"Sorry," Sherlock mutters quickly, releasing the back of Y/N's head. Guiltily, his hand retreats to his side and curls into a self-conscious fist. "I don't know what came over me."
He tries to will his other hand to let go of her waist too, but for some reason can't make himself do it. It likes the warmth, the softness. His palm fits perfectly into the elegant curve.
"Don't be sorry," Y/N says. She says it to his mouth rather than his eyes.
Sherlock can feel each syllable on his chin; soft words meeting slight gritty stubble. His lips can feel it too; every letter. They're still tingling; his nerve endings alight, prickling. Alive.
Y/N's hand slips from his curls, sliding down his body like a raindrop down a window. It reaches his side and the warmth of her fingertips touch to his knuckles.
Like flower petals relaxing to let in the sun, his fingers loosen.
Y/N's slip into the spaces between them.
Her face is fuzzy, she's so close. The tip of her nose grazes Sherlock's cheek as she turns her head to look at their clasped hands, and then back to his eyes. "Did you like it?"
Sherlock nods, his hair mussed up around his head like a curly dark halo. "Yes." He wonders if Y/N can feel his heart flurrying away between their chests. He can feel hers; her heartbeat, her chest against his. It's making his breath come out all shaky. "It was amazing."
It had been amazing. He'd not wanted to stop.
Y/N's smiling and it's lighting up the whole room. For a second, Sherlock wonders if morning has come already, the sun leaking through the curtains.
She pushes his hand up the sofa cushion until it's level with his head and Sherlock shifts below her weight. When Y/N presses her lips to his chin he forgets all about the night. And the day, and everything.
She works her way along the hard line of his jaw, up to the little dip below his nose. The tip of hers nudges his cheek, her hair tickling his face.
Even if he had a hand free, Sherlock wouldn't tuck it back behind Y/N's ear. He likes it, hidden behind it like a curtain, the little world it creates; just him and Y/N, humid breath and cheeks crinkled with smiles.
When Y/N reaches his mouth again, he makes a grateful sound; at the attention, in surprise, in relief.
Thank the stars he gets to kiss her again.
It's a quick press but it doesn't feel quick; time elongating, stretching out, oozing like the honey Y/N had spooned into their hot chocolate.
Y/N tastes like hot chocolate; Cocoa. And honey and cinnamon. And her.
Sherlock can just about taste her, her jaw gently parted.
When she gives his lip an experimental suck it brings a moan from his lungs, his hand balling up a handful of her pyjamas.
He likes being under her, all laid out. He's sort of cocooned her without noticing; his legs wrapping about her little body, his arms bundling her closer---apart from the hand she's trapping against the sofa. He clutches it every time Y/N's tongue flicks his bottom lip.
It keeps doing that; the wet heat of it pressing, licking, exploring. Deftly, it nudges Sherlock's jaw open and he groans, a deep sound that sets the springs in the sofa buzzing.
Disentangling their fingers, he takes Y/N squarely by the hips, lifting her up. She makes a little surprised sound, gripping his shoulders for balance.
Her hands haven't left his shoulders as he places her astride his lap. They remain there as she gets comfortable, wriggling herself forwards on Sherlock's thighs. When her stomach is pressed against his he gasps into her mouth.
Y/N is smiling. "This alright?"
Sherlock nods, his head falling into the crook of her neck. It fits there perfectly, the cotton of Y/N's pyjama top soft against his nose. He nudges it, pushing it aside. The tentative kiss he presses to Y/N's neck makes her grip on his shoulders tighten.
"...Is...this alright?" He places the words down onto her skin, one at a time.
It's prickled with goosebumps, although she doesn't feel cold below his lips. She feels hot, the duvet they'd hidden below minutes before shrugged off, a forgotten heap on the carpet.
"It's amazing," Y/N hands his word back to him, and Sherlock's teeth scrape her shoulder as he smiles.
She's not smirking now, he knows.
She's smirked earlier---when she'd kissed his neck---teased him, but she's not anymore, not now. She's trying to get closer to him---tugging at his clothes, his hair, the fabric of his pyjamas---to urge him nearer.
It makes something inside Sherlock twist. He finds her lips again with a low moan.
Y/N responds eagerly, making something like shy pride blossom in Sherlock's chest. Yes, Y/N has pulled him close before---but not like this. She's pulled him into her arms for a cuddle, wriggled into his vast coat on a cold day, wrestled with him for the last After Eight in the box---
But she's never...cupped the line of his jaw like this. Dragged her fingers through his hair like this. Pulled him to her as if she...wants him. His body, his hands on her. Not as a friend but as a man.
