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She's been trying not to fuck him for – well, for a long time.
A job like hers, hell, a life like hers, words matter, so she's been very precise in that phrasing: she's been trying not to fuck him.
That's all she'd let herself think, that's as far as that train of thought could go, because she'd just...stopped building tracks.
If the extent she allowed herself to think of Sonny as a, like, sexual partner began and ended with just fucking him, it was easy enough to deal with, to shut down.
It usually plays like this –
(it's a shitty motel doorway in West Virginia)
– it's a random Monday and Carisi comes over wearing some well-tailored suit.
He's got the faintest traces of cologne clinging to him, his hair the perfect amount of messy, his fucking face, and she feels something warm and fizzing flip low in her stomach.
And she knows that feeling, is ever-so-familiar with that feeling, it's the one that leads to sweat and skin and unfamiliar ceilings.
So, she just acknowledges it, tells herself no, not possible, and moves on.
It's just a fuck, just lust, just wiry forearms and long fingers and blue eyes, and other people have those things, other people don't work with her and fill paternal roles for her children and – and he's just so much more than just anything.
So, she can't fuck him.
And so, she occasionally has to get herself off to the thought of some brain-shape that feels like Carisi, but whose face she never allows her brain to bring into focus, and that is that.
So.
The fact that his come is slowly oozing out of her in this meeting is new.
&&.
[ the day before / sunday ]
Nobody is gonna say it out loud, but they've gotten lucky lately.
The first hints of spring outside – a false spring, she knows, and she'll be back in a beanie next week, but for now it's blue skies and green grass – and the city fireworks to life, people at brunch, like a truly mind boggling amount of people at brunch, picnic blankets and barking dogs, and normally, crime.
But not today, not this week, and, if they do all the right things, uphold all the superstitions, maybe not this month.
There's not really a way to cakewalk through their particular unit, even their best day is somebody's worst, but some calls are easier than others, some cases more open and shut, and they're on a string of them.
That means Liv's got them all doing paperwork and filing and just generally clearing administrative backlog and Amanda would normally be annoyed, but Liv also has both girls at some rich kid's pirate-themed birthday bash and normally she'd have asked more questions, but in the moment, she'd seen a warm Sunday afternoon all to herself and jumped at the offer.
And then she came into work.
Given a break by her boss only to use it on paperwork for her boss, absolutely pathetic, but she'd gotten on such a roll with her little portion of the assigned tasks that she'd be done with the work week's stack of administrative shit before the work week had even begun, and that seemed like Present Amanda making the right decision for Future Amanda for a change.
Which is why, when Carisi stops by, in jeans and a black polo shirt, a fresh pair of black Adidas on his feet and Wayfarers dangling from his collar, and she feels the flip, and the heat, and the fizzing, she forgets to stop the train.
Forgets that there's no track past here, just uncharted territory, and his goddamn cologne.
But it doesn't matter. This is fine. Present Amanda is making the right decisions for Future Amanda.
It's fine.
Sonny's warm and tan and swooping low in her space to tell her to shut down, they're picking up a pie, and it's fine.
It's fine.
&&.
He'd called in ahead of time for the pizza, which is good, because the line just for slices is halfway down the block.
(She knows the people that run the place, they'd never let him wait in a line, but Sonny would've gotten in it anyway.)
They grab a couple of bottles of Coke to go with it, the good stuff with the real sugar that she knows he gave Jesse a sip of at Christmas because she asked for it clear through Valentine's Day.
(And Jesse only stopped then because Sonny bought her a cellophane-wrapped, heart-shaped box of chocolates and chocolate? That's also a surprise flavor? She's a pasta-loving kid to be sure, but Sonny's real path to her heart lies in sugar.)
And then they're on the hunt for a spot to eat.
Amanda knows, in her bones, that a part of Dominick Carisi, Jr. almost brought a picnic blanket, she can picture it balled up right inside his doorway, having failed the last minute mental check he does to see if he's being too eager, too much.
Some of her favorite memories of him are when he acts in spite of that check, but today, when their only option is to sit pressed together on a small bench, balancing the pizza box on their legs, all sorts of parts touching, she's glad he left the blanket.
This is her best friend, they're on that track, they're not barreling through the city on a runaway track-less train, this is the friend one, come on, all aboard, it's okay to touch your friends.
Sonny folds up his first slice, using it to gesture at her, "I ever tell you about making pizzas in high school?"
She picks up her Coke bottle, shimmying it back and forth in front of him and soliciting a toast,
"A Sonny Carisi high school story? I'll cheers to that."
He meets her toast, clinking the glass together, before taking a sip of soda that she watches work its way down the long, tan column of his throat and she thinks about how the skin there would taste under her tongue, the salt of it, pressing her teeth into it, and –
"It was for a – what do you call those things?" he says. "Boosters?"
There, train stopped, just as it was supposed to. This is fine.
"Boosters?" she says, and maybe she shouldn't have such attractive friends, maybe she didn't need to constantly be around a guy who looks like this and smells like this and – he came in with a mustache, how could she possibly have known?
"Yeah, like for the school, they put on events to raise money?"
"Sure, yeah, fundraising," she says.
"Right, so they put on this big fair, supposed to be for families, but my friends and me, we knew which girls were going, they knew which guys –"
"Ah, so it was like that," she says.
"Supposed to be," he says, a grumble in his voice. "Mom signed me up for the pizza booth, tossed and rolled dough for 18 hours over two days, made a lot of money for the school, which was really the church, which is how I ended up there, but my buddy Matt got to second base with Teresa Gonzalez."
"Oh yeah? And how did that make young Sonny feel?"
"Well, listen, Teresa's a nice girl, with many, uh – assets?"
Amanda gives him a look and he gives her the sheepish expression that was the exact reason for her response in the first place – sometimes she plays chess, or it might be chicken, with herself, it's fine.
"But," he continues, "Matt got farther than that not too much later, baby, Catholic shotgun, you know the drill, he and Teresa still live not too far from there."
"And not one girl saw the potential of the guy making the pizza?"
"Rollins, I think you're not understanding me, I said a fair, they had rides at this thing, dark rides where you're all alone, nobody wanted pizza or Sonny Carisi."
"Well, I want both of those things," she says, knocking her knee into his.
