Imagine, If You Would...

You returned late at night, just past midnight, after having opted to work a double to cover for your coworker who desperately wanted to leave early to meet up with a date. It kept you from returning to your flat and that was enough motivation for you to power through your sleepless fatigue, haunted mercilessly by the memory of Sherlock’s mouth and his tongue on your sensitive neck and the memory of his hands pressing you together as close as your clothes had allowed.

The walk home from the tube was long and cold and you took it at a slower pace than you normally would, both hoping and dreading to find him there when you returned—so you could make sure he was alright and that the drugs had passed through his system in the twelve hours since your confusing and frustrating drug-fueled encounter. Your pyjamas were in a wad in your arms, keeping your hands sheltered from the sparse snow that had started to fall and since you had rushed out before grabbing a coat, you forced yourself to focus on that small bit of warmth instead of the biting chill that burned at your bare arms and legs. By the time you pushed inside your building, you swore your legs were going to fall off and you shivered violently the entire way up the three flights of stairs.

Your flat was quiet when you pushed your way inside and the sound of the bolt sliding shut was next to deafening. You glanced, your heart beating in alarm, to the couch—his normal spot—to see if it had awoken him, but a mild wave of surprise filled you when you found it to be empty and untouched despite his coat hanging beside your own as a clear signal that he’d yet to leave. In the scant amount of light streaming in from the window, the mess from your studying appeared to have been straightened, all your textbooks closed and aligned neatly in the middle of the table, stacks of your crumpled and loose notes beside each one correspondingly almost as if the mess had never been there at all.

You crossed the floor to your bedroom but before you even stepped foot over the threshold, you spied his curly mop of hair spilling over your pillow as he lay curled up in your soft blankets. Sound asleep. In your bed.

You shook your head. Of course he’d taken up residence in your bed. This was Sherlock and why you were surprised by his intrusive approach was a surprise in and of itself.

A quick trip to your kitchen had you returning with a small tray of toast and a tall glass of water. As you drew near to the bed, he stirred and rolled over. His eyes blinked at you blearily, neither asleep nor awake.

“Hey.” You whispered, unwilling to completely rouse him from his slumber more than you already had. Timidly, you sunk into the mattress at his side. “I brought you some food.”

“Ugh.” His expression soured and he closed his eyes once more. “Thank you for the gesture but I couldn’t possibly eat.”

With a disapproving frown, you slid the tray onto the table beside your bed and scooted closer to him, pulling his arm out from underneath the blankets. He groaned, objecting loudly against escaping the warm cocoon he’d created, but with your trek through the wintry streets you had little to no sympathy for the complaint.

Your fingers pressed steadily against his wrist and your eyes followed the ticking on your wrist watch. As your focus wandered from him, he pushed himself up to sit against the headboard. His eyes were clearly still halfway caught in sleep but they were much more clear than when you’d left him earlier and his pupils no longer fought to swallow the sky from his eyes.

You let his hand fall gently onto his lap and leaned back, propped up by your arms as you continued to survey him. “Your vitals are back to normal.” You hadn’t needed to say it aloud as you both already knew it to be true, but your need to fill the silence in hope of forgetting the strange events of earlier overpowered the comfortable quiet.

“Your hands are freezing.”

“I’m freezing,” you corrected. You curled  your legs beneath you to get closer the the heat from his nap that radiated from the blankets beneath you. “I forgot my coat when I left.”

“You did run out without even changing out of your pyjamas.”

Your supervisor had been furious about the fact, too, and you’d had to borrow an extra uniform from one of your coworkers who was  quite a bit shorter and decidedly less endowed and had only a spare skirt to cover you from the waist down. Your entire shift had left you feeling the burn of leering gazes as you moved from table to table in the clothes that were just a bit too fitting and as the night settled in, you had begun to curse yourself for running out as quickly as you had instead of just sucking it up and getting ready beforehand. You could have locked Sherlock in the bathroom and shoved him fully clothed into an ice bath or something while you dressed and then you wouldn’t have had to deal with any of that or the heckling you’d awkwardly received when you explained you’d had a restless night and the other waitresses assumed less innocent things than the truth.

Of course, the light mark he’d left on your neck definitely didn’t help you plead your case.

You shook your head and reached over to the bedside table to lift up the glass of water and passed it to him.

“So was it the drugs that killed her?”

