DISCLAIMER: Most characters are not mine, but I'm using them for entertainment and not for profit. The story is my own.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: The “Drinks” series of short pieces: limited to fewer than three full pages, written primarily as fragments of conversations, each featuring at least one drink. The stories are completely unrelated, unless otherwise stated and don’t fit in any particular timeline. They also may be unrelated to canon. I just try to keep the characterization true. I hope I’ve succeeded in that.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
Drinks Series:
Sake
By Allie
Olivia Benson turned to her dinner companion. "Of all the ways I imagined you'd introduce the subject of the two of us having sex, I have to say this never occurred to me."
"I didn't think you were the type to object to the direct approach, detective."
"I'm not usually, no. And I admit that you did make all the right moves: picking me up at my door, reservations at Nobu, entertaining conversation and a lot to drink." She raised her cup of rice wine. "Cheers."
Alexandra Cabot offered her companion a rare smile. "Why do you find it so hard to believe that I want you?"
"Come on, Alex, I pursued you for months and all I ever got were excuses. You were aware of my interest, but gave me the cool, uninterested shoulder."
"Would you allow that I've thought some more about it and I've decided that sleeping with you could be good for me?"
"Good for your ego, you mean? Having me around like a salivating dog?"
"You know I think more of you than that. Didn't I invite you to dinner tonight? It's not easy to get a reservation at Nobu on a Saturday night, you know."
"Yes, you did make the arrangements. And I know it required some planning. I'm just still a little bit wary…"
She leaned forward, so that her low-cut dress revealed the shadow between her breasts. "Tell me what I need to do to make you believe that I want you to come home with me."
Olivia shook her head. "It's not you," she said, "I promise. It's just that I've been on an emotional roller coaster for the last few years and I made a promise to myself that the next time I took somebody into my bed, it would be more than just… scratching an itch."
"And you think that's how I see you, as an itch that needs to be scratched?"
"I think you see me as a challenge."
"Olivia, I see you as much more than that. I also know that you've been almost reclusive since…"
"Can we not talk about that? It's in the past." In an effort to escape the intimacy of the conversation, she looked around the restaurant. But escape wasn't really possible and she suddenly realized what a mistake it had been to accept the invitation to dinner. Maybe if it had been just an offer of mindless sex, she could have ignored the past and indulged the neglected needs of her body.
Alex pursed her lips. "Should I be offended that you're having such a hard time accepting that we could be good for each other?"
"No, you should take it as a compliment that I won't fall into bed with you just because you're beautiful and I know that sex with you would be something I'd remember for the rest of my life."
"A compliment?" Alex was skeptical and slightly offended. She wasn't used to rejection.
"Taking me to your bed would be a mistake for you. It would be great for me, but it would just complicate your life further."
"How so?"
"I'm not Olivia Benson, Alex. And I don't want to be her stand-in. Especially when she's sitting across the room looking as wounded as if she'd just caught sight of me having a liaison with her wife."
Alex turned in the direction her date was looking and her eyes locked with the wounded brown eyes of the woman she'd been determined to forget, at least for one night. "Looks as though she's on a date." Alex was shocked to hear the hoarse pain in her own voice.
"Looks as if she's right."
"What?" Alex reluctantly dragged her gaze back to Trevor Langan's.
"It looks as if I have been caught in an attempted liaison with Olivia Benson's wife." He accused and started to fold his napkin just as Olivia did the same on the other side of the room.
"I'm sorry," Olivia whispered to Mike, a nice-enough FBI agent who would have been the perfect romantic partner and who might well have persuaded her to go home with him, if a casual glance around the restaurant had not brought Alexandra Cabot into her field of vision. "I'm being completely unfair to you." Unable to help herself, she turned her agonized gaze back to the table where Alex sat, just as Alex's companion, Trevor Langan, got up to leave. "Please let me pay for dinner," she pleaded quietly to Mike, blinking her eyes as tears threatened.
Mike held up his hand. "Don't be silly. I knew beforehand that you and Alex Cabot…"
"There's nothing between me and Alex."
"Is that why she's looking accusingly at me as though I'm trying to pick up her woman?"
Olivia stood and picked up her purse. "Thanks for dinner."
The End