Fic: Law and Order: SVU - The Fifth Floor (Chapter 3)
Series: The Fifth Floor
Chapter 3: Logic’s Reality
Author: vegawriters
Fandom: Conviction/Law and Order: SVU
Pairing: Alex/Robert; discussion of Alex/Ali (OFC) and Alex/Olivia
Rating: Adult
Timeframe: Late season seven SVU/Conviction series
A/N: I proudly own Conviction. As bad as it is, I proudly own it and I watch it. Why? Because I don’t think that Alex’s portrayal was out of character. How would you react if you’d just left witness protection and were dumped into a politically sensitive place in a politically sensitive bureau? So, in this series, we actually take a look at why Alex was the cold, calculating, manipulative bitch that she was portrayed to be. This series is also a continuation of Walking on Slick Rock and it really does help to read that first.
Disclaimer: Conviction and L&O: SVU both belong to Dick Wolf and co. I’m just playing around with the characters until Wolf Films gives me a paying gig.
Summary: Her misplaced sense of logic justified her accepting another date as the harsh reality of her world - she couldn’t make the changes she wanted to make if she didn’t have the power to do it. But her heart reminded her that the changes she wanted to make meant more than time in the governor’s mansion. It reminded her that logic didn’t always rule the world. But Alex still flinched when cars backfired and when black SUVs drove past. She still searched through courtrooms, looking for Liam Connors and still glanced behind her when she entered buildings, waiting to see another one of Velez’s henchmen coming after her. Logic was the only thing that kept her sane right now.
Stop me, won’t you
If you’ve heard this one before
From Shy by Ani Difranco
It wasn’t as if she’d never been with a man before.
Like most girls, Alex lost her virginity at sixteen. Groping and fumbling in the dark, she’d whimpered in pain as Brian Ackerman broke her hymen, and the condom. The week after, while she waited for her period to come and worked up the guts to talk to her mother about birth control, she paced the house like a cat in heat and prayed her dreams wouldn’t be over before they ever had the chance to begin. When she did finally bleed, Alex broke up with Brian and turned her focus to her studies - and to dating Brian’s best friend, who never fumbled when they had sex and who never once broke the condom. She never felt guilty for dating Mike, or for breaking up with him on graduation night when he hinted that he wanted to propose. She couldn’t marry him. He was going to Yale and majoring in Finance and no good daughter of Harvard would ever marry a son of Yale.
Love, for her, never factored into her decision. Why should love matter? Love was messy and emotional and it got in the way of getting what she wanted. Her parents hadn’t married until they were in their thirties. Why should she set off to Harvard with an engagement ring on her finger?
Apparently, nothing had really changed.
And as far as male lovers went, Robert wasn’t completely incapable. Typical for the most part, caring more about his own release than her own, but he was still gentle and when she rolled away and started searching for her clothes (lest she be caught in the morning’s light in her evening dress) he didn’t object. He did encourage her to stay, but he didn’t object when she offered him a brief kiss on the lips and darted for a cab and the safety of her recently bought but still as yet unpacked apartment.
The heat of the shower pummeled her and Alex sank to her knees, too numb to even scrub Robert’s smell from her body. Her hair, freshly curled for the night’s outing, hung in tangles as the hairspray slowly dripped out of it and down her shoulders and into the water collecting at the bottom of the tub. The water eased her smudged makeup from her eyes. And she sat there under the spray, waiting and waiting for any sense of sexual euphoria, until the hot water ran out and she realized she was shivering. She crawled out of the shower, pulling a towel from the heated towel rack, and wrapped the terry cloth around her shoulders. Water dripped on the pale blue chiffon and satin gown she’d been wearing to impress the most boring of Wall Street Society. She let it seep into the fabric, ruining it. She’d stopped caring. It was an old dress anyway.
Somehow, she made it to her bedroom and pulled a pair of sweats from a clothing box that still hadn’t been unpacked. The feds had just boxed up everything. Her photo albums and her law books and the clothes that had once belonged to Olivia. How much had Olivia been able to salvage before the feds swooped in?
It wasn’t until she was standing at her mirror, wiping the last of the makeup from her face, that she realized both the tank top and the sweats she was wearing had actually been Olivia’s. The blue NYPD on the leg was faded and cracked, the gray tank top stretched just a little in the breasts. How often had Alex pulled this shirt from Olivia’s body?
Slowly, Alex reached for her shower comb and pulled it through her tangled hair. She felt haunted, gripped by something she just didn’t understand. She’d slept with Robert. So what? She’d gone to an incredibly boring party and fallen into bed with her date. So what? It wasn’t that uncommon and he wasn’t the first person she’d slept with since returning home. But the others had all been women - casual pickups in bars after work; once she had been spied by Brian Peulso who just winked at her and then never mentioned it at work. Tonight felt different.
What, it was only cheating if she slept with men?
No, it wasn’t cheating. She needed to remember that. She’d left Ali standing on her front porch back on the reservation. She’d kissed her good bye and promised she’d make something of her life and left her home in Arizona knowing that eventually, Ali would move on. She’d come back to New York and made absolutely no attempt to contact Olivia. Her old life didn’t need to factor into her new one. She wanted it to, but she had to be realistic. She needed to feel stable again and right now …
Oh who was she kidding?
She was still terrified of her old life. Maybe she did need therapy. Maybe work wasn’t enough.
The phone taunted her. It would be so easy to pick it up and dial the numbers and beg Olivia to come over. It would be so easy to just put on her shoes and run to Olivia’s. To kneel at her door or go bearing bouquets of stock and roses and beg for just a few minutes of Olivia’s time. She could explain. She could apologize.
Shaking, Alex picked up the cordless and stared at the keypad. Ten digits. It wasn’t so hard.
The slam of the phone onto the table startled even her and she winced. One of her French tips had snapped and the cuticle was bleeding. The blood dropped onto the phone and Alex stared at it, horrified. It was just blood. But it was her blood.
Sucking her finger into her mouth, Alex sighed shook the sudden fright away. It was late and she needed to try to sleep and she had a meeting in the morning and …
It wasn’t too late back in Arizona. A quick phone call. She could hear Ali’s soft voice and cry out her fears and Ali would make everything better.
Hammond's voice echoed in her mind. “A clean break is better, Alex.”
Shaking, Alex closed her eyes and dialed the phone.
“Hello?”
