CHAPTER FOUR

It's just before dawn and cold blue light bathes Molly's bedroom. Sherlock barely has time to register the predictably floral decor before she grabs him through his slacks with one hand and tears open his shirt with the other.

Sherlock recognizes this as frantic need, had experienced it himself only moments before, and it rises in him again in response to her urgency. But the cheek she presses to his bare chest is wet and she rakes her nails down his back with a strangled cry of rage. He's never been with someone who actively hates him before, never been with anyone, really, and he's immediately out of his depth.

Molly doesn't want to want this, that much is obvious. He knows how she feels. At first he thought her reluctance to kiss him was due to the meningitis, but now he understands... it's too intimate. And the last thing she seems to want from him is intimacy.

She shoves him back against the wall, drops to her knees and almost before his zipper is down, her mouth is on him, so soft, wet, engulfing, doubling him over with a shock of overwhelming pleasure. He instinctively reaches for her, but she slaps him away. He doesn't have time to prepare himself... she works him so relentlessly with her hands and mouth that it seems only moments before he's shuddering, gasping, clutching at the wall behind him for support, coming hard, shame staining his cheeks. She rises to her feet, wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. Triumph glistens in her eyes.

"Well," she says, her voice dripping disdain. "That didn't take long."

So, this is to be his punishment... mockery and humiliation, in one of the few areas where he's truly vulnerable. He can put an end to it now, he knows, he can gather up the shreds of his dignity, walk out the door... and most likely never see her again…

He allows her to take his hand and guide him to the center of the room. He's shaken, braces himself as best he can for the next onslaught... but instead, she slides his open shirt back over his shoulders, and begins to slowly undress him. She trails her fingertips lightly, so sensually over each newly-exposed bit of skin that he shivers and sighs in the cold blue light, months of tension, a lifetime of tension, dissolving beneath her touch. Stepping from his slacks and more, he's naked before her... amorphous time passing by degrees... minutes, maybe hours as she circles him at a distance, eyes sliding over his body, lingering here and there, appraising him, her face reflecting such intensity and admiration that he feels himself stir again. She moves so close that her breath brushes his skin, and with soft, warm palms, she maps the terrain of his body... every contour, every plane... as though trying to solve the riddle of his improbable existence.

He longs to hear her speak, but she says nothing.

And then she's behind him, slips her arms around him, whispers her fingertips over his abdomen, the crest of his hipbones, the dip before the swell of his gluteus muscles, long soft strokes on the front of his thighs. She molds herself to his back, her nipples hard through the black silk. Her hands slide up his lean torso to feather through the spray of hair on his chest and he feels her cheek, warm between his shoulder blades. And then she's holding him, fiercely, her palms pressed over his heart, and he feels... loved... and it's so good that he drops his head back and moans. And in that instant she releases him, steps away, and the feeling is gone.

"So, you are human after all," she says. "Go lay down."

Flat on his back on her bed now, on sheets scented with her, and she's stroking his cock slowly, licking and biting his neck—so sensitive, and he never knew—stopping whenever he groans or thrusts into her hand... driving him mad. She won't let him touch her, won't let him see her, now wearing the black silk like armor.

"Don't move," she orders when he reaches for her, "Don't you dare move." But he can't hold back anymore, rolls her over roughly, gathers and pins her wrists above her head with one hand, cups her hip with the other and slips his thumb under the waistband of her panties. He forgets, lowers his mouth to kiss her. And then she's fighting him like a wildcat, snarling and kicking until he rolls off, cursing with frustration. She doesn't want him to dominate her in any way, ever again. He gets it.

"What did I say?" she hisses.

And then she shifts up, shoves him back, moves over him until she's straddling his face, soft thighs cradling his cheeks. She grabs a handful of his hair lowers her hips, presses black silk against his lips.

"Now what?" she says, mocking, challenging.

He is startled, doesn't know quite what to do, but he's angry, so he bites her through the silk and she gasps, rocks. His cock leaps and he does it again, finds a particularly hot, wet place behind the thin fabric and focuses there, tonguing and sucking as she sways above him, watching, her hair wild, lips wet and parted. She allows him to cup her bottom, tilt her pelvis and he can reach more of her now. He flattens his tongue to make a long sweep, and when she throws her head back to release a full-throated moan, he feels like he's won an award. He wraps an arm around her thigh and pulls the panties aside, finally dipping his tongue into the soft, fascinating wetness of her.

He groans at the intimacy, and at the violence of her reaction when she grabs his head with both hands, grinds down against his mouth and whispers, "God, yes, I've wanted this, I've wanted you to do this." This voice is new, triggers something deep and unfamiliar inside him and he spreads her roughly with his fingers, molds his mouth to her, licks and sucks, learns her as she rocks her hips. He wills her to speak again, to moan his name in this state, but too soon, too soon she's wild and keening, shattering against his tongue.

Sherlock is immensely proud as Molly unseats herself, thighs trembling, and slides bonelessly down his body. She's dazed, whimpering, and as raw as he's ever seen anyone. She'd done most of the work, but still... he'd made her come. He surges with power at the thought, is frantic for more.