He gives her a look, it's another one she's seen before, but she never tries to get him to make this face on purpose, it's too dangerous, too close to – to – something.
But it's warm out and she makes good decisions now – think of all the paperwork she'd done – and she catches his eye where she wouldn't have before.
He seems genuinely startled for a moment, his eyes widening the slightest bit, and then he softens, meeting her gaze with an even one of his own.
Sonny's got this ability, Detective Carisi, Counselor Carisi, they've got it, too, to just…take cues. Let the other person set the pace and then adjust himself accordingly.
He's been doing it to her their whole relationship (...partnership, friendship, whatever) and it's part of why she knows, under layers and layers she never peels off, that if she'd built them more track, he'd have followed her down it.
The corners of his eyes crinkle slightly, narrowing in on her, teasing, but gently, so gently, "Oh, yeah?"
It has taken decades – decades – for Amanda Rollins to build up any sort of good reflexes and instincts about her own personal life. It's like when she got made, they heaped all of that into her career and she was left with her best guesses and crossed fingers in her relationships.
But something has changed her, motherhood, Sonny, her own damn steam, and for once, an emergency response system kicks in.
"Yeah," she says, making a show of wiping her mouth, breaking his gaze. "Of course, we all do, me, Jesse, Billie."
His recalibration only takes a second, disappointment followed swiftly by tenderness, by warmth and joy.
He loves her kids, loves his place in their family, she knows he does, and that his happiness is genuine, she just also knows that they could have more.
But for how long? And what would be left? The kids love him in return. No, she just – she can't fuck him, and even entertaining anything further is – no.
The emergency brake was installed, apparently without her knowledge, for a reason.
"What kind of food you think they're eating at this party?" Sonny says. "Pizza?"
"No way, somebody Liv knows through the politics stuff, this is gonna be charcuterie city, the cake's gonna have fondant –"
"Jesse's gonna be hungry, we gotta get more," he says decisively, cutting her off as he closes the lid down over the remains of their pizza.
"Sonny – hey – Carisi," but he's already off down the street, folding up the pizza box so it'll fit in a can.
She catches up to him when he slows to deposit it, and he's got a little bit of a weird look on his face, but it clears as soon as he realizes she's near him.
"Come on," he says, on the move again. "We'll get another pie, bring it home for her, Liv said they'd be back before dinner, we'll have to warm it back up, but we're right here, and it's better than the stuff by your place and –"
She files away the knowledge that he'd asked Liv where she was or, at least, that it had come up in conversation.
"Sonny, my kid eats charcuterie, it's just cheese and meat, she'll be all right."
"It's antipasto and she needs pizza."
He's clearly not going to be deterred, so instead she tries to redirect.
"That so? All right, let's make it then, put that pizza experience to use, and show me what everybody on the ferris wheel was missing out on."
His eyes go a little hazy when she says 'ferris wheel.'
"Oh, yeah," he says, squinting faintly in memory. "The ferris wheel. Maybe I did get out from the booth."
Her eyebrows raise as she exaggeratedly sweeps a hand out in front of herself for him to continue.
"No, no, come on, it wasn't like that," he says. "She just – she held my hand. She was scared of heights and she held my hand. Never went further, she was out of my league, not even sure how I ended up on the ride with her."
"Dominick Carisi, Jr.," she says, dodging pedestrian traffic as they move toward the subway to get to the market she knows he'll want to get the pizza stuff from, without speaking about it. "I am going to ask you a very important question."
He glances at her and she continues, "Was it like this?"
Without thinking, she scoops up his hand in hers, holding it with her fingers folded together over top of the back of his palm as they walk, like they hold the kids' hands.
"Or like this?" she asks, dropping and then retaking his hand, this time weaving their fingers together as she holds it.
He looks at her and then looks down at where they're holding hands, considering the sight as they walk.
"It was like this," he says, squeezing her hand in affirmation.
"Yeah?" she says, and she can feel how warm his hands are, soft and dry and…large. "I've got news for you, buddy, like this –" and she squeezes his hand back, " – that's not platonic."
"It's not, huh?" he says, as they stop at a crosswalk, and it's stupid, it's stupid, but she's just – she's not gonna drop his hand first, so they're stopped. Holding hands.
They watch the crosswalk countdown in silence, touching each other in the open air, under the warm sun and blue sky. She's in off-duty clothes, too, same as him, and she spares a thought for how they blend in with the people around them, couples and friends and families, if Jesse and Billie were with them they'd look…well, they'd look how they always look, but where people could see.
When the sign changes to walk, Carisi doesn't move, it's only half a beat, but he gives her the opportunity to step first, and she does, with the slightest tug to his hand, nearly imperceptible, like she was trying to hide the movement from herself, but it's there, and they fall into step, hands still wrapped up together.
It's – it's more than usual and definitely more than usual in public. Most gestures, most ways they touch each other, they could be explained as former partners, current colleagues and friends, these are the ways you comfort someone who does what they do.
But holding hands on the street on a Sunday afternoon? The words for people that do that are not the words for what they are to each other.
(And yet.)
(She feels like a kid, like she's on the ferris wheel with a boy she likes, and whatever failsafe she'd lucked into before was a single use sort of situation.)
(...might not be fine.)
&&.
By the time they get on the subway, they've been forced to drop hands.
In fact, pretty much as soon as they went to head down into the station, it became just wildly, painfully obvious that they had been holding hands for blocks, and that to continue doing so while going down stairs would be, well, exactly what this actually is – either a very dangerous game or something she can't say, for the same reason no one will talk about what an easy time they're having at work.
But now it's Sunday afternoon traffic, everybody heading home from the park to gear up for Sunday dinner, and she's pressed close to Carisi where his hand dangles from a bar.
They're going a good amount of stops, it's a very specific market with Carisi family ties, and the train grows more crowded as they go, passengers forcing them closer and closer together until she's tucked up against his chest, nose brushing the collar of his polo whenever she looks the wrong way.
"What's this guy's story?" Carisi rumbles low near her ear, making her whole face feel warm as he noses in the direction of a man taking up a considerable amount of space with his outfit alone, all angles and structured fabrics.
