Loyalty & Betrayal

He paced up and down. In the same way that others might hum, or tap their fingers, when his mind was working frantically, he paced, always had done, reflexively, barely even aware of it.

Did she HAVE to call me that?

That had stung, and stung badly. Rationally, he knew she had regretted calling him a headfucker the minute she said it, and that whilst he hadn’t exactly asked for it, he’d provoked her.

That was the hardest part for both of them. Sienna had – well – grown up was the only phrase he could think of for it, in the two years they had been apart. Patronising, he knew. But true. The potential he’d always seen in her seemed to have flowered. She held rank now. As one of the two heads of Interpol’s International Fugitive Investigative Support Section in New York, she was responsible for a team of five intelligence analysts plus their support staff, dealing with cases across the city. Indeed, it had occurred to him more than once that if he were simply an ordinary detective, not part of Major Case, her rank would be superior to his. As it was… well, Major Case were the elite, always had been, but she was certainly his equal now, and she had the toughness to go with it.

He was, genuinely, impressed. She’d managed the most difficult trick of all, learning to harness her emotions. Some people in law enforcement, of course, never needed to; they had no empathy and no imagination, and consequently either never rose far, or went straight into management. Others became numb, cutting themselves off from their emotions, either through force of will or the more destructive path of drugs and alcohol. Occasionally you got those who still, impossibly, felt the same pain, every time they looked at a murder or rape victim, but still kept going, bleeding inside, on and on and on. SVU tended to get most of those.

But the very best, in his opinion, were the ones who still felt, but who had learned to control it. Who used their emotions, who never lost sight of the fact that the broken bodies and minds they saw week in and week out were human, but who took that and turned it into determination and insight. Like him, and like Eames.

Sienna had become that, he thought. Ironically, her particular gift was for reading not victims, or witnesses, or suspects, but law enforcement personnel and lawyers. Well, he thought wryly, she has a tame specimen at home to practise on nearly every night. Sienna could chair a meeting of ten different people and sense what each of them was thinking, then bring that together in her head and propose a way forward that would somehow make sense to all the participants.

Oh, she wasn’t infallible, not by a long shot, not yet. Captains James Deakins and Tim Whitefield could rest easy for some time. It would be a while before his love had the experience to go for the very top – especially if she takes a career break to have babies, he thought, a little uneasily – but it was certainly a possibility.

Part of the problem they were now facing was the fact that you could not do that and still retain the same youth, almost innocence, that had been part of her attraction for him in the first place. Sienna had been by no means stupid or naïve when he first met her, but she had still been young, still inexperienced, and very willing to follow his lead, acknowledge his superior knowledge of the world and of human nature. He still remembered fondly how young she had made him feel, how refreshing it had been to be around someone very smart, very well-travelled, but who wasn’t jaded, not worn down or made cynical by the gruelling aspects of working for the NYPD. Who looked at the world through fresh eyes, still capable of being surprised.

That had gone for good. Sienna was no cynic, and she still retained her optimistic view of human nature, but she was no longer surprised or saddened by its worst aspects. Unfortunately, he hadn’t been around whilst she was developing that more mature mindset, and frequently it seemed as though his just being there was enough to remind of the contrast between her as she had been, and her as she was now, and some of the more painful experiences that had contributed to that.

Fuck you, Davenport, he thought bitterly. The worst of it was, he recognised only too well the technique Davenport had used. The skilful, almost gentle, manipulation of someone, not into believing a falsehood, not an outright lie, but just a possible interpretation of the facts. Just enough to make them do what you wanted, whether it was testifying against a loved one, or agreeing to entrap their father, or leaving the man they loved because you persuaded them that a few problems they might have managed to solve given time were insurmountable obstacles, then getting them shot – well. How often had he himself done that sort of thing, and all in the interests of the greater good?

He dropped heavily into the chair, and stared almost blindly at the door to Sienna’s bedroom. He was no stranger to its interior, but now he was genuinely unsure whether it would be better for her if he went in, or whether he should stay out here and wait for her invitation.

