by Eva Chase
With each pump of my fingers around his hardened cock, Sherlock’s heart thumped faster. I swiveled my thumb around his nipple and then flicked it right over, kissing every inch of his neck.
His hands stayed braced on the arms of the chair. A prickle of doubt ran through my mind. I didn’t want this interlude to end with him feeling mauled rather than indulged. His body might be responding, but if his will still wasn’t in it, I hadn’t won after all.
I let go of him and pulled back far enough to watch his expression. Sherlock’s eyes snapped open.
“I think I’ve made my point very thoroughly,” I said. “If you want me to stop—”
“No,” he said—one breathless, determined, perfect syllable—and yanked my mouth to his.
There was at least one thing in the world Sherlock Holmes wasn’t an expert at. His kiss was unpracticed and sloppy in its wildness, but so raw with untapped potential that it sent a bolt of pleasure through me anyway. As I cupped his jaw to bring us together at a better angle, my own desire propelled me onward. My hips flexed, pressing my core to the solid member beneath me.
Sherlock groaned and ground into me. Kissing me harder, he jerked up the skirt of my dress to grasp my panties. I wriggled out of them with his impatient tug urging me on.
A tiny alert went off in my mind. But my purse was back by my chair, and I had my own internal means of protection, and Sherlock was both nearly abstinent and the most vigilant person I’d ever met. If I was going to break my rules for any man, it’d be this one.
His hips arched toward me. I gripped his straining length to position him. He bucked up as I sank down, filling me with a sudden sharp crackling of bliss that brought a gasp from my throat.
If the sex I’d had with Garrett had been urgent, this coming together was outright frantic. Our mouths parted and collided. Sherlock grasped my thigh tightly as he thrust into me hard and fast in pursuit of release. His cock jarred inside me, provoking a jolt of sensation that was more pain than pleasure. Another gasp hitched out of me.
He wasn’t so lost in lust that he missed the difference in the sound. He shifted under me, filling me deeper and more smoothly.
“Right there,” I mumbled as a fresh flare of pleasure seared through my core. “That’s good, that’s so—”
He brought my lips crashing into his again. Bliss shivered through me and spiraled higher. He had to be close after all my teasing, but that was okay, because I was almost there too.
We bucked against each other, almost violent in our need. I grazed my fingers down over Sherlock’s chest to the dip of his belly again, and that caress propelled him over the edge. A choked sound escaped him as he drove into me even harder than before with a shudder. The feel of him bare inside me, flooding me with heat, sent me careening after him.
The final wave of pleasure shot through me. My body clenched. My mouth skidded across his jaw, my arm bracing against his shoulder as the burst of ecstasy turned my muscles to jelly.
We held like that for a minute or two, me kneeling over him with my head bent next to his, his hand clamped to my thigh. Our heartbeats slowed together.
“Well,” Sherlock said in a voice that was still a little rough. “That experience was certainly… instructive.”
I laughed, kissed his cheek, and straightened up. “You’re going to have to work on your post-coital sweet-talk if you want to experience it again.”
The corner of his mouth quirked up in amusement, but enough intensity lingered in his gaze to tell me that he did hope to repeat this experience. What a shame I might not be here long enough to take him up on that interest any time soon.
“I was under the impression that instructive was your goal,” he said. “I suppose you’ll go now?”
From any other man, the question would have come across as a cold dismissal, but Sherlock was merely asking me what my usual habits were.
“That’s what I’d normally expect to do,” I said. “Unless you’d rather I stayed longer?”
He paused, giving the idea genuine consideration as if he wasn’t entirely sure of his preferences. Which I guessed he wouldn’t be.
“No,” he said. “That seems to be where the line between physical gratification and more tender emotions would be inclined to blur.”
“Exactly my perspective.” I grinned at him. “I appreciate that we’re on the same page.”
As I recovered my panties, Sherlock tucked himself away and pulled his housecoat back on. He saw me to the door. I stopped there and turned toward him to tap his jaw.
“Now that the rush has cleared our heads, let’s see what solutions come to us after we’ve slept on the problem. We’ll talk in the morning.”
“Here’s to a productive sleep, then,” Sherlock said.
Another grin stretched across my face as I headed down the hall. I didn’t know yet whether I’d just made the best decision of my life or the worst, but fuck, it had felt good.
Chapter Fifteen
Sherlock
Throughout my career thus far, I’d traced the threads of each case I pursued with the intention of contributing to justice and the safety of the general public. Personal concern for the client who brought the case to my attention, whether they were law enforcement or ordinary citizen, didn’t enter the equation. Clients could lie or be misinformed, after all. The facts had to speak for themselves.
Yet now I found the Richter dilemma gnawed at me not only because of the array of crimes he’d already committed and the many more he’d likely commit in the future, but because of the woman sitting across the breakfast table from me, who was grinning at something John had said while taking a bite of one of those ridiculously sweet pastries. The thought of letting her down niggled at me like a second thorn in my side as a companion to the first born from my lack of progress.
