15. Can't Stop, Won't Stop
Olivia hung up the phone after talking to Sergeant Bell feeling frustrated and annoyed, not at her but the situation which pushed SVU and OCCB to work together again. It's not like she didn't want to work with them. She did. They all worked well together. She worked well with Elliot, but every interaction felt fraught between them. Even at work, and she wasn't sure she was emotionally okay enough to go another round with Elliot.
Unfortunately for her, the case needed SVU, and getting justice for victims was more important than her emotional problems with Elliot.
Bell planned to meet with her later today to go over details, and they would brief the rest of her squad in the morning. Knowing she had the rest of the day, and the evening to prepare mentally and emotionally to work with Elliot, helped her relax. At least a little.
She spent the afternoon wrapping up loose ends on their current case, and hounding her detectives to finish their paperwork. They finished faster than anticipated, so she sent them home. She had to stay to meet with Bell anyway and there was no reason for them to sit around twiddling their thumbs.
She knew Bell would be another twenty minutes so she hurried to the bakery a block away to grab a snack. Usually case briefings left her unable to eat for the rest of the day, so she figured eating before would be a good idea.
She got back to the precinct, planning on eating at her desk before Bell got there, but when she entered the squad room she noticed someone was already in her office, and it wasn't Sergeant Bell.
She tried to decide if she could turn around and leave, but he had already seen her. She took a deep breath and pushed the door open to her office.
He stood behind her desk, picking up and examining some of the photos resting there. He held up one of the two of them, taken during their partnership years, back when things were complicated but easy between them. Now it was the opposite, what should be simple was far from easy. She tried not to feel embarrassed at the presence of that picture which only recently found its way to her desk.
"I don't remember this," he turned the picture towards her, "when was it taken?"
He reached out, taking the picture from his hands, studying it, even though she knew exactly when it was taken. "I think it was after that case," she gulped, pushing back her own memories of heated metal hangers. "After the one with the woman who branded her rapists."
Elliot nodded. He took the picture back and set it back on her desk. After a minute of awkward silence she asked, "Where's Bell?"
"Another custody problem with Denise," he answered.
"Oh." She couldn't imagine fighting an ex just to see your kid. While she wasn't thrilled Elliot came as replacement, she couldn't blame Ayanna for ducking out.
Olivia wondered if it was always going to be like this between them, him tiptoeing around her, and her unable to communicate anything meaningful. Both stuck, waiting on the other to make the push that would topple them over the edge of whatever this was.
Only, he had tried taking that step forward, and she shot him down, and she had no idea why. Keeping him at arms length kept her safe. She was all too aware of the power he had over heart. The power to completely demolish her.
Part of her wondered how long he would hang around, waiting. Maybe she was waiting for a shiny new blonde to cross his path, pulling him away permanently. Again. He would tire of the game. The fun was in the pursuit of her, and she worried about the ramifications of letting him in only to have him leave her for someone else. Like he'd always done, choosing Kathy again and again.
But this time would be different. If she allowed those physical boundaries to fall it would be worse than the emotional abandonment of ten years.
She moved behind the desk where he stood, sitting in her chair to begin viewing the files. Boundaries. She reminded herself, but she hadn't adequately prepared herself for his visit today and she felt her heart beat faster when he dropped one hand on the desk beside her, pointing at crime scene photos with the other, and his breath was hot on the back of her neck, and she couldn't hear a damn word he said because she was trying to shew away images of him kissing the back of her neck.
"What do you think?" His question knocked her back to reality, but she missed a large chunk of this conversation in her mildly inappropriate daydream. She turned her face towards him, and he was all business and professional, like he had no f-ing idea what he was doing to her.
She abruptly stood, desperately needing to put space between them before she did something incredibly stupid. She hurried to the other side of her desk in an attempt to keep a real physical barrier between them because her brain seemed to be in a losing battle with every other part of her.
However, her attempt at physical space was thwarted when he followed her around the desk. Damn him.
His eyes found hers and she knew he knew her mind wasn't on the case. Her palms began to sweat because she knew whatever was coming next shouldn't happen at work, in her office, but she felt powerless to his magnetic pull.
His hands reached for her hips and she didn't stop him. He pulled her hips towards his hips and she felt her breath quicken, and while she wasn't actively encouraging him, she wasn't discouraging him either. She felt stuck between what she desperately wanted and her logical self telling her this was a bad idea.
Somehow her hands were pressed against his chest, and damn it, this was a stupid idea, but she couldn't stop herself from sliding her hands up his chest and behind his neck. She felt his breath catch and hers did the same, and neither of them knew exactly what was going to happen next, except they kind of did, and she wasn't really surprised when his lips touched hers. The surprise came at her own response.
Suddenly all the years of tension and desire hit her and she found herself pushing harder into him. The dam had burst and all logic washed away, and it didn't matter what happened down the road. Right now, in this moment m, she wanted this.
His hand slid up the back of her shirt, leaving a tingling trail behind it. She couldn't stop her hands from pulling his shirt over his head and she knew this was stupid but she didn't care.
They staggered backwards and his hand deftly locked the office door as his back met the wall. She pressed against him until he lifted her up and they were tumbling onto her office couch, and this was happening right here right now and she realized she was going to throw caution to the wind and let this happen.
He tossed her shirt to the floor beside them, and it didn't matter that this was happening in her office, because it was her and him and nothing else mattered.
