"Ugh!" Molly threw her autopsy chart across the room.
"Prooooblem?" Sherlock didn't look over from his supine repose on her couch, fingers steepled against his lips.
"I'm going to murder this victim all over again. Doctor McNamara gave us each a John Doe file to inspect and interpret based on documentation only. No access to the body allowed, just notes on the condition of the body and injuries sustained. COD unknown. I have to present Friday on the sequence of events that occurred before this body landed in the morgue. I…I just…it was obviously violent but I just…"
They'd been sitting in silence for over three hours, Molly buried in her studies while Sherlock considered his latest extracurricular case that surprisingly garnered a six. The lack of speaking between them felt like a soft, fleecy blanket, cuddled around both of them and they dove into their respective puzzles, only broken by Molly turning a page or sipping her tea. Sherlock had no use for either.
But the atmosphere started thinning as her page-turning became faster, angrier. Finally it snapped when said paper took flight across the room.
"Ooooh, violent. Sounds fun." Sherlock popped up into a seated position. "Would a little roleplay help?"
She gave him a look.
"Angry face means yes. Come on now, my sprite. Here," he got up and retrieved her chart. "I'll be John Doe #183 and you be my assailant."
"You're assuming someone attacked him."
"See? You're already solving this. Yes, let's assume for now it's an attacker." He stood straight, turning his palms out, opening himself up to her use. "Shall we play?"
"Hmmm, well." She plucked the chart from him. "Maybe. There's bone breakage that just isn't consistent with an average attack." She gazed at the human outline, riddled with notes and marks where the real body had been damaged.
She tapped her Sharpie against her cheek, not looking at the man looming ten inches above her head. "Remove your shirt."
He took a half step back. "Oh." He cocked his head. "You'd rather…"
"What?" She looked up into his confusion. "Oh. No! Of course not! I need to see you better, that's all. This man is tall, like you. Your skeletal dimorphism is also alike; long and lean. I need to see the site of injury to make my calculations."
"Ah." He ventured no further commentary. Instead, he flicked open his cuff buttons and started down the row on his chest.
Its removal was perfunctory. He laid it over the back of her sofa. Molly held up her chart, lining it up in her sight with him next to it. She squinted. The foreign sensation of not being seen while being evaluated filled him. It was novel. Molly always saw him.
"Okay," she muttered, uncapping her Sharpie. "May I have your left hand?"
He presented it.
She flipped it palm up, then made a small X between his thumb and his wrist. "Crushed trapezium. A good amount of force, but blunt, not sharp enough to break it." She moved to the opposite side of his wrist just below his hand and made another X. "Clean break of the ulna here."
"Bruising?"
"Yes."
"Caused by a manual grip?"
"Possibly. Helluva grip, if so."
"What else?"
She pinned her chart square to his chest. The cool paper made his brain pulse with the change in temperature. Gazing at the diagram, she then drew a larger X in the indentation between his left deltoid and pectoral muscles. When they lay in bed, she'd often put her head in that very spot at the base of his throat. Sherlock knew she didn't see that right now. She saw a puzzle.
In recognition of a kindred spirit, his brain pulsed again.
"Acromioclavicular joint broken. Coracoacromial ligament snapped." She told the X.
"Ouch."
"Definitely."
"Initial thoughts?"
Without warning, she grabbed him by his left wrist, spun around him and locked his arm behind his back.
"What hurts when I do this?" Her breath tickled between his shoulder blades. She cinched it harder.
"Ah!" he breathed out. "Infraspinatus. Teres minor."
"Muscles," she sounded annoyed. "And too low."
"The rotator cuff is also strained. I'm sure if you push hard enough, you'll dislocate the glenohumeral."
"But there's no shoulder dislocation. And that doesn't explain the smaller broken joint."
"No, it doesn't."
"Hm." Her little hand tightened painfully around his wrist.
"What about this? Does this pain feel consistent with the two injuries I described?" She pressed hard into her two X's on his hand.
His eyes flickered slightly. She was so warm at his back. Her other hand clamped harshly around his right bicep, forcing his back into a rigid line.
mule kick into her shin backward head butt
The corresponding moves to this hold were easy and offered themselves from his arsenal. His lids slid lower. Other corresponding moves were making themselves known, as well.
"A woman your size couldn't crush a small bone in my hand while snapping one in my forearm. Your fingerspan is too short and your grip too weak."
The pressure around his hand increased fifteen percent.