Fuck. She’d been hoping to get voice mail or … “Hi, Ali …”
What was she doing? What the hell was she doing? What was she thinking …?
“Hi, babe. What’s wrong?”
The gentle tone, as always with no judgment, answering like this kind of phone call happened every night between them, soothed her and Alex burst into tears. “I just …”
“Come home,” Ali’s voice whispered across the lines and Alex could hear the heartbreak in the other woman's voice. “Just come home. I’m here.”
“I can’t …”
“It isn’t that you can’t,” Ali’s voice remained gentle, “it’s that you’re scared to. Thank you for sending the scouts to Carlos by the way. He’s keeping his grades up and staying out of trouble.”
“Good.”
“Alexandra?”
“Yes?”
“Why did you call me tonight? What happened?”
Alex closed her eyes and felt Robert slowly unzipping the back of her dress, felt her body arch against his, felt him come and release and yet still hold her even though she wasn’t anywhere near satisfied.
“You met someone.”
“Yes.”
Ali was quiet for a long, long time. “Don’t let whoever it is interfere with your future, Alexandra.”
“It’s just the opposite, Ali.”
Again, Ali fell silent for a long time. “I see. Is he a good man?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Then come home. Come back here. If not forever, at least until you get your head on straight. It sounds like you are just spinning out of control right now and that’s never good for anyone.”
“I can’t just pick up and move. As much as I want to.”
“Then why did you call me tonight?”
“Because I miss you.” There, she’d said it. “I miss you and I want you here, with me.”
“Me being there ruins your political chances. I’m a half-breed with artistically lesbian tendencies. Trust me, New York may think it’s liberal but they don’t want someone like me being referred to as the first lady. Anyway, you told me you just met someone.”
“Ali …”
“You made your choice. Now, you just have to own it, okay? Make your decision. Hell, I think you’ve already made it. So just do it. I love you.”
“I love you too.”
“Good-bye, Alexandra.”
Alex failed at biting back a sob. “Good-bye, Ali.”
For a long moment, Alex stared at the phone. And then at her bed, piled high with pillows. It looked so comfortable, so secure, but comfort and security were too easy a route to take right now. So she pulled her hair back into a low ponytail and reached over, flipping on her CD player, turning it loud enough to hear from the different rooms in the apartment. What Ali hadn’t said rung in Alex’s ears; it was time to finish unpacking and to get on with her life. She’d wallowed long enough in her fears. She’d made choices and it was time to accept them.
Her steps took her first to the kitchen, where she tore into the pile of boxes and started to unpack. Pots and pans that were once never really used, she now had plans for. Dishes that had once been more covered in dust than food would now be used. It was her plan. She knew better; she knew the hours her job demanded, but it was nice to hope.
Moving into the living room, realizing that in her time organizing her kitchen, the CD had stopped and the time was pushing close to two AM. But she couldn’t sleep. Not yet. Settling on her couch, Alex pulled one of the boxes close to her. She’d packed this one at the house in the Hamptons. Random items - her jewelry box, a couple of books, and a package she’d never opened. White tissue paper painted with Arizona sunsets wrapped around something small. Ali’s Christmas present to her.
Suddenly tired, Alex leaned back into the cushions and tugged one of the afghans over her legs. She stared at the tissue paper, knowing that whatever was in the package was made with love, with only her happiness in mind. Carefully, she tugged the ribbon on the paper.
Sitting in her lap was a piece Alex had never seen, even though she knew it to be one of Ali’s. An elegantly carved turquoise heart sat in a gold and silver setting that braided together around the stone and bound together at the top in an intricate knot. The chain of pure liquid silver floated in her hand and Alex wrapped her fingers around it and pressed her hand to her heart.
“I love you too,” she whispered into the darkness.
Alex woke on the couch, the heart pressed into her cheek. She was late, but it wasn’t a tragedy - only a missed meeting with Jim that could be rescheduled. But the voice mail waiting for her made her heart flip and she didn’t know what possessed her to pick up the phone and return Robert’s call.
Her misplaced sense of logic justified her accepting another date as the harsh reality of her world - she couldn’t make the changes she wanted to make if she didn’t have the power to do it. But her heart reminded her that the changes she wanted to make meant more than time in the governor’s mansion. It reminded her that logic didn’t always rule the world. But Alex still flinched when cars backfired and when black SUVs drove past. She still searched through courtrooms, looking for Liam Connors and still glanced behind her when she entered buildings, waiting to see another one of Velez’s henchmen coming after her. Logic was the only thing that kept her sane right now.
Her heart would just have to wait. She wasn’t quite ready to clean up the mess it would make.
***
“Hi, Mom.” Her legs shaking, Alex knelt at the gravesite. The marble stone, lovingly polished, held a photograph of Miranda Martin Cabot. With gentle fingers, she traced the image of her mother, not even trying to hold back the tears. “I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to come up here. I guess … I guess a part of me actually believed that if I didn’t see this, it wouldn’t be real.” She laid the flowers in the melting snow and rocked back on her heels. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there. I wish … I wish I could have told you. You’ll be pissed but I told Olivia I was in protection. I had to. It was selfish of me, but she … she needed to know. More than you guys I think. Olivia’s in the business, she understands. You guys would have just tried to convince the feds you could protect me. You can’t. I wish you could.
“I … I’m back at work, just like I should be. And it’s good. It’s been rocky, but it’s good. My first trial starts Monday and it isn’t anything like I’ve investigated and prosecuted before. It’s a ponzie scheme … and he bilked millions and millions of dollars out of older widows who were relying on pensions to survive. Robert, that’s the man I’m dating, he jokes that he isn’t sure if he should support me or remind me that Wall Street is just one really big ponzie scheme and we in the DA’s office need to get over ourselves. People take risks - that’s what he’s always telling me. That lawsuits like the one I’m taking on are just a sign that we as a culture can no longer take responsibility for our lives. As a rule, I try to leave work at the office though. There are things he could tell me about his business that if I knew and it came to light in a trial later, I could get disbarred. I told a colleague once that dating him was so nice because he doesn’t deal with rapists and murderers all day long and because of that, we can have a life outside of work. But the truth is … he brings his work home and I listen, bored to tears. Is this how you felt with Daddy? I know you love him and I know how he worshipped you, but you always left the case files at work and he filled the dinner conversation with Wall Street shop talk. It’s like that with me and Robert. Most nights, I don’t mind it.
