Keep Me Warm
Baby, it's cold outside!
Reader is AFAB
Enjoy!
His apartment smells of sex.
Not the kind that lingers in the halls of university dormitories or sleazy bar bathrooms, but rather the kind where two individuals finally come together to end that cliche of denial.
Alright, it just smells like sex.
But it didn’t feel like it was just sex.
She’s collapsed on top of him, breathing slowed against the hollow of his neck. Her lips were a mere whisper against his skin. Elliot has one hand buried in her locks, warm and soft, while the other is pressed against the small of her back, feeling the bend and flow of her lungs.
He’s buried inside her still, despite both of them reaching their peak minutes ago.
She nestles into him as if she could bury herself under his skin, speaking low.
“We should get up.” She suggests.
Elliot’s arm instinctively wraps tight around her middle to keep her in place.
“Or we could stay like this a little longer.” He feels her smile, teeth baring slightly.
Elliot Stabler did not think he would ever find love again. And he never would have thought that he would find it with her.
They despised each other at first.
Elliot was suspicious, and her guard was up, embracing for combat. And then he got to know her. Her compassion for the dead. Her taste for crooners and old jazz. The past she dragged behind her like it weighed a thousand pounds.
When the Lydia Hartwick case closed, the two of them had shared a bitter-sweet celebration at the old cop bar on the corner of forty-second and third. A glass of wine and a rum and coke turned into pornstar shots, and before he knew it, they were on the stoop of her brownstone. She was smiling widely, a rarity he cherished and only saw once or twice before. He stole the moment and captured her lips with his own. Keys jingled and fumbled themselves into place, hands roamed in places they probably shouldn’t, and clothing was left haphazardly in the hallway and up the staircase.
They did not speak about that night for a long time. Not until things got even more complicated with Elliot and his foolish ideas.
He came to her door under the pretense of “collaboration”. She knew the New York circuit, the dancers, the babies, the elites who frequented them. He’d seen her bookshelves; her collections of bondage, dominance, submission, power dynamics, etc. She studied them like sacred texts. Lived them like scars. He wanted to get into perps' heads, be better at the job, and understand the “why” of it all.
That’s the lie he told her. And the lie he told himself.
What started as lessons in the world of kink turned into a complicated and deeply sinful agreement that had suddenly become a beast of a romance.
He’s still lost in thought when he thinks she traces “I love you” against his chest with a freshly manicured nail. He reaches out and lightly grips her wrist and brings her left hand closer to his face, admiring the rock he never thought he could afford.
Thank you, John Munch and your connections in the New York diamond district.
She gives a contented sigh, bringing her eyes to the ring he placed on her finger just a few days ago.
“I never thought I’d be the marrying kind.” She admits.
The single diamond shines bright against the low lamp light. It was a simple-looking ring, but the band itself cost more than Stabler would care to say. It was at least twice as much as Kathy’s, not that he’d ever admit it to himself or anyone else. But Elliot knew she was a woman of opulence, despite knowing deep down that if he had proposed with a string and a pebble, she would still say yes, but the woman deserved more than she was worth.
“Who’re you going to tell first?” He asks before placing a kiss atop her head.
She gives a soft “hmm” as she takes her wrist back from his loose grip and rests it against his chest once more.
“It’s silly …” she trails off. Elliot gives her time to answer, to swallow her pride, and to be true to both of them.
She clears her throat; the truth is lodged inside.
“I think I’m going to tell Warner.”
Dr. Melinda Warner - her mentor and confidant, teacher and friend. Elliot knew how much she respected Warner’s word. He presses another kiss to her hair like it’s a symbol of “keep going.”
“I want to do that cliche thing, y’know?” She looks to him like he’s supposed to know what on earth she’s talking about. He arches a brow, and she gives a playful huff.
“You know,” She starts, sitting up a bit, and they both feel the shift. Elliot grunts, and she pretends not to notice. “When nurses or doctors stretch their glove over their hand, and it breaks because of the diamond?”
Elliot blinks, looking at her with a still expression, but nods anyway.
He doesn’t know jackshit.
His fiancée rolls her eyes, gives up and rests her head against him once more.
“What about you?” She asks. “I’m guessing Kathy or Olivia.”
It’s Elliot’s turn to roll his eyes now. His “other women,” as she sometimes teasingly refers to them. She has no ill will against either of them; she just finds it hilarious that he’s still comfortable with his ex-wife and tethered to Benson.
Their potential reactions flash in his mind: Olivia’s knowing smile and Kathy’s reserved but genuine “congratulations”. Elliot thinks it over. Both choices would make sense—his co-partner in parenting or his partner in the field. Munch already technically knew, but he told himself that didn’t count.
“I think I’m gonna tell Dickie first.” The admission shifts the atmosphere of the room. Richard wasn’t exactly … fond of her. She remains still against his chest, listening to his heart hammer.
He lightly drapes his calloused fingertips up and down her spine, feather-light contact. “‘It’s best he hear it from me.”
She hums low in response, the warm buzz of vibration rumbling against his skin. She wants to speak, say something snarky in deflection. Elliot speaks up, anticipating so.
“He’ll come around,” Elliot reassures his lover and places a kiss atop the crown of her head to try and capture her attention.
She looks up to him, doe eyes bigger than silver dollars. She shifts her position again, feigning ignorance of what the movement does to him.
“He better.” She mumbles into his neck before pressing a kiss into the crevice, burning like a wax seal. Elliot tries to stifle whatever noise is about to escape his mouth with a chuckle. It turns into a weird, choked laugh that he knows he’ll never live down.
“He will.” He smiles, finally adjusting to meet her eyes. No matter the time or place, there was always a mischievous glint to them. He continues to slowly trace his fingers up and down the slope of her back.
She reworks her position once more, and Elliot can’t help but react organically to the velvet of her walls.
He says her name as firmly as he can, a warning, but her smile just grows wider. Ever the one for disobedience, she rolls her hips against him gently.
“Something the matter, detective?” She leans down with another roll of her hips and nips at his ear.
“You’re insatiable.” It’s jovial, but his voice is rough with what she wants.
“I’m a delight.” She counters. Grinding becomes something else as she lifts herself up only to slide back down slowly.
“Jesus,” Elliot chokes out.
“Not quite.”
She sits up straight and spreads her hands across his chest, the diamond catching the low lamplight and providing a sparkle among the ceiling.
“Think you’ve got round two in you, old man?”
Lord, what was he marrying into?
