Author Note

Merry Christmas! As ever, many thanks for the reviews. Sorry for those of you who where late for work because of the timing of the posting of the last a chapter, though you did make me smile.

This chapter skirts M rating territory, so if that isn't your thing, you might want to skip down the page or avoid.

Mood music

Bare – Wildes, Illuminate – Wildes, Shelter – Birdy, Possession – Sarah McLachlan.

Chapter Seven

Love unlocks doors and opens windows that weren't even there before. -Mignon McLaughlin

The kiss was all consuming. Filled with a years' worth of absence, loss, love and anger. Molly poured all of her fury and hurt into it like he was an emotional well waiting to be filled and she the source of water. They'd always been compatible in this way but this was something else–a naked flame to petrol explosive–and both were pulled into it willingly.

It lacked finesse, considering they were a couple with more than three years of emotional connection and physical familiarity. Where once there might have been subtle touching and teasing seduction, this was a heated tumble of limbs as they sprawled across the bed.

Charles' uniform shirt and t-shirt were discarded along the way with Molly's dress as he chased her body towards the mattress. The body heat warmed metal of his dog-tags trailing across Molly's chest added to the building sensation of her skin feeling too tight for comfort as she arched towards him. Her body was bowed in perfect synchronicity with his lips as they trailed down the side of her neck.

Her hands fumbling with his belt nearly sent him mad while at the same time rang a warning in his head, even though his body was craving for her to continue. He vocalised that need with a needful groan.

"Jesus, Molly."

She had his fly open and his combats riding low on his hips before he got his head together enough to remember it's earlier warning of a need for words.

"Molly, love…wait, please."

With a determined wriggle, she was out of her underwear and his were shoved down with his trousers with a slide of her foot against the back of his thighs. Charles lifted himself up so he was hovering over her and she protested the loss of his skin against her own with another upwards arch of her and while pulling down with her hands on the small of his back.

Molly, fuck…wait!"

Molly's answering roll and grind of her hips made her feelings very clear on the subject of slowing things down and had Charles throwing his head back with a groan as he tried to catch her hands which were wandering with distracting determination south down his back and behind.

"Sweetheart, stop, stop… slow down."

Catching her hands that were franking driving him dangerously close to the right-side of what could be a wrong decision, he looked down at her face, and lost himself in the vision of his wife. Head flung back against the pillow, her hair was dark halo against her flushed skin.

"Molly. Look at me."

Eyes, previously tight shut, opened somnolently slowly and were darker than normal–a grey moss green–unfocused and heavy-lidded. She pulled her hands out of his gentle hold and wrapped them around the back of his head. The pull of her fingers in his hair provided a delicious sting of pain to his overheated skin.

"I don't want to slow down."

She lifted up, tucking her face into his neck.

"Can't you feel it?"

The heat of her breath against the skin of his neck as she spoke was agonising. Her mouth and teeth slid tortuously slowly down his neck stole his breath away and he was lost again.

Already cradled between her spread thighs, it was easy for her hand to slide between them and position him by her heat.

"I don't want to think or talk about. I just want this. Don't you?"

Molly clawed her fingernails into his buttocks as she shifted her hips up in provocative offer. The responding roll of hips was involuntary as he dropped his head into the damp curve of her neck as they connected.

"Fuck, Molly. You're driving me crazy."

Through the slight sting and stretch of unused muscles, Molly rolled her hips building a rhythm that didn't stay slow for long as his followed where she led.

"Good!"

Charles lifted his head eager to watch the pleasure chase across her face, but her eyes were shut again. Closing him out even as her body lifted and fell in time with his, pulling him in, then sending him away so he could return again.

What he'd called their kinship once upon a time; the way she could drive him to heated temper with her stubbornness, warm him from the inside out with a smile, or break his heart with her tears–all had been lost after Elvis' plunge from a building. He'd been emotionally absent and numb for so long. This act between them–for him– had to be about more than the physicality of pleasure and release. For him, this was about connecting–eye contact, emotion, bonding again.

"I need to see your eyes, look at me…please."

