A/N: Warning! This chapter is rated M for smutty goodness. If you aren't a John/Molly fan, skip it. Otherwise, enjoy!

Chapter 10

Molly rode with John back to Baker Street, but he couldn't get out of the cab. He hadn't said a word since the funeral.

"John, do you want me to come up with you?" She didn't want to presume that he still wanted her there after everything that had happened, or more importantly, hadn't happened the night before.

He finally looked at her and shook his head no, but he made no move to leave. "I really don't feel like being alone today," Molly said. "Would you come back to my place for a while? I'll make you some tea."

John looked relieved. "Yes."

Molly gave the driver her address and John didn't pull away when she held his hand. His skin was warm, and she found herself lingering over the calluses on his fourth finger. He had surgeon's fingers, long and strong, and so precise from years of practice. She wondered idly why he didn't do surgery anymore.

John just stared at his tea until Molly took it from him and set it on the table. "What do you need, John? Please tell me."

"Need," he said softly. "Need?" he said more loudly. "I need him back!" John shouted. "That's what I need! I need to tell him not to jump. I need to tell him that he had people who really cared about him. I need to punch that smug look off his face until he lets us in to that fortress he built around him. I loved him like a brother, Molly. I'd have eaten a bullet after I was discharged from the army if it weren't for him. He was there for me in a time no one else was, and he wouldn't let me be there for him when he needed someone. Why? Why couldn't he have let me help him?" John crumpled and sobbed, and Molly held him while he cried, and she cried along with him.

"He knew you cared. I saw it on his face, the day before, when he looked at you in the lab. He was sad, John, when he looked at you. I asked him why he was sad but he wouldn't tell me. I knew something was wrong because he didn't even try to deny it. I offered to help him in any way he needed, but he didn't want help. I think he'd already decided. He didn't want help, but he regretted that it was going to hurt you. There was nothing you could have done." Molly stroked his hair tenderly, as he laid his head in her lap and pulled her close.

By the time they both finally settled, it was late afternoon. Molly put John to work making salad while she cooked the chicken, but they ate in silence, both too lost in their own grief. When she finally got up to clear the table, John gently encircled her wrist with his fingers, looking up her, pleadingly. "Please, Molly. Help me."

She left the plates on the small kitchen table and led him towards her room. He hesitated at the doorway. "It's okay. I know. Let me help you." Pulling his head down to hers, she placed feather light kisses across his forehead, his eyelids, his cheeks, waiting for him to react, to move in some way. When she kissed him on the lips, his need surfaced all at once.

He took her face between his palms and kissed her deeply, demanding entrance and his tongue wasting no time plundering her mouth. She returned the kiss eagerly, knowing what would happen between them soon and how much this kind and generous man, Sherlock's closest friend, needed her chase death away, even for just one night. She could do this, she told herself. She could block out her past and do this for John. Take care of John, Sherlock had said. She could do this for both of them.

John kissed her like he was a starving man given manna from heaven. He pulled her tightly against him, murmuring her name like a prayer as he devoured her lips, then her neck, wanting her to feel how much he needed her. Molly broke the contact to pull loose his tie and open the buttons on his shirt. As she let them drop to the floor, he reclaimed her, pressing her against him from head to toe. She felt how hard he was against her thigh as he unzipped the back of her dress, pulling back slightly to let it pool at her feet.

He let his eyes wander over her body, then settle on her eyes. "You are so beautiful." The sincerity, the reverence, in his quiet voice nearly made her cry. She didn't deserve him but she reminded herself this wasn't really about her, not tonight. Take care of John. She could never say no to Sherlock, regardless of the personal cost to her.

She let John kiss her again, knowing there was no going back as she loosened his belt and zipper, letting them fall to the floor. He bent down and slid his strong arm around the back of her knees, lifting her easily to his chest as he carried her to the bed, pulled the sheets back, and set her down gently between them. Molly heard Sherlock's coat slide off the bed and onto the floor, but John didn't seem to notice.

He settled himself on his side next to her, his eyes following his hands as they roamed down her ribcage to the expanse of her abdomen, fascinated by each inch of her skin. His soft lips followed the same path, but then he brushed his fingertips around her left breast in an ever-narrowing circle until he reached her nipple, still covered by the thin lace of her bra.

Molly arched her back, silently begging him to continue, so he repeated the motions on her other breast, and she found that if she focused only on his touch, only on how much he enjoyed touching her, she could block out everything else. His strong hands were gentle as they lifted her and unclasped her bra, and he used his teeth to pull it down her arms, kissing her with every step, until her bra lay discarded on the floor.

John pressed soft but insistent kisses all around her breasts until she squirmed, desperate for more contact. She felt him smile against her skin as he relented and licked her right nipple several times before sucking it gently into his mouth. It was warm, and wet, and the pressure he built there drove her mad. Molly ran her fingers through his hair, pulling him closer, showing him that she wanted and needed more. He cupped her breast, fitting it perfectly in his hand as he sucked harder on her nipple, his teeth grazing the tip. When he had her panting, he moved to the other side until she moaned and squirmed for release.

He moved up her chest, then her neck, nipping lightly as he went, until he reached her mouth, where their tongues entwined with abandon. Molly had forgotten how good it could feel to be in the arms of someone who cared about her and about her pleasure; it had been so many years. She knew that she could trust John. He would not hurt her, even now, when his need was so intense.

Pressing him onto his back, Molly traced the curves of his pectorals, wondering why he always wore shirts that concealed his strong muscles. She tried to be as patient with exploring him as he had been with her, but his hands were all over her, teasing her, and she quickly relented and latched on to his sensitive bud, tormenting him with her tongue and dragging her teeth lightly across the tip. The other nipple received equal attention until he cried out her name and pulled her back up to his mouth.