She doesn’t need me any more… ah shit, Goren, stop pitying yourself. But it was true. Sienna didn’t need him to be her strong, loving, loyal Bobby anymore, her rock. She was her own rock. She had managed just fine without him for two years, and could do so again.

She had changed so much… Unbidden, an old memory came back to him. Nearly three years ago now….

…He still remembered walking along the sidewalk towards his – their – apartment, high on the conclusion of a successful case. There was no feeling on earth quite like it, he thought. He could dress it up with all kinds of words, describe it as being for the good of the city, a vocation, a public service, whatever you liked to call it… but he knew this feeling intimately, and if he was being honest, it was more basic than any of that. It was the little voice, gleefully shouting in the back of his head when he looked into the perp’s eyes at the exact moment they realised, they’d convicted themselves out of their own mouths, they were going DOWN….

…I’m smarter than you are, and I WIN.

Never, ever, got old. Although there were some cases, mainly ones where abuse was involved, where he never felt that. Then, all he and Eames felt was sadness and regret. But this had been one of those cases where the perp had been a real bastard, and putting him away had the deeply fulfilling satisfaction of a job well done. Eames had gone off with her new boyfriend to celebrate with a round or two of margaritas, and he had caught the subway with an anticipatory grin.

He was feeling high, on top of the world, and it was sharpening his appetite. Sienna was in his apartment, and he knew from an old friend in SVU, where she’d been temporarily seconded, that she’d finished work an hour before he did. By his reckoning that would give her just enough time to slip out of her suit, and into something tight and soft, maybe that little dark blue velvet dress with the short skirt that showed off that lovely hourglass figure of hers.

Damn, but this was good. Knowing he had someone at home, waiting for him. He’d always wondered a little at how people managed, having another person around, who wanted to talk to you when you were tired, or eat food you didn’t like, or tidy up when you were worn out and wanted to rest… but it was surprisingly easy. Sienna and he fit just fine into the same space, she was so easy to live with. Well, she had spent a lot of her life travelling. In fact, she had never lived on her own, but always with friends or in a shared house. She was accustomed to fitting into someone else’s routine.

And the sex… He loved that. He would be genuinely happy to spend time with Sienna regardless of whether or not they were sleeping together, she was a fascinating person. He liked to think that she realised that… well, of course she did, he thought, if she thought for one instant that sex was all he was after, she would leave in about three seconds. But, amazingly, the attraction wasn’t fading. They didn’t quite have the same urgency, the same “bed – NOW” hunger that had characterised their earlier encounters, but it was deeply enjoyable to know that, no matter how crappy his day got, there was someone at home waiting for him. Someone who knew him, knew exactly what he liked and how to do it.

They were truly blessed in that respect, he thought, one of those rare matches where what each of them liked most during sex was what the other genuinely delighted in doing. Sienna wasn’t the most experienced, perhaps not even the most skilful, he’d ever had, but she had one thing no-one else had had for a very long time. She wanted to be in bed with him because he was himself, Bobby Goren, and she wanted to make him happy.

Perversely, he could almost wish she’d be a little less selfless, a little more self-confident, taking what she wanted without always asking his permission, carefully checking to see that he was enjoying it too. But then, she was younger than he, and women often didn’t have that sort of sexual confidence until they got older. Perhaps that would come with time.

He allowed himself a small fantasy of Sienna greeting him, her returning warrior, at the door, those beautiful green eyes sparkling, and he would pick her up, barely pausing to kick the door shut behind him, and take her right there and then against the wall. He could imagine her now; squealing “Bobby!”, wriggling a little against him, letting him pin her wrists whilst his mouth possessed hers… and secretly loving every minute, because there were few things his Sienna liked more than him dominant, if they were both in the right mood, and he certainly was. He picked up his pace, and tried not to think about that too much. Focus, Goren! He made it to the apartment door, barely remembering to do his usual routine checks to be certain that no-one was lying in wait.