There was a pleading quality to his voice that Molly couldn't deny. She did as he asked, opening her eyes to meet his and he was there–so present. Dark eyes intense and watchful and gently asking for something she was trying to avoid by chasing for a physical release–the emotion of everything that had happened between them.

The connection with her was everything to him in that moment, providing solace and yet heavy with old pain. He slowed the previously frantic pace she'd set, forcing himself to concentrate outside of his body's over heated reaction because he had her under and around him after so long.

Throwing her head back, Molly tipped her hips up to his trying to forces him into a faster rhythm as her eyes shut again. Charles knew what she was trying to do, chase for a physical coupling to run from the pain of things. He'd taken that path himself for far too long, running away from his life as it crumbled around his feet, but he was done with running.

Taking his weight onto his elbows, he stopped the movement between them. Holding her face in his palms, he dropped kisses on her face and neck while murmuring her name as shifted under him agitatedly, trying to get him to move with her again.

"Molly, I'm here, look at me, please."

Distracted, she opened her eyes again to find his face closer, and his expression gentle but determined.

"You're so beautiful." he said, answering the restless rocking of her hips with a different, gentler rhythm. "I need to see you."

The slower pace he was controlling with such quiet, open eyed contact was intense and Molly was struggling to keep her barriers in place. He was silently asking for something that she was scared to give again but she can feel herself giving it anyway. Yielding to his pleading for emotion not just sensation.

"I'm sorry we lost us. I love you."

There was such honesty in his voice. Clear and unpolluted by guilt or regrets– it contained only the truth. It brought tears to her eyes and so much emotion–confusion, grief, love. Too much emotion–she was filled up with it.

He wanted to ask her if she loved him, but didn't because everything written on her face. He didn't need the words. Her eye wide, wet and vulnerable and seeing so her so exposed was heart breaking, but the emotion was still there. Mixed up with anxieties and broken trust, but still there.

"It's okay. I love you. It's okay."

Distraction. Pleasure. A place to hide. He wanted to protect her more than anything else. If that meant giving her what she thought she needed, he was willing because, in the end, all he'd ever wanted was to give her the world. Charles rolled over onto his back, hips still moving restlessly under her, but gentler until she found her centre of gravity.

"I'm here. I love you." One hand held her face gently as she began to move at first tentatively and then with more confidence. "I'll always love you. Take what you need."

She followed where he led willingly with every downward tip of her hips chasing his, rhythmic claw of fingers into the skin of his shoulders and soft grunt of breathy reaction as her weight fell against him and then lift away but her pain remained alive and loud in her eyes.

She folded down over him her rhythm suddenly urgent as she tucked her head into his neck, eyes tight closed again, blocking out the world outside of them moving together.

Then it was everything for both of them. The slide if skin against skin. Mingling breaths and the sweet scent of fresh sweat and urgency. A fast climb to a pinnacle of feeling that exploded into sublime, blinding pleasure then calm.

ooOOoo

The sensation of de ja vu rolled over them both in the silent minutes that followed. Molly was sprawled boneless against his sweat dampened chest as he held her securely against his length with one hand cradling the back of her head and the other spread across her lower back.

Listening to his racing heart and rapid breathing slowly return to normal, Molly was rumpled, warm bundle of nerves as conflicting feels of both the rightness and wrongness of the moment plagued her thoughts. She wondered if, like her, he didn't want to be the first speak because the silence between, like a fragile truce, was a safer place in which to stay than turmoil that words would cause.

Thing was, she might be able to hide from spoken words by keeping silent, but she couldn't hide from her own thoughts and Molly let the reality of what they had just done sink in with crystal clear clarity.

Stolen moments from their past condensed into words of rage and regret, allowed to boil over into sex didn't fundamentally change anything between them. The broken parts of her were still broken. She had to own that and she was left with feelings of regret for an action that hadn't so much been a decision, in the moment, as a need. A fundamental need to connect.

Nothing had changed between them.

That had been the problem after she'd left. Despite all the very deliberate changes she'd made to her life, she remained trapped somewhere between this sting of the loss of what they'd had together and raging at the part he'd played in that loss. She'd tried so hard to stretch toward grieving and then recovery that should have followed but it remained out of reach. Some burdens she just didn't seem to be able to let go.