She slides her panties down her legs, then off, climbs on top of him, trembling, straddles his hips. He wants to resist suddenly... he's far too unguarded, unmoored, needs to reclaim something of himself before he's swept away completely... but when she takes hold of him, positions him at the wet-hot softness of her opening, he can't keep from thrusting into her hand. She sinks down then, so slowly, engulfs his tip... but no more.

"Oh, you don't know," she whispers from far away. "You don't know." Then she rises up and off, watches his face as she does it again; sinks down, but barely, then up and off, teasing, torturing, never coming remotely close to sheathing him.

What the hell is she playing at? He's fisting the sheets to keep from grabbing her hips and impaling her on his cock. He wants to so badly, but doesn't dare, knows she'll fight him. The seventh time she does it, he's desperate enough to beg.

"Please, Molly,' he gasps. 'Please just...,"

She looks down at him, her eyes dark and liquid, and there's that challenge again.

"Just what, Sherlock?" she says innocently. "Can't you say the naughty word?"

She holds him firm, slowly rotates her hips around his tip, taunting him, angering him, but he has no choice. "Please," he moans. "Please fuck me."

And with that she shivers, sinks down fully and sheathes him to the hilt. It's white-hot fucking bliss and he cries out before he can stop himself.

"God, I wish I had all that on tape," Molly gasps. "I'd never stop playing it."

He remembers then, despite the intense sensations in his body... tunes in to his mind, listens, but there's silence where her voice should be. He is throbbing inside her, and while she hasn't moved yet, she's vividly hot and tight around him. He reaches up, slides his hands into her hair. He doesn't mean to tell her.

"Your voice was playing in my head," he whispers, his own voice rough and foreign to his ears. "For days you were there."

Her hands splay out on his chest, gently press him down. It's fully dawn now, and her pale skin glows like fire.

"And now you're gone," he says.

Her eyes open, moist, unfocused, and sweep up his body to his face.

"I'm gone," she echoes.

She finally moves, slowly, quivering with hushed moans, and it's so good he can't recall why he wanted to resist, can't imagine wanting to be anywhere else. He should shut up now, just rock his hips, let her hair flow between his fingers like water... but things want to be said.

"Don't go."

"Sshh, stop talking."

She moves her hands to his face, caressing like a whisper, and his eyes slip closed, listening to her touch.

He doesn't have words of this kind. He has thousands of words at his command, in many languages, but not this kind, that come from somewhere other than the mind.

It's exquisite how slowly she's moving, embracing him inside her, and he opens his eyes and watches her with wonder. Despite all the hours spent in her company, despite all his clever, savage observations, he realizes that he doesn't know her at all... this woman with Molly's face, rocking hypnotically above him, wholly self-possessed and far beyond him in a place he's never been. He allows his fingertips to drift from her hair, to trail gently over her brow, her flushed cheeks, the soft, reddened swell of her lips, the curve of her jaw, and come to rest lightly on the thrumming pulse at the base of her throat.

He makes a decision... he wills his own touch to be his voice, to tell her the things he has no words for... about aching, about regret, about wanting to go back to a time before pain transformed into cruelty.

And he suddenly knows like a slap that, of course, she was right... there was no blue room with the too-short bed. But it wasn't a hallucination. It was a memory... blurred by illness, but a memory nonetheless... of his childhood bedroom before he was sent away to school, a sanctuary where he was safe and whole and happy, and shame had no place. And her voice, Molly's voice, had led him there. He knows this is psychologically significant, knows it has opened something within him, although he doesn't fully understand it... and he would ponder but for her soft moans, her sweet rocking above him. Later, later... when amorphous time has regained its shape... Molly will understand.

She will help him understand.

Molly's eyes are on him as he touches her, wary, watchful, as though listening to his silent voice. He notes the increase of her pulse beneath his fingertips... and suddenly something changes. She smiles gently, her eyes shining. She bends, reaches for the hem of her black silk nightgown. He moves his hands to allow her to draw it slowly up her body, and off. She glows, so beautiful in the dawn light that she overwhelms his eyes, his mind.

Sherlock understands the eloquence of this gesture, the blessed forgiveness of it, and is flooded with gratitude, relief... and something tender and poignant he can't name that makes him rise up, slide his arms around her soft body and hold her tightly. But resistance rises inside him again, an unwillingness to admit to or let her see this new... weakness... and he has very nearly mastered himself when he feels her arms cradle him, her warm cheek against the crown of his head. She lifts his face to hers then, and she finally allows him to kiss her... slowly, deeply... and as he is enveloped in the nourishing warmth he has been missing since that miserable night in Southwark, he realizes the ache is gone.

With tears stinging his eyes, he gathers her in his arms, shifts his hips, and rolls her gently onto her back. He's not sure how to arrange his body at first, how to hold his weight, how to move, but she shows him by wrapping her legs around his hips, drawing him deep and riding him slowly from beneath until he understands.

Still, he's shaking, a raw nerve, overwhelmed by emotions he's ridiculed in others, has refused to acknowledge in himself... but he's allowing them now, safe inside her in this timeless place.

"You love me," she says, watching his face, caressing his lips with wonder.

"Yes," he whispers, nearly lost in the sensations of his body, of Molly beneath him, soft and trembling, clinging to him, loving him. "But first, I had to go to the blue room."

"But, Sherlock—"

"Shhh, I know," he murmurs.

And they rock together, loving, silent voices speaking... saying everything that needs to be said.

The End