All we have is this moment
Tomorrow's unspoken.
Their kiss drifts into a sigh and they part at the bedroom door. Her fingers unfurling from his, grip loose, slipping away from their connection. Though they separate, the invitation lingers, a plea to follow her into their bedroom locked in eyes that burn with a slow building desire.
Tonight silence carries them through their actions, tomorrow an unspoken thing that sits in the other room like a misplaced guest. Not ignored, not forgotten, just there. Inevitable.
He follows of course, footsteps heavy, tired yet too awake to fully rest. Castle drops to the bed, sits to unbutton his shirt, and sighs as he sinks into the mattress. He smiles unaware of the love that paints his face, watching her as she moves about the room. Kate wears it better than he does, he knows that, but a great deal of time spent loving her, learning her, has allowed him a knowledge like no other. A window into the inner sanctum, her soul.
Right now, she's exhausted, but wired, much like himself. She's reverent too. Tonight, small rituals of touch have her circling the room, retracing well worn steps. She pauses in her movement, sifting through the feelings and memories laced with each object she touches.
Her mother's picture is the first stop. It's not the usual portrait, but one taken by her father on her first day of school. Kate's little arms locked tight around her mother's neck, their cheeks pressed hard together. He sees her smile as her fingers flit across the faces of mother and daughter, wondering if she remembered his promise.
He'd decided the second she'd shown it to him that he would take a replica of her with their own child one day. Set them side by side on the dresser and watch her face dissolve into joy when she discovered them. He'd joked about it, teased, and she'd laughed, pushing on his chest, face flushed, but never once saying no.
Now Kate sighs and sets it down, instead lifting another with a wry smile. When he sees what she holds in her hand he can't help but smile too.
It's a photograph taken at a party the first year he spent getting under her skin, her glare fixed on his laughing face even as her lips quirk at the joke he just made. It's the first glimpse at the moment they stumbled into a begrudging friendship.
While he has others that mean more to him, for some reason that one always speaks to her, finding its way from the back of the shelf to the front every time he relocates it. He was an ass back then, she was colder, walled off. They're not those people anymore, maybe that's why she treasures it.
Her jewelry comes off, shoes next, thumbs pressing into her palm to soothe the ache of a day spent gripping a gun. She doesn't do that so much lately, finding herself with a pen in her hand more often than a weapon. It feels wrong somehow, in a lot of ways they've traded places. But tonight the ache, and the habit, linger.
Continuing her familiar path around their room, Kate pulls her hair over one shoulder and stops, fingers poised in mid air before she picks up their wedding picture. It shakes a little in her hand, light splintering from the glass and falling across her cheeks. It could be sunlight on their wedding day.
She caresses the photo, a few seconds trapped in a lifetime as he watches the memories flicker through her mind. It was colder than it looks in the photo, their wedding day laced with goosebumps for more reasons than the obvious. Oh, how they'd enjoyed warming each other up in front of the fire. Listening to the waves that rolled in.
Her lips move, part almost in prayer, and he knows she's reciting a vow. His or hers, doesn't really matter when the smile it brings to her face is transcendent. Devout.
Kate, takes a moment to set down the frame, angling it just so. He's certain if he lay with his head on her pillow their faces would be in clear view.
With one last touch to the frame, she drops her shirt on the chair, pants and bra following after. She doesn't reach for bed clothes, instead moving to stand before him almost naked. It's only when she whispers, "here, let me" that Castle realizes his fingers have frozen somewhere around the third button. Her observance of him as detailed as his of her.
He's become lost, absorbed in watching her, heart fast and swollen with love. He stands when she gestures, not sure why, only knowing he needs it as much as she does, this night of ritual.
Her breath paints his throat with heat, the tips of her fingers unusually warm as they slip apart each button and graze his chest. The beat of his heart comes alive under the stroke of her palm, hard thumps that she taps in time to.
When he pulls his arms free of the shirt, now softened by a day's wear, Kate let's it drift beneath her nose, inhaling the scent of him. It's not enough though, and it falls from her fingers, head angling to him, eyeing him where he stands with the want of something else entirely.
"Castle." She whispers, listing into him, breathing now at the base of his throat. She doesn't elaborate, doesn't need to when she trembles, muscles quivering as her hands work to free his belt. Her breath falls a little heavier, quicker, the longer it takes and it's only when she's worked it loose, fingers coiling around his already hardening flesh, that she relaxes.
