Chapter Text
Rafael and Olivia
Rafael woke up to a gentle touch of a hand on his.
He must have been out cold for it took him some time to find his bearings.
He remembered roaming the alleys of Central Park for about an hour after saying goodbye to Olivia on the phone and before finally heading to Mike’s place. On his way, he’d stopped by his mother’s house to pick up some stuff from his luggage he thought he might need tonight.
It was almost nine when he opened the door to Liv’s apartment. Not quite sure what to do with himself, he’d taken a quick shower, changed into his home clothes, and stretched on the couch in the living room with a book he’d chosen at random from one of the shelves in Noah’s room.
Opening that book—the name of which he couldn’t recall to save his life—was the last thing he remembered. It still lay on his chest under the hand Olivia’s fingers were stroking softly before sliding onto his wrist. From there, she moved to his forearm, then higher, almost up to his shoulder, at which point her arm burrowed between his back and the couch cushion while the other one found its way under his neck.
He felt her mouth on his even before he opened his eyes.
She had meant for the kiss to be short, and it probably would have been, but then Rafael’s lips parted, and the tentative brush of his tongue was like flipping a switch that closed an electric circle. Somehow, he managed to fumble the book out of the way so he could finally wrap his arms around her, pulling her tightly against his chest. His hand slid from her back into her hair, gently pushing her head down as he angled his own, very slightly, to let her frantic, velvety soft tongue delve deeper into his mouth.
A small part of her briefly wondered if she would ever be able to kiss this man without her entire body turning into a frenzied, needy mess, while the rest of her had been lost to him from the moment she swallowed his sleepy moan.
When she pulled away and his eyes finally opened, Rafael found her sitting next to him on the edge of the couch, half-bent over his chest.
In the dimly lit room, her face, hovering over his, was a striking mosaic of light and shadow. Her silky hair cascaded down like a semi-translucent curtain that hid them both from the rest of the world. And, God, those beautiful, onyx eyes… the same eyes he would seek in the crowd whenever he looked over his shoulder during a trial like they were the anchor he needed to keep him tethered… in his wildest dreams he had never imagined those eyes looking at him like they did now.
“Hi,” she murmured, smiling down at him, and he smiled back.
Hard as he tried, though, he couldn’t utter a single word. There were so many things he wanted to say to her at that moment, but somehow they suddenly seemed too insignificant, too frivolous, too small. He just looked at her, mesmerized, feeling the warmth of her body against his, still finding it hard to believe it was her he was holding between his arms.
“Stop it.” Olivia laughed, shaking him gently. “You’re freaking me out. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this quiet for this long.”
That was enough to snap him out of it, not to mention to curve his lips into a sassy grin. “To be fair,” he quipped, “for the most part of that time my mouth was otherwise occupied. Not that I’m complaining, mind you. In fact, just so you know, I could get used to waking up with that wicked tongue of yours doing things that render me irrevocably speechless.”
“Aaaand he’s back.” She laughed again. “‘Irrevocably’, huh? Big word for a man who can barely catch his breath. And also, just so you know, compared to the things that ‘that wicked tongue of mine’ is going to do in the future to wake you up, this was just a heavily censored PG-13 version.”
His attempt to imagine the full edition ended as soon as it had begun, mostly because he was fairly certain that continuing down that road would probably be the last push his near-perpetual state of arousal as of late would need to tip him completely over the edge.
Olivia raised both eyebrows. “What, ‘irrevocably speechless’ again?”
“I’m reserving my judgment until I’ve seen the uncensored version.”
“Uh-huh. Nice save, Counselor. Well done.”
Rafael grinned at her. “Thank God for occupational hazards.”
Snorting, she wiped that lopsided grin off his face. She kissed him softer this time, savoring every touch of his tongue, every curve of his lips, every relishing sigh that melted into her mouth.
For a while, they just sank into it, as if all the urgency from before had evaporated all of a sudden, leaving behind but a sizzling ember of desire. Their lips moved slowly, almost languidly, tongues gently exploring each other’s mouths, as if reliving a half-remembered dream from a different time, a different life.
It was all like a half-remembered dream, Olivia thought. From the moment she opened the door to find Rafael asleep on her old couch, she’d been struck with this strange feeling like she had been coming home to this man her entire life. Even now, the way their mouths seemed to be moving in perfect sync, the way he’d tipped back his head, just a little, the way his palms felt on her back, stroked her hair, slid over her sides, was somehow so inexplicably familiar as if even their bodies had known each other for many years.
She smiled softly against his lips as soon as they broke apart. “You taste like coffee. How many cups’d you have?”
“Three. Was trying to stay awake. See how splendidly that idea has worked out?”
“I’m glad you slept.” She stroked his cheek with the back of her fingers. “You look like you needed it. I barely had the heart to wake you.”
“That… would have been tragically short-sighted.”
To drive the point home, he ran his hands up her ribcage, smiling in satisfaction when she sucked in a sharp breath and shivered under his touch as his thumbs grazed the sides of her soft breasts through the thin fabric.
It was that fabric that gave him pause. And the fact that she wore no bra, something he tried—utterly unsuccessfully—not to dwell on. Only now did he notice that, instead of traveling clothes, she was wearing one of those loose, stretchy, incredibly soft cotton pajamas. Plus, her hair was slightly damp. “Wait, what time is it?” he asked, still somewhat disoriented from sleep. “When’d you get home?”
“A little over an hour ago.” Olivia nuzzled the soft place next to his nose before pressing her lips to the same spot. “I would have woken you right away, but you were sleeping so deeply, and after having been given the full tour of the Boston Police Academy, I really—and I mean really— needed a long shower. The smell of the gym alone was bad enough. And then there were the living quarters. You know, I’ve smelled decaying corpses in my day, but that stench? Not far from it. It sticks to you.” She gave an involuntary shudder. “Take my word for it, if I’d so much as come near you without washing it off me, you would never have touched me again in your life.”
“Ok, first of all, that last part? Highly doubt it. And second?” He tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “I wish you’d have woken me all the same.”
She flashed him a teasing grin. “You can join me in the shower next time, when I don’t stink of cadet barracks.”
“Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of fixing us both a drink. But since you’ve mentioned it, I’ve always maintained that shower sex is excessively overrated.”
“Oh really? Do tell.”
“Well, first off, it’s slippery as hell, which makes it a health hazard. Water gets everywhere, and, as wet as the woman is when you first start, it washes off after a while and you worry about getting her sore. It’s great as a starting point, but in most showers it’s hard to find a good position to fully—”
“Long story short, what you’re saying is I should forget about having you soap me up and taking me from behind against the wall.”
She did enjoy watching his throat bob as he tried to swallow.
“That’s…” It took him a moment to find his voice. “...an excellent point. Please don’t make it again unless you want me to drag you back into that shower.”
Olivia laughed. “And here I thought that shower sex was ‘excessively overrated’.”
“What can I say, I’m an open-minded man and you’ve always had an annoying habit of making compelling arguments.”