“Yes … yes. I’m dating someone. A man no less. He’s a good man and he’s … he’s the right man for my goals in life. It sounds so awful to say it out loud.” Alex sighed and traced her fingers around the carved letters and numbers in the headstone. “He wants to get married, Mom. We’ve only been dating a few months, but he wants to get married. And I’m terrified. I’m terrified that I’m going to say yes and not mean it. Last week at dinner, Daddy reminded me that my time for playing and rebelling was over. That if I wanted to achieve my goals, I had to buckle down. He reminded me that it’s not just a political future I need to protect, but a familial past. I have the Cabot name on my shoulders and yes, I know that means that he wants sons from me. For such a forward thinking man .. he can be so chauvinistic sometimes. But you knew that.
“Is that why you married him, Mom? Because he looked good on your arm? I know you wanted to spend your life marching the streets in Berkeley, teaching the law students the hidden truths inside the Constitution. But family pressure is so hard to walk away from. When you were diagnosed, you told me you wanted me to follow my bliss, to do what really made me happy, but I don’t know what that is anymore. So I’m doing what I know. That’s a start, right?” Alex bit her lip. “I wish you were alive right now. I’m terrified I’m making the same mistakes you did. I want to be where I belong, fighting for some kind of justice for the victims I come across. Instead I’m trying insurance fraud cases and going home every night to my Wall Street boyfriend. What am I doing? It just doesn’t make any sense.”
***
“You’re home late.” Robert arched an eyebrow at her as she walked through the door and Alex cringed internally. She’d been hoping he’d stay at his own place tonight, especially after the fight they’d had over breakfast. Right now, she needed to escape to the shower, before he caught sight of her disheveled hair and rumpled skirt. Before he smelled Jim’s cologne on her.
“Yeah, trial prep ran long.” She forced a smile to her face. “I wasn’t expecting to see you.”
“Clearly.” He laughed. “You look like I spooked you. What, your other boyfriend outside?”
Alex almost choked.”Not funny and you know it.” She dropped her briefcase into its usual spot by her desk and slowly pulled her coat from her shoulders. Robert was already back to what he’d been working on when she came in, deep into the notes he was pounding out on his laptop and when she informed him of her need to shower, he shrugged and grunted and she escaped into her bathroom.
Inside the comfortable room, the pale mauve walls and the framed images of Moab calmed her. Some of the shots Ali had done, lying on her back under one of the arches. She’d scaled the fence, ignoring the signs to not approach, and spent a good hour snapping pictures while Alex played lookout. The ones of Delicate Arch were Alex’s work; she’d proved to her girlfriend that she had more skills than she was letting on. If there was one thing Alex could do outside of win a court case it was take a brilliant photograph.
Robert wasn’t a fan of the Southwestern décor scattered throughout the apartment. She ignored his comments about how New York society was about being sleek, not comfortable. For as much as she wanted to get back to her old life, there were aspects of her time in Arizona she refused to give up.
With a long suffering sigh, Alex slid her torn blouse off and dropped it into the corner. Her suit, one of her older ones, was tossed into the laundry bin. Standing in her bra and panties in front of the full length mirror on the wall, Alex stared at her reflection. Tiny marks marred her white skin - where Jim had been a little too forceful. She couldn’t help but wonder what his back looked like.
“I know you’re having problems with Robert right now …”
How had he known? How had he known what buttons to push and how when she’d grabbed his arm as he started to storm out of the office, it had been his cue to pounce on her? She wanted him to prove to her she was doing the wrong thing with Robert. She’d wanted him to push her onto her desk and hike her legs up around his hips and push into her with little regard to her own personal comfort, just like he’d used to do ages ago, back when she was a rookie ADA and he’d taken a shine to her. Back when she was doing what she was doing now - worrying more about political gain than personal pleasure. Before SVU and Olivia and cases that made her remember what it meant to be a lawyer. And he had. She’d collapsed under him, trembling with exertion if not satisfaction, and her brain screamed at her to get a grip and stop fucking around.
“Does he know, Al? Does he know the truth?”
“About what?”
“All of it. Does he know about Olivia and Witness Protection?” Jim pulled the picture of her and Ali off her bookshelf. “Does he know about her? I mean, you've never told me but ... it's clear what you meant to each other.”
“Stop it.”
“Al, why are you doing this to yourself? Why are you making yourself miserable?”
“I’m not miserable.”
“I just fucked you on your desk. You’re supposedly in love with this man enough to talk marriage and I just fucked you on your desk. So what gives?”
“Jim …”
“Why are you doing this to yourself?”
“Because it’s easier in the long run.”
“You’ve earned your Ice Queen reputation.”
“And you’re far too much of a romantic. Life isn’t a fairy tale, Jim. If it was, we’d all get the princess at the end of the story.”
“You don’t get it, do you? Al, you are the princess. We’re all trying to get you. You’re the one making it impossible. You’re the one throwing up thorns and protecting yourself behind monsters. You beat the wicked queen. You survived the dungeon. You’ve won. Let yourself be the princess. Don’t do what you’re doing. You’re better than this. This … this woman isn’t the woman I almost fell in love with seven years ago.”
“That woman is long gone, Jim. She died on a sidewalk three years ago.”
“But that’s what you don’t get. She doesn’t need to be dead. What are you so frightened of? You have no one to disappoint but yourself.”
Reaching up, Alex unclasped her bra and let the satin slide down her body and to the floor. Long thumbs hooked under her ruined panties and she bent, pulling them down, kicking them aside. Between her legs, she could still feel Jim, his semen dry on her thighs. She hadn’t come, but there had still been a release she’d never felt with Robert. Logic chalked it up to the thrill of the indiscretion, but she knew it was more than that. Jim understood her. He’d encouraged her relationship with Olivia years ago and when she’d come home, he’d been the first of her old friends on her doorstep. He’d helped her move and helped her paint the apartment in varying shades of red rock dust and helped her hang the images from Ali. She hadn’t told him anything about her years away, but he knew her well enough to know the story would spill. Eventually. If she let it.
Robert never asked about her time in Protection, but it was because he didn’t want to know.
“It isn’t worth rehashing, Alex. You’re back safe. That’s all I need to know. The past isn’t nearly as important as the future.”
But Robert was wrong. Didn’t he know that to get to the future you had to understand the past? No, no he didn’t understand that. Wall Street was famous for forgetting its mistakes so that it could make the same ones tomorrow.
Not that she was anyone to talk. How much of her past was she willing to forget in order to create a future for herself?
