Disclaimer: I don't own Law & Order: CIor its characters…
Author's note: I kind of like it just how I left it…but who can resist the chance to play with them more!
Warning: This section contains material not suitable for all ages as well as some minor coarse language.
Just A Little
Misplaced
"Except I couldn't find my underwear."
A memory flashed through Logan's mind. He was running a hand up Barek's smooth bare leg, finding its way under her black skirt tracing the curve of her tight a-whoa. Definitely don't want to go there. He shook his head in an attempt to fling the memory from his mind. It wasn't something he should think about, especially when she was still in his apartment, wearing the same clothes he had helped her out of the night before, and looking disheveled in a rather alluring manner. But there was some part of the memory that was useful, so he tried to dredge the information up as quickly as possible without loitering in the events of the previous night for too long. All the while, he gulped down the coffee, an effort to avoid making eye contact with Barek while he remembered her in an intimate way.
"Purple. Lacy," he said, finally recalling the information he was after. He should have known. Of course they would match her bra. This was Barek, after all.
----------------------------------------------
Carolyn Barek, NYPD detective, expert profiler of the criminal mind, turned a rather dark shade of pink for a grown woman, especially for one who had seen the things she had seen. She couldn't fight the embarrassment. It felt so weird and just plain wrong that her partner knew what her underwear looked like. But of course he did. That's what happens when people… Part of last night flashed through her head.
----------------------------------------------
They had just been making their way up to his apartment, laughing and kissing, all too eager for each other. His apartment door had been just a few feet away when they had stopped, too caught up in their drunken bliss to realize their proximity to their destination. He had been kissing her passionately, maddeningly, breathlessly. She had found herself trying to pull away from him desperate for air, but unable to, all the while enjoying herself immensely. They had clung to each other passionately but haphazardly until they had stumbled into the wall. Then he had had her with her back to the wall and his body pressing in close. And she had kissed him and ran her hands over his body hungrily. And his hands had found their way up her legs, under her skirt, to her waist. She had found herself lifted off her feet and she had wrapped her legs around his body, eager to be close to him. Then he had slid her panties off, her purple, lacy panties, right before-
Oh dear! Were her panties left lying in the hall, mindlessly discarded by their inebriated owner and her just-as-toasted lover?
------------------------------------------------
Logan gave his partner a critical look. Her eyes had gone large, her facial expression had gone from calm and serene (although he could tell it had been forced) to outright disturbed. She looked frightened and embarrassed.
"I think I left them in the hall…outside," Carolyn confessed, supposing that it wouldn't make much difference now no matter how reticent she wanted to be. In for a penny, in for a pound. He had helped her out of them, so the least her could do was help her find them again.
"If that's true," he quickly replied. Hesitancy only created time for awkwardness to sneak back in between them. "…then they probably aren't there anymore."
"Are you serious?" Barek asked, recognizing the joke, relieved at the reemergence of the playful manner he normally displayed. "This is a worse neighborhood than I thought, then."
He smiled at her. "Yeah. The people around here don't possess much sense of propriety."
He began to roam with his coffee, searching the apartment for his partner's purple lacy under things. They should stand out amongst his own possessions like a sore thumb. He wasn't much one for purple décor, and he definitely didn't feel too amiable towards laciness. When he was sure he was out of range of eye contact, he finished playing on his earlier comment. He just couldn't resist teasing her. "I hear that some people even have sex right in the halls of apartment buildings nearby."
Logan could've sworn that he heard her choke on her coffee.
-----------------------------------------------------
Had they done it right there in the hall right outside his apartment? Was he capable of that, even when he was a little beyond drunk? Surely, Barek wasn't. She was as straight-laced as they came, but you had to be careful with that type, didn't you? Maybe she has a kinky side. He didn't especially want to remember whether or not she had been kinky the night before, but he did want to know how impaired their judgment had really been.
They had been pretty heavy in the hallway. He remembered that. He had relieved her of her panties while they were against the wall. They had been right on the edge of, right about to…but they hadn't, not in the hall at least. He sighed in relief. Then he laughed to himself as he remembered the conversation that had passed between them amongst the kissing and caressing.
-------------------------------------------------
"We probably shouldn't..." kiss "… do this here," she had said breathlessly, however not very adamantly.
