For the record, the author of this fiction does not condone drug use, unprotected sex, tricking your friend into thinking you are dead for two years, smoking as a coping mechanism, or shooting anyone in the face even if they are a slimy asshole.

Also, it is inadvisable to throw ones self naked in front of a man.

Unless that man is Sherlock Holmes playing you violin music in the moonlight-then you should definitely do that shit. ;)

Chapter 11

Sherlock meant to be gentle.

But Molly was kissing him, her body quivering like vibrato under his fingertips and suddenly it wasn't so much a kiss but an assault—lips and teeth and shattered breath.

His tongue swept against hers, demanding and desperate. She touched him as he explored her mouth—her fingers tangling in his hair, skimming across his jaw, and rucking up his shirt to trace each of his ribs. Teasing, light touches that sent sparks of electricity scorching across his skin.

He pulled back a fraction, grazing her bottom lip with his teeth, slowing the kiss down to something languid and lazy. She rose on her toes, fingernails biting into his back. He catalogued her breathless moan as his tongue found hers again, tilting her jaw with his palm to kiss her deeper-learning and taking all at the same time.

She should have tasted like comfort.

It was just Molly, after all—familiar and ordinary—even standing naked in the moonlight.

But there was nothing simple about the woman burning in his arms. She was a concerto sweeping toward him in a dark concert hall, exquisite and complicated. His fingers tightened between the wings of her shoulder blades as if he could press her into the hollow space behind his breastbone.

Her hands dipped under the waist band of his pajamas, settling into the hollows of his hip bones. He stiffened. She was still kissing him, but suddenly his attention was on her wandering fingers. Her thumb brushed against his erection, and Sherlock tore his mouth away with a strangled sound. She laughed, the sound spinning out inside of him-catching fire wherever it touched.

He pressed his forehead against hers, desperately trying to hide the fact that she was breaking him apart. That her skin and lips and heat were tearing down the ancient walls around his heart. Her knuckles brushed against his throbbing length again, firm and deliberate. He couldn't help the shudder that racked his body.

She arched an eyebrow, her face flushed, but a whisper of a smile curling her swollen lips. A challenge.

He narrowed his eyes. Some part of himself that he didn't recognize lifted her into the air and settled her against him. She made a desperate sound, her heels digging into his back. Her eyes darkened, liquid and molasses.

She had three freckles on the curve of her neck, and he bent his head to taste them. Molly's head fell back as he sampled her skin. He could feel the heat of her through the thin fabric of his pajamas—could feel the hot dampness that gathered there. She tilted her hips, pressing that wet heat against his hard flesh. Something dark and needy shifted in the cellar of his soul.

He tried to pause, his lips resting against the thin skin of her neck. He closed his eyes and counted the frantic beats of her heart, giving himself time to coil the taut rope of control back inside him.

But Molly wasn't having any of it. She rocked against him. He groaned.

In one smooth movement, he lowered her to the ground, never breaking contact as he captured her mouth roughly and settled between her legs. She writhed up against him, incoherent and lost. He was painfully hard, blinded by the feel of her soft and willing underneath him. Sherlock pushed her hip down to the floor hard, holding her away from where he wanted her as he claimed her lips again.

She should have silk sheets and soft music. Someone who would cherish and love her the way she deserved. But he was going to take her right here on the rug. Fast and reckless. Hard and punishing. Because he needed to be inside of her—needed to drive into her slick heat until the sharp edges in his chest dulled and softened.

He didn't deserve her. She was innocent and beautiful. The darkness inside of him...

Sherlock ripped his mouth away, pressing his forehead against her shoulder as he tried to catch his breath. Tried to slow down. Tried to get control.

"Shut up," Molly breathed, her teeth nipping at his earlobe, sending fissions of pleasure skittering through his gut. "I can hear you thinking," she teased, her tongue doing obscene things to the side of his throat.

His breath caught. He didn't know it would be like this. It was madness. He tried to relax the bruising pressure of his fingers on her waist. She ran a single finger down his spine, an anchor in a sea of madness.