Even her kisses are different from earlier, now. Faster. More urgent; as if she's looking for something, something she desperately needs; slow honey melting into bubbling sugar.
Sherlock hands her need right back to her, along with his own; a sudden yearning deep from his core.
Y/N repositions herself on Sherlock's thighs---a purposeful movement, a slow, grinding circle---and Sherlock makes a hungry little half sobbing noise. He chases her lips when Y/N breaks the kiss.
"Do you want to?" She asks.
Sherlock knows what she means. His hands at her pyjama shirt grip the fabric and he swallows.
"Yes," He nods. His own voice is so gritty he barely recognises it. "Yes, please."
...
Mouth curved with a nervous, excited grin, Sherlock clasps Y/N's hand as she leads him upstairs.
The light's are turned off in her bedroom, and Sherlock follows her blindly through the darkness, his fumbling feet trying to make out the pad of hers on the carpet.
A plastic switch clicks and a bedside lamp glows.
Sherlock likes Y/N's room. There are always things everywhere.
Sherlock doesn't have many things; not interesting things. His things are glass vials, factual leather books, framed, fuzzy photos of himself as a youth; all windswept curls and muddy wellies and yellow plastic anoraks.
Y/N's things are... everything. Tiny prickly plants in ceramic pots, colourful novels fat with thumbed pages. She's kept stickers she likes and stuck them to mirrors, taken pictures with a squat square polaroid camera and taped them up, the walls heavy with photos and posters and blu tac.
Whenever Sherlock pays a visit to Y/N's room his gaze can't help wandering---interested in each little thing as though they're an artefact in a museum. A small piece of Y/N; of who she is and who she was and where she's been.
He doesn't notice them now, though, the loaded shelves, the cluttered desk, a wardrobe passing by his eyes.
Y/N is still holding his hand, guiding him to the bed.
Sherlock doesn't need to be guided; he knows where it is. He often looks at that too, whenever he's in Y/N's room; bringing her a mug of tea, or helping her find a long lost board game. His eyes have always been drawn to it like it's some sort of bizarre magnet.
They're drawn to it now, the rectangular expanse sprawled out before him. The duvet is still downstairs, forgotten, and without it, the mattress appears barren, flat; daunting. Uncharted territory. A cotton desert stretching on and on.
Y/N's hand gives Sherlock's a squeeze, and then the bed isn't empty anymore, because she's sitting on it.
She's kissing him as soon as he takes a seat next to her.
He's never really sat on Y/N's bed before. He's never really sat on anyone else's bed before. Especially not to do this.
Sherlock thinks maybe Y/N can feel his heart at the back of his throat because she breaks the kiss, her fingers finding his curls. "We don't have to if you don't want to." Her hand slips to his side, the pad of her thumb brushing the underside of his rib. She's so close Sherlock can feel her breasts against his chest.
His toes curl against the carpet. "I want to."
With a smile, Y/N tugs him down, Sherlock's long lean body curiously, expectantly pliant.
His back touches the mattress. For a second he thinks it'll just keep going, through the cotton sheet, the squishy foam. He'll drown amongst feathers and metallic springs.
But then Y/N is kissing him and he's drowning in something else:
Her.
In Y/N's heat, the sweet press of her weight. The soft scent of shampoo, the kind with flowers on the label and letters that loop and swirl. His hands tighten on her hips, pulling her closer into the gap between his thighs.
Her fingers, the ridge of her nails in his hair---
The edge of his pyjama top.
Sherlock's breath hitches.
"Are you sure?" Y/N's thumb pauses below the fabric. It's found the pointed bone of his hip, and Sherlock all of a sudden finds himself hoping she likes it.
Likes him; what she's feeling; jagged angles, slender limbs, goosebumped skin. He hopes she doesn't mind the way he crumples under her touch like tissue paper, his painfully innocent body too distracted enjoying Y/N's touches to work on having a go at giving her some of his own. He hopes she doesn't mind this; pausing at every new stage, his little surprised gasps as she explores each new place. Having to check in with him, keep making sure he's okay as though he's something she might break.
She's doing this now, giving the jut of his hip a stroke with her thumb.
He knows he's looking up at her with large eyes, curious, hungry for something he can't quite name.
"You can stop me if you want," Y/N says, and Sherlock knows she means it.
One word from him and she'll pull away, release him, climb off him and never mention it again. This. What they've almost done, what they're about to do.
What he'll get to do---if he lets her.
