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I shifted uncomfortably on the hard leather seat of the hansom, sighing with impatience. The journey from Waterloo Station to Baker Street had never felt so intolerably long.
I’d been five days in the countryside north of Nottingham at my childhood home, at the request of my mother, who had written asking me to come and consult on a grisly murder that the local police were ill-equipped to handle. I had very much wanted Watson’s presence, both for professional and personal reasons, but he had declined, urging me to go on my own. My dear Holmes, an occasional absence does make the heart grow ever fonder. A few days separation will do us good. Do give your parents my warmest regards.
In the fourteen years of our acquaintance, we had never been so many days apart. It was simply unheard of. Where I went, so went Watson. I sulked and pouted as I was wont to do when trying to encourage Watson to bend to my desires, but it had been to no avail. He was determined he would not accompany me on this particular case and there had been no swaying him. He kissed me softly before I departed, however, his eyes as blue as the hollyhocks in Mrs Hudson’s back garden, and smiled.
Be clever, my darling, he had murmured, and sent me on my lonesome way.
I’d arrived at my parents’ home already missing him terribly, and was in an inconsolably dreadful mood for several hours until I was able to go and view the scene of the murder. My mind was otherwise occupied once I had a case to concentrate on, and my melancholy dissipated for a few days.
The case was rather easily solved, the guilty party swiftly arrested once I revealed the evidence to the local constable, and I was quite eager to return to Watson by the third day. My mother, however, was loathe to let me leave without a proper visit, and I spent another thirty six excruciating hours being plied with overly sweet puddings and stories of relatives I’d not laid eyes on since the age of eighteen.
Finally I had been permitted to politely take my leave, and I hurriedly took the first train back to London. It left at midnight, the last train out of the station, and one might expect that I would have slept. I was as far from tired, however, as it was possible to be. I was tense and miserable, wanting only to be home with my Watson. The nearly six hour ride had only increased my foul temper, and I had paced the train car restlessly until we had pulled into Waterloo and I had very nearly flown off the train before it had stopped moving.
The cab ride was little better. I was barely able to contain my growing anxiety to see Watson, after even such a short absence. I longed to hear his gruff voice, how it gentled when he spoke to me. I ached for the touch of the rough callouses of his fingertips along my throat, the weight of his muscular thigh resting against mine as we took our tea and read companiably next to each other. I could not help myself as my thoughts strayed to our more private activities, the gentleness with which he kissed the back of my neck, the low hum of his encouragements against my ear, the heat of his body pressed against mine in the darkness of our room.
The hansom clattered to a stop in front of Baker Street, and I drew in a long deep lungful of sooty London air as I opened the cab door. I stepped out onto the pavement and looked up at the windows of our sitting room, the curtains of which were still drawn shut in the rosy early morning light. Watson couldn’t possibly still be slumbering; years of military service had made it nearly impossible for him to remain in bed once the sun had begun its ascent. Much to my repeated and vocal disappointment.
I paid the driver and gathered my bags. In my eagerness to get upstairs, I fumbled my key and bumped my head against the door as I bent to retrieve it. I was cursing under my breath as I finally entered the foyer, illuminated dimly by the skylight three floors above. The house was quiet, Mrs Hudson’s rooms dark behind her pebbled glass door.
Unaccountably irritated by the utter lack of reception by the two I cherished most in this world, I dropped my bags at the bottom of the staircase and stomped up them rather loudly enough to wake anyone who might be home. Childish, Watson often admonished me when I was in a mood such as this one, the insult usually followed by a bruisingly hard kiss meant to redirect my energies into more enjoyable pastimes.
When I entered our sitting room, I was shocked to see an unfamiliar - and gigantic - piece of furniture sitting squarely in front of the fireplace. This space, just a few days previously, had been home to Watson’s well worn red wingback chair and my own decrepit black leather one. This chair was massive, nearly large enough to be called a settee, thick and low to the ground, a curious mossy green colour, with burnished brass tacks lining the arms and the back. I stood staring at it for at least ten seconds before I became aware that Watson was actually sitting slumped in it, his blonde head resting against it's padded back, his legs stretched out toward the cold hearth.
He must be asleep, for certainly he would have spoken to me by now if he was not. I crept closer, not wishing to wake him yet, for his face in slumber was one of the loveliest things I had ever laid eyes upon, and I’d not had the privilege of seeing it in five long days. As I rounded the side of this behemoth of a chair, he stirred slightly and his head lolled to the side. Yes, he was deeply asleep, still in his day clothes. He must have been this way the night before.
My foul mood instantly evaporated at the sight of him. His face was relaxed and content, a small smile playing at the corners of his lips, above which the bristles of his well kempt mustache twitched with the nearly imperceptible movements of his mouth. His long golden eyelashes fluttered delicately against his ruddy cheeks, eyelids dancing as he dreamt. The thick blonde hair that I so loved to sink my fingers into was tousled and mussed, falling boyishly across his forehead. His well shaped arms were folded across his chest, the sleeves of his crisp white shirt rolled up to his elbows, and his braces hung loose round his hips. There were smudges of ash on his thighs from his habit of rubbing his hands on his trousers after he’d built a fire in the evenings.
He was absolutely beautiful, and my heart ached at the sight of him. I wanted nothing more than to fall to my knees and lay my head against his stomach, to feel the rise and fall of his breath against my cheek. I lowered myself gently to the carpet.
“Watson,” I said softly, not wanting to startle him.
“Mmm,” he grunted hoarsely, and rolled to the left, trying to curl up awkwardly in the small space.
“John. John, I’m home,” I whispered, relishing the sound of his Christian name on my tongue, the intimacy of using it.
His eyes flitted open at my words, and he blinked several times before he was able to focus on my face. When he did, his pleasure at my return was evident as he reached immediately down to cradle my jaw in his sleep-warm hand. His smile grew ever larger, his eyes twinkling.
“Holmes. I missed you.” His voice was husky from disuse, and he cleared his throat as he pushed himself upright.
“I missed you. With the whole of my being.” I said fervently, and pressed my cheek against his palm, brushing my lips against the silky skin of his wrist.
“As I, you, my love.” His eyes softened as he gazed down at me with the affection that we reserved for the private spaces, it being neither safe nor legal for us to adore each other so blatantly in public. “Come up here.”
I obeyed, sliding up the smooth curved front of the monstrous chair and settling myself along Watson’s right side, our bodies clicking into place as a key does into its lock. He turned his body toward mine, his arm falling immediately around my shoulders, fingertips stroking lightly up and down my bicep. Tension I had not even been conscious of possessing abandoned me at his touch. He was such a comfort to me. My singular comfort, if I was honest. The only true place I have ever felt - or shall ever feel - at home was wherever John Watson was, though I had never laid my feelings out so plainly to him.