He couldn't look at her directly. The sight of her stretched out on the faded red of the rug, her hair fanned out, her cheeks flush. It was too much.

He needed to get to the other side of this sharp pleasure. He reached for the waistband of his pajamas with a shaking hand.

She caught his wrist, stopping him, "Sherlock."

He tugged his hand away and didn't look up. There was something in her voice. A warning or a plea, he wasn't sure. Wasn't capable of caring-could see no way of stopping the momentum of desire now that he had succumb. Now that he was drowning.

So he ignored her, bending his head to lap at one peaked nipple. She gasped, her back bowing up toward him as he lavished the tender flesh.

"Sherlock!" She tugged at his hair, but he was too busy kissing his way down the velvet plane of her belly. She muttered something indistinguishable under her breath. His lips found the crease at the top of her thigh.

And then her hands were on his face, digging into his cheekbones, trying to pull him away. He growled in annoyance.

"Someone's coming," she gasped out as his lips found the edge of her damp curls.

He stopped.

Somehow he stopped and looked up at her through the fringe of his hair. She groaned, her cheeks flushing further when she met his eye. Her head thumped on the floor and she cursed, her hips undulating helplessly toward his mouth even as they heard Mrs Hudson answer the front door downstairs.

Sherlock squinted at the open doorway from their compromising place on the floor. He shook his head, trying to clear the red haze of lust from his eyes. She was so warm and close. He could smell her, wet and willing underneath him.

He was panting a little, need boiling inside of him. Someone was coming. Sherlock's rusty thoughts tried to rumble back to life.

It was late. Well past midnight. There was only one person who would be coming up the stairs at this hour.

He slid back up her, covering her nakedness with his body. "Oh god," Molly whimpered as they settled back against each other. She closed her eyes.

They breathed and listened to the familiar voice of a certain Detective Inspector drifted up to them from the staircase. Sherlock shifted his hips, sliding against her with agonizing slowness. Molly threw back her head at the feeling, and he couldn't help but lean down to taste the smooth column of her neck.

Down on the landing, Mrs. Hudson laughed. They had to stop. Molly arched against him. He placed his palm flat on the floor, fingers curling into the rug. His teeth scrapped against her pulse. The voices moved closer.

"God damn, cocksucker Greg," Sherlock muttered viciously against her skin.

Molly stilled. And then giggled. "Sherlock!" she hissed.

He braced himself on his forearm and looked down at her. Her eyes danced up at him, and he was unable to keep the answering grin off his face, despite the heat that threatened to consume him. She shook her head with a little laugh. "I don't think I've ever heard you swear before."

His heart clenched painfully at the sight of her underneath him, laughing and lovely.

He thought of another moment, in a rundown motel room. Unable to help himself, Sherlock leaned forward, resting his lips against the shell of her ear. "Yes—you have," he breathed. "Once."

Molly shivered, and he almost lost control again. Almost took her right there—observers be damned.

Footsteps on the stairs broke through the thick haze. He bit out another curse, more colorful then the last and pulled them both up in one graceful movement.

She wobbled, and he pressed his palm into the hollow of her back to steady her. She touched his face, her thumb brushing his bottom lip before he propelled her gently toward his bedroom.

Sherlock watched the way the shadows dipped into the curve of her spine as she slipped silently away. It was cold in the flat, the night air blowing in gently through the still open window. A chill raise the hairs on the back of his neck.

Molly paused at his bedroom door, her hand resting on the doorjamb. Her hair was a tousled mess around her head, her whole body flushed with desire. She looked over her shoulder at him—a siren—a breathing Botticelli. His.

She worried her bottom lip with her teeth as their eyes met across the empty space. She looked unsure—as if the spell had been broken. Sherlock wrapped his dressing gown around him tighter and turned away.

Maybe it had.

Sherlock managed to flop into his chair moments before Lestrade appeared at the top of the stairs. He tented his fingers underneath his chin, willing his hands to remain steady through sheer stubbornness.