"Come on, Carisi, I've seen your wardrobe, I know you know fashion." She's speaking low, too, he's right there after all, but conversational, this isn't weird, crowded into Carisi like a husband and wife, the way he shifted his arm to tuck her closer to him, no, no, they're just having a conversation.
"You been looking in my closet, Rollins? Did you take that blue sweater? I swear, I knew it, it was there one day, and then – poof! You know the dry cleaners apologized? I asked, they couldn't find it, thought it was their fault –"
He continues, weaving a gravelly patter that indicates he knows where his dry cleaner's kids are going to college, even, and she just…listens.
This is lightness, she thinks. A Sunday with no horrible trauma to precede it, two beautiful daughters out playing with other kids, her best friend with her, Sonny with her –
"Yeah, I took it," she says finally, as casual and matter of fact as she can manage. Then, she tips her forehead to his shoulder, her nose brushing the piqued fabric of his shirt while her eyes fixate on the deep black.
They ride the train in silence for a bit, it's a long stretch to this next stop, which is theirs, and she feels – or sees? – or feels? – she can't figure out exactly how she knows it, but Sonny presses a kiss into her hair, and she steps more fully into him, forehead slipping from his shoulder and replaced with her cheek as she turns her nose toward his neck.
She is – sort of – mostly – kind of – nuzzled against Carisi's chest on a subway train, but also…maybe like friends?
She can feel the way he's holding his body, he's a lean guy and when his muscles are tense, she can always feel it, but he also feels…receptive, somehow? Like every other part of him is on alert except for the part she's sinking into.
Which is why, when the train rolls to a halt and the doors open, she grabs his free hand, twines their fingers together, squeezes once, and then darts out of the train.
&&.
He catches up to her at the market, where she's already given over her card and instructed Eddie, the old guy behind the counter, to not accept any form of payment from Carisi.
It's honestly a pretty strong move – she's pretty impressed with herself. She just needed space, just needed one minute alone, to take a deep breath of air that wasn't full of him, and she'd concocted the perfect cover story in a flash of inspiration.
"Hey, Mr. Sonny," Eddie says, as the shop bell jingles with Carisi's entrance. "Getting this out of the way – she beat you." Eddie holds up her credit card with a sheepish shrug.
Sonny turns to look at her, eyes intent, "Is that what that was?" he says. "You get a bonus or something? They handing those out over there now? Thought we just…traded off?"
"We do, yeah, no, of course," she says, and feels a sudden rush of guilt that she'd disrupted the balance between them twice (...three times? four?) in such a short amount of time.
"I just –" she flounders, trying to find the way out of this that'll harm him the least. "I would've noticed the pizza guy, I promise, or, well, okay, maybe I wouldn't have, but I would've wished I had and so, here, let me buy pizza, 20 years late."
It's…vague enough, maybe, that she's brought them both the footing they need and he looks at her for a moment longer, takes a deep breath, and turns away.
"Eddie, where you stocking the good olive oil these days? The really expensive stuff." Sonny winks at her. "Hey, you're paying."
This time, when the warm flip of her stomach comes, she can't quite shake it.
&&.
They get back to her place with both pizza-making supplies and what appear to just be, like, actual groceries, for someone's house, anyway.
"What is," she squints at the label, "...lemon effervescent?"
"It's to settle your stomach, you should have it in the house," Sonny says, putting away her groceries in such an efficient way, the right way, that she kind of wants to fuck him just to see what it's like with someone who knows her that well.
(No.)
"Okay, let's take the shortcut here," she says, brushing Frannie's head as she walks by. "Is all this…stuff, stuff I should 'have in the house?'"
He shrugs one shoulder, "I mean, yeah, it's stuff I've wished was here when I'm cooking, not necessary, but…nice to have."
She folds up the paper bags from the groceries, moving to tuck them under the sink, while he rearranges the cabinets to accommodate the new items.
"But you buy stuff all the time when you cook here," she presses. "Why not just grab this stuff?"
He shrugs again. "Felt – I don't know, 'Manda, felt weird, like I'd be overstepping to make sure your cupboards were stocked like that."
She stands up from the cabinets then, it's possible there are too many paper bags down here because these just won't fit. Frannie's left the room, probably already lying down somewhere, and Amanda just – she – what the fuck is he trying to say?
"I don't know what you mean," she says, hands finding her hips only for her to forcibly drop them back down. They were in such a nice space before, a dangerous space, a bad idea space, but a nice space, and this still feels dangerous, but maybe (...maybe not) much less nice.
"Rollins – Amanda," and he hits the 'A' this time, a clear enunciation of her name that brings her to immediate full attention. Whatever conversation they're having, it is not this one, and it is not one they've had before. "You really gonna say you wouldn't have gotten all –" he trails off. "If I'd just started loading in groceries like I live here?"
"Sonny, that's what I'm saying, you do that."
"I don't," he breathes out, frustrated. "I make meals here, this is not my kitchen, I guest cook in this kitchen."
"You are the only one that actually cooks in this kitchen, not whatever it is I do," she says, teasingly. "This is your kitchen, stock it as you see fit."
She waits a beat to see if he'll respond and when he doesn't, she continues. "If it was about the money, I could've paid before."
Sonny scrubs both his hands down his face and leans back against the counter and, okay, all right, she's piecing it together, maybe, but she's gonna need a few more clues, a long way from a warrant yet.
"It's not about the money," he sounds genuinely frustrated and some ancient, primal, lizard or whatever part of her brain is into it, not that she's frustrating him, but what it's doing to his demeanor. "It's about making you uncomfortable, I don't wanna – you and the girls, you got a whole thing here, I don't wanna…presume."
"Carisi, you are a part of the thing here. This is your thing, too." She shifts to stand next to him, leaning heavy with her back against the counter as they both stare out into the room, side by side, carefully not touching.
They breathe in silence for a few moments and she's starting to feel hurt, in the span of a handful of heartbeats, doubt rolls in thick and dark and she's having a hard time calibrating.
Maybe she'd been asking too much of him, maybe he really is just a nice, kind guy, and somehow, somewhere, she got too comfortable and is taking advantage of him.
He must see the change in emotion on her face out of the corner of his eye, some dumb twitch of her cheek giving away the doubt and the hurt, because he gentles immediately, not entirely, but enough, and turns to face her, his hip pressed against the counter now.