We did not often express ourselves in long poetic speeches, nor even in those three simple words that seem to drop so easily from other lovers’ mouths. The language of our commitment to one another was in the press of Watson’s lips to my hairline as he boiled coffee for us on some grey winter morning. It was in the glorious tangle of our sweaty limbs under a mountain of blankets, giggling like boys and shushing each other so Mrs Hudson would not hear us as she laid on our tea in the next room. It existed in the proud squeeze of my hand on Watson’s arm when he came up with something brilliant to break open a difficult case, or the protective weight of his palm against the small of my back as we climbed into a cab. Both being fairly terse men, especially where sentiment was concerned, our love was a language of touch.
I laid my head into the crook of his unshaven neck and very nearly purred with contentment. His arm tightened around me and I allowed myself to sink more heavily against him. The new addition was remarkably comfortable, the leather upholstery supple, the cushion dipping and curving around my body as I shifted against Watson’s side, my legs now draped over his lap.
He patted my thigh. “Do you like it?”
“I do, rather. But where on earth did it come from? And what have you done with our old chairs?”
He chuckled, tossing his head back and showing me a glimpse of those perfect white teeth that usually remained hidden behind his moustache. “Don’t sound so distraught, darling. I know how intensely you dislike getting rid of even the most useless relics. Our sad old chairs are happily lodged in “my” room upstairs, where I’m sure our infrequent house guests will enjoy using them as extra storage space. As for us, I thought we deserved something more comfortable for our daily use than flattened straw cushions and cracked leather. This chair, is, in fact, the reason I declined to go with you to your parents’ this week. I was waiting for its delivery and didn’t want to miss it.”
“You...you bought this for us?” I was touched in a way that I could not explain.
He smiled and tilted his face toward me, the strong square line of his jaw absolutely begging to be kissed. “I did. It is our chair. I don’t see a need for two separate ones anymore, do you?”
I shook my head, inexplicably lost for words, and answered him instead by bending my head down to meet his mouth with my own. He hummed his approval and slid a hand up into my hair in order to pull me even closer to him. Our chair.
Watson and I had lived together since very nearly the moment we met, our two lives immediately and effortlessly twining into one. Our more intimate relationship had come excruciatingly slowly, however. It was no small thing to trust another man with the secret interior of your heart, especially when a misplaced confidence could send you to the gaolhouse. So we had initially lived as bachelors and colleagues, and then many years as friends, though neither of us sought the company of anyone else after our acquaintance began. We were content to be exclusively with each other, every moment of every day.
After long years of deep friendship and unwavering devotion, the true nature of our feelings for one another had become nearly impossible to hide. Increasingly, we had exchanged furtive glances, hints, and flirtations that sent my pulse racing, and I was certain that Watson wanted me as completely as I wanted him. But I had virtually no experience in matters of the heart, and I was terrified of losing everything we had built together should my suspicions prove wrong.
Watson, as was usual in any circumstance, had been the one between the two of us that eventually showed his courage. After a harrowing encounter in a darkened alley with a particularly violent suspect, wherein I had been slashed in the thigh with the criminal’s blade, he had clasped me to him in frantic relief. The embrace quickly turned to desperately murmured endearments, and then to our first tentative brush of lips, his eyes wide with surprise at his own boldness as he kissed me. Watson later told me he had feared for my life, and when he realised my wound was gory but not mortal, the depths of his affections simply could not be contained in that emotionally charged moment.
The depth of both our affections had been laid bare as I had quickly recovered from my shock and kissed him back fiercely, the love and passion that burned so brightly within me erupting without thought to consequence, after holding back for such a long time. We had kissed in that filthy dank alley until the fear of discovery finally descended upon us. Watson had wrapped my leg in a makeshift bandage - strips of his own torn sleeve - and we hobbled slowly home, gazing at one another with the wonder of newly acknowledged desire.
That was nearly three years ago now, and the affections that overtook us that night had grown ever stronger, the bonds between us both tender and unbreakable. I could not imagine a world in which John Watson was not forever at my side. But we had made no promises to each other, exchanged no vows - though we could obviously never do so publicly, I knew other men in our situation had exchanged private vows. We had not done so, nor even discussed the possibility of it.
This chair, and the thought that must have gone into choosing it, felt like a promise. A vow. It was permanence. He had never made so large a purchase with both of us in mind, and the symbolic significance of it was clear. Watson had, with this simple gesture, declared Baker Street to now be our home together, not my home in which he resided. I could not then, nor can I now, adequately describe the deep emotions that stirred within me; the knowledge that Watson had chosen to make manifest our oneness. We were no longer even two separate people, but existed as one.
I believe I had never loved him more than in that moment of realisation.
Our kisses grew more heated, his tongue flicking over my lower lip, his fingers tightening on the back of my head. I melted into him, having lost all ability to even play at resistance, my breath quickening, my entire being alight with emotion at the welcoming touch of his hands as we reacquainted ourselves with one another. Our separation had felt much longer than five days to me, and now, coming home to this achingly romantic gesture, I was entirely overcome with my own desire.
He seemed to read my mind.
"You see, Holmes," Watson drew back, panting slightly, his pink lips wet with our shared saliva, "Did I not tell you that absence makes the heart grow fonder?"
"Yes, you're very clever," I replied, brushing my thumb sweetly over his mouth, the mouth which gave me such endless and varied pleasure, and dipped down to kiss him again.
Just then, we heard the unmistakeable sound of Mrs Hudson’s footsteps coming up the stairs, and we broke apart as though a cannon had gone off between us. Though Mrs Hudson was undoubtedly aware of the nature of our relationship, and was generally discreet enough to knock before entering our rooms, it would not do to be caught in a compromising position, even by one who loved us both so dearly.
Watson stood and smoothed his clothes, jerked his braces back up over his shoulders with his thumbs. I pressed the backs of my hands to my burning cheeks and leaned against the mantle, fiddling with one of the many pipes that littered its surface and trying to assume an air of nonchalance. Mrs Hudson’s knock came just seconds later.
“Good morning, good morning.” She entered backwards, her skirt catching on the rough worn wood of the doorframe, carrying our breakfast tray, laden with fresh scones, butter and jam, and tea. “I apologise for the lateness, Dr Watson, I didn’t wake at my usual time this morning.”
