DISCLAIMER: Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and its characters are the property of NBC and Dick Wolf.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: fun with Latin, and other quips. Probably not all that safe for work…
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
The Sum of Contradictions: 30 Habeas corpus
By beurre blanc
"Alex, this is incredible. I don't think I've ever eaten so well in my life – and certainly not on vacation!"
Alex blushed, but accepted the compliment gracefully. "I love that I don't just have to cook for one all the time – cooking for two is so much easier."
"I feel like I ought to be tipping you, or something. I never thought I'd say this, but you might have missed your calling."
"Now I know you've had too much to drink, Detective!"
"No, I'm serious! What would be suitable payment?"
"Payment-in-kind, you m-,"
Olivia captured the last of her words with a kiss, long and sensuous, and her hand smoothed its way across Alex's breast, before slipping down beneath the soft light cotton of Alex's beach shirt, and cupping her sex.
As Olivia broke the kiss she felt Alex murmur, "Oh, don't stop, Liv."
"You like that?" The caresses resumed.
"Oh, God, yes. You know I do."
"So, if I keep this up, I can expect to be even more well-fed?" asked the detective, double entendre quite deliberate.
"Oh, that's the whole reason I do it in the first place." Olivia's fingers began to push aside the bathing suit, slipping between wet folds, sliding home.
"Do what?"
"Cook," breathed Alex, hips beginning to match Olivia's rhythm, "for you."
"Really?"
"Shut up, Olivia." Put your mouth to better use…
Roused by distant gulls mewing in the early morning stillness, Alex opened heavy lids slowly, and rolled over in a luxuriant stretch. Thirsty, she sat up a little, and reached for the tumbler on the bedside table. The water was still cool, and she drank eagerly. The first mouthful crossing her still-swollen lips brought with it the faint flavor of her lover, gone again almost before she registered it, and Alex smiled at the resurgent memory of their lovemaking the night before.
She turned to look at Olivia's relaxed sprawl, the twisted cotton sheet covering one leg and her lower back. She had pushed aside her pillow some time during the night, the side of her face now pressed against the mattress, mouth slightly open, hair tousled and unruly. As Alex watched, a gentle breeze played across Olivia's shoulders and back, the slightest of touches leaving behind faint goosebumps as it passed. She reached out and rested her fingertips lightly against olive skin, smoothing the goosebumps away, fascinated by the contrasting tones.
"A little more to the left."
Alex startled from her reverie. "Hey, good morning." She leaned over and chastely kissed Olivia's temple. "I didn't mean to wake you."
"Well, if you keep doing that I promise not to complain," replied Olivia, eyes slipping closed again as she felt Alex resume her caressing exploration. "Hmmmm…"
As she lowered her mouth to kiss the middle of Olivia's spine, Alex whispered "I love the color of your skin, Liv." Alex felt the sudden tension in the muscles beneath her lips, and she smiled.
"Ticklish?"
"Um, yeah…" No.
"Is the olive skin from your mother or your father?"
Oh Jesus…
Alex ran another teasing, tickling fingernail across Olivia's skin, tracing delicate spirals. "O-liv-i-a," came the sing-song whisper, "answer the question…"
"My fa-," Olivia's dry throat closed. She cleared it, and tried again. "My father."
"What was he like?" Alex kissed the skin again, slowly, tasting. "As gorgeous as you?"
Don't do this, Alex. "He was… He wasn't around… I, um, I didn't really know him."
"Oh, sweetheart, I'm sorry." This time the hand smoothed across Olivia's brow, soothingly back through her hair. "That must have been hard."
You have no idea. Olivia sat up abruptly. "I'm gonna get some coffee. Want some?" Then she stood up and exited the room without waiting for an answer, leaving a puzzled Alex in her wake, wondering what had suddenly fractured the mood.
Olivia walked backwards through the screen door, two wine glasses in one hand, and a bowl of olives in the other. She walked along the wide verandah, the warm salty breeze curling lazily around tanned legs bare below her cut-off denim shorts. Olivia inhaled slowly, and smiled. This place is like a fantasy…
"Dinner will be ready in half an hour," she announced, handing one of the glasses to Alex, and setting the other glass and the small bowl on the table in front of Alex's wicker chaise longue.
