The second he kisses her, she already knows her chances of leaving the loft anytime soon are doomed. Her entire body exalts at the touch of his lips, shifts into the welcoming cove of him like a puzzle piece fitting back into place, the familiar and long overdue sensation of butterflies taking flight through her abdomen, traveling up to her chest and tickling her heart and destroying every last bit of her resolve. She pulls away before it can go too far and he lets her, allows her the opportunity to put a stop to it if she really wanted to, and she should. She really should.
I think you going out to dinner with Castle is a mistake.
But I miss him.
But she doesn't. They make excuses, "time out from the time out", and she knows if anything they're doing here is a mistake, it's that – putting a temporary fix when she knows they both need a permanent solution. Castle is kissing her again though, gliding his broad hand up the length of her back, over the blooming cage of her ribs, knotting in her hair and angling her just the way he wants her, just enough to kiss her deeper, harder.
Her jacket slips from the crook of her elbow, skims their thighs on its descent to the floor, and she thinks she hears their dinner go with it, but Rick is walking her backwards, sucking her bottom lip into the heat of his mouth, and she can't be bothered to care about anything but this.
Kate fists her hands in the deep blue fabric at his shoulders, digs her nails into the skin beneath when her back comes into contact with the bookshelf entryway of his office and Castle seals his body to hers, allowing her to feel every inch of his chest, the strength in his thigh as it slides between hers, the erratic muscle of his heart thrumming through the bones of his sternum to match the beat of hers.
The moan slips from her lips, into his mouth, before she can even fathom swallowing it down, as his hands slip beneath her sweater, fingers splaying over the taut planes of her stomach. Her muscles jump to reach his touch, contracting beneath the heat of his palms gliding upwards to fill with the cups of her bra, soft white lace. The same lingerie she wore a year ago on their wedding day.
His hands squeeze and her hips jerk, the friction of his thigh between her legs growing unbearable, and it's been so long, if she didn't want him so badly, didn't want the heat of his flesh searing hers, the sight of his body on top of her, or beneath her, she would sink down onto his thigh right here, ride until she sees nothing but stars.
"Castle," she gasps, trailing her hands down to the front of his shirt, yanking just hard enough to have a single button popping off in surrender. She hums to clear her throat, wants her next words to leave her lips on a husk. "Take me to our bed."
She nips at the corner of his mouth and fails to suppress the shiver that shoots up her spine when he growls, hands migrating from her chest to her back, coasting down to curve over her ass, hauling her forward, practically lifting her feet from the ground as he dislodges her from the wall of the shelf.
She loses her heels in his office, stumbling backwards but with no risk of falling while he leads, guiding her into the gentle golden light of their bedroom. His mouth finds her neck while his fingers locate the zipper of her pencil skirt, dragging it down, whispering the tips of his fingers along the path of skin he reveals. She had every intention of handling the rest of his buttons, working his belt loose, but her hands end up raking through his hair instead, relishing in the softness of the strands between her fingers, the low hum of approval he lets out against that sensitive spot beneath her jaw.
Just the renewed touch of his mouth to her skin has her heart pounding almost painfully fast, has her breathing labored and her blood pumping with vigor. If this is what kissing him does to her after only a little over a month apart, she may not survive the rest.
The skirt is tight, well-fitted, and Rick figures out quickly that he'll have to ease the fabric from her hips down her thighs. Her head tilts back at the burn of his tongue to the line of her throat, nearly chokes on a gasp when he dips into the hollow of skin between her collarbones, nudging her sweater out of the way, paying enough attention to the spot that she knows she'll be wearing high necklines for the next week.
He plants a path of kisses down the front of her body, his lips scorching even through the material of her sweater that he's slowly peeling upwards, pulling away only long enough to draw the cream colored fabric over her head.
"God, you're beautiful," he murmurs, his voice smoldering, thick with arousal, and he was making such good progress in undressing her, but she can't resist the urge to kiss him again, to seal her hands to his cheeks and surge into him. "I missed you," he breathes against her lips, gravel in his throat, scraping up his words, and it deepens the cracks already running through her heart.
"Don't miss me," she pleads and even she can hear her own desperation, heady and strong and threading through the air around them, but she can't – she can't let him think that she doesn't miss him back just as badly, that she doesn't want him just as fiercely as he wants her. "Not anymore, Castle, just-" Her spine arches at the slide of his hand beneath her bra, the caress of his palm, the pinch of his fingers, leaving her breathless. "Fuck."
Rick chuckles, a rich and beautifully dark sound, and unhooks the clasp at her back, draws the bra away from her chest, untangling it from her arms once she lowers them to assist, and allowing her to toss the lingerie aside.
"Soon," he mumbles, replacing the cups of lace with the branding heat of his hands once more, kneading her breasts in the way he knows drives her insane, pressing his thumbs to her nipples and circling hard, silencing the mewl that climbs up her throat with his mouth.
Her knees nearly give out when his lips resume traveling downwards, drifting to her chest to breathe love into the slopes of her breasts, splaying his hands over the quick rise and fall of her ribs, steadying her as he places his mouth to all of his favorite places – nipping at the underside of a breast, swirling his tongue over her navel, suckling at the hollow of her hipbone. All while he begins to tug her skirt down.