“No.” He gave a wry smile as he took the aspirin from your outstretched hand and threw them back. “I knew that from the beginning, I just had to prove it.”

You just shook your head. “You’re absolutely insane. You’re the only man I know who would put their body through that just to prove something you already knew.”

Sherlock didn’t respond. He finished the glass and returned it to the table at his side, straightening his posture as he stared at you quizzically. Silently.

The cold was getting to you. That was the only reason why you were shivering.

“So you’re feeling better then?”

“More normal, at any rate.”

“Good.”

With a soft pat to his covered knee, you swung your legs off the bed and walked to your chest of drawers across the room and pulled out your warmest pair of pyjamas. You could feel his eyes trail after you—there was no mistaking the burning way they bored into your back—and your bare legs shook as you thought of the warmth of your plush bed he had overtaken, a tinge of jealousy touching you when you realized what you’d be giving up after such a long day for the sake of his well being.

“Okay. You should get more rest. I’ll sleep out on the couch tonight.”

“No, wait.”

Before you can walk away, he grabbed you by the wrist and you hadn’t realized he’d even stood at all until you slammed firmly into his chest.

“I meant what I said before, Y/N.” His grip dug into your hip and a finger trailed across your cheek as lightly as a feather, brushing the stray wisps of hair away. “I do want this.”

Your breath caught in your throat and you tilted your head to stare up at him in the darkness, trying to make sense of the strange words tumbling from his mouth. Strange, too strange, even for him.

“I don’t think you do.”

The littlest sound escaped his lips, trapped somewhere between a chuckle and a sigh and those gentle, warm fingers trailed so delicately around the curve of your ear, slowly making way down the slope of your neck. This time, there was no denying the cause of your shiver and it took everything not to lean into his touch.

“It’s been on my mind for quite some time—and you know how prone to obsession I am.”

You didn’t trust his words and you didn’t say a thing, you just continued to stare up at him with the slightest crinkle on your brow. Your hands had come up to rest against his chest but you weren’t sure if it was to keep this strange, imaginary connection between the two of you real or if it was to quicken your ability to push him away.

“I’ve been thinking about the way you must taste,” he whispered, leaning in, brushing his lips like a ghost against the shell of your ear. “And after the small glimpse I managed to steal earlier, I can’t get it out of my mind—I can’t think clearly. You always smell like firewood and nutmeg and I can’t help but wonder if your skin is just as intoxicating.”

His lips moved away from you, your skin cold and empty at the loss of contact. “It’s quite inconvenient, how distracting you‘ve become to me.”

Inconvenient.

He had such a way with words.

A familiar thought spilled into your mind—what was he doing to you? You were sure he didn’t even realize what he was doing or that he was at all, but it tormented you just the same.

Your breath shuddered. “This doesn’t sound like you.”

“No, it doesn’t. I’m not very familiar with this sensation—this need. I don’t understand it in the least,” he confessed. He tilted your chin and studied the planes of your face, the depth of your eyes, as though there were answers hidden somewhere should he only seek them out. “I don’t like not understanding.”

“You know, you don’t have to understand everything.”

“Yes, I do.”

How could you have expected anything less from him? You shook your head and scoffed. He pulled back but his fingers continued to toy with the hem of your small shirt, just barely still tucked into the high waist of your skirt. The warmth from his touch was so pleasant, so inviting, that even though your head told you otherwise, you did not pull away or make any move to stop him.

He cocked his head. “How long has it been since you were with Mark?”

You almost whipped away at the question.

“Michael.” You knew he knew the man’s name but his insistence to ignore social pleasantries always had him playing the same game with those he considered insignificant. “We ended it three weeks ago.”

“No,” Sherlock shook his head, “how long has it been since you were with a man?”

What business was that of his? Truly, it wasn’t.

Still, you answered. “Two months.”

That toying, teasing smirk returned to his face. “Then you want this too, I imagine. From what I understand, that’s a rather long time to go without fulfilling this particular need.”

Your mouth opened so slightly to deny it but before you could squeeze out a word, his fingers slipped underneath your shirt, splaying across the soft skin of your stomach and squelching your objection in a single heartbeat.

He leaned in and his sweet breath fanned across your cheek. “Don’t lie to me. I can see it in your eyes,” he murmured, skin so close to yours you could feel the electricity humming between you. “You like the way I’m touching you.” His touch moved seamlessly from your stomach beneath the band of your skirt, softly caressing the top of your hips and you had no control over your resulting shudder.

