasping for air. Elliot's hands bite into the flesh of her hip as he's relentlessly pounding into her, his skin slapping against hers sounding like an angel's choir to her ears.

They are three rounds deep and she's four orgasms in (and Lord knows he's railed them out of her like she wouldn't have believed) chasing that fifth high when she already can't think straight.

She grips the lip of the island for leverage, although it's pointless, her thighs and hipbone will be pretty banged up by morning, and the thought makes her proud, makes her hornier as she gasps out his name.

"Elliot." And: "So good."

He fucks her hard and deep, and she's never been particularly loud, but she is tonight, because there's not a single reason to keep her voice down in this cabin. There's no one around to hear the obscenities that leave her mouth, except Elliot, and he's fully encouraging her to keep the filth coming. Whenever shyness creeps up on her, she defies its clutches, deciding to live in the moment, to celebrate this, because how often do they truly get the opportunity to say whatever they want without worrying about someone overhearing?

So tonight is liquid heat and orgasms that steal her breath away. It's 'Fuck me harder' and 'Slap my ass', and 'I'll do anything you want.'(She's not even going to think about why she said that, what it means.)

Around him she clenches, close, so so close, and he feels it, or simply knows, slipping his arms around her. He finds her clit, panting into her ear. "C'mon now", and rolls her between his thumb and finger. Within two seconds her knees buckle and she collapses onto the cool, smooth surface of the kitchen island. Elliot's not letting up, ramming into her with hard, pointed thrusts and then she's coming and coming with an intensity that makes her see purple sparkles, and she swears she goes deaf at the height of it, crying out her release in a mantra of: "Oh my god... oh my... fu-cking GOD… oh God!"

When she comes to, she's hardly standing, hot and sweaty, and Elliot's arm is still wrapped around her, but he's still now, his lips ghosting over her shoulders as he mutters: "That's it. Keep coming for me." and "Just come." And she realizes she is, moaning through clenched teeth, the noises deep and raw and stripped from human decency. Where they are joined it's wet and sticky, and she's not entirely sure, but she thinks she either squirted or peed herself–she's not nearly lucid enough to care either way–and she giggles hysterically when her face heats and her blood pumps in her veins like a freight train.

Elliot's gently stroking up her soft belly, down her spine with the other hand before he picks her up (she's too spent, so she just keeps laying there on the kitchen island, allowing her body to cool off) and gathers her in a tight embrace whilst she's still catching her breath, scattering kisses anywhere his lips can reach, and she's so grateful for tonight, this, him , that she gets misty eyed. She's completely spent and a little emotional, so she hugs him tight.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you," she breathes. "You have no idea how much I needed that."

His hand in her hair, playing with it, and he's so gentle now, she thinks she's going to shatter and cry.

"You okay?"

"Yeah," she nods, chuckling. "Not gonna be able to walk tomorrow, but otherwise fine." She definitely feels a pleasant burn between her legs, but that was the point. He reaches for the paper towels, stuffing a couple in her hand, and she wipes herself clean as best as she can.

After Elliot guides her to the sofa where their clothes are on a haphazard pile on the floor. Olivia plops down, taking a deep breath. She still feels comfortably numb in the head, but buzzing everywhere else. When Elliot offers her her glass she accepts it, smiling, settling against his body, her own humming with pleasure. One arm is wrapped around her, his fingers dancing across the skin of her upper arm, her breast, and she settles against his warm, slick body, placing a kiss on his collarbone.

"For being in our mid fifties, that wasn't too bad, was it?" she coaxes, smirking. There's no question whether Elliot enjoyed it, but she wonders what he thinks, if he thinks anything about it at all.

"Pretty damn fantastic if you ask me," he smiles. "Although I'm still not sure what this was."

"You need a summary?" Olivia teases, trying to underplay the vulnerability she feels, now, her fingertips drawing circles on his thigh.

"You don't wanna talk about it," he says, sounding matter-of-fact.

She wants to tell him it's not that, but a part of her really doesn't want to talk about Cassidy or Tucker while they're sitting here naked, still sticky and sweaty with sex and all kinds of bodily fluids, bathing in the afterglow.

"I just missed this," she says quietly, slipping her fingers into his. "Sex, where I don't think . I know I was… cautious? Insecure? Uncomfortable with the idea of… I don't know why, but it was hard for me to let go and be in the moment. After everything that happened… maybe I needed someone I trusted completely. I enjoy everything we do, but it felt safe to… want more? Allow myself to feel everything, to want things I enjoyed before… with you. I didn't feel that way with anybody else. Does that make sense?" She looks up at him, hopeful that he'll understand the things she doesn't say. That this was something she didn't share with the other men she's been with after Lewis–that something was taken from her, that she is only now getting back with him, because there's no other person in the world she trusts more with the most intimate aspects of her life, nobody else she trusts more not to hurt her.

"That makes perfect sense," His expression is soft. "Thank you."

"What for?"

"Trusting me. It means the world to me, Liv," he whispers, stunning her.

"Yeah?" She can't quite stop the smile that stretches across her lips.

Instead of answering Elliot cups Olivia's jaw, tilting up her head to capture her lips in an unhurried kiss, and she closes her eyes, allowing herself to fall into his gratitude and safety.

He tastes like wine, tastes like her, and the kiss makes her heady with its slowness. She revels in the warmth of his body, in their nakedness that underscores their intimate togetherness, and all she can think as she slips her arms around his neck is how much she loves this man, how much she loves the way he loves her. The heat from before is gone. There's no urgency in the way they touch and kiss and want each other. She breathes him in and out, their tongues touch and nudge, but it's tender and sweet and all-consuming in a different, quiet way. Against his lips Olivia smiles, breathes out the only thing that occupies her mind.

