Here I am dangling,
from the strings of your silence,
the end of your kiss.
Tyler Knott Gregson
For Eli, cèol mo chridhe.
The loft is quiet.
Kate has never, ever, been in the loft when it's quiet before. She's seen loud, breakfast at the kitchen island as she regaled the story of Castle's escapades to his family and poker games with her colleagues that got just a little too rowdy for his living room.
She's never been alone in his loft before.
Well okay, technically she's not alone right now either. But Castle and his family are safely tucked away in bed. They haven't been wrenched from sleep with the lick of fire at the column of their throats and the desperate arrhythmia of adrenaline and finality through their veins. Not like Kate.
Her stupid, stupid body won't stop trembling. Pretty much since Castle basically carried her out of her apartment as the flames caught on her couch and her curtains and her bookshelves, the threads of tension have been wrapping tighter and tighter around her. At her spine, tendrils of calamity kiss each vertebra and her fingers clatter together at the knuckles.
The refrigerator looms in front of her, its shape little more than a blurred omnipresence in the felt darkness of his kitchen. Night brushes against Kate's skin, soothing and cool as it takes her in a gentle embrace. She keeps thinking about Neruda, about hunting through the leaves of night for Castle's hands.
How he'd open them to her, draw her in and let the frenetic wave of her body crash into the cove of his own over and over until she unwound, came apart in his hands. And not even- it's not that she wants him to touch her like that, she just feels blistered and raw and more than anything she craves the touch of someone she cares about.
Someone to care about her.
And now she's thinking about his hands on her and his mouth and God, she has nothing. Absolutely nothing, and even so a stupid part of her thinks it could cease to matter if she could only let him take care of her the way he longs to.
Tugging open the refrigerator, Kate lets the spill of cold air onto the slate tile lap at her toes, the shock of it climbing up her shins and swelling in her knees. She only came down here for a drink of water and instead she's thinking about Castle. About having sex with Castle.
She pulls a bottled water off of the shelf and unscrews the cap, takes a long drink. The water slips down easily, nourishing her throat where it still feels raw and blackened from smoke damage. Lifting her wrist, Kate glances to her father's watch to check the time.
Only, her father's watch isn't there. She lost it in the explosion. All she has in the world is her mother's ring on a chain warped from the heat and a closet full of smoke-damaged clothes. Her eyes burn with stupid tears and Kate lets them fall, a hot slide down to the precipice of her jaw and a long, heart-stopping drop to soak into the collar of her shirt.
Her breath comes thicker, her lungs already protesting from the smoke and now this. She can't afford to break down. Not in Castle's kitchen, not at three in the morning. If she starts now, lets it permeate right down into the cavernous spaces between her bones, she will never be able to convince Jordan Shaw to let her back onto the case.
The thought of not getting to hunt this bastard down and see his face when they arrest him, take him into interrogation and prove that he can blow up her apartment, he can kill in her name, but he can't ever break her, makes her knees give. Kate lets the counter catch her weight, sagging against it as she heaves in oxygen as best she can through the thick clog of tears.
So focused on keeping her pain quiet that she doesn't even hear him approach, she startles violently as Castle curls his fingers around the top of her shoulder and turns her to face him. Kate lifts her head to meet his eyes and finds she doesn't even have the energy to feel ashamed.
Yes, she's crying in his kitchen in the middle of the night and now she probably looks puffy and red and awful, but so what. He pretty much saw her naked this morning. He saw her sob over the body of the man who killed her mother last month. It just. . . doesn't matter anymore. She's not afraid to be a little bit broken in front of him.
"Sorry I woke you." Kate murmurs, stupidly proud that her voice doesn't break. Her breath shatters in her mouth, coming out shaky and brittle, but it's okay. She can get it together.
Something in Castle's eyes hardens in resolution and he tugs her in, the arm at her shoulder curling around her other bicep to draw her body in against his. She goes easily, settling against the solid warmth of his chest and closing her eyes as his scent lifts up to meet her.