“I have, haven’t I?” Her smile turned wistful all of a sudden, almost dreamy. And then her entire face changed, the smile no longer reaching her eyes, her gaze scattered, far away. “I still miss it, you know?” she muttered after a while, untangling herself from his arms and sitting up. “The time we used to work together. It’s so strange. You’re here now, and I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my whole life. But I still miss it: arguing over cases, casual drinks at Forlini’s, those long conversations into the night we used to have…”
She trailed off, and his voice filled the silence. “I miss it too, Liv.”
“Have you thought about it?” Olivia shifted her eyes back onto his face. “These past four years?”
“Of course I have.”
“You’re lucky,” she strained. “I couldn’t.”
“Liv…”
“I don’t even know why. I wanted to, because I did miss you. So much. But whenever I’d try, I’d just… block it out. Like it never happened.” Her face twitched, and she averted her eyes, blinking away unbidden tears. “I held on to that… anger… so hard, for so long. When I finally let go, all I was left with was a mountain of grief over losing something I used to cherish. In the end, even thinking about it hurt so much that I stopped trying.”
Without a word, Rafael reached for her hand and Olivia slid it into his palm, letting her fingers lace through his. He said nothing, just waiting for her to get it out, like he always had. He’d never pushed her, never pried. Whenever she wanted to talk, he’d just listen. If she didn’t, he’d change the subject and move on. It was one of the things she had always loved about their friendship: he made it easy, in all the beautiful, little things a real friendship should be.
She looked into his eyes, wondering for the millionth time what color they truly were. Right now, in the yellowish light of the night lamp, they seemed almost translucent green: clear, bottomless pools of serenity and compassion.
“God, I’m so sorry, Rafa,” she grumbled, rubbing her face with a free hand.
“For what?”
She coughed a burst of bitter laughter. “How about: for inviting you over to spend the night and then wasting the time we have together babbling about things that don’t even matter anymore?”
“They matter to you.”
“They don’t, trust me. I’m just tired. I tend to spiral when I’m tired.”
“Or…” Rafael countered, “...maybe we need to talk about it.”
“About what?”
“All of it. The last time we saw each other. What we’ve been through these past four years.”
He wished he could sit up, take her into his arms, but he felt she needed her space, so all he could do was hold her hand, brushing his thumb against her knuckles. When she said nothing, just looking at him with teary eyes, he went on.
“Look. When we spoke on the phone, you asked if I thought we should slow down. I said I didn’t, and I meant it. But Liv, this past month has been… overwhelming, to say the least. We’ve both been so mind-bogglingly happy that sometimes I feel we’ve been trying to pick up where we left off. But the thing is, the place where we left off wasn’t a happy one.”
“No,” she conceded at long last. “It wasn’t.” Her expression softened somewhat. “It’s funny that you should mention the last time we saw each other. Because I’ve been thinking about it a lot over these past few days: about the hurt on your face when you walked out of Forlini’s that day, how much I wish I’d stopped you. Because I should have. I should’ve run after you. I should’ve done something.”
“There was nothing you could’ve done,” said Rafael with a rueful smile. “It wasn’t on you, Liv. It was on the both of us. Neither of us was in a good place. We were both angry. Both hurting. It wasn’t my place to judge your relationship with Stabler. Or anyone else, for that matter. I had no right to butt into your personal life the way I did—”
“You had every right,” she shot him a hard stare. “You were my friend. You were honest with me. More honest than I’d been with myself for twenty three years, Rafa.”
“Trust me, I wish I could say that the only reason I said those things was out of friendship. But it wasn’t, Liv. It doesn’t matter if I was right or wrong. What matters to me, the only thing that’s ever mattered, was why I said them. And the truth is, I let my emotions get in the way. I was selfish. And that’s on me. Not you.”
Olivia made a sound in her throat that was somewhere between a sigh and a low growl. “For God’s sake, Rafa. I don’t care why you said it. You were more of a friend to me that day than you’d ever been. Because you were right. I only wish it hadn’t taken me two years to realize just how right.”
“Liv…” Rafael squeezed her hand. “We’re going in circles again. Except that instead of blaming each other, we blame ourselves. Let’s just agree that neither of us was in a place to listen that day. You needed time—”
“Rafa—”
“—and so did I,” he cut her off, knowing he had to get it out before he’d lost his nerve. “As much as it hurt, I needed to find a way to let you go. To figure out what I wanted to do with my own life. Ever since I’d left the DA’s office, I was a nomad in no man’s land. And then there was you, and my feelings for you that were all over the place. I couldn’t go on like that. I needed a purpose, a new challenge, a job that would keep me busy enough to take my mind off of the things I couldn’t change. I needed to find a path that was just my own.”
“And you have.” Smiling, she pulled up their joined hands and pressed her lips to the back of his. “Whenever I start thinking of how we’ve wasted those four years, I remind myself of this whole incredible new life you’ve built for yourself in Cambridge. How happy you look when you talk about it. How lucky your students are.”
“Yeah… that last bit? They might disagree with you. At least some of them. Definitely during exam sessions.”
“I doubt it.” She leaned in and captured his smile in a soft kiss. “Something tells me they worship the dust you step on.”
He kissed her back. “Something tells me your objectivity on the matter is not exactly what one would call a gold standard.”
Olivia laughed. “You got me there. I still think I’m right, though.”
“Fine. Tell you what. When you move to Boston, you’re welcome to do a satisfaction survey. Now. Can you stand up for a second?”
“Why?” She gave him a puzzled look, rising nonetheless.
“Because. I need to scoot over…” He wiggled toward the edge, lifting the comforter he’d used as a throw blanket and patting the newly-vacated space between the back of the couch and his own body. “...and you need to come here. I can’t talk to you when I can’t hold you.”
“I got a better idea. Why don’t we both go to bed before I ruin the rest of the night by talking your ear off instead of—”
“—banging my brains out?”
“Not the word I was going to use, but yeah. You got the gist. C’mon, Counselor. Get that cute ass of yours off of my couch and let’s go.”
He didn’t move. “The bed can wait. And you’re not ruining anything. I came over to be with the woman who was my friend long before she became anything else. We’ll talk for as long as we both need. And besides…” He added quickly when she opened her mouth to protest. “If memory serves, you threatened to have your way with me on every surface in your apartment. A couch is as good a surface as any, in my books. So, why don’t you join me and my ‘cute ass’, and we see where we go from there?”
Her attempt to hold back an adoring smile was an abysmal failure. “See?” she grumbled, clambering over his hips and yanking the blanket from under her knees. “That’s one of the things I miss about us working together. Back then, I used to win most of the arguments.”
“You still do.” Rafael scooted further back. “Or you wouldn’t be… ouch… stomping all over me. I’ve never known you to do anything you didn’t want to, no matter how persuasive I used to be. It’s one of the things that made me love you.”
She stopped, arching a coy eyebrow. “One of the things?”
“Don’t fish. I love all of you, and you damn well know it. And right now, I want all of you next to me. So unless you don’t want to…” He reached for her. “Come here already.”
She slid in, swallowed whole by his dizzying warmth, held tight in that wondrous space between his arms that felt as if gouged by a skilled sculptor to fit nobody but her.
For a long time they lay together in blissful silence, completely still, legs entwined under the light cover, Rafael’s arm under Olivia’s neck, their faces so close on the small pillow they could feel the heat of each other’s skin.
