"Open your eyes ... look at me"
He'd run his thumb over her bottom lip and then started to run his lips over hers, grazing against them softly and teasing her but not actually kissing her. His mouth tasted of the wine and a bit of that so-called proper coffee of his, sexy as hell as his lips touched hers again and he slid the tip of his tongue over her lips waiting for her to open her mouth for him. Their breath mingled, his face so close to hers that his features were all blurred as she put her hands up and ran her fingers through his hair, and heard the little groan that escaped him into her open mouth. He slipped his warm hand under her 'T' shirt and moved it up the skin on her back so that she promptly forgot all about going home or getting up at stupid o'clock to get her home and then get himself back in time for work, common sense didn't get a bloody look-in. Leaving was now totally out the question.
"I've been wanting to kiss you again all day ..."
He stopped and slid one hand up to stroke the back of her neck, tangling both hands in her hair as he nipped at her bottom lip, and then leaned away slightly to look down.
"Me too ... I'll have you know I've had a hard job thinking about anything else"
"Good ... you might 'ave to do it again though, just to make sure"
"Indeed ..."
She could have stayed where she was leaning against him kissing him breathless forever but had to let go to get her breath back a bit because she seemed to have lost any ability she'd once had to breathe properly. Charles threw back his head and shouted with happy laughter and then stood up to lift her off her feet and hold her above his head so that her feet were swinging way off the ground and her hair falling like curtains down both sides of her face and this huge hungry ache for him took her over as she slid down his body until her feet were back on the floor. There was a prolonged silence as they just stood and looked at one another, before he began to rain little kisses on her face again, soft light kisses that she could barely feel down the side of her cheek and across her mouth and for Molly it was as though time was standing still. She was holding her breath in anticipation of, well something ... because there was nothing in the world for her at that moment except the feel of his mouth. Instinct made her wind her legs round his waist when he lifted her off her feet again and his kisses got a little bit harder and a bit deeper and rougher and greedier until she had to break away from him again just to take another breath.
Somehow she'd known the sheets would be white like the towels in his bathroom, and they were, they were so white they looked brand new and even the pillows and duvet cover were pure white and it wasn't like he'd been expecting her or anything, so he hadn't changed the bed specially, well not as far as she knew anyway, or perhaps he changed it every day, just in case. But he was the first person she'd ever come across in her whole life who had a white duvet cover for fuck sake, everyone else she knew would bitch and moan about having to wash the bloody thing when they dripped their tea on it first thing.
"Here, 'ow come my clothes are always on the floor when yours are still on you?"
"I like undressing you"
"Well ... ditto, I mean, I like undressing you 'n all, but you keep interrupting"
"Go on then ..."
He lay back and put his hands down by his sides on the bed with a huge smirk on his face and then muttered "I see" when her fingers went straight to the button at the top of his jeans. But he started groaning her name with frustrated anticipation as she fumbled helplessly trying to get the button through the buttonhole, even though he was doing his best to help by sucking in his stomach muscles. It wasn't long before he put his hand down and moved hers away and undid it for her and then watched as she chewed her bottom lip sucking it into her mouth with an expression of deep concentration on her face, her green eyes half-closed as they flickered up to his face to watch his expression when she drifted her fingertips lightly over his erection and very slowly and deliberately undid the rest of the buttons. It was a matter of seconds before he completely ran out of patience and reached over his head to get a handful of his 'T' shirt and pull it over his head in one quick move, throwing it on the floor before raising himself off the bed slightly so she could slide her greedy little hands down over his hips to push his jeans and pants off. As soon as he'd kicked his feet free he half-rolled on top of her and began to kiss her again, slowly and tenderly at first as though they had all night and then with increasing amounts of passion.
"Where did you get these muscles?"
Molly had run her hands over his biceps as he sat up to pull his socks off and then drummed her fingers lightly down his shoulders and ribs, and then carried on running her fingers down his back as though she was playing a piano.