Robert was a good man. She had to keep repeating that to herself. It was true. He was a good man. He’d make a good husband and a good father and a good political partner. Together, they had a future Alex didn’t have without him. For as much as politics had changed, being a blonde lesbian didn’t get you far. Yes, some reporter would eventually dig up a photo of her and Olivia and questions would be asked that she didn’t want to answer, but she knew how to brush it all aside.
Another sigh and Alex stepped into the tub and turned the water as hot as she could make it. The steam and the smell of her pomegranate body wash pulled the scent of her mistake from her body. Her hand swiped between her legs and with a few quick flits of her fingers across her clit she came, releasing the last of the sexual tension. Her legs shuddered and her body twitched and she was ready for a night with Robert - if he wanted anything. In truth, he wasn’t bad in bed and more often than not anymore she found a way to release - even if it was by her own hand after he’d fallen asleep. He was a good man and he loved her and she needed to give him a chance.
A flash of cold air startled her and Alex screamed and flipped around, ready to fight off the intruder, but it was Robert, his wide hands and bright grin. “Starting without me?” He teased, sliding a finger through her wet folds. Alex groaned, still sensitive, and let him take the lead. He was a good man. He deserved better than she was giving him. And when his lips descended on hers and his whiskers rubbed against her cheek, she willed herself the excitement he’d earned. He was a good man. Even for a son of Yale.
Robert kissed her and she responded and when he urged her legs up around his hips and rubbed his five o’clock shadow against her cheek, she whimpered and encouraged him.
The summer Alex turned eighteen, before she headed to Harvard, she landed an internship in the office of the New York District attorney. It took her exactly three minutes to learn that her boss had hired her not for her resume that included student council, her AP test scores, and her graduating second in her class at the most prestigious prep school in New York. No, he hired her because she’d listed her Uncle Bill as a reference. He hired her because she was tall and blonde and she suffered through a summer of bringing him coffee and having him stare at her ass and tell her that she was so much prettier with her glasses off so that she could spend her down time studying New York case law and lugging evidence to and from courtrooms. She pestered the senior ADA’s for information, asking question after question. One night, Bureau Chief Lena Petrovsky even let her help write a brief on a case. Alex headed to Harvard with experience that laid out the path she’d been dreaming of for as long as she could remember.
But, that same summer, she fell in love for the first time.
While getting her dress pants and silk shirts dirty with the dust of the basement archives, Alexandra looked up and through the shelves and stared into a pair of wide, luscious brown eyes. For the three months before she left for Harvard and Annie left for Berkeley, when she was not working, she was learning the truth about herself.
Alex learned that she preferred the soft feel of a woman’s lips to the rough five o’clock shadow Mike used to rub against her cheek. Her fingers tingled in anticipation at the thought of the curve of Annie’s breast. She craved the feel of their bodies moving together, gently coaxing each other to a place Alex had never been. Sex with Mike hadn’t been bad, but she had never felt like she did when she brought Annie over the edge. By the time she’d gone to Harvard, Alex had come out, and faced her broken heart as she watched Annie board the plane that took her away from New York forever. But love didn’t matter in the end, love was passive and fluid and Alex had a goal to reach. So she dried her tears and tucked her heart away. She packed her bags and climbed into the car her grandmother bought her for her graduation and headed to Cambridge.
To do what she loved.
And that first year, Alex wrote letters to Annie that she never sent and spent countless hours staring at the brunette who sat in front of her in Sociology. She discovered the Rape Recovery Center and went through the training program and spent her weekend nights answering phones and trying not to cry while girl after girl poured their hearts out when nightmares woke them or kept them from studying. And that summer, rather than race back to spend the summer in the Hamptons, she took a full course load and an internship position at the Center. Her roommate was the beautiful brunette from Sociology and they never once slept in separate beds.
The night Megan said she loved her, Alex pulled away.
Love wasn’t part of the package.
But Megan didn’t go away and Alex let her stay and Megan never once demanded that Alex return the sentiment but for the second summer session, Alex found herself with a different roommate, and they did not share beds. Megan didn’t call and Alex wrote letters she never sent.
Love wasn’t part of the package. Love got in the way of her goals and it wasn’t what her family expected of her. Love was messy and over the years, after falling in love with Olivia and Ali, Alex had forgotten how much she didn’t like messy.
***
Alex sighed and rolled over in her bed. Robert slept next to her, the sheet pulled up to his waist. One long finger traced down his spine and in the dim light of the bedroom, she wondered at the bruise on his shoulder and if she’d put it there. She hated to think she wasn’t the only one with a wandering eye. It only proved there were more problems in their relationship than she was ready to face.
“Alex?” Robert’s voice was sleepy.
“Yeah, babe?”
“Let’s get married. I mean it.” He rolled over and gentle hands stroked her hair back off her face. “Marry me. I mean, I’d planned to propose to you at Rockefeller Plaza or some such romantic nonsense, but what does that matter. Marry me. We’re good for each other and I love you.”
Alex choked on the sudden tears that sprung to her eyes. She had two options - be honest and walk away and try to find her footing again or let someone she did care for call the shots for once. “Robert …”
“Hold on.”
She watched him get out of bed and, fully naked, pad to his coat and pull a box out of his pocket. Her stomach churned. While she’d been being thoroughly fucked by Jim Steele, he’d been waiting for her to come home. He’d come over tonight to propose and she’d been trying to avoid him. “Robert …”
“I know things have been strained for a while. We’re both working so hard and I know that I drive you crazy, but I do love you.” He settled on the bed again and opened the box. “Marry me, Alexandra Cabot.”
Sitting on a velvet cushion was one of the most exquisite rings Alex had ever seen. Even in the dim light, the diamonds sparkled and she couldn’t even guess at the size of the largest stone. Three carats her high-society brain told her. Suddenly, she missed the tiny ruby stone Ali had once pressed into her hands.
Robert was a good man and they’d be good for each other. Comfortable in a world they would make together. It was a good pairing and good logical sense.
“You know what pisses me off, Liv?”
“What’s that?”
“That we can’t get married. Not legally. If we could, I’d take you down to City Hall tonight.”
“Mrs. Cabot or Mrs. Benson?”
“Who says I’m changing my name?”
“Yes,” Alex heard herself whisper. “Of course I’ll marry you.”
Robert laughed with relief and slipped the ring on her finger and leaned down to kiss her. Together they pressed back into the mattress and this time, when he moved inside her, she came.