It seemed like the only sound in the whole world was that of the autumn wind skirling against the walls of the building and rattling the shutters from time to time.
It was going to rain tonight, Olivia thought with a mix of relief and sadness. The long, sweltering summer was finally ready to let go. It started off with sleepless nights and some of the toughest cases she’d ever seen. It ended with finding something she thought she’d lost forever. And now autumn was here at long last, and with it a new beginning.
One thing she had learned over the years, however, was that even the most wonderful new beginnings were too tenuous, too fragile, not to buckle under the weight of old pains. In a way, it was akin to trying to open a new door without closing the old one: sooner or later, the stale draft of unspoken truths, of past regrets, would slam it shut in your face before you could wedge a foot in.
This time, Olivia wasn't about to let it. Not when everything she'd ever wanted was so close she could almost touch it.
“I love you too,” she whispered, the first one to break the silence. Her palm was gentle and light on the side of his smiling face. “So, so much. You know that, right?”
Rafael pulled her deeper into his arms. “I would certainly hope so. Because otherwise I’d have to wonder if you try to undress every man who kisses you on the street.”
“Smartass.” She wrinkled her nose at him. “And, just to be clear, if every man on the street kissed me the way you did, I probably would.”
“Oh, you would, would you?”
When he leaned in with an impish grin she was sure he was about to give a repeat performance, but then something changed on his face, the grin vanished, and the kiss he gave her was no more than a soft brush of his lips on hers.
“I’m sorry,” he said in a rasping voice, tenderly touching her cheek with the tips of his fingers. “I didn’t mean to laugh about it. It’s…” He closed his eyes. “I have this very annoying habit of joking when I’m nervous. Or overwhelmed. Or so happy my heart is about to burst. Or, in this particular case, all three. I’ll… work on it. I promise.”
Olivia caught the hand that was now stroking her hair and sank a kiss into the crease of his soft palm. “I don’t want you to work on it,” she told him. “I think it’s sweet. More than sweet. It’s one of the most beautiful things about you: how sometimes you feel so deeply you can’t bear it. It’s a part of the man you are. And I don’t want it to change. Ever.”
“Ok.” A tremulous smile touched Rafael’s lips. “So long as you know that what you said… what it means to me…” His voice splintered, and she saw his eyes beginning to mist over with the glistening film of tears.
“I do. Oh, Rafa… Of course I do… Come here…” She pulled herself up on an elbow so she could cradle his head between her arms and kiss his face, every inch of it, from the deep lines that fanned over his graying temples to his clean-shaven jawline, chiseled sharper than she remembered by the years they’d spent apart.
He could taste the salt of his own tears when her mouth finally found his. “See?” he whispered, chuckling softly. “This would be a good example of why I’d rather joke.”
“Okkay…” Olivia snorted, playfully rubbing her nose on his. “If I kiss you again, will you stop tormenting yourself over making a very funny—not to mention insanely adorable—joke when I said I loved you?”
He shrugged, grinning. “Worth a shot.”
It was.
When they finally settled back into each other’s arms, the first raindrops began to patter against the windows. Rafael pulled the comforter up to their chins, draping it over Olivia’s back and securing the edge under her side.
“Maybe we should go to bed,” he said, kissing her forehead, then her eyes. “This is not much of a blanket, and it’s starting to get chilly.”
“We will.” She wiggled closer. “In a little while. Because I think you’re right. Four years is a lot of baggage to drag into a new life. Obviously, I’m not suggesting we get to unpacking it all tonight, but I think we should. At some point. Letting the past be the past is good and well, but, in my experience, when you do that, it has a habit of biting you in the ass when you least expect it. Having you back in my life, in Noah’s life, is too important to me to let a festering old grudge resurface years from now in some stupid fight just because one of us is too tired that day to keep it under the lid.”
Rafael gave her a small nod. “I know. Not that I think I have grudges—”
“You might not think so now, but, Rafa, four years ago we both lost something. A loss like that, the pain it causes, it never really goes away. You said it yourself: we were both hurting, both angry. And we both know those feelings didn’t just go away the moment we walked out of Forlini’s. You told me you were going to be there once I was ready to stop feeling betrayed by you. And you were. Because that’s the kind of a man you are. But if you tell me you never blamed me for breaking our friendship the way I did, I won’t believe you.”
“You’re right,” he admitted gloomy, remembering all too well the uncessant agony of the first year that followed that dreaded day. “I think I mostly blamed myself. But yeah, there were times when I was angry with you.”
“And you had the right to be. As did I. Which is why I agree with you: we should talk about it. Because building a life together is hard enough without battling old grudges. And I want a life with you. So much, Rafa. I think I’ve wanted it from the moment I first saw you with Noah, years ago, which is a whole different can of worms that I think we should empty at some point. What I’m saying is—”
“Oh no,” Rafael stopped her, a smile creeping onto his face. “You don’t get to drop a bomb like that and just gloss over.”
Olivia smiled back, dreamily sliding her fingers into his still thick pepper-and-salt hair. “I’m not glossing over it, Rafa. But I’ve been trying to wrap my head around it—among many other things—ever since I returned from Cambridge. Because those feelings I have for you… I don’t think they’re new. Not all of them. I don’t think I was in love with you back then, but I think… I loved the idea of you, if it makes sense. The idea of one day having a life with you and Noah. I don’t know how to explain it better. It’s something that I’m only now starting to grapple with myself.”
She leaned into him, breathing in the familiar scent of his aftershave that hadn’t changed in all the years they hadn’t seen each other.
“Tonight, when I came home,” she went on, “I saw you asleep on this couch, and I had this feeling of déjà vu, like it wasn’t the first time that I came home to you. And I think I know why. Because there were moments, years ago, when I’d look at you with Noah, and I could see it so clearly: this whole other life that the three of us could’ve had together. I’d find myself wondering what it would be like, to come home to you, every day, to fall asleep in your arms, to wake up next to you. I think…” She gave a desolate shrug. “A part of me always hoped we’d get there, some day.”
For a long time he just looked at her, deep in thought, gently stroking her back under the thin cover. “I thought you were happy,” he whispered at long last. “With Ed, I mean. Because you were with Ed when Noah and I started spending time together.”
“I was.” Olivia sighed. “And I wasn’t. And if that doesn’t make any sense to you, I don’t blame you. It makes zero sense to me, either. The thing is, I was happy with Ed. But I also knew it wouldn’t last. Just like I’d known it with Brian and every other man I’ve ever been with.”
“Because of Elliot,” said Rafael, feeling his stomach churn and cursing himself for still being unable to get over it.
Her reply came on a shuddered breath. “No, Rafa. Because of me. I’m only now starting to come to terms with how unfair it was to all of them. Not because I didn’t love them. I did. But because they were all… compromises. Placeholders. For someone better, someone perfect, someone I wouldn’t be with just because it happened to be convenient or easy.” She chuckled bitterly under her breath. “It’s funny, isn’t it? Because for six years that person was right in front of me. Every day.” Her hand cupped the back of his head, bringing their foreheads together. “In so many ways the friendship we had was more intimate than any relationship I’ve ever been in. Maybe that was why I could never bring myself to cross that line with you. Because I knew that with you there’d be no in-between. You would’ve given it all you had. And I think deep down I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to give you half of what a man like you deserved.”