"Exercise ... that's the bloody army for you"
"Right ... thought you was just ... dunno .. naturally like that, all sort of perfect"
Molly giggled and ran a hand back up his ribs and began to kiss him across his collar bones, nibbling at the skin and laughing at the rumble of laughter she could hear deep inside his chest before he rolled her over again and lay on top of her without moving to gaze into her eyes. She was desperately tempted to just grab hold of him and tell him to stop bloody teasing.
"I'm a very long way off perfect Molly ... not like you"
"I'm not ... me, I don't do perfect"
"Of course you do ... you're beautiful and ... perfect"
The need to touch one another and each to make the other happy was getting more and more demanding as he trapped her wrists in his hands and held them over her head as she writhed under his gaze until he bent his head to devour her with his mouth, and his tongue and his lips, releasing his grip on her wrists to stroke her with his long, strong fingers and turn her into this shaking, trembling mess. A storm of mutual need swept over them and left them writhing and twisting against each other until a white hot explosion of passion swept them away.
-OG-
"Thank you for today"
"What?"
For one horrible nightmarish moment she thought he was talking about what had just happened, what they'd shared, that he was thanking her for the sex, shit.
"No, I didn't mean that ..." He seemed to have developed an uncanny knack of reading her mind which was a bit worrying as he put his hand down and stroked along her cheekbone with his thumb, then gently tucked a stray bit of hair behind her ear "I meant for the rest of today"
"What did I do?"
"I don't know, but thank you for being there and for being you"
Molly turned her head to kiss him with lips that she had to keep licking, they were a tiny bit sore and swollen. The only place she could reach to kiss him without shifting too much was under his chin, and she was far too happy and cosy and half-asleep on top of him to start moving about to kiss him on the lips.
"Don't think your mum liked me very much"
"She'll come round ... you'll see ... she doesn't know you, does she? Not yet and she can be a bit protective at times ..."
He was doing his best to sound re-assuring as he took a deep breath and carried on stroking her hair, but Molly was only a tiny bit reassured. Okay, he hadn't tried to deny it which was just as well, it would have seriously pissed her off if he'd done what Max would have and pretended it was all in her head and that she was imagining stuff, but she wasn't too happy about what it would mean for them if his mum decided she still hated her when she got to know her better.
"It irritates the fuck out of me to be honest, and it doesn't matter what I say she seems to think I need her to protect me"
He snorted as though he considered it a joke even though he knew he was going to have to have a very difficult chat with Maggie before very much longer. Both he and Bill were used to simply ignoring the way she behaved sometimes, but he wasn't going to let her indulgence in over-the-top dramatics cause trouble between him and Molly.
"Who from? ... Me?"
"Yup ... you and everyone else, she thinks she has to make sure no-one is going to hurt her little boy"
"Little boy?" Molly raised both eyebrows and giggled loudly "Nah, think you're all grown up ... someone should tell her"
"Lovely ... you can tell her any time you like"
"Nah, don't think so ... she'll think I'm only with you for your body"
"Aren't you?"
"Course, what else?" Molly giggled and kissed him again "'n I never said anything about sex, did I? Big 'ead"
"Yup ... that as well ..."
They'd spent the last hour in a way that he'd spent most of the last week telling himself was never going to happen. As the days had gone by, he'd got more and more convinced that the trip to Richmond had well and truly fucked any chance he had of a relationship with her, and even now he was finding it difficult to believe just how wrong he'd been. It was hard to accept they were almost strangers, that they'd only known one another less than a month, a little nugget he wasn't about to share with Maggie, because it felt as if he'd known Molly for several lifetimes as he stroked her hair and dropped a kiss on her forehead. For the first time in as long as he could remember he was completely happy, even happier than he'd been when all this had started between them in Brighton, because suddenly he was sure of a relationship that seemed to him to be the right thing for both of them. At least he desperately hoped she felt the way he did.
"Sam's cute"
Molly had rolled over to lay on her back, plumping up the pillow next to his before she'd put her head down and turned sideways to look at him, trying to gauge his expression.
