The second the door opens, Kate is striding inside, wasting no time with verbal greetings, lunging straight for his mouth instead.

Castle groans in surprise, clutching her hips to steady them both in the doorway while she devastates him with a kiss, holds on through the sway of their bodies with her fingers in his hair.

"How much time?" he manages around the insistent press of her mouth. This secret dating ploy has been working well for them throughout the past few weeks, each moment together fueled with the spark of desperation, the thrill of stealing private encounters, and he's grown to eagerly await her daily visits, the covert nightcaps.

Though, it would be a lie to say he didn't miss the normalcy of their relationship, of their marriage. Of course these clandestine meetings were exciting, their spats in public amusing and often igniting the intense need he can taste on her tongue in this very moment, but the every day routines they had formed as a couple, the privilege of calling her his wife in public and having nothing to hide... he misses it.

But Kate has a way of making him forget the negative aspects of this arrangement whenever they're together.

"My lunch hour," she mumbles, tugging at his bottom lip with her teeth and grinning at the low growl rumbling in his chest. "I have an important lunch meeting I have to attend, could take awhile to complete my agenda."

Castle draws his palms down her thighs, hooks his fingers in the hem of her dress and hikes the fabric upwards. She's already shrugging the coat from her shoulders, wrenching the material down her arms and tossing it towards the coat closet.

"Not a second to waste then, Captain."

The skirt of her dress is caught at her hips, would have to do for now as he hauls her up, gripping the backs of her thighs, but Beckett is already climbing him, no assistance needed. He moans into the hot cavern of her mouth at the dig of her heels into the backs of his calves, the tight constriction of her thighs at his waist, the sharp snap of her hips.

He slams her backwards, shuts the front door with her body in a move they've perfected after too many times to count, and strokes his tongue past the parted seam of her lips, sears the roof of her mouth as she arches hard. Her body is like a livewire against his, writhing ceaselessly, growing more frenetic with every second, every touch.

"Fuck, Castle," she chokes when his hand glides beneath the edge of the dress still clinging to her backside, kneading her ass and trying – failing – to control the brewing arousal flooding his system, building in his groin and sending his hips thrusting shallowly within the cradle of hers.

He wants to walk them to the bed, the couch, the desk in his office – anything – but Kate mewls when he attempts to move, arresting him with the harsh grind of her pelvis against the buckle of his belt.

"No, no, just do it right here," she gasps, her hips moving in dirty little circles, and Rick pushes her harder against the door, attempts to unhook the belt, get his pants out of the way before she drove him completely insane.

She tries to assist, her fingers tripping down between them, but Kate fumbling over the burning bulge beneath his pants isn't helping matters at all.

He swats her hand out of the way and nips at her neck, jerking the zipper down himself and hearing her moan in anticipation, impatience, the roll of her hips more demanding. His hand manages to become trapped between them, his knuckles framed by the softness of her inner thighs, and Castle follows the emanating flow of heat, rubs his knuckles over the wet lace he encounters.

Kate jerks, the sharp points of her hips bruising his when they clash, her nails leaving marks where she's slid her fingers beneath the neck of his sweater.

"You're practically dripping," he grunts, nudging the thin material of her underwear out of his way, slicking his fingers through the soaking heat of her folds. He yelps at the sudden pierce of her teeth at his neck, the muffled whine she buries in his skin, and instinctually thrusts forward, blocked from the call of her body by his own hand. "How long have you been thinking about this?"

He swirls his thumb over her clit, uses his other hand to hike her thigh higher on his hip. They have an hour, a little less now, and he's pulsing with need for her, for his own release, but he wants this first. He wants her to come apart at the mercy of his hand.

"All morning," she confesses, her hips quivering with the urge to rock forward. Castle rewards her with the thorough slides of his fingers through her swollen flesh, teasing at her entrance. "Please," she gets out, her hot breath at his ear, her entire body trembling, needing in such a primal way, he could never resist. "Rick-"

He glides his fingers inside her, presses her harder into the wall to keep them both upright as her hips rocket forward into the work of his hand. The tight channel of her inner muscles grip his fingers, walls already fluttering with every thrust he's able to manage with his arm pinned between them, her chest shuddering with every sweep of his thumb over the sensitive bundle of her nerves.

All it takes is the curl of his fingers inside her, the firm pressure of his thumb, and she's tensing against him, her mouth open at his throat in a silent sob of release.

Castle dusts his lips to her neck and waits for the hammer of her heart to slow, feeling the pound of it fiercely against his chest where they're sealed together by the cling of her arms around his neck. The salt on her skin bursts against his tongue as he contently explores the column of her throat, tasting the hints of arousal on her flesh, smirking at the warning dig of her nails.

"All of that just from thinking about me?" Castle teases, gently withdrawing his fingers from between her legs, his hand stained in the evidence of her want.

Her lashes flutter against his skin in a certain eye roll, but her lips curl in a smile too, and he draws her back from the surface of the door, securing her body within his grasp and starting towards the bedroom, doing his best to ignore the warm press of her abdomen against the length of him. But Beckett notices, undoubtedly able to feel the searing burn of him through the two layers of fabric still between them.