Kate swallows back a sound that he hears anyway, fingers lacing in the strands of her hair and cupping the back of her neck. They pull nearer, hold apart, stare, and enjoy. Barely moving as the heat between them builds.
He jumps as she tests the weight in her palm, squeezing, touching her tongue to the rise of skin at the edge of his jaw. It's the catalyst to every movement that follows, but, for a moment, he revels in the strength of her touch.
He blinks, watches her lashes flutter too, but their eyes stay wide as they take in every second. His grip in her hair matches the rhythm she strikes up, tilting her head to draw her mouth closer. Anchored, they drown together in the feelings that cascade over them.
Breath dances between them, tangles over tongues unwilling to find words for something this simple. Not wanting to taint the moment with anything more than is needed.
He takes her mouth with a roughness akin to their very first night. Smoky and dangerous, the instant response of her body tells them this is what they need. No hesitancy, nothing left to make amends for, no filling in blanks for time wasted. Just them, just this, this forceful rush of fate.
His hand coils at her waist, her underwear following the rest of his clothes down to the floor in a frantic tumble. He cups her breast, thumb raising the nipple, stroking back and forth. Castle touches her with a hard pressure, knowing before she does that it will have her lifting onto her toes, pushing herself into his kiss.
Thick tension, simmering need, boils in the air between them. Every touch hot, the swipe of his tongue over hers forcing them both to draw in ragged breath. They coax each other higher, barely there caresses countered by hard, firm strokes. Soft, sacred kisses followed by bites and nips and clashing teeth.
They slow and simmer. Taste. Tease.
Her arm wraps tight around his neck, the long fingers of her hand engulfing him in a rhythmic slide and tug that has Castle pulling her closer too. He gives up the softness of her bobbing breasts for the silken trail from stomach to thigh. He groans when his hand slides between them, touching her too gently for the sound that leaves her lips.
He stares as her eyes flutter again, fighting the war that rages within her. Giving in to the swirl of his fingers, or watching the way he reacts to her touch, either or and neither enough without the other. It's a battle she wages with grace, with passion, fisting a hand in his hair and feeding from his mouth hungrily.
When she pulls back her cheeks are flushed, scarlet red stains running down her chest, burning where they touch. He lathes them with his tongue, cheek and neck and breast all in one swipe that has her cursing in silence, lips parting over sounds that are never given life.
He holds her up when she starts to shake. Braces his feet on the hard floor and prepares to lift her to the bed. Her wandering, devilish fingers waylay that plan. Kate takes him in hand, rolling the tight skin back and forth until he's as blurry eyed and yearning as she is.
Their eyes search and find each other, gasps of air that could be the other's name slipping free, escaping, called back and recited time and again.
Castle can stand it no longer, the absent feel of her along the length of his fingers leaving him bereft. His fingers splay, search and play, meander in the heated excitement that bathes him. Pleased, grateful, always delighted by her reaction, he growls into the soft shell of her ear, takes the lobe between his teeth as though his tongue is between her legs, rolling it back and forth.
He bites and she moans.
Sucks and she shudders.
Flicks his tongue and her legs quiver.
She shakes and shivers, clenching in open invitation, and Castle feels himself harden in her grip when the sounds of his fingers working between her thighs finally reaches his ears.
Loud, wet, his wife coils a leg at his hip and opens herself to him. Body lost in instinctive movements, her hips roll and his fingers slide low, tease her apart and push inside.
Their eyes lock, and before words can be uttered their lips seal themselves together, trapping "I love you's" and "Yes, please, more's" between them. He curls his fingers, pulls back long and slow, pads strumming at the delicate flesh they ripple over. She chants, mumbles a soft sound into each kiss, feasting from his mouth, unable to pull back.
He gives, she takes.
Momentous, they tumble into kiss after kiss, dizzied by the length of the one before it. Never pulling back. Kate floods him with every feeling in return, everything he's poured into her, every sound and emotion magnified and bouncing back until he's shaking too, legs burning with the force of holding them upright.
It takes on a life of its own, this kiss.
Mounting, building, rising into something that there's no coming back from and just at that last fragile and joyous second, with her hand pumping him frantically and his fingers twisting perfectly, they stop.
Fighting the agony of pulling apart they groan, dragging away just far enough to make touch bearable.
Gasping in the shadows of their bedroom, their lips pop apart. This is a night for ritual, for something with more meaning.
Each speaking a single word, knowing what they need now, more than anything else, is each other.
