"Castle!"
The vaguely familiar voice barking his name was enough to wake Rick Castle from a dead sleep. He slowly opened one eye in the direction of the sound. The familiar shape of the woman silhouetted against the streetlight shining in the bedroom window was enough for him to open the other eye and attempt to shake some of the fog from his brain. The red numbers on the bedside table said it had been a little less than an hour since he had come home from the charity poker game, a little poorer and a fair bit drunker. So what on earth was Detective Kate Beckett doing in his bedroom?
"Beckett?" he croaked, confusion evident on his face. He looked a little rough, she thought, but not nearly as fall-down-drunk as she would have thought he'd be after that night. "What are you doing here? Are you okay?"
"While you were off at your little party, we got called in as backup for a bust. Perp's Mazda totaled my car while he was trying to get out of there. Lucky for us he was knocked unconscious by the airbag," she explained. That still didn't answer his question, she could see. "I got a couple of scrapes, but mostly I'm just so sore I can barely move and too tired to bother finding a way back across the city. Mind if I crash here?"
Castle thought for a moment before reaching beside him and pulling back the covers of his own bed.
"You're hilarious," she joked, too tired to put anything into it besides biting sarcasm.
"I'm not kidding. Mom's spending the night since Chet is having all his old buddies over to watch the Nix, and Alexis is asleep in the other spare room since her room and Mom's old room are being renovated. It's this or the couch," he explained, not even lifting his head from the pillow. It was obvious that he was exhausted too, and she vaguely remembered that whiskey did that to him. She sighed. His bed looked unbelievably comfortable, and she was sure it was the best money could buy. And now that she was here, it seemed a much easier option than putting her boots and coat back on and figuring out a way home.
She turned around and unzipped her pants, letting them slide to the floor as she slipped her jacket off her shoulders. She wriggled out of the long-sleeved, v-neck t-shirt she'd opted for that morning, then slid off her stockings. She almost chuckled to think that she was standing in Castle's bedroom in black lace bra and underwear, but instead she tiptoed over to his open closet door and picked out a button-up shirt. It looked burgundy, but in the dim lighting it was hard to tell. Without bothering to undo the buttons she slipped the shirt over her head. It smelled a like him, just enough that he'd probably tried it on, but then opted for something else. She had to stop herself from acting on her irrational desire to bury her face in the soft fabric and breathe it in.
She quietly padded back over to the king-sized bed, where the king appeared to have dozed off again on his stomach. She slid between the sheets, high-end and glorious against her bare legs, and rolled over so that she faced away from him. The bed was just the right combination of firmness and comfort, and her aching body decided that she could possibly stay in that bed forever. Her last thought before drifting off was how lucky she was that it was too dark for anyone to see the burning red blush creeping up her cheeks thinking about how glorious it would be to have Castle rip her clothes off in this very bed.
Castle opened his eyes slowly, swearing silently to himself as he took stock of his situation. Sunlight was just starting to peek through the curtains, and he was in his bed, on his side, with one arm wrapped possessively around a woman whose back was pressed up against him. He sighed. He had very purposefully not drank too much the night before so that he wouldn't wind up in exactly this situation.
Kate awoke to a slight movement behind her. She was in an unbelievably comfortable bed with a strong, warm body pressed up against her back and an arm holding tightly against that body. Speaking of bodies, hers hurt everywhere. Her neck was stiff, her shoulders and back were knotted and aching, and it seemed like every muscle in her body was sore. She wracked her brain for half a second before recalling the car accident, and the resulting decision to...
"Castle!" she exclaimed as she figured out exactly who it was pressed against her back. She managed to roll onto her back to look into his mildly confused expression, but that act was only accomplished with a great deal of discomfort on her part.
"Kate," he said evenly, hiding his surprise well. The events of last night were coming back to him with startling clarity...especially the part where Kate Beckett stood in his bedroom wearing nothing but a black lace bra and thong. "How do you feel?"
"Sore," she sighed, confident that he knew they hadn't done what it looked like they'd done last night. She ran her fingers through her hair, at least as much as she could given that about half her shoulder's range of motion was cut off by her pain tolerance. She barely reached back to knead at the base of her neck, trying to get the kinks out enough that she could function.
"Roll over," he ordered.
"What? No," she answered, confused and suspicious.
"Just do it, Beckett," he demanded less directly, but just as potently. "My bed, my rules."
She did what he told her, rolling over onto her stomach and burying her face in his feather pillow. She fought the urge to moan when she felt his strong fingers digging into the aching muscles at the base of her neck. He was skilled, quickly finding the knots in her neck, back, and shoulders and firmly massaging them away. She relaxed, closed her eyes, and moaned softly as he smoothed a stubborn ache in her lower back. He smirked at the sound, thinking of other, more amusing ways to make her moan.
"You have to go into the precinct today?" he asked, deciding conversation was his best guard against his growing arousal.
"No," she decided after a moment pause. "Unless there's a murder we get called in on, I can put off my paperwork until tomorrow." She didn't want to get out of his bed until tomorrow.
"Well," he said, enjoying the feel of her sculpted lower back under his fingers. "you're welcome to stay here as long as you like. Better?"
She very nearly sighed her disappointment when his strong hands abandoned her body, but she moved experimentally. To her surprise, though she wasn't pain-free, much of the stiffness had left her neck and shoulders. "Much," she answered. "Thank you."
"Go back to sleep," he ordered, climbing off the bed and sliding jeans on over his boxers. Damn, the man looked good in jeans. "I'm going to make breakfast. I'll wake you when its ready." She appreciatively watched his backside leave the room, then burrowed further into the luxury of his bed and closed her eyes. She really shouldn't go back to sleep, she thought, but hey, his bed, his rules.
A/N: Hey guys, this is my second Castle fic and it is a fair bit less steamy (so far!) than the first one. I wrote it in about twenty minutes the other night and I wasn't sure what to do with it, but I figured I should just post it and see where your suggestions lead me! So that is my long-winded way of asking for your reviews, because I'm not sure exactly what to do with this one! xo