A/N: An AU scene based on the idea of Castle having a different reaction to finding Beckett using the espresso machine in 1x04 (Hell Hath No Fury).
The bullpen is practically empty by nine, city lights illuminating the dark corners, the sound of car horns and distant footsteps the only sounds to accompany her. She finally has peace, time to be alone and do her job without her infuriating shadow there to distract her and still, she's getting nowhere on the murder of Councilman Horn.
Beckett scrapes a hand through her hair and rests her cheek in her palm, allowing her eyes to slide towards the open break room doorway.
The espresso machine calls to her, tempting her with the phantom taste of good coffee, because he's right about one thing, the coffee they were all drinking before he showed up is cringe worthy sludge. And since Castle isn't here, it couldn't hurt to allow herself just one cup…
Kate drops her pen, scans the bullpen one more time just to be certain, and rises from her chair, strolling towards the break room and slipping inside. She had watched Castle teach the boys how to make lattes earlier and she mimics the placement of his fingers on the buttons, watching with delight as her small mug slowly begins to fill with the rich, amber liquid. She curls a tentative finger around the handle of her cup and allows her eyes to flutter closed while she releases a breath of contentment, a languid smile spreading across her lips-
"Sexy."
His husked whisper has her startling so harshly, her cup nearly flies to the ground, her fingers knocking into the porcelain and sending coffee spilling across the tray, hot splashes of the liquid searing her fingertips and she curses.
"What the hell, Castle?" she hisses, placing her lips to her scalded index finger and attempting to soothe the burnt spot of skin with her tongue. His eyes turn to an entirely unfamiliar shade of blue, cerulean swirling to indigo, and she furrows her brow at him. "Did you actually come here with a purpose?" she snaps, her frustration rising the longer he stands there in the doorway.
Something dark flashes in his gaze, something wild and dangerous, and she instinctively glances past him to check the bullpen. Still empty.
She's not sure if she's distressed or relieved.
"I came because I had a case cracking revelation, but I think I just found a new purpose," he murmurs with a smirk, sauntering inside and easing the door shut behind him.
"If you think you're going to seduce me," she starts dryly, crossing her arms and leaning back against the counter. "You're delusional."
"I think the espresso machine has already done a thorough job of seducing you," he chuckles, flicking his eyes to her ruined cup of coffee, and she growls at him. "Don't worry, Beckett. I'll fix you a new cup."
"I don't want your fancy coffee," she mutters, pointlessly now, but he only shrugs, stepping past her to deposit her empty cup in the sink anyway.
"Don't knock it 'til you try it," he chirps, retrieving a clean coffee cup from atop the machine and restarting the settings for a fresh latte.
"I don't want to try it," she bites out. "There was nothing wrong with our coffee until you came along."
He isn't perturbed by her vicious tone and that annoys her. How is it fair that he gets to come here every day, take over her turf and invade her personal space and burrow so deeply under her skin without even having to try, yet she can't even get a single rise out of him?
"You know what I think, Detective?" he quips, propping his hip on the counter, just a couple of inches away from her while he waits for the machine to start up. "This case has you extremely wound up, I can tell. I think you need to give yourself a chance to relax, like you were before I came in."
"If you want me to relax, then you will turn around and walk out of this precinct and leave me in peace," she informs him with an underlying snarl still lacing her words.
"Where's the fun in that?" he grins, so wicked and charming, and she wants to break his jaw and tug his bottom lip between her teeth at the same time. Only one of the two seems plausible, and she's not doing that. "The look on your face when I walked in," he murmurs suddenly, drifting in closer, eventually boxing her in against the corner of the counter and the wall before she can even realize his intentions. "I can't even come up with a fitting adjective for it."
It's not until he's towering in front of her that she truly notices the broadness of his chest, the strength in his shoulders hidden beneath the expensive fabric of his blazer, and she represses the urge to splay her hands over the hard planes of his body, to make him come undone.