Nothing had changed. What the fuck was supposed to happen next?

With that thought repeating, panic started to blossom inside her chest. Slowly at first, gently and insidiously unfurling like a flower on a poisonous plant set to attract prey to its peril.

Interrupting her tumbling thoughts, Charles lifted Molly so they were laying side by side facing each other on the same pillow.

Fingers stroking down her cheek, he said softly, "I know you're scared, but we need to talk. Properly."

It was all there in his eyes, bitter chocolate dark, and warm with a depth of feeling that she hadn't seen since before they lost Elvis. He was lit up from the inside.

What the fuck had she done?

"I'm going to make a brew, then we'll talk."

She nodded, lying. He accepted the lie with a slow smile and warm press of his lips to hers before moving to stand.

She snagged the sheet to cover herself, realising he's was still mostly dressed as he fastened his combat trousers and retrieved his shirt and t-shirt from the floor. Both were tangled together, with her dress and short leather jacket such had been their haste to strip.

Clothed versus naked, Molly felt suddenly vulnerable and got lost in her own head with the feelings about the wrongness of her choices.

He held his hand out to her, palm up and welcoming her to make contact with him again.

"Come downstairs with me?"

Molly shook her head again, struggling to find her voice and worrying it would betray her lack of confidence.

"In a minute. I need to clean up a bit."

The same smile lit his face, warm and genuine. "I'll be back in a minute."

Watching him walk away filled he with irrational fright, and his name tumbled from her lips before she had a chance to check herself.

"Charles."

Half way to the bedroom door, he stopped and turned. He returned to the bed and sat down, taking her face in his hands gently.

"You okay?"

She wanted to say, no she wasn't and a million and one other scary words about wants and regrets, but the words never come out, dying in her throat before they were ever given life because of the churning panic building inside of her.

"Yeah, I'm okay."

A frown appeared on his face and she knew he didn't believe what she was saying, but didn't argue the point, instead closing his eyes and pressing his forehead against her own. The familiarity of the gesture about finished her then and there because it was such a Charles before Elvis' death thing to do. His way of saying ten different things without words. It broke her heart because it had been so long since he last did it, and there wouldn't be another time.

"I'm not sure that you are"–he pressed a kiss to her forehead– "but that's okay. Brew, and then we'll talk. Yes?"

She nodded, lying again, then watched with wide, wet eyes as he walked out of the room. The sound of his footsteps heading down the stair spurred her into action as she climbed out of bed and dressed in a hurry. Scrabbling in the bedside cabinet she found his habitually kept notepad and pen and scribbled out four words before leaving the note pad open on the bed.

With her heart hammering in her ears loud enough to hurt, she run down the stairs willing her steps to be quiet but quick. The kitchen was as the back of the house and contained her shoes and handbag but the front door meant escape. Anything but clear minded, she hurried towards the door. Having to forcing herself to concentrate around her rising panic, she turned the Yale lock and opened the door just wide enough to squeeze through and closed it silently behind her with shaking hands.

Guessing the likely layout of the houses on the street, she darted through the side gate into the back garden at the same point as she heard the front door open and bang back against its hinges followed by the sound of running feet on the front path.

"Molly!" he yelled loud enough to make jump guiltily as she shrank back against the brick side wall of house. "Molly!"

Swallowing passed a lump in her throat at the urgency in his voice, she strained her eyes to see passed the pool of light from the kitchen window towards the end of garden. Her guess was confirmed as correct as she saw the dark outline of a back garden gate.

"Fuck-sake, Molly, don't bloody do this." he said quietly but so that she could still hear. It reminded her just how close he was. Two steps threw the side gate and he'd be able to find her if she didn't move soon.

"Molly, where are you?" he yelled again, and she started guiltily.

The worry in his voice reinforced inside her the heavy sense of guilt that might have glued her feet to the ground but for the desperate, adrenaline fuelled imperative to flee screaming in her head. She turned away from his need for her to return and instead cross the short lawn.

The distant but still loud of a door slamming and a car engine roaring to life gave her every reason to run faster as she drowned out her guilt with pure blind panic.