When her words had finally run out, for a long time the only sound in the room was the steady pit-a-pat of the raindrops and the distant rumble of thunder clouds. Olivia didn’t know what else to say. She had been trying to make sense of it for so long that sometimes it felt like none of it ever would. Her eyes were brimming with tears when Rafael cupped her chin in a gentle hand, lifting her face to his.
“Can I say something?” he asked gingerly. “I won’t make the mistake again of presuming to tell you how you feel. Or used to feel. About anyone. But I’d like to tell you something that might…” He winced. “...come off as somewhat presumptuous.”
She nodded, kissing him. “Of course you can. We’re talking. At Forlini’s, I was too hurt and I got defensive. Which, by the way, doesn’t mean that what you said to me was wrong.”
“Well…” Rafael smiled. “We didn’t speak for four years after that, so you’ll have to forgive me if I’d rather err on the side of caution.”
“So long as you don’t make a habit of it,” Olivia said somberly. “Because the last thing I want is for you to wonder if you can be honest with me.”
“I’ll take that under advisement,” he promised. “But back to you what you said… I think you’re being hard on yourself, Liv. A lot of relationships are compromises, in one way or another. There is nothing wrong in choosing to be with someone you care about because, among other things, it’s convenient or easy. You were a single mother with a very demanding job. Noah and SVU were your first priority. Everything else came second, including your personal life. I think Ed understood that. I’m sure it wasn’t always easy, but he chose to stay with you because he loved you. And, Liv, I know you loved him.
“I don’t believe for a second you ever treated him as a ‘placeholder’ for something better. I think it was just… doubts. And I don’t think there was ever a person in a relationship who didn’t have doubts.
“And yes, if you and I had gotten together, I would’ve given it all I had. But I would’ve never expected you to do the same. I don’t expect it from you now, and I hope you know that. The way I see it, the best we can do when we’re involved with someone is give it the most we can and trust the person we love to give it what they can. If what they give in return is not enough, we can either make our peace with it or walk away.”
Olivia looked doubtful, but she forced a tremulous smile all the same. “Maybe,” she said, heaving in resignation. “I mean, I know you’re probably right. I’m just trying to make sense of it because I’ve never loved anyone the way I love you. And that makes me question my sincerity when it comes to my feelings for every other man I’ve been with.”
“I love you,” said Rafael. “And one of the reasons I do is because you’re the most sincere and sensitive person I’ve ever known. But, Liv, when we fall in love with people who are so different, at different stages of our lives, how can our feelings for them be the same?”
Her smile was much bigger and more assured when she pulled him in for another kiss. “I ever tell you you can be very persuasive when you want to be?”
“Once or twice,” he smirked at her. “Is it working?”
“Oh, I think you know it is.” She hooked an arm around his shoulder, pulling him into a tight embrace. A long stretch of silence followed in which neither of them had said a word, until Olivia finally murmured, “Rafa?”
“Mmm?”
“Question.”
“Shoot.”
“When you say you don’t expect me to give this relationship all I have, is that a subtle way of hinting you aren’t entirely sure about my move to Boston?”
“I…” The question took Rafael aback a little. “I don’t know,” he said honestly. “On one hand, I’ve always trusted your judgement, both professionally and personally. If you say you’re sure that’s what’s best for you and Noah, I believe you. I also know you to be a strong-minded, independent enough woman who understands that sometimes big gestures don’t guarantee the desired outcome. You say you want to have it all with me, and so do I. But we’ve both lived long enough to know there are things in the world we’re not in control of. I could get hit by a bus a week after you move to Boston. And that’s just one—a little morbid, I know—example.”
“Or…” Olivia hissed, numb from the dread of the mere thought. “You could get hit by my knee that right now just happens to be strategically situated between your legs if you ever use an example like that again.”
“Sorry,” he pedaled back, laughing. “Mom was going through this tragic romance/drama phase a few years ago. She forced me to watch ‘City of Angels’ with her. I guess that awful ending stuck with me.”
“Never seen it.”
“Count your blessings. Anyway, my second point is… I guess no one is ever entirely sure about someone they love uprooting their lives to be with them. Like I said, I trust you to know what’s best for you and Noah. But lemme ask you this: would you be ok if I told you I was quitting my job at Harvard so I could move back to New York?” He hadn’t planned on bringing it up tonight, but they were already on the subject, and he figured he might as well get it out of the way now.
“Sure,” Olivia said in a tone that could teach sarcasm about sarcasm. “So ‘ok’ I’d whip out my service weapon.”
“Well.” Rafael shrugged with a smile. “The People rest.”
Her voice jumped a few notches. “Really? How do you figure?”
“I figure,” he said in a patient tone, “that me uprooting my life for you is no different than you doing the same for me.”
“Like hell it isn’t! I’ve been doing this job for thirty years, you just started yours. My job gives me nightmares, yours makes you the happiest I’ve ever seen you. A few years ago, Noah said something to me that almost made me quit that very day. He told me that ever since he was a child he’s been worried that every time I leave for work could be the last time he ever saw me.” She could see blood draining from Rafael’s face. “Do you want a life like that? Where you never know whether your wife is coming home or you’ll be called to the ME’s office to ID what’s left of her? Because I don’t want that for you. I should’ve quit when Noah told me. I almost did. Maybe that’s one of the reasons I’ve almost exclusively dated cops. When it’s both your lives on the line, it levels the field a little. So, don’t compare my job to yours. Yours is what has inspired me to consider teaching. Mine can get you widowed and Noah orphaned on any given day.”
When he said nothing, just looking at her with a widening smile, she felt herself deflate a little.
“What?”
“Nothing. I just like how you managed to oh-so-casually slip into that blood-chilling tirade of yours the fact that you see us married one day. Almost sounded like a proposal.”
Olivia scoffed, shaking her head at him in exhausted exasperation. “Do you need a proposal? ‘Cause I’ll propose to you right now. That’s how sure I am.”
Rafael laughed. “What’s the point when in your head we’re already married and I’m apparently running a risk of getting widowed before my time?”
She kissed him, smirking. “Not if I move to Boston you don’t. But you know what? Let’s table that. For now. One crazy topic at a time.” Her amused expression turned deadpan. “Tell me that question was hypothetical and you haven’t already quit Harvard.”
“I haven’t,” he assured her. “But I did come very close to it. The reason I came to New York a day early was for job interviews.”
Olivia closed her eyes. “Oh, for fuck’s sake… what am I gonna do with you?”
“Squabble with me until we’re eighty five and still enjoy make-up sex? Though, I have to admit that at this point I’m kinda hoping for a hundred and five.”
“I think I could get on board with that,” she murmured, smiling.
“And I think I just realized I’ve never heard you swear before.”
“Well, keep talking about leaving Harvard and you’ll hear worse than that.”
Rafael gathered her to his chest. “Ok. You win,” he whispered into a soft kiss. “Come to Boston. Be with me. Love me. Marry me. Build a life with me. I’m not going to talk you out of something we both want.”
She smiled into the kiss. “See, that does sound an awful lot like a proposal.”