“Inexcusable, Mrs Hudson, as usual. I believe I shan't pay my rent this month if you're going to be so lazy,” I teased, very nearly as pleased to see her as I was to see Watson.
“Oh, you’re back, Mr Holmes!” She turned as she set our breakfast down and beamed at me. “Well, welcome home, and I’ll have to go down and bring up some more scones, there’s only enough for Dr Watson and myself.”
“And I’ll put on some coffee,” Watson smiled fondly at me, his eyes full of regret at our sudden lack of privacy, and winked as he turned away to build the fire.
There would be time later. I ran my fingers over the back of the chair as I crossed the room to sit at our small breakfast table. There would be time.
After a drawn out breakfast, in which Mrs Hudson pressed me to give every detail of the visit to my parents’ home, including what kind of food I’d eaten on the train and what flowers my mother was currently growing in her garden, Watson and I were finally left to our own devices again. It was nearly nine in the morning now, and I was stuffed full of heavy raisin scones and sweet tea. The room was pleasantly warm and it had begun to rain outside, the thrumming against the window hypnotically relaxing. Having been awake since the morning before, I now felt myself giving into sleep, my body and mind exhausted after a long and wearying journey.
“Come, darling, you need to sleep,” Watson said firmly as he took me by the elbow and pulled me from my chair at the table.
I did not think to argue, as my eyes were drifting closed even as we walked down the short hallway to our room. He sat me down and unbuttoned my boots, gently pushing me back upon the bed. I could not help but notice the bed had not been slept in since the morning of my departure, the sheets still tossed back as they had been, the pillows moved not an inch.
I looked up at Watson questioningly as he tenderly tucked the blankets around me. “You’ve not slept here while I’ve been away.”
He flushed, looking somewhat embarrassed, and shrugged. “The bed didn’t seem half as welcoming without you in it.”
“Oh, Watson. My dear, dear Watson.” I murmured, reaching a hand up to curl a lock of golden hair behind his ear.
He shook his head and leaned down, his mustache tickling against my forehead as he dropped tiny kisses along my brow. “Shush. Sleep, Holmes. I will be here when you awake.”
He patted my arm affectionately and quietly slipped from the room, and I was asleep before the door shut.
***
When I awoke, it was to the sound of thunder crashing. My eyes were slow to open, my body overly warm under the blankets, and the noise of the storm outside only served to make me want to burrow down further and continue my slumber. I indulged in a few more minutes of lying in, but I was unable to ignore the state in which I found myself. It had been days without Watson’s hands on me, and I found I was absolutely starved for his touch, particularly after our interruption earlier in the day. My prick already stood half hard against my thigh, my face hot with anticipation, and my desire finally roused me from the bed.
I pulled off my filthy travelling clothes and scrubbed my face and body perfunctorily with the stone cold water in the basin next to our bed, then took my clean dressing gown from the hook on the back of the door and wrapped it round my nude body. I did not plan to long have a need for clothing.
When I emerged into the sitting room, Watson was sitting again in the green chair, just as I had found him this morning. Now he was wearing his most well worn nightshirt and the thick woolen dressing gown Mrs Hudson had made him as a birthday gift. He was reading the newspaper with a cup of coffee resting on his bent knee. The rain cascaded in streaks down the window behind him, silhouetting the perfect upturn of his nose, the thickness of his neck. My mouth watered at the sight of him.
I yawned loudly, as Watson seemed not yet to have noticed my newly conscious state, and padded softly over to stand at the arm of the chair. His eyes flicked up toward me as his mouth curled at the corner, making his moustache twitch, though he did not lower his paper.
“Feeling rested, my dear?”
“Quite.” I hoped the invitation in my voice was obvious. To be certain, I allowed my dressing gown to slip slightly off my shoulder, knowing Watson’s affection for the paleness of my skin.
“Good. There’s coffee and cold ham on the table, if you’re hungry.” He shook his paper, obstinately ignoring my advances, which he knew drove me completely round the twist.
“I am not,” I said sulkily as I tugged the newspaper from his grip and allowed it to flutter to the floor, “At all hungry for ham.”
“No?” Watson’s cheeky grin was half hidden by the droop of his moustache, but the look in his eyes was plain enough and as he raked them up and down my body, they darkened perceptibly. His tongue darted out over his lips as he set his coffee cup carefully on the rickety side table. “What are you hungry for?”
The bare want in his voice was enough to knock the breath from my lungs. A shiver ran from my scalp to my toes, curling into the worn carpet. I moved forward, and his knees opened immediately to me. I slid between them, still standing, and brushed my fingertips over his hair. His eyes fell shut as he rolled his head into my touch, his knees tightening against the outsides of my thighs.
“You.” My voice was hardly more than a whisper of breath, my throat closing on a thrill of dark desire that pulsed through me as I grazed my fingers down through the wispy hairs at the back of his neck. It always happened this way, my planned seductions always went awry when he touched me, when I touched him.
“Come here, Sherlock,” He murmured, his eyes drifting open, his hands closing round my hips possessively and folding me down into his lap.
The way he said my name always affected me powerfully. He had a way of wrapping his voice around each sound, caressing my name as surely as he caressed my body. I could see my name in his mouth, and I wanted to lick it out, taste it on my own tongue.
“John,” I was already near a shameless whimper, my cock now fully hard and nudging out crudely through the part in my dressing gown. I straddled him, pressing my knees back as far as they would go, squeezed between John’s hips and the arms of the chair.
“Sherlock,” John whispered my name again, drawing out the vowel, cradling the L sound on the tip of his tongue. “Do you know? Do you know how you affect me, what you do to me?”
“What we do to each other, you mean, for you affect me just the same,” I draped my arms over John’s shoulders and touched the end of his nose with mine, rocked our foreheads together. My arousal was a liquid throb in my stomach, spreading hot down the insides of my thighs. “God, how I missed you this week, John.”
“And I you, my boy.” John’s hand found the side of my face, his thumb stroking a path deliciously slowly over the whorl of my ear, the line of my jaw. He tipped his face up and met my mouth finally with his own, and I nearly sobbed with the relief of it.
The kiss was deep and purposeful, his tongue dipping in and out of my mouth rhythmically, mimicking the way he fucked me. A shudder wracked me at the thought, and I felt him smiling against my mouth. He was always so proud of how I responded to him, how visceral was my need. It was true that he rendered me helpless, my brain and all my logic washed away in a flood of chemical reactions over which I had no control. I was most utterly and joyfully at his mercy.
“Mrs Hudson’s already brought lunch, and the door is locked.” His mouth slid down the column of my throat as he spoke, his words muffled against my skin. “We could have it off right in our new chair. Proper christening, I should think.”
