Chapter 15

Soon afterwards, Michael stood to leave, and as they showed him to the door, he looked kindly at Molly.

"Now listen to me for a minute Dr Hooper. Let's look at this logically. A man who gives up his wife and children to his own brother, without any apparent fight, is not the type of man to take on a crusade of revenge decades later. It doesn't make sense."

Sherlock put his arm around Molly's shoulders and gave her a quick squeeze.

"Michael is right, Molly, and he's certainly not going to be any match for me. You know that."

She smiled at the two of them but she didn't respond any further, other then hugging Michael goodnight.

"I expect you for breakfast in the morning Michael, while we wait for information from Aoife and Mycroft, Ok?"

He sighed and agreed. "For what it's worth, I'm really sorry that your break has been interrupted." She smiled a little over brightly at him.

"Ah well, it can't be helped."

He nodded at her and got in his car, and as he drove off, three black Land Rovers, bearing part of Aoife's security team, appeared through the manor house gates in a tight convoy, and swept up the drive. Molly gaped at Sherlock in dismay. Disappointment flooded across her features and she tried hard to suppress it. She didn't fool him for a minute.

"I'll leave you to it Sherlock. I'm tired. I'm going back to bed."

Sherlock nodded curtly and went to greet the arrivals. She'd looked hurt at his abruptness and then quickly masked it as she turned back into the house. Sherlock sighed in exasperation. He needed time to process. She wasn't the only one who was disappointed, yet he was the one who was feeling guilty and in turn, angry with her. As he went through the motions with the security team, he pondered the situation. He realized then that she she wasn't really blaming him. She was just upset, as was he. She was also worried, this time about him.

It was hard work, he thought ruefully, this relationship stuff. She's asked him before though, to let her be upset when she felt upset, to just give her time to process those feelings. This, he figured, was one of those times. The Security Chief asked him if he'd let two of his men remain inside the house but Sherlock declined. He told him that they'd reassess the situation in the morning but for now, he considered that unnecessary. He reminded him to patrol Aoife's private beach as well, and bidding him goodnight, he re-entered the house.

He paused in the hall. Molly was in the kitchen, tidying up. He was inordinately relieved. She hadn't gone up to bed without him. She'd also left the kitchen door open, and he smiled. Molly hated leaving doors open. It was one of her 'things'. Mentally accepting her olive branch, he walked through and leaned against the door frame, arms crossed on his chest. She heard him come in and turned, a little apprehensively, to look at him. He met her eyes for a long moment and then he asked her quietly, "are you alright?"

She smiled tremulously and nodded briefly. As positive affirmations went, he thought it was the weakest he'd ever seen.

"Are you?" she asked him and he kept his sharp blue gaze on her as he shook his head.

"No", he said solemnly, "I'm not, actually, I'm very pissed off."

Molly paled visibly. She sat down heavily on a kitchen chair and began to fidget and chew on her bottom lip. He sighed deeply. "I'm pissed off," he continued, "because I was really looking forward to spending this time alone with you, and now the cavalry has arrived to join us again. I'm also pissed off because, once again, you're disappointed..."

Molly went to interject and he held a hand up to stall her,

"I know you don't blame me Molly, and for the record, I don't blame me either, but I do hate that you're disappointed again. It makes me feel angry, and all that emotion is pointless. You've just said it. It can't be helped, and yet, I find I'm furious."

She stared at him for a long moment and then, folding her own arms across her chest in a subconscious imitation of his stance, she began to smile at him.

"I don't feel disappointed anymore," she declared calmly. He raised a quizzical brow at her.

"You don't?" He asked as he took a long step towards her.

"Nope." She smirked and pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. And just like that, his heart began to gallop. He took another step towards her.

"How, exactly, are you feeling then?" His voice was gravel and Molly's pulse raced as he took another slow step towards her.

"Guess.."

"No. You tell me." He purred, and took another step, reaching the foot of the table. Molly couldn't tear her eyes away from his.

"Well," she said, "it's the strangest combination of emotions really."

Molly twirled a strand of her hair coquettishly around her fingers, resulting in a very sharp intake of breath from Sherlock.

"Go on?"

"Well, it's like a perfect maelstrom of love, pride, and sexual arousal. It's most curious. I'm not sure I've ever felt quite like this before."