"Think so?"
"My safe word is thaasophobia."
"You don't work for Adler anymore."
"No. I have a new mistress now."
Her fingers rippled. "Are you flagging your safe word? Am I hurting you?"
"No, Miss. Just letting you know."
"Noted. Please get on your knees."
He did so immediately. Molly let him go. She circled him, again examining him for biological answers instead of admiring her half-naked boyfriend kneeling before her.
"May I have the same arm again?"
He placed it in her waiting hands. She held it. For a split second, her fingers spread over his skin.
Brief though it was, it was not scientific.
Sherlock read it as appreciation.
He smirked. "Do to me what you will."
His deep, dark offer made Molly bite her lip. Was she hiding her smile? Or her lust? He didn't mind. The offer was made to elicit both.
She rose his arm high, directly above his head. His bicep was slotted against his ear.
"What if I hung you? Like this? Your full weight on this wrist? Where are the straining points?"
He let himself fall back a bit, giving her more weight to hold, straining the entire arm.
He looked up at the X's pinned precisely under her fingers. "By chain or by rope?"
"Bruising indicates uneven pressure. Chain, I'd guess."
Sherlock retrieved his own medical records from Room 5 (Personal Information). He eliminated his own previous injuries and zeroed in on his left arm. He dissected the delicate bones in his hand, the correlated them to the pain. He did the same for his shoulder.
Conclusion reached: Injuries consistent with current pain receptor map.
"Yes," he said. "You're right. The ligaments and joints in my upper shoulder, not lower, are strained. My full weight would damage them severely. My wrist, when looped with a chain and bearing my full weight, would break in two places, especially if I struggled."
He looked up at her. "Well done, doctor."
She smiled. He felt a strange increase in heat under his ribs. Pride…for someone else.
"But I'm not dead. Just in agony. How did I end up in your clever hands?" he asked.
"Toxicology was clean. Brain showed no clots or ruptures. Lungs were clear. He had the kidneys and liver of a tired teenager. Heart as robust as a racehorse. A picture of health."
"Minus the dead bit."
"Yes, minus that."
"What are your thoughts?"
She lowered his arm. Then she lowered to her knees behind him. She encircled his shoulder joint in both hands and began to rub in circles. Her fingers pressed deep into the muscle tissue. She was…kneading him.
He opened his mouth to assure her that she hadn't hurt him, that the strain had disappeared instantly. There was no need to rub down a victim who's only injury was black ink.
His protest died in his throat.
"Mmmmmm," rumbled there instead.
A short giggle rose behind him. "Like that?"
"Yes. Immensely."
"It's the least I can do. I hung you by your poor little hand until your heart stopped."
His eyes drooped and his chin tipped towards his chest. "My heart?"
"My official diagnosis, pending an actual autopsy. From what I can deduce from the file, this man was hung by a chain from his wrist until his heart literally stopped. It's call SCD or—"
"Sudden cardiac death," they said together.
Her palms spanned over both scapulas like wings and manipulated the dense muscle groups. Sherlock sighed heavily.
"It's funny," he murmured into his chest. So many things were funny nowadays.
"What's that?"
"Us. This. Up until I met you, I despised being touched. Even handshakes horrified me."
She stopped and pulled her hands away.
He made a negative grunt and reached back, grabbing her without seeing her, and putting her hands unto his lower back. "Until you," he repeated.
"You were shagging two people a week at Adler's. How did that work if you can't stand being touched?"
"I also box, when a case is vexing me. But it's different. When someone fucks me, or hits me, I can just float away. I'm barely there, just enough to mind the mechanics of the task."
"But this is different," Molly surmised. She bore her thumbs into the flesh on either side of his spine.
Sherlock hissed in approval. "Very."
"Why?"
"Because people shag me for themselves. Hit me for themselves. You…touch me…for me more than you."
"That's how people should only ever be touched," she said softly.
"To you and angels like you, yes. But I've never responded well to intimacy. Or to the people who've attempted it with me. I found it…forced. They didn't know me. I'd made sure of that. So who did they think they were touching when they tried to hold my hand? Kiss me? Undress me? My skin felt like a chalkboard under their fingernails."
Her hands ran down the full length of his ribs. They resounded under her touch like piano keys.
"Maybe they were trying. To know you, I mean. Maybe it wasn't forced to them."
"Perhaps. Still. It felt wrong."
"How does it feel now?" There was hesitation in her question.