I both laughed and moaned at his suggestion, for it was, of course, precisely what I wanted. John and I were two halves of the same mind, as much in our personal life as in our professional one. Naturally he would discern immediately my aim. “Yes, oh, yes, John, please.”
“Please, what, my love? Tell me. Tell me exactly what you want.” His nimble physician’s fingers began untying my belt as he spoke, his hands parting the fabric and smoothing warm and dry over my stomach. “Tell me.”
“I want,” I choked out, my head falling back as I luxuriated in the familiarity of his rough palms skating along my ribs. “I want…”
My usual ability to expound upon nearly any subject which interested me failed me completely when asked to speak of my own desires, a phenomenon which had long caused John endless amusement. I had endured much good natured teasing about my bashfulness, how my tongue simply refused to articulate the same thoughts that made my blood run hot. You’re so lovely when you’re shy, how your cheeks pink up like ripe apples. Must I do all the talking when we’re getting amorous?
“What do you want, darling? You know how I love to hear you ask for it.” John’s voice was thick with lust, his throat flushing a deep crimson as he pushed my dressing gown further down my arms, leaving it dangling open from my elbows and pooling on the hearth rug. He bit into his bottom lip and exhaled, tilting his head to the side and allowing his eyes to drift along my torso searchingly. He then smoothed his left hand in circles across my abdomen, gently rubbing at my nipples and dipping his fingertips into the valleys of my rib cage. His right hand fell to my thigh, exerting gentle pressure against the muscle. “Beautiful.”
A rush of pleasure always coursed through me at John’s praise; it mattered not the place nor the circumstance. I was just as affected by his approval on a case as I was in the privacy of our bedroom, but I had to conceal my reaction whilst we were in public, and here I was free to indulge in my own sentimentality. I lowered my lashes and grinned, pleased and proud, my heart thumping nearly out of my chest. I joined his hand with mine and laced our fingers together against my sternum. John’s thumb traced the line of my bone as his fingers tightened affectionately, entwining our hands so that they were indistinguishable from one another.
“John,” I admonished, not meaning it at all.
“You are. The most beautiful. How I longed to see your beautiful face this week while you were away, to watch the furrow of that perfect brow as you worked, the pout of your mouth as you lay sleeping beside me, the fire in those emerald green eyes when you’re working at a seduction,” he teased, and slipped his hand from my grasp. He trailed the tips of his left middle and index fingers down the sensitive skin of my stomach, rubbed them over the crest of my hip, his right hand now sliding up my thigh to my other hip, and raised his eyes again to mine. “Well, you’ve seduced me well and properly. Tell me how I can please you best, love, tell me what you need.”
I shut my eyes against the intensity of his gaze and inhaled deeply, squirming on his lap and trying to work myself closer. He sank lower in the chair, allowing his legs to drift open so that my arse sank down slightly between his thighs. Both of his hands now settled at my waist and he rocked me back and forth ever so slightly.
“This?”
“Oh, yes, yes,” I begged, unabashed in my need for him, but yet still unable to speak the words he wanted to hear.
As was normally our way, he spoke them for me.
“You want me to fuck you?” John slid his grip from my waist to my arse, parting me, and simultaneously thrusting his hips up to rub against my bared and aching cock with the line of his own, barely concealed under his thin linen nightshirt.
John’s vocabulary during our couplings was marvelously filthy and inventive, the result of an unrivaled breadth and depth of sexual experiences across three continents. The dirty words he whispered as he made love to me, his voice somehow both rough and tender, never failed to increase my arousal exponentially. The moan that escaped me now was so wanton and pleading that I felt almost that I should have been embarrassed, but for the fact that I knew full well the effect my vocalisations had on John.
I opened my eyes, watching John as he watched me, his eyes dark, heavy with desire, the tip of his tongue caught between the ridges of his teeth. He reminded me of a predatory animal, quiet and coiled, ready to spring. I leaned forward, the whole of my body drawn into his sphere as the moon is to the earth, and braced myself against his sturdy chest with bent arms. My hands naturally came to rest against the sides of his face, and I stroked the roughness of his early evening stubble. He tipped his chin up invitingly and I lowered my face to his, not quite kissing him, but just rubbing our open mouths together. He huffed a harsh breath and licked soft and slow at the inside of my upper lip.
I responded in kind, curling my tongue along the slick underside of his and unconsciously rolling my hips against him. My neglected prick bumped into his belly, leaving wet marks on the soft cotton of his nightshirt. I shivered at the contact, at the tug of my foreskin against the fabric, and breathed a soft sigh into John’s mouth.
“I want you inside me,” I said in a hush, finally able to verbalise the ache within me, how my body longed to be filled by him.
He kissed me in response, fierce and hard, nipping at my bottom lip and making me gasp. His hand cupped possessively around the back of my head, holding me in place, and tilted his head to deepen the kiss. I submitted willingly to him, parting his lips with my tongue and licking decadently slowly into the warm wet cavern of his mouth. He hummed against my tongue as his thumb rubbed a circle behind my right ear.
I have never seen anything in my life as mesmerising as John Watson when he is aroused; his normally indigo eyes deepened to the darkest shade of blue, the colour of the most unknown oceanic depths, changeable and unpredictable; the veins on his arms ropey and protruding; his torso flushed to the navel, the golden hairs that dust his muscular body shimmering with perspiration. He is a specimen of manliness. Yet somehow, he is also gentled; the soft upward curve of his mouth, the sweet intonation of his voice as he speaks to me, the tender care with with he caresses my body. He is both commanding and pliant, both rough and kind. He is a compassionate lover, taking as much care with, and joy in, my pleasure as he does his own.
He pulled back slowly, holding my lip between both of his and rubbing the tips of our noses together. I opened my eyes and blinked hazily at him, already half drunk on endorphins, very nearly in a swoon. He reached up and wiped the saliva from my lip and chin. I could already feel the satisfying burn of his stubble around my mouth.
“We don’t have anything out here, sweetness.” John lifted my hand to his mouth, unhurriedly brushing his kiss-swollen lips over my knuckles and looking up at me from underneath those surprisingly delicate long honey-coloured eyelashes.
“I shall have to remedy that, then.” I shimmied backwards off of John’s lap and allowed my dressing gown to fall completely to the floor as I stood.
John reached out to touch me, his fingertips barely grazing my hip, but I moved just out of his grasp, casting a glance back over my shoulder as I walked from the sitting room. I knew well John’s fondness for the shape of my arse, the musculature of my back, and I could not help but swing my hips back and forth a bit more than was necessary. I paused at the kitchen doorway and bit my lip at him, dropped my gaze demurely to the floor. I trailed my fingertips along the window in the half open pocket door, smearing the glass. John's nostrils flared as he tilted his head down and watched me hungrily.