TBC …
Chapter 3: Logic’s Reality
Author: vegawriters
Fandom: Conviction/Law and Order: SVU
Pairing: Alex/Robert; discussion of Alex/Ali (OFC) and Alex/Olivia
Rating: Adult
Timeframe: Late season seven SVU/Conviction series
A/N: I proudly own Conviction. As bad as it is, I proudly own it and I watch it. Why? Because I don’t think that Alex’s portrayal was out of character. How would you react if you’d just left witness protection and were dumped into a politically sensitive place in a politically sensitive bureau? So, in this series, we actually take a look at why Alex was the cold, calculating, manipulative bitch that she was portrayed to be. This series is also a continuation of Walking on Slick Rock and it really does help to read that first.
Disclaimer: Conviction and L&O: SVU both belong to Dick Wolf and co. I’m just playing around with the characters until Wolf Films gives me a paying gig.
Summary: Her misplaced sense of logic justified her accepting another date as the harsh reality of her world - she couldn’t make the changes she wanted to make if she didn’t have the power to do it. But her heart reminded her that the changes she wanted to make meant more than time in the governor’s mansion. It reminded her that logic didn’t always rule the world. But Alex still flinched when cars backfired and when black SUVs drove past. She still searched through courtrooms, looking for Liam Connors and still glanced behind her when she entered buildings, waiting to see another one of Velez’s henchmen coming after her. Logic was the only thing that kept her sane right now.
Stop me, won’t you
If you’ve heard this one before
From Shy by Ani Difranco
It wasn’t as if she’d never been with a man before.
Like most girls, Alex lost her virginity at sixteen. Groping and fumbling in the dark, she’d whimpered in pain as Brian Ackerman broke her hymen, and the condom. The week after, while she waited for her period to come and worked up the guts to talk to her mother about birth control, she paced the house like a cat in heat and prayed her dreams wouldn’t be over before they ever had the chance to begin. When she did finally bleed, Alex broke up with Brian and turned her focus to her studies - and to dating Brian’s best friend, who never fumbled when they had sex and who never once broke the condom. She never felt guilty for dating Mike, or for breaking up with him on graduation night when he hinted that he wanted to propose. She couldn’t marry him. He was going to Yale and majoring in Finance and no good daughter of Harvard would ever marry a son of Yale.
Love, for her, never factored into her decision. Why should love matter? Love was messy and emotional and it got in the way of getting what she wanted. Her parents hadn’t married until they were in their thirties. Why should she set off to Harvard with an engagement ring on her finger?
Apparently, nothing had really changed.
And as far as male lovers went, Robert wasn’t completely incapable. Typical for the most part, caring more about his own release than her own, but he was still gentle and when she rolled away and started searching for her clothes (lest she be caught in the morning’s light in her evening dress) he didn’t object. He did encourage her to stay, but he didn’t object when she offered him a brief kiss on the lips and darted for a cab and the safety of her recently bought but still as yet unpacked apartment.
The heat of the shower pummeled her and Alex sank to her knees, too numb to even scrub Robert’s smell from her body. Her hair, freshly curled for the night’s outing, hung in tangles as the hairspray slowly dripped out of it and down her shoulders and into the water collecting at the bottom of the tub. The water eased her smudged makeup from her eyes. And she sat there under the spray, waiting and waiting for any sense of sexual euphoria, until the hot water ran out and she realized she was shivering. She crawled out of the shower, pulling a towel from the heated towel rack, and wrapped the terry cloth around her shoulders. Water dripped on the pale blue chiffon and satin gown she’d been wearing to impress the most boring of Wall Street Society. She let it seep into the fabric, ruining it. She’d stopped caring. It was an old dress anyway.
Somehow, she made it to her bedroom and pulled a pair of sweats from a clothing box that still hadn’t been unpacked. The feds had just boxed up everything. Her photo albums and her law books and the clothes that had once belonged to Olivia. How much had Olivia been able to salvage before the feds swooped in?
It wasn’t until she was standing at her mirror, wiping the last of the makeup from her face, that she realized both the tank top and the sweats she was wearing had actually been Olivia’s. The blue NYPD on the leg was faded and cracked, the gray tank top stretched just a little in the breasts. How often had Alex pulled this shirt from Olivia’s body?
Slowly, Alex reached for her shower comb and pulled it through her tangled hair. She felt haunted, gripped by something she just didn’t understand. She’d slept with Robert. So what? She’d gone to an incredibly boring party and fallen into bed with her date. So what? It wasn’t that uncommon and he wasn’t the first person she’d slept with since returning home. But the others had all been women - casual pickups in bars after work; once she had been spied by Brian Peulso who just winked at her and then never mentioned it at work. Tonight felt different.
What, it was only cheating if she slept with men?
No, it wasn’t cheating. She needed to remember that. She’d left Ali standing on her front porch back on the reservation. She’d kissed her good bye and promised she’d make something of her life and left her home in Arizona knowing that eventually, Ali would move on. She’d come back to New York and made absolutely no attempt to contact Olivia. Her old life didn’t need to factor into her new one. She wanted it to, but she had to be realistic. She needed to feel stable again and right now …
Oh who was she kidding?
She was still terrified of her old life. Maybe she did need therapy. Maybe work wasn’t enough.
The phone taunted her. It would be so easy to pick it up and dial the numbers and beg Olivia to come over. It would be so easy to just put on her shoes and run to Olivia’s. To kneel at her door or go bearing bouquets of stock and roses and beg for just a few minutes of Olivia’s time. She could explain. She could apologize.
Shaking, Alex picked up the cordless and stared at the keypad. Ten digits. It wasn’t so hard.
The slam of the phone onto the table startled even her and she winced. One of her French tips had snapped and the cuticle was bleeding. The blood dropped onto the phone and Alex stared at it, horrified. It was just blood. But it was her blood.
Sucking her finger into her mouth, Alex sighed shook the sudden fright away. It was late and she needed to try to sleep and she had a meeting in the morning and …
It wasn’t too late back in Arizona. A quick phone call. She could hear Ali’s soft voice and cry out her fears and Ali would make everything better.
Hammond's voice echoed in her mind. “A clean break is better, Alex.”
Shaking, Alex closed her eyes and dialed the phone.
“Hello?”
Fuck. She’d been hoping to get voice mail or … “Hi, Ali …”
What was she doing? What the hell was she doing? What was she thinking …?