"It makes me wonder if that's what you look like when you-"
She curls her hands into fists at her sides and glares up at him, cutting off that sentence with the sharp slits of her eyes.
"I hate you."
She hates him, but she doesn't break his hands when they flutter lightly at her hips, barely touching, and she hates him even more when she has to press her thighs together and he notices.
"I know," he murmurs, the teasing slipping from his voice, the lust that slowly spreads from his eyes to consume his face seeping into his words. "But am I still allowed to do this?"
One of his hands migrates from her hip to the middle of her waist, toying with the button of her jeans, giving her the chance to end this bizarre situation she's somehow landed in, but all she can manage is a thick swallow and a shallow cant of her hips when he flicks the button open and drags her zipper down. He traces a finger over the front of her panties, teasing her with only a whisper of a touch.
Castle grins when she bites down on her bottom lip, his eyes glued to her face, eager to absorb every reaction, and she tries to grab his wrist, force him past the barrier of plain black cotton between her and his fingers.
"Not yet," he murmurs and she almost snags his ear in frustration because how dare he tell her no after he's just got her all wound up in the worst way possible.
She cuts her eyes to the door once more while he brushes his knuckles over the taut expanse of her abdomen, noticing the bastard had the audacity to lock it, but then he's dropping to his knees and dragging her jeans down past her knees and thank god the presumptuous jerk locked the door.
The hot exhale he releases when he slips her underwear down has her shuddering, gripping the back of his head by reflex. She expects a teasing remark, but he doesn't speak, doesn't shoot her a smug look. No, he wastes no time with teasing. He leans forward and smears his open mouth to the protruding bone of her hip, swirling his tongue in the hollow of the skin, scraping his teeth over her sensitive flesh.
"Oh," she gasps, burying her fingers deep in his hair while her other hand curls around the hard edge of the counter at her back.
He treats her opposite hip with the same attention, sucking hard enough on her porcelain skin to leave marks, but she doesn't care, doesn't have the willpower to care. He looks so much better between her legs.
"You have a tattoo," he husks, lifting one of the hands that had been tracing patterns on her outer thighs to skim his thumb over the black ink that usually remains hidden beneath two layers of fabric. He touches his lips to the skin there too, makes her jerk and has the whine in her throat building, begging to slip past her lips.
Beckett uses the hand in his hair to try and direct him lower, where she's starting to burn for him and his wicked mouth, but he ignores the tugging guidance of her hand, going higher instead.
"Dammit Castle," she grits out, unable to restrain the buck of her hips when he circles her navel with her tongue, eliciting a sharp tremble in her abs.
"Be patient, Beckett," he scolds, his lips curving upwards along her skin. "I promise it'll be worth the wait."
"Pretty presumptuous," she mutters, but it comes out breathless, pathetically breathless, and she watches his shoulders lift in a halfhearted shrug.
"Guess we'll find out," he responds, piercing blue eyes holding hers as he hovers so close, so close… "Won't we?"
"You think you're so-" Her attempt at an insult dies on a gasp as he finally covers her with his mouth, his tongue slicking through her folds, drinking up the pool of her arousal that she hates herself for, but she can't remember the last time she was this wet, this desperate, for another person.
He's pulling away all too soon and she whimpers, tries to steer him back, but he's unzipping the ankle boot on her right foot and drawing her leg from the jeans pooling at her shins, lifting her leg to rest over his shoulder. He sweeps a string of nipping kisses to the inside of her thigh before he returns to her center, attaching his mouth to her clit, sucking hard, curling his tongue over the swollen bundle of nerves, and she can't help the high pitched mewling noise that claws past her lips.
"Shh, Beckett," he chuckles against her, the vibrations of his deep voice sending her head slamming backwards against the cabinet behind her, and she digs her nails into his scalp, crying out again when he hisses.
Her hips dance, canting towards his just out of reach mouth again and he doesn't resist her, pressing the flat of his tongue to her core, stroking a path through her wetness, grazing his teeth over her clit, using his hands to pull her flush against his mouth when her body involuntarily shies away from the onslaught of pleasure.