“I can feel your pulse racing—right here.” A spark shot through your body when his lips closed in on the bare skin at the base of your neck, his lips soft and warm as his tongue moved so gently there just like he’d done earlier when the sun was bright in the cold sky.

“Of course my pulse is racing,” you managed to whisper. “You’re making me nervous.”

His chuckle tumbled against your throat, resonating down through your stomach. “Nerves and excitement can be easily confused.”

“How would you know?” You hadn’t intended the words to come out as bitterly as they did, as harsh, and once they were out your voice softened. You weren’t sure he ever would truly understand. “The only emotions you’re familiar with are boredom and arrogance.”

He hummed. “You call it arrogance; I call it confidence. And right now I’m confident about two things—I’m confident that I want this, I want you, and I’m confident you want me too.”

As usual, he was right.

You did want him. His teasing words from earlier had taunted you all day, sullied by the confusion between what you knew to be Sherlock and this strange behavior he was displaying, muddled by the frustration that had been building that you were sure he would never feel in the same way you did.

You weren’t in love with him, no. But god you wanted him.

He waited as you mulled over your silence and the lack of affirmation thrummed in his chest like rejection.

“If I’m wrong,” he rasped, deeply and needing, “just say it. Say it and I’ll stop and we’ll never speak of this again.”

He had laid the line before you and now it was up to you whether you would cross it or not.

You let out a soft breath, tongue flicking out across your lips to wet them—a motion that did not escape his attuned senses.

“And what if I do admit to wanting this?”

Finally, your hands trailed up his chest, curing around the loosely unbuttoned collar of the crisp dress shirt he’d fallen asleep in while you were gone. Your fingers toyed with the third button, gently brushing the pale skin just beneath and his eyes darkened as he watched you. They darkened more when he caught your gaze, challenging and fierce but still so reluctant to push him into this unfamiliar territory you both seemed to want so much.

“What would happen in that case, Sherlock?”

“Then,” pausing for effect, he leaned down to press his mouth against your ear again, like it was only natural. “I believe I have a few ideas that we would both enjoy.” His hand slipped down your thigh, playing at the hem of your skirt, and he pulled you taught against him with the other, your hips flush in a strange and new and magnetic way. “And each and every—single—one of them ends with you saying my name.” As if on command, he found the spot just below your ear and clamped onto it with delicious pressure, pulling his name from you in a soft moan. “Just like that.”

You hardly even recognized the sound of your own voice.

He pulled back and smiled down at you, lips brazen and cocky but for once, you didn’t care. Any objection, every inhibition, that you had melted away under his touch, under his hands as they slid to your back and those long musician’s fingers slid the zipper of your skirt loose around your waist. Under the fabric, he groped at the soft flesh of your hips and you hadn’t known it to be possible to get closer than you were but he managed to make it happen, always surprising you.

“Oh, fuck it.”

You’d no sooner said the words before you were working his shirt open, taking care not to snap the buttons despite your frenzied want. More and more of his lean, toned chest came into view and your nails trailed softly over the newly exposed skin as you went. You lurched up on your toes, wondering if his neck was as sensitive as your own, but just before you could, he pulled away and he held your weight against him, staring down at you with lust blown eyes and a grin.

“You want this?” His fingers brushed again and again over your hips, slowly sliding the skirt further and further down.

“Sherlock, please,” you keened, “stop teasing.”

His laugh shook straight to your core and as he leaned in to his new favourite spot on your neck, his leg slipped between yours and the fabric of his trousers raised goosebumps all the way up your spine.

“I need to hear you say it, love.”

“Yes. Fuck, I want this.” Your hands carded through his hair, curls soft against your fingertips. “I want you,” you moaned. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you but I want every second of it that I can get.”

That was all he needed to hear.

In the space of time it took for you to process what was happening, his hands slid down and grasped the back of your thighs and he hoisted you up his waist with all the strength of a man possessed. He pulled you against him by the back of your neck before finally—finally—your lips crashed together, his tongue slipping greedily between yours and you opened your mouth to him without a thought as the delicious warmth sent you reeling. His lips, his tongue, were softer than you would have ever imagined and his sweet breath had you pushing harder against him, your nails raking through his dark curls and legs tightening around his waist with desperation.

Closer. You needed him closer.