“I don’t care about proposals. Never have. So long as spending our lives together is what we both want, I don’t care about marriage, either. I want to make you happy. I want Noah to be happy. I want to be there for both of you. I don’t need a piece of paper to do any of these things.”
“That’s… very un-catholic of you.”
“Well, neither is what I’m about to do to you once we’re done talking. I guess it’s a good thing me and my catholic upbringing have never been too attached.”
Olivia gave him an impish grin. “Oh, I think we’re done talking,” she said, then quickly added. “Almost. Because there’s something else I need to tell you about my decision to move to Boston.”
“Liv, I told you—”
“I know. But just… bear with me. Because you need to know this.”
“Ok.” Rafael cupped the side of her face, brushing a thumb against her cheek. “Tell me.”
She drew a breath. Then another. “You weren’t there,” she started, “when Judge Linden asked me if I’d like to become Noah’s foster mother. I’d wanted a child so badly, for so long. It had become this unattainable dream I’d all but given up on. I knew how big a responsibility it was, how hard it is to raise a child, for anyone, let alone for a single mother with my job. And yet…” She smiled, letting the memory wash over her like a warm way. “I knew I was going to say yes the moment she brought it up. It was supposed to be the hardest decision of my life, but somehow it was the easiest. Because that moment was when I first felt it, this feeling of sheer rightness that seeped into my very bones. I’d never felt anything even close to that, and I was sure I never would again. Until Noah sat me down a few days ago and asked me why you have to fly back and forth if we can just move to Boston.”
“Liv…” Tears hit him so fast and hard they felt like fire inside his eyes. “You can’t possibly… It’s not… God, Liv, you can’t compare—”
“I can. And I am.” She pressed her lips to his teary eyes, closing them one by one. “Because it was one of the most singularly astonishing and unforgettable things I’ve ever felt. And in my whole life I’ve only felt it twice: when I took a baby into my home and when, sixteen years later, the wonderful, sensitive boy that that baby had grown into told me that maybe, for once in my life, I should put myself first and be with the man I love.”
It took a moment for Rafael to wrap his head around it. “He actually said that?”
Olivia laughed. “I know, right? I mean, it’s one thing to know that children notice everything. But when your little boy turns into a young man who’s giving you life advice it knocks the wind out of you. I think my favorite was his closing argument, when he got up and said ‘Oh, and don’t even think about the two of us living separately for a while so I can get ‘used’ to you and Rafa sleeping together.’ I mean, he actually used the air quotes. I swear I would’ve read him the Riot act just for that if I’d had it in me to un-drop my jaw.”
“Christ…” was all he could say for a long while. “Wow” came after. At long last, he shook his head. “So… Should I ask for a bigger apartment in the faculty housing or would you rather we rent something that’s equally close to both our jobs and Noah’s school?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “So far, Noah and I have narrowed it down to three highschools he thinks he likes. They are all pretty close to the HLS campus. I was thinking the three of us can go over apartment listings tomorrow. That is, of course, if you’re ok with moving in together. Because I know how sudden it all is. And if you’d like to give it time, or if you aren’t comfortable with it—”
“Of course I am,” said Rafael without a moment of hesitation. “I mean, it’s going to take some getting used to. And Noah and I are going to have to talk about setting boundaries, if that’s ok with you, of course.”
“Oh, by all means. Be my guest. The only mouth I’ve ever seen that was bigger than that boy’s is yours. So, if anyone can do it…”
His head still spun. “Damn, Liv. When you make up your mind, you don’t mess around, do you?”
“Yeah, well…” Olivia grinned at him. “It’s not like it’s news to you.”
It really wasn’t.
“C’mere,” she whispered, taking his smiling face into her hands and tenderly brushing her lips on his. “I know it’s a lot to take in. But I needed you to understand. When I decided to foster Noah, I knew I’d been waiting for him my entire life. I only wish it hadn’t taken me so many years to realize I’ve been waiting for both of you.”
Rafael felt something break inside him, like a lute string that suddenly snapped. His eyes stung as he reached for her.
Somehow, he managed to whisper, “Liv… I don’t even know what to say to that…” before taking all of her into his arms and kissing her deep and hard. “I love you… God help me, I love you so much.”
She might have wanted to say more, but the almost desperate, raw intensity of that kiss had made her body react before she could stop herself. It was as if that sizzling amber of desire had suddenly flared into a full flame. Within seconds, the only thought in her mind was how much she wanted to feel more of him, all of him, skin to skin, inside her and all around her.
“I guess we’re done talking now ,” he whispered, as if reading her mind, which, in all fairness, probably wasn’t that hard. It certainly didn’t help that, as he was saying it, his palm slid from her thigh, over the curve of her hip, grazing her ribcage until he tenderly stroked the side of her breast before taking it fully into his hand.
Her startled whimper melted into his mouth as she arched her back when he used the ball of his thumb to slowly trace the circumference of her nipple through the thin fabric of her pajama top. The last coherent thought she would ever remember from that night was how close to the edge of oblivion he could bring her with just a kiss, at which point her mind went completely blank and the only hand she could fully use in this position was under his threadbare Harvard t-shirt.
His skin was warm and soft under her frantic palm. Olivia wanted to slow down, to let herself savor every inch, but, hard as she tried, her body just wouldn’t listen. Her hand slid over his waist, splaying over his bare stomach. She felt him gasp and then groan into her mouth, as the muscles under her touch tensed and fluttered.
Somehow, with pushing elbows and tangled legs, she managed to turn halfway onto her back, sighing with both relief and pleasure when Rafel followed her lead, pushing her into the couch with the hot weight of his whole body. She could feel the solid bulge of his erection pressed somewhere against her thigh—not quite what she’d had in mind. As hard as she tried to twist her hips, however, the only thing her efforts had yielded was a growl of frustration as she ended up on her side again.
He smiled in adoring amusement against her lips and whispered, “Hold on to me” before bracing his weight on an elbow. She would never know how he managed to flip them both without causing the frenzied tangle of limbs they’d become to tumble completely off the couch. But suddenly, she was flat on her back with him on top. “Better?” he whispered again, dropping a dozen tender kisses all over her flushed face.
“Getting there…” she croaked, trying to shift her hips again.
Rafael didn’t need to be asked. Before she knew it, the swollen knob of his arousal was wedged firmly between her thighs. They both groaned at the long-awaited friction. Olivia’s hands slid under the waistband of his boxers, relishing in the soft feel of his buttocks under her palms as she pushed him against her even harder.
He broke the kiss long enough to murmur, “This?” before claiming her mouth again as he rolled his hips a little back and then dragged the entirety of his hard length over her clit in one slow, torturous motion.
Olivia gasped…
… then let out another startled whimper…
…and then came with a broken cry.
The room around her vignetted into black, starting off at the edges and closing in. Her climax was so intense and sudden she felt helpless and small inside its swathe. It was as if all the desire that had been building inside her this whole time had just uncoiled with a violent force, sending currents of crackling pleasure throughout her body. She felt it everywhere, from her tingling skin to every single stiffened muscle that was making her arch between his arms. Her head snapped backwards so hard she was afraid the tendons would tear in her strained neck.