She curls the leg at his back tighter, digging her heel into one of his shoulder blades and he groans her name. She almost screams when one of his hands abandon her thighs to join his tongue, two fingers plunging deep without warning, and his body beneath her is the only thing keeping her knees from buckling.
Incoherent words, curses, tumble from her mouth and he thrust harder, deeper, curling his fingers against that elusive spot inside her while his tongue and teeth work over her clit, grazing, nipping, suckling and she can't resist the bursts of pleasure anymore, finally allowing the white-hot wave of release to consume her. But he doesn't stop, continuing his ministrations, drawing out her pleasure until it's too much, bordering on painful, and she jerks him from between her legs with the quivering hand still tangled in his hair.
"I was right," he pants, resting the flat of his cheek against the contracting muscles of her abdomen. "You're stunning when you fall apart."
Fuck, his words already have her body flaring with heat again. She slowly retracts her leg from his shoulder, breathing out a quiet groan when he decides to help, holding her thigh captive in his arm for a moment, sealing his lips to the quivering muscle before easing her leg back into her pants. She drags him up from his knees and he slides her jeans up the length of her legs while he rises, fitting them over her hips just before she yanks him against her by the collar of his wrinkled dress shirt.
Beckett sucks his tongue into her mouth, tasting the tart flavor of herself still fresh and prominent on his tongue, and Castle moans, pins her back against the counter, angling her head with his hands on either side of her face to gain deeper access.
She's just unbuckled his belt, slipped a hand inside his slacks and cupped the thrumming hardness beneath his boxers when the door rattles.
"Shit," she gasps, practically shoving him off of her. Castle catches his balance on the table, comes back to button her jeans for her while she manages to slide her shoe back on and scrape her fingers through her tousled hair, over her rumpled shirt.
It's Karpowski at the door, peering down curiously at the knob and Kate shoots a quick look at Castle as she strides towards the locked break room entrance.
"Just act normal. If that's even possible for you," she whispers and he nods, gives her a thumbs up as he leans casually against the damn espresso machine that started all of this.
"Hey Karpowski," Beckett greets as she tugs the door open with feigned difficulty. "Sorry, the door must have jammed."
The fellow detective looks exhausted, tired enough that she doesn't question why the door was closed in the first place, only shakes her head and mutters something about calling maintenance in the morning.
"Ah, here I already have a cup made," Castle says when Karpowski heads towards their old coffeemaker now shoved in the opposite corner of the counter.
Karpowski takes the cup with a nod and then turns towards Beckett with a smirk. "Huh, well look at that, Beckett. Your writer's good for something after all."
Castle huffs in mock offense as the woman leaves with the coffee in hand, but once Karpowski is out of sight, Beckett is striding back towards him, poking him hard in the chest with her finger.
"That was mine."
Castle's eyes sparkle with amusement, traces of heat still simmering in the blue flames of his irises.
"You know, I have an even better coffeemaker at the loft," he muses, checking the bullpen over her shoulder before planting his palms on her hips and hauling her in close.
She chews on her bottom lip, determined to sink her teeth into his before the night is over, but going to his place? That sounds like an even worse idea.
"I still don't like you," she mumbles, turning on her heel and heading back towards her desk, snatching her purse from the bottom drawer and tucking their current case file into another. "And this doesn't mean anything either."
He smirks as he saunters along beside her to the elevator, standing far too close to her in the descending lift to be acceptable, brushing his knuckles along the outside of her thigh until the doors open again.
"Whatever you say, Detective."
Richard Castle keeps her up for half the night, discovering every way possible to make her scream without letting her (because of course the man has bookshelves for walls) and theorizing with her about the case between rounds. He makes her coffee in the morning before his daughter can wake, shares a cup with her in his bed, and kisses her goodbye when she slips out the door at sunrise.
She hates to admit it, would never say it aloud, but she falls in love with his special blend of coffee after the first sip and she slowly starts to hate him a little less after her first night in his bed.