II. Exhale
You tremble.
Elliot slides the flimsy material of your underwear down your legs slowly, takes his time. Looks at you.
He's deliberate, his knuckles skating across the expanse of your foot, the apex of your toes before he drops the whisper of black fabric by the foot of the bed.
You're panting, heart racing. He brought you close enough to need more, put an ache between your legs that needs taking care of, needs mending. Your thighs are closed, your legs slightly bent, and your feet flush against the mattress as he takes you in, all of you. You're searching for a hint of revulsion or caution, but only see something like adoration in his face, maybe pride.
He's here with you, here for you. You feel it in his touch as he smooths his hand back up your shin, parts your knees with hardly any pressure until you open your legs for him, your breath slower now, labored.
You don't know the touch of his bare hand against your flesh, anticipate it as he follows the trail of your inner thigh to the most intimate part of your body. Your legs shake with the intensity of the moment, with the murmur of his searching hand as he makes himself comfortable to your right.
When his fingers spread out on you it's effortless. You're slick with arousal, and he moves against you with no resistance at all, strokes your lips, makes you quiver again. He's light, easy, slips his thumb to your entrance, massages the slippery gates of what he has yet to discover.
You pant out a moan as he puts some pressure behind his touch, and you arch towards him, into his thumb. He watches your reaction; he's serious, focused. Knows exactly what you want. What you need.
He twists his hand against your throbbing heat. The stretch is instantaneous. He works one finger inside you and your eyes close at the sensation, the friction, the slight curl the moment his hand settles fully against you. He groans, a deep sound rolling from his throat, and it does you in, makes you crave more as he reaches deeper.
He's sumptuous, takes his time to get to know you, revels in the way you feel. He seems to marvel at your wetness, your texture, your warmth. His eyes never leave you and they are deep and dark and a shade of blue you've never seen. Not on him, not on anyone.
You thought you knew what lust looks like. Clearly, you were wrong.
You want another, can take another, bite out half a curse when he pulls back as far as he can without losing touch, only to plunge back inside.
"Fu-" It ends on a gasp, impels him, too, because he starts fucking you: leisurely pullback, pointed thrusts.
The rhythm is maddening, and as if he can read you, he adds one more, giving you the stretch, the friction your body demands to be propelled closer.
They are thick, his fingers. Thick and perfect, and the rhythm he finds as he works your depths, makes you tense with the need to come. He lays down beside you, drapes one muscular leg across one of yours. He's so, so hard against your hip, his breath hot against your shoulder, and your legs push a little farther apart.
"Tell me," he sounds gruff, strangled, and somehow you find only one word, one demand in the thicket of your desires.
"Harder."
And you get what you ask for. He fucks you, his fingers plunging into you vigorously, making you wonder if he puts everything into it he's restrained himself from when you were still partners.
His face is close, and so are you, and as you revel in the burn of his fire, your body ignites. He eats your cry, devours your lips, consumes you.
Elliot kisses like you couldn't have imagined, boisterous and engrossing. Affirming. Through his mouth you learn what it means to be resuscitated, what it means to feel alive.
Faster and faster he drives into you, and the build is quick now. You tense, your muscles constricting, and your walls grip him, pull him into place. Two, three more thrusts and you spill your release against his lips in a deep, tattered moan of pleasure.
Your thighs shake and your lips fall away from his as you take a ragged breath. You feel the claws of a mild tension headache that you've all but forgotten, something that only comes with strong orgasms for you, and you haven't had one of those for longer than you care to remember.
While you try to catch your breath he slowly slips out of you, lazily dragging his hand up your stomach, your chest. He nuzzles your ear, sinks his fingers that are coated with your silk into your disheveled hair. You're overcome with emotions you can't quite place; relief or gratitude, gratification, too. You keep your eyes tightly shut at the tickle in your nose, the burn behind your eyelids.
"Hey," he breathes, knowing. Always knowing. "Liv."
"I'm okay," you say thickly. And you are. You're better than you've been in years. Your eyes snap open, and there's a wet shimmer in them as you slowly comprehend that this is really happening, and in an act of insecurity that he could slip away, you turn into him, hold onto him, and mold your lips to his.
"You sure? Seems like you've got something in your eye there." He saves you in every way tonight, and it feels good to have the heaviness yanked away. You chuckle, and so does Elliot when you pull yourself half onto him, scold him. His smile is small, but brilliant.
"Shut up."
"Really, though. Are you? Okay?"
He's serious now, concerned, his fingertips settling against your hip. His gaze gravitates to your breasts and in a moment of self-consciousness you press them against his chest, tip your lips to his chin.
"Really. I'm just…"
You're searching for words, but everything you can think of might be a catalyst for a conversation you're not ready to have. You lift your head just enough to look at him, finding him with his brows slightly drawn together, thoughtful. Aware of what you just did.