"I'm so in love with you."

Elliot is her end, her beginning, her everything in between.

After a week at the cabin where it was just them and peaceful quiet it feels unreal to sit in the car, on their way back to the city.

Olivia's excited to see Noah, not so excited for work, and she knows all good things come to an end, but she loved it here, their little sanctuary in the woods, a place to love and feel and heal.

They've found something priceless here, something that went past trust and comfort in each other, a closeness she wasn't quite sure she could have, even with Elliot. She ripped open the scars and let Elliot be there as she bled William Lewis out, letting him go.

It's odd to think that they return the same people, yet totally different. Stronger. Better. With each other. Mainly, however, for each other.

She looks out the window as Elliot steers the car onto the main road, watching the trees passing by, their stomping ground for a week. There's a melancholy she can't quite place, because wasn't it her who thought this place would be a little too woodsy? She smiles, props an elbow against the passenger door, thinking she's going to miss this. Waking next to Elliot under heavy and warm duvets. Late mornings filled with cuddling and lazy lovemaking. Walks in brisk air, kicking up susurrant leaves. Long nights by the fire, both of them drunk on love and wine. Sex. Lots and lots of sex whenever they wanted, wherever they wanted. It was pretty heavenly, the freedom of just being .

"I'm gonna miss it."

She's not aware she said it out loud until Elliot's hand finds hers resting in her lap, wrapping it in his, offering warm comfort.

"Me too."

She gazes at their joined hands, then looks at his profile and smiles.

"It's been pretty domestic, don't you think? You and me?"

He smirks, snorts, looking at her briefly. "Domestic isn't the first thing that comes to mind for me, but I guess so."

Rolling her eyes she puts her head against the rest, looking out the passenger window. Of course he thinks of the sex, there's been too much of it in the past week for his mind not to go there. "You know what I mean." She waits a beat, contemplating if she should say what she thinks of saying. "Was nice, you know? Waking up next to you every morning. Spending the days together…"

She feels Elliot's eyes on her profile now, his gaze hot and drilling, and she almost wants to backtrack when he doesn't say anything, because she can hear him think , and she doesn't know if that's good or bad. It's not like she's proposing anything, and she thinks she should tell him that, reassure him that she didn't mean it like that . Like she wants that, now, because she doesn't (It's just that she can't get it off her mind, either).

She wonders what that means. (She knows what it means.)

He's too quiet, which is not like him, so she needs to say something, and do it quickly.

"Elliot, I didn't-"

"I think we should move in together," he blurts out, and Olivia forgets to breathe. From her periphery she sees his head turn, glancing back and forth between the road and her, and he's waiting her out for a few long moments. There are a million things she wants to say, only she can't bring her mouth to work, to say anything.

"If you want. Not right away, not before the end of the school year, and we'd have to discuss it with Eli and Noah first." She can hear him swallow, his hand in hers turning sweaty. "I'm just saying if that's something you want… is… is that something you want?" He sounds insecure, rambling, his neck flushed with embarrassment, and then he's giving her an out. "s'okay if it's not."

It's not the out that she wants.

Olivia wants to know what it's like to build a life, to build a home. One could argue that she already tried that with Cassidy, but moving in with him hadn't been a next logical step in a blossoming relationship, it was an overreaction. It was utter fear at the idea of living alone, of not having anybody in her life who was going to miss her if she didn't come home.

The reasons she has for wanting this with Elliot are decidedly different, free of pretenses and guilt.

She wants it for the feeling of his arm draped around her middle and his face nuzzling her neck, for kisses that taste like sleep and morning breath that somehow taste sweet anyway. She wants it for rushed work days with coffees in to-go cups and drawn out pancake breakfasts on weekends with a teenager and a pre-teen who won't get out of bed. She wants a closet where it's more than a backup suit and a couple of spare boxers in her underwear drawer, and a bathroom where it's Elliot's main toothbrush and a full sized bottle of his cologne and shaving gel next to her skin care products.

Biting her bottom lip, she lets her mind wander, wondering what their life could look like together, and it should scare the crap out of her, and if she gives in to what's lingering just below the surface, she'll find that there's a part of her that's scared shitless that something could go wrong, that it could all blow up in their faces. But that's not what she says when she finally speaks.

"You mean it? You want to live with me?" It's hard to conceal how her heartbeat thumps in her veins with happiness and excitement, how there's a big fat smile splitting her face, now.

Elliot Stabler is asking her if she, by any chance, wants to move in together, and he's as far from keeping his cool about it as she is.

"Yes, I want to live with you." He's trying hard to sound casual, to keep a straight face as he squeezes her hand.

For a moment she thinks they shouldn't, that maybe there's only so much she deserves. That it's too much too soon, that they shouldn't consider anything before talking it through with the kids, that maybe he's not thinking straight because of too much sex and too little of an idea what every day life with her and Noah will be like. Then she remembers that this is Elliot, that they are on the same page, and they've been through enough shit since he came back (and well before that) for him to expect it'll all be smooth sailing. He doesn't ask because he expects to recreate a dreamy vacation, he asks because he wants to build a life with her, too.

Elliot.

Her.

The kids.

There's nothing else she can think of that she wants more, and if they weren't such casual people, she'd tell him that. Instead she takes a breath and shrugs. "Well, in that case–yes. I think we should put some thought into that."

Their eyes meet, his gaze soft and glassy, hers certain, both of them on the same page, open to everything their future together holds.

Not too long ago Olivia wasn't convinced that happiness was meant for her. It's now when Elliot picks up her hand and kisses her knuckles that she knows she found it.

Happiness–it's worth holding on to.

Worth fighting for.

Believing in.

Living.