“Tease. You are an insufferable tease, Sherlock Holmes.” His voice was already low and gruff, and he was shifting restlessly in his seat. His sizeable erection - his cock was beautifully formed, just as was the rest of him - was tenting his thin nightshirt, and I could sense how much he wanted to take himself in hand, as he slid both palms down over his hips and dug his thumbs into his thighs.
My manner changed abruptly, slipping from the quiet seductor back into my normal self, and flashed him a victorious grin. I wiggled my eyebrows at him, then ducked quickly into the kitchen. His amused laughter followed me down the short hallway to our bedroom, where it took me only a few seconds to locate the tin of petroleum jelly that we kept well hidden in the wardrobe. We had to be quite careful buying it, so as not to raise suspicions about our private activities. While purchasing petroleum jelly was not in and of itself suspicious, we were fairly well known as two bachelors who had lived together for over a decade, and we could not risk the gossip.
Our romantic and sexual relationship being a fairly recent development, after having been subverted for so long, our passion for one another burned hot and constant. We could barely sometimes make it safely in the front door of our flat, though we knew we had to. I had been pressed up against the back of that door more times than I could count, John’s hands plucking frustratedly at my buttons, his mouth raising red marks just under my collar, as we rutted and groaned, kissing messily and clinging to each other in our desperation.
Thus, the amount of petroleum jelly we went through in a month’s time was high enough to raise eyebrows, should it become known. We were careful to shop at different chemists each time, and I often used one of my many disguises in order to not be recognised. John particularly liked the times when I had dressed up as a young lady, bodice, stockings, and the whole kit; his hands sneaking indelicately up my skirts in the cab on the way home, his face pressing against my powdered throat as he whispered What a pretty lass, what a good girl, until I could not hold back my pleasure any longer and came silently, hips lifting off the wooden bench, shuddering and biting into my wrist to keep myself quiet.
At least if we were caught in those circumstances, I could pass for a girl and John would get in much less trouble than if I were dressed as myself.
I shook off these recollections of times past and grabbed the petroleum. John was waiting. When I returned to the sitting room, John had stoked the fire up so it was blazing, the space in front of the hearth now at least ten degrees hotter than the rest of the chilled room. He had also liberated himself of his nightshirt and gown, which were now thrown carelessly over the end of the settee, and was sitting completely nude in the green chair, his cock stiff and proud against his belly.
“Well, hello,” I murmured appreciatively, stopping mid-stride to admire the beauty and strength of John’s body. He was muscular, but not overly so, his thighs lean and toned, his shoulders broad and thick, his stomach curved out just enough to make him self conscious about it, though I had told him more than once how there was nothing more glorious in the world to me than the feeling of his belly under my cheek. My eyes roamed over the multitude of his scars, gleaned from boyhood rugby pitches and desert foxholes, from scaling London brick walls in the dead of night, and one that was noticeably newer than the rest, white and shiny and running the length of his forearm, that he'd gotten from falling out of a boat into the Thames last autumn as we chased a suspect. His life was written on his body, and I worshipped every moment, every inch.
“Hello.” He crooked a finger at me and shifted his hips, his eyes sparkling with mischief. “Took you long enough, my dear. Did you get lost?”
“A bit.” I said, knowing John would understand my meaning.
“Well, get out of that beautiful brain of yours and come ‘ere.” John patted his hands on his bare lap and then held his arms out to me.
I sank into them with a sigh, immediately pressing myself flat against him and wrapping round him as a vine does to a trellis. My knees I tucked back in the corners of the chair, which was now slick with a sheen of John’s perspiration, and my body slid easily alongside his. I spread my thighs so as to more easily fit our cocks together, and his hands slipped firmly round my arse and lifted me into position.
“Oh, god, that’s, oh,” John dropped his head against the back of the chair, his mouth falling open as his hips kicked up, bouncing me on his lap.
My own body responded immediately to the touch of John’s skin, a deliciously tremulous ripple of pleasure that rolled down from my scalp and up from my thighs, coalescing like liquid heat in my belly. I felt warm all over, as though I’d been drinking - my limbs loose and hot, my head swimming pleasantly.
John reached down between us with his left hand and curled his hand lightly around my cock, stroking just enough to tease, his right hand pushing at my hip to rock me slowly back and forth. I braced my hands against his strong shoulders, digging my fingertips into the tendons as he guided me to ride him how he liked it best. I began a rhythm of my own, rubbing the wet heads of our cocks together and dropping my gaze to watch our bodies moving, the sight of us pressed together tip to bollocks sending a thudding pulse of pleasure through me. I shook with it, my shoulders rounding, stomach contracting.
“I’ve barely touched you, and you’re so close already,” John growled, his grip on my hip becoming vicelike.
“Well, as I said,” I panted, barely able to control the shaking of my voice, “I missed you rather terribly.”
“Get down here and kiss me.” John’s hand left my hip, and drifted up to the back of my neck, tugging me down to meet his mouth with mine own.
He wrapped his other hand now around both of us, thumb tracing a pattern over the slippery heads of our cocks, and we stiffened further, so hard and hot against each other I could barely stand how good it felt. I melted against him, submitting entirely to the sweep of his tongue into my mouth, kissing him back messily, hungrily, as though I was a starving man and kissing him was my only sustenance.
He moaned his approval and kissed me harder, now thrusting his hips in counterpoint to the movement of his hand around us. His moustache scraped against my upper lip, rough against the tender skin under my nose, and I relished the burn. I would be red and raw tomorrow from the force of his love, and I could think of no sweeter injury.
Our kisses grew ferocious, biting at each other’s mouths in our urgency, John’s sticky hands coming up to tangle in my hair and draw my face even more tightly against his own. I looped my arms around his neck and rode him in slow circles, my thighs slipping against the sweat-slick leather. John was covered in perspiration, his golden skin glowing in the flickering light. It was becoming desperately hot, the fire behind me crackling and popping. A bead of sweat trickled down my spine.
“I do love the sight of you in my lap, but,” John tipped his head back, those hypnotic blue eyes flicking up to mine and holding me in them. He traced the outline of my lips worshipfully with the side of his thumb and licked his own. “May I have your mouth? Only if you want to, darling, of course -”
But I was already slinking out of his lap, my kiss-stung mouth filling with saliva at the thought of sucking him. He groaned in anticipation and spread his knees as I sank to mine. I laid my cheek against the soft furred inside of his thigh and nuzzled him, inhaling his scent, at its strongest here. He smelt of black tea and good tobacco, musk and clean cotton, the Sunlight soap which he’d used in the army and never broken the habit of buying.