"I won't last long enough if you keep that up." He kissed her hungrily. She smiled as he looked into her eyes and he returned it. "But where are my manners?" John quickly flipped them both over, so that he was straddling her thighs, sweetly tormenting her nipples with his hands and mouth until they were rock hard and ultra-sensitive. She gave herself over to the sensation and her trust in him, knowing he would take care of her.

He kissed down her abdomen and all along the border of the satiny material that remained her only scrap of clothing. As he moved to her inner thighs, she couldn't help but open her legs to grant him access. He tentatively touched her core through the thin fabric and breathed in the scent of her arousal before placing delicate kisses there, enough that she could feel the warmth of his mouth on her, his breath on her slightly wet thighs. She reminded herself he knew what he was doing, he was experienced in this, and he wouldn't hurt her.

Slowly he pulled her panties down, kissing each newly-revealed intimate area with his lips and tongue. Once she was fully naked before him, she had a split second of panic, holding up her hand to him.

"Has no one ever made love to you like this before?" He asked, sensing her reluctance.

She shook her head, afraid of what he would think if she said it out loud.

"Oh, Molly," he said, reverently stroking her inner thigh. "Please allow me the great honor of being the first to give you such delicious pleasure."

"John, I…" he cut her off by covering her with his mouth, his tongue rubbing circles around her clit as she moaned in pleasure.

"Let me take care of you, Molly. Let me show you how it can be." He resumed the hot, wet tonguing of her clit as his thumbs parted her folds, finding her moisture there. She collapsed back against the pillow, but didn't know what to do with her hands. It was too brazen to hold his head there, too intimate, but he solved the problem by pulling her knees up and out, then sliding his arms beneath her legs to take her hands in his, interlocking their fingers as he sucked harder of her clit.

She arched her back off the mattress, desperate for him to stop, or maybe keep going, she wasn't sure which. He freed one of her hands, but the other he held firmly, grounding her, helping her trust him. His finger, slick with her wetness, replaced his mouth over that supersensitive bundle of nerves, while he licked lower, his tongue sweeping broad strokes through her folds, then penetrating her lightly.

He rubbed firm circles that made her gasp for breath and forget all of her anxieties. But when he pressed a finger inside of her, finding the spot deep inside that overwhelmed her, she shattered. She screamed as the orgasm ripped through her, and John helped her ride it, prolonging her pleasure as she collapsed back against the sheets. His movements slowed but didn't stop as he watched her intently.

A second finger stretched her gently, and she was too spend to protest. He pressed both fingers upward against the spot that had sent her over the edge, his mouth finding her clit again, rubbing small circles over each bundle of nerves while the aftershocks of her orgasm rolled over her. Molly wanted to tell him that one orgasm was all she could do, but as soon as she opened her mouth, she felt the pressure building again.

"That's it, give in to it," John purred against her thigh. His mouth descended on her again, replacing his fingers on her clit, pushing her towards the brink. She didn't think she could take anymore as she bucked her hips, but John followed her effortlessly.

"John… please… I…" She begged him.

He broke contact for only a moment while he fumbled with something on the floor, then she heard a wrapper opening, but he was back with her before she had much time to think, his fingers working their magic deep inside of her, and when he added a third, stretching her open, she knew she was close.

John crawled up her body, positioning the head of his cock right at her opening, then angled his hips as he slid in slowly. She was almost too tight for him, but he had ensured she was very wet between his mouth and her earlier orgasm, and he was fully inside of her with only a few strokes. Molly bucked her hips under him, unsure if she wanted to get away or encourage him, not sure what she needed as he filled her again. He sped up his thrusts, reaching underneath her to hold her close while he nipped at her neck and groaned his desire in her ear. She clenched around him.

"Again, Molly, come for me again. Come for me," John said, his voice thick with desire. He increased the pressure each time he filled her, grinding his pelvis against hers. Every muscle in her body tensed and her mind and body came apart as she cried out again and again. A few more thrusts and John joined her, the white-hot pleasure enveloping them both while he called out her name.

When they finally stilled, John pressed light kisses all over her face and lips. He was patient as she came back to reality and opened her eyes. The tenderness and the love she saw in his face made her heart ache.

"You are so incredibly beautiful, Molly," he whispered to her. "I want to spend hours doing that." He kissed her cheek and tasted the fresh tears as she turned on her side and clung to his chest. "What is it, Molly? Talk to me, please. Did I hurt you?"

Where could she start? She set out to comfort John, but ended up in a worse place emotionally than when she started. How could she tell him that this felt like a betrayal of Sherlock in her heart, even though he'd told her to find someone else? She couldn't tell John what happened to her before—he wouldn't want her then, no man would want her then… and that because of what she had planned, this could never last. She could neither be what she was now, nor who John would want her to be.

"I'm not beautiful. And you don't have to lie to me, I know the truth, and I don't deserve…" The words poured out of her before she realized she was saying them.

"Stop this. Stop." John propped himself up on his elbow and gently turned her face up to his. "Don't let him haunt you, or…us. Not here, not like this. Please." He kissed her and held her close, his leg slung over hers protectively and Molly buried her head in the crook of his neck.

She nodded enough that John could feel it, and he soothed her as she calmed, whispering endearments and stroking her arm and back until their breathing became more regular. A few minutes later, John drifted off to sleep, still holding her.

Sherlock will always haunt me, Molly thought just before she surrendered to the darkness.