"You didn't wake me. I was already up."
Oh. Huh. So she's not the only one for whom this case is an unwelcome fount of all-too-realistic material for her nightmares. She pulls back just a little, enough to see him, and tries not to read too much into it when he loops his arms at her waist. "You writing?"
"Oh, uh. . .no. No." He flushes, his cheeks pinking up even with the splash of moonlight onto his cheekbones and the swathes of shadow underneath.
Kate raises an eyebrow at him, nudging his arms away from her. They don't do this; he doesn't get to just touch her with no pretence in the middle of the night. "No?"
"I was mostly just worrying about you." He huffs a self-deprecating laugh and tilts his body a little as if he can't bear to witness her reaction to that. It's not exactly a surprise, but she never would have expected him to just come right out and say it. The whole ordeal must have scared him more than he's letting on.
Kate says nothing, her tongue a heavy and useless thing floundering against her teeth as she tries to string together words precious as pearls. Words that will show him how much it means that he cares, without being too much. And then he's turning back, his jaw sharp with determination.
"I'm so glad you're okay, Kate. I can't- if you hadn't been, I-"
"Hey, shh. I know. But I'm okay. I'm here." Kate swallows her pride and reaches for his hand, nudging her slender fingers into the spaces between his own. They knot together at the knuckles and his face softens into a smile as he lifts their joined hands to his mouth and presses a kiss to hers.
Castle grins at her, coming dangerously close to a leer and dear God, it absolutely shouldn't be stirring the first tendrils of want low in her stomach. She is so damaged right now, so beyond not ready to start something. "Well, you wouldn't be without my heroics."
He's not trying to brag. This is just how they operate. This is what he does for her, she even told him as much. Castle brings a levity to her job she never imagined she could find, pulls her pigtails and makes everything just so much more fun. Even the teasing, even the flirting, adds a lightness to her days that she's terrified she doesn't know how to get by without anymore.
Only suddenly, it's not funny. Suddenly it's vital that he know how much she appreciates it. "Yeah. I wouldn't. Thank you, Castle, for saving my life."
"Purely selfish reasons, really. It's in my best interests to keep you alive."
Kate's eyes trip down to his mouth entirely of their own accord, drawn in to the smudge of his lips and the silvery line of a scar at his chin. She wants to kiss him.
Fuck. She's wanted to kiss him before, of course. Long before she ever even met him. but it's never been like this, a visceral urge that tears through her and leaves her helpless in its riptide, clinging to the last vestige of self-control. Her hips cant forward and it's infinitesimal, it's nothing, but of course he sees and he reaches out to steady her, his hands settling in the dip of her waist like parentheses.
Oh God, his hands. They're so big, so big, but so stupidly tender too. From what she's seen, admittedly far less than she'd like to, Castle will be reverent when they do this. He will worship her body, and shit, shit, she needs it. She needs to feel loved, just for a little while, just so she can bolster enough courage to face the pale woman who glances back at her from the mirror.
"Well, I'd kinda like for you to also stay alive, okay?"
"Kate," he grits out, eyes slamming closed at the soft hum of her response. "Kate, I'm going to kiss you now. You have to tell me to stop, Kate, or I'll have to kiss you."
She swallows, brings two fingers up to skim the hard edge of his cheekbone and down, hovering a moment at the corner of his mouth.
"Don't stop."
Oh God. She's going to kill him.
He's going to just absolutely die and then he'll be dead and not kissing her, which is what he's doing right now. Not kissing her. He's just gaping like a moron, trying not to feel the touch of her fingertips to his skin because he is just going to-
Well. Yeah. He's about eighty seven percent sure that kissing Kate Beckett is going to be the last thing he ever does on this earth and yes, thank you God. There cannot possibly be a better way to die than to the sweet backdrop of Kate's mouth, the tart ripeness of her lips and the slick glide of her tongue.