A pause. "I think you know very well."
"But I like how you explain things."
"Another reason you are so very different from them. You like me."
"You're very likeable. So?"
He closed his eyes and retreated into delineation.
"Objectively, your touch is respectful to me and anatomically precise with my body. When you reach for my hand, I can feel you asking if I'd like to hold it. You don't simply assume. I sometimes feel annoyed by this, as I always want to hold your hand, but then I grow counter-annoyed at myself, because it's polite that you're gauging me, especially since I've hated touching all my life. You're right to question it."
He heard Molly swallow behind him.
"I don't think I need to explain my feelings about having sex with you."
A pause. "Please?"
"I've explained before."
"I know, but I like—"
"The way I explain things, yes. Fine. Where to begin? I…I despise English for so many reasons. We have so many words pertaining to fate. Destiny. Luck. Kismet. Providence. I agree with Shakespeare on this, the fault is not in our stars, but in ourselves. Fate and destiny are rubbish and cause and effect alone control the world in which we live."
Her fingers crept into his hair. Her massage morphed into a gentle scratch that gave him goose bumps across his scalp.
Molly urged him without words.
"I…" he huffed, scrunching his eyes tighter. "I am more…me…with you. A me that I've never considered existed. I consider everything, you realize. How did I miss this version of myself that you so effortlessly unearthed? I don't understand half of the things I feel when I'm with you. Molly, I—"
He turned around and looked at her.
"I don't understand. You are my destiny. I hate that there's no scientific alternative to that word, but it's true. To imagine the trillion other multiverses where I never met you are now inconceivable. To think of the infinite events that had to occur for the two of us to land in that gaudy white room…right then…for our attraction to be mutual…for Adler to insist that we fuck…to be driven mad until I was compelled to see you again…for you, and only ever you, to fall in love with the person I am and not a fantasy…I just…"
Molly's eyes swirled from chocolate to citrine and Sherlock swore that she was doing it on purpose.
He summarized. "I love you and I don't ever want to be without you again."
Molly was quiet for the longest time.
He waited. He held her hand.
Finally, she opened her mouth.
Then closed it.
Then tried again. "I'd like to touch you, if I may."
"As I explained," he said. "You never need ask."
She dimpled on one side. "I like the way you give permission for things, too."
"And how is that, exactly?"
"Very," she leaned in and kiss his shoulder, where the X marked the spot, "exclusively."
During his stint in Adler's employ, he never encouraged kissing with his clients. It was perfectly allowed under her roof, but his persona (and his true self) was frosty, preferring to neg and objectify them during the deed. It wasn't cruel. If they'd selected him, it was most certainly what they paid for. Women who championed the 'treat them mean, keep them keen' code. Sherlock was damn good at playing a bastard.
Molly's lips were soft against his skin.
Had a kiss ever murdered a character flaw? It would seem so.
"More, please." His tone was flat.
"More what?"
"Kiss me. Lick me. Do something about my trousers."
"So bossy," she giggled, circling his X with her tongue.
"Boss back then."
She reared up, capturing his lips while tugging at his fly. "Take these off or I'll use my EMT shears and cut you out of them."
In his Technicolor inability to control his own imagination, Sherlock watched Mind Molly ripping his clothing to shreds with scissors, angry and surgical in her precision. The clean sound of metal rasping together, Mind Molly laughing as she destroyed his expensive suit in her haste to get to him. The moment her fingers found his warm skin…
He grinned. Maybe next time.
He raised his hips and let her finish the job.
Strangely, he had no memory of how she also lost her clothes or how they wound up making love against her living room wall. He perfectly recalled her gasp as her back hit the cool surface. And how his marked hand—far from bruised and broken—gripped her with ease as he pumped between her splayed thighs. And how his name sounded like some exotic, beloved thing when she breathed it into his ear. How the chaos of his thoughts narrowed to a single pinpoint.
"Molly."
Sherlock still couldn't grasp the joy he felt when she came—loud and violent—locked around him, as many women and no woman had ever done before. Just as his own orgasm amazed him—loud and violent—ramming himself too hard and never enough into her pliant body.
More missing time followed and they were in her bed. He must have carried her?
No matter. She curled into his neck and waist, and smiled and hummed, and emitted her raspberry happiness in a thin sheet that wrapped him up and settled like fog.
