A/N: OK, here it is. First full-on Sherlolly smutfest. Not connected in any way to my other stories, "Tables Turned" or "Conversations With A Dead Detective." Thanks to MorbidByDefault for looking it over and the Moonmama for her invaluable aid (as always!) and to Molescout for encouraging me to take a stab at this fandom...our discussion about Molly's kitchen counter was the direct inspiration for where the, ahem, action, takes place in this story!

Sherlock Holmes wasn't dead.

Sherlock Holmes was in her flat.

Molly Hooper wasn't sure if she was in heaven…or in hell.

Oh, she'd known he wasn't dead; after all, hadn't she helped him fake that condition just over a week ago? Wasn't she the girl who counted, whom he trusted, the only one in his immediate circle of friends and confidants and close acquaintances who knew he wasn't really dead?

Even his best mate, John Watson, didn't know he was alive. Or his landlady, the lovely Mrs. Hudson whom she'd met only a few times but absolutely adored. Or DI Lestrade.

Even his brother didn't know he was alive.

More importantly, none of his enemies knew he was alive.

And she was the one Sherlock Holmes trusted, the only one who knew.

The trouble was, even with all that trust and counting and faith in her abilities to not only pull off faking his death but also a brilliant body switch, he was still, well, Sherlock.

He still treated her like an annoyance when he didn't need her.

Why had she expected things to change between them?

Just because he'd essentially bared his soul to her in the morgue at St. Bart's the night before he jumped off that same hallowed institution's roof?

Well, of course she did. He'd asked her if she would still want to help even if he wasn't everything she thought he was, everything he thought he was, and she'd simply asked him: "What do you need?"

Because whatever it was, of course she'd do it for him.

And his answer, the last thing he'd said he needed before spelling out what that would entail, had been a single word. "You."

He'd said he needed her. And the silly, stupid girl who was hopelessly in love with him had thrilled to that confession, thinking it meant so much more than it really did.

Silly, stupid girl. That was who she was, who she would always be, to herself and to him. Oh, someone who counted, someone he trusted with his life – but not with his heart. Never with that.

Because, she'd despairingly come to believe, Sherlock bloody Holmes didn't have one.

oOo

On bad days, that was what she told herself, despairing and frightened as he hid out inside her cramped flat until it was safe for him to leave, to go out and destroy Jim's – Moriarty's – criminal empire, rout it out to the last man, restore his reputation and eventually manage a triumphant return. The conquering hero, the prodigal son, and poor, stupid, silly Molly Hooper would remain unnoticed, in the background.

Relegated to the shadows of his regard yet again.

On good days, she told herself to snap out of it, that no one else knew the secret of his survival, and if that didn't count for something, then nothing ever would. Those were the days when he stopped pacing back and forth for hours at a time, stopped smoking the cigarettes he'd demanded she buy him – which she'd fetched, of course, because good little Molly Hooper always did what Sherlock Holmes demanded of her – and actually seemed to see her, to hear her when she spoke to him.

Those days she basked like her cat Toby in a patch of sunlight, positive that she'd done the right thing, and that by doing so, grown closer to the object of her affections.

Those days so far had numbered exactly two out of the eight he'd been sleeping on her sofa.

This day wasn't shaping up to be one of those days, either.

It started at breakfast. She was making too much noise, his head hurt, why couldn't she just grab some take away on her way to work like a normal person did? Like she usually did, he felt free to point out, using his cutting intellect to describe her usual eating habits to devastating effect.

She'd nearly turned and screamed at him then, nearly ordered him out of her flat if she was so fucking difficult to be around, but that wasn't the Molly Hooper he'd come to expect.

Nor was it the Molly Hooper she'd come to expect. Of course she wasn't going to scream at him or throw him out, no matter how crazy he was making her at that particular moment in time. However, her keyed up nerves required something more than simple acquiescence to his irritable demand, so she turned squarely to face him and said: "I'm not hungry for something in a packet, Sherlock. I'm hungry for bacon and eggs and I don't have to be to the morgue until 11:30 so you'll just have to put up with me rattling round my kitchen until I've eaten. Then you can go back to sleep if you like."

He huffed and swung his legs over the side of the sofa, with the blanket half-covering him and his hair tousled from his interrupted sleep. Glaring at her.