Hmm, that was odd. Sienna was nowhere to be seen or heard, but her shoes were beside the door. Where was she? He couldn’t hear movement anywhere within the apartment. Maybe she’d gone out. He hoped not. He was feeling decidedly horny and no longer had any damn reason to hide it.

“Sienna, where are you?” He called out almost playfully, teasingly, a seductive tone he saved for her alone and which had, in the past, persuaded her that a bathroom in One Police Plaza was a fine place for the two of them to be getting it on, persuaded her out of her clothes and into his lap, and onto…

“mmminhere…”

Oh shit. Her quavering voice through the bedroom door had the effect of a bucket of cold water chucked over his libido. That was the rough voice of someone who had been crying for a long time, probably with a good couple (or more) of glasses of vodka thrown in.

He paused for a minute to lock the door securely and divest himself of his shoes, coat and briefcase. Then paused for another minute, took a deep breath and let it out slowly whilst thinking, relax, go down, get out of that frame of mind. Walking in there with a hard-on would not help her in any way, shape or form.

It wasn’t perfect – the hormones were still racing round his system – but it would do. Squaring his shoulders and taking a deep breath, he carefully pushed aside the door and walked in.

Oh, shit. Sienna was sprawled on the bed. She looked as though she’d simply flopped straight down onto it, collapsing into a heap, not even bothering to take off her earrings or make-up. Her briefcase had simply been abandoned, which was utterly unlike her usual methodical approach of going through it at the end of the day, putting everything in its rightful place. She hadn’t even bothered to turn the light on, and he almost had to squint to see her through the gloom of a miserable second week of January, blue murky light making the room look dead and cold. An empty glass with lipstick stains stood on the bedside table beside a half-empty bottle of Grey Goose. Her suit was rumpled, her hair askew, and her face…

His heart wrenched to see her face. She looked utterly broken-hearted, and at the same time vaguely sick, as though someone had forced her to see horror after horror, long past her tolerance, her limit, shoving those images into her mind. He suddenly remembered with great clarity exactly what his friend in SVU had said: “You know that bust they had last week, the snuff movie ring? Buncha sex traffickers with a nasty little sideline.”

Not actual snuff, of course – that was an urban legend and besides, the bodies were hard to hide – but only the deaths in those movies had been faked. The rest of it, the violence, rapes, mutilations, that had all been real. Goren had heard about it on the grapevine, and even hardened cops, even cops who he knew for a fact were chauvinist pigs, had still been sickened by the details.

“…your girlfriend’s been assigned to help the SVU guys. They want her to translate some of the phone calls they tapped, see if they can match the voices with what happened to those girls in the tapes, get convictions for assault and rape…”

Jesus, Goren. He was angry at himself, now. How could he not have remembered? Not have realised that she would be like this afterwards? He hastened over to the bed, then stopped as Sienna started upwards, looking terrified, then untensed as she saw it was him.

Oh God. She wasn’t even smiling. Normally, Sienna smiled when she saw him. He was her rock, her source of comfort. The knowledge of his – say it, Goren – his love for her was enough to make her happy.

Now, she looked as though she didn’t care anymore. Her face was ugly and blotchy with crying and alcohol.

“Sienna…” He suddenly had no idea what to say. “Was it… was it really bad?” And I should know already, because I should have taken the time during my lunch hour to call you and find out, but no, I was too damn wrapped up in my own case, when I wasn’t thinking about you pinned against the wall with your lips up against mine and your skirt up round your waist oh FUCK that’s not a good line of thought.

“Oh Bobby.” Her voice, usually so sweet and controlled, was sandpaper-rough and horrible to hear. She rolled over onto her back, loose-limbed, not even looking at him, still seeing the horrors of her day’s work.

She NEEDS you, idiot. Gingerly, he perched on the bed and tried to pick her up. She was deadweight in his arms, heavy and awkward, like a corpse. He managed to pull her into his embrace, stroking her back. Her muscles tensed defensively at first, then she flopped forward onto him and began to sob brokenly onto his shoulder.

“Oh God… it was awful… how can they do it?” She asked him, but didn’t wait for an answer, wouldn’t have heard it through her sobs.