"Rick," she groans, growing impatient, unable to bear much more of this. She's damn near ready to drop to her knees, collapse into his lap and just have him on the floor, have him however he'll let her-
His teeth skim the line of her underwear, aid his fingers in dragging them down her legs with the skirt that pools at her ankles, and oh – oh, she can't handle that right now.
"Please," she gets out, on the verge of keening, but his mouth is right there and the scalding warmth of his breath is coating the wet, unbearably sensitive flesh between her legs, and she's not above begging. "I need – I want you. Want you first, before anything else, Castle-"
He shows her mercy, just this once, and rises from his knees at her feet, lifts up to meet her mouth, and her trembling fingers immediately reach for his buttons, unhooking each tiny disc, shoving the dress shirt from his shoulders and moaning in relief at the lack of an undershirt. She's too distracted by the bare skin of his chest laid out before her to focus on his belt, so infinitely grateful when he works the leather strap free for her, but Kate is the one to unbutton his pants, drag down his zipper, slip her hand over the solid length of him beneath his boxers.
"Kate," he grunts, his hips bucking at the cover of her palm, the curl and gentle stroking of her fingers. "I think you know just as well as I do that if you keep that up, we aren't getting very far."
She kisses his chest in acknowledgement, coils her fingers around the waistband of his boxers instead and adds his underwear to the growing pile at their feet. Castle's knee wedges between hers once more to balance on the edge of the mattress, his arms wrapping around her as they both fall back onto the bed, the surface of their comforter soft and familiar, welcoming and heavenly against her bare skin. Almost as nice as the blanket of Castle's body lowering to rest atop hers.
And this is what she had yearned so deeply for, for the glorious sight of him hovering above her, staring down at her with so much love and affection, so much she doesn't deserve but still wants, craves so intensely.
They're both breathless with it, bodies thrumming with need, but he doesn't rush in savoring this moment of reunion, his eyes darkened with lust, pupils blown and pitch black, but shimmering golden around the edges. And everything else fades away.
"Love you," she whispers, her lips curling into a gentle smile that he matches, that he presses to meet hers.
Her hips rise up like a wave, smooth and unhurried, brushing against the hard length of him between her legs, coating him in liquid fire, teasing him until they're both on the verge of combustion before he can even–
Kate arcs from the bed when he sinks inside her, ignites the fire in her veins, fills the empty spaces that have formed since she left, and it's felt like so long, too long. Too long since their bodies have fallen into this effortless dance, since his naked skin has kissed hers, since her blood has sang and she's burned with exquisite ecstasy from the inside out.
"I missed you too," she gasps out, locking her arms around him, folding her legs high around his waist and arching into the haven of him above her. "Oh, I missed you. Always miss you, all the time-"
Castle kisses her, thank god he kisses her, siphoning the spill of secrets from her lips with the slant of his mouth, the ardent stroke of his tongue inside the temple of her mouth. He worships her, has always worshipped her body like it's an altar, like she is something holy and sacred, while she seeks repentance, apologies twining with the moans that stream from her lips. But he doesn't want them, silences her with reassurances, with the outpour of his love against her lips, the cracking cove of her body wrapped so tight and securely around every part of him.
"I love you, Kate," he breathes, withdrawing almost completely from her only to thrust back in, slow and torturous, long and thorough and good, so good. It's enough to have her biting back sobs as the sparks of pleasure ripple from every inch of him that fills her, white-hot currents spreading from where they're joined dragging her under, and she clutches him harder, the arm around his shoulder cinching like the legs around his waist, the hand in his hair fisting, crashing his forehead into hers. "Always. Always love you, always-"
The chant of his words, their word, breaks her open, shatters her to pieces around him, and she feels him fall boneless against her seconds later, floating down from the crest of pleasure with her, and it's the most beautiful way she could have imagined spending their anniversary.
It's how she wants to spend every single anniversary for the rest of their lives.
Her limbs are loose, her body sated from head to toe, but Kate gathers the strength to curl around him, breathing out a sigh of contentment as Castle gently rolls to his side and she brings her along with him, adjusts her against his side and combs a gentle hand through her hair.
"That was incredible," he mumbles into the tangled strands, smearing his lips to the damp spot of her temple, dropping another to the edge of her eyebrow, the rise of her cheek as she smiles.
"We always are," she hums, flexing the leg still hooked over his thigh and teasing her toes down his calf muscle. "Always will be."
Rick's hand migrates up the bow of her spine, his fingertips grazing along her vertebrae on their way to her face, where his palm cradles her cheek, his thumb caressing the shell of her ear.
"I have no doubt about that, Mrs. Castle. But I think it would be a good idea to prove it to me, at least one more time."
"Mm, I think you're right," she muses, a fresh stream of arousal already cascading through her blood as she nudges him onto his back, lazily slides her body into a graceful straddle atop his, ready for more, but in no hurry. She intends to take her time celebrating their anniversary, savoring every moment of this 'time in'. "Probably more than once, just to be safe."