"There are, uh," he tips his head side to side like a metronome a few times, trying to find the words. "There's different kinds of things, there's meal olives and fridge olives, do you und–"
He stops at the confused (presumably, because that's how she feels – olives?) look on her face.
"Yeah, okay," he says, "Just forget it, but for the record, meal olives are when there's olives in the meal, it's an occasion, and fridge olives are the olives that are just…there, in the fridge, that's their place, it's where they belong."
He shrugs, and with it, all the fight seems to go out of him, right in front of her eyes, she watches him assemble the Sonny Carisi that's usually around and paint right over this other, new – or at least, rare – one.
She turns to face him, mirroring his posture with a hip pressed to the counter and, holy shit, she can literally see it, the change in how he was and what he's pulled himself back to.
Before she can stop herself, she reaches out to touch him, but the physical force of the tension returning to his body shakes her back into awareness, and she diverts her hand to his collar, fussing with it like it needed straightening.
He's gone so still and there's none of the yield she felt on the subway, and when her fingers accidentally brush the skin of his neck as she smooths the collar back into its original place, his lips part, but no breath escapes, almost like he's holding it.
"This is – it's a good shirt," she says, deflated and unable to bring her hand back to her side, watching it in a way that feels removed from her body as it now just rests on his chest, the strong beat of his heart under her palm.
"My mom bought it," he says, voice carefully even, and then she watches the corner of his eyes crinkle when he realizes how (endearingly) juvenile that had sounded, but he doesn't speak more.
"Uniforms in school?" she says.
"Huh?"
"In school, you'd wear a uniform?"
"Yeah," he says, and they're so close to each other, inches between them, in an empty kitchen, with the sun setting out the windows, and the air feels heavy with the golden lighting.
"So this girl, from the ferris wheel?" She goes back to fussing with his collar, just to have somewhere to look that isn't right back at him. "She probably wouldn't have seen you in regular clothes very often?"
He lifts a shoulder, "Guess not."
She's picking at imaginary lint now, moving imperceptibly closer trying to get it off, when really all she's doing is brushing her thumb against the fabric of his shirt over his chest.
"There's something to that, I think," she says, and has a quick mental flash of the chaos of a railroad crossing, the ding-ding-ding-ding as the gates come down, the long groan of the train horn, and then her hip slides slowly forward on the counter, bringing her thigh pressed against his.
"To what?" he says, but it's barely even speaking, he breathes it out, like it was coming from some other part of his body.
"Seeing someone in a new light." She raises her eyes to meet his finally and is surprised to see him looking faintly accusatory.
"It's not a new light," he says. "'Manda, tell me you know it's not a new light. We can leave it there, but we're not gonna lie about it."
He says it gently but firmly and if there's one thing she's sure of about the dynamic of their relationship, it's that when he asks for something, when it's finally not her and her needs and her mess, when it's him and what he wants, she'll damn well do whatever it is to get it to him, no matter the cost.
Even if that cost is to her.
And so she says, meeting his eye steadily, voice unwavering, "It's not new."
The tension slips out of him, his face softening. "Thank you."
"Anyway, you've been stuck with me so long," she gives him a slight smile, trying to keep the pressure down, "I don't think there's a lot of new left for us."
His eyes glance at her mouth, she sees it, because he breaks her gaze and then returns to it. "No?" he says, lightly, but…not.
She feels blood rushing in her ears, her heart pounding, her stomach hot and fizzing, "I mean…" she moves her head, her body, closer to his, as she trails off.
He meets the movement with a fraction of the distance she'd come, bringing them closer, yes, but not closing the gap, not…not making a move.
He's watching her carefully, eyes searching and kind, like he's trying his best to play the game they're playing, he just doesn't know all the rules.
Her hand slips up from his chest to play with the hair at the back of his neck, it's soft and smooth, and though he seems to accept the touch, gentling into it, he doesn't reciprocate.
Finally, in the space of a long quiet moment where she can hear the ticking of a clock, Frannie's soft snores from the other room, and the thundering of her own pulse, he moves his head closer to hers, stopping just shy of her lips.
"It's gotta be you," he says, quiet and soft, but crystal clear in the space between them.
She nods gently, a small bob of her head to indicate she understands him, and then an inhale of the air Sonny had just released.
It smells faintly of cinnamon Altoids, the kind she's watched him buy at bodegas all over the city before stakeouts and interviews, and she thinks about the cold leather of car seats and the hard angles of police stations, and the warmth and softness she feels now, next to the same man.
"You're in?" she asks quietly.
"I'm in," he confirms, and she brings her lips to his.
He meets the pressure gently, but it's clear she's still setting the pace, he's still trying to read the rule book and play the game at the same time, so she presses further into him, both hands twining behind the back of his neck as she works her lips softly against his.
This – this seems to be enough, and his hand comes up to cup her cheek, tilting her head so he can kiss her deeper.
She feels a sense of relief when his tongue brushes against her bottom lip before slipping into her mouth. There's more to it, she's not unaware of the hot, wet slide of his tongue against hers and the effect that's having between her legs, but there's – there's a reason she likes sex so much and part of it is that it feels good, like the way it feels that he's got a hand wrapped high and possessive around her waist, and part of it is that it's the one area where she actually wants to give up control, at least a little of it.
What she'd given just now, she understood she had to give, she stopped building the tracks, so she's the one who needed to restart construction, but the way Sonny's crowding her up against the kitchen island now, shuffling her back into it as he kisses her, just the right amount of tongue, that's a reward she couldn't even imagine was coming.
His hands slip slowly down from her hips until they're brushing down her back, her ass, and then he's breaking away from her mouth, hiking her up on the island, and stepping between her legs.
He kisses her again, deep and dirty and wet, and maybe she should've considered altar boys earlier in her life, because this is fucking fantastic, and then he's kissing down her neck as she wraps her legs around him.
She can feel him getting hard in his jeans and shuffles closer to the edge of the island to be able to grind against him, working to find the angle that best benefits the increasing pressure of his cock and the seam of her own pants, a kind of loose, sloppy, hot rutting that Sonny is lazily participating in, shifting his hips slowly as his mouth works at the spot where her neck meets her shoulder.