"Yeah," he conferred, also breathless. More kissing. "We could get arrested for indecent exposure and performing lewd acts."
"I'm sure…ohhh…that would go… ahh…over well," she had replied to his joke while he kissed down her neck and chest. "Two cops…" taking in air "…brought up on…oh god…charges for...for having sex..." breathing out in a controlled manner "…in a public place."
They then had proceeded, with some amount of difficulty, to move it into his apartment.
-----------------------------------------------
But the question still remained, where were his partner's panties? He was a detective. He should be able to figure this out, right? Right. So where had he last seen them. Well, he knew that. In the hall, after he had so generously freed them from their wearer. Logan decided that it would be prudent to start there and made his way towards the door. They always return to the scene of the crime, don't they?
-----------------------------------------------
After taking a few minutes to recover from her partner's smartass remark (please god, let it be the last not the first) and nearly choking on coffee, Carolyn Barek started to wonder where he had got to. She didn't especially want to keep tabs on him in his own apartment, but the whole situation was putting her on edge. Waking up naked in bed with your partner and having the memory of the night before return to you only through dramatic and intense flashes could unsettle the most hardened of NYPD cops. She was about to yield to her anxiousness and go in search of her partner, and possibly, panties when she heard his voice calling from a different area of the apartment.
---------------------------------------------
"Hey, Barek!" Mike called as he bent down to pick up the misplaced panties. They were tiny, but she was a petite woman. Still, he never really understood how women managed to feel comfortable in such a scarce amount of clothing. Not that he was complaining. The only thing hotter than an attractive woman in lingerie was one wearing nothing at all. One wearing nothing at all, while in bed with him. Now that was a good time. He mentally slapped himself. If Barek knew what he was thinking (and he was thinking it about her, too, his partner, dammit) she would have called him a disgusting pig. And she would have been right. And speak of the devil…
-----------------------------------------------------
"You found them?" Carolyn asked as she entered the small entranceway leading to the apartment door. Logan noticed the strained calmness in her voice and the slight twitch of her arm as she stopped herself from instinctively reaching out and grabbing them away from him. This was still embarrassing for her, despite their agreement that they were "okay." There was only one thing he could do, for this was no time to make light of things, he had to be respectful. It was hard for him. His automatic response to situations, particularly stressful or uncomfortable ones, was to turn to sarcasm and wit. But he couldn't risk her feelings. He handed her the lost item that had put desperation into her eyes and a blush on her cheeks. Or had he done that last night?
"Thanks," she said, slightly relieved. She wouldn't feel at ease until she had put them back on, but she gave him a sincerely grateful smile. Then she bent down and stepped into her recovered underwear, one leg at a time. She could feel her partner watching her as she began to pull them up her legs, slipping them over her knees and up her thighs. She glanced up to see him hastily turning his back to her. Trying to be a gentleman. That's worth a few points. Not many, but a few. He had caused her to lose her panties in the first place after all.
--------------------------------------------
Logan studied the wall, feigning a little more interest than necessary. But it had disturbed him how he had watched his partner slip the troublesome panties on, how he had been entranced by the sight of them moving up her bare thigh, how he had almost guffawed at her throughout the entire event. Might as well been drooling. Idiot! He kept cursing himself for his lack of impulse control, because now he had to train himself to see his partner as his partner again, not the very attractive woman he had gone to bed with the previous night. A delicate hand on his shoulder told him it was time to turn around again.
"You okay, now?" he asked, feeling stupid. It was such an ambiguous question. It could mean anything. He didn't want her to feel like he was pushing at her to leave. But he was uncomfortable, and so was she. She had already told him that they were "okay" and he really wanted it to be true, but things were still awkward and confusing. He sighed inwardly. They probably would be for a while.
"I'm good," she replied. Finally the feelings of vulnerability had left her. She gave him a smile and squeezed his arm as she moved past him to the door. She turned before she closed the door behind her. "And Mike, We Are Okay."
Detective Mike Logan watched the door close and wished that his partner was right. He really liked Carolyn Barek, and didn't want to lose her to a stupid mistake.
A/N: I hope someone else got some enjoyment out of this. I at least had fun. I think that there will be more…