She deliberately turned her back on him, her heart accelerating as she contemplated her own daring. Oh, it wasn't standing up to a madman on a rooftop or turning and jumping off said roof (even knowing precautions had been taken to ensure one's survival didn't lessen the amount of sheer nerve it took to throw oneself off the roof of a multi-story building), but it was something. It was Molly Hooper taking an eight-days-cooped-up-with-Sherlock-in-my-flat-driv ing-me-barmy stand.

She felt his gaze boring into her back and resolutely refused to turn and look at him, or to rush into a stuttered apology the way the cowardly portion of her was urging her to do. She counted. She was someone he trusted, and even though she was still loaded down with piles and piles of insecurity, even though he really was driving her barmy – how did John Watson put up with living in the same flat with the man? – even though he was still able to make her feel silly and stupid, she was finally beginning to understand (on the good days) that this was simply him. The way he was with everyone.

Even – or perhaps especially – with shy pathologists who wore their hearts on their sleeves for all and sundry to see, who nursed hopeless feelings for someone whose own feelings were practically non-existent.

When he spoke again, he was so close to her that she literally jumped and spun around, squealing like a little girl, banging her hip painfully against the counter and nearly spilling them both onto the floor.

Only after his hands had grasped her arms in order to steady her did what he'd said to her register. As the realization sunk in, she gazed up at him, stunned into silence.

Had Sherlock Holmes just apologized to her? For the second time in her life, and, if John and Mrs. Hudson were to be believed, possibly for only the second time in his life?

"What, what did you say?" she asked, despising the stuttering but unable to control it. In fact, she realized, the only time she hadn't turned into a stuttering, clumsy idiot around him was the night he'd told her she counted.

Too bad she couldn't just call up that steadiness, that internal certainty, that she'd felt during that encounter. His vulnerability had helped her to shed her own insecurities for one glorious night.

He was peering at her intently, studying her, probably reading every thought in her head, but he always managed to do that…well, except for that horrible Christmas. She could always comfort herself with the knowledge that even Sherlock Holmes was occasionally capable of missing the blindingly obvious. "I said I was sorry," he told her as her thoughts twisted and curled themselves into the usual knots his presence provoked. Even after eight days in the same flat, stuck together except for the hours when she was at work, he knotted her up so badly…

So much for familiarity breeding contempt. In her case, the only thing it bred was confusion.

"Oh," she finally said, once she realized that yes, he'd said exactly what she thought he'd said. "That's – that's all right."

He was still holding her arms; she could feel every finger burning into her flesh, and knew her cheeks were burning as well. "No," he said, disagreeing with her, intense blue eyes studying her rather more ordinary brown ones. "It's not. You've done everything I asked of you, without question, without hesitation, at considerable risk to yourself, and I've been a…selfish prat."

That last sounded like a quote, something John might have said to him, or DI Lestrade. "It's all right," she repeated, more softly this time. She bit her lip and managed a smile. "I know how much you hate having to depend on anyone, and it doesn't take a detective to know you're going mad, stuck inside this flat all day and night. Waiting. I do understand."

She thought he'd release her, that the conversation was closed since she'd acknowledged his being-a-pratness and soothed him about it at the same time. He was enormously vain and egotistical but she'd grown to realize he was also enormously insecure.

It was positively endearing, and one of the only reasons she'd found for not tossing him out on his arse the second day of their enforced intimacy.

His hands were still on her arms. He was still peering closely into her eyes. She blinked rapidly and wondered what he was seeing. Was he even now deducing her hidden desires, cataloguing them…dismissing them as irrelevant and foolish? Or did this searching look mean something else entirely?

"You're in love with me."

Her mouth gaped open; of all the things he could have said, that wasn't even close to what she'd expected. "I – I – oh!" she exclaimed, wrenching her arms free of his grip and turning away from him. Of all the times for him to point out the obvious as if it were a shiny new revelation, she thought despairingly, why now? Why now, when she had no idea how to respond to his observation?

He wasn't letting her go. He was catching her around the waist and forcing her back to face him, not allowing her to run away the way she so desperately wanted to.

Why? What possible motive could he have for forcing her to admit to what everyone else already knew? Just to soothe that fragile ego of his, to make her admit that he was right?

Still, that was clearly his intent. He was searching her face again, had caught her wrists and forced them down by her sides as he waited for her to respond to his statement.