“Hi, babe. What’s wrong?”
The gentle tone, as always with no judgment, answering like this kind of phone call happened every night between them, soothed her and Alex burst into tears. “I just …”
“Come home,” Ali’s voice whispered across the lines and Alex could hear the heartbreak in the other woman's voice. “Just come home. I’m here.”
“I can’t …”
“It isn’t that you can’t,” Ali’s voice remained gentle, “it’s that you’re scared to. Thank you for sending the scouts to Carlos by the way. He’s keeping his grades up and staying out of trouble.”
“Good.”
“Alexandra?”
“Yes?”
“Why did you call me tonight? What happened?”
Alex closed her eyes and felt Robert slowly unzipping the back of her dress, felt her body arch against his, felt him come and release and yet still hold her even though she wasn’t anywhere near satisfied.
“You met someone.”
“Yes.”
Ali was quiet for a long, long time. “Don’t let whoever it is interfere with your future, Alexandra.”
“It’s just the opposite, Ali.”
Again, Ali fell silent for a long time. “I see. Is he a good man?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Then come home. Come back here. If not forever, at least until you get your head on straight. It sounds like you are just spinning out of control right now and that’s never good for anyone.”
“I can’t just pick up and move. As much as I want to.”
“Then why did you call me tonight?”
“Because I miss you.” There, she’d said it. “I miss you and I want you here, with me.”
“Me being there ruins your political chances. I’m a half-breed with artistically lesbian tendencies. Trust me, New York may think it’s liberal but they don’t want someone like me being referred to as the first lady. Anyway, you told me you just met someone.”
“Ali …”
“You made your choice. Now, you just have to own it, okay? Make your decision. Hell, I think you’ve already made it. So just do it. I love you.”
“I love you too.”
“Good-bye, Alexandra.”
Alex failed at biting back a sob. “Good-bye, Ali.”
For a long moment, Alex stared at the phone. And then at her bed, piled high with pillows. It looked so comfortable, so secure, but comfort and security were too easy a route to take right now. So she pulled her hair back into a low ponytail and reached over, flipping on her CD player, turning it loud enough to hear from the different rooms in the apartment. What Ali hadn’t said rung in Alex’s ears; it was time to finish unpacking and to get on with her life. She’d wallowed long enough in her fears. She’d made choices and it was time to accept them.
Her steps took her first to the kitchen, where she tore into the pile of boxes and started to unpack. Pots and pans that were once never really used, she now had plans for. Dishes that had once been more covered in dust than food would now be used. It was her plan. She knew better; she knew the hours her job demanded, but it was nice to hope.
Moving into the living room, realizing that in her time organizing her kitchen, the CD had stopped and the time was pushing close to two AM. But she couldn’t sleep. Not yet. Settling on her couch, Alex pulled one of the boxes close to her. She’d packed this one at the house in the Hamptons. Random items - her jewelry box, a couple of books, and a package she’d never opened. White tissue paper painted with Arizona sunsets wrapped around something small. Ali’s Christmas present to her.
Suddenly tired, Alex leaned back into the cushions and tugged one of the afghans over her legs. She stared at the tissue paper, knowing that whatever was in the package was made with love, with only her happiness in mind. Carefully, she tugged the ribbon on the paper.
Sitting in her lap was a piece Alex had never seen, even though she knew it to be one of Ali’s. An elegantly carved turquoise heart sat in a gold and silver setting that braided together around the stone and bound together at the top in an intricate knot. The chain of pure liquid silver floated in her hand and Alex wrapped her fingers around it and pressed her hand to her heart.
“I love you too,” she whispered into the darkness.
Alex woke on the couch, the heart pressed into her cheek. She was late, but it wasn’t a tragedy - only a missed meeting with Jim that could be rescheduled. But the voice mail waiting for her made her heart flip and she didn’t know what possessed her to pick up the phone and return Robert’s call.
Her misplaced sense of logic justified her accepting another date as the harsh reality of her world - she couldn’t make the changes she wanted to make if she didn’t have the power to do it. But her heart reminded her that the changes she wanted to make meant more than time in the governor’s mansion. It reminded her that logic didn’t always rule the world. But Alex still flinched when cars backfired and when black SUVs drove past. She still searched through courtrooms, looking for Liam Connors and still glanced behind her when she entered buildings, waiting to see another one of Velez’s henchmen coming after her. Logic was the only thing that kept her sane right now.
Her heart would just have to wait. She wasn’t quite ready to clean up the mess it would make.
***
“Hi, Mom.” Her legs shaking, Alex knelt at the gravesite. The marble stone, lovingly polished, held a photograph of Miranda Martin Cabot. With gentle fingers, she traced the image of her mother, not even trying to hold back the tears. “I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to come up here. I guess … I guess a part of me actually believed that if I didn’t see this, it wouldn’t be real.” She laid the flowers in the melting snow and rocked back on her heels. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there. I wish … I wish I could have told you. You’ll be pissed but I told Olivia I was in protection. I had to. It was selfish of me, but she … she needed to know. More than you guys I think. Olivia’s in the business, she understands. You guys would have just tried to convince the feds you could protect me. You can’t. I wish you could.
“I … I’m back at work, just like I should be. And it’s good. It’s been rocky, but it’s good. My first trial starts Monday and it isn’t anything like I’ve investigated and prosecuted before. It’s a ponzie scheme … and he bilked millions and millions of dollars out of older widows who were relying on pensions to survive. Robert, that’s the man I’m dating, he jokes that he isn’t sure if he should support me or remind me that Wall Street is just one really big ponzie scheme and we in the DA’s office need to get over ourselves. People take risks - that’s what he’s always telling me. That lawsuits like the one I’m taking on are just a sign that we as a culture can no longer take responsibility for our lives. As a rule, I try to leave work at the office though. There are things he could tell me about his business that if I knew and it came to light in a trial later, I could get disbarred. I told a colleague once that dating him was so nice because he doesn’t deal with rapists and murderers all day long and because of that, we can have a life outside of work. But the truth is … he brings his work home and I listen, bored to tears. Is this how you felt with Daddy? I know you love him and I know how he worshipped you, but you always left the case files at work and he filled the dinner conversation with Wall Street shop talk. It’s like that with me and Robert. Most nights, I don’t mind it.