"I think so"
"You know, if ever I do have kids, I'd like one just like 'im"
"I'm sure that can be arranged" Charles snorted a laugh as he looked at her, knowing he was deliberately misunderstanding what she'd just said and loving the confusion that appeared fleetingly on her face "I mean, it was bound to happen one day ... with all this ... genetic superiority"
"Stop it and shut up laughing at me ... it's not bloody funny ... and I never said ... I never meant any of that shit .. don't even know why I said it now, Bella told me I was barking when I told her ...and I just said IF I change me mind, didn't I? Didn't say I had"
"I know ... but you are so sweet"
"What you talking about, I don't do sweet"
"Of course you do ... you're beautiful and you're sweet and you're perfect ... and you're violent ... stop bloody hitting me" He raised his eyebrows "When am I going to see you next? Friday? Or I can pick you up after work on Saturday if that's better, and we can find a nice pub somewhere, have a meal or go to a club or ... you choose"
"I don't know any nice clubs, the ones I know are either shit or they're shut ... but we could think of something else to do couldn't we?"
"Sex on the brain ... what did I tell you?"
"Charles?"
"Molly? ... what happened to Charlie?"
"Thought you hated it"
"I'm getting used to it"
What he meant was that he loved it when she called him her version of his name, which was strange in itself because he loathed it when anyone else did it, even Maggie or Elvis.
"I been thinking ..."
"What again?"
"Shut up ... I wasn't sure I wanted to say earlier ... well, you know, but I been thinking I could maybe get another job, I'm gonna get the push anyhow seeing this is three weekends in a row I've skived off ... so I was thinking of going back to working in a care home like I did before, I quite liked it there 'n I got through a hell of a lot of stuff when it was quiet at night ..." She paused wondering how to phrase the rest of what she wanted to say "I mean if I don't 'ave to work weekends it would make it easier if you wanted to see me sometimes ... "
"What do you mean 'If I wanted to see you?'" Charles couldn't help a tone of frustrated irritation creeping into his voice as he shook his head, he was a bit exasperated "Did you listen to a single thing I said? Of course I want to see you ..."
Molly widened her eyes as far as she could and glared at him. She'd been trying not sound as if she was begging or needy or something or that she thought she had the right to expect anything for fuck sake and here he was back to sounding like a miserable old git so that she wanted to tell him not to fucking bother if that was how he felt.
"Try 'n sound like it then ..."
"I'm sorry ..." He took a deep breath and grimaced "Of course I want to see you, why wouldn't I?"
"Dunno ..." She wasn't about to let him placate her that easily "We hardly know each other Charlie, so I can't ... take anything for granted can I?"
"I'm sorry, we probably should have spent more time getting to know one another before I let you seduce me, and then you'd trust me a bit more"
"Me seduce you? Dream on ... think you might gonna find it was the other way round"
"Was it? What ... when I did this?"
"Could 'ave been ... nah, don't stop, you need to work a bit harder than that"
"This then ... is it working?"
"Yeah ... and of course I trust you ... especially when you're doing that"
-OG-
"You know you getting another job is the best plan I've heard for a very long time don't you?"
He smirked and kissed the top of her head as she snuggled against him and put up her hand to wipe a tickle off her nose, she had been about to rub it on his chest but then thought he might think she was wiping her snotty nose on him.
"But working nights and being at Uni all day sounds like bloody hard work to me" He tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear "Are you sure it's what you want?"
"Told you, I liked it"
"What made you stop before then?"
"Max ... he didn't like me not being home in the evenings and made such a bleeding fuss ... so soon as the exams were finished I packed it in didn't I ... made things easier"
That prick Max again. Charles put a hand on the back of his neck and closed his eyes as he tried to rearrange his features into a pleasant smile. The quiet reflective tone in her voice made it sound as if none of it mattered anymore, something that should have made him feel infinitely better especially as he could hear a giggle lurking in her voice, but he was struggling with totally illogical feelings of resentment towards someone who wasn't even alive anymore, poor sod.