"I – yes," she finally hissed, exasperated and nervous and completely undone by the warmth of his elegant fingers wrapped around her wrists. "You know I am. You know that's why I can never say no to you, why I'll always do whatever you ask of me. It's why you trust me, isn't it? Because you know I'm in love with you and you've – you've tested that love, seen that no matter how horrible you are to me I never stop being in love with you."

She stopped the flood of words with a stifled sob, biting her lips to keep from making more of a fool of herself than she already had. To keep the angry, hurt tears from falling. Why was he doing this to her? Why couldn't he just leave it be? He'd be gone in a few days, had declared so just last night, told her it was almost safe for him to leave, that they wouldn't be trapped in her flat for much longer…

Why couldn't he just…disappear from her life the way he'd disappeared from everyone else's? She could handle it so much better if he was gone, someone she could safely love from afar, just waiting for the day she could stop pretending to mourn his loss.

Waiting for the day she finally managed to get her heart under control and stop loving him so desperately. Even though she knew, had just confessed to him, that that day would never come.

He released one of her hands and took her chin in his fingers instead, still peering down at her through dispassionate eyes. She was trembling from a combination of nerves and fear and pure adrenaline, her fight-or-flight reaction cut short by his refusal to just let her go – why wouldn't he just let her go?

She asked him, eyes closed as he forced her face up toward his. Refusing to look at him, to see whatever it was he was trying to make her see in his own eyes. His lack of feelings for her other than simple gratitude, she supposed. Perhaps, in his own way, he was trying to help her by forcing this bizarre confrontation in her tiny kitchen.

Perhaps he was trying to make her understand that loving him was a hopeless cause.

She went very, very still as she felt a sudden pressure against her lips, light, hesitant but becoming more confident…was he kissing her? Was Sherlock Holmes actually kissing her?

Her eyes popped open of their own accord, needing to verify that what her sense of touch was telling her wasn't an illusion or hallucination brought on by stress.

Sherlock Holmes was kissing her. Her, Molly Hooper, cat owner, St. Bart's pathologist, hopeless romantic. In her kitchen. Sherlock Holmes was deepening the kiss while she tried to gather her scattered wits and do more than stand, stunned like a deer in the headlights, and passively allow him to flick his tongue across her mouth until hers finally opened beneath his gentle, insistent pressure and gave him entrance.

The very small part of her that retained a shred of common sense ordered her to stop kissing him back, to stop pressing her body against his and take your hands out of his hair right now, missy, if you know what's good for you!

The rest of her gave that part a mental raspberry and encouraged her to go right on kissing Sherlock, running her fingers through that amazing, thick gorgeous black hair of his, grinding against him like some romance novel heroine who'd been overpowered by her desire for the hero.

She wasn't going to question (out loud) why this was happening (was he offering her a pity fuck, running an experiment, bored to tears and in desperate need of a distraction?) No, she was just going enjoy the moment for as long as it lasted.

It lasted long enough, as it turned out, for her to run out of breath, to be forced to pull back and gasp for air and stare into those brilliant, piercing blue eyes, chips of ice that seemed much warmer with the pupils blown back from what surely couldn't be…passion? Just as his cheekbones seemed even shaper, even more defined with the flush of heat burning across them…wait, he was reacting to the kiss the way she was, his breath coming in sharp, panting gasps, and his heart…with trembling fingers, she lowered one hand from where it had tangled in his hair and pressed it against his throat.

Taking his pulse.

He grinned at her, understanding not only what she was doing but why she was doing it. At least, that was how she interpreted that wicked, seductive flash of teeth, before he leaned his head down and pressed his lips to the same pulse point, nipping and sucking at it until Molly could no longer restrain a rather embarrassing moan. "Oh God, Sherlock…"

As soon as his name passed her lips, the very instant, as if it were the catalyst he'd been waiting for to further notch up the rising tension, she felt an insistent curl of heat against her midsection. Dear lord, she must be having a near-death experience, because there was no way she was feeling Sherlock Holmes' erection, hard and hot and lovely even through all the layers of clothing between them.

"Mmm," he murmured against her throat as his hands slid between their bodies and busied themselves with undoing the buttons on her blouse. "As I expected; caring about the person you're about to have sex with intensifies the experience."

