Molly scrunched her nose as she looked up into the sky above Regency Park. Angry blue and purple clouds encroached from the west but otherwise, bright sunshine streamed down in streaks of bright white and gold.
"Do you think it will rain?" She glanced back at Gregory Lestrade seated across from her in their open carriage.
The Inspector blinked and turned his face upwards so he could see past the brim of his brown derby. His shoulders hunched beneath his tan, tweed jacket then he shook his head.
"Um, no, I think we have plenty of time but if you are concerned we do not have to do this . . . that is, I suppose we can go for a walk another time."
The poor man fidgeted and had such an anxious look in his wide, brown eyes that against her better judgement, Molly fixed a nonchalant smile on her face.
"Oh, n-no, you are probably right. I am sure we will complete our walk before the sky opens up on us."
Greg smiled and twitched his brows. "We can cut our sojourn short and return to our transport if that comes to pass. We need not get wet at all. I can erect the roof to cover us."
"Indeed," Molly replied with a weak smile.
The open barouche rolled to a stop in front of the entry to the park. Try as she might, Molly could not muster much excitement for their outing. She found that she liked the handsome Inspector a great deal. He was a bright, congenial man but he stirred only feelings of friendship or at most, a sort of brotherly regard. Yet, she convinced herself that this was not an entirely unfortunate development. She could not imagine quarreling with this man. If their association proceeded to an understanding, at least she would have a comfortable life with a comfortable husband.
She swallowed and looked away, suddenly a bit melancholy. It seemed Sherlock Holmes had thoroughly spoiled every expectation she had of what could exist between a man and a woman. He had shown her combustion and even the generation of steam – he had made her feel like a locomotive's boiler popping its rivets. She covered her mouth as she remembered what she had done to herself just thinking about Holmes. With a quick intake of breath, she pressed her lips together and she returned her focus to her companion.
Greg disembarked his borrowed carriage and then held his hand up for Molly. "Shall we?"
Her face heated. If he knew where her thoughts had been, she might die of mortification. With a nod she took his hand. As her foot sought the metal step, she caught sight of a dark figure astride a big beast of a black horse across the park. Her stomach lurched and she gripped Greg's hand tightly. She blinked several times as her foot slid ungraciously onto the step. She thought for a moment the figure was the consulting detective himself, Sherlock Holmes, but whomever rode the giant horse turned and thundered away. She let out a breath, grabbed a handful of her light blue day dress and hopped down to the cobblestones.
"Molly, are you alright?" Greg enquired as she fluffed out her skirts.
Her eyes flew to his. "Oh, y-yes, you remember that I am not very gracious when exiting these things, hmm? I am a menace, really."
"Rest assured, I was prepared to catch you," he responded with a smile.
The Inspector offered his elbow. She took it and they began to stroll towards the center of the park. She dismissed her sighting of Holmes as product of her overactive imagination. Fortunately, she did not have to make a concerted effort to converse with Greg. Their discourse was easy as if they were old friends. He did not shy away from discussing the cases he worked on and their more salacious details. She very much appreciated his candor as it meant he had a progressive attitude, at least where she was concerned. As they made their way past the prim, cultivated gardens, stately oak trees and walked by other couples who dipped their heads in acknowledgement, she could actually envision a future with him. She snuck a peak at his profile. There was a bit of grey streaked through his sandy blonde hair. He had a manly jaw. She was not entirely adverse to the idea of kissing him if he shaved his ridiculous sideburns. Perhaps she would let him if he tried, just to see if anything more than friendship could spark between them.
Cra-ack!
Molly's gaze flew wildly to the sky as a flash of light jumped between clouds. The billowing towers seemed to have come out of nowhere. Thunder rolled across the sky.
"Uh, oh!" Greg murmured nervously.
A few fat drops splatted around them. The drops kicked up the fine dust like falling pebbles just to the side of the stone trail. The pair of them just managed to look at one another after that when the sky fell down around them. Instantly, the brim of Molly's delicate, parasisal straw hat began to sag and she felt the cool wick of water through the layers of her clothing. Greg grabbed her hand.
"Come, we will seek shelter back at the Queen Victoria monument."