Greg cleared his throat, hovering in the doorway. Sherlock didn't bother looking around. "Leave."

From the corner of his eye he saw Lestrade rock back on his heels. Sherlock ground his teeth together and stared up at the ceiling. The Inspector leaned against the door jam and did not leave. Sherlock sighed. Maybe it was time to break in a new contact at the Yard.

Greg crossed his arms. "I know it's late and all mate...but this ones got your name all over it. Thought you'd fancy a look."

Sherlock closed his eyes, trying to ignore the desire that hummed in his veins. His clothes felt tight, each brush of fabric against his sensitive skin a fresh sort of hell. He shook his head, trying to clear his mind, but it was like thinking through mud.

A case. He couldn't just dismiss it because of rudimentary biology and flimsy sentiment. He was Sherlock Holmes.

"Tell me."

Greg nodded and ventured a step into the apartment. "Male. Age 28. Good health. Out in his back yard with a bunch of his blokes having a pint. Dropped dead on his lawn. Coroner dug this scrap of metal out of his skull."

Sherlock rolled his head to the side, narrowing his eyes on the evidence bag. Even in the dark he could see that it held a tiny piece of crumpled metal, the size of a fingernail. Fresh blood streaked the inside of the plastic.

"Any ideas?" Lestrade asked hopefully.

"Yes." Sherlock sneered, "Location?"

Sherlock pressed his fingertips to his eyes as Lestrade rattled off the address. Thank god. Even an idiot could solve this case.

He leaped to his feet. The DI took a step back as Sherlock advanced on him, spun him around, and shoved him out of the flat. "Hey!" Greg protested as Sherlock started to slam the door, just managing to get his foot in the door before it closed. Greg glared at him through the narrow opening. "Just tell me, you arrogant git."

Sherlock shook his head, "Bit obvious, don't you think Inspector?"

Greg huffed, "Listen—"

"Airplane refuse," Sherlock snapped impatiently. Greg shook his head in bewilderment. "Dear lord, you aren't getting any smarter, are you Detective? You will find that his flat was on the flightpath from Heathrow. There is a .002% chance of being hit by flying shrapnel from an overhead plane—unlikely but not statistically impossible."

Sherlock leaned into the gap in the doorway. "Come back when you have something interesting," he snarled, before slamming the door.

Sherlock waited, with one palm flat against the wood, as Greg called him unkind names on the landing. Waited until his footsteps faded and the cab pulled away from the curb. Waited till thick silence bled back into the flat.

He turned back to the empty sitting room. It was the same as always, but also foreign as if something fundamental had shifted since the moment Molly had uncurled from the couch to watch him play. The ghostly shadows of the two chairs looked lonely in front of the cold fireplace.

He should leave. Follow Greg out into the night. Hail a cab and let the streets of London swallow him.

But somehow he found himself standing at the end of his own dark hallway instead.

The door to his bedroom was closed. It was only a few feet away. Just two long strides at best. He took a breath. It seemed farther.

Pale light cut across the floor from the crack underneath the door. He tilted his head, trying to hear something over the thunder of his heart. It was quiet. She was quiet. Waiting.

He crossed the hallway, resting his hand on the doorknob. It was cool under his touch.

He stopped again. This was a different kind of decision. With her safely behind this door, he could think. He could turn the full force of his intellect on the problem that was Molly Hooper. Sherlock leaned his forehead against the door jam.

He wanted her. That was painfully clear. Every fibre of his animal-self leaned toward her invisible presence on the other side of the thin door. Screamed at him to get on with it already—to open the door and take and take and take.

Sherlock closed his eyes. It was just simple chemistry.

And yet.

He had always known that love was a dangerous disadvantage. Had seen it played out a thousand times in nearly every case he worked. But this was different. This desire-it was cunning and devastating. An enemy he didn't know how to fight. Sherlock swallowed.

Everything he had done up until this moment could be justified. Just endorphins dancing through his brain, Nature's brutal alchemy blurring the line between want and need.

But once he opened this door, he was admitting that the weakness of the body could win against the ruthless logic he held dear. He would be letting his heart rule his head.