"Yeah," she confirms, letting the heels slip from her feet and hit the floor of his office while he takes long strides through the study, locking her ankles at his back. "I couldn't stop thinking about last night, what we did in my office-"

He stumbles a little, grateful that the bed is finally within reach, and crawling onto the mattress with Beckett still wrapped around him, grinning from beneath him.

"On my desk-"

"Beckett," he growls, sitting back on his knees to drag the dress from her skin, working with her to ease the fabric over her head while her toes push at the waistband of his jeans. They slide past his hips, down his thighs, and he's able to pull them the rest of the way, kick them off while he snags his fingers in the damp lace of her panties and drops them over the side of the bed. No intention of giving them back when it's time for her to leave. "I love your desk."

A hum of laughter leaves her lips. He had been thinking about the night before in her office too, how he had stormed inside and slammed the door, playing into their planned argument because she was worried the boys were asking too many questions. They had intended to have a shouting match, just enough for Ryan and Esposito to hear the muffled bites of their voices from the bullpen, but Castle had opted for quiet rage instead, ended up having to cover Kate's mouth with the cup of his palm when they spilled onto the edge of her desk.

"How badly I wished I could have come over, had you in our bed-"

Her spine arcs when he leans forward to take her breast into his mouth, not bothering to remove the matching lace of her bra, laving his tongue over the material and feeling it scratch along her nipple.

"You're here now."

Her fingers fist in his shirt, clawing at the last layer of his clothing, and he finally relents, drags the fabric over his head, just in time to see Beckett reaching beneath her to unclasp her bra.

He pouts. "I was just about to-"

"You take too long," she complains, bracketing his hips with her thighs once more, pressing her heels into his flanks to coax him closer. Her eyes are shimmering liquid gold with arousal, her bottom lip pinned between her teeth, as she works her arms through the satin straps, lets her bra join her underwear on the rug framing the bed.

Her fingers feather at the back of his neck, soothing the sting of crescent shaped scars left only moments ago, drawing him down to his elbows atop her just to use the hook of her leg at his thigh to flip them over.

"I love you," he sighs, relishing in the melody of her laughter filling the warming air of their bedroom, but her amusement simmers once she's sliding over him, purposely coating the length of him in wet heat. Already so wet and watching him with unabashed desire in her eyes.

Castle sucks in a breath, the groan caught in his throat, and traces his fingertips up the taut skin of her thighs straddling him, skimming the curve of her ass and fitting his thumbs to the dimples of her spine. He frames her waist, appreciating the sight of her so gloriously naked on top of him, the streaks of sunlight from the windows overhead tangling in her hair, kissing the bare slopes of her shoulders.

She balances with her palm to his abdomen, her knees supporting most of her weight, and lifts, replaces the heat of her core with the curl of her fingers around him, stroking slowly-

"Beckett," he chokes, cutting his tongue on the sharp t's of her name, his eyes slamming shut against the sear of her palm and the fire of her fingers where he aches painfully for her, but despite how he knows she loves to undo him like this, she doesn't force him to suffer long.

Kate aligns their bodies, a moan breaking past her lips as she guides him home.


His stomach muscles jump and contract beneath her hand as she sinks down, taking him deep, so gorgeously far inside her, she has to pause to catch her breath once the space between them has been eradicated.

Bruises in the shapes of his fingers will likely mar her hips, his grip on her bones so tight, and the mere thought has the spring in her abdomen coiling tighter. Never have they had a problem when it comes to this, the perfect physical connection they've always possessed, but lately, it's so intense, so needful, and she wants the marks of him on her skin to carry with her once she's gone.

"Kate," he breathes, pleads, and she moves her hips, steadies her hands at his chest for leverage to rise and fall over him.

He's so hard inside her and he could make her fall apart all over again with such ease, they won't last long, and when he meets the downward twist of her hips with a thrust of his own, she nearly loses it right there. Kate gasps, her arms quivering with the effort of staying upright, giving in and collapsing as he tangles his fingers in her hair and pulls.

His body is so taut and solid beneath hers, every muscle rigid and vibrating with urgency, but his arms cradle her as she adjusts to the shift in angle, the fist in her hair softening just a fraction, the fingers at her hips splaying wide. She nuzzles her face to his neck, dusts a kiss to the roping tendons of his neck before she resumes the roll of her hips, lowering her mouth to the inviting bone of his clavicle when he matches her rhythm without missing a beat.

Castle hisses at the scrape of her teeth, intent on retaliation for the scattered smears of varying reds and purples he had left along her neck last week, forcing her to wear turtlenecks for days straight. But the cup of his hand at the swell of her ass is distracting, the short dig of his nails as he aids the undulation of her hips, pressing them closer together, adding to the sizzle of friction that threatens to burn her alive from the inside out.

Kate moans, glides her hands up to feel the gallop of his pulse beneath her fingertips, to bury them in his hair as the bursts of blinding color begin to spark through her vision.