His hand skates up her side until he can run his thumb along the underside of her breast and when she arches into him slightly, he takes the hint, palming her breast more fully and working her nipple through her shirt and bra with his thumb.
Honestly, it's not really much, the Amanda Rollins relative scale considered, she's done worse than this in public, but it's Dominick and it's working and if he keeps his tongue there – and she – and he –
She sets her hips into the rhythm that'll do it, panting low and breathy in Carisi's ear, she can hear how gone for him she sounds, and he pulls back for a second to look at her, so she gets a look at him, too.
He looks disheveled and sexy, gazing back at her with blown pupils and a wet mouth that's quirked up faintly in the corner in glee, the ghost of a smirk that tells her something good is about to happen.
And then he speaks.
"Oh, you're gonna come like this?"
Sonny Carisi could not have aimed better if he tried and when she bites back a moan, his smirk grows, and it's clear he knows it.
She kisses him to wipe the look off of his face, but loses track of it when she feels his hand on the skin of her back, slipping up inside her shirt, until he can pop the clasp on her bra, and then the release of tension around her chest.
His hand goes exactly where she needs it, to her bare breast, and he repeats the motions from earlier, a thumb across her nipple, a full tour of second base that would put Matt and Teresa and Sonny's high school fair to shame, while she grinds against his cock through too much denim.
"C'mon, show me how it should be," he says, stilling his hips to try and let her set the rhythm, leading to her bucking helplessly, just trying to get friction back. "Harder," she breathes, "more," the words are clear and firm, she knows what she wants right now, and it's harder and more.
"All right, tell works, too, sweetheart," and, Jesus, now she has to let someone call her 'sweetheart' in the bedroom (...kitchen), because it's so good when he fucking says it like that.
She slips her hands under his polo to touch his skin, running her hands across the ridges of his stomach, his ribcage, before slipping up to his shoulders and pulling him in tighter to her.
When his mouth finds that spot at the base of her neck and shoulder again, she rushes out, "There," and he doesn't need telling twice, wet, sucking kisses and a little bit of teeth, and she's writhing against him, and it's getting closer and closer –
"Been waiting for this part," Sonny says, "Come on, Rollins, show me how you come."
And she goes, right there in her kitchen, on Sonny's still-clothed cock, and does just that, some sort of breath-moan-vowel-sound she barely hears herself make and Sonny's low-voiced encouragement and she's fully gone, Sonny milking it out by working that damn spot on her neck.
When her breathing returns to normal, Sonny tips his forehead to hers and lets out a soft, laughing sort of breath, "I knew we'd be good at that."
"We? Haven't even done my part yet," she says, fingers tracing around the waistband of his jeans to the buckle of his belt, the jingling sound of it releasing sending a pleasant tingle up the back of her neck as she moves to work the button.
He licks the corner of his bottom lip, leaves his tongue there and mouth open for a moment, and he just looks so…content and…sexy, like everything he's ever wanted has been laid out before him, and somehow he's managing to play it in a way that looks cool.
You know what? She should tell him.
They just dry humped in her kitchen, she came, she's literally trying to get into his pants; she should tell him.
"You're pretty hot," she says, squaring her shoulders a little bit, jokingly, daring him to call her out on brandishing their newfound freedom.
"Yeah?" He cocks his head, considering her, letting her dangle a moment with a goofy smirk, before delivering. "'Manda, that was the hottest fucking thing I've ever seen in my life."
"Get your pants open, I promise this'll be hotter," she throws up both her hands frustratedly in the direction of his fly, all stupid tight button and what she assumes is a zipper beyond the button, she can't say for sure, her progress has been limited.
Her hands quickly return to try once more, but he bats them out of the way, "I'll get it," he says. "They're new and – hey, look at me, this is just a word, these are just words about my jeans and you're a grown up – stiff, so they're hard to get off."
She can't let it pass, a good, solid snicker that she doesn't even bother to try and hide behind her hand.
"Remind me again why I'm trying so hard to get into your pants," he says.
"Actually I'm trying to get into yours," she says, flipping right back and, oh, oh, could it really have been this easy this whole time? "Got anything stiff that's easy to get off?"
He squints at her, leaning his head back a bit to judge her, before nodding decisively, "I'll allow it."
"You fucking bozo, c'mere," and she kisses him, just because she can now, for these moments, in this kitchen, in this waning sunlight, she's just – she's gonna kiss him.
He meets her mouth gladly, a looseness to his movements that shows her that, yeah, it probably could've been this easy this whole time, he had all of this here for her, she just had to unlock it.
Slowly, the way he's kissing her, the slide of his tongue against hers, the pressure of his mouth, changes from light and teasing to dirty and intentional, a deep, slow kiss as he finds her hands and brings them back to the button of his jeans, now undone.
"I assume you can work a zipper?" he murmurs, nipping at her ear. Fucking smartass.
She cups him firmly in his jeans, just enough to get his back up, and slides the zipper down slowly with her other hand.
His boxer briefs are tenting out awkwardly, the black cotton jutting over the blue denim and she's about to slip her hand under those and work him skin to skin – maybe use her mouth, who can say right now? she's living in this specific moment, not a future one – when there's a clatter at the door.
Carisi rocks back, catching her eye, both of them staring wide-eyed at each other as the sound crystalizes – it's Liv and the kids.
"Oh, shit," Carisi says, and as much as she wants to believe it was for her benefit, and the situation she's in, they both know he's in one just as big with what they both do for a living.
"Fuck," she hisses.
"All right, all right, hey, look at me, Rollins, let me see you," he says, softly grabbing her face and turning so he can see it straight on before rocking back to take in a more full view of her. She can't imagine what she must look like, bra hanging loose under her shirt, freshly orgasmed, and when he sucks in a breath between his teeth, she's not surprised at what he says.
"It's not gonna work," he says, glancing back and forth from the noise at the door, the setting down of various children accessories and potentially children, and her bunched up bra. "Don't take this the wrong way, but you – you gotta clean up, you're – this won't work," he gestures broadly between her chest and her hair. "It's gotta be me."
The echo back to their earlier conversation and the realization that she'd done something hard – she'd made the move – and, as ridiculous as it was, in this situation, he was about to do something just as hard – cover in front of Olivia – was a strong one, and she takes a second to press a kiss to his forehead, still in reach from her perch on the island, before hopping down and moving out of the kitchen.
