Author's Comments: Thirty-one days, twelve minutes until we find out what happens to Benson.

There will be one final chapter after this. Just couldn't wrap it all up in this one, not properly anyway.

Too Close

Chapter Twenty-Three

Olivia yawned, stretched, and opened her eyes before she realized she wasn't on Amanda's couch. Elliot's musky smell came to her from the pillow, and she sat up straight, alarmed. Elliot wasn't in the bed, but try as hard as she might, she couldn't remember if he had been last night.

Looking down at her own clothing for clues, she discovered one of Elliot's button-down shirts adorned her, with nothing but panties underneath. "Goddammit," she whispered through her teeth. "What the hell?"

It wasn't so much that she didn't want to end up in bed with Elliot. It was the fact that she was so trashed that she couldn't even remember it happening, and Elliot took advantage of the situation, whether he meant to or not. In fact, she was having a hard time remembering anything about last night. The last memory she had was of taking off after Elliot after rejecting an equally drunk Nick.

As she began to crawl out of bed, she brought her hands up to her pounding head and said, "Ow." Shuffling into the hallway, she kept her eyes closed as much as possible, trying to shut out the brilliant light.

She lurched to a stop against Elliot's solid figure in the hallway. Daring to open her eyes, she saw him smirking at her, and wanted to punch him. "How ya feeling?" he said, a little too smart-assed.

"Like I wanna puke," she said, precipitating his backward retreat a few feet. "El, why am I here?"

He folded his arms, his eyes rolling up to the ceiling. "Because you were passed out, and my place was closer."

She shot him knives with her glare, saying, "So what happened last night?"

His smirk did not disappear. "You mean in the bathroom? Or after that, when we got arrested?"

"Arrested? What?" Her mouth gaped open. "No, I mean after we came back here . . ."

Elliot's eyebrows shot up. "Oh, you mean you don't remember smarting off to the guys in the seventeenth?"

"No—wait, what did you say about the bathroom?" She shook her head, and then flashes of memories came at her like bullets. "Oh my God—"

"Yeah, that's—" Elliot said, nodding.

"Oh my—" she said, her mouth still open wide. "I need to sit down."

"Here, let me," he said, guiding her to the dining room table and helping her into a chair.

As he got her a drink of water from the kitchen sink, she plopped her head in her hands, trying to put together the details of the previous night. "Elliot, I can't remember what all happened," she said. "But I do remember being with you in the bathroom—was it the men's? And someone busted the door down, and there were uniformed officers. Was there a fight or something?"

"No, no fight," he said, dropping some ice cubes in her water. "Just a very inebriated group of detectives, with one plastered Olivia Benson leading the debauchery."

As she tried to recall the events of the night, Elliot brought her the water and sat down next to her. "What I want to know," he said, "is how much you remember about our talk, before the bathroom."

She took a small sip of water, the cool liquid sliding smoothly down the back of her parched throat. Closing her eyes, she tried to picture the scenario, and then it started to come to her. Nick hitting on her, Elliot's jealousy, her own panic as she watched him Elliot walk away. And when she confronted him, how he told her exactly how he felt, instead of punching a wall, or worse.

"You didn't over react," she said. A smile found its way into her heart, making its way to her lips. "And that's how we ended up in the bathroom."

Elliot chuckled, but Olivia's jubilance was short-lived. "But why did you take advantage of that, El?" she said, glaring at him again.

His eyes grew wide. "What? I didn't do anything—it was all you, Liv."

"All me?" Heat rose up from the center of her chest to her face. "You could have said no in the bathroom—and why did you bring me here instead of Amanda's? And what exactly did we do last night?"

Elliot nearly knocked the chair over as he shot out of it and began to pace. "I give up! You get drunk, and come onto me, and I do everything I can to avoid taking advantage of you, and now I'm the one in trouble."

Now she stood too, and her voice grew louder. "So then tell me, Elliot. What did happen?"

He turned to face her, his eyes boring into her. "I'll tell you what happened. Nothing. In the bathroom, I stood there while you groped me, trying to figure out a way to get out of there without disappointing you. That's when the bouncer broke down the door." She could not think of one thing to say in response, shame starting to make its way into her gut. "And once we got here, I put you in comfortable clothes, because you spilled a drink all over yourself, and you were wet. Nothing happened, Liv. I didn't do anything."

