Human Error ~ A BBC Sherlock Fanfiction {Book IV}

Chapter LXI - Queen of Hearts

I grin, pleasantly intoxicated, and hold up the hand bearing the ring. "Mrs Yakovich."

He lifts his hand, flattens his palm against mine, then presses his fingers through the gaps in my own.

"Да," he says. "Mrs Yakovich."

His eyes flit across my face, I hold his gaze, my breath hitches. He waits, and then, with a smoothness only experience can justify, leans forwards. Together we shift; I fall backwards, he lowers himself down, I feel his lips touch mine.

I taste vodka on his tongue.

I hum in appreciation; his body is a weight, compressing but not uncomfortable, and – after months of testing and waiting and silently speculating – I find the hem of his shirt with my fingertips and run my hands along the lines of his back, feeling his spine, the ridges of muscle between each rib. They flex under my touch, tensing as he moves and begins working the buttons of my blouse loose.

It is not enough.

I take a fistful of his t-shirt and I wrench him closer, forcing him to pick up the pace: our lips part, his breath hot, and then it is collision once more. Fabric falls to the floor. Everything is softer, more deliberate, less carnal; he twists me with purposeful determination and sits me up, his hands trailing from ankles to knees, and from knees to waist, all touch, all caress, while his mouth and his tongue work with mine to loosen my mind and break me down to the simplest functions of human cognition. He was so fast-paced. That was savage. This couldn't be more different–

Ivan pulls away, without warning.

I look at him, half blind with lust. "Why did you stop?"

"You are thinking about him."

"Him?"

Ivan raises an eyebrow, breathless.

"I can't even remember his name," I say, truthfully. "You must be doing something right."

He chuckles, and I feel the reverberations in the cavity of my chest.

"I have had practice, you see."

"Oh," I say, as I tilt my chin to re-initiate contact. "I know."

He lifts me quite suddenly, standing, his arms behind my back and my legs around his waist. I laugh at the audacity of his actions, holding onto his shoulders as he starts to walk backwards, through his bedroom door. We fall together; I hit the sheets first, and I sigh with the rush of liquid warmth that accompanies the depth of his mouth movement, the intensity of it. It is a fervour I am not used to, and it is more addicting than any alcohol percentage, any quick-fix shot in some run-down bar, any cheap bottle of vodka from the off-licence.

"Do I want to know how many women you got through to perfect that?" I ask, as we break for air.

My arms are lifted, pushed down into the pillows either side of my head. I make some inhuman noise of appreciation as his mouth maps out the curve of my neck.

"Нет," he says, his voice humming against my jugular, "you do not."

"They say ignorance is–" I am cut off as his lips move down, down to the linear jut of my collarbone. "You know, I can't remember what ignorance is. Something good."

He smiles, continues his torturous descent, and effectively silences me mid-speculation; distinguishable words are replaced with noises I would, if my senses were not so overly saturated, register as humiliating. Such noises reach new volumes when Ivan adjusts his stance and returns to my mouth. His grip on my hair tightens. My shoulders hit the headboard.