Molly bunched up her dress and ran with Greg the hundred yards or so to the mausoleum-ish open stone and pillar structure. Once there, she unpinned her hat from her head and shook the water from it as they stood between a pair of Roman columns. She stifled a sigh. The dainty hat made of delicate, parasisal straw with its trailing blue ribbon had been an impulse purchase specifically for this walk in the park. On top of that, she had dressed up in her prettiest frock, a light blue and cream, pin-striped creation. Unfortunately, the hat would probably never recover and mud stained the hem of her skirts. She cared little for their destruction except that it probably served her right to think she could just dress like a lady and expect the rest of the universe to comply with her plans.
When the rain did not seem to abate and actually turned into a deluge of biblical proportions that threatened to flood the floor of their shelter, Greg cursed.
"Well, I cannot have you out in this weather. My apologies, Molly, I was so eager to spend time with you that I made a grievous error in judgement."
Molly laughed and hesitantly patted his arm. "O-Oh, it is quite alright, Greg. Shall we make a dash for it?"
He took her hand, turned to face her and kissed the tips of her fingers. "No, please, I will go secure the carriage and ensure the driver has put up the roof. Will you be alright if I leave you here for a few minutes?"
Molly nodded, suddenly shy. She wanted to protest his misguided chivalry but smiled instead. Greg looked down, frowned, and then glanced up again.
"I am so sorry . . . sorry about your hat and your dress and everything . . . did you enjoy our time together at least?"
She tucked her lip in and nodded again.
He breathed a sigh of relief. "I am so glad. Molly . . ."
Her nerves set off a quake in her body as his eyes searched her face. Her breathing became shallow. He had a look on his face as if he were trying to make a decision. His gaze flicked to her lips. She was in panic mode then. She wasn't ready yet for his kiss. She needed more time. She frantically tried to think of some way to stall him as he leaned forwards. Mercifully, another bolt of lightning ripped through the sky like a violent slash of scissors and she jumped. The interruption seemed to disrupt whatever moment Greg thought they were having and his head snapped back. Pink infused his flesh.
"I-I should go," he muttered.
Molly watched Greg depart with a heaby heart but moreso, a sigh of relief. Really, she had not been afraid of him but when it came down to it, she had not wanted to kiss him either.
"Damnit!" She mumbled and kicked a pebble out into the rain.
She followed the bounce of it towards the towering topiaries between the monument and the main trail. Her heart slammed in her chest when she saw a dark shape move behind them. She shuffled back quickly as the heavy clack of hooves reverberated off the trail. Fear made her skin crawl as she thought about how vulnerable she was in the recesses of the monument which was kind of a circular structure that sheltered a statue of Queen Victoria. It included a curved wall carved with the initials of fallen soldiers at one end. The structure was located near the middle of Regency park with nothing else within a few hundred yards. For all intents and purposes, she might as well have been on the moon. In this downpour, no one would hear her scream if she was accosted.
A loud snort sounded nearer to Molly's location just outside the monument. With her heart hammering in her chest, she slunk back into it until she could hide behind the statue at its center. She stood there in the dim interior shaking and straining to listen for the steed that had just exhaled noisily. Just when she thought the horse had moved off, she heard the slap of leather soles hitting wet concrete. She sucked her frame right against the cool stone and tensed, her head rested uncomfortably on the back of the Queen's carved skirt where she stood atop her square base. Molly tried to rationalize that whomever had arrived was just another human being seeking shelter but dread had her in its clutches. Footsteps approached her location.
Molly prepared to run. She gathered a handful of her dress and lurched forwards off the statue. She whirled to flee but a large man dressed in a long black coat stepped in her path. She shrieked and scrambled backwards.
"Hooper," a deep voice murmured.
"Oh!" She went rigid from her feet right up the back up her neck like a rope snapping taut when she realized who it was. "Oh, hell! What are you doing here, Holmes?"
She glanced back over her shoulder anxiously looking to see if Greg was in sight, then returned her attention to the detective. His ivory face was unreadable beneath his deerstalker. Her heart kept pounding as if still in flight mode.
"Are you missing your date?" His voice dripped with disdain as he removed his hat and stuffed it in a pocket. "I am afraid he might be awhile. A wheel has inexplicably come off your carriage."
Molly crossed her arms. "Is that so?"
She pressed her lips together as she studied his somewhat perturbed expression. His lips were tense, strained at the corners. There were a few tight wrinkles around his narrowed eyes. She just knew he'd had something to do with the laming of Greg's borrowed transport. That made her a little angry on her date's behalf. With a sniff, she lifted her chin and prepared to stalk past Holmes. She only made it a few steps before he moved into her path. She flopped her limp hat on her head and balled her fists.
