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:
Mojitos
By Allie
"I'll be right back, ladies," Brian Cassidy said, with cheerful enthusiasm as he left to go to the men's room.
Olivia Benson pulled her sleeveless cotton shirt away from her skin and tilted her chin up to catch the scant afternoon breeze that blew across the patio and into the shadows of the restaurant. The rattan chair she sat on creaked as she slipped her feet out of their sandals and put them on Cassidy's recently-vacated chair.
Next to her, Alexandra Cabot lifted her glass and carefully considered its murky contents: battered pieces of mint wrapped around melting ice cubes and settled on crystals of brown sugar. She sipped her drink and sighed, wondering how something that looked so dubious could taste so good. "You know what the best thing is about Cassidy?" she asked.
"That he has a tiny bladder, so he's gone more than he's here?" Olivia suggested.
"That's good, too. But I was thinking more of the fact that he's so easily pleased."
"No kidding," Olivia muttered, picking up her own mojito and drinking more deeply than was probably wise.
"I forgot. You actually know that better than most." Alex wrinkled her nose in a childish gesture before taking another delicate sip of her drink.
"Don't start. I'd had a few beers, he was there…" She looked rueful. "We all make mistakes Cabot. Need I mention Langan?"
"Are you equating dinner with Trevor to sex with Brian?"
"As less-than-perfect events go, sex with Brian was probably over a lot faster than dinner with Trevor," Olivia pointed out, reasonably.
Alex laughed and turned slightly in her chair, before leaning back and putting her feet up next to Olivia's. Alex's feet were also bare and the two women's toes were no more than an inch away from touching. Olivia felt warmth pooling in her belly that wasn't completely due to the alcohol they'd been consuming for at least two hours in a slightly shabby establishment just off Calle Ocho in Miami.
"Acknowledged," Alex said with a smirk. "But Trevor spent a lot of money, so I have the comfort of knowing that the food, at least, was very good."
"'Very good' might be pushing it, but we've already established that Brian's easy to please… and he takes direction well."
The corner of Alex's mouth curved in a small smile. "Sounds… adequate. Which is a waste."
Olivia raised an eyebrow. "You think adequate isn't good enough for Cassidy?"
"I think adequate isn't good enough for you," Alex replied quietly and Olivia felt as though the ADA's low voice had brushed over her breasts, making them feel fuller. Alex Cabot had just flirted with her and she felt an immediate flush of arousal in response.
"Hey! How is it ok to use my chair as a foot stool?" They'd been staring into each other's eyes and neither woman had heard Cassidy's return.
"Pull up another chair," Olivia instructed, looking away from Alex with obvious reluctance.
Brian left to do as he'd been told, returning less than a minute later, dragging a battered rattan chair behind him. "Man, it is fuckin' hot down here. Alex, d'you think we can finish up the extradition by tomorrow and take an afternoon flight back to New York with the prisoner?"
"If the prison doctor says the prisoner is fit, we can get him before a judge first thing tomorrow. I don't anticipate a problem with getting the extradition upheld – he's moving from one death penalty state to another and, given Florida's statistical advantage over New York in the number of death row inmates executed, I have no idea why his lawyer is even putting us through the inconvenience and expense of fighting it."
"In the game of defending murderers, a delay is the equivalent of a win," Olivia shrugged.
"Why don't we just leave him here?" Brian wanted to know.
Alex and Olivia exchanged a look, wordlessly wondering who felt less like making the effort to explain the obvious. Eventually, Olivia deliberately lifted her glass to her lips and Alex said, "Because the families of his victims in New York deserve to see him face justice for what he did to them." Her tone was even, but Olivia could tell that Cassidy's question, implying as it had that they were wasting their time, had upset her.
"Brian, can you get us another round?" Olivia asked, gesturing with her empty glass. "I'll pay."
"Nah, I'll get it. You can pay for the next round."
Mojitos had to be made from scratch and there was a decent-sized crowd at the bar, so Olivia calculated that she had at least five minutes alone with Alex. "You ok?" She asked, gently.
"I don't imagine he's any more perceptive or sensitive in bed," she stated bitterly.
"No. But I wasn't looking for someone who anticipated, or was sensitive to, what I might have wanted, only for basic… companionship." I was horny. With a little bit of effort, I managed to get off.
Suddenly, something that Alex had been holding in check, refused to be denied any longer. "Can't you have both?" she asked Olivia softly. "Can't someone be sensitive, responsive and… basic?"
"Not Cassidy."
"I imagine not. That doesn't mean you don't deserve a lover who anticipates your needs, is sensitive to your responses… knows a woman's body, but wants, specifically, to know yours."
Olivia swallowed hard and Alex appeared fascinated by the movement of her throat. Olivia's pulse rate had quickened as Alex had been speaking and she'd found her eyes unable to focus on anything but the ADA's mouth as it formed the words. "That sounds… appealing." She took a calming breath before continuing. "But I can't believe that Trevor would meet those requirements, either." Her gaze traveled over Alex's body, from the slim hips, over the flat stomach to her breasts. The ADA's nipples had peaked so they were faintly visible through her bra and tank top despite the heat. Eventually, Olivia looked again at Alex's mouth, lingering on the slight pout of her upper lip and the fuller curve of the lower.
"Trevor wouldn't have come close," Alex agreed. "But it didn't matter because I didn't want Trevor." She didn't have to specify what she wanted. It was implicit in the possessive way she looked at Olivia, her lips parting as though in anticipation of contact with smooth, warm skin. If the alcohol was affecting Olivia's judgment when it came to Alex Cabot, the problem clearly was not one-sided.
"And do you always get what you want?" Olivia forced her eyes to meet the clear blue fire in Alex's, knowing that her own expression betrayed her need.
"Not so far," Alex admitted. "What about you, Olivia? Do you always get what you want?"
"Sometimes," Olivia said seriously, "the things we want are bad for us."
Alex shook her head and smiled faintly. "I don't think this particular thing would be anything but very good. Do you?"
"No," Olivia admitted softly. "I'm pretty sure it would be…amazing." She looked bemused. "God, just thinking about it makes me…"
Alex's smile faded and her breath came faster. "This is… disconcerting," she said huskily.
Olivia didn't have to ask what she meant. Each had been conscious of the undercurrent of sexual awareness between them, but they had never before felt anything so immediate, so compelling.
She looked at Olivia and there was a hint of fear in her eyes. "You haven't even touched me."
"What you feel," Olivia replied, "is how much I want to."
The End