Free The Adventure at Baskerville Hall & Other Cases by Kate Lear Page B

justifying myself if, as I plan, I am the only person to read this sequence of events? Suffice to say that anything to do with Holmes intrigued me long before I began to acknowledge that I desired him, and so it was with this persistent curiosity – some might say obsession – about the man that I flicked open the cloth to reveal a most peculiar object. It was long and narrow, with a curved tip and a peculiar series of ripples and contours. The material I guessed to be ivory, as it was cool and smooth against my fingertips. I frowned at it in open puzzlement. The strange shape of it and the material made me think of some tribal carvings from far-off lands that I had seen on my travels, and yet as far as I knew Holmes's current case was a common-place thing with none of that hint of foreign exoticism, which would surely have prompted him to include me in it.
    The sound of Holmes moving about in his bedroom recalled me to my senses. Good heavens, I was prying into the man's personal effects where I had no business being, and he would surely be extremely, and justifiably, annoyed if he caught me red-handed. Flustered, I re-wrapped the strange artefact and hurried up the stairs to my room to finish dressing.
    My curiosity had availed me nothing. In fact, I was so caught up in trying to unravel the small mystery that I was on the corner of Baker Street hailing a hansom cab before I suddenly realised I had dressed and left our rooms without my cigarette case, which my mind's eye could still see on the arm of our settee. Annoyed at myself, I walked briskly back to 221B, darted back into the house and up our stairs, snatched up my cigarette case from the sitting-room and was about to bolt back out of the door when I heard an agonised groan from Holmes's bedroom.
    Visions thronged my mind of some new and terrible drug, or a new solitary experiment along the lines of the Radix pedis diaboli that Holmes had embarked upon. I did not hesitate. I burst into his room, and then stopped abruptly, feeling seven kinds of a fool. Holmes was kneeling on his bed, stark naked, one hand lightly grasping his erection and the other partially hidden from view as his arm snaked around and disappeared behind his body. He shifted on his bed and groaned again as he opened his eyes to look at me.
    My head was in a whirl, but uppermost in my mind was the thought that I really ought to have predicted this, even with my inferior deductive skills that Holmes chided me about. The man craved control, in any and all situations in which he found himself, yet how could he be in control if he had no idea of what to expect? How many times had I seen him pursue his studies single-mindedly when confronted with some new field of research in which his knowledge was lacking, and how, how could I have failed to anticipate his logical course of action after observing his small signs of uncertainty with various acts?
    This chain of reasoning took place in much less time than it takes to tell it, however it was enough time for the faint flush across Holmes's cheekbones to deepen to an unfamiliar darker hue that I instinctively knew to be humiliation. I could not bear to see him embarrassed about his natural curiosity and his ever-present need for control, and so I promptly turned the key in the lock, crossed the room in two strides and grasped his shoulders, feeling their warmth strength under my palms. Whatever acerbic comment was on the tip of his tongue I will never know, as I covered his mouth with my own and kissed him passionately. His lips were slightly dry, and desire made him clumsy, but I thought that I had never seen anything so intensely erotic as the man in front of me. I told him so, when I finally broke away to catch my breath.
    "Really, John–" he began, but I stopped him with another kiss.
    I tore off my evening attire with more haste than I had donned it, and the feel of Holmes's fingers fumbling at my shirt buttons sent another flush of arousal through me.