"Don't hide from me."
"I'm not." Your words contradict your actions. You can't explain. It's not that you're ashamed, not anymore. Unfortunately you're not confident, either. You haven't felt fully comfortable in your skin since Lewis. Slowly you take a breath. "I'm not," you say again, soft. "It's just…" You try again, swallow. "Don't ask me tonight."
You sound small, feel small. Elliot's eyes widen with recognition of what you're asking, his hand slipping further up your back, tucking you against him, his touch, the pressure of his fingertips reassuring.
"I won't. I wasn't gonna, Liv." He cocks his head. "This is on your terms. Whenever you're ready."
There's a long pause and you nod slowly, processing. This can't be easy for him, relinquishing all control over the timing of this conversation to you, if you're ever even ready. You could be tempted to give him your case file, spare him from wearing the brunt of your emotions.
You're okay, but talking about it can trigger things for you, night terrors, PTSD, anxiety attacks. If you can prevent any of those, you consider it a win for you and Elliot, both.
You're not sure what all this means, where it will leave you. You know the way he tastes now, the way he kisses, touches you, the way you were literally wrapped around his fingers. You want this to last, want it to be a step towards something that includes the both of you, and that's so much already, you don't know where a conversation about what happened to you fits in.
Right now it's not something you can think about, you just want to be here, want him to stay, want tonight to last. Everything else can wait until morning. And so you say the only thing you can think of.
"Thank you."
"Olivia." Different this time. Softer, rounder, evocative. But you don't miss that it's drenched with despondency.
"Elliot-"
"There's nothing you have to thank me for."
You beg to differ.
"Yes, there is."
He opens his mouth, to speak, to disagree, but you beat him to it.
"Thank you for not making this awkward, for not…" You shake your head, words failing you.
"Liv-"
"I forgot what it feels like to… just be." Your voice drops, the corners of your mouth droop. "You don't-," you inhale sharply, hold the breath in. "You don't treat me...don't touch me like damaged goods."
"I'd never-,"
"That felt… feels really good. So, thank you for reminding me."
For a long moment he scrutinizes you, takes you in, your words, too. He nods, simple, and lets the conversation go.
"Welcome."
You can tell that he wonders what else you've been through that you feel the need to thank him for any of it, if you've been with anyone, who they are. If to them you were something other than Olivia. Liv.
You understand Elliot's thirst for knowledge, quench it the only way you know how to that seems fitting as you smooth your hand across his chest. He's muscular in ways he wasn't then, making you wonder how much time he's spent in the gym since… everything. If he hit the bag thinking of you, or maybe to forget about you. If it did anything to silence the ache he told you he felt, even when he put an ocean between you-because New York City was you, was yours-and he needed to be with Kathy. With his family.
Kathy, he once told you, thrived in Rome. You think so did his marriage, and in your head his voice echoes like desolate words spoken in a hospital hallway.
"We were happy."
As much as you hate that he left you, how he left you, you can't begrudge him what distance has given him. What it had given Kathy.
You still feel the hollowness of his absence like a slow burn in the pit of your stomach, and you want him here all the more for it. Tonight, you want to be about you. About New York City. About filling the hollowness, dousing the embers, and glueing the pieces of you and him back together.
You're so, so tired of the two of you being something broken, your facade shattered to cracks and your connection riven with fissures. You may never be what you were, smooth and shiny and whole, but you think there's something to be said about the beauty of mosaics.
"Will you stay?"
It's an open-ended question. Maybe you ask about tonight or maybe you ask about tomorrow and the day after, and all the days that come after that.
He searches your eyes, your face, cups your cheek as he shifts his body to yours, and again you feel his desire for you pressed against your stomach.
"Not going anywhere."
And his lips find you, talking to you in a hushed language you think you understand. There's softness, but it turns to urgency, for you, for him, so you rise enough to push your hand between your bodies, cupping him through his boxers.
"Take those off," you mutter, impatient.
And off they come.
He's everything you thought he would be-and more. You can't resist trapping his cock between your fingers and thumb, learning the feel of him, his texture. He's thick and beautiful, hard but his skin soft, almost silken. You stroke him, watch Elliot's breath catch as your grip tightens, his eyes slipping closed. His moan is a deep rumble. You watch as you tease him, please him. Your clit throbs, intensifying your own arousal, and, unable to wait, you mount him. He opens his eyes, aware of you, swallows, and as you guide him to the pooling wetness between your thighs he sits up and kisses you, grabbing the back of your head. Your breasts are flush against his chest, and you feel his heat seep into your skin. It feels like he's healing the wounds he caused you, one by one, tonight.
Sinking down on him you hold your breath, and you take a little more of him while you break away from his lips but touch your forehead to his. When you exhale it's a low, ragged sound. You lower onto him fully, your lips parted, and when he sucks a desperate breath of air into his lungs you feel it shooting down your spine lightening-fast. He stretches you in the most delicious way as he goes deeper, deeper, deeper, only stopped by the boundary of your joined bodies.