"Hey, is that you, Liv?" Sonny calls, and she can see him adjusting his jeans, working to get his cock at just the right angle to get the zipper up because there was no way he was gonna get soft in time, as she retreats to the bedroom.
"Yeah, could use some help out here, Carisi," Liv says and Amanda hears what sounds like more than one kid, in fact, maybe all three, go off at once.
"All right, all right, I'm coming, I'm coming, let me turn the stove off," Sonny says, and Amanda rolls her eyes in the bedroom as she shimmies her shirt up.
She hears the door open, a distinctly Jesse-sounding, "Uncle Sonny! I got a gift bag!" and the sound of soft greetings between him and Liv before Jesse announces she's putting her gift bag "booty" away and bringing Noah with her.
It takes a few moments to refasten her bra and fix her hair and make up into something that didn't look like she'd just gotten off with Sonny, and when she makes it back out into the kitchen, she lingers just outside the doorway, watching Liv inspect the scene with a detective's eye.
Amanda, in turn, doesn't miss the way Liv's eyes rest on the flush running up Carisi's neck, the way he's standing with his hips pressed to a chair.
"What'd you say you were cooking, Carisi?" Liv says.
"Oh, uh," he doesn't look at Amanda, she knows he knows she's there, but he doesn't look at her, allowing her one final moment, one exchange, where she doesn't face this, too, and she knows right where she stands, that wherever this ends up, if he's gonna go through this for her, she's at least returning the favor, she's not going down by that many, no fucking way, she's gonna get Sonny off, now it's a matter of honor.
"Where’s Amanda?" Liv adds.
"I'm cooking – I was gonna make pizza, I got the stuff from the market," he gestures at the counter where the only groceries they didn't put away remain, and Amanda winces as it draws Liv's gaze to the island, the disheveled state of things there perfectly matched to Sonny's own.
"Why'd you turn the stove off?" She raises a hand in front of it, seemingly testing for heat. "Doesn't seem like it's been on long."
"Liv, what –? What is this?" he says on a laugh, like he doesn't know exactly what this is. "Am I under investigation? Health code stuff? Not me, I wash my hands the right amount every time. Lizzo? You heard about that? It's the right, like, length – sing some Lizzo, kill the germs – anyway – figured, now that Jesse's home, we'd let her pick if she wanted pizza, so I turned off the oven."
"At ease, Counselor," Amanda says, doing her damndest to breeze back into the kitchen. "Where's my girls?"
Liv gestures to Billie asleep in her carrier as Jesse comes peeling out of her room, colliding into Amanda with a hug just as Amanda leans over to give Liv one.
"Thanks for taking them," she says to Liv and doesn't let Liv catch her eye on the pullback the way she can tell she wants to.
"They were a dream," Liv says, running a hand over Noah's head as he moves to her side. "And Noah appreciated having someone he knew to play with."
"Well, I'm glad to hear it, thank you again," Amanda says, and Liv gives her a look, indicating she's aware she's maybe, a little bit, being rushed out.
"Oh!" Amanda says, "I did my paperwork, the filing it's all – it's done." She makes sure to smile, laying the bait out clearly.
"Really?" Liv says, taking the measure of Amanda in that way she has. "You got that much done before this one showed up to distract you?" She throws a thumb in Sonny's direction and he gives a dutiful who me? look.
"Yeah, um, I did," Amanda says.
"That's great," Liv says and her eyes land somewhere below Amanda's chin, and a little off-center, and…oh, fuck. She knew she should've changed her shirt, even if it's not a hickey, she's definitely got some friction burns or something there, who knows, it's definitely red.
"What’s – uh –" Liv says, raising a hand to gesture at Amanda's –
"Yeah!" Amanda interrupts. "So I finished so much paperwork that I'll be able to help everyone else with theirs this week, and, uh, I can make sure we stay current, too."
In response, Liv nods, smiles pleasantly, makes her goodbyes, and leaves.
"Paperwork? You took that bullet for me?" Sonny says, sweeping her up in his arms and letting her go just as quickly when he realizes Jesse is watching.
He sweeps Jesse up in turn, not missing a beat, "Tell me, Jesse, was there… dancing at this party?" He twirls her around.
"It wasn't that kind of party, Uncle Sonny," in that mock-adult way she's been testing out lately, but she giggles when he dips her just the same.
"Well, was it a pizza kind of party?"
She crinkles her nose. "No, cheese and meat."
"See?" Sonny says, and gives Amanda such a smug look that it makes her want to slap him and, also, separately (or relatedly) lick the inside of his mouth.
"Don't worry, kid, we've got the pizza stuff, and we're gonna fix this little situation in here," he wiggles his fingers at her stomach, tickling her for a moment as she giggles. "Yep, just as I suspected, plenty of room for pizza."
At the sound of Jesse's giggles, Billie starts fussing, and Amanda sweeps over to unbuckle her from the carrier.
From there, it's a routine they've fallen into countless times before – the workings of the four of them as Carisi cooks. He involves Jesse in working the dough, and even gets Billie's fists in on it, laughing with that dimple of his, so charming and kind to her kids, and there's that lightness again.
She knows it won't last forever, but where the old Amanda would wait for the next weight, whoever she is today, she's ready to just…enjoy the lack of it.
&&.
Once they've taken Frannie out and put the kids to sleep – and that's something, isn't it, that there's a version of her kids' bedtime routines that involves him – Sonny follows her back to the kitchen.
She briefly starts to clean up, but there's a single piece of pizza left, and instead she scoops it up, taking a bite while Sonny watches on with a soft, proud smile.
"You really outdid yourself here, Carisi," she says, taking another bite.
"Ah," he says, demurring. "It's all in the ingredients, you buy the right stuff, the right quality, anybody can do this."
"Not everybody can do this," she says, catching his eye to show she knows this is serious, all of it, maybe she's not quite rushing to talk about it yet, but she's gonna respect him.
He nods, in understanding or acceptance or both, and just as quickly as she'd slipped them into serious, he slips them out of it.
"You gonna finish that?" he says, sauntering closer to where she holds the last slice in her hands.