She didn’t remember him shifting his weight sideways a little and snaking a hand under the waistband of her pajama bottom, but suddenly his fingers were on her clit, circling gently. In her throes of pleasure, she couldn’t be sure what he did, but, whatever it was, was somehow keeping her on her peak until she was certain her heart was about to burst.
The first breath she drew as she began her descent felt like fire inside her lungs. But just then, he slipped two fingers inside her, curling them deftly against her walls…
…and before Olivia realized what was happening, her first orgasm kicked right into the second, and there was nothing remotely broken about her scream when she crashed again.
She could feel her own wetness on the ball of his thumb as he gently pressed it against her already swollen clit, ripping a sound from her throat that was somewhere between a moan and a strangled sob. He didn’t stop there, keeping the pressure light and steady while his fingers were moving in and out of her in gentle, precise thrusts. By the time her second peak was almost over, she was a writhing, sobbing mess.
This time, he let her descend completely, tenderly stroking between her legs as the aftershocks that made her shudder from head to toe were becoming softer and more sparse.
Her eyes were still closed when she felt Rafael’s mouth on her burning face, covering every inch in soothing kisses.
“Wow,” he whispered, with so much awe that, despite her hopelessly limp state, Olivia couldn’t help a chuckle. “That was…”
“...a solid opening statement?” she managed to string between two breaths.
He laughed out loud. “I’d say.” His hand was still caressing her down there. “God, Liv, you’re dripping wet.”
She was about to quip something along the lines of whose fault did he think it was, when he parted her with the tip of his forefinger and dragged it indulgently back and forth over her tender, slickened flesh.
That put an official end to Olivia trying to understand the way her body reacted to this man. She gasped his name, bucking against his hand, like she hadn’t just come so hard— twice— she could barely feel her legs.
It seemed Rafael was as staggered as she was. “Are you sure?” he whispered, careful not to touch her most sensitive spots. “You can barely catch a breath, Liv. Just rest a little. We got time.”
She touched his face with a shaky hand. “I don’t even know anymore,” she breathed. “I’ve never… with anyone… I’ve never been like this.”
There was a sharp prickle of tears in the back of his eyes again when he tenderly kissed the corner of her mouth. “Liv…” was all he managed to get out.
Olivia kissed him back with everything she had, which might not have been much at the moment, but whatever was left was all his. “Don’t stop,” she murmured at long last. “I want all of it. All of you.”
And, God help her, she did. She wanted to come again in his arms, as many times as she could bear. She wanted to feel him inside her, to hold him when he shuddered and groaned in pleasure. She wanted his bare skin on hers, his hands on her breasts, his mouth on hard nipples. She didn’t care in which order they would end up doing all of that, but she knew they would. More than once, and for many years to come.
When she told him she’d never been like that, she meant every word of it. Even during some of her wildest phases, she always needed to be in some control. Not once had she ever felt so entirely safe, trusting, and uninhibited.
She let herself relax completely, closing her eyes and letting her body respond the way it wanted. It was going to anyway, she knew by now, so she figured she might as well indulge it. Her chest expanded fully with every gasp and fell with each sigh of pleasure as his fingers explored her very core.
He was careful, knowing how oversensitive she might be after climaxing so hard. So, he took his time, keeping his touch light at first, dipping the tips of his fingers into her leaking entrance and spreading the wetness he found there all over her soft flesh. Not once had his eyes left her face. And God, but it was a beautiful face to look at, even more so when she was aroused like this. Her eyes were closed, her cheeks flushed, her lips a dark shade of pink and already slightly worried from their kisses. The tiny sighs and whimpers that were escaping her slack mouth were almost enough to make him come. But, as much as he craved to be inside her, seeing this woman he’d loved and wanted for so long enjoying him the way she did was something he wouldn’t trade for a lifetime of galvanizing orgasms… which, with her, he knew they would be.
He realized she was getting close again when her breathing became shallow and more erratic. Those tiny whimpers were now deep moans as she rolled her hips in time with the more assertive movements of his fingers. He covered her mouth with his, and she kissed him back like he was the air she’d been missing.
He wet his thumb a little more before finally moving it just under her mound. A few teasing circles was all it took. She was already over the edge when, careful not to hurt her, he brushed the flat of his thumb over the swollen bud.
This time, her orgasm was quiet, almost tender. While the first two had made her feel like she was about to come apart at the seams, this one was the sweetest, softest, gentlest kind of pleasure she’d ever known. It began at the pit of her tummy, washing over her like a long-awaited breeze on a summer day, spilling like warm honey throughout her veins. She shivered, once, twice, and, without needing to be asked, Rafael withdrew his hand from between her thighs and rolled fully on top of her once again, his body a welcome, grounding weight.
Their mouths never parted the whole time. He burrowed his arms underneath her, and, in turn, she wrapped her still shaky legs around his hips.
When they finally pulled apart what felt like an eternity later, Rafael tenderly brushed away a few strands of silky hair that had fallen onto her face. “Wanna move to the bedroom now?”
Olivia looked around, smiling. “Actually, the couch has kinda grown on me.” Her smile widened when she cupped the side of his face with a soft palm. “You and I spent so many hours here, drinking, talking… it almost feels like our place.”
“It kinda does,” he agreed before pointing out, “Though, if memory serves, we also spent a lot of time at that kitchen counter.”
She snorted. “Nice try. I know I said every surface, but kitchen’s off limits.”
“Gotcha. Although… I can think of a lot of ways we could do it without using any surface.”
“Oh, you can, can you?” She laughed, drawing her arms and legs tighter around all of him. “Fine. We’ll see. For now, however, I would like to point out how outrageously overdressed we still are.”
Rafael couldn’t help an amused chuckle. “‘Outrageously’, huh? A peculiar, albeit not entirely inappropriate, choice of adjective.”
Olivia gave him a killer stare. “I’m sorry, are you going to give me an English lesson or get us naked?”
He laughed, whispering “Point taken” into a short kiss, then levered himself on one arm, pulling his t-shirt over his head and tossing it onto the coffee table.
He was about to do the same with her pajama top when the reverent look in her eyes stopped him. Smiling, he lowered himself onto an elbow, letting her fingers thread through the almost entirely gray hairs on the upper part of his bare chest. They were the thickest between his nipples, with only a light dusting under his collar bones. His stomach was almost smooth, save for a thin strip that ran down from his navel before disappearing altogether under the waistband of his pants. Olivia stroked all of it, the tenderness of her touch so blisteringly exquisite he was afraid to draw a breath. When she gently circled his nipples with both hands at the same time, he nearly folded on top of her as the recoils of pure pleasure shot straight from her fingertips to his already throbbing groin.
Olivia knew that some men had more sensitive nipples than others, but his reaction was like nothing she’d ever seen. She made a note of it for the future, thinking of all the things she could do to him, and not just with her fingertips.
For now, however, she had to force herself to stop, for which Rafael was profoundly grateful, mostly because if she hadn’t, all of his self-control wouldn't have saved him from coming then and there.
A little dizzy, he kissed her once, before gently lifting the upper part of her body and peeling her top off. Olivia raised her arms to help, giving a slight shiver as soon as the cool air laminated her heated skin.