Your back sunk into the soft mattress and only then did he pull back, panting as softly as you. His blue eyes locked on yours and he slid the unbuttoned shirt from his shoulders, casting it away carelessly to land somewhere crumpled on the floor of your room. Where he knelt between your legs, he had the perfect view of the length of your entire body and he followed with those fathomless eyes the trail made by his hand, starting at your knee and to your hip, brushing the skin of your waist and along your side that your shirt had ridden up to expose.

His swollen lower lip pulled between his teeth in concentration as he watched your every reaction, every shiver, that his touch elicited. You leaned forward, eager to pull that lip between your own, but his hand pressed firmly against your hips and pinned you in place.

“Patience, love.”

The whine that tore from your throat rose a blush along your cheeks.

“You’ve been teasing me all day.”

Even if he didn’t realize it—which at this point you were sure he did—it was the truth.

Sherlock hummed in response to your protest. He leaned in closer, his breath fanning across your collarbone before his lips touched there as well.

“I had to make sure that you wanted this as much as I do.” His hand slipped up underneath your shirt, dragging lazily along the curve of your breast—teasing, taunting, but never moving any closer to where you wanted. His dark hair tickled your neck and he murmured against the soft mound, still shrouded from view by the white cotton.

“I’m still not sure I’m convinced.”

His lips clamped around your nipple through your shirt and you gasped immediately. He pinned you in place still through the arching of your back and when he added his teeth, sucking and nipping and playing at the sensitive bud, your knees clamped tightly to either side of his hips, trying and pleading and begging for the friction he’d abandoned.

“Sherlock,” you moaned, “please.”

He hadn’t even really touched you yet and you were sure you were going to cry out from sheer frustration.

The cocky bastard chuckled, his lips pulling away from your pert nipple and leaving it open to the chill of the room.

“Shall I find out how badly you want this?” He moved his hand at last to your nipple  beneath the fabric of your shirt and deft fingers squeezed and rolled in just the right way that had you squirming under him.

“I wonder just how wet you are.”

Your chest heaved and his hand slid past your hips, past the scrunched up skirt, and for one glorious moment moment, his hand sunk down to cup your dripping core.

But all too soon, he pulled away.

What the fuck?

If looks could kill, you would have struck him down as he rocked back on his heels and swiped your skirt down to reveal your absolutely bare legs, devoid even of the knickers he’d expected to find.

“Well,” he gushed, “this is a pleasant surprise.”

“I was in a rush,” you snapped.

He grinned down at you wickedly and once again you flushed. “It’s all the same—even if you hadn’t run out on me earlier,” he pressed a quick, suckling kiss to your stomach, “I wouldn’t have let you leave with them on.”

You panted incredulously, beyond frustrated by his games.

“You’re so sure about that.”

“Mm.” One after the other, his legs slipped from the bed and little by little, he tugged your skirt down past your ankles. Tauntingly slow. Once get offending garment was thrown, he lifted your leg and his mouth closed around the skin of your inner thigh, inches north of your knee.

“I’m positive.”

His fingers traced small circles against your hips but he didn’t move any closer, even when you let out a small whine, even when you wriggled in place, aching and begging without words. He watched you squirming in your distressed state, his expression a blank canvas as he studied your every curve splayed out before him in waiting.

You glared at the cracked plaster of your ceiling.

“You know, Sherlock,” you hissed through your teeth, “you’re talking a big game but you’ve yet to have anything to show—“

A harsh tug pulled you to the edge of the bed and before you could finish spouting out the word, two long fingers slipped inside of you and he smiled as he nibbled at the apex of your thigh.

“Fuck.”

His fingers pulled almost completely out before he pushed them back in, twisting just so and the pad of his thumb brushed over your clit. A moan fell through your lips like honey before you could stop it, before you could deny it.

That familiar, arrogant chuckle broke through the walls of your momentary bliss. “What was that were you saying?”

“Nothing,” you gasped. “Just keep going.”

“Mm-hmm.” The sound rumbled against your thigh. “That’s what I thought.”

A third finger joined the others, stretching you around him like you hadn’t felt in a while and somehow only serving to make you wetter, needier for his touch. His thumb moved away from your sensitive bud and briefly, you considered shouting out to him.

Not again.

But before your dry mouth could gasp a single protest, his tongue had already taken its place.

That was unexpected.