She dances it out of his way, taking another bite. "Sonny, this pizza would've made me want to fuck you."
"Would've?"
She rolls her eyes, "Yeah, you know, back then, don't get all lawyer-y on me."
"Well, it's not –" he scratches at the back of his head, "– it's not not lawyer-y, more maybe just baseline humanity stuff, but – are we on the same page here, in the now? Not to like, not to pressure you, there don't have to be pages, I'm not gonna hold you to, uh, you know, over a pizza. But, I just mean –"
"Get to the question, Counselor."
"Uh, okay, can I – can I touch you?"
"When?"
"Now."
"Yes."
He's in her space in half a stride, plucking the pizza from her hand and tossing it in the sink.
"I'll make you more," he says, all low and Jesus, and then he's kissing her again, hands framing her face as he slips his tongue briefly against hers, and he starts backing her up toward the island.
"No, no," she says against his mouth, and he's off her like a shot, two feet back with his hands up, and if she doesn't laugh at how considerate he is, she's gonna cry about it, so instead she reassures him, shuffling closer to bring her hands to his and weave their fingers together.
"For the record," she says, "I consent, the protest was just about your choice of locale. I'm not starting this in the kitchen again."
He grins at her, swooping to give her a big, wet kiss before tugging her excitedly down the hallway, shushing her with a finger to his lips as she laughs her way past where the kids are sleeping.
Once they're in her bedroom, she only has a moment to worry about whether this is gonna be awkward, before Sonny's crowding her up against the door, walking her into it and letting it fall shut behind her.
At the last second, he grabs the knob, turning it so the latch isn't out and it seats quieter in her door, before releasing it and turning the lock.
Then he's turning her again, walking her back toward the bed as his hands find the bottom of her shirt.
"Can this come off?" he murmurs against her mouth, and when she nods, he breaks the kiss to tug it up over her head.
He goes back for her bra and she waves him off, waggling a finger at his shirt, "Tit for tat."
He grins, that big, doofy, dimple grin and strips his shirt off.
She feels herself lick her lips, he's lean, but strong, and –
"Point of order, Detective," he says. "These are out here," he gestures back and forth to his nipples, "but not there," he gestures at her chest.
She mocks a scandalized face as she reaches behind herself to undo her bra, "Dominick Carisi, Jr., are you a tits guy?"
He waves his hands at her, practically guffawing, and it suddenly feels like work, only he's shirtless, negotiating to see her nipples, she's already wet, and clutching her limp bra to her chest.
Some of that happens at work, but never all of it at once.
"This logic," and she can hear him winding up, Sonny style, "This makes no sense to me, why are we picking? Why do I have to be an anything guy? Am I tits guy? 'Manda, drop the bra and you'll find out, but am I an ass guy? A legs guy? Yes and yes. Are these parts you possess? Because then yes."
She drops the bra.
"I'm a tits guy," he says.
The smile that splits her face hurts in her cheeks, and then she's pulling him around the side of the bed, back ringing the Pavlovian jingle of his belt buckle, and when they're finally shimmying on the bed, she's just in her underwear and he's in his boxer briefs.
"We could've taken these off," she says, nodding down at their underwear, before settling more firmly in the pillows, while he props himself up over her.
"Mm, it's part of it," he says, and ducks down to kiss her.
She only has a second to wonder what it's part of before he's placing kisses along her throat and his fingers are dancing almost shyly along the waistband of her underwear, tracing across her stomach and then the elastic at her legs with the same light touch.
She's squirming underneath him, trying to get him to do something more, but he's going at his own pace, slow, wet kisses across her skin, detours to her lips for the kind of long making out she just knew he'd be into.
(Somewhere, in someone's memory, there exists a teenage version of Sonny talking about "frenching" a girl, in that accent of his, she's sure of it, and she hopes that person knows what they have, because she'd trade a lot to see it.)
"Can I touch you here?" Sonny says, swiping a finger over the damp patch on her underwear.
"That's what I've been asking – can you?" she arches her hips, trying to get him to press down further, friction, anything.
"I assure you, I can."
"So, do it," she says. "It's been long enough."
He looks down at her and she can tell he's gonna make a joke, probably something about how he's actually got the next hour mapped out, so she cheats, reminds him just how long, how many years actually, it's been, and gives him a pointed look, "Long enough."
"All right, all right, I get to stop here though," he says, glancing down at her chest.
With a put upon sigh, she relents, "Oh, I suppose."
He grins at her, stopping to prove that whether this is his preferred part or not, he knows what to do, his tongue and his mouth, and just the right amount of his teeth and his fingers, and he's tapped into the perfect frequency in the line from her nipples to between her legs.
While he's sat slightly back, practically admiring her chest or what he's done to it, she sees enough of a gap between their bodies that she takes her opening.
She starts by kissing slowly down his throat, across his chest, and then she's pushing him backward, until she's straddling him, feeling powerful and sexy as she slips a hand down to cup his cock through his boxer briefs.
"I said long enough," she says and he nods, eyes wide and lips wet.
She drops a kiss to his mouth and then slips down his body, pressing her lips to what she encounters as she goes, running her tongue along the ridges and lines until she's curling her fingers into the waistband of his boxer briefs and lifts her head to help maneuver.
"You don't –" Sonny swallows, tries again, "'Manda, you don't have to."
She shakes her head, running her thumb up the underside of his newly freed cock.
"This is happening," she says.
"I've been trying to think of ways to prove that to myself since this afternoon," he says, looking down at her across the expanse of his bare skin.
"This'll do it," she says, and fits her mouth over his cock, tongue recognizing a new version of a familiar taste and immediately compartmentalizing it as Sonny.
It's a good one, as cocks go, not too big, not too small, solid width, and she knows she's good at this, so she gives him the works, deep, wet, suction and her hands, feeling herself grow wetter at the helpless clutch of his hands in her hair, of the tension keeping his hips from snapping up as she works him.
"Not – fuck – not like this," he gets out, gently easing her off of him and immediately clocking the swaggering look she gives him. "Oh, on purpose, huh? Putting on a show?"
She shrugs, impish, "We all have our talents."
"Yeah? I have some, too," and then he's pressing her back into the mattress, and shuffling her underwear off.
