Written for Porn Battle XIV (Prompt: Richard Castle/Kate Beckett, 'unwritten', 'muse'). Not very graphic, but there is a bit of sexual content and terminology used within. Feedback and constructive criticism welcome and gratefully received. Enjoy!
Kate asks him the question one night when she's lying in his arms, post-yet-more-of-the-best-sex-he's-ever-had, and she's been quiet for so long that Rick thinks she's fallen asleep before he hears her voice, calm but firm, with just a hint of insecurity.
"How much of this will you be writing about?"
He knows exactly what she's talking about from the start - it's the question every writer gets, eventually - but he hedges for a moment, uses the fact that she blew his mind just a few minutes before to his advantage.
"You know what I mean," she insists. "Us. This."
He doesn't remember his exact reply; it's something serious-yet-flippant, no doubt, something purely designed to get rid of the anxious way she bites her lip and make her roll her eyes at his silliness or, better yet, give her one of those grins he sees more of these days, the grins that light up her whole face so that her eyes practically glow (he loves those grins). Partly because he hates to see her worry but also partly because it's not entirely an easy question for a writer to answer, how much of the creation will be informed by the muse. Where Kate Beckett ends and Nikki Heat begins.
Certainly, she was worried enough about it before he ever saw her naked, so it's not entirely a surprise that she's dwelling on it now that they've shared a bed, now that he knows her intimately. It's because she's reserved, surprisingly shy for a tough no-nonsense cop, and she worries over everything, obsesses and fixates until she's created major problems out of nothing in her mind.
(This isn't entirely the problem it might seem because it just gives him more opportunity to make her forget her worries into action, and he's gotten very good at it by now.)
Besides, if he was entirely honest with her - not that he lies, strictly speaking, because there's been too many lies between them, enough that he could never lie to her again, but there's so many things he wants to say to her that he somehow can't find the words for - he'd tell her that she had no need to worry. Not because he wouldn't ever embarrass her (he would, frequently and cheerfully, oh, and there's been plenty of juicy stuff he's learned about her since they finally hooked up that he's just waiting for the perfect opportunity to spring onto Nikki/her), but because, oddly enough, he's selfish.
Because there's so much he's discovered about her that he doesn't want anyone else to know. Because knowingly or not, she's given him secrets about her that he'd die before he let anyone have knowledge of, through Nikki or otherwise. So many tiny details about her that will go unwritten, that will forever be just between the two of them.
Like the way she feels under his hands, the places where the smoothness of her skin is interrupted by scars that hint at so many stories about her - some of which he knows the origins of, some of which he wishes he could have taken in her place (a spot between her breasts comes to mind), others more he's still teasing out of her.
Like the places on her body where she dissolves into helpless giggles and squeals or deep, aroused moans with just the right kind of touch.
Like the things she likes him to whisper into her ears when they make love, the way she shivers in delight as he describes the things he wants to do with and to her using all the words she'll never admit that she loves to hear him use.
Like the way she grips onto him, digging her fingers into his back and shoulders when he's on top of her or the way she kneads his chest with her fingers when she rides him, like she's afraid to let go of him.
Like exactly how she feels around him when he enters her, and the exact sounds she makes when he's inside her (he's never managed to make her scream, not for want of trying, but there's a sound that he can tease out of her that that somewhere between a moan, a grunt and a whine, and God help him, that's just as good), and the way her eyelids flutter and her eyes roll and the exact shade of pink her skin flushes when she goes over the edge, and the exact way it feels to go over the edge with her...
Like the way the weight of her feels in his arms feels, afterwards.
Like the way he never wants to let her go.