He supposed it must have been the challenge she represented. It wasn't love. There was a remoteness about her; but yet somewhere, the promise of something more, something she held back. Someone who could assess a situation in the same reasonable and persistent way he did, someone whose intellect matched his own, or nearly so. He could at least credit her for that much. And it certainly wasn't physical, the all-consuming and heated exertions that were quickly over, like a drug leaving the system, a short-lived lapse of reason that left him somewhat repulsed, debased; and that led otherwise intelligent human beings into all sorts of trouble and regret - until they found themselves craving it again. Sex. And money. Usually, solving any case boiled down to one, or both, of these two things. But occasionally, and perhaps much more dangerously, there was belief and principle. It would appear she wasn't. Repulsed. How could he have made himself vulnerable to her? He laid out the change of clothes on the bed that he would wear to dinner.
She was maddeningly difficult to read. But still, she left some clues, deliberately or not, to where she was; the bottle of perfume on her dressing table, named after the fabled Himalayan province, the borders of which had been in dispute for decades. The thrill the chase could be quite an invigorating aphrodisiac; and the getting quite satisfying for both parties, if somewhat anticlimactic by comparison.
"Sherlock Holmes? The clever detective in the funny hat. Yes, I know him. Well, I know what he likes."
Would she someday refer to him this way too? And he wondered what bits of information he may have unknowingly conveyed to her. Good Lord. Mrs. Hudson all a-flutter and bringing tea and questions, and even John, in poorly-disguised nonchalance, asking if he planned on seeing her again. Simply because she was an attractive woman. He made no secret of his annoyance.
"I am not seeing anybody!" he bellowed, sending them both running for cover. But not without a parting shot from John.
"Oh shut up." he retorted. "And do spare us your unsolicited advice, would you?"
His cell phone had been tampered with; the ringtone changed. She'd sent him a confirmation text about dinner which arrived with a text alert of a soft, feminine sigh, orgasmic, like feathers falling, at which Mrs. Hudson commented that was quite rude, wasn't it, and which was probably designed to fluster him. He might have blushed if he were capable of it. He fumbled with his cell phone's keyboard in response, muttering under his breath. They were brought together because she was part of a case they were investigating for Her Majesty's Government, nothing more. So far, nothing had happened between them - other than an intense attraction on his part, he had to admit. And it was best for it to remain that way.
They spoke in pleasantries and generalities at first; benign on the surface. They then moved on to his work, a recent case he and John had worked on and that was followed quite extensively in the London papers, rather boring and uninteresting in its outcome he had thought, but certainly safe enough to discuss, and she listened in rapt attention like admiring student, he noticed - and he tried not to appear like a flattered teacher as she kept up quickly and brightly.
Checkmate. she thought. His pupils were dilated too. And it wasn't only due to the low lighting in the flat.
"Almost didn't think he had it in him." she softly chuckled, as she dressed in a tasteful pantsuit with a long jacket, an elegant jeweled headscarf worn loosely draped about the neckline for now, for her flight; and worn to cover her hair as a gesture of respect when she arrived at her destination.