He lapped delicately against you, drawing the sensitive flesh between his lips as his fingers continued to work you—play you, like a well-known melody. You felt his lips release your clit and trail down, drawing a stripe from your dripping center up over your hooded nerves and your legs began to quake.

This time, you gasped soundlessly—what was he doing to you?

He was here, touching you, but you still weren’t entirely convinced any of it was happening. That it was real.

The still of the room filled with your heavy breathing, with your mewling whimpers, and every sense you had was focused on him and the way he moved so warmly between your thighs. Everywhere he touched was on fire in the most pleasant way and by now you had completely forgotten the cold you had suffered what felt like hours earlier.

Somehow, he’d found a way to go deeper, curling just so, fingers strong and eager as they worked you so deliciously. They slid in again before sliding completely out of you, drawing a whimper as you pleaded for the fullness they had given you. His hands moved to knead the curve of your arse, pulling you closer to him and in a sure motion, his tongue flicked out and his lips teased and sucked in a way that was so different from his fingers but so good. Naturally, instinctively, your hands twisted into the sweat dampened hair at the nape of his neck.

“You taste even more exquisite than I imagined,” his deep voice rumbled against your core in the most delightful way.

You’d always known he had a sharp tongue but if you’d known how good he was with it, if you’d known how it could make butterflies fly through your stomach as well as it could cut, you might have begged to sit on his face years ago.

You whispered his name and pulled him closer, guiding his head in the way that drove you wild. Your hips ground wantonly against his face as you chased the blinding, numbing ecstasy that you could feel breaking way to the surface. That tight and hot and desperate feeling pitted deep within you, begging to be freed.

“Oh my god—“

Then, all too soon, he was gone. Again.

You groaned. “Sherlock—“

With both hands still cupping your thighs, he lifted you up, his face burying in the flushed crook of your neck. His teeth nipped and he sucked against your pulse, harder still when you curled into him and dragged him down with you. His thigh ground against your aching core, rubbing just enough with the friction from his trousers to keep your excitement mounting and building but never spilling over. Every sigh and every gasp you made, he moved further up your neck, his hands groping and sliding until finally his lips reached yours.

He moved closer, so close you could feel his breath but he kept that scant distance with his arms caging around you on either side of your head.

Your mouth fell into a pout. “Sherlock, please.”

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were enjoying this.”

You wriggled beneath him, trying in vain to catch his lips. “And if I didn’t know any better,” you panted, “I‘d think you were enjoying it, too.”

He brushed away a lock of your hair. “Oh, I am.”

“Just kiss me already.”

He did. Finally, he did. You could taste yourself on him, the soft and salty and sweet flavor so exotic and unlike anything you’d ever tasted before and to experience it through him was so heady, so primal, you wanted nothing more than to soak up all of it. You pulled his lip between yours, suckling and tender and the dangerous thought that you were sure you couldn’t get enough of the intoxicating way he made you feel swam around you, filling your ears with a symphony composed of his touch and the deep, rumbling tones of his voice. Your tongues moved together in a gentle duel, curling against the unspoken whispers of desire.

Clothes. He was wearing far too much.

“Trousers,” you managed to mutter against his lips. “Take them off.”

He didn’t stop kissing you and when his hands wandered lower, they caught on the hem of your shirt, sliding the cloth higher up your ribs.

You pulled away roughly. “Take them off. Now.”

Blue eyes glazed from the intimacy between you met your own and your eyebrow rose, both ordering him and begging him to heed your command. You needed it. You needed him.

His tongue dragged lazily against the bare skin of your stomach but he did as he was asked. You heard the telltale sound of his belt clattering against the hardwood and a few seconds later, he urgently—clumsily—kicked them away.

You took a second to soak in his form and though you’d never really taken the time to do so before, you weren’t disappointed. Beneath the layers of dark clothes he elected to wear day after day, he hid a well toned physique, his waist tapering softly where a trail of dark hair dove just beyond your line of sight from where you lay sprawled before him.

He climbed back onto the bed, hovering above you with still so much space—still too much space—empty between you. Those hands glided up your ribs, like he had before when you’d pushed him off, and this time you didn’t stop him as he pulled the tight shirt up over the mounds of your breasts, baring them in all their glory to his feasting eyes. You laughed when the collar snagged on your chin and laughed harder still as he pressed closer, trying to finesse it off of you without pulling your hair any more than doing so already had.

