A/N: Once again, thank you for all your reviews! I do hope I'll be able to start answering them tomorrow: today I was way too focused on writing this chapter. They're tricky, these characters, and they don't always want to do what I'd planned for them. Oh, well.
A fair warning: this is the first chapter that lives up to the Mature rating. If it's not your cup of tea, you might wish to skip it. If it *is* your cup of tea, however—sit back, and enjoy the ride.
She stands in the doorway for a long while, not hesitating, just listening.
He simply lies in his bed, still not moving, feeling her out, approximately twenty seven ideas as to why she came here swirling in his head.
The door downstairs opens and slams against the wall. This time it is John, and apparently he's too drunk to care about keeping it quiet. Given his current state, it should take him approximately forty eight seconds to get upstairs.
Sherlock sits up, looking expectantly at the woman on his doorstep—her hair is loose and slightly damp, she's holding a pair of sneakers in one hand and wearing a leather jacket over some dark clothing that looks like a combination of a nightgown, a hoodie, and a nun's dress—and says the first thing that comes to his mind: which is, accidentally, the exact quotation of her greeting to him earlier this evening: "Are you going to come in?"
She smirks at him, dropping the shoes and the jacket to the floor. "Perhaps I'd better."
He can hear John stumbling up the stairs, grumbling and cursing him for leaving the party so early, and knows that nothing is going to stop him from entering his bedroom—and then Irene pulls that funny dress-like thing over her head and stands before him, the way she did when he saw her for the very first time.
He would gladly take this opportunity to recall all the emotions that'd run through him at that first sight of her body so long ago: only now she closes the door, and jumps onto his bed, pushing him back into the pillows.
"What are you doing?" he hisses (pulse elevated to approximately one-hundred-and-forty beats per minute, impossible as it may seem), but she simply clasps a hand over his lips and slides under his sheet, lying on her stomach, facing away from the door.
"Try to pretend you're asleep a little better than a moment ago," she whispers, and throws one arm across his chest, hip brushing his as she arranges her body into an image of a post-coital snuggle.
He takes the cue, and relaxes against the pillows, raising one hand to cover hers where it's resting, a little lower than his heart, his other arm awkwardly embracing her shoulders.
She's quite small, compared to him. Delicate bone structure, yet by no means fragile.
Her skin is soft, smooth, and cool to touch.
It feels like a red hot branding iron against his own.
The door creaks open, and John's voice, thick and slurry and carrying the stench of the booze, resonates across the room. "Sherlock, what the f… Oh, God, sorry, mate!" Irene murmurs something and snuggles closer, her head now resting under Sherlock's arm, forcing him to rest his hand lower on her back, some parts of her anatomy brushing his in quite distracting a manner. John stumbles, and as Sherlock lifts one eyelid, pretending to be half-asleep and completely exhausted from some amorous activity or other, he can hear his roommate apologize and quietly step out of the room, closing the door with a soft click.
They stay like this a moment longer, listening to John moving around the kitchen, probably looking for some anti-hangover pills or aspirin; Irene's breath tickles his pectoral muscles and his right nipple hardens: damn the involuntarily physical reactions! He tries to inch away, to put some space between their bodies, but it's no use: he seems to be feeling her all over himself, her breasts pressing against his side, her long, slender leg tangled with his. She moves the hand resting on his chest up a bit, covering his heart.
He stifles a groan. Now she's the wiser.
"You can check mine," she whispers, puffing hot air over his skin. He promptly slides his fingers down her wrist and takes her pulse, wondering if this time it'd be calm and measured, the exact opposite of his.
What he does find out, however, actually makes him gasp.
Their hearts are beating in sync.
"Cheesy, I know," Irene lifts her head and props her chin on his chest, looking him in the eye through the darkness. "But that's the thing with physiology, Mr. Holmes. We're all just prisoners here, no matter how good we think ourselves to be."
"Did you come here to tell me that?" he asks, desperate to keep the conversation going, so that he doesn't have to concentrate on his… well, physiology might be a nice way to put it.
"Actually, I came because I have found myself unsatisfied by the manner of our parting," she answers, twisting her hand in his grasp so that they are now simply holding hands: a delicate gesture, almost no pressure in it, as if they were separated by countless layers of clothing and gallons of air, not pressed together, naked, under a flimsy sheet. "I thought we might talk some more. I hoped I'd finally get to steal a kiss from you; two at the most." She chuckles and sits up, the friction caused by her skin raising goose bumps on his arms, legs and abdomen. "I never would have thought we'd end up in bed within minutes from my arrival."
"The situation does seem a bit extreme, yes."
She chuckles at that, the matters of safety and discretion laid aside for the moment since John has apparently walked into something and is currently cursing loudly in the kitchen. "Oh, Sherlock," she breathes, and leans over him, her hair falling down and tickling his shoulders, "you do say the sweetest things."
