“I know. Help me get some pants on before we leave. My chest wound isn’t dragging in air. I’ll last. Go!”
Typical Englishman—more concerned about his lack of pants and hiding his anal tentacle probing than his lung collapsing. I rushed over to a body and pulled off the poor fellow’s pants, dressed Watson, then helped him stand. Willa had remained distant, wisely deciding that a naked Englishman was best tended by another man.
We staggered toward the stairs. My mind was still working, and I mused aloud, “I wonder why the creature vanished in spite of the incantations…”
“I think it was just hungry, Holmes,” Watson croaked.
“Possibly.” I would never know for sure.
“That was a fine bit of gymnastics, Dr. Watson,” Willa said, somewhat cheerfully.
She hovered at the periphery. Brave girl. Already she made me feel all the wrong emotions.
“Thank you, Miss. A good shot that. You got him in the nick of—” Watson had a coughing fit.
He referred to her shooting Robert’s gun-hand, of course.
“That was a reckless shot. She might have killed you.”
“Damn you, sir.” He spat some blood onto the floor. “I’m grateful. You should be too.”
I was being harsh, again, and I knew it. I had to keep her away, to stay angry, didn’t I? Because otherwise I was going to fall under the dreadful influence of the ME again.
I could hold it back, just, if she stayed away.
Angry, be angry.
It wasn’t until I went past my deerstalker on the way up the stairs with Watson, the man half-slumped, his arm wrapped across my shoulders, and I had popped the hat on my head, that I felt safe to nod to her and say, “Thank you.”
She was following us up the stairs and barely nodded at me, her mouth dead straight.
I’d hurt her badly. When would I get this right?
My emotions and logic swirled about, wrestling with each other. I had no idea what I should do. However, Watson was seriously wounded, and that must take priority. It was an easy excuse.
I climbed into the ambulance with him when told it was allowed. The back doors of it remained open as they finished checking Watson.
He’d been dosed with an opiate and was sleepy. His breathing had settled. His color looked excellent, considering his ordeals. I’d been a good friend and not told anyone about the probing. A good friend to him.
But to my Willa, what was I?
My heart was aching, so were my eyes. Such a foreign feeling, the latter, well, both were. I slightly lifted the deerstalker to rub at my scalp, vigorously, and one of the ambulance fellows hopped out to run around to the driver compartment.
Through the open door, I saw Willa. She stood behind some police, with one of them asking her questions, and then she raised her head and stared at me.
I should leave her. It was safer.
I raised my hand to say goodbye forever, and it stayed there, in mid-air, as lost as I was.
Where was my courage? Where were my fucking balls, as any working class man might say.
Be the man you should be.
Remember how I felt when I woke and turned down the filter? Beauty and light.
I hadn’t altered the setting, so this was me at… twenty percent.
I decided I liked this. I was getting used to being this man. The man I should be.
I nodded to her. Our eyes remained locked on each other, as I waved to her, somewhat crazily, “Be at the hospital! I want to talk to you!”
She shrugged and hugged herself. No words for me, but I guess I didn’t deserve any yet.
I rode to the hospital with Watson, went up to the ward. They were going to watch him overnight, suture the chest wound, and do whatever else was needed, but his injuries were not going to kill him. I shook hands with the doctor, slightly dazed.
Where was she? I hadn’t seen her for an hour.
The muffled feel to the world wasn’t because I’d escaped a tentacle monster, shot eight men, or seen my friend almost get swallowed and pulled into a portal to another realm.
It was because I’d possibly lost the one person I wanted in my life… apart from Dr. Watson.
When I walked out of his room into the corridor, there she was, leaning against the wall and still in her sexy dress.
Thank the gods. I shut my eyes and breathed. I even broke into a grim version of a smile.
“Where have you been?”
“Me?” She raised her eyebrows. “I wasn’t even sure I was welcome here.”
“That is entirely my fault.”