I’d practically insisted that Jemma take me into her confidence on this matter. I’d dragged her away from the conference she’d been invited to as an honor to join me on quests that had gotten us nowhere. Her keen mind had seen a capacity in me that I hadn’t known I possessed until last night, and I couldn’t bring a murderer to justice with his crime spread out right in front of me.
It was bloody well unacceptable.
The combination of sex and sleep had left me invigorated yet steady in a way I wasn’t used to but quite appreciated. Even so, my thoughts hadn’t centered on a solution yet. They kept circling around to the stray comment Jemma had made in a moment of frustration about the evidence being so close but out of our grasp.
That was the key my mind kept returning to. The murder weapon was right there for the taking. If we could demonstrate its role in the murder, the police department would have to act. There had to be a way we could seize it even without a warrant on our side.
I scooped a spoonful of poached egg into my mouth. The salted yolk traveled stickily down my throat.
Perhaps if we slipped in when the relics were being packed up from the gallery? But last time Richter had been carrying that piece on him. He was particularly protective of it, and he might be even more so now that it could testify to his crime. I couldn’t imagine him being careless with it in transit.
Jemma finished her sweet roll with a lick of her fingers. The gesture sent a tickle of sensation over my skin. If our encounter last night had brought my senses into sharper alertness, the effect was especially magnified when it came to her. Every movement she made in my presence echoed through me.
She was still a mystery, really, after all the time we’d spent together. How had she honed her mind to be nearly as incisive and pragmatic as mine was? Why on earth was she wasting her time in some tiny German city? If I could persuade her to consider uprooting, to making a go of it here—imagine how quickly her talents could develop working in tandem with me. Imagine the speed with which we could dispatch the country’s, even the world’s, most tenacious villains.
It would be a tremendous boon for her career, certainly, and a benefit to myself, John, and Sc
otland Yard as well. I hadn’t given her much reason to trust that to be true yet, though, had I?
I swallowed the rest of my egg. Jemma and John were getting up, Garrett already scampering to the side table to pour himself another cup of coffee. I pushed back my chair.
“What are your plans for the morning, Sherlock?” Jemma asked. She smiled at me with the same friendly warmth she always had before, without any indication that the dynamic between us had shifted.
From what she’d said, I supposed it hadn’t really. She’d been the same with John and Garrett. I’d only deduced the intimacy they’d shared from how their responses to her had subtly but unmistakably changed. John, for example, had suddenly taken up ironing his shirts with considerably more care, a task he hadn’t been as attentive with since he’d parted ways with that last girlfriend of his.
“I hadn’t settled on any yet,” I admitted. I’d been considering returning to the gallery to study the murder weapon some more, but too much attention was likely to put Richter on the alert. After John’s stunt there yesterday, we’d have to tread carefully. “Yourself?”
“I figured I might as well take a little more advantage of the conference while I’m here. Maybe one of the speakers will say something that inspires an idea.” She glanced at her program booklet. “There’s a seminar on criminal psychology this morning that I was looking forward to. In five minutes. I’d better get going!”
“I’ll come with you,” I said, because inspiration did sometimes work in strange ways. Also because John was clearly planning on tagging along, and the way his hand lingered on Jemma’s arm as he encouraged her to lead the way made me wary. My friend and colleague was much more of a romantic than I was or Jemma had shown herself to be. If he’d gotten too caught up in her attentions, I’d like to determine that soon enough to effectively intervene.
The seminar was held in the same room as the first one I’d attended, larger than the others but with a staleness to the air that suggested the ventilation system wasn’t working at full capacity. I’d need to give a word to the management about looking into some repairs. We couldn’t find seats together, so the four of us—because Garrett had joined our expedition too—ended up spaced out by a row or two in a zigzag pattern near the edge of the rows. I watched Jemma’s head and John watching her too as the doctor of psychiatry giving the talk took the podium.
It was not a particularly inspiring lecture. The subject of psychology tended to be rather wishy-washy in general, either common sense observations that anyone with a functioning brain should have been able to deduce or vague conjectures that were either useless or improvable—frequently both. This man’s version of criminal psychology appeared to be no different. But the audience gazed at him avidly as he spun out this tale and that one about the mindsets that had led one person or another to commit various crimes, mostly rather mundane cases. Then he opened the discussion to questions, the first couple of which were even more mundane.
Was it worth the perceived rudeness to leave early and take a nice long walk through the city that was a lot more likely to jog some inspiration loose? I’d nearly decided in favor of that idea when Dr. Prashad nodded to someone a few rows behind me. With his attention in my general direction, I delayed.
The voice that spoke up had the lilt of an Australian accent—a somewhat muddy one, as if he’d spend a good deal of time in more than one province. “Is it true that criminals tend to continue down a path toward more severe crimes once they escalate their activities?”
A potentially intriguing concept. I glanced back and spotted a dreadlock-framed face with blue eyes so bright their color was clear even from a distance.
“I’m sorry,” the doctor said. “I don’t completely understand what you mean. Could you give an example?”
The man ducked his head as if embarrassed. “Sorry. I’ve just heard it said that if you have, say, a pickpocket, and he ends up getting in on a robbery, assuming he sees he can get away with it, he’ll tend to keep on with robberies rather than going back to simple pickpocketing. Criminals tend to behave worse—or the same, I guess—over time, not better. Would you say that’s true?”