He lowered her back onto the cushions with great care, like she was the most fragile and precious thing he’d ever held. She saw his pupils widen with raw desire as he hovered above her, just looking at her for a long moment with such adulation in his eyes it made her shiver. She could almost feel the caress of his awestruck haze that drifted over the gentle slopes of her bare shoulders, her long arms, her full breasts with their dark nipples, the flat of her soft belly…
…and suddenly she realized it was the first time in her life that she wanted a man to look at her naked body, to see all of her: the parts that she had been born with as well as the terrible scars that in many ways had made her into the woman she was today.
She had never been shy in bed, but even before Lewis she sometimes insisted on keeping the lights off. After Lewis, she had become so guarded and self-conscious she often preferred wearing a full-slip or a babydoll so long as the upper part of her body was mostly covered. Whenever a man she was with would notice one of the scars, she could feel change in the way they looked at her. She never judged them—some of those scars were a horrid sight—but she’d often wished that just once they would see not the pain that those burns had caused her, but the woman who had endured it and lived to fight another day.
For the span of a single heartbeat she wondered whether the reason she felt so utterly unrestrained with Rafael was because none of those scars were new to him. After all, fifteen years ago, her mangled body had been his evidence.
She remembered that trial like it was yesterday. He had spared her the worst of it, but even now, after all these years, those words were still burned into her memory, much like the objects Lewis had used were branded into her skin. She was The People's exhibit D through K. At times it felt like she always would be.
But then she looked into his eyes again and she knew just how wrong she was. He saw her. All of her. Just the way she had always wanted to be seen.
Many years from now she would still remember this moment, the moment she knew why she loved him and how deeply her trust in him truly went.
The moment she knew she was finally free of William Lewis.
“C’mere,” she whispered, battling tears, as she pulled him on top of her, kissing him so hard that her head spun.
When their lips finally parted, he bracketed her between his elbows, looking down at her twitching face with so much tenderness it was enough to break a heart. “You ok?” he asked softly.
“Yes,” Olivia said in her most reassuring voice. “So much more than ok.”
She might have said more, but just then his mouth slipped from her jawline onto the side of her throat, and the rest of the words scrambled into a long moan.
He moved slowly, almost painstakingly so, mouthing a wet trail from under her chin all the way to the soft curve where her neck flowed into her shoulder. At some point, he lifted his torso just enough to allow for her hard nipples to drag over his bare chest, making them both groan and shiver.
His mouth followed the delicate line of her collarbone for a while, before suddenly changing direction. Olivia couldn’t be certain what came first: the tender kiss on the inner side of her breast, his hand cupping the rest of it, or his thumb drawing a reverent crescent under the soft swell. Whichever it was, it tore a shattered sound from her throat that might or might not have been his name.
When his mouth finally closed over the peak of her breast, her head fell back in abundance just as her hands slipped from his bare shoulders into his hair. For the life of her, she couldn’t begin to guess what that clever tongue of his was doing to her nipple, but she felt the jolting pleasure of each touch down to her very core.
Just when she thought she couldn't take any more of it, Rafael moved to her other breast, using his free hand to tease and knead the one he had left behind. At which point, she was beginning to wonder if he was trying to kill her, because, God, but the man knew what to do with a woman’s body.
For all that, when he let go of her breasts and his mouth moved onto her belly, she almost sobbed at the sudden loss. What's worse, only a few moments later, the warmth of him was gone altogether, and Olivia opened her eyes to find him kneeling between her legs where he seemed to be struggling to rid himself of his pants and boxers.
Yeah, that couch might have become their place, but it was hardly the most accommodating item of furniture when it came to taking your clothes off. She was tempted to give him a hand, but then he was all done, rendering her not only speechless but completely unable to stop staring… and not at his smiling face.
Her eyes drank the sight of him— all of him, even if some of his parts did draw her attention more than others—where he sat on his hunches between her legs, smiling and endearingly unabashed by his full nakedness.
“What?” he finally laughed when Olivia hadn’t uttered a single word for a long time.
She snapped out of it, directing a pointed look to where that thin strip of hairs that stretched down from his navel widened into a thicket of dense curls. “Nothing,” she said, grinning. “Just thinking how I’m hardly the only one who’s ‘dripping wet’.”
Rafael looked down at himself where his swollen erection glistened from copious precome, with another droplet of it slowly slithering from his slit over the soft flesh of his fully exposed tip.
He chuckled, shrugging. “Well… It’s been a while.”
Olivia cocked her head to one side, folding an arm underneath it. “Really? How long’s ‘a while’?”
“Liv?” With a lopsided smirk, he hooked a finger under the waistband of her pajama pants, peeling it down just enough to expose her hip bones. “You really think now’s the best time to discuss my sex life?”
“Why, is it a state secret— Oh God…” She gasped when he bent over her, planting a reverent kiss on her mound over the soft fabric.
“You were saying?” Rafael slid his fingers under her hips, lifting them gently and then sitting up again so he could finally take her pajama bottoms completely off.
There was really nothing she could say, not when the man she loved sat naked and smiling between her bare thighs, stroking them gently, and looking at her like she was the most riveting thing he’d ever seen.
She was quite a sight, she imagined, with her hair tousled all over the pillow, her nipples glistening wetly where his mouth had been only a minute ago, her legs spread wide on either side of him, completely exposing the pink flesh between them.
At long last she found her voice. “Rafa, you just gonna stare at me or you intend to do something about it?” she asked with an impish smirk. “Preferably before I come again without you laying a finger on me.”
He smiled at her. “Oh, I intend to do a lot of things. Just wondering where to start.”
“Oh really? Y’know, speaking of adjectives, there are quite a few I could use to describe you, but ‘indecisive’? Not even in the vicinity of that ballpark.”
He couldn’t argue with that. “Well…” He hooked his hands under her knees, bent her legs, and pushed them up, spreading her thighs even wider. “You did mention something about wanting ‘all of it’.”
Before she could realize what he meant, he bent down and put his mouth right over her wet clit. Olivia cried out from the sheer surprise of it, her thighs scissoring even further, her hips surging up when he kissed her deeply, just as he would her mouth. She felt his tongue gliding inside her open seam, circling and teasing and all-in-all driving her to the brink of another climax so fast there was nothing that could be done about it.
For a brief moment, Rafael considered using his fingers again, but thought better of it. Instead, he pushed her folded legs even higher against her body, slid a little further down, and slipped his tongue inside her as deep as he possibly could. Through the haze of the most erotic thing he’d ever done to a woman, he heard Olivia’s startled “Oh!” preceding the sweetest moan of pleasure he’d ever heard. The last thing he remembered was seeing her hands dig into the cushions, twisting fistfuls of soft upholstery.
And then he was lost to her, to the taste of her, to her maddening scent, to the marvelous softness of her walls as they clenched around him. He swirled his tongue, thrusting it in and out of her slick entrance, savoring every sound he was ripping out of her. He knew he couldn’t reach that deep, sensitive spot inside her, but soon enough he felt her coming again nonetheless, withdrawing his tongue and moving his mouth up so he could suck on her clit until the last of the aftershocks revibrated throughout her body and died out.