Finally, your sight returned to you as your borrowed shirt was cast far off into the darkness of your room without a thought.

His hot palms slid along your sides, starting at your narrow waist until he reached your supple breasts, cupping you, kneading you.

Stalling.

“You’re not wearing anything here either,” he mused just before nodding his head and flattening his hot tongue over your hard, peaking nipple.

“Like I said, I was—“

“In a rush. Yes. Running away from this.” His teeth raked gently at the startled nerves, your back arching with him as he pulled. “Trying to hide from your desire for me.”

His hands skirted down your hips, brushing your inner thighs. He spread them open, sinking into the crevice between, and his hips rocked so gently against your own.

“Sherlock.”

In an instant, he pulled away and he wasn’t touching you at all; not with his hands, not with his mouth. Nothing.

“I need you to tell me what you need, Y/N.”

“More. I need more.”

He hummed, taunting you with, “I thought you weren’t interested in taking advantage of my curiosity.”

Oh, this was just cruel. If you weren’t so desperate, if you didn’t want him as badly as you did, you would have shoved him away.

“Fuck you,” you spat.

“That’s sort of the plan, love.”

And then he slid into you, roughly, until he was sheathed as deeply as could be. Hips flush against your own in a way that sparked every sensitive nerve alive, the way he twisted had you shaking beneath him and the groan that tore from your lips was nothing shy of pornographic.

For a second, he paused. Your eyes had closed, head tilted back into the sheets, and his hands fluttered helplessly at your waist.

“Did I—“

“Do it again,” you gasped, finally finding your voice. “Please.”

That had been a good sign after all.

And so he did, again and again. His movements were clumsy at first, not quite sure where to put his hands or how he should move, but he was a fast learner and this, it seemed, was no exception.

Soon the clumsy pace and tentative touches lead way to confident thrusts, dragging unintelligible noises from you both and his hands grew bolder in all the right places, sure to leave bruises though you couldn’t find it in you to care. He hiked your legs up around his waist and you were more than eager to oblige as flesh pressed firmly against flesh, his lips sucking and tongue curling from your collarbone to your chin, leaving no inch of skin untouched. His mouth met yours, hot and hungry and full of desire, and his tongue begged for access as his hips did the same, both moving in slow, languid strokes that tingled through your spine.

You reached up for him, tugged at the long hair at the back of his neck, pulling him closer and your hips bucked up against his own, begging—pleading—for the release he’d been building you up to for so long. You felt him shiver as your nails raked down his back, felt him pulse inside of you and in a flash, he gathered your hands in his own and stretched your arms far above your head.

Your hands struggled in his grip.

“I need to touch you.”

“You’ll get your turn,” he promised gruffly, grinding into you without pause. “Right now, it’s mine.”

And though a part of you yearned to disobey and pull at him, to touch him like he was touching you, you submitted to his mercy with very little complaint. His lips, his hands, his teeth, his tongue moved all over you in perfect harmony, his thrusts just the right strength and speed to send your head reeling, make you see colors around you like the cosmos.

He kissed you tenderly, he kissed you roughly, and every touch of his lips hummed against your skin. His hands continued to wander in their mindless, greedy path, fingers reaching between you as you tightened almost unbearably around him.

His name tumbled from your lips like a chant, a mantra inspired by the intimacy between you.

Overwhelmed by everything about him and overtaken by the mindless, numbing sensations that overtook you, he lead you to the very edge like he had time after time that night but this time he didn’t hold you back, he didn’t pull away, he didn’t stop even when you were screaming out in pleasure that left your throat raw and your mind spinning. This time, he tumbled right along with you.

Neither of you moved, content in the silence spoiled only by the rise and fall of your heavy breathing as you both let the beating of your hearts return to normal. His head fell into the crook of your neck, your skin hot to the touch and slick with sweat that he didn’t seem to mind.

Moments trickled by before he moved, pulling out of you with a soft groan, and then he lay at your side. He folded his arms beneath his head, keeping the space between your naked bodies as though they hadn’t been pressed together so tightly only moments before. Your knees fell together at his side, the throbbing between them the only tangible evidence of what had transpired between you from out of thin air, and your hands brushed away the sticky, wild tendrils of hair that stuck to your face.

You didn’t need him to say anything, you didn’t need to hear anything, but something inside of you wanted to hear his voice thrumming against you again.