I swiveled my head back toward the doctor, and my gaze snagged on Jemma’s face. She’d looked toward the questioner too, and her mouth had drawn tight, her brow knit. She caught my glance and grimaced before turning to take in Dr. Prashad’s answer.
My stomach tightened in turn. From pickpocketing to robbery. From assault to murder. Without listening to what the doctor was saying, I already knew that pattern existed.
Richter had been enough of a menace before. Now he’d learned he could kill a man with his own hands and face no consequences. How many more lives might he ruin in the most literal way if he slipped from our grasp?
A thought rose up with a new concrete certainty: We had to get our hands on that jade statue. We had to literally place our hands on it and whisk it to a lab, as soon as we humanly could.
Despite my skepticism of the utility of various laws in obtaining actual justice, part of me balked for a moment at the thought. I’d never gone to such lengths before… but when had I needed to?
My policy had always been to weigh the potential harm and follow the path that prevented more. No one at all would be harmed in a scheme to steal the statue except Richter—or myself and my colleagues, if I faltered.
So I wouldn’t falter. Perhaps I wouldn’t normally pursue a matter so boldly, but I wouldn’t have believed I could feel what Jemma had brought out in me last night either until I’d been forced to recognize it. How could I truly call myself the world’s greatest detective if I was afraid to do what needed to be done, to stretch myself beyond the strategies I found comfortable?
My heart picked up to a brisk but even beat. Yes, this was our solution. I only had to let myself accept it.
The rest of the seminar passed in a blur of voices and a whirl of silent planning. When the audience stood up, I motioned to my colleagues. John hurried to meet me in the aisle. Jemma and Garrett caught up with us in the hall just outside.
“What is it?” Jemma asked, studying my face. She must be able to tell I’d chosen a course of action. My confidence in that course lit me up all through my body. We had so much to do, but we could do this.
I would have to lead the way, even though this was Jemma’s case. She’d hesitated at my smaller ploys before, still a little too hesitant despite her brilliance. I could take the responsibility on my shoulders, and we’d both win out.
“Scotland Yard won’t give us a warrant, so we’ll just have to retrieve the statue by our own means,” I said. “Once we can test it and confirm the evidence, any embarrassment or threat of lawsuit will be wiped away. We’re going to break into that gallery and take it—simple as that.”
Chapter Sixteen
Jemma
I stopped on the narrower path where the park’s trees hid me from view, confirming that my trio was already stationed by the tiered fountain up ahead. It was a typical early spring day in London, damp saturating the breeze that licked over me and a layer of hazy gray cloud blanketing the sky. I tugged my wool jacket close against the cold and pressed my phone to my ear.
“I’m almost there. Have you got eyes on the fountain?”
Bash’s low dry voice carried through the speaker. “I’ll be watching the whole time, Mori, ready to go if you need me.”
“Let’s hope there’s no redirection required. It’ll complicate things—but better to complicate them than to see them fall apart. If I rub my chin, you get in there as fast as you can.”
“It shouldn’t take me more than thirty seconds,” Bash said. His confidence washed away the remaining chill. I could only imagine how much harder this entire scheme would have been to pull off without him. I’d managed all right during the few years before I’d connected with Bash, but having his help had elevated my reach so very far.
“Good,” I said. “We’ll talk again soon either way.”
I ended t
he call, switched the phone to audio recording mode, and tucked it into the thin inner pocket I’d added to the jacket specifically for when I wanted to record a conversation. The fabric I’d picked still muffled voices a little, but they were recognizable. Useful if you wanted to double-check your memories later—or if you needed blackmail material down the road.
Having Bash standing by gave me an extra level of security right now. Sherlock had appeared to be determined to carry out his plan, and he’d won his colleagues over, but John and Garrett had shown even more hesitation than I’d allowed myself to. Whether they stayed on board might depend on how this security expert Sherlock knew reacted to his questions—and I was pretty sure I was going to need the entire trio to get us to my goal.
Tucking my hands into my pockets, I strode onto the wide paved path that led between two rows of cylindrical hedges toward the fountain. Dreary as the sky was, the newly grown leaves on the surrounding trees beamed in their fresh shades of green. They weren’t going to be subdued by a little cloud cover.
Sherlock spotted me first and acknowledged me with a tip of his head. Garrett nodded too, his shoulders hunched inside his light linen jacket—he’d obviously underestimated the chill. John shot me a flash of a smile as he twirled his walking stick restlessly.
“Where is this guy?” Garrett demanded the second I joined them. “Wasn’t he supposed to be here at one?”
“He’s got a couple more minutes before he’s even slightly late,” Sherlock said evenly. “Considering what a last-minute request this was, I won’t blame him if he isn’t perfectly punctual.”
“How can we be sure we can even trust him? You know how suspicious you’ll sound with all these questions.”
John hummed to himself. “More likely, he’ll be wondering whether he can trust us.”
Sherlock frowned at both of them. “He knows me. He’s seen my integrity in action. I wouldn’t be reaching out to him if I wasn’t confident of his discretion and good faith.”