“Uh… well… SVU are like that… they have to be,” he stammered, almost babbling. Of course. He could picture the scene now. Sienna in her usual suit, sleek with a faint hint of glamour, pantyhose and heels showing off her legs. Nothing too bold, too revealing, but among the hardened cops of SVU she would have stood out a mile, like a Dalmatian sauntering into a pack of wolves.

Sienna, on course for promotion, desperate to prove she was tough enough and had what it took. Refusing to let herself show weakness in front of the SVU team. He knew them and they were good cops, but utterly focussed on their jobs. Even if Benson and Stabler had noticed Sienna was distressed by what they were asking her to do, they would probably have disregarded it, being, quite rightly, single-mindedly determined to get the convictions and get the bastards off the streets and into Riker’s.

“I know… they’re not hard… not uncaring… they have to be like that… but Jesus God, Bobby, I couldn’t even look at some of those images without wanting to be sick… and there were so many pictures… and they went on and on, hardly a break… and I had to keep saying it… saying the words out loud, so they could identify who did what…” Her voice cracked again, and she burst into a fresh wave of tears.

Oh, God, what do I do now? he thought frantically, instinctively rocking backwards and forwards as Sienna continued to sob brokenly onto his shoulder. He had no idea what to do; nothing in his adult life had prepared him for this. Well, he’d cared for his mom in the past, but that was different, that was a different kind of caring, the sort where you knew from the start that there was no possibility of what you did being enough to make things better, because nothing was going to do that short of a miracle cure, so you just did the best you could. But Sienna needed him, and…

…and she was still going to be there tomorrow. And next week. And he had to get it right, because unlike a vulnerable witness, easily manipulated and then forgotten, or a casual girlfriend, quickly soothed with a few kind words and packed off back home in the morning, she would remember how he’d handled this, later, when she was sober. She would think about it, and what it told her about him, and he would have to live with that.

Just relax, focus on her, he told himself. She was heavy in his arms, and he realised she must be tired. He carefully held up a glass of water to her lips. She drank it almost blindly, gulping it, and he realised that the crying and vodka had dehydrated her. “Do you want anything else to drink?”

For a nasty minute he thought she was going to say “Another vodka”, which would be a very bad idea, but she murmured scratchily, “Some orange juice would be good.”

Fruit sugars and vitamin C, just what the doctor ordered. “I’ll get that. I’ll be back in one second,” he murmured, holding up a finger. She smiled weakly and flopped down onto the bed. He returned to find her curled in the foetal position, her suit still askew and rumpled, skirt hiked up slightly … don’t even think it, Goren. He reached out to straighten her skirt, and she flinched and looked up at him, warily. He realised how he must appear to her, a huge solid male looming over her. Quickly, he set the glass down beside her on the table, crouching down.

She held out a hand to him, her eyes huge in her streaked face, wordless need emanating so strongly he needed no real skill to detect it. Quickly, he sat down on the bed, then realised that she wanted him to lie down beside her and hold her. Which was a problem. Damnit, just go DOWN already!

This was going to need some careful arranging. Carefully, he lay down beside her and tugged the covers over her, making sure that a fold of the duvet separated his groin from her. I’m forty-two, I’m past the stage of life where this should be a problem, can’t age just have ONE benefit? Oh well. Sienna lay heavy in his arms, relaxing a little. Her sobs were slowing, now, as he continued to held her as gently as he could. Her warmth and softness in his arms were not helping, but he could ignore that for now. If needs be he’d take matters into his own hands… should maybe have done that before going in to comfort her, but jacking off whilst his girlfriend was lying there distressed would have been the ultimate in insensitivity.

Suddenly, she propped herself up on one arm, pulling free of his embrace and reaching out to the glass. She drained it in a single convulsive gulp, set it down with a faint smack on the table, then suddenly collapsed back down. Her arm caught the covers and pulled them tight over them at the same time as her body came down to lie against his, exactly as he had been hoping it wouldn’t. Oh, DAMN.

“Oh!” Sienna suddenly jumped away at the contact of his still-hard erection, as if from a mild shock. She looked at him wide-eyed, stunned.