Her eyes, which had fluttered closed, snapped open, and she stared at him, open-mouthed, as she tried to process what he'd just said. "Did – did you say…about to have…sex?" she squeaked. Surely she'd misheard him that time…

Sherlock's expression turned annoyed as he stopped unbuttoning her blouse (oh, wait, no he hadn't stopped, he'd finished and was now pulling it down over her shoulders and dropping it to the floor) and gave her a stern look. "Yes, Molly, I said sex," he drawled, giving the word the same inflection – although without the squeak in his voice – that she'd just used. "I also said caring in the same sentence, which generally means a great deal more to people than simple physical intimacy. Or is that not the case with you, hmm? Are you actually not in love with me?"

The words could have been wounding, but curiously enough, there was no bite to them, only a sort of gentle humor Molly never in a million years would have expected from Sherlock Holmes. "You know I am," she finally admitted in a breathless murmur, knowing her eyes must be as round as the proverbial saucers as his nimble fingers continued to dance across her body, touching her shoulders, her chin, the undersides of (ohgodohgodohgod) her breasts. "So, wait, you said caring, right, caring – about me? You were talking about how, how you feel, right?"

"Yes, Molly, I was talking about my feelings," he replied with an eye roll and a shake of the head. "Do try to keep up. Yes, I have feelings. Yes, I care about you. Yes," he added with a wicked grin, leaning his head down so his next words were breathed into her ear: "…we are about to have sex. Unless you'd rather have the bacon and eggs you were nattering about earlier?"

She replied without words, too overwhelmed for anything so cerebral, by turning her head and tiptoeing up so she could press her lips against his; by throwing her arms around his neck and holding him closely against her body; and (oh, she'd not been imagining it!) by grinding her pelvis against his heated erection, knowing that it wouldn't take a genius to deduce how soaked her knickers were getting.

No, he wasn't offering a pity fuck or bored or running an experiment. She'd been stupid to think that, but he did that to her, made her feel stupid just by being his usual, brilliant self, and she'd just have try and get used to feeling that way.

But not right now. Right now the only thing she wanted to be feeling was easily accessible; all she had to do was slide her hand down his shoulder, along his rib cage, and from there to the waistline of his pajama bottoms – and why, she thought distractedly as his lips made their way down the column of her throat and fastened themselves once again on her madly pounding pulse point – had it taken her this long to notice he wasn't wearing a bloody pajama top?!

Because he never wears one, and you've actually become used to seeing him this way, another part of her mind snapped. You've gotten a lovely view of his topless self wandering round your flat for the past eight days, good days and bad days alike, and now your fingers are hesitating to dive beneath his trousers…why, exactly?

Good question. One she was never going to answer, since Sherlock's fingers on her shoulder, easing her bra strap down in order to gain better access to the pink peaks of her breasts, quite easily distracted her.

Distracted her, and emboldened her. Without thinking about what she was doing, her hand dipped below the waistband of his pajama bottoms, making the exhilarating discovery that he was naked beneath the loose cotton…and just as hard and ready for her as she'd thought.

She felt him groan against her throat as her fingers made contact, and gave a few appreciative squeals of her own as she felt his thumb brush across her exposed nipple. With a few impatient tugs, he'd freed her breasts completely from their white cotton confinement (why didn't I wear the pretty pink lace one – right, because that one's special for Date Night, not for Going To Work Morning), then undid the front clasp. (See, having small breasts isn't always a disadvantage, I can wear front-clasp bras and you can…ohgodohgod…completely cover them with your hands and massage them just like that, yes, that's it, oh god, Sherlock…)

She felt her face flushing as she realized she'd actually said that last part aloud, but far from giving her The Look, the one that told her she'd just said something incredibly stupid or obvious and therefore unnecessary, he seemed to actually appreciate her inarticulate pleas, to the point that his hands left her breasts (not without a gasp of protest from her that he completely ignored) and landed on her hips.

The next thing she knew, she was hoisted onto her kitchen counter, the one she'd been pressed up against this entire time, and before more than a hasty thought of this is so unsanitary could cross her mind, he'd wedged himself between her legs, hauling her pelvis firmly against his (thank God he was so tall and she was so short, she'd never thought the difference in their heights could be an actual advantage!) before once again slanting his mouth across hers for another hungry, searing, breath-stealing kiss.