It made him hungry. He palmed her thighs open and ate dessert for over half an hour. He wasn't sure why Sweet Tarts paired so well with a woman sobbing in pleasure, but no sommelier would disagree if honoured with this tasting.
Not entirely satisfied, he took out Molly's 5-set collection of vibrators, one starting at three inches long and the last at seven inches. He added them to his oral attentions, pinning her down and forcing her to endure tongue and toy until she screamed again. Would she change octave with each increase in size? She was given a few minutes to catch her breath before he started again with the next size up. Each time, he marveled at the strength of her pelvic muscles. Each gentle insertion felt like she couldn't possibly take any more. Each pump into her met with confusing and inviting resistance. Each removal was met with a disappointed whimper and a toy coated with both of them. But he was not a cruel man. So in went the next size. On came the delightful resistance, widening thighs, and his name is a whisper. Molly, he ensured, was incoherent by the fifth orgasm.
Finally content with his research, Sherlock crawled up the shaking, sweating woman and settled beside her.
"Molly."
He named the mindless bliss that took bite after painless bite of his consciousness.
"Sherrrlock." She named hers.
S+M+S+M+S+M+S+M+S+M+S+M+S+M+S+M
He should have known before they fell asleep. There had been plenty of clues. But he'd been distracted, and he always missed something, didn't he?
Perhaps Mind Molly had escaped through her forest and found a passage to Real Molly's ear.
That bratty simulacrum was such a nuisance, having such an unprecedented understanding of Sherlock since she lived in his head. As he prowled about his own Mind Palace, updating rooms and accessing information, she was always nearby, out of her room, gliding on bare feet, watching him from the shadows with her cartoonishly large eyes and smiling with damn-near serrated, predatory teeth. She was unique in this respect. In the cavernous expanse of these yawning corridors, absolutely nothing moved. Nothing was allowed to move. Memory was based on reliability. Disappearing acts by objects was the same as forgetting. If Sherlock interred information, it stayed there. Even the four other Mind people, hidden away for only himself to visit, did not breach their own doorways. And rightly so. They waited for Sherlock, usually in the exact same position he'd left them in, even if those visits were years apart.
But Mind Molly… oh that impish little bitch.
She didn't seem to like clothes anymore. He'd noticed when he was curating the latest details on one of LeStrade's cold cases, made relevant by a spate of copycat killings. He was pinning them to the cork board when he'd heard a giggle behind him.
He turned and found Molly standing in the doorway, naked as a jaybird, watching him.
He felt his own thought process judder at the interruption. The foundations, many floors down, groaned. He had never felt an actual earthquake, but the same phenomena was now shaking him right to the stem of his brain.
Before he could react, Room 571 was inundated with thirty-eight degree heat.
Orchid musk invaded his nose.
Smiling, she turned and sank to all fours, presenting herself in all her dripping glory.
It was the first instance of cross-contamination in the Palace. It was unprecedented and unacceptable. Perfect order suddenly tipped and felt like a tumble dryer, rocking him back on his heels. He'd meant to shout at her. Run and smack her back into the hallway and slam the door, preserving this space from her magpie klepto-proclivities. That had been his intent as he crossed the room, and hence was confounded when he ended up on his knees behind her, mentally fucking her while the man himself doubled over his kitchen table, gasping in shock and masturbating.
It was so visceral. So real.
So pathetic.
He tried his damnedest to reassert control and banish her, but she'd only laughed, arching her back and cinching his cock inside her, tight as a finely-threaded screw. He came in his hand for the first time in twenty years.
The image disappeared and he was alone, shuddering in his orgasm's wake.
That was what he was dealing with.
And now she'd got out somehow.
She got out, and whispered to Real Molly as she slept.
Hence, when he woke, he woke alone.
It had been two weeks since her little escapade to Kew. He'd made it clear that it had annoyed him, though to be fair, he'd made it equally clear that it had delighted him. Naturally, she focused only on the second.
So when he unlocked his phone to look for a clue he knew was there, he swore in German when he opened two texted images from his absent girlfriend: a sausage roll and a stone arch bridge.
Gone again gone again gone again
He had half a mind not to even engage with them, as she wasn't in danger. He wasn't a bloodhound, no matter what she said! He wasn't about to gallivant around town sniffing her out. She would no doubt call him once she got bored waiting for him in whatever snack bridge she was hiding under or-
bakery food café transport masonry water river location wordplay FETCH me chasing dog roll over
No! I will not participate!
Pause…decrypting…
ROLL OVER
He inhaled slowly.