“Yes … yes. I’m dating someone. A man no less. He’s a good man and he’s … he’s the right man for my goals in life. It sounds so awful to say it out loud.” Alex sighed and traced her fingers around the carved letters and numbers in the headstone. “He wants to get married, Mom. We’ve only been dating a few months, but he wants to get married. And I’m terrified. I’m terrified that I’m going to say yes and not mean it. Last week at dinner, Daddy reminded me that my time for playing and rebelling was over. That if I wanted to achieve my goals, I had to buckle down. He reminded me that it’s not just a political future I need to protect, but a familial past. I have the Cabot name on my shoulders and yes, I know that means that he wants sons from me. For such a forward thinking man .. he can be so chauvinistic sometimes. But you knew that.
“Is that why you married him, Mom? Because he looked good on your arm? I know you wanted to spend your life marching the streets in Berkeley, teaching the law students the hidden truths inside the Constitution. But family pressure is so hard to walk away from. When you were diagnosed, you told me you wanted me to follow my bliss, to do what really made me happy, but I don’t know what that is anymore. So I’m doing what I know. That’s a start, right?” Alex bit her lip. “I wish you were alive right now. I’m terrified I’m making the same mistakes you did. I want to be where I belong, fighting for some kind of justice for the victims I come across. Instead I’m trying insurance fraud cases and going home every night to my Wall Street boyfriend. What am I doing? It just doesn’t make any sense.”
***
“You’re home late.” Robert arched an eyebrow at her as she walked through the door and Alex cringed internally. She’d been hoping he’d stay at his own place tonight, especially after the fight they’d had over breakfast. Right now, she needed to escape to the shower, before he caught sight of her disheveled hair and rumpled skirt. Before he smelled Jim’s cologne on her.
“Yeah, trial prep ran long.” She forced a smile to her face. “I wasn’t expecting to see you.”
“Clearly.” He laughed. “You look like I spooked you. What, your other boyfriend outside?”
Alex almost choked.”Not funny and you know it.” She dropped her briefcase into its usual spot by her desk and slowly pulled her coat from her shoulders. Robert was already back to what he’d been working on when she came in, deep into the notes he was pounding out on his laptop and when she informed him of her need to shower, he shrugged and grunted and she escaped into her bathroom.
Inside the comfortable room, the pale mauve walls and the framed images of Moab calmed her. Some of the shots Ali had done, lying on her back under one of the arches. She’d scaled the fence, ignoring the signs to not approach, and spent a good hour snapping pictures while Alex played lookout. The ones of Delicate Arch were Alex’s work; she’d proved to her girlfriend that she had more skills than she was letting on. If there was one thing Alex could do outside of win a court case it was take a brilliant photograph.
Robert wasn’t a fan of the Southwestern décor scattered throughout the apartment. She ignored his comments about how New York society was about being sleek, not comfortable. For as much as she wanted to get back to her old life, there were aspects of her time in Arizona she refused to give up.
With a long suffering sigh, Alex slid her torn blouse off and dropped it into the corner. Her suit, one of her older ones, was tossed into the laundry bin. Standing in her bra and panties in front of the full length mirror on the wall, Alex stared at her reflection. Tiny marks marred her white skin - where Jim had been a little too forceful. She couldn’t help but wonder what his back looked like.
“I know you’re having problems with Robert right now …”
How had he known? How had he known what buttons to push and how when she’d grabbed his arm as he started to storm out of the office, it had been his cue to pounce on her? She wanted him to prove to her she was doing the wrong thing with Robert. She’d wanted him to push her onto her desk and hike her legs up around his hips and push into her with little regard to her own personal comfort, just like he’d used to do ages ago, back when she was a rookie ADA and he’d taken a shine to her. Back when she was doing what she was doing now - worrying more about political gain than personal pleasure. Before SVU and Olivia and cases that made her remember what it meant to be a lawyer. And he had. She’d collapsed under him, trembling with exertion if not satisfaction, and her brain screamed at her to get a grip and stop fucking around.
“Does he know, Al? Does he know the truth?”
“About what?”
“All of it. Does he know about Olivia and Witness Protection?” Jim pulled the picture of her and Ali off her bookshelf. “Does he know about her? I mean, you've never told me but ... it's clear what you meant to each other.”
“Stop it.”
“Al, why are you doing this to yourself? Why are you making yourself miserable?”
“I’m not miserable.”
“I just fucked you on your desk. You’re supposedly in love with this man enough to talk marriage and I just fucked you on your desk. So what gives?”
“Jim …”
“Why are you doing this to yourself?”
“Because it’s easier in the long run.”
“You’ve earned your Ice Queen reputation.”
“And you’re far too much of a romantic. Life isn’t a fairy tale, Jim. If it was, we’d all get the princess at the end of the story.”
“You don’t get it, do you? Al, you are the princess. We’re all trying to get you. You’re the one making it impossible. You’re the one throwing up thorns and protecting yourself behind monsters. You beat the wicked queen. You survived the dungeon. You’ve won. Let yourself be the princess. Don’t do what you’re doing. You’re better than this. This … this woman isn’t the woman I almost fell in love with seven years ago.”
“That woman is long gone, Jim. She died on a sidewalk three years ago.”
“But that’s what you don’t get. She doesn’t need to be dead. What are you so frightened of? You have no one to disappoint but yourself.”
Reaching up, Alex unclasped her bra and let the satin slide down her body and to the floor. Long thumbs hooked under her ruined panties and she bent, pulling them down, kicking them aside. Between her legs, she could still feel Jim, his semen dry on her thighs. She hadn’t come, but there had still been a release she’d never felt with Robert. Logic chalked it up to the thrill of the indiscretion, but she knew it was more than that. Jim understood her. He’d encouraged her relationship with Olivia years ago and when she’d come home, he’d been the first of her old friends on her doorstep. He’d helped her move and helped her paint the apartment in varying shades of red rock dust and helped her hang the images from Ali. She hadn’t told him anything about her years away, but he knew her well enough to know the story would spill. Eventually. If she let it.
Robert never asked about her time in Protection, but it was because he didn’t want to know.
“It isn’t worth rehashing, Alex. You’re back safe. That’s all I need to know. The past isn’t nearly as important as the future.”
But Robert was wrong. Didn’t he know that to get to the future you had to understand the past? No, no he didn’t understand that. Wall Street was famous for forgetting its mistakes so that it could make the same ones tomorrow.
Not that she was anyone to talk. How much of her past was she willing to forget in order to create a future for herself?