“Was that an apology, Mr. Holmes?” Her frown was harsh but again, I deserved it.
“Hmmm. Yes, it was, and I don’t do those very often.”
“You mean, ever.”
I took her hands in mine, raised each one and kissed her fingers.
“What if I told you I wanted to be the person I should be.”
“Are those the words I said to you?” She looked genuinely puzzled.
“Yes! Is your memory so awful, Miss Moriarty?”
“Possibly?”
“Oh, it is. It is. Come with me.” I grabbed her upper arm, turned us about and marched down the corridor. “There should be one along here… Ah!” I spotted the door.
A nurse wandered by and shot us a concerned look, but I ignored her, only waiting for her to vanish around a corner before I opened the solid white door and hustled Willa into a walk-in storage cupboard for hospital supplies. I shut the door, pleased at the noise-deadening quality.
Then I took a deep breath and gently tilted her chin so she must look at me.
Remember how I was when the filter turned on—dead boring, and gray. Why ever would I want that? I wanted this, her.
“Willa Moriarty, I choose beauty and light and color for my world, and I choose you. I’m going to try harder, my dear. I promise.”
“And you think that’s enough? That?” Her scowl was a determined one. “You have been a bastard, today, and yesterday.” She poked my chest. I caught her finger and thought about biting it. “And so bloody arrogant!”
That only made me stare down at her, severely. “Admit it, you like me.”
24
The Cupboard & the Collar
He hung onto my finger even when I tugged.
“I hate you.”
“Hate, love, I’m not sure I believe in the latter, but the first is too time consuming to bother with. I was awful at the warehouse because I was afraid. I was afraid Watson would die, and I was afraid of how much you affect me. I apologize for my behavior.”
“Well—” I began.
“So, we both don’t believe in love. But I decided I should get my priorities in order. Hence, this cupboard.”
I squinted up at him. Damn, but he was an impressive man, wearing that suit and long dark coat. After seeing him shooting the bad guys and fighting a creepy Elder God monster, my admiration for his manly qualities had shot sky high, even if he’d then made me hate him by being a bad-mannered oaf.
“Go on,” I said, curious as to where this was going.
“Will you accept me as I am? Because I want to be with you. I mean…” He looked at the ceiling. “I want you with me. Both. By the way I’m still at twenty percent on that filter.”
“You want to be with me…” It was a hell, yes. And it was an I don’t know. He’d yelled at me so much at the warehouse that I was beginning to think he was a weather cock, like the ones on top of houses that blew every which way. “I don’t know if I can trust you anymore.”
“Oh. Touché.” He pressed a hand to where his heart should be.
I plucked at a button on his coat. This man so easily dashed hope. My eyes were already watering, but I hated being hurt.
“You can trust me. I’ve decided, and when I decide, I decide. All I need is your agreement. I won’t go back on this. I promise with a pinky promise. I’ve heard that is quite a sealing gesture in the Americas.” He crooked his little finge
r.
I looked around the cupboard. “I would have to say that this is the least inspiring place for any big decision, ever, in the history of mankind.”
“A big decision?” His eyebrows rose. “Hmmm. So, I’ll take that for a yes?” Then he plucked my hand from his coat and made his little finger entwine with mine. “There. The Japanese do it too. Yubikiri, they call it. If I go back on this, you get to cut my finger off.”
“Oh. My word, that is gory.” My mouth stayed open. Maybe he did mean it?
After wrapping his hand around the back of my neck, Sherlock leaned down, slowly. I held my breath as his lips met mine.
I closed my eyes.
The kiss gained force, and I staggered back and ended up bumping into the shelving. His hand pressed in harder, his mouth angled. When I parted my lips, he added tongue to the kiss, forcing a small moan from me while I struggled to breathe and think, and to resist also, just a little, because had I actually agreed?
The neck hold… that was a completely unfair action because it gradually melted me. My legs gave way, trembling, even as he withdrew.