Licking his lips, Sherlock's palm finds Y/N's knuckles.
"No, don't stop." His head falls forward as he pushes her hand higher. Mouthing at her neck, sucking a sensitive spot until it's marked with a little rosebud of pink: "I don't want you to stop."
...
They're naked and Sherlock isn't sure how. He's not sure of anything besides the fact that he likes it.
His pyjamas are over there somewhere; at the base of the chest of draws. They'd hit them as they'd been tossed away, and slid to the carpet, a messy, discarded heap. Y/N's are with them, a muddled mess of fabric.
Sherlock had been hesitant to take them off, his fingers stopping at the frayed hem. For a moment he didn't want Y/N to see him, the moles and freckles sprinkled over his midriff, his white skin, his collarbone probably pink with a blush. He's too pale, he'd realised with discomfort, too flustered, too sensitive.
But Y/N didn't seem to mind. Her pupils had swelled to such an extent they'd nearly swallowed her irises, dipping down to run shamelessly along the exposed column of Sherlock's body.
She'd kissed him in that way she's found he likes; deeply, with one hand in his hair. She eases away now, letting her body move from laid out over his front to lay at his side.
"What are you doing?" he asks as soon as her lips leave his, unable to mask his disappointment. He likes kissing, he's decided. He likes all of it; heated exploration, rolling about on the bed.
Propping herself up on one elbow, Y/N's hand draws from the side of Sherlock's face down his bare chest, his unprotected belly.
He wriggles, his skin prickling. A low, fierce ache curls in the pit of his stomach; writhing, delicious anticipation. Realisation hits him as soon as Y/N's fingers touch a sensitive spot, understanding and pleasure expressing themselves in a single breathy:
"Oh."
But Y/N swerves teasingly when she reaches his hips, and he whines.
She just giggles at him. "What do you like?" She asks. Her fingers brush lightly below his navel, the touch uncontrollable, thrillingly unanticipated.
A shiver skitters along Sherlock's spine as he pulls Y/N down for another kiss.
He can't seem to be able to stop doing that.
Her lips have gone red and swollen; plush and kiss bruised.
He likes to take the bottom one gently between his teeth.
Y/N makes the most delicious noises.
He'd like to hear more of those noises.
He had done earlier, when his hand had paused at the hem of her pyjama top. She'd taken his wrist, pushing his hand up, up, up, until he was cupping the curve of her breast. They'd both made noises then, as his hand delicately explored her sensitive curves.
He'd swallowed her happy little sounds like they were sweets.
"I don't know what I like," he admits, less shyly than before.
Y/N doesn't seem to mind that he's not very experienced. In fact, she seems to be enjoying taking advantage of the fact that he very much isn't; The Great Sherlock Holmes, under her hands; toying with him like he's a new plaything.
She's doing that now, drawing lazy circles over his stomach, knowing it's setting his insides coiling.
It's making his exhale come out all gritty.
"Okay---" another circle, lightly about his navel.
He shivers.
"---is there anything you want me to try?"
"Like what?"
Y/N shrugs. "I can touch you here in different ways." Her hand doesn't swerve left this time. It keeps going, sliding downwards, further and further.
Sherlock moans.
"...Like that..." Up again, retracing her path, from root to tip. "Or like this." She pauses on the second stroke, the sensation foreign, strange, blissful agony. "...Or this." The pad of her thumb rubs over the bundle of nerves right at the very end of him.
Sherlock's back arches. "Anything. All of it."
...
Y/N does give him all of it, one at a time; making it into a little circuit; her fingers sweeping down, around, knowing exactly where to touch.
Sherlock wriggles under her assault, and then Y/N he must feel him go rigid just as he's about to topple over the edge.
As she stops her stroking, he gives a little sob. "Y/N!"
She just grins at him, and then, much to Sherlock's dismay, the warmth of her hand disappears.
"...P-please," he gasps. Blindly, he takes her wrist and pushes it desperately back. "I need it."
He does need it. Thinking about it now, he's probably needed it for a while. It feels natural, right---Y/N next to him like this---the warmth of her, this new heat so exhilarating and delicious and satisfying.
Un-satisfying.
Y/N laughs playfully, her crinkled eyes gently poking fun at his neediness, his desperacy.
As she lifts herself from his side, Sherlock has to bite back a disappointed whine, reaching out for her.
"Hey, relax," Y/N says, pushing herself onto her knees.
Sherlock gazes up at her with thirsty eyes, his skin hungry, his heart ravenous.
"I'm not going anywhere."