Sherlock turned the knob.

Molly stood in the center of the small room. She had wrapped herself in the soft gray blanket that he usual kept on the end of his bed, not an inch of skin visible from the hollow of her throat down to the top of her bare feet. She watched with quiet eyes as he closed the door and leaned against it.

She had tried to fix her hair. He could imagine her brushing it with her fingers as she wandered around his room, touching the collection of small bones on the dresser and the silver cufflinks Mary had given him for the wedding. She had dragged her hair over one shoulder, twisting it into a loose, unbound pony tail. She looked like Molly again. Quiet and steady.

She fiddled with the fringe of the blanket, twisting it around her fingers as she waited for him to speak. He took an unsteady breath and stepped closer. She smiled at him, tentative and hopeful, the sweet curve of her lips pressing the air out of his lungs.

He was a fool.

There was no decision to be made here. It had been made long ago.

He touched the hem of his shirt. It was ragged around the edges—soft and familiar.

There was so much to say, but he had no idea how to say it. There was no data to be analyzed. No facts to be broken down. There was just the two of them, standing on a cliff in his small room.

He shook his head and tugged his shirt off. Molly made a small choking sound, but he didn't look up. Before he could loose his nerve—before he could think—he shucked off his pajama pants, kicking them away. Sherlock's hands curled into his fists at his sides as he stood still under Molly's gaze in only his thin black pants.

Nudity had never been something he concerned himself with. His body was just a vehicle for his mind. But this was different.

He forced himself not to cross his arms around his waist. He had lost weight. Sleep deprivation had eaten into his lean body, carving hollows into his clavicle and pelvis. His pale skin was littered with scars, each one telling a story more brutal then the next.

His fingers hesitated on the waistband of his pants.

John had called him a machine once. He almost wished it were true, that beneath his skin lay cold hard metal. That inside the thin cage of his ribs lay nothing but twisted wire.

"Wait."

He stopped, looking up at as she stepped closer, the tail of the blanket trailing behind her.

"Let me."

Sherlock wanted to reach for her. Wanted to go back to the moment on the rug when there were no thoughts, only sensation and skin. Just his body and what it craved.

Because this was something new. This was surrender-terrifying and soft.

But he held still. Because the decision had been made.

Her dark eyes were serious as she trailed a finger across the bullet wound on his abdomen and the raised whip marks on his shoulders. If she had doubts about the truth of being with him, there was no hiding now. The broken parts of him were written across his skin like a map.

He put his lips in her hair as her hands flattened on the trembling muscles of his stomach. "Molly," he breathed against her temple. She slid off his pants without touching him. He let out one hard breath as her fingers danced back up his body, leaving fire wherever they landed.

She stepped away. To his mortification, he almost stumbled, the air suddenly thin and empty in her absence.

Molly tilted her chin, her eyes a dark mystery. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and nodded, "Okay."

Alarm rang through him. It occurred to him that he was quite out of his depth. That this was one area where he was hopelessly uninformed. Sherlock swallowed. "I don't-I'm not-"

Molly smiled and it was like falling into the sun. "What do you want to do, Sherlock?" she asked, her voice husky. "To me, I mean..." She bit her lip, the gesture somehow wonton and innocent all at the same time. Need swept through him-visceral and unrelenting. "What do you want to do to me?"

His hands twitched. It was a dangerous question. There were many things he wanted to do now that desire was unfurling inside of him. Nameless things intended for dark bedrooms.

"Come here," he said.

She came back to him, and he reached out to untangle her fingers from where they were knotted tightly in the edges of the blanket. A tremor ran though her as the blanket slid off her shoulders.

Just a whisper of heated air separated their bodies. It was like standing on the lip of a volcano. He wanted to press them together-to step into that fire and burn.

Instead, he touched her jaw, tilting her head up gently. He brushed a stray hair out of her eyes before leaning down and feathered their lips together. It was more mingled breath than a kiss. She sighed against his mouth.