Her fingers found themselves once again entwined in his hair, since the amount of space available between them for her to be fondling his erection was approximately nil at the moment; any closer and he'd already be inside her, and Oh God! What a dizzy spell that thought gave her!

As if reading her thoughts (no, never that, Sherlock Holmes wouldn't need to be a mind reader to know what anyone was thinking, certainly not what she was thinking right at the moment), Sherlock's fingers hooked themselves into the elastic of her knickers, jerking them impatiently down, slowing just enough to allow her to shift her bum before speedily dropping them to her ankles. She kicked them off with a wiggle of her pelvis that brought a deep groan from his mouth directly into her ear, and she felt an answering shudder of pleasure shiver its way over her body as he ground against her. Then it was her turn to place fingers on waistband, tugging his pajama bottoms down as far as she could manage, waiting with not even the tiniest semblance of patience as he pulled away in order to step out of the (really annoying right now) fabric.

While their hands and bodies had been busy with the distraction of clothing removal, Sherlock's lips had returned to their task of wringing gasps and moans and squeals of pleasure from Molly's mouth, alternately sucking and licking and nipping at the base of her throat, the tops of her collarbones, just below her ears – and then returning to her mouth for another one of those melt-your-bones-to-butter kisses, his tongue gliding along her lips, teasing her mouth open, plunging inside to meet her own eager tongue as her hands braced themselves on his shoulders.

He pulled away again, wrenching a disappointed groan from her lips, but the wicked grin he gave her warned her that she wasn't going to remain disappointed for long – and as his mouth descended to her breasts she knew she was right. Incredibly, deliriously, deliciously right.

oOo

Listening to Molly, watching Molly, but most of all, feeling Molly as she squirmed and writhed and wiggled beneath his hands and mouth and (once again, most of all) lower body occupied exactly one hundred percent of Sherlock's attention. It had been a long time (extremely long and mostly deleted, a fact which he regretted right at this very moment but knew with a great deal of surety would be replaced by memories he would never delete and would, in fact, enjoy reviewing in his mind palace a great many times in the future) since he'd engaged in sexual congress with a woman and he was anxious to get this right.

Especially since, as he'd already informed Molly, he cared about her.

It seemed an inadequate exchange, his caring for her love, but it was the best he could manage and therefore would have to do. Molly certainly wasn't complaining, not at the moment, but then, they were about to have sex (no, not "have sex," you can at least call it something slightly less clinical in your mind – you're about to make love to this woman,) and so her reactions were bound to be somewhat skewed. Who knew how she would feel about his caring (not loving, not yet, perhaps not ever, only time and further analysis would tell) once the haze of sexual pleasure had passed?

Which time, he counseled himself as he sucked the nipple of her right breast into his mouth, was certainly not now. Not when she was moaning his name and pressing his head closer, wordlessly urging him to suck harder, to nibble – ? Ah, yes, definitely urging him to nibble at the hardened nub. And to, perhaps, pinch the other nipple slightly between finger and thumb…yes, certainly, that elicited a very agreeable response that translated itself into a shiver of desire throughout his entire body.

Without actively thinking about it he found his lips moving upward again, his fingers still nimbly employed in wringing very enjoyable noises from her. Almost as a surprise, he found their cores pressed even closer together, the slick wetness indicating Molly's very definite desire causing a very enjoyable friction against his erection. He thrust against her, eliciting another one of those agreeable gasps of pleasure from her lips, causing her to dig her fingernails into his shoulders. The discomfort that caused only served to heighten his arousal, and he found his patience rapidly eroding in the face of his desire to not simply press himself against her, but to actively penetrate her body with his.

Although he'd already ascertained her readiness for such activity by the sensation of vulva against his erection, he found the analytical part of his brain insisted that he use another method of corroboration.

And perhaps, he thought before deliberately shutting down that analytical part of his mind (which, really, was starting to get in the way with its cataloging and examining while his hind brain was insisting that he get to the good bits RIGHT NOW), Molly would make some even more interesting and satisfying noises when he put his sense of taste to use…

oOo

Molly thought she'd died and was well on her way to heaven when Sherlock's prick was rubbing against her center. She was certain that was her destination when his long, clever fingers brushed against that same spot, his thumb gently rubbing her swollen clit as his tongue (just as clever as his fingers) flicked against her right nipple in counterpoint to the slower movements of his other hand on her left breast.