Correlating against previous chase…
Deduction complete. ROLL OVER correct.
Once again, he was dressing, brushing his teeth, readying for the hunt, without even realizing. She was running. Hiding. Thinking she could tease him with silly little pictures, and outsmart Sherlock Who Solves Crimes With Much Less Information Than This.
New line of inquiry. Why 'roll over'?
dog loyal me hunting hunt you down like a dog dog park two nearby dog walker dog groomers too incomplete landmarks known references London dog known London where location dog London Isle of Dogs
Sherlock cocked his head.
Probability of location….
Correct. Isle of Dogs.
He accessed his Map Room: London-Isle of Dogs- Peninsula-Attractions and Public Spaces
Attractions found: Cutty Sark, Old Royal Naval College, West India Quay, Mudchute Farm (mark for possible dog connection), O2 Walkway, Museum of London Dockyards-
His hands had pressed into prayer form on his lips at some point.
Pause. Access. Museum of London Dockyards.
Search for relevance…
Personal library in living room. Second shelf. Seventh book from right. Maritime History of the Thames. Molly. Looked. Read. Touched. Remembered.
Conclusion reached: Molly is hiding at the Museum of London Dockyards because she saw my book.
Forty-five seconds later, he was already three blocks from her apartment. He raised his hand for a cab, then spying a particular shop across the street, decided to make a detour.
The woman behind the counter looked up as the bell dinged over the door to her empty parlour. Her bare arms slithered with a dozen tattoos, while her face clinked with studs, bars and hoops. The handsome, strange-looking toff plopped down into her leather seat uninvited. Opening his Oxford shirt buttons, he bared his throat to her. "This. Exactly as is. As quickly as you can, I'm chasing its author."
The tattooist looked at the small X made in Sharpie at the juncture of his shoulder and throat and shrugged. She'd seen weirder. She set up her needle and black ink.
It set him back fifteen minutes and thirty-five pounds.
He was back on the street and flagging a cab, the sting still raw under his collar. The cab ride, once again, irritated him. Molly was over half an hour away, and across a busy part of town. Knowing his clever nymph, she'd taken her precious Tube and avoided traffic while only paying a couple quid to boot. Probably sitting next to some elderly man or gaggle of students, listening to them respectfully while offering her sweet smile, making sincere eye contact with strangers in public. Gods, she was maddening. Royal gardens and museums and public transport and all the things they were supposed to be supporting as Londoners. She just had to be so goddamn adorable in her civic-mindedness.
The cab dropped him on the East India Quay.
Historically, the quay docks were a heaving marketplace and river port for incoming goods from around the world. It had been filthy and teeming with saltwater commerce and Sherlock could easily imagine how attractive it would have been to his lust for activity. Now, smart apartment buildings and hipster-infested cafes surrounded him. Everything once useful about this location had become obsolete, rendered toothless, and sanitized for tourists. The blood of the spice trade dried up, now merely nodded to with names like Clove Crescent, Nutmeg Lane, Coriander Avenue, Oregano Drive, Rosemary Drive, and other such drivel.
Nutmeg Pantone Colour #18-1326 Molly's eyes
Sherlock grunted, slamming his eyes shut.
Nutmeg precious commodity believed to ward off plague in 1600s fought over paid indecent sums priceless delicious sweet Molly sugar and spice
A tiny voice whispered to him from the wrong side of his eardrum.
"I'm waiting. Come find me."
Room 571
"Shut up!" he hissed at himself. Several pedestrians gave him yet more concerned looks.
Stay out of those rooms, he seethed at Mind Molly. They're not for you.
She hummed in his head, unseen and vibrating through his soft tissue. "Stop me," she whispered. He could hear the challenge in her tone. "I'm in the museum. Am I walking around in the exhibits? Or am I somewhere alone? All alone. Waiting for my bloodhound? Am I excited? Is my heart beating so fast that I can't breathe? Am I wet? I bet I am. Sooooo wet. For you. Sherrrlock."
The last word flicked over her imaginary tongue. He bit his cheek in fury.
He strode into the building and bought his ticket. At this rate he'd need an annual pass to every tourist trap in England, just to track Molly down.
He did a quick scan of each floor, but he knew she would not make it that easy. She wasn't in plain sight this time. Kew Gardens had been a steep learning curve for her regarding his problem-solving abilities. She's thrown him a soft ball. Now, she would actively hide. He knew it.