I let my eyes fall shut as I breathed him in, turned my face and kissed at the hollow of muscle above his knee. I felt more than half intoxicated, by the masculine smell of John’s arousal, by the feeling of his soft skin under my lips. His hand fell gently into my hair, scratching at my scalp with his short nails, and I rubbed up into his touch like a cat would to his master.
He did not rush me, but allowed me to slowly drag my lips over his quivering thighs, to linger in all my favourite places and kiss him here the way I would kiss his mouth - lingering and worshipful and wet. I felt like a supplicant at prayer, looking for salvation between his legs. My knees were wedged in the scant space between the chair and the bare wooden floorboards, sweat pouring between my shoulder blades as the fire roared behind me.
"You are driving me mad, my boy, absolutely mad," John whispered, in tones both gruff and desperate.
I raised my eyes languidly to his, feeling weak with my passion for him, my normally composed mind nothing but a muddle of want and need. His breath caught sharply at the look I cast him, and his fingers tightened in my hair, tipping my head back enough to expose my throat. A shudder of pleasure pulsed through me that made my hips jerk.
“Let me, please -” I passed my palms over the meat of his thighs, into the staggeringly hot creases of his hips, and stroked both thumbs up the sides of his cock.
“Christ.” His gasp was barely even a word. He released my hair and dropped his hands to knead at my shoulders as I leaned forward.
I took him finally into my mouth, moaning at the familiar salty weight of him on my tongue. I shut my eyes, allowing my other senses to guide me. I could feel every ridge of him, every centimetre of silk over stone. He was leaking onto the back of my palate, thick and bitter and perfect, and I could not help but sink even more deeply forward, allowing his cockhead to bump the very back of my throat. I had long ago taught myself not to choke on John’s girth, but to allow the musculature of my throat to open to him as eagerly as the rest of me did.
“Oh, oh god,” he intoned, his hands abandoning my hair so that he could clutch at the arms of the chair.
I grinned around him, unable to hide my satisfaction at his response, and counted his heartbeats as they thudded heavily on the inside of my bottom lip. I hummed and John quaked above me, emitting a long low groan, and I realised that in my eagerness I had been licking rather hard at the sensitive underside of his cock, bringing him much closer to his crisis than I had intended to.
I slowed my ministrations, wrapping my fingers tightly around the base of him, and adjusted my position so that I could more easily touch his bollocks with my other hand. They were beautifully heavy, their fullness in my palm evidence of our five day separation. I pressed them up against the root of his cock, rolling them simultaneously against my chin and bottom lip, and John shook and cursed. I withdrew, drawing my lips purposefully up his length, and lapped at the swollen wet tip of him.
“Sherlock.” My name fell from his lips as would a prayer, whispered and pleading.
I sucked him harder in response, swirling my tongue in rapid circles around his retracted foreskin and then pulling back enough to lick at his slit. Before long, he was absolutely writhing, his perspiring body making soft slapping sounds against the leather as he moved. As for myself, I was nearly delirious, my own arousal becoming a shivering sweet ache echoing through me as I focused the whole of my being on John’s pleasure, on the musk of him filling my nostrils, the way his cock took up the entirety of my mouth. I wanted nothing more than to suck him to completion, to taste his seed as it spilled from him, to feel it sticky on my lips. I was greedy for him, for his taste and his scent, for the sound of him whimpering and begging. I took him back down to the hilt, flattening my tongue and lapping at him without restraint. His cock fattened beautifully as his hips lifted off the cushion, his legs shaking.
“Christ, look at you,” John husked out, his voice all but gone. He rubbed his thumb against the corner of my mouth and raised his hips again, feeling the slide of his cock between my lips. He shuddered and bit at his moustache. “You are stunning like this.”
A frisson of pleasure rolled down my spine at his praise and I settled myself more comfortably between John’s legs, draping my bent arms over his knees so that I could lean all the way in and take him as deeply as possible. The moment my arms came up, however, I felt the soft touch of his fingertips on my bicep, tracing a strikingly gentle path down to my elbow.
“Love.” He murmured, his voice gruff and strained, and tugged gently on my wrist.
I let him slip from my mouth and looked up, suddenly aware of how wet my face had become, with saliva and sweat and John. I wiped at my chin with the back of my hand and laid my cheek once again on John’s thigh, nuzzling against him, both my mind and body sluggish with arousal. My lips burned.
“Yes?”
“You are far too talented with that mouth. I was - well, I almost ruined our plans for welcoming home our new chair.” He licked at his own mouth, slow and sinful.
“We wouldn’t want that, now would we, John?”
“Certainly not.”
I began to crawl back up into his lap, but as I rose, he slipped out of the chair with a wet noise and lowered himself to the spot on the floor that I had just abandoned. Half in the chair, one leg still stretched out beside where John was now kneeling, I cast him a confused glance.
He arched his eyebrow at me wickedly and grinned, moustache twitching. He gestured at me, twirling his index finger in a lazy circle. “Turn around.”
“What?”
“So your back is to me, my dear. Over the back of the chair, there you go,” John nudged at my leg, his hands caressing the backs of my thighs, sliding over my calves.
I draped myself over the chair as John instructed, feeling both wanton and exposed - which was, to be clear, a sensation I quite enjoyed. Which John well knew. My elbows rested on the top, my knees slipping wide on the cushion. My hard, leaking cock bobbed heavy between my legs and rubbed up against the slick leather, eliciting from me a broken little cry.
“Lovely.” John whispered, dropping a tender kiss in the small of my back.
I gripped the back of the chair, bracing myself as John rubbed his nose up and down my spine. His hands were everywhere - tracing the edges of my shoulder blades, fingertips bumping over my ribs, squeezing my arse - as he worked over my back with both teeth and tongue until I was shaking. His nipping kisses ended with a gentle press of lips to the back of my left thigh as he reached to retrieve the tin of petroleum jelly.
Then John’s slicked fingers were sliding up the insides of my thighs, and I gasped, trying desperately not to take hold of myself to ease the steadily building pressure. We had time, we had privacy, and we rarely had either. I wanted to draw this out, worship each other. I dug my nails into the buttery soft leather and forced myself not to rut against the chair.
“Ready?” John’s voice was muffled, his face pressed against the curve of my back.