Robert was a good man. She had to keep repeating that to herself. It was true. He was a good man. He’d make a good husband and a good father and a good political partner. Together, they had a future Alex didn’t have without him. For as much as politics had changed, being a blonde lesbian didn’t get you far. Yes, some reporter would eventually dig up a photo of her and Olivia and questions would be asked that she didn’t want to answer, but she knew how to brush it all aside.
Another sigh and Alex stepped into the tub and turned the water as hot as she could make it. The steam and the smell of her pomegranate body wash pulled the scent of her mistake from her body. Her hand swiped between her legs and with a few quick flits of her fingers across her clit she came, releasing the last of the sexual tension. Her legs shuddered and her body twitched and she was ready for a night with Robert - if he wanted anything. In truth, he wasn’t bad in bed and more often than not anymore she found a way to release - even if it was by her own hand after he’d fallen asleep. He was a good man and he loved her and she needed to give him a chance.
A flash of cold air startled her and Alex screamed and flipped around, ready to fight off the intruder, but it was Robert, his wide hands and bright grin. “Starting without me?” He teased, sliding a finger through her wet folds. Alex groaned, still sensitive, and let him take the lead. He was a good man. He deserved better than she was giving him. And when his lips descended on hers and his whiskers rubbed against her cheek, she willed herself the excitement he’d earned. He was a good man. Even for a son of Yale.
Robert kissed her and she responded and when he urged her legs up around his hips and rubbed his five o’clock shadow against her cheek, she whimpered and encouraged him.
The summer Alex turned eighteen, before she headed to Harvard, she landed an internship in the office of the New York District attorney. It took her exactly three minutes to learn that her boss had hired her not for her resume that included student council, her AP test scores, and her graduating second in her class at the most prestigious prep school in New York. No, he hired her because she’d listed her Uncle Bill as a reference. He hired her because she was tall and blonde and she suffered through a summer of bringing him coffee and having him stare at her ass and tell her that she was so much prettier with her glasses off so that she could spend her down time studying New York case law and lugging evidence to and from courtrooms. She pestered the senior ADA’s for information, asking question after question. One night, Bureau Chief Lena Petrovsky even let her help write a brief on a case. Alex headed to Harvard with experience that laid out the path she’d been dreaming of for as long as she could remember.
But, that same summer, she fell in love for the first time.
While getting her dress pants and silk shirts dirty with the dust of the basement archives, Alexandra looked up and through the shelves and stared into a pair of wide, luscious brown eyes. For the three months before she left for Harvard and Annie left for Berkeley, when she was not working, she was learning the truth about herself.
Alex learned that she preferred the soft feel of a woman’s lips to the rough five o’clock shadow Mike used to rub against her cheek. Her fingers tingled in anticipation at the thought of the curve of Annie’s breast. She craved the feel of their bodies moving together, gently coaxing each other to a place Alex had never been. Sex with Mike hadn’t been bad, but she had never felt like she did when she brought Annie over the edge. By the time she’d gone to Harvard, Alex had come out, and faced her broken heart as she watched Annie board the plane that took her away from New York forever. But love didn’t matter in the end, love was passive and fluid and Alex had a goal to reach. So she dried her tears and tucked her heart away. She packed her bags and climbed into the car her grandmother bought her for her graduation and headed to Cambridge.
To do what she loved.
And that first year, Alex wrote letters to Annie that she never sent and spent countless hours staring at the brunette who sat in front of her in Sociology. She discovered the Rape Recovery Center and went through the training program and spent her weekend nights answering phones and trying not to cry while girl after girl poured their hearts out when nightmares woke them or kept them from studying. And that summer, rather than race back to spend the summer in the Hamptons, she took a full course load and an internship position at the Center. Her roommate was the beautiful brunette from Sociology and they never once slept in separate beds.
The night Megan said she loved her, Alex pulled away.
Love wasn’t part of the package.
But Megan didn’t go away and Alex let her stay and Megan never once demanded that Alex return the sentiment but for the second summer session, Alex found herself with a different roommate, and they did not share beds. Megan didn’t call and Alex wrote letters she never sent.
Love wasn’t part of the package. Love got in the way of her goals and it wasn’t what her family expected of her. Love was messy and over the years, after falling in love with Olivia and Ali, Alex had forgotten how much she didn’t like messy.
***
Alex sighed and rolled over in her bed. Robert slept next to her, the sheet pulled up to his waist. One long finger traced down his spine and in the dim light of the bedroom, she wondered at the bruise on his shoulder and if she’d put it there. She hated to think she wasn’t the only one with a wandering eye. It only proved there were more problems in their relationship than she was ready to face.
“Alex?” Robert’s voice was sleepy.
“Yeah, babe?”
“Let’s get married. I mean it.” He rolled over and gentle hands stroked her hair back off her face. “Marry me. I mean, I’d planned to propose to you at Rockefeller Plaza or some such romantic nonsense, but what does that matter. Marry me. We’re good for each other and I love you.”
Alex choked on the sudden tears that sprung to her eyes. She had two options - be honest and walk away and try to find her footing again or let someone she did care for call the shots for once. “Robert …”
“Hold on.”
She watched him get out of bed and, fully naked, pad to his coat and pull a box out of his pocket. Her stomach churned. While she’d been being thoroughly fucked by Jim Steele, he’d been waiting for her to come home. He’d come over tonight to propose and she’d been trying to avoid him. “Robert …”
“I know things have been strained for a while. We’re both working so hard and I know that I drive you crazy, but I do love you.” He settled on the bed again and opened the box. “Marry me, Alexandra Cabot.”
Sitting on a velvet cushion was one of the most exquisite rings Alex had ever seen. Even in the dim light, the diamonds sparkled and she couldn’t even guess at the size of the largest stone. Three carats her high-society brain told her. Suddenly, she missed the tiny ruby stone Ali had once pressed into her hands.
Robert was a good man and they’d be good for each other. Comfortable in a world they would make together. It was a good pairing and good logical sense.
“You know what pisses me off, Liv?”
“What’s that?”
“That we can’t get married. Not legally. If we could, I’d take you down to City Hall tonight.”
“Mrs. Cabot or Mrs. Benson?”
“Who says I’m changing my name?”
“Yes,” Alex heard herself whisper. “Of course I’ll marry you.”
Robert laughed with relief and slipped the ring on her finger and leaned down to kiss her. Together they pressed back into the mattress and this time, when he moved inside her, she came.
TBC …