Another quick scan of a map.
The lowest level had classrooms, accessible only to staff, academic lecturers and researchers.
Yes.
He didn't even bother to assess if it was Mind Molly or himself speaking.
The three sets of doors to those rooms made a piss-poor attempt at locking him out.
At the end of the quiet hallway, in the last, smallest room, Sherlock looked through the small square of glass embedded in the door.
There.
He inhaled sharply.
Molly was sitting at a massive conference table. She was facing the door, though her head was lowered to scattered paperwork spread out in front of her. The table, a massive Formica island, was thin. He could see her bare legs crossed underneath, her foot bouncing up and down as she studied. She was wearing a tweed skirt and jean jacket, with a sugar skull baby tee under it.
All alone.
That was definitely Mind Molly.
A timetable hung on a peg near his head.
Molly Hooper 9am-1pm was scribbled among the users. There hadn't been anyone else for two days.
It was now 9:37am. She'd thought it might take him up to four hours.
That, more than anything, galled him.
He grabbed the door handle, half-wondering if she'd locked it and would make him pick it while she watched. But it gave in without a fight. He burst through the door and slammed it behind him. He locked it.
Just as at Kew, she jumped, not expecting his dramatic appearance.
"Really, Molly? 1pm?" he growled across the room.
Her mouth hung open, her hand on her sugar skull. "Sherlock! You scared me to death!"
"ONE?! PM?!"
The room was normal temperature. Why did it feel so hot?
She simply stared at him. Awe filled her elvish features.
He yanked his coat off and hung it over the door's small window. There would be no witnesses to this. He chose the left side to begin his stalk around the table, glaring at her with manic eyes.
"Am I truly your dog then, doctor? Was I meant to crawl all this way on all fours? That might have taken a few hours, I suppose. You could have studied in peace, knowing your faithful pet would eventually slink to your side."
She didn't speak. The tiniest, most outrageous dimple appeared on one cheek. She thought this was funny?!
Emotions that he could scarce give name to were popping off in him, bullets in a metal room. Their ricochets were almost audible.
He abandoned what was going to be a slow walk to her, accompanied by a lecture on her little games and how she needed to seriously rethink just how badly she wanted to aggravate him. Instead, he marched over and pulled her out of her chair so hard that it clattered backwards.
"Sherlock!"
"Wrong," he barked. "If you want a pet, then my name is Will."
Molly broke his hold on her upper arms and shoved him back. "Sherlock," she snapped in defiance. "Never Will again, remember?"
"Get on this table. Now."
"Why?" she put her hands on her hips.
He unbuckled his belt. "Because I'm a dog. Climb up on this table, flip up your sad excuse for a skirt, and let me demonstrate."
She laughed, fearless and all but daring him.
He whirled her around, her back against his chest, then vaulted her onto her knees on the table. He yanked her skirt up. A half-moan half-snicker left him over her gasp of indignation.
"Wicked, wicked woman," he slid his hands over her bare hips. Not even a scrap a lace covered the place he loved most in the world. She'd crossed half the city without underwear, at the mercy of every gust of wind. "Tell me, in the thirty seconds you had to wait for me, were you thinking about this?"
He slid his fingers through her silky, slick folds.
She gasped again, flinching between his hands. "I've…been here forty minutes," she defended lamely.
"Pretending to read. My studious little liar." He opened his trousers and shoved them down his thighs.
"I'm not lying—"
He positioned and slid all the way into her trembling pussy.
Blindingly hot ecstasy squeezed him to the point of pain. He gritted out her name through clenched teeth, bowing completely forwards. How will a baby ever pass through such a tight-? Sherlock flinched so hard that he broke the thought before it completed. Deep in his subconscious, a tectonic plate shifted, unseen and profound. Though he barred it from his immediate thoughts, he felt a possessive anger at her for injecting the seed of it into him.
A baby...
Shut up!
"Sherlock," Molly breathed, overcome as her body stretched to accommodate him. Her knees widened. Her eyes closed and her mouth opened wide. A dog he was not. A man—dark and angry and perfect in her eyes—had her now.
Already impatient, she rocked back, twerking her hips, taking all of him and wanting more.
"Right," he rumbled, digging his fingers hard into her waist. Locked together with no escape, he began to fuck.
It wasn't gentle.
The thrust of his cock ended each time with a punitive slap of his pubic bone against her ass.