I nodded, and immediately John was pressing a fingertip against that most sensitive and private part of my body. Pleasure ribboned through me and my back arched involuntarily, head dropping back between my shoulders. I stared up at the ceiling and panted, going weak-limbed as John’s finger breached me.
“Alright?” John scraped his teeth along the swell of my arse, flicking his tongue against my overheated skin. His finger within me stilled.
“Quite.” I managed, though by this point I was desperate to be fucked, and my stomach ached with how much I wanted to come.
“Good,” John murmured, and began to finger me in earnest.
His forefinger was soon joined by another, which finger I couldn’t tell. It was all just pure sensation, as he worked me open gently, and then not so gently. The entire lower half of my body was throbbing, my thighs burning with the effort of staying upright. John thrust his fingers into me deeply, rubbing over the spot that made me positively wail, and then pulling out enough to stretch the muscle, preparing me to take his cock.
This he did over and over - rubbing me, stretching me - all the while kissing and nibbling at my arse and thighs reverently, until I was absolutely delirious. My body curled in on itself, head resting on my folded arms, my hips rolling uncontrollably against the press of John’s hand. His knuckles brushed against my bollocks and I groaned, my stomach contracting hard. I opened my eyes to see the maroon flush of my thighs, the streaks of sweat down my belly.
“John, please,” I whimpered.
Without taking his fingers from inside me, John deftly manouvered himself up and into the chair. His left knee slipped in beside mine and his chest pressed against my back. His mouth found the juncture of my shoulder and neck, and he kissed a messy trail up to my earlobe. He rocked against my arse, his own cock unbelievably hot and hard.
“I love watching you come undone. So composed in public, so polished. But get two fingers in your arse, and look at you. Begging, desperate for it.” John shoved his fingers ever harder within me as he spoke, pushing me closer to my climax even without being touched.
A fat drop of fluid beaded at the tip of my cock and I could not help but reach down with a trembling hand, but John reached around my waist and grabbed my arm before I could touch myself.
“No, not yet.” He kissed my hair soothingly and rubbed a small circle on the soft skin of my wrist.
“I’m dying,” I moaned, more than half serious. I felt as though I had never in my life gone so long wanting to come, and I was becoming frantic.
John laughed softly, his forehead falling to my shoulder. He kissed me there, and then licked at the sweat rolling down my neck. “You’re not. In fact, I’ve never seen you more alive. You’re gorgeous.”
His words, his praise, the love in his voice, they only increased my frenzy. I sobbed and reached back to grip his thigh, encouraging him to thrust against me. He did so, with both hips and fingers, and I cried out his name, so far gone with lust that he was the only thought in my mind, the only word I could conjure.
“Will you come this way?” His breath was hot and shivering against the outer rim of my ear.
“No,” I managed to choke out, through the full body shudders that were now wracking me. I was absolutely alight with sensation, every square centimetre of my skin tingling, the tight heat between my legs nearly unbearable. My cock was leaking copiously, beads of pre-ejaculate running down my length, wetting the insides of my thighs, and my abdomen was shakingly tight, but I couldn’t come from this alone, which John well knew.
“I can just keep doing this, then, indefinitely…” He purred, voice ringing with dark mischief, and rubbed his forefinger hard over my spot again.
I sucked in a broken breath as my spine arched involuntarily, my eyes rolling back as I stared up at the ceiling and whimpered, “Oh, please, please,” not even knowing what I was asking for.
“Christ, if you could see yourself right now, Sherlock. You are sublime.” He took his hand from where it was pressed against my stomach, and put a finger to my jaw. “Kiss me, darling.”
I turned blindly, feverishly seeking his mouth with mine, and felt our noses collide. His tongue slid hot between my arousal swollen lips as he finally took his fingers out of me and repositioned himself. I heard to clink of the petroleum tin again, and the sound of John slicking his cock. He gasped and jerked, biting into my lip.
“Sorry, sorry,” he slurred against my mouth, and gripped my hip with a sticky hand. “Did I hurt you?”
“No,” I bit at his mouth and licked the tip of his tongue, spread my legs as wide as they would go, and wrapped one hand around the back of his head, “But I believe I shall actually expire if you don’t fuck me right this instant.”
John growled, actually growled, and I imagined I could see the baring of his teeth, like an animal in its heat. The thought of that, of him mounting me like a rutting stag, coaxed a howl out of me the likes of which I’d never heard before. The sound of it spurred John on, and I immediately felt him parting me, the blunt wide head of his cock pressing into me.
“Oh, god, yes,” I moaned, pushing back against him and mouthing messily at the side of his jaw.
John exhaled in a rush as he sank into me fully, his hand on my hip tightening. “Christ, fuck, god, Sherlock, I won’t last long.”
“Good, because I don’t think I can bear much more.” I wriggled back against him, desperate to make him move.
“I’m going to make such a mess of you,” he said hoarsely, beginning finally to fuck me, his hips moving in the quick little circles he knew drove me mad.
I could say nothing in reply. I let my hands fall from his hip and hair, bracing myself with outstretched arms against the back of the chair, my cock bouncing untouched between my legs as John drove into me. My hands slipped against the leather, palms sweaty. My hair was stuck to my forehead, to the back of my neck - I was burning from the heat of the fire, from John’s equally sweaty body slapping against mine. His cock dragged against my spot as he pulled out slowly and then shoved back in with force, setting a rhythm that had me keening within minutes. As for himself, I could feel how he shook, how his breathing quickened and grew uneven. He was very close.
“John, I need - please,” I threaded my fingers through his and pulled his hand to my aching cock.
“Yes, I know, you’ve been waiting.” John allowed me to guide him, our fingers intertwined around me, pulling me off with the long, slow movements that I preferred. “You can come now.”
I cannot adequately explain the true emotions that John stirred within me when we were locked together in these moments I would never - and had never - shared with any other person. I could only say that the entirety of my body and soul belonged to him, and I wished to be owned in this way for the rest of my life and beyond. Never did I feel more complete than when John took me as his own, claiming me with his mouth and his words and his seed.
"That's it, my dear, that's it, oh god," John whimpered, his voice muffled in the humid curve of my neck. "Come for me, Sherlock."
Our hands on me sped up at my insistence, and I felt my bollocks drawing up, the pressure mounting quickly. The tension within me coiled tighter and tighter, my body shaking from tip to toe, until it was unbearable, until my skin felt stretched thin and the roar of my blood pumping in my ears was deafening. It coalesced low in my groin, until I felt I should burst from it - and then finally burst I did, spilling hot over our conjoined fingers, and spurting up onto my belly, my body jerking and shaking out of my control. I heard myself moaning far too loudly, but was unable to quiet myself as my limbs flooded with heat, my breath hitching and catching in my lungs, and all the tension in me dissolving into a pleasure so deep that my muscles would no longer hold me upright. I collapsed back against John's sturdy chest, feeling the thump of his hammering heart against my shoulder blade.
