No Strings

Chapter 7

It was nearly time for you to clock out, as you worked on a couple of case files, you weren’t surprised that just you and Benson remained in the office. She sighed heavily as she exited her office, heading to your desk.

“I hate to do this to you, but I need to get home to Noah, our sitter has another family to get to. Is there ANY way you can run these over to Barba, he’s gonna need them for Monday.” You glanced up at her, Noah was her first priority, and you had no problem with that.

“Yeah, of course.” She dropped a stack of files onto your desk.

“You can go in for OT, you’re here too much anyways.” She smiled before heading to the elevator. You sighed heavily, it’d been a hell of a long week, you’d made plans with some friends tonight but it wasn’t late yet, you’d have time to swing by the A.D.A’s office before getting ready. Realizing you were actually the last one in the office, (it seemed everyone took off early today) you closed your computer, grabbing a couple of files as you threw them into your bag, if Liv was gone, you may as well take the 10 minute advantage. 

The walk over to the A.D.A’s office was quicker than you’d thought, you were thankful for the warmer spring weather May had brought as you made your way to Rafael’s office. You found Carmen at her desk, greeting her friendly.

“Hey!” You smiled, she waved back but her next sentence stopped you before entering the office, especially since the door was wide open

“He’s not here.” She sighed.

“Seriously!?”

“Never came back after court, said he was gonna work from home tonight.” She shrugged.

“Meaning it was a bad day and his office scotch bottle was empty.”

“Exactly.” Carmen glanced up at you, continuing at her work.

You groaned leaving the office, a quick look at your watch and you knew you weren’t going to have time to change before heading out, maybe not even enough to drop off your gun, meaning you were babysitting tonight. Carmen said Rafael would be at home, but you didn’t want to trudge all the way there to have him be at the bar around the corner, so you had a few pit stops of no success before you found yourself at his apartment. Knocking heavily on his door you braced yourself, if he was still working this late and at home, things probably weren’t all sunshine and rainbows.

“What?” He snapped, throwing the door open before looking up to realize it was you, he sighed,  “Shit, sorry.”

“It’s fine,” You brushed it off, besides, you’d expected the outburst, “Benson just wanted me to get these case files to you tonight.” You held them out in front of you, expecting him to take them.

“Of course”, he backed off, opening the door wider, “Come in, please” Rafael smiled gently, nodding his head towards the living room. You entered, surprised you were actually being invited in; even more surprising, was the mountain of case files covering the coffee table, rather than his home office. 

“I didn’t mean to intrude, but Carmen said you’d left early….” You trailed off, Raf gestured for your jacket, and you realized quickly your plans were changing for the night.

“There’s a first time for everything.” He smirked, hand on your lower back as he gently guided you into the open kitchen, quickly grabbing a rocks glass from the cupboard, refilling his and pouring an extra one, pushing the full glass towards you, “Here….drink…be happy for the weekend.” The two of you cheers-ed before heading to the couch, Rafael, turned back to his work as he tossed the remote over to you, pulling your legs into his lap, absentmindedly tracing his fingers up and down them. You knew he didn’t want to be bothered, but the remote and the drink clearly meant he didn’t want you to leave right away. You picked your most recent binge show and relaxed back into the couch, enjoying the scotch in front of you. Every so often he would inject himself into your show, a small chuckle here and there, or asking your opinion on things from the case then and again, double checking witness statements, as his body stayed in contact with yours the entire evening.  Unbeknownst to you, Rafael would glance over to you every so often, catching the smiles or small laughs you gave to the tv, smiling to himself to see you relaxed and happy, his heart swelled to see how comfortable you were in his apartment, his hands tracing your body.