Frantically, he began to babble. “I’m sorry, I’m not turned on by you upset or anything, I was just thinking about you earlier and…”

She laid a finger on his lips and looked him straight in the eyes. There was something in her eyes, something needy and hungry and desperate. “Bobby? I think… I need this. I need someone to show me that not all men are bad.”

Oh my God, I’m not up to this. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

She nodded, desperately, and wriggled in close. He could feel tension in every line, every muscle of her body, and knew he would hurt her if he wasn’t careful, but also knew that refusing her would devastate her, that it wasn’t even an option. “Okay then.”

He gently guided her onto her side, and spooned up close behind her, no longer bothering to hide his erection. She was almost passive, unresisting, so unlike her usual energetically lustful self it was deeply worrying. He realised she would have to relax before they could do anything at all. Fortunately, he knew what to do.

Almost instinctively, he reached out and began to run one hand over her, stroking softly and rhythmically, like petting a cat. Sienna lay still, unmoving, but he could begin to feel the tension slowly seeping out of her muscles. Still he continued to stroke her, but stayed away from her breasts, her stomach, the most sensitive areas of her body, focussing on her side and her arm. Gently, he kissed along her neck and ears, not going near her lips. After all she’d been though, he thought, her body might be incapable of responding to him, and if so he didn’t want her to feel molested.

Unexpectedly, she wriggled over and sat upright, and for a heart-stopping moment he thought she was going to leave their bed. His erection throbbed suddenly, inconveniently, as she suddenly and gracelessly shed her jacket and blouse, then undid her bra and peeled it off, revealing those magnificent breasts he loved so much, small nipples erect as the air brushed them. Almost as if she were undressing alone, almost oblivious to his gaze, she pulled off the rest of her clothes and faced him entirely naked.

“Take yours off too,” she murmured determinedly, and reached for his shirt buttons. With gossamer lightness, he held her hands and looked her in the eye, wordlessly asking, are you sure you want this?

“I want to be naked. Want to feel you.”

Okay, then. He sat up and undid his shirt as she watched, almost distantly, but never once taking her eyes off him. Oddly, he was almost embarrassed as he undid his belt and peeled off his pants and briefs to reveal the extent of his arousal, long and hard against his belly. Normally, this was a treat for both of them. Sienna’s joy at the sight of him aroused was often enough to get him fully hard, even before that wicked mouth and those relentless hands got to work, and he loved that. She was his female, his beautiful loving female, and she wanted him. She had selected him as the best male around, her mate. She could have a younger man, a richer man, if she wanted, but no. She wanted him, him and all his attributes.

Suddenly, though, he was aware that Sienna had been seeing aroused men all day, and in the worst possible light. For the first time ever, he wished he were smaller, less intimidating. Almost without intending it, a reflex almost, his hand reached down to touch himself, or possibly to cover himself, he wasn’t quite sure which, but suddenly Sienna half-smiled, and wrapped her arms around him, pressing herself all the way against him and closing her eyes, murmuring, “So warm…”

He began stroking her again, not trying to do anything just yet except provide her with comfort and the pleasure of warm naked skin on skin. Her eyes stayed closed, her body relaxed, which was unusual, he realised. Usually by now she was reaching out for him, aiming to pleasure him, unless of course he had prevented that by holding her wrists, or perhaps even tying her to the bedposts, so she could do nothing but feel, revel in the pleasure his body brought her. That was a fun game, but utterly inappropriate for the situation, so he let that go, and continued stroking, even though he could detect a very faint hint of musk mixed in with her familiar scent, and she was trying to turn, to bring her breasts towards his hands.

This new, needy Sienna was different, not someone he was used to, but though he would never, ever, have wished for it to happen this way, he found himself responding ardently to her, to her aching need for love and physical comfort. To have her showing him how much she needed him, to have her forget him, temporarily, abandoning herself to her desperate need… this was something to be treated almost with reverence, with loving care and attention.