She puts her hands on both sides of his head, her thumbs brushing his earlobes, stroking his neck as she looks at him, just looks, searching his face in the darkness. He's thrilled by the way his name sounds coming from her lips, and reaches out to touch her face, tentatively and slowly: a cheekbone that wouldn't cut him, yet to touch it breaks him a little; the soft arch of her lower lip; the sharp chin and its creamy underside; the elegant column of her neck.
He pauses at her collarbone, tracing it leisurely with his fingers as he feels himself grow harder, a pulse between his legs obscuring the one in his chest—and yet, he's calm, and she's calm; and when she moves to straddle him, knees pressing into his hips but still not lowering herself, not making their contact any more pronounced, he can smell her: the musk and the spices, as if they were still in Pakistan and she'd just bathed herself in some exquisite Eastern perfumes.
This is no perfume, apart from the chocolate and liquorice he can still detect behind her ears and between her breasts; this is the real Irene Adler, and it's all for him.
She moves her hands to his shoulders, steadying herself, but still doesn't make any attempt to connect. He's still tracing her collarbone, wondering what it would taste like if he licked it, bit it, marked it with his teeth. His other hand rests on her left hip, unmoving, sticking to her skin with a thin layer of perspiration.
"It would be so simple," Irene whispers, and bends her knees just so, still not touching him where he needs her most. "So simple."
Sherlock hears John switch the kitchen light off and start up the stairs to his bedroom.
He could push her down now with the hand on her hip, pull her to him by the nape of her neck, crush his lips into hers, feel her envelope him completely, cry his release (which would be imminent at this point, he's well aware of that) into her mouth, bite her lips.
And she could simply finish the move she'd started, impale herself on him, throw her head back and scratch her (thankfully, short) nails down his chest, making him emit sounds he'd never had before.
But they don't, because if either of them did, it would mean admitting their weakness, confessing their need for the other, throwing down the towel, giving up, accepting the last and most definite of check-mates.
And as much as they both want this—they also want to have the winning hand in this.
So neither of them pushes or drops, and they simply share a moment, looking at each other through the darkness, their fingers brushing the other's skin to and fro in the smallest of gestures.
"And yet," he whispers after a while, not quite finishing her previous thought, but letting her know he understands precisely what she meant.
She smiles and leans in, kissing the very corner of his mouth. He moves his head just so, and she gives his lips a peck. It's an exquisite feeling, he marvels, freedom and pressure, hotness and bone-chilling cold, and he kisses her back, gently, almost leisurely, content to have their lips touch and communicate the feelings they cannot possibly put into words without losing this game.
Irene pulls away after a second, a minute or an hour, he doesn't know; away and off the bed, taking the sheet with her, dropping it to the floor. She takes him in: the extremely visible effect her body had on him, his whole posture, spread-eagled on the bed; she looks at him, and he lets her, because at this moment he is hers to look at, hers and no one else's.
Of course, admitting it would be losing as well, so he simply closes his eyes and waits, listening to her breathing and then the rustle of fabrics as she puts her clothes back on.
The bed dips under her weight and he opens his eyes to see her already fully dressed, hair hidden under the hood of that ridiculous dress. He makes no attempt to cover himself, and doesn't stop her when she reaches for his hand and squeezes it.
"And yet it would seem, Sherlock, that neither of us wishes to give up just yet."
"So it would."
She gets up and slides on her shoes, before leaning over him one last time and brushing her nose against his. "Tell John you'll have a date for the wedding."
He arches his eyebrow, feeling a rush of adrenaline in every one of his extremities: it's like getting to a new level in a computer game, this power play with her, always a challenge to look forward to. "It's in eighteen days. Will you be able to take care of your business till then?"
"I will manage, don't worry. Just don't give him any names. I'm not sure whom I'll be."
"Do you have that many aliases to choose from?"
"Wouldn't you like to know," she teases, and gives him another kiss, little less than the simplest of touches. "Think of me when I'm gone, Sherlock."
"Good night, Irene," he answers in a low voice, and feels quite smug when he sees her smile. It must have been the first time he'd called her that to her face.
She slips out quietly, her footsteps barely audible. He waits for the sound of the door shutting, and wraps his fingers around his erection.
He doesn't last more than ten seconds—and when he comes, he says her name again, in slightly different a tone than before.
He opens his eyes after a long while, and breathes through his mouth, waiting for his heartbeat to slow down. He gets up, finds a tissue and wipes off his hand, takes a nicotine patch out of the box and sticks it to his arm.
He wonders whether they'd do this again someday—and whether it would become an occasion demanding an actual smoke after. Then he thinks about Irene's teeth, and if she ever smokes. And what is that business that makes her leave London.
And, most importantly, how is she going to pull off appearing on John's wedding?
Twenty six minutes later, when he's back in bed and trying to sleep despite the fact that his sheets now smell of her and distract him, his phone vibrates. He reads the message and cannot help but grin.
Imagine it's an empty one. With my old ringtone.
TBC…