Quaking with aftershocks, sobbing with the force of the climax that had just thundered through me, I leaned into John with all my weight. And he held me, his small frame more than capable of supporting my much larger one. Still buried within me, his own peak not yet reached, he kissed my neck, my shoulder, nuzzled at my hairline.
“You’re beautiful, my god. I’ve never seen anything like your face when it takes you. Never.” John peppered me with kisses, running his hands along my chest and my hips, down the fronts of my goose fleshed thighs. “I want a painting of it.”
“You. You now,” I mumbled, incoherent with pleasure.
“Not too sensitive?” John gave an experimental thrust, one hand now at my hip and the other brushing lightly over my nipples.
“Mmmm, no. S’good.” And it was, it was more than good. Every part of me was aching and trembling and sweating and overheated, and I had never felt more wonderful in my life. My muscles were tight around John’s hard length inside me, and I clenched them intentionally as he moved. “I want you to come inside me.”
“Fuck. Yes.” John pressed the flat of his hand against my chest and pulled me back against him.
I squirmed and let out a pleased noise, going loose against him and allowing him to fuck me as hard as he could manage in the confined space of the chair. He swore and then went rigid, straightening up and away from me as he reached his peak, his hips stuttering out of rhythm as I felt the sweet hot rush of his release.
“Oh god, Sherlock,” he groaned, long and low and tremulous. He bucked wildly for a moment, and then with one final jut of his hips, his thighs flexing against the curve of my arse, he fell forward against my back and tucked his face against my nape. His ragged whines faded into shuddering breaths as his arms closed around my waist and he held me close.
“John.” I lifted his hands to my mouth, kissed his knuckles and the insides of his wrists.
We remained leaning heavily against each other, both rapturous and spent, John’s lips moving lazily over my neck and shoulders, until finally he softened entirely and pulled out. The warm rush down the insides of my thighs as he moved away gave me a shiver of delight and I felt him smiling against my back.
“Well. Welcome home.”
I laughed, and swiveled my head in order to press a kiss to his blushing cheek. “I believe I shall have to go away more often if this is to be my reception upon my return.”
“Mmm. Not for a long while.” He stretched and sighed, and then finally separated himself from me. He stood, and I heard the distinctive slap of his hands on his stomach as he yawned. “We should -”
“Go to bed,” I said quickly, rising and wrapping my arms around his waist.
“I was going to say, get cleaned up and have supper, but.”
“We’ve still got hours until supper. It’s raining, and cosy, and we’ve no where to go. Come to bed with me.”
“What’s come over you? You’re never so sentimental.” John smiled up at me, his eyes twinkling. His sticky hands roamed up the expanse of my back and settled at my shoulders.
“Absence, my dear Watson, makes the heart grow fonder.” I pressed my mouth to his, and held him, pulling him up until he was nearly on tiptoes. As we broke apart, I whispered against his lips, “And I like my present.”
“Good.” His fingertips trailed down my spine and he rested his face against my chest, his soft warm cock pressed against my thigh. It was the most intimate and tender embrace we had ever shared. He cleared his throat. “I have another present, actually. One I’ve been keeping from you for some time. I hope you’ll forgive me if I wasn’t ready to share it with you before now.”
“I would forgive you anything,” I said automatically.
John huffed a laugh. He kissed my chest and stepped back. “Shall I get it, then?”
“Yes, please.”
John smiled and picked up his dressing gown off the floor. “Alright. Stay right there.”
He disappeared into the bedroom, and I retrieved my own dressing gown, throwing it around my sticky body. I wiped at the leather of the chair with John’s night shirt, and then curled back up in it, loose-limbed and satiated. John returned a moment later, his tongue between his teeth, his hair still ruffled and spiky from my fingers.
Perching on the arm of the chair, he tucked his feet under my knees and handed me a small black box. It was embossed in silver with the name of the jeweller at the end of our street, which we passed often as we made our way to Scotland Yard. I looked at it, and back up at him.
He bit his lip. “Well, go on. Open it.”
I unfastened the gold clasp and pushed back the hinged top. Inside, nestled in a bed of blue velveteen, were two silver bands. They didn’t match. One was thinner and much more delicate, the other chunky and broad. So they would not be taken for what they were. Other men in our situation…
I gasped, momentarily lost for words. Finally I sputtered, "John. John."
“If you want. We don’t have to wear them. Only if you -”
Overcome with emotion, I surged up to kiss him, cutting short his nervous babbling, and curled my arm round his neck tightly. “Of course I want to wear them, of course I do.”
“Good. I just thought - after all this time - we should. Because you know. I am never leaving. Nothing could ever take me away from you, from this life we’ve made. And I just wanted you to be entirely certain of that.”
I swallowed down the sob that was rising in my throat and lifted the more delicate of the two rings from the box. I went to slip it on my finger, but John stopped me, his hand closing around my elbow.
“May I?”
Silently I handed him the ring, and he solemnly slid it down over the ring finger of my right hand. Wearing it on my left would be too obvious.
I then took the other ring, and he held his hand out to me. I slowly pushed the ring on, watching as it slid over his knuckle, wanting to catalogue every second of this exchange in my mind. After the ring was on, John took my hand and laced our fingers together. I couldn’t think of anything to say that would be adequate for the situation, so I remained quiet, content to hold hands with this extraordinary man I had somehow been gifted with, and watch the fire burn down to cinders.
As we slipped into bed that evening, well-scrubbed and full to the brim with Mrs Hudson’s mutton stew, John curled tightly against my back and draped his arm over my waist. The cool metal of his ring laid sweetly against my bare skin.
“John?” I whispered into the dark.
“Mmm?” He grunted back, already half asleep.
“I love you,” I said even more quietly, unaccustomed to saying it to him so plainly.
There was a long stretch of silence behind me, and then a jostling as John propped himself up on his elbow and peered down at me. The wavering light from the lit oil lamp outside illuminated one side of his face, and I could just make out his crooked smile and the crinkling round his eyes.
“I love you. More than anything.”
A gentle kiss landed on my brow, and then John was settling himself back down against me, making soft sleepy noises into my hair. I allowed my eyes to drift shut, thinking contentedly about the next time we received clients, John leaning against the side of our chair, legs crossed, his ring finger tapping out a rhythm on the leather.