Still he continued to caress her gently, wanting it to be utterly unambiguous, what she wanted, and so he held off much longer than he normally would, and only the sight of how hard and erect her nipples were persuaded him to risk sexual contact, to gently caress her breasts and press his lips against hers. She turned, slightly, so that his erection was between them, and her hands now reached out to him, slowly moving over him, her touch maddeningly and arousingly slow and deliberate. Gravely, she traced the lines of his body, all the ways in which he was different to her, broad shoulders and tapered waist and hips. Flat chest, thick biceps; dark hair dusting his chest and belly, the rasp of his stubble against her cheek.

She was mapping him, he realised. Mapping out his maleness, re-learning and demonstrating to herself what a man was, what a loving man was, a real man, one who would never harm a woman, but instead respect her and use his strength only for their pleasure and happiness. He was almost shy as, finally, her hands began to travel slowly down, trailing down his sides, then across his lower belly, finally tracing the soft warm weight of his balls and the firmness of his rigid cock, the soft velvet of his skin over the hard erection below, wet smoothness of the head, delighting in his soft moans as she pleasured him almost inadvertently, tracing over and round the head, up and down and around the soft ridge and over the top, spreading the wetness across him, lubricating him as her hands rubbed harder and harder…

“Sienna… I’m sorry… but I can’t last much longer, so… how do you want to…” She was better, now, but still looked haunted, and somehow he couldn’t see her going on top.

“Please go on top of me.”

“Are you sure you want that?” He held her carefully, tipping his head on one side as he looked deep in her eyes. She looked older in some way, hurt, but at the same time somehow more powerful than before, as if part of her was already growing stronger, determined not to feel this way again.

“Yes. Please, my love, my beautiful big Bobby, go on top of me.” She smiled wryly. “I don’t think I’m up to doing much work, I’m afraid.”

Being incredibly careful, he lifted himself on top and lowered himself onto her, the familiar sensation of the soft cushion of her lower belly taking his weight causing him to draw an involuntary breath. Gently, he wriggled forwards. Usually, one of them would guide him into her, but this time neither of them did, and he softly probed, feeling the soft slick wetness against the nerve endings of his cock. He had been wanting this all day, he realised, and was suddenly, perversely, glad that it had happened this way, that he had risen to the challenge of her need. He nudged at her, trying to find the right angle, knowing that she loved this, that the feel of the soft head of his erection against her was a delightful sensation for her, that he was pleasuring her even as he shifted his hips, nearly there… suddenly, he had it, and he was sliding in.

Sometimes he hurt her, no matter how careful they were, he was a big man and her muscles were still young and tight. She had never had any children to stretch them, but not this time, she was wide open and he slid in easily, neither of them even trying to hide their delight. He moved softly at first, a slow rhythm, bumping against her clit as he found the nerve endings deep inside her, and bent his back to be able to kiss one of her breasts. She writhed underneath him, urgent now, her hands gripping his backside and moving him against her, and suddenly his thrusts were faster and more urgent, and she was suddenly crying out, a deep animal moan, and he knew that he’d done it, that she’d had one of those climaxes she described as being “suddenly on me, and then I’m over the edge before I can help it, and it’s so intense it’s almost painful, but it feels incredible”, and he thrust deep and hard into the tight wetness surrounding him and came, warmth gushing from him and into her, throbs of pleasure rocking his body as he finally came after such a long time of anticipation.

Almost without thinking, before he had even ceased coming, he was holding her, murmuring soft words of love and care and concern into her ear, and she was relaxed and warm underneath him, and he felt more satisfied than ever before, because he had made love to her and met her needs, and she wanted him…

…Back in the present, he continued to stare at her door, still frustrated, but now aroused too, which wasn’t helping. He sighed again.

You’ve been out here for an hour; she’ll be asleep.

Maybe, he thought, but if he knew one thing, it was that Sienna would rather he slept beside her even if they had rowed. Still conflicted, still partially aroused, he headed towards the bedroom, and hoped that his love would accept him into her bed, knowing even as he hoped that the only thing he could be certain of was his need for her. His rock.