"Harder," she begs, her voice breaking with the need for more, for one last push towards the edge where she knows he'll follow her over. "Castle, Castle, I need-"

"Look at me," he growls, the fingers in her hair, tugging gently in juxtaposition to the driving force of his hips into hers, the deep strokes of him inside her, undoing her. "Kate, look up, I want you to see."

Her head rises from the cove of his neck, just enough to see his eyes, the bright flames of blue so intent on her, raw and burning, and her forehead crashes into his just as her heart stutters and the stars explode behind her eyes.


The tight grip of her body, the rhythmic pulsing of her climax triggers his, and floods him with blinding heat, leaves him spent and delirious beneath the boneless weight of her body atop his.

Kate's fingers flutter to life along the sides of his neck, her thumb caressing the shell of her ear and her lips feathering at his eyebrow. He blinks his eyes open to the line of her jaw, his lashes brushing the bone and she lowers her lips to the corner of his eye, his cheek. The tender affection that seeps from her causing something inside him to clench.

Castle rolls them to their sides, stroking his hand over the thigh still draped at his hip, brushing back her hair with the other.

"Time?" he mumbles, hating that he always has to wonder now, always has to question how long he gets to spend with her before she's slipping away from him, sneaking off to be a part of a secret mission he's aware of, but held away from.

He's so tired of secrets.

She sighs, twists on her side to glance to the nightstand over her shoulder for a glimpse of the alarm clock. "We're good. Still have half an hour."

Kate turns back into the embrace of his arms, a smile on her lips, and tightens the leg at his waist as if to reassure him. She isn't going anywhere, not yet.

So Castle takes his time in embarking on an agenda of his own, skimming his lips along the smooth column of her throat, the ridges of her collarbones, and searching down her sternum, between her breasts for the bullet scar faded with years of healing, scraping his teeth over the spot once it's found.

Kate's fingers thread through his hair, her nails scratching lightly at his scalp, but he can hear the quickening of her breath, feels the gentle heave of her chest beneath his lips.

"How much time do we have again?" he muses, smiling against the slope of her breast before enveloping the hardened peak in his mouth. Her hips squirm, the sated state of her body steadily becoming overwhelmed by the fizzle of need he can feel spreading between them.

Castle sucks her nipple against the roof of his mouth just to feel her spine snap forward.

"Enough," she breathes, the pitch of her hips awakening the spark of electricity where they're joined, and he feels himself stirs inside her, knows Kate feels it too as her leg clamps down hard at his waist.

"Enough time for one more… successful completion of your agenda?" he chuckles darkly, smirking at the shiver of her skin beneath his hands at her back.

"Yes," she whispers, coiling her fingers at his ears, but he resists the tug of her touch, nuzzles her breast and listens to the soft noise of desperation breach her lips. He rocks his hips, just barely, and she drops her hands to his jaw, drags him up with insistence this time.

The whimper caught in her throat is buried against the press of his lips, stolen by the plunge of his tongue inside her mouth, as he sets up a slow rhythm inside her. His hands caress her breasts, kneading and tweaking her nipples, soaking up the erotic little sounds that continue to slip free from her mouth, the building pleasure coursing through her body, encouraging his until he's aching inside her.

"That's how much I want you, Kate," he murmurs, kissing her jaw when she abandons his lips to breathe, her chest expanding and trembling against his hands. He skates his hand down her side to adjust her leg at his hip, her muscles clenching beneath the blanket of his palm. "How easy it is to want you again and again-"

"Fuck, yes, again," she gasps, her mouth open and breathless against his, her lashes fluttering with the effort to keep her eyes open. "Make me come again."

Castle draws her leg a little higher at his waist, her toes curling at his back, her thigh warm at his ribs, and rocks into the refuge of her body, working to maintain the rhythm that releases ripples pleasure through them both. Long, deep strokes that coax her higher, riding the waves until she breaks with a muffled cry, her orgasm a breathtaking crash against the shoreline of his body.

Her release flows through him, drowns him, and leaves him to sink against the welcoming haven of Kate at his side.

"Mm, don't think I can move," she mumbles after he's floated back to coherency beside her and Castle cracks an eye open to see her face only inches away, her teeth peeking out from between her upturned lips.

He grins back at her, turns his head to smear a kiss to the hand brushing his jaw. "We've got time, just stay here."

Kate shifts away from him, severing the connection of their bodies and rolling onto her back, and ridiculous panic flares up in his gut, washing away some of the wonderful bliss that had settled deep within his bones. But she isn't moving away, reaching for a pillow to prop her head upon before she turns back to face him, curling her arm to the sweat stained skin of her chest and releasing a satisfied breath.

"I'll stay as long as I can," she promises, reaching up to graze her fingers through his hair and the uncertainty inside him dissipates, the contentment of relaxing in bed after three amazing rounds of sex with his wife taking over. As if nothing has changed, as if she never left.

Castle nods and cranes forward to press a kiss to her forehead. It wasn't the same and their faux separation sometimes took its toll, but moments like these, the time he was able to have with her, made it enough. Enough for now.