This… more than mind-blowing. It told me how useless it was to try to say no.
I wanted him, any way I could have him. I would likely lie down in a blizzard and curl myself around his body, just because he was who he was—Sherlock Holmes, Master of Arrogance. PhD in Conceit.
“Better,” he murmured, still holding my neck and studying my face. “I’ve had this fantasy about tying you up and fucking you in a cupboard.”
“Oh. My.”
I thought of protesting, then had a second thought and decided not to. Then I remembered where we were, in a hospital storage cupboard. Someone might walk in.
“I didn’t mean today, so stop worrying, Willa Moriarty.”
Then…
I glanced down and noticed the large and lengthy swelling in his pants, and an evil thought came over me. He deserved to walk out of here with the hardest erection ever. I’d heard it could be quite painful for men, that, learned it from a prostitute I’d talked to once, at a café in Paris.
I cupped him there and slowly stroked up and down, squeezing him.
“Did I give you permission to do that?”
“Permission?” I cocked one eyebrow but removed my hand from his pants. That would surely be enough to keep a man interested in sex for some time.
“Do you want to be bent over in this cupboard?” Stern of eye, he crowded me into the corner.
“I haven’t even said I’ve agreed, yet, to anything.” My underwear had just become terribly wet, and it wasn’t the kiss, it was him remembering how to be dominant.
Well, he’d never really forgotten that. Dominance was in this man’s blood, right alongside that huge serving of arrogance.
He chuckled quietly. “Down, on your knees, if you want to be mine. There, you can decide now.”
Slowly he put his hands to his fly and began to unbutton.
He’d called my bluff.
This did concentrate the mind. Salivating at what was going to happen, even hoping he might bend me over for a few thrusts afterward, I went to my knees, letting my hands slide down his muscular legs to his knees.
“Open your mouth, Miss.”
He freed his cock.
I opened.
“Take it in, lick it,” he purred. “Swirl your tongue over the head and under it. Kiss it, take it inside your mouth, just a little.”
His eyes became slits as he pushed the very tip into my mouth then left it there. I expected him to grow ever more urgent, to start fucking my mouth. I wanted him to. My hands gripped his knees, flexing there as he only pushed in and out the smallest distance, before he extracted it fully, leaving only his taste behind.
“Good girl.” He patted my head, replaced his cock in his trousers, and buttoned up. Then he leaned down and kissed me while playing with one of my breasts. His whole hand roamed beneath the neckline to caress me there, taking my breast in his hand before his fingers moved up, brushing over then squeezing my nipple, holding it flattened until I gasped from the surge of pleasure and pain.
With my eyelids fluttering closed, he pulled away and straightened, his hand slipping from my skin. My thighs had tensed, so had my pussy, and I inhaled slowly, shuddering, recovering. When I finally looked up at him, he spoke.
“Your acceptance is accepted.” Then he actually smiled.
The bastard. He had me panting more than he was.
That smile, though, on Sherlock it was as if I’d seen the sun rise.
“Now, if I may, I’m going to put this back on you.”
“If you may?”
As if by magic, the black collar from the Kitty Club, with the diamond-encrusted tag, was in his hand, dangling from it, slightly swaying.
I could tell from the moment he gave me to absorb this possibility that he wasn’t sure of my answer.
“You…” I sucked on my lip, lowered my hands from his knees onto my thighs. His brow crinkled. He was waiting. “You want me to say yes or no to this?”
“Yes. This is your choice. By giving you a choice, I thought it would somehow embed this in your stubborn head that I mean what—”
“Shhh!” With my face heating, I stared up at him. “I know. You deduced. You read my body language etcetera. But you’ll spoil it.”
I cleared my throat, and this time I was deliberately making him wait.
“Wilhelmina.”
“I know, I know. Soon. I am thinking.”
His question was simple. Though neither of us believed in romance, this was, to both of us, more significant than a kiss or a piece of jewelry.