Molly licked her lips slowly, as if to savour the feeling, and that was it for Sherlock. His eyes glinted as he watched her mouth, and his lips twitched in response.

"Do. Not. Move."

He moves like a bloody panther, she thought, watching him as he crossed the kitchen floor to pull down the blinds on the windows and doors. He was dressed in black from head to toe and those trousers were positively sinful. As if to prove the point he turned at the door to face her, opened his jacket, and took it off, with a very bold look on his face. Molly felt heat rush through her, leaving a tell tale sign on her blushing face.

As his smirk grew broader she was pretty sure he was aware of the less obvious evidence, even from eight feet away from her. She sucked her bottom lip between her teeth and he was on her in seconds. He gripped her by the waist and lifted her out of her seat, depositing her on the large oak table as he leaned his body over hers.

"You're doing it again Molly," he whispered into her mouth.

"Doing what?" she croaked. She could barely breath.

"My job," he drawled, and he captured her mouth, sucking her bottom lip into his mouth and nibbling it gently with his teeth. Molly gripped his shoulders and wrapped her legs tightly around his waist, pulling him hard into her. She ran her hands down his chest and grappled frantically with the buttons on his shirt. She opened her mouth wide to him and he explored it with relish. Molly ran her hands under his shirt, stroking him and then reached around to his back, wanting to touch every bit of him. It was overwhelming sometimes, the strength of her feelings for him, manifesting in this need to be skin to skin with him, to have him inside her.

"Sherlock...please!" He knew exactly what she was asking him and he pulled up and took off her top. His shirt quickly followed. She moaned and gripped him around his broad shoulders as he dipped his head to kiss the top of her breasts. He stroked a hand around her back and snapped her bra open, tugging it away from her body. His quarry was released and Sherlock paid homage. He took his sweet time as he did so, and Molly was almost keening. Then he pressed her down until her back was flat on the table and began to move downward with his kisses, gently sucking and licking her too, and she grasped his head in her hands.

"My beautiful girl," he murmured as kissed her stomach, running his strong hands along her hips and gripping the waistband of her track suit bottoms. He tugged both them and her underwear down her legs and clear of her body. She was totally exposed to him now and he moved back towards her, running his hands along her supple thighs and parting her knees. He pulled her forward towards him and inhaled sharply as he took in the sight of her.

Molly felt shy suddenly and closed her eyes and he smiled at her and, gripping her thighs with his hands, he leaned down and kissed a trail up to her sex. She moaned and wriggled, clamping her thighs over his shoulders. Sherlock ran his hands back up her body, stroking and caressing her as he worked her to a climax with his mouth and tongue.

Molly called out his name as she came hard under his mouth. She had thrown her arms back over her head and was breathing rapidly and deeply, chest thrust up, rising and falling in tandem with her racing heart. He stood up and gazed down lovingly at her, thinking she was the most stunning thing he'd ever seen, and he told her so. She looked into his eyes, her own brimming with emotion, and she whispered to him, "nobody, ever, could do to me the things that you do to me Sherlock. I love you so much, so much..."

He smiled tenderly down at her and dipped down to kiss her on the lips. He hesitated and she giggled and pulled his mouth to her lips, even flicking her tongue along his lips and he laughed into her mouth. "Should have known 'my pathologist' is not squeamish" and she kissed him again to prove it.

"As if.."

She grew serious then and sat back upright on the table, cupping his face in her hands.

"Promise me Sherlock. Promise you'll be careful. Don't take this new threat too lightly. Please darling!" He looked hard at her and nodded.

"No, no you have to say it! Please Sherlock." Her voice went quiet, ragged. "I couldn't bear it, if anything happened to you. If I lost you now. I couldn't. I'd die too."

Sherlock's eyes blazed at her. He took her hand, the one with his Claddagh ring on her finger, and he pressed it to his mouth for a long moment.

"This is my promise Molly. I promised myself to you the night I gave you this ring, right here in this house, so yes, I promise you that I'll be careful, because I want a life time with you."

Her eyes pooled with happy tears and she kissed him softly and tenderly. She whispered in his ear then, "let's go upstairs, I'm so not done with you yet, and I'm not sure the kitchen furniture could stand it..."

He laughed, raising his eyebrows at her, and then scooping her up in his arms, he carried her out of the kitchen and up the stairs to their bedroom, while all the time, she nuzzled and kissed into his neck.