And at last, he spoke.

“Most enlightening.”

You took a deep breath and stared at the ceiling.

“So that’s—you got what you needed?”

For a moment, the disappointment in your tone was nearly palpable and while your mind was still struggling to come back down to your body, you wondered if his words of rejection would hit you as hard as the pleasure he’d made you feel.

But to your surprise, the rejection you expected never came.

Legs still shaking from his touch, the calm tingling still coursing through you, he pulled you on to his lap and his hands raked up your form without a moment’s hesitation. With alarming fervor, your lips crashed together, searing and greedy. He pulled back shortly after and the smile he looked down at you with was purely wicked, lips swollen from your kiss and his hair a mess across his forehead, and the way his dark eyes drank you in made you swear you could nearly come on the spot.

“Oh, not even close.”

————————

You sat on the fire escape outside of your window dressed in his half buttoned shirt, a cigarette lit between your lips. Wrapped in only your dark sheet, Sherlock sat beside you, arm snaked around your waist and his chin resting on your shoulder. Without a word, you passed it to him. His chest rose and fell against your back with his deep inhale and he blew a stream of smoke before you both, out into the snowy morning.

Your mind was clouded, your body still tingling from his touch.

“One time,” you whispered softly, fog spilling into the air with your breath. “That’s all this was.”

You’d loved every moment of what had happened but that’s all it could be. He admitted to being especially prone to obsession, driven by impulse and understanding and when his mind set to something, he pursued it with no exception. But much like him, you too were prone to the whims and the draw of addiction and you knew that without a doubt, this was something that would absorb you if you let it. The feelings he brought out of you were nothing short of intoxicating and the way he touched you with such determination, such fascination, left you craving more and more.

It was the only way you knew to keep from driving yourself mad. Declaring an end meant you had control. It ensured your ability to separate what was real from what was fleeting and Sherlock Holmes was known for wants of the fleeting variety.

You might have allowed yourself to get high off of him but you wouldn’t allow yourself to get hooked.

“Two times, technically.”

You were quick to smack your hand to his chest. “You know what I meant.”

“One night,” he offered in compromise. His hand slipped from your waist to the bare skin of your thigh, still warm from his touch. His fingers trailed, in a touch that was barely here, higher and higher and you shook as they moved closer to your most sensitive area. “I’m not finished discovering all the ways I can make you quiver.”

“Sherlock.”

With a deep chuckle, he pulled you tighter into his side and kissed your neck tenderly in the spot where a dark bruise had already started to form. You shivered against him.

“I’m not sure I’ll tire of hearing you say my name like that.”

“Of course you will.” You took in another puff. “I’ve never met anyone who tires of things as quickly as you.”

“Mm. Perhaps.” He didn’t stop and his lips fell to your shoulder. “But I find this quite intriguing. I’m enjoying the opportunity to expand my knowledge.”

“One night,” you whispered, reminding him of the words he’d just spoken. “Just one night.”

“If one night is all we have, then I intend to make it count.”

He pulled you easily onto his lap and kissed every inch of exposed skin as his fingers slipped loose every button of the only clothes you wore. Despite the bone-chilling cold, your skin was warm beneath him, burning from his touch so much that you hardly felt it at all.

He pulled just far enough away to smile at you as he slid the fabric from your shoulders like he was unwrapping something fragile. “Call it narcissistic if you must, but I think I like the sight of my shirt falling from your body as much as I enjoyed watching you put it on.”

The sheet fell from his chest as he pulled you tight against him, hands roaming shamelessly over your naked skin, over your hips and thighs, fingers brushing so intimately close to your heated core. He pulled your earlobe between his lips and with his hot breath fanning against your cooling skin, the shiver that overtook you had nothing to do with the winter air.

You leaned into him before you realized you had.

“Sherlock, we’re outside.”

“Yes, we are.”

With your attention so easily distracted, his fingers slipped easily inside of you, drawing out the softest mewl from your lips. That didn’t stop him, however, and his hands moved faster, fingers sliding and rubbing and before you could gasp out a word, his mouth latched eagerly to yours as he swallowed every moan, every whimper, every cry that he pulled from you.

And then for an instant, he pulled away. He grasped your jaw, still toying with you with devious, delectable ardor. You squirmed in his lap and he merely smiled, that lazy sexy smile with so much challenge in his eyes that would have made you weak in the knees if you were standing.