“My answer is, yes.”
“Sir.”
I swear my eyes widened at that insistence. I wriggled in place. “Yes, sir.”
Carefully, he reached down and wrapped the collar around my neck, his large fingers clumsier than I recalled. He buckled it, but every few seconds he checked my eyes, as if he really did wonder if I might change my mind.
I didn’t. I couldn’t have.
I didn’t want to anymore.
Then he kissed me on the lips once again, gently.
“Come.” Sherlock pulled me to my feet by one hand. “You’re returning to Baker Street with me, Kitten.” He turned the internal doorknob. “I could tell you were making me wait far longer for your answer than you needed to.”
Oops.
“For that, you will be kneeling in the corner with your dress held high and your tights off, while I decide how red to make your insolent derrière.”
I didn’t care. I was strangely, terribly, unpredictably happy.
Kitten. That word and this collar were the seal on this, far more than any pinky promise.
25
Man & Monster
The last week had skipped by. I’d recreated the cap-shaped mesh filter so that he could, when indoors, place it inside a multitude of hat-type objects, or on top of a mask. His current favorite managed to scare the hell out of me when he caught me unawares—a white-embroidered mask that had made me wonder if a demon had invaded my soul.
My swearing at him had earned me a spanked bottom, but that seemed to please both of us.
We had to be careful not to alarm Mrs. Hudson with our noise. The Iron Oak had already become a place to play on a couple of occasions.
Sherlock had kept the filter at twenty percent until today, when he’d decided to begin le grande experiment. A notebook had been ruled up and columns prepared, to note details of how he and I felt at a setting of ten percent.
It had been interesting.
Curled in his lap on the new, large couch, while he read the newspaper, I ran through what he’d done.
My heart was still racing. I was sore and well-used and so very content. I snuggled in some more, wishing he hadn’t put on his trousers and shirt again. He smelled so good. Lying on him naked as I was, it seemed wonderfully debauched and decadent.
I’d been tied to a variety of places about
the room, thoroughly fucked and spanked, taken in all manner of ways, and caned lightly when I made too much noise climaxing—the cane was a no, for the future I’d told him.
Somehow, I doubted he was going to listen to that demand.
Then he’d finally taken that other hole and made me climax a second time.
Definitely an interesting day.
A memory niggled at me from the day at that club. “Do you remember I said the portly gentleman at the Kitty Club was the First Lord of the Admiralty? I believe it’s a Winston something or other?”
“No. I had forgotten! That just shows how severe that madness episode was. We should follow up on that once this Case of the Discombobulated Banker is out of the way.
“I have, however, concluded the malignant energy most likely leaked into our world due to the meddling rites of those Lovecraftians. A cautionary tale there. We should not mess with the supernatural.”
Watson, I, and Sherlock had been carefully merging into a team of sleuths, though I was merely the science back-up, so far. Gory murders did turn the stomach. Krakens were a more distant terror. I wrinkled my nose. Elder Gods weren’t enticing either. All those wriggly bits. I shivered.
“Happy, Kitten?” He stroked my hair.
I nodded, lowering my eyes as he patted me, unwilling to break the silence again.
“Good. Tomorrow I will trial five percent.”
I blinked, toyed with the thread of his pants. I trusted him now, and I knew he could control himself and adjust the filter if necessary.
Yet, I had to ask.
“You were worried about being a monster, before.”
He squeezed my hand. “I was. I’ve decided there is a place where I can be a bit of both—human and monster. You are helping me decide how much of each is best.”
“Okay.” I liked this.
“And so tomorrow, how about we see if you like being bound to my bed while I put hypodermic needles in your nipples?”
My answer came out as a squeak for a second. “No. I think that’s—” I thrust up a finger as I spoke and tried to rise from his lap, only to have him hold me down, laughing.
Clockwork Stalker: The Dirty Heroes Collection Page 18