It wasn't the softer pace he used with her, even during their more fevered encounters. This time, he was punishing her with sex.
"Sherlock," she moaned louder. She dropped her head to the table, giving him access to everything he could possibly want. "Please don't stop."
"Like it's an option," he slapped the left side of her ass. Hard. The smack resounded in the room and Molly wailed, clenching him harder.
"You see?" he roared. "Even this doesn't work. I'm furious and incan-fucking-descent that I'm making you happy. This is how I fuck usually. Selfish. Rough. This is what they paid me for."
"You're so good so good so good," she whimpered. "Sweet man. I love you so much."
"Shut! UP!" he roared at her. How dare she be this wet for him, this compliant when he was doing his best to make a point. Such a loving woman. Sooooo loving. Whom else would she love, if given the opportunity? Who else would she hold? Protect? Teach? Such endless patience she showed for him, it would easily transfer to a tiny little-
She tried so hard not to scream when she came.
Sherlock watched her cry out behind her own hand. Felt her body seize and drag him deeper, telling him with no words that he meant everything to her.
He would definitely need to investigate his lack of stamina in the future, to be sure.
He exploded deep inside her. What were meant to be damning accusations poured out of him as ragged praise. He couldn't stop it as it offered itself up.
He collapsed forward, catching himself on his hands, bending over her like a shield.
"My love," he murmured, moving slowly, finally letting himself touch her hips and back as a boyfriend would.
"You f-found me," she stuttered.
"You knew I would."
"I wasn't sure. Those pictures could have meant anything."
He withdrew and they both exhaled at the loss. He buttoned himself up, then pulled a hankie from his pocket. He touched it to her entrance, a silent request that she expel his come so that she didn't have to sit in a puddle. She sighed and obeyed. It took a moment to arrive. His length, coupled with the fact that he always slammed deep before he orgasmed, meant it had a ways to travel before it met the cloth. At last, a heavy deposit of semen trickled from her, making his gut clench with a foreign, caveman desire to push it all the way back in. He cleaned her well before pulling her skirt down and smoothing it.
"But they didn't."
Molly turned, her knees bending to the side. She sat on the edge of the table, her legs dangling on either side of him.
"Still. You're completely amazing."
"True."
He leaned in closer, his thighs against the table. They folded each other up in their arms.
Molly nuzzled and kissed along his loose collar.
Sherlock smirked above her, hissing in discomfort when her lips landed on her X.
Molly frowned, pulling away. She touched her index finger to the spot. Pulling it back, her eyes widened at the flecks of blood.
"What happened to your neck?"
He rubbed his fingers over hers, smearing the little bits of red. "You marked me, remember?"
She stared incredulously. "This…" she pulled his collar down and looked closer. "Sherlock, it's a tattoo! It's still bleeding!"
"Correct."
"I didn't tattoo you!"
"Obviously. Some delightful artist named Onyx did."
"You…" her horror gave way to a stunned grin. "….you idiot! Why did you tattoo my X to your neck?! Did you do the others?" She groped for his hand, yanking at his cuff.
He gently pulled away, shaking his head. Leaning in and kissing her shocked mouth, he muttered. "No, just the one. I liked it. It's yours. You put it on me. I decided to keep it."
"You're ridiculous."
"Not at all."
"It's there forever! What were you thinking?!"
"Would you rather I had your name across my thigh?"
"Ugh! Horrible! You don't need either one!" She smacked him.
"I'm afraid those are the only choices."
"Right. And if I get Sherlock across my lower back in proper tramp stamp style?"
"What is a tramp stamp?"
Molly couldn't help returning kiss after kiss. "Work it out, genius."
"Once again you've picked a perfectly hideous end-point for our games. I want a bed. Do I really have to endure another cab ride home before I can have you again?"
"Sorry," she licked an audacious stripe across his lips and nose. "My presentation, remember? I'm working."
He started up another round of loud, grinning arguing. Eventually she wrangled him against the door, somehow into his coat, and popped the lock.
"Go solve something," she shooed him away. "Bring home the bacon. I'll finish my work, and then..."
A retort was on the tip of his tongue before he was grabbed and yanked against her mouth again. With his eyes closed, he didn't anticipate the sting as Molly pressed her thumb into his tender X.
"Wash this," she ordered against his lips. "Use aloe vera. Bandage it." She drew back a little, her gaze firm. "If you mean it...if you're really mine, you'll take care of yourself."
Well. He had nothing to say to that.