She stared at his eyebrows crowding together, and she knew he was telling the truth. He wouldn't take advantage of her, and he certainly wouldn't lie about such a thing. Being part of the rape police had taught him that lack of consent was assumed when a woman was inebriated. But as she looked into his eyes, she knew it was more than that. He had a respect for her that would never allow him to cross that line, not even when it would have been all too easy.

She looked away now, and realized that he had done all the right things last night, and said exactly what he should have, despite the fact that he had no assurances that he would be rewarded for his actions. Her eyes flashed to his face again, and she said, "I'm sorry, El. I shouldn't have thought you would do something like that. I guess I'm just hyper-vigilant, with everything I've gone through lately."

His face softened. "It's okay," he said. "To tell you the truth, I kind of liked seeing you having fun."

She smiled. "Was I really more fun?" she said. "I actually think it's kind of embarrassing. I don't usually—"

"I know you don't," he said, "And if it happened all the time, it might be a problem. But it's been so long since you've . . . been happy, I just like seeing you have a good time."

Her eyes burned, and she willed herself not to cry. "Yeah," she said. "For the first time in a long time, I feel like I can smile again. And it's so much better when I can share that with you."

Their eyes met, and now she did want to let go of her tears. Instead, she put her hand up to his cheek, allowing his gaze to dance around her face. Then she leaned forward and tentatively put her lips against his, working them around in a tender kiss. Pulling away, she said, "Well I'm not drunk now."

His face showed his understanding, and he put his arms around her, pulling her closer into him. "Elliot," she said, "I'm so glad it was you last night . . ." She cut her words short, not wanting to waste any more time that she could be spending locking her lips onto his. She wrapped her arms around his neck and let go of all inhibitions, losing herself in his probing mouth.

She slid her hand down until it reached his ass, and grabbed a handful. He pressed himself into her, hard, in return. Sparks lit up in her abdomen and down her legs, and she tightened her lips on his, tasting toothpaste on his tongue.

Ripping herself away from him long enough to drag him into the bedroom, she wasted no time yanking off his robe and underwear, and he climbed eagerly on top of her. He teased her by carefully unfastening every button on the shirt she was wearing—his shirt, and she said, "C'mon, c'mon."

"Hey, it's an expensive shirt," he said, grinning. When he was done, he sat and stared for a few moments, admiring her bare breasts, and then took one in each hand, massaging gently at first, but increasing pressure until she groaned. When he ran his thumbs over each nipple, electricity zinged her all the way down into her thighs, and his hand moved along with the sensation to grab her soft folds and mop up the moisture from them with his fingers.

She took his hardness into her hand and stroked until he threw his head back, exhaling deeply. Urgency entered his eyes, and he slipped off her panties and climbed into position. She opened her legs to receive him, gasping when he thrust himself into her.

There was more than just plain animal lust in his eyes as he rocked within her—his eyes reflected back something else, something tender and full of awe, like he had not lived until he set eyes on her. Once again, tears threatened to brim over as she watched him watching her face while she leisurely accepted his repetitive pleasure-filled plunges. She closed her eyes and made herself into a receptacle for his loving strokes, feeling the tension growing as every nerve ending delighted in the swirls of air from his movement on top of her.

She calmly sighed while hairs stood on end and her muscles tensed, and he stroked her hair and watched her convulsing blissfully beneath him. He waited until she reached that peak to let loose his own juices inside her, with three final slow, deep thrusts that reached the limits of her body, intensifying her orgasm.

Exhausted, he collapsed on top of her, staying inside of her long after he went soft. But he kept his attention on her, stroking her hair and kissing her neck while she let the heat from their sex keep her enveloped in warmth. She swallowed and breathed in his sticky sweat-filled odor, enjoying the tickle of his hair against her cheek.

When he finally rolled off her, she held him like a child, one underneath him and wrapped around him, the other softly stroking his arm. He lay still, his head resting on her shoulder, sleep catching up to him. "I love you, Elliot Stabler," she whispered into his unhearing ear.