He doesn't take any detours this time, just spreads her legs, swipes a finger through her wetness, and then presses his tongue to her.
Sonny is the exact kind of guy who would be good at this, who would be into this, she thinks, and he proves her right quickly, his encouraging noises almost as hot as the way he knows exactly how to work her clit, and when to slip a finger inside of her for maximum effect.
She's trying to figure out what to do with her legs, she'd wrapped them around his head, flexed them straight, and she's realizing it's just not quite right, she can't figure it out, when his hands come up to hold her hips down and he sets into a rhythm that makes her forget she has legs.
He's building everything higher and higher, she kind of wanted to come for the first time (... second time) with him inside of her, but she's realizing much too late that not only does he have talents, he had a plan, and she's past the point of no return, if he stops now, just the tip of his cock is gonna set her off, and she'd rather come on his tongue.
And then…she does, everything going perfect and blank as he works her through it, lapping at her a few extra times when she's through and making her squirm away in sensitivity.
"You're –" she takes a breath and looks down at him, "You're really fucking good at that."
He looks the cockiest she ever sees him, this is closing argument Carisi, working a perp into a confession Carisi, and then he's shifting up over her and pressing his mouth to hers, kissing her dirty and slow, so she tastes herself as he uses the hand he's not propped on to brush his cock against her.
"Condom?" he says, free hand now outstretched to grope at the night table.
She shrugs, meeting his eye, "Clean and on the pill."
"Clean and willing to wear a condom," he shrugs back.
"I know you are, Sonny," and she positions his bare cock at her entrance.
"You in?" he says, tipping his forward to hers.
"I'm in," she says, and she recognizes the moment they both realize a sweet throwback to earlier in the day is about to become –
Carisi gives her a grin and pushes forward, his cock slipping inside of her. "I'm in."
She groans at his line, but it turns into something else when he starts to move his hips, the same sound, but a different meaning.
She feels full and good and safe and as Carisi moves his hips, as she wraps her arms around his back and takes note of the way he shivers when she run her nails across his skin, she feels a faint wave of tears prick the back of her eyes.
Absolutely fucking ridiculous, but honestly, so is the way he's looking at her right now, like she's not only worth something, she's worth everything, and it becomes clear in a flash that she was kidding herself, she was never not gonna fuck Carisi, and it was also never gonna stop there.
(What'd she tell him? Sometimes people have sex with people they love and sometimes with people who are pains in the ass? Did he realize before or after her that she was maybe referring to him in two out of three examples?)
He's talking to her again, words of encouragement and praise and every time he says fuck, she feels it notch like a point on a leaderboard.
"Fuck, you feel so good, 'Manda," he says, seeking out her mouth again, sloppy kisses dropped as he ratchets up his rhythm.
She's so close, she just needs –
"Can you come again, Rollins?" and she loves hearing him calling her that, in a situation like this, just like she did earlier.
She nods.
"Let me see," he says, and it's enough, that accent and the feel of his skin against hers, the whole thing, he's here, they're here, like this, and she comes.
Sonny goes still for a moment above her, enjoying it, she thinks, honestly, and it makes her a little proud, and then he's chasing his own end and it's her turn to encourage him.
"That it's, Sonny, I want you to come, I wanna feel it," she says, scraping her nails down his back as she kissed his neck.
He comes with a long, loud breath, there's a low sound underneath it, and then she's focused on the way he's pulsing inside of her.
She wraps her limbs around him to keep in a place for a few long moments, she feels the same wave of emotion she felt earlier and wants to settle it because if he sees even a glimmer of tears, she's gonna be in for a long night of misunderstandings.
When she releases him, he nudges his nose against hers with a level of tenderness she has never experienced in these sorts of moments before pulling away, and she gives him a sincere smile before awkwardly moseying her way to the bathroom, a habit it is much too late to break, even for Sonny.
When she returns, he switches places with her and heads into the bathroom, but not before she can experience the sight of Carisi looking well fucked, naked, on her bed, blankets rumpled beneath him, and cock slowly deflating against his thigh. It's – well, it's gonna be an image she revists.
They settle into sleep with only a moment of weirdness, offset when she points to the drawer where she keeps all his stolen clothes, and he finds a suitable pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt to sleep in. Jesse knows to wait to open the door, Amanda's had some pretty gruesome crime scene photos laid out in here and taught her early, but if Jesse catches any hint that Uncle Sonny's inside, she's not waiting, so Uncle Sonny better be dressed.
(He's slept over on the couch enough that she hopes Jesse won't notice the difference, but she knows she and Carisi will need to really talk. Soon. Soon-ish. In a reasonable amount of time that doesn't necessarily need to preclude future orgasms.
Soon.)
She wakes only once, when Sonny leaves for the office, and when she wakes again, his side of the bed is made, and the pajamas he'd worn folded up at the foot. She's still shaking her head at that as she makes her way into the kitchen.
The island has been tidied from their mess yesterday and in the middle of it is a plate with rice cakes covered in peanut butter and topped with different fruit.
"Look," she calls to Jesse when she hears her doorknob turning down the hall, "Uncle Sonny made us breakfast pizza."
&&.
[ today / monday ]
The meeting is probably important, as important as Liv would risk first thing on a Monday morning, so maybe not that important, but still: probably important.
But Amanda can't shake the thought of Carisi.
She's very aware that there's no way he showered before work, she'd have heard if he'd done it at her place, and she'd glanced at the clock when he left, he wouldn't have had time to stop home before the standing Monday morning meeting she knows he has (at least Liv would never make her meeting recurring).
So, in addition to sitting in a second pair of underwear he's ruined, this time without even having been in her presence when she was wearing them, she's also got to square with the fact that Sonny is in his fancy lawyer clothes, presumably the emergency trial suit he keeps in the office, but his skin smells like her, like sex.
She's stuck on that, round and round, how any of this happened, what she's gonna say to him, when her phone lights up with a text from him. Liv's wrapping up the meeting, so Amanda feels safe to look.
It's a photo of the Wonder Wheel at Coney Island, and underneath he's written: This summer?
She takes a deep breath, thinks of false spring and how far away summer is, of how she wasn't supposed to fuck him, how she did anyway.
And she writes back:
I'm in.