Why is he still only thinking about kissing her? What is wrong with him? Here is Kate Beckett, mouth parted and her hand now falling down from his face to cup his neck, her fingers toying with the fine hairs at his nape. Her tongue darts out to moisten her lips (and shit even that almost does him in) and she tilts her head as if to say what are you waiting for?
So he lifts his hands from her waist and cradles her jaw in his palms, tipping her chin up enough and leaning in until his lips touch hers.
Immediately, his entire world collapses down to fit between the corners of her mouth as Kate opens for him on a sigh, her tongue licking this little stripe of seductive heat along his bottom lip. He growls, his other hand sliding through her hair to cup the back of her skull as he slips his tongue into her mouth. She surges up against his body at the contact, arching onto tiptoe and clutching at his shoulder as she pours her heart into his mouth.
Her tongue is this hot, wicked thing as it rakes along the roof of his mouth, comes back to clatter over his teeth and then she curls or twists or does something so completely sinful that he swears he blacked out for a moment, has to force his knees to lock.
Castle pulls his lips away from hers and drops his head, suddenly flooded with need. He absolutely has to feel her skin against his mouth right this second. He sucks hard on the thunder of her pulse at her neck, licking and nibbling and kissing the papery skin. And of course, since he's otherwise occupied at her neck, Kate's mouth is free.
To speak.
"Oh shit, Castle. Oh God. Mm, yes, oh there. Yesss."
He can't help but press his grin to the underside of her jaw because of course she's loud; of course she has no qualms about directing him exactly where she likes it most. He works at her neck until Kate fists both hands in his hair and tugs him back up to meet her mouth. And now her teeth are catching at his lips, these little nibbles that are unwinding him at his very core, and he needs to touch her.
Kate's wearing a sleep shirt, of course, and he hesitates for about two seconds as he debates whether to just put his hands underneath. Fuck that.
Fisting his hands in the hem, Castle tugs her shirt up to just underneath her breasts and breaks their kiss, settling his forehead to rest against hers. "Can I take this off?"
"No." She breathes into his mouth and he swallows back the crushing disappointment, drops his hands and takes a shuffling step backward. Kate grunts at him and follows his body with her own, draping her hands at his shoulders and nudging her hips into his. "Not in the kitchen."
"But yes in the bedroom?"
She moans into his mouth, then, kisses him again because she can now. Well, he can't recall a time where he ever would have had a problem with Kate kissing him, but she wants to. Kate wants him, and he thinks he might throw up or cry or dance across the rooftops, skipping over the canyons of the city on his way to proclaim that the most extraordinary woman he's ever met is kissing him back.
"Yes. Take me to your bedroom, Castle." He nods, clutches at her hand and is just about to start leading her across the living room when the lithe length of her surges up against his side and her mouth finds his ear, tongue laving at the lobe a moment. "And Castle? My shirt better not be the only thing you take off."
He makes her sit down on his bed and a frisson of pleasure runs up Kate's spine at the push of his hands on her shoulders, the way he guides her. It's not about him dominating her; it's about trusting him to make it good for her. And just from the stunned slackness to his face as he watches her, she knows he's not going to have a problem with that.
Kate shifts backwards in the bed, her fingers curled into the waistband of his sweatpants to pull him with her. Castle crawls up onto the bed and follows her body, coming to prop his weight on his elbow and gaze down at her. "You're in my bed."
"Yeah. Long time coming." Kate arches her neck to kiss him and he smiles into her mouth, his free hand nudging her shirt up to reveal a few inches of milky skin.
He traces circles onto her stomach and huffs a breath of laughter at the contraction of her muscles under his touch, how it makes her shudder. "I certainly hope not."
She can't help but roll her eyes at him even as she curls a hand around the back of his neck and draws him down to her, takes a long drink from the font of his mouth. His kiss is tender now, sweet and aching with restraint. The skin of it ripe for bursting.