"Excuse me," her voice was curt, "I must go assist my friend."
His brow flinched. "I cannot allow you out in this downpour."
Molly sucked in a breath and puffed at the ribbon on her hat as it dangled directly in between her eyes. It temporarily drifted aside but fluttered back into her field of vision which upped her level of annoyance considerably. She flicked it with a finger only to have it fall once more.
"I decide what I do," she sputtered.
Her hat sagged, diminishing the dignity of her rebuke. Any second, she was going to lose her temper.
"You do not get to tell me what to do," she attempted to fix her hat but the brim fully collapsed over her eyes.
Holmes huffed. "Oh, for God's sake!"
He whipped the hat off her head. It skidded across the floor. Then, he stepped forwards and cupped her face. He walked her backwards until she bumped into the rear of Queen Victoria high on her pedestal. His mouth came down on hers with the full weight of his frustration and he kissed her like he wanted to imprint himself. Almost as soon as his greedy lips moved, she opened her mouth and answered his demands. He sucked in a breath past her lips. His chest seemed to swell and fall as if he struggled to regain his faculties. Finally, his lips broke away and his head rose. She stared up at him with eyes that felt too large for her face. Her insides quivered. She hadn't seen his face before he kissed her in the morgue and she was glad for it. His intensity and conflicted emotions were devastating to her equilibrium.
"Hooper," he breathed, "why are you on an outing with Inspector Lestrade?"
She inhaled shakily. "That is none of your concern!"
His hot breaths bathed her skin. "It concerns me greatly."
Her fingers vibrated on his lapels. "It should not . . ."
His eye twitched.
"Do you know that he has designs on making you his wife? That his intentions are . . .," his lip curled in distaste, ". . . honorable?"
She swallowed thickly. "O-Of course. I have no career, Holmes, and despite your promises, it remains that way. I am twenty-eight. What am I supposed to do? Inspector Lestrade is a respectable man. I am fortunate he is even considering me as a potential wife. "
Holmes' nostrils flared and his neck stretched sideways. "But it is not what you want."
One hand crept from her jaw to the back over her neck where fingers danced up her nape. She tilted her mouth up, her lips parted. His eyes were slanted to near slits. She could not answer him. A lie she had been telling herself faltered on her lips. Holmes seemed to wordlessly understand her reticence.
"Why are you humoring him?" He murmured just a hair's breadth away, each subsequent word was enunciated with a puff of breath. "You do not want honorable."
"As if you know what I want!"
His weight shifted and better secured her against the cool stone. "Yes, Molly Hooper, I think I do."
She groaned in frustration as he hovered there.
"Why do you always do that?"
Molly felt just the thinnest gossamer brush of his lips. It was so light, she was not even sure he had kissed her.
"Do what?" His voice was impossibly low and deep.
"Why do you taunt me?"
"Oh, my dear Hooper," he intoned in a rumbling baritone, "you think this is torture? You think this is as cruel as I can be?"
"No," she was nearly breathless. "No, I do not believe I have even begun to determine of what you are capable."
His gaze swooped over her face. Her flesh felt scorched where his eyes paused to drink in her appearance.
"Do you want to know?"
She gulped. Despite the surrounding onslaught of rain reminding her of their public location and the high probability that they could be caught in their compromising position at any moment, she felt the muscles in her legs quiver. An excited shiver ran the length of her body. Holmes' pupils dilated. He purposefully snaked an arm around her waist then, keeping eye contact the whole time. There was a challenge in his expression as if he dared her to disapprove of what he was doing.
In an instant, he hoisted her up and propped her on the narrow ledge of the Queen's pedestal. Next, he bunched up the volumes of her dress and pushed up her skirts. She gasped and steadied herself on his chest as the damp air seeped through her thin undergarments. His incredibly warm hands slid up her thighs over her stockings and he stepped between her legs.
"Wh-What are you doing?" She could not take her eyes from his perfectly formed face.
His eyes narrowed in uncertainty, he tipped up his chin and he looked down over his straight nose and plush lips. "Do you want me to stop?"
Molly's chest felt heavy as she inhaled and then let out a shuddering breath. Her skin flashed hot with mortification.
"N-No, oh, my word, I do not want you to stop b-but . . . this . . . this is downright indecent, Holmes."
He blinked slowly and dipped his head. Then he laughed softly.