You raise your hips just an inch, maybe two, then press yourself back down onto him and his name pours from your lips, as if you need to convince yourself, as if the fact you look at him, move on top of him, feel him nestled deep in your belly, isn't quite proof enough that this is happening. That you are connected in the one way you haven't been before. You don't think anything ever felt this good.
One of Elliot's hands settles on your hip. He allows you to find a pace, to find your way around this, around him. You chuckle, low.
"Sorry. A little out of practice." You sound breathless, and it has everything to do with how amazing he feels, how incredible he makes you feel, too.
"No. You're perfect."
He kisses you and you fall into it, and his other hand also finds its place, and once you find your rhythm he meets you, moves with you, and like your steps in the field, like your wordless conversations, you are once again perfectly in sync. You really shouldn't be surprised.
He leans back, watches where you are connected, the way you slide up and down on him. You start to move in earnest now, leaning forward, your hands on his chest. His eyes are dark, hooded with lust, his gaze falling onto your bouncing tits. Your clit rubs against him with every forward jerk of your hips. He guides you, his fingers digging deep into the lush flesh on your hips. He's panting now and so are you as you're hunting your climax.
The depth of his penetration shoots fireworks up your groin, and you moan into the thick heat of your room. Something within you snaps into place, and there's a sense of absolute rightness surging through you. You know good sex, amazing sex, so you know it's not the mere physicality behind it.
Elliot's touch straightens out the distorted pieces of you, smoothes your jagged edges, and for the first time in your life it feels like everything fits, like there's a purpose to you besides the job, besides motherhood.
You don't know if it's Elliot's strong arms that move upward, pulling you down or his mouth capturing yours in a deep, searing kiss or if it's his cock that's so deep in you, you think you might split in two for him-but your insides liquify, and you whimper quietly as you shatter for a second time tonight.
The only sound you pick up on is your blood whooshing in your ear as you collapse on top of him, your orgasm still nipping at you, your heart doing somersaults.
He kisses your shoulder, breathes you in, and before you can fully catch your breath he rolls you over with ease, finding his place on top of you.
For a moment he's looking down at you intently, brushing back your disheveled hair, taking in your parted lips, your flushed cheeks and cleavage. You wonder what's going through his mind, and when he speaks you're certain your cheeks turn an even darker shade of pink.
"How are you so beautiful?"
It's not the kind of thing you expect from him, the softness of his words, how he marvels over you, his eyes clear with wonderment, and you think maybe he's no less affected by this than you are.
Unable to speak, you lock both arms around his neck, pull him down to you to kiss him, to feel him in every way possible.
He starts moving on top of you, in you, controlled but purposeful. You savor every moment, every breath and moan from him, every rock and roll of his hips as he makes you his and when he comes, he spills deep inside of you with a last jerk of his hips and a distorted groan tripping from his throat.
His weight pressing you into the mattress is comfortable, welcome. His breath is hard and heavy as it hits the juncture of your neck, and your hand cups the back of his head, cradling him against your shoulder.
The last time you felt this good, so very desired, lies nearly a decade in the past. It's not that Brian and Tucker didn't desire you, you know that. They just did it like you were someone who was irrevocably changed after being touched by the hand of pure evil. Elliot, you think, still sees you for who you are, for everything else you are.
Closing your eyes, you breathe him in, keep holding him to you as his breath evens out slowly.
You think of your past, of all the men you've slept with, men who got pieces of you after a rain of shrapnel throughout the decades. Maybe you self-sabotaged, self-detonated whenever a relationship became too serious, when it started to threaten what deep in your heart you knew you truly wanted-whom you truly wanted-forcing everyone in your vicinity far away from you. Elliot however gets you whole. All of you. With him you're not a ticking time bomb. For him you are safe. Defused.
You don't believe in soulmates, but if you did? You think you could be convinced that Elliot's yours.
That night, when he slips out of you, you still feel more connected to him than ever before. He rolls off of you, then instantly pulls you in, gets you both covered when he notices the shiver in your body.
There's things you want to say, things you feel you need to talk about, but you fall into a light slumber before you figure out the words. He loves you again that night, slowly, stretched out on top of you as you're half on your stomach, one leg outstretched, one leg bent. Elliot's hips rock into you leisurely, and when you come you whimper your release into the pillow. He's back asleep within a couple of minutes and with his arms draped across your chest, so are you.
You sleep peacefully, dreaming something sweet that you won't remember by the time morning comes, not yet aware that it's the first of many Saturdays you will wake to the aroma of freshly brewed coffee and the smell of Elliot on your sheets.
Not yet aware that the future looks bright.
Not yet aware that after twenty-four years of holding your breath, you will finally… exhale.
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