He kissed the corner of her lips, and then fell slowly to his knees, worshiping her skin as he went. She buried her hands in his hair as he kissed the flat of her stomach. "I want to taste you," he whispered against her skin. She shuddered

Sherlock didn't give her time to respond, dipping his head to slip a tongue between her legs. Her fingers clenched painfully in his curls. "Oh." she breathed and the sound was more beautiful than the most intimate sonata.

She tasted like sex. Like salt and skin and woman. He closed his eyes, teasing her with his tongue until her legs quivered. He held her steady with his hands, tasting and taking until she was making lost frantic noises above his head.

"I can't-Sherlock stop. I'm going to..."

He hummed against her damp flesh, letting his fingers touch just inside her knee. He nudged her legs apart gently, licking in deeper as his hand trailed up her thigh.

She got quiet. As if sounds were no longer necessary, her body speaking to his through the thick heated air in an ancient language.

He slipped two fingers inside of her tight heat and she broke around him, sobbing and shaking.

He caught her as she started to fall, one hand firm on the center of her back as he swept her onto the bed, his thumb still pressed against her sensitive folds as she came apart in his arms. He knelt over her, his erection heavy against her thigh.

He had never wanted more. Sherlock buried his face in her neck, trying to breath as the tremors crashing through Molly slowed. She arched against him blindly, clinging to his back. His arousal nudged at her entrance, aching and hard. He groaned. He wanted to slide inside of her. Wanted it more than he had every wanted anything.

But he needed her with him.

He lifted onto his forearms so he could look into her face. Her eyes were dark with desire-wild and lost. He pushed away a damp strand of hair that clung to her writhed against him, the tip of his dripping length slipping just inside of her. She clawed at his back. "Now," she begged. "Oh, god please now."

He pushed inside of her with one smooth movement, swallowing both their cries. She was impossibly tight, still pulsing with her last release. He stopped, his stomach muscles clenching around the imploding nucleus of pleasure radiating from where they were joined.

He wasn't prepared for this. Wasn't sure if he would ever be prepared.

Sherlock tore his mouth away from hers, his teeth grazing her pulse as he tried to slow the erratic pace of his heart. Tried to draw out the moment. "Sherlock," she choked out, her head bowing back as she tilted her hips, taking him deeper.

He caught the curve of her spine with one hand, his palm holding her up at a steep angle as he pulled out, soaking up the sounds of her desperate pleading before plunging back inside of her.

There was no more time for finesse. No time to worry about her pleasure, or his inexperience or anything but the tight pulse of her around him. But somehow she was with him-like she always was. Her hand on his hip, guiding him as he thrust relentlessly, each movement hurtling them closer to the edge.

She surged up to capture his mouth. Some distant part of him knew that he was murmuring her name over and over against her lips, the word torn from his throat and mixed with desperate, wild curses.

He drove into her once more, lost in her wet heat, reduced to just chemistry and the body and unbearable agony of wanting.

The orgasm hit him unexpectedly, a molten wave that left him shaking and spilling inside of her. She followed, crying into his mouth as she rode through her own release. The whole world narrowing to just Molly breaking into pieces around him and the razor sharp pleasure tearing through the last jagged shreds of his heart.

He buried his face in her hair, pressing her into the mattress as the world drifted back in small pieces. The tick of the clock on his bedside table. The sweet smell of her hair. The rise and fall of her chest.

He was crushing her, but she didn't seem to mind, her body curled around him-warm and familiar.

He never wanted to move. Never wanted to open his eyes again. There was just this. Sherlock wondered idly why he had ever thought anything could matter more than this one quiet moment. Molly trailed a finger down his spine absently. Her lips caressed the skin of his neck.

He drifted, boneless and content, still buried inside of her.

And so he almost missed it.

Almost missed the three familiar words that she whispered soundlessly against his neck. Words that seemed to be written in her own blood upon his heart. She kissed the underside of his jaw, her lips lingering. His fingers tightened on her waist as Sherlock tried to pull her closer.

One more chapter to go! Thank you for all your wonderful reviews. xoxo