"Yesss, yes it is," he leaned forward and placed a feather-light kiss on the corner of her mouth.
She closed her eyes and his lips moved along her jaw. Her heart thumped so hard she could feel her pulse in her temples. His hands worked at her drawers and stocking until she felt them tug from her hips. Cold air stung her bare thighs and then the rest of her legs as he removed her intimate attire completely. She chewed her lip. She was quickly losing an internal battle with her internal voice of reason. The air in her lungs was so dense, it was as if she breathed a fog. Her hands crept around his neck as her body tensed and her legs shook. She found herself clinging to him in anticipation. She trembled all over.
"Christ, you are so . . . innocent," he growled, "it drives me to madness."
Molly swallowed a wetting of saliva in her mouth. She dropped her head and nuzzled his neck. Her face burned. She wanted to beg him to proceed, to touch her as she had touched herself. As if hearing her inner pleas, one of his hands inched between her legs and with a single stroke, parted her folds and struck her nerve bundle like flint. She whimpered into his neck as a delicious snap of sensation like the crack of a whip radiated inwards from that point.
"Unh," she jerked her hips forward.
He sucked in a breath and began gently sliding a knuckle up and down. Her core felt hot, damp and pulsed with fire as he switched to rubbing her sex with the pad of his thumb. He alternated between small circles and quick strokes up and down over the tiny bump there. She was full on gasping and tilting her hips to meet him desperate to feel that delicious release again.
"Mm, why do I think this is familiar to you?" He murmured, his exhalation tickled the hairs behind her ear. "It is like you know what is . . . coming."
"Ah, oh . . . I-I do not know what you mean . . ."
"Rubbish," he responded gruffly, "have you pleasured yourself before?"
He increased his onslaught. Molly was completely gripped by what he was doing, unable to respond. Her cries echoed off the stone walls of the monument. Then, his movements slowed. She grunted in frustration.
"Have you, Hooper? Have you touched yourself?"
She licked her lips and nodded against his neck. She felt a huff of hot air blast her cheek from his nose.
"Did you think of me when you did it?" He asked in a rolling, rattling tone.
"Y-Yes."
A tremor wracked his frame. His free hand cupped the back of her neck and coaxed her head up. He stared at her only briefly, looking a bit perplexed, then his mouth came down on hers, hot and wet. At the same time she felt the impossibly slow glide of a long finger into her body. She clenched around it and gasped on his lips at the strange invasion. He kissed her more insistently. His tongue mimicked the action of his digit. Molly felt a familiar tension build. The ache in her belly and at her juncture blossomed.
Unexpectedly, Holmes began to slink down and away from her and his finger withdrew. For a moment, she thought he might make good on his promise to cruelly leave her wanting but then he sank until his head was between her legs. Her limbs stiffened as a warm flare of breath heated the inside of her thighs. Her hands gripped his shoulders.
"Relax, Hooper," he murmured.
"But . . . o-oh! Huh!"
Molly nearly fell off her perch when his tongue parted her crease and probed where his fingers had been. She knew what she was letting him do was all sorts of wrong but she was too far gone for second thoughts. Slowly at first and then more vigorously his tongue flicked and stroked her sensitive nub. His fingers pressed into her thighs. She felt the beginnings of her release as a pulse like a gas lamp that had been sparked only to flicker for a moment and dim a moment. Then, it was as someone fully opened the valve and a cloud ignited. His fleshy, velvety tongue slipped one more time over her most sensitive spot and she nearly screamed. An intense wave of pleasure like the ripples of water disturbed by a stone undulated through her abdomen.
"Ah, unh, oh my lord," she whispered.
Her hips bucked a couple more times. Something about their scandalous location, the bracing outside air and the way her dress rode up made the experience all the more intense. She collapsed, her body went limp and he allowed her to drape herself over him. She slowly floated back to Earth. As she clung to him, she felt the hard insistence of something through his layers of clothing. Then she noticed that his shoulder were stiff.
"Are you alright?" She raised her head to see a grimace on his sculpted face.
Holmes nodded slowly. "Yes."
Molly experienced a painful bout of bashfulness. "But you are . . . strained?"
He nodded. "I am."
She took a deep breath. "Wh-What do you need?"
He scrutinized her with a slightly bewildered expression.
"You," he replied pointedly. "Would you come with me?"
"Where?" She asked but she already knew.
"Back to Baker Street."