Only then did he straighten up, gently unfolding her trembling legs and lowering them onto the cushions.
“Goddamn you…” Olivia managed to whisper, reaching for him almost blindly. “Come here.”
Rafael did. Still dizzy, he stretched on top of her naked body, stroking her ruffled hair.
She shook her head at him with a weary smile. “I’ve always known that big mouth of yours was a menace, but this…”
He gave her the trademark half-smirk. “I do my best.”
“Oh, I know.” She tasted herself on his lips and tongue when she kissed him deeply, wiping that smug grin off of his face, at least for now.
In response, he entered her just as suddenly as he had put his mouth on her, in one perfectly angled, perfectly deep thrust.
Olivia wound her arms and legs around him, breaking the kiss with a sigh that was a mix of need and pleasure. His name and a whispered “Oh God…” both came on a single breath.
Rafael knew how close he was the moment he felt her walls around him. At first, he tried to move slowly, drawing nearly all the way out before sliding back in, relishing in the indulgent sighs that fanned his lips whenever he was inside her. Her hips rolled in time with every thrust, and, at some point, he felt her fingers sinking into the soft flesh of his backside, pushing him in even deeper.
As hard as he tried to hold it, though, before long he was trembling with what they both knew was about to happen.
“It’s ok,” Olivia whispered, straining her neck to kiss him. “Just let it go…” She smiled, stroking his back and shoulders. “We’ll make it last next time.”
She didn’t tell him how much she wished it would last forever this time. How whole she felt when with him inside her. How long she’d waited for him, how badly it hurt knowing they could have started their life together over a decade ago.
And maybe she didn’t have to tell him. Because instead of letting it go, Rafael rose on his knees a little, changing an angle and smiling against her lips when her sharp cry let him know he’d hit the spot he wanted. With the last of the strength that was left to him, he started to move faster, his thrusts almost impossibly deep, each one striking that knot of nerve endings inside her that was making her thrash and whimper between his arms.
She came just as he dropped his head onto her shoulder, tucking his face into the soft curve of her neck moments before he began to lose his cadence. His hips jerked uncontrollably now and his whole body jolted until he drove into her with a broken groan in one desperate, deep thrust, and stilled completely.
For a long time neither of them moved, except for Olivia’s legs that bonelessly slid from around his thighs. After a while, she skewed her head, just a little, so she could rest her cheek on the top of his head where it was still buried under her chin. His hair was damp from sweat when she gently threaded her fingers through it.
“You ok in there?” she asked in a soft whisper at long last, gently tickling the base of his neck.
His mouth curved into a weak smile against her skin. “Not the word I’d use, but yes, I am.”
She didn’t ask him which word he would use, mostly because she was fairly certain that all the words in all the languages in the world couldn’t describe the complete, enveloping bliss of those quiet moments they lay utterly happy and utterly spent in each other’s arms.
Neither of them were certain how long they’d stayed like that, but after a while Olivia felt a sudden chill. Her mouth found Rafael’s ear, whispering, “We should probably go to bed. It’s getting cold in here. I think a window is open in Noah’s room.”
“It was.” Rafael sighed, emerging with great reluctance from under her chin and meeting her halfway for the sloppiest, sweetest kiss they’d shared all night. “I closed it when I came home. It looked like it was going to rain.”
She couldn't tell what had made her heart squeeze tighter: the fact that he felt at home enough to make sure the windows were closed before the storm or the ease with which his mouth had wrapped over the word ‘home’, like it was the most natural thing in the whole world.
“I thought you’d fallen asleep in there,” she said, smiling.
Rafael chuckled under his breath. “A few more minutes and I probably would have.”
It took all of his willpower to untangle himself from Olivia’s arms and pull out of her as he scrambled back until he was kneeling between her legs. He was already fully limp, but they both groaned at the sudden loss.
“There, under your t-shirt” she said, pointing to a box of Kleenex on the far side of the coffee table when she noticed him looking around in search of something.
He cleaned them both as best he could, determined not to dwell on the insanely arousing sight of the wet smudges on the inner side of her beautiful thighs and the milky streak under her slightly swollen entrance where his own ejaculate was trickling out of her.
“I think we’ve ruined your perfectly clean couch,” he noted, wincing as he inspected the damp stain.
Olivia laughed. “My perfectly clean couch is perfectly clean because I’m very good at cleaning it. Trust me, a little sperm is nothing compared to years of ketchup, juice, milk, spaghetti sauce, and coffee stains. There’s a trash can in the kitchen.”
Rafael gave the crumpled tissues in his hand a doubtful look, before clambering off the sofa on shaky legs. “Be right back,” he said, heading into the bathroom. Trash can or not, some things didn’t belong in the kitchen.
Her eyes followed his naked form as he came back to the living room and lowered himself onto the edge of the couch. Olivia turned on her side, curling her body around him. “God, you’re gorgeous,” she whispered, running her hand over his bare muscular thigh.
He snorted. “Ok, one: look who’s talking. And two—just in case you weren’t being sarcastic: I’m 5’8’’, in my late fifties, with wobbling parts that no amount of swimming or running seems to be helpful in getting rid of.”
Olivia rolled her eyes at him, mocking his tone. “Ok, one: just looking at you makes me want you again, and that’s after having come I don’t even remember how many times. So shut up and take a compliment. And two: you’re swimming and running?”
“Doctor’s orders,” he grunted. “I gained weight after… well, three years ago. My cholesterol skyrocketed and my HDL was too low.”
It was only now that she noticed that the watch on his wrist was not a Rolex. “Noah has one of those. Garmin, right?”
“Yep. Apparently Noah and I happen to have the same model.” Rafael ran the tip of his forefinger over the black plastic. “It was a gift, actually. My first year at HLS, one of my students, Isaac, a 2L, was moonlighting as a fitness coach. He saw me running one morning and said I was going to ruin my knees if I kept at it the way I did. Took him months to fix my form. He was also the one who’d gotten me into swimming. And taught me how to. He gave me this watch the day he graduated last year. He’s a junior ASA in Chicago nowadays. Still sends me running drills over the Garmin app.” When he looked at her, she was smiling from ear to ear. “What?”
“And you thought I’d let you quit Harvard?” Olivia got off the couch, sliding onto his lap and wrapping her arms tightly around his neck. “I wish you could see your face whenever you talk about your students,” she whispered, dropping a dozen kisses onto the said face.
He looked up at her, unable to stop running his hands all over her naked body. “I think we should go to bed before we end up soiling your couch more than we already have.” His mouth was already on her neck, his fingers gently scratching her tummy before climbing up to caress her beautiful, full breasts.
“Way to change the subject, Counselor,” she strained in a broken whisper into a needy kiss.
“Oh, you think that was a change of subject?” His hand snaked between her thighs.
Yanking that hand out was by far one of the hardest things Olivia Benson had ever done.
“Bed. Now,” she commanded, laughing and pulling him onto his feet.
Rafael followed her into the bedroom where they slid under the chilly covers and into each other’s ready arms.
Outside, the first autumn storm was flexing its muscles against the gritty, iconic skyline of the City.
Inside, a half-remembered dream that had lain dormant for many years was budding into a new life.