Under the Downs Chapter 9
A/N: My apologies (especially to power0girl, sorry for wrecking your elevenses) for the late posting of today's chapter. There are only so many days you can write continuously without your brain turning into the shrivelled raisin! So today I had a sudden rush of blood to the head and demanded hubby take me out. I've been recharged! Anyway, I hope that today's content will make up for its being late.
Warning: Men going at it. Does what it says on the tin. If FF delete this, you can still read it on Livejournal.
There is a cool morning breeze when I wake, and a heavy weight on my chest. His head. His arm is flopped over my body, his hand splayed out on the soft mound of my belly, his thigh across my own. He breathes steadily in little gusts. I close my eyes again to savour the sensation. I wonder how long it will be before we lie like this again, after we leave this village under the Down, after we go home. I wonder what it will be like to return to the monastic sanctity of my own bed after sharing this with him, this small, modest miracle of life. I wonder how he would react if I asked him to share my bed permanently. I never know with him. He can be so hard to predict sometimes. Maybe he will cling to his privacy, his own territory.
He murmurs something, moves against me, and that's when I feel it. A hard ridge of turgid flesh digs into my hip.
Sherlock has morning wood.
Okay, yes, I am a doctor and it shouldn't surprise me, but the idea of him as an even remotely sexual being bends my brain into backbreaking contortions.
And then of course, this new wonder has a knock-on effect on me. Like a domino, I fall. Or rather, stand. In a second, I feel myself hardening. Oh, God, how am I going to get away with this? The mouth thing yesterday was embarrassing enough, but this is a whole new world of cringe-making physical phenomena.
He nuzzles my chest. He is clearly beginning to wake. I've got to get myself out of this. I could just gently slide from under him while he is still half asleep and he'll never know. If I could-
'Stop wriggling,' he grumbles.
Right, that's it, I'm going to be discovered, and there is nothing I can do about it. I lie there, staring wide-eyed at the ceiling, every muscle stiff with anxiety.
'Dear God,' he huffs. 'What is wrong with you this morning?'
His pale eyes open, blink against my chin, lashes brushing the skin, making a little tingle that goes straight to my cock. I hold my breath. Too late. He has obviously just worked it out.
'Oh.'
He lifts his head, looks down at me, while I try to stare hard at the lampshade in the middle of the ceiling.
'John?'
I don't turn my head.
His hand lifts from my chest, touches my jaw, turns it for me since I won't turn it myself. Now I can't help looking into his face. Dear God, I'm finished now, I really am.
He searches. Then he twitches his hips very slightly. I groan and screw up my eyes.
When I look again, he is grinning. He leans forward, brushes the side of his nose against mine. Those voluptuous lips are so close now, so tempting.
I snap.
I reach up and grab at the back of his head, pull him down, and that amazing mouth meets mine.
So soft, so flavoursome. His lips slide over my own, and part, and my tongue crosses the gulf to dance with his. He opens his mouth and moans, and grinds his hips once more against my side, and I am lost. I grab his body and roll him onto his back, so that now I am on top of him, my legs between his, and his torso undulates beneath me deliciously.
We kiss. And kiss. And go on kissing.
I never thought he would want this. I never thought I would want this. Now it comes to it, it's the most fantastic sensation I've had in years, possibly ever. Our bellies chafe, our cocks jostle together, and it is thrilling. His hands slide up and down my back, and he moans, deep in his throat. He grabs a handful of my buttock and sinks those long, intelligent fingers into the muscle, and it is like being plugged into the mains. I gasp and squirm. He gulps at my mouth, and I at his. Heat is blooming up through my belly. I kick off the sheet and we writhe in the soft draft coming through the window. I reach down and take a handful of his copious arse for myself, and he gasps and throws his head back into the pillow, exposing the length of his neck to me.
There is a pair of little moles halfway down his throat that have always fascinated me. They look a little like the puncture wounds that feeding vampires leave in Hammer Horror movies. I've wanted to touch them for so long. Now he presents them to me, virtually on a plate, and I can't help but lick them hungrily. He starts to tremble.
'Oh, John!'
His thighs slide up around my hips and grip. My cock leaps in response. I pull back, look down at him, survey the wonder of Sherlock aroused. It is dazzling. His pupils are so dilated that his eyes look entirely black. A luscious, rosy bloom has spread across his chest. The pulse in his neck throbs close to the surface. There are pink patches on the crests of his cheekbones. His mouth has a looseness about it, puffy from my kisses. I kiss him again, hard, thrust my tongue into his mouth, love the vibration of the moan he emits. Between my legs, I am throbbing. Tingles are spreading out all across my belly and down my inner thighs. My backside is alight with sensation, something I have never experienced before. My head is spinning with need. I grind against him, wanting.
'Yes!' he gasps.
We struggle out of our boxers, release our erections. I thrust against him, feeling the silk of his shaft as it bumps mine.
'Oh!' he cries, his lips making a perfect, voluptuous circle.
Then suddenly, he grabs my shoulders and pushes me over onto my back. He kneels up between my legs and looks down at me. His muscular chest heaves. For a moment, he hesitates, and then he reaches out and tugs at the hem of my t-shirt, his eyes wrestling with mine.
'No.'
'Please?'
'You don't understand.'
'I need you.' He slips his fingers just underneath, strokes the skin there, making me tremble.
I don't want him to see.
It has been five years since I met him. Nearly six since I was shot. In that time, I have slept with a number of women. Not one of them has seen me without a t-shirt. Having sex while clothed, at least on the top half of the body, is not as bothersome as you might think, though it can be rather frustrating. Still, it is a sacrifice I am willing to make for my own privacy, and for my partners' peace of mind. I don't want them to see what is under there.
Now I know, lying here, looking up at the love of my life, that it is extremely unlikely that I will ever sleep with another woman. Apart from those conducting my medical treatment, no one has seen my wound. I have concealed it from my lovers because I feared that they would be repulsed. I have concealed it from Sherlock because I know he will read it and know what it means.
He has never seen me naked in all these years. I am careful to cover up, to wear bath robes and pyjamas at all times. I don't want him to know. He is conversant with anatomy. He has seen enough fatal wounds to understand it. I can't let him see the truth.
But what I want doesn't seem to figure anymore.
He wants me. All of me. Regardless. I can see it in his eyes. This is the turning-point in our relationship that I have both longed for and feared. He has let down his last defences. Time I let mine down too. I don't know whether he will be able to accept what he sees. But he must see it.
I sit up, reach up with my right hand, grab the collar at the back of my neck and pull my t-shirt over my head. There I stop, with the jersey still stretched across my shoulders and chest. I look into his eyes. I still don't want to do this. I plead with everything I have left.
'Don't make me do this.'
'Please,' he begs.
Resigned, I pull the cloth the rest of the way and drop it on the floor by the bed. And then I look at him and wait for the consequences.
What I don't want him to see, what he will easily read in the gnarled and puckered tissue of my shoulder, is that I should not be here. I should have died. In fact, I did die, twice, in theatre, as they wrestled to patch the artery that had been severed. In every technical respect, I am a dead man walking. There is absolutely no scientific reason why I survived. Every surgeon who worked on me has pronounced it a miracle. And as far as I can see, there is no reason for it apart from this:
I was meant to be here.
I was destined to be with Sherlock.
Sherlock is the reason I survived, even though neither of us knew it then.
Fate has a great sense of humour. I hope to God he'll get her joke.
Tomorrow, under John's T-shirt…