She sucked in her breath, closed her eyes, and knew, beyond any possible doubt, that Heaven had been fully achieved when he lowered his mouth from her breasts, bent that perfect, whip thin body of his nearly in half, and replaced fingers with tongue deep inside her dripping core.

"Sherlock!" she gasped out in a strangled moan, fingers digging into his curls, pressing against his scalp, legs opening wider to allow him better access, not caring that her head had banged up against the cupboard door or that her left thigh was now resting on the cold stainless steel corner of her sink.

He paused just long enough to gaze up at her with a predatory smile, teeth flashing in smug satisfaction as she stared down at him in naked need, before returning to his ministrations. Another moan, guttural and animalistic (and fuck it if she cared how it sounded) escaped her throat as he slipped first one, then a second finger deep inside her while his tongue (oh God what a fucking marvel his tongue was turning out to be, just as clever at pleasuring a woman as it was at hurling insults) continued to work her clit, bringing her closer and closer to the peak she knew wasn't far in her future.

When she came, it was with an actual scream tearing itself from her throat, an honest-to-God top-of-the-lungs scream; with any luck the neighbors were still off on that holiday trip they'd taken because otherwise they'd be calling 999 out of the conviction that she was being murdered in her kitchen.

While she was still recovering from the cascade of pleasure shuddering its way through her body, hands dropped to her side and limp from the stranglehold they'd had on Sherlock's hair (terrible, mixing metaphors like that, or was it just the wrong way to put it, who cared), he'd raised himself back to his full height, well not quite since he was bending down to capture her mouth for a sloppy, tasting-of-herself kiss that she returned with as much energy as she could muster.

oOo

Ah, that had been exactly the reaction he'd been seeking when he lowered his head and pressed his mouth against her vulva (even with the analytical part of his mind shut down he absolutely refused to allow himself to refer to that part of Molly's anatomy as her pussy or any of those other distasteful euphemisms so prevalent in the pornography he'd perused on John's laptop out of idle curiosity coupled with mind-numbing boredom a few months ago). Her scream of pleasure was most gratifying, had the effect of hardening his erection to a near painful throbbing.

Only one thing for it, only one way to soothe the ache Molly had awakened in his body with her confession of love for him (a feeling he still found difficult to process but empirical evidence corroborated the words he'd essentially forced out of her, just as those same words had awakened his long-dormant libido with a force he'd not been prepared to resist).

He grasped her thighs, lifting them slightly in order to maximize the best angle for penetration, then leaned down and whispered in her ear as she shook and shivered and panted in the aftermath of her (first but not destined to be last) orgasm of the morning: "You have a birth control implant, you've been with no other man since before your annual checkup six months ago and are clean and clear of disease. I've been with no one for the past fifteen years and my own annual checkup certified me just as clean and clear. Since we have no condom, I thought it important to share that with you since I am about to –" (oops, almost said "initiate penetration", not the best way to put it, perhaps those euphemisms have their place after all) – "fuck you silly," he concluded before pressing the head of his shaft against Molly's slick opening.

He'd chosen the correct way of expressing himself; when he finished speaking, she gasped, her eyes flying up to meet his, the brown almost completely obscured by her blown back pupils, her pale flesh pink and sweat-slicked, her hair almost completely freed from the restraint of the elastic she'd tied around it while preparing to leave for work.

Hmm. Perhaps the analytical part of his mind was impossible to fully shut down after all. A pity, but at least his mind was still completely focused on what was happening between the two of them. For instance, it was probably a good thing for him to note that there was over an hour left before Molly had to be at St. Bart's, which left ample time for them to have sex (no, no, for you to make love, remember to call it making love for Molly's sake, even in your own mind), shower, and then, perhaps, share a bite to eat.

The adolescent part of his mind chortled that he'd already had a bite to eat, but he ignored it as he pressed himself inside Molly, having received no indication from her that she didn't want him to proceed with what he'd started.