"Shit!"
"What?"
"Sorry. Spilled my drink."
"Oh, so that wasn't a reference to the quality of the upcoming meal, then," deadpanned a bespectacled Alex, not looking up from the sheaf of papers in her hand. She sipped her wine slowly, examining the document carefully, before setting it down beside her and signing the bottom of the page.
Uh huh. Two can play this game, baby. Olivia eased herself onto the end of the seat and looked down at the page Alex had just signed, scrutinizing the scrawl with a concerned frown.
"What happened to your signature, Alex?"
"Pardon?"
"Poor thing looks like someone stepped on it."
Olivia's comment was so unexpected it ruined any chance of Alex keeping a straight face.
"Well, you're one to talk," she chuckled.
"At least you can tell mine is derived from the letters in my name."
"Bite me, Liv." Alex pursed her lips to disguise her amusement, and resumed her reading.
Later, sweetheart. "Uh oh!" Olivia shook her head, and clicked her tongue in mock disapproval.
"What now?"
"Sounds like somebody's been spending too much time hanging around the squad room."
"Oh, that's simply an efficiency measure."
"Excuse me?"
"Combining work with pleasure," declared Alex, shrugging innocently.
"Oh, but you never know what you might pick up."
"I have a reasonable idea…" Alex looked up just as Olivia selected an olive and placed it slowly and suggestively between her lips. Watching the exaggerated and sensuous motion of Olivia's mouth as she chewed and swallowed the fruit caused Alex a sudden flood of desire, both literally and figuratively. She looked at Olivia expectantly. The detective held her gaze, a little longer than necessary, before selecting another olive from the bowl. She held it out, but as Alex leaned forward to take it Olivia withdrew her hand just enough to keep the olive out of reach of the blonde's mouth, before popping it suddenly into her own. Alex's eyes flashed sapphire at Olivia's teasing defiance.
"Come here" she beckoned silkily, knowing her tone would leave Olivia powerless to do anything but comply. She sat forward to meet Olivia's approaching kiss, placing one hand around the nape of the detective's neck, as the other drifted around to the middle of her back. The embrace was sensual and unhurried, sharing the flavors of the olives and semillon. It was not until she drew back again that Olivia realized her lover's questing fingertips were motivated by a more sinister purpose than simple mindless caresses – before Olivia could even contemplate reacting, a laughing Alex had whipped away the string bikini top she had so deftly untied, and was dangling it out just of the detective's reach.
"Why you-," Olivia blushed crimson as her nipples tightened painfully under Alex's appreciative gaze. She crossed her arms across her breasts, as much to deny Alex her triumph as to shield herself from the view of any late afternoon beachgoers.
"I what, detective?" grinned Alex smugly, waving the bikini top slowly as she flicked her eyes towards the bowl of olives.
"Oh, I see." Olivia nodded slowly. "You're after a ransom, are you?"
"Quid pro quo, detective."
"You think speaking in Latin somehow justifies the unlawful detention of my bikini? I ought to speak to my ADA about that."
"Why? So she could file a writ of habeas corpus on its behalf?"
"I expect-," Olivia selected another olive from the bowl, glanced towards the beach to reassure herself it was deserted, then leaned slowly backwards on the seat, "-she could mount a prIma facie case." Alex watched with barely-concealed want as Olivia drew a slow serpentine line down the skin of her taut abdomen, perching the olive in her navel before reclining fully on the chaise longue.
"Counselor…?" Olivia watched as Alex swallowed reflexively, trying to regain control of the conversation.
"Well, perhaps 'your' ADA would be prepared to discuss a deal?"
"Do I detect a hint of mens rea?"
Alex capitulated. "Oh absolutely - mea culpa, detective. But please, culpae poenae par esto."
Olivia laughed and shook her head. "Ok, you lost me with that one."
" 'Let the punishment fit the crime'."
"Oh, well in that case, you'd better come and get it," smirked Olivia.
Alex lowered her watering mouth slowly towards the olive, and Olivia only just made out the lawyer's final rejoinder, "Not necessarily in that order…"
The End