A soft moan dips along the hollows and crags of her mouth as he breathes against her, his hand sliding further under her shirt. She's not wearing a bra and Castle seems to find this a fascinating piece of information, abandoning her mouth halfway through a detailed exploration to tug her shirt up and over her head.
There's never been anything to be shy about regarding her naked form, but the sweep of his eyes over her chest brings heat to her cheeks.
"Wow. Just. . .wow. Gorgeous." He grits out, his mouth descending to her breast. He presses a soft kiss to her nipple and she jerks against him, fists a hand in his hair to keep him in place. He draws her into his mouth and sucks gently, his hand coming up to pinch and roll her other nipple between his fingers.
Holding out until Kate claws at his shoulder and shudders violently, he switches to lavish the attention of his mouth on her other breast. Shit, he's good at this.
"Castle, please, please." She begs, doesn't even know what it is that she's asking for. She just needs more, more of the stunning devastation his touch brings for her.
He releases her and comes back up for her mouth, no direction to his kiss as he smudges the lines of her lips with his own and sinks a hand down to toy with the waistband of her leggings. He slips a finger just underneath the fabric at her hipbone, swipes back and forth over her skin.
Kate grits her teeth and circles his wrist in her fingers, holds him still for a moment. "Castle, I need you to know, this isn't because I almost died today, because there's a killer chasing me. You're not just any willing body. You're, well, you."
"I know." He kisses her cheek, the ridge of her eyebrow, her ear. "And while we're being honest? You being jealous of Agent Shaw is, frankly, adorable, but you don't have to be. There's no one but you, Kate."
She's almost ashamed of how much she needed to hear that. He's just been so in awe of Shaw this whole time, her fancy murder board and her team and her equipment. It stings.
Until now, Kate and her team have been enough for him. The thought of losing him to the damn FBI is intolerable, has her blood boiling as she arches up to meet his mouth and slides her hand down. She palms the thick heat of him with no pretence, his sweatpants doing little to hide how desperately he wants her.
His hips jerk into her touch and he groans, long and aching into the dip of her clavicle. "Shit, Kate. Shit."
"I don't want you to think about Agent Shaw while we're doing this." She raises an eyebrow at him, squeezes just a little. Just enough that he growls and surges for her mouth, shifting until his hips are cradled between her thighs and he's rolling them down against her.
"I'll be thinking about you. Just you. How incredible you are."
"See there's the thing." Kate draws her toes up the back of his calf and curls her leg around his thigh, using the leverage to draw him closer still. "I don't want you to think at all."
Castle laughs into her mouth and then he's getting to his knees between her thighs and she opens her mouth to protest but then he curls his fingers into the waistband of her leggings and pulls them slowly, deliberately down her legs. He peppers kisses to the tender skin at the inside of her thigh as he pulls the tights all the way off, his mouth so achingly close to where she wants him.
He falters for a moment and then he crawls up over her, stretching to flick on the bedside lamp and pausing on his way back down between her legs to set his forehead against hers. "Gotta see your face. See what's good for you."
Kate's eyes almost roll back into her head at that because she is absolutely sure that it's all going to be good for her and she doesn't stand a chance of surviving this. Her hips jerk up to crash against his own and he laughs, already moving back for the crease of her thighs.
"You want my mouth on you, Kate? You want to let me taste you?"
"Yes. Yes, Castle, please." She murmurs, teeth sinking into her bottom lip as she screws her eyes closed and waits. And then she feels the soft hum of his laughter just at her hip, feels him prop his chin at her stomach.
He runs a soothing hand up her side and smoothes his thumb under her eye, waiting until her lashes drift open. "Hey. Relax. Just let me make it good for you."
She nods, draws in a breath and lets it unfurl all through her body, lets her skin soak into his sheets. "Sorry."
"Don't be." He dips his tongue into her navel and drags it down, down, diverting at the last second to suck at her hipbone. "Just let me do this for you."