-OG-
She should have been able to drop off easily. It had been a very long and stressful day, and despite having a bit of a kip in the car she was absolutely bloody knackered but couldn't seem to switch her head off. They'd had a magic couple of hours so that the muscles in her thighs were aching like buggery, and her tits were a bit swollen, even a tiny bit sore, but even having sex twice, well three times actually, because she could still taste his slight saltiness in her mouth, and could still picture the expression on his face when she'd taken him in her mouth, a memory that she was hugging to herself as she lay next to him and watched him sleep, she still seem to be wide awake. So she looked at his face instead as he slept peacefully, at the little tiny lines that fanned out from the corners of his eyes and at the dark eyelashes that were sweeping in arcs on his cheeks and that she wanted to kiss ... and that he had very sexy earlobes which she hadn't told him, but then who the fuckety fuck tells someone they've got sexy earlobes?
All the reasons she'd had in her head for why this shouldn't happen were still there, none of it had changed or gone away. It still didn't make sense for someone like him to be with someone like her. She was still going to go to Uni, and was still going to have to work, and was still no bloody good at relationships, she'd already proved that once, but she had this little feeling of 'happy' somewhere inside ...
She'd thought she'd be jealous of Rebecca, well she supposed she was a little bit. But not the way she'd thought she'd be, not of her and him being together or that he'd said he loved her once, but of her posh voice and clothes and her hair and the way she was all together and not a tatty bird like her, and if she was honest she was jealous of how tall Rebecca was, but the feeling she had most of all wasn't jealousy, it was the desire to throat punch her. What the fuck did she think she was doing hurting him like that? Charles hadn't said much about her, she'd told him far more about Max than he'd said about his life with Rebecca, but Molly didn't need to know much more to find it very easy to bloody hate her. He was kind and he was lovely and he didn't deserve all that shit that she'd thrown at him ...
-OG-
There was a sound of angry raindrops rattling on the window like pebbles as she did her level best to keep her eyes shut and pulled the pillow over her head trying to stay asleep. Shit, it wasn't even fully light so it couldn't possibly be time to get up even if he was moving about and had bought her a cup of tea, had put it on the bedside table and said something about being sorry there was no milk, that it had gone off over the weekend or something.
"What's the time?"
"Sorry, it's very early ... do you want to stay there and I'll take you home later when I get back?"
"No, better not" Molly stretched and tried hard to prise her hot tired and swollen eyes open wide enough to look at him, she felt as if she'd only just dropped off and realised he was dressed in combat gear "Shit you really are a soldier aren't you?"
"Did you think I was lying?"
"Nah ... but you look a bit different in all that ..." She waved a hand vaguely in his direction "I'll get up in a minute"
"Come on then ... here" He threw her his pale grey hoodie "It's chilly this morning ...and it's raining out there"
She slipped it on. It was bloody huge so came half way down her thighs which made him laugh but it was all soft like butter and was just about the cosiest thing she'd ever put on as she zipped it up to her throat. It smelled of him so she buried her face in it while she sat in the car and concentrated on not being a shit passenger and falling asleep again, and thought she was probably never going to take it off again ... ever.
"Go on, piss off, I'm late, I need to get moving" He'd hopped out of the car to open her door for her as she hoped against hope the Dawes clan were all still in their pits, which they probably were given the time "I'll call you tonight"
"Be careful, don't get hurt"
He was about to get back in the car when he looked up at her standing on the pavement wearing his over-sized hoodie.
"Of course not, it's not dangerous in Aldershot ... Molly?"
"Yeah?"
"Love you"
-OG-
A/N: Thank you for your lovely feedback on Chapter 20 and I hope you enjoy this. My attack of the wobblies seems to have calmed down a bit now, so hopefully Chapter 22 before the end of the week is the aim, RL permitting of course, she says crossing her fingers and touching wood.