"Bed."
Yes.
They stumble together, too tangled up in each other's arms to make it far. Unwilling to miss a second of what comes next.
Castle steps back, pulls her with him, sitting on the edge of the bed. Kate's breath now coming in hard gasps as she crawls into his lap, wrapping her legs tight around his waist. Lifting herself into him, his hands between them for guidance, it becomes a slow slide into oblivion. Fingers peeling her apart, holding her wide, he teases her, just once, before she bats his hands away.
With her eyes heavy lidded, half closed, and her lips caught together, pressed shut, Kate holds in the breath she refuses to release until...
Her hips shift, tilt and roll, his hands slide over the cheeks of her ass and lower her gently.
Until.
She trembles again, feels him press home, perfectly placed, drifting those last few inches into his lap until she lands with a breathless moan. Engulfing him with intoxicating, searing heat.
They thrum together for a few seconds, enjoying the near claustrophobic constriction of being this tightly bound together.
Her head drops to his chest. Open mouthed and loose, no finesse just feeling in the kiss she lays against his skin. Kiss after kiss with no pattern, just love.
They barely move but feel everything.
She mumbles sounds she has no control over, his own vocal response loud in her ears. He knows what it does to her this position. To them both.
The tightness, the closeness.
Skin to skin a burning thing, it keeps her fluttering for more, keeps her pulling him back, and dragging him on. Racing together.
He knows it means she wants slow, and explosive. He knows they never make it that far before desperation takes over and it becomes a beautifully frantic collision.
Castle's hands slide up her back, drop low again to the succulent curve of her ass and press ever so lightly. Kate jerks, feels him slide deeper and she gasps, head lifting, mouth opening for a kiss she takes without thought.
He presses again, a little sharper, feels her grind and slide. Feels her inhale deeply, surprise nothing new, but the intensity taking her with shock every time.
She wriggles, settles, squirms and moans, clenches around him so tightly his fingers dig into her hips hard enough to bruise.
Lifting her chin, her eyes land heavily on his.
It's the knowledge that does it. The when to push, when to hold back, how much and how hard, how fast. It's the completion they find in each other that makes these moments mean all that much more.
He holds off just as she expects it, a whimper of delight and annoyance licking over his tongue. He kisses her instead, swallows down that little pissed off sound, keeping it for himself.
She clenches and chuckles when he gasps, teeth gnashing too sharp over her lip. She takes it all, gives it back with the rake of her nails up his spine. She's wearing them longer lately, razor precision slicing now over his nipples.
He yelps, jerks.
She moans, growls, and he presses hard, flexing his hips.
Castle finds himself chasing after the moan that races out of her, caught in the depth they've finally reached. Kate's eyes pleading with him for more.
He moves to lay back, the muscles in her thighs already burning. He can tell by the rigidity beneath his fingertips. She shakes her head, refuses to let him move, instead she rolls her hips. He slides free, barely, only to be circled in heat so deliciously wet his body jerks without permission.
His shallow thrust and her slow swirl have them both crying out in agonized ecstasy. Nerve endings firing harder than ever before, pleasure a tidal wave drowning them both. Every breath, every movement no matter how small, explodes between them.
It's intense, it's unprecedented.
His fingers dig into her thighs as a sheen of sweat glistens over her skin. They work each other over, work together, find partnership in the lift, swirl and drop of her body over his.
Her fingers fall into the short strands of hair at his temples, bringing his face up to hers as she hovers above him. Her eyes glisten as beautifully and as wetly as her skin, her love shining like a beacon that calls him closer.
And he strides on, unable to resist her siren song.
She pants and gasps, and he does too, their breaths shared between lips that touch and part but never quite connect enough to be called a kiss.
Hips twist and snap and every, every surging thrust pulls them closer. Heat coils in the base of his spine, lightning in the pit of her stomach and the match strikes, a blaze of heat and burning memory igniting them both. It flickers out in flames, dousing them, burning them up as they come together, engulfed in fire.
Their cries splinter the silence that has served them well thus far. Voices raised in a cacophonous chant that seems to shake the books from their shelves, rattles their very walls until nothing's left but ashes and the burning embers that settle and glow between them.
They collapse back, aching, sobbing. Breath hard through their chests. Exhausted but at peace. In the moments that follow, breathless, sated, loved and loving, their silence remains.
Tomorrow's still unspoken.
But the memories of tonight will last a lifetime.