Kate cards a hand through his hair and lets him nudge her legs a little wider apart, her mouth unfurling into a smile for him. He returns it and then he's shifting to lie more fully between her thighs and his breath is washing over her in waves so delicious that her hips arch against his face and then he lowers his grin and sets it against her.
Oh.
Oh, Kate.
She tastes incredible, rich and full against his tongue and still he hardly even has time to relish it because she's jerking against him already, this long string of guttural moans interspersed with something that could be his name just spilling from her lips.
Both her hands are fisted in his hair again, keeping him in place. As if he ever again in his life is going to move from this sacrosanct place at the junction of her thighs. He sucks hard at her clit for a moment, grinning into the slick heat of her as she growls and scrabbles for purchase against his shoulder.
Her body is a livewire writhing in his sheets and he knows she's close. And that in itself is mystifying to him. He wanted to be slow, methodical, map out every plane and curve and valley of her until he knew her topography like an old friend. He wanted a pilgrimage across the expanse of her milky, perfect skin.
But now the rich warmth of his bedside lamp throws her shadow onto the sheets next to her, ever y movement of her body mimicked and magnified and suddenly more than anything in the world he needs to make Kate Beckett come.
He has to know what she sounds like, what she looks like, whether she'll growl a string of profanities at him or stay quiet, back arched high in agonised bliss. Castle flicks his tongue over her clit again, his hand halfway up to join his mouth before he hesitates. "Can I use fingers too?"
"Jesus Christ." She whimpers, arching her back and grinding against his face. "Yes. I don't care, just don't stop."
Grinning again, he presses a finger slowly inside her and even as she cries out he's adding another, filling her. He curls them, finds the spot that makes her knees close around his ears and her chest still as her breath catches there and then he just goes, thrusting and sucking and licking and biting and absolutely just drowning in the noises she makes.
"Oh fuck Castle fuck fuck fuck yes please don't stop please oh God Castle." She growls and then her whole body clenches around his hands and she jerks like a marionette against him, her strings snapped as she shudders and writhes and curses at him.
Eventually, once she stops shaking, Castle draws his fingers out of her. The loss of him sends another tremor ripping through her, a quiet whimper escaping her chest. Eyes still closed, he watches the flutter of her lashes onto her cheeks as she searches for breath, her whole body limp.
He grins, sliding up the bed to stretch out next to her and support his weight on his elbow, lean down to kiss her forehead. "Wow. You okay?"
"Yeah. More than okay." She manages a smile, arching her neck to kiss him. And then suddenly shy, she buries her face against his neck and hums, pressing tiny kisses to the smooth patch where his stubble doesn't quite come in.
"We don't have to carry on if you don't want to, Kate." He says quietly, carding a hand through her hair and trying desperately to ignore the surges of desire in his own gut, how uncomfortably hard he is now.
She pulls back to stare at him, her jaw slack, and he takes the opportunity to cradle her face and marvel at how utterly breathtaking she is. She frowns, then, turning her head to kiss his palm almost distractedly, almost as if it's habitual.
"Do you want to stop?"
"God, no. I just thought it might be a step too far for tonight. An hour ago I'd never kissed you before; I'd understand if you didn't want to take this further."
"Okay." She nods slowly, presses two fingers to the cleft of his chin. "And what if I did want to take this further?"
Castle kisses her again. Slowly, thoroughly, letting her taste herself all over his mouth as he slides a hand underneath her body and circles his thumb at her spine. Somehow, he's still fully dressed, and he burns to feel her skin against his.
"Then I'd tell you that maybe you should take my shirt off now."
She laughs at him even as she tugs his shirt over his head and drops it to the floor beside the bed, smoothing her hands down his chest on the way to his pants. She doesn't even bother with touching him through his clothes, now, an urgency settling over both of them that has her shoving his pants down his hips and caressing his bare skin.
He jerks into her touch and grits his teeth, reaches down to pull her hand away. "I absolutely cannot last if you do that. I just need to be inside you. Is that okay?"