He wanted to go slowly, to take his time, to process the sensations that threatened to overwhelm him as he felt himself entering her, but his body had its own agenda; suddenly he found himself thrusting into her, hearing her cry out his name as full penetration was achieved, and his own cry joined hers as he felt her ankles lock together around his waist, as she moved with him, matching his thrusts with her own, faster and harder, her fingernails once again digging into his shoulders, urging him on, his own hands grasping her hips hard enough to leave bruises as he buried his teeth into the base of her neck, sucking and nibbling, marking her like some primitive from the dawn of time…

oOo

I'm about to fuck you silly. Sherlock Holmes had actually used those words to describe sex to her. Sex with her, Molly corrected herself as the post-orgasmic daze started to lift from her mind. She vaguely recalled he'd said something before that, something meant to reassure her that, in spite of the lack of a condom, they had nothing to worry about as far as pregnancy and disease were concerned, but really, who cared? Well, she would, once this was over, but right now, right this second, all she wanted was for him to get on with fucking her silly.

And when he did…she'd thought him going down on her had been arrival at heaven's gates, but now realized she'd merely been halfway up the stairway. Now, now she was truly in heaven, with Sherlock Holmes thrusting into her, his eyes screwed tightly shut, his hands grasping her hips so hard he was going to leave marks, his chest mashing into hers with every move their bodies made, and when he sank his teeth into her neck she felt another scream building in her throat.

She forced it down, not wanting to let loose right in his ear, but then his mouth was no longer on her throat, his lips had found hers, the taste of her musk still on his tongue as he kissed her, and the scream made its way out in short, sharp bursts, from her mouth to his as she shuddered to a second orgasm.

His thrusts became disjointed, erratic, then resumed with increased urgency as she felt him building to his own climax.

And when he came, his lips against her ear, her heart sang as she heard him gasping out her name, over and over again: "Molly, Molly, dear God, Molly…"

oOo

Once the mindlessness of orgasm had been banished, Sherlock found his head once again buried in the crook of Molly's neck, her legs still wrapped around his waist, one arm draped across his shoulders and the other hand gently running through his hair.

He remained where he was, feeling a great deal of satisfaction in the immediate aftermath of what had been an extremely gratifying sexual encounter. Not just physical satisfaction, although there was certainly no denying that his body was freer of tension than it had been in months. No, there was a certain amount of mental satisfaction as well, his mind not yet ready to process anything new, content with reviewing, over and over, the events that had just occurred in Molly Hooper's flat.

In her kitchen, to be exact. The kitchen where they still rested, bodies slick with shared sweat and other fluids which would need to be cleansed away…time for that shower he'd been contemplating earlier. And, since Molly would no doubt start to question what had happened between them, to second guess his motives if he simply pulled out of her and walked away, he scooped her up without a word, carrying her directly to the washroom as she squeaked in alarm and tightened her grip on his shoulders. "Sherlock, what…"

"A shower, Molly," he replied, settling her more comfortably against his body as he headed toward his goal. "We're both in desperate need of one, wouldn't you say?"

To further discourage any sort of worry on her part that things would go back to the way they had been between them, he kissed her cheek. "I promise, Molly, I will do my very best not to say awful things to you in the future. But if I do," he nuzzled her neck as they reached the washroom door, "I promise, it won't be because I don't care. It'll be because I do it to everyone. Can that be…can that be enough?" he asked as he lowered her carefully to her feet, suddenly uncertain. There was bound to be more than one future discussion of What This Meant, and he wanted his position to be clear from the start.

Molly nodded, eyes shining; good. He leaned forward to press another kiss to her lips, hand lingering on her waist as he kicked the door shut behind them. They would talk; he would impress upon her the fact that he was, in no way, to ever be called her boyfriend; then he would make it equally clear that yes, he considered the two of them to now be in a relationship. A romantic relationship, for lack of a better term. Not simply a physical stress-relieving sexual relationship, either; knowing her tendency toward self-doubt he knew he'd have to spell that out for her, but a remember-each-other's-birthdays, don't-date-or-have-sex-with-other-people relationship that could, one day (Who knew? Today was turning out to be full of possibilities he hadn't considered exploring until he realized exactly how deeply Molly's feeling for him ran) turn into something involving shared flats, possibly even marriage and children.

Someday. After he'd accomplished what he'd gone to such desperate lengths to do. After he'd dismantled Moriarty's criminal network and was able to reclaim his name and reputation.

All of that, of course, he thought distractedly as he watched Molly bend over to turn on the tap, was for much later. After the two of them had thoroughly explored the delightful possibilities of sex in the shower.