"Jeez, Castle, again with the questions. Are you ever going to just surprise me?" She smirks at him, stroking over him again in spite of his warnings.
He groans and presses his forehead into her clavicle, chokes out her name. "I just want to make sure you're okay with this."
"Hey," she cups his cheek, draws him up to look at her. "I'm fine. I trust you, Rick."
And it's that, somehow, that undoes him. He grapples for a condom in the nightstand and rolls it on, settling in the cradle of her thighs and dusting a kiss over her mouth. "I'm so glad you're here."
"Wait, wait." Kate murmurs before he can press into her and he falters, searches her face for some clue. She grins wickedly at him, lifting her hips until they nudge against his own. "I want to be on top."
He lets her roll him over and straddle his lap, sitting tall and glorious astride him. She lifts up a little and wraps her fingers around him, guiding him to nudge at her entrance. He's about to open his mouth and reassure himself that this is really what she wants and then she sinks down onto him, head thrown back on a groan.
Half of him expects her to just ride him with wild abandon but she surprises him, leans down until her breasts are flattened against his chest and her hands cup his face. And as she starts to move, short little thrusts that drive him wild, she takes his kiss too.
And oh, God, she feels amazing. Tight and hot and perfect and he wants this to last forever, wants to always be surrounded by the tang of her scent and the softness of her skin and her murmured encouragement in his ear. He sets his hands at her ass, thrusting his hips up every time she sinks down and meeting her in the middle. She groans into his neck, her breathing ragged, and he really can't take much more.
"Kate, how close are you?"
She clenches around him at the sound of his voice, a tremor rippling down her spine. "Shit. I'm almost there, just- harder." She pants against him.
Castle closes his eyes and drives his hips harder into her, tries to focus on the rush of traffic outside the window and the hum of the appliances in the kitchen rather than the divination of God suckling at his pulse and sheathed around him.
He grips harder at her ass and shifts her hips, finds the angle that draws a string of barely discernible curses from her as he thrusts and thrusts and surges of bliss are already pulsing through him and Jesus Kate come on come on. He opens his eyes in time to see her snake her own fingers down her stomach and circle them over her clit, her fingertips just brushing the place where they're joined.
She sees him, watches him watching her and apparently that's enough because her thrusts become suddenly sloppy, her throat working over silence as she grinds her hips down into his lap and her thighs tremble. And finally, finally, he spills inside of her in a surge of absolute perfect release and joy and oh God he's in love with her.
He sucks at her earlobe to stop himself from saying it, speaking the words he's only just realised. God, of course, he's such a fucking idiot. Of course he loves her.
How could he not?
After Castle comes back from the bathroom, he crawls into bed and tugs the sheets up over them both, his arm falling heavy around her waist as he tugs her in close.
Kate turns to glance over her shoulder at him, kissing the smudge of his mouth before she settles back to the pillow and closes her eyes. His mouth finds her ear and he speaks softly, throat a little raw with his cries. "I want you to know that you're welcome here for as long as you want to stay. And that you staying here doesn't mean. . .a repeat performance. Not if you don't want. You're welcome to the guest room."
"That's very sweet of you Castle, but-" she pauses long enough to watch the drift of panic across his face, just so that she can kiss it right off of him. "I don't think I'll be needing your guest room."
He grins, his eyes closing even as he tries to drag them open and see her. He murmurs a tiny sigh, wriggling a little to get comfortable and then sagging, already halfway to unconsciousness.
"And Rick?" Kate hums, gets barely a sigh from him in response. "I'll definitely be wanting a repeat performance."
A/N: Phew, okay! Clearly I am powerless when faced with Eli's requests (read: cajoling, pleading, threatening). Thank you to TMC for your immeasurable support as always and to Julie, who once upon a time reblogged a gif that sparked the second half of this chapter in my mind.
And thanks to you, all of you out there that take the time to read and review. I cannot say how much I appreciate it.
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