Undress me
Prompt: "Undress me" by Tatia Pilieva (on YT)
AU, set in season 4, they've never met.
She doesn't know what she was thinking when she ageed to this.
What got her to accept to be undressed by a stranger again, couldn't she spend her day off at home like always?
She plays with her hands and her leg bounces. She shifts in her seat, tries to ease the discomfort but fails, the guy who asked her to be part of the experiment meets her eyes from across the room and smiles. He repeated more than once that she could change her mind any minute and it's not like she didn't.
It just… part of her refuses to go - she was never one to turn down a challenge.
There's also a feeling, deep in her belly, that brings her back to her Wild Child Phase and makes her feel alive again. So distant from her near-death experience, the betrail of her captain, the PSTD that make her hands shake when she holds her gun.
It's been so long since she let someone touch her.
Since someone looked at her without pity in their eyes.
Maybe the stranger she's letting bare her won't notice her tired eyes. Maybe his hands won't be so careful, so afraid to break her skin, maybe he won't take a step back and tell her he can't do this.
Maybe he won't fly out of the door when he sees the scar on her arm and the glass on her floor.
Maybe he won't be like Josh.
Someone calls her name. She takes a deep breath and takes off her shoes.
He sees her as soon as she enters.
He's seated on a bed. It's the only piece of furniture in the room, the background and the floor black, the light just enough to see each other and a red, blinking dot.
He stands immediately, turns to her, smiles softly and- she stops. She knows him. She has him on her bedside table. He's not the stranger she was expecting, he's not a random guy found bored in a coffee shop like she was. He's- Richard Castle.
He's…
He's looking at her, waiting. Him in the light and her in the shadow, she wonders if it's okay to run away now.
But her feet bring her nearer and eventually she's in the light, too. His smile looks sincere from here, his blue eyes brighter than in the book jacket.
"I'm Rick", he whispers, holding his hand out, his voice softer than she had imagined.
"Kate", she answers. She takes his hand, his grip is firm and his palm warm, but there's a gentleness underneath that her heart swell.
"You two can start when you're ready. Take your time".
They both turn their heads toward the female voice behing the camera and nod in silence.
"You want to go first?", he asks. So she turns slowly, finds him staring right through her. Her eyes wander down the expanse of his chest, his arms, his waist.
She steps forward, her hands caressing the lapel of his shirt and then inching along his shoulders. She traces the lines of his muscles, his sternum, his chest. She knows she's crossing a line. She knows they told her to not touch the other person but just undress them - unless the other person was okay with that. She knows she hasn't asked him.
But he's watching, his eyes so concentrated on hers, his mouth slightly slack.
"Is this okay?". He nods a couple of times, while she starts to loosen his shirt. Button after button, his skin comes to view, the white porcelain she wish she could skim with her hands. She doesn't touch, though. The feeling has nothing to do with arousal or sexaul desire, anyway. It's the pleasure of having someone so near, after so long.
But she doesn't touch, instead she circles his waist with her arms, grabs the cloth on the small of his back and tugs his shirt out of his jeans. She repeats the motion on the front, careful not to touch his pants yet.
He has his eyes closed when she looks up, when she rises on her feet to drive the fabric down his arms, when she presses faintly against him in the process.
He has his eyes opened when she let it fall on the ground.
She expects him to go straight to undressing her. She expects him to hurry to see her naked - almost naked, she repeats to herself. She awaits for him to act like the playboy they say he is.
Instead, his hands come up, cup her face in most tender way she can remember. The gentleness of his stroke doesn't make her sick, doesn't make her feel like he fears her. And there's a spark along her skin when his thump strokes her jawline.
No-touch rule gets forgotten when he applies pressure on the base of her skull. She suppresses the moan rising up her throat, lets her head fall forward instead, his fingers massaging her tense muscles. He slowly dislodges the bun of her hair, her curls falling down her shoulders, his eyes are drawn to the line of her locks when she straightens.
He drives her leather jacket past her shoulders, down her arms, she loses herself when her eyes wander his chest, his shoulders, his hands. She feels his digits carefully inching up under her tshirt, her chest tightens as the smooth skin warns hers.
He doesn't know her story.
She says it to herself over and over.
If he did, he wouldn't do this. He wouldn't caress her like this, he wouldn't see anything but her scars, her fucked-up self. He doesn't know who she is and that's why she can't trust his care and the feeling he is arousing in her.
As if she was- worth of love again.
"Please, breathe," he whispers. "You passing out on me while I'm undressing you wouldn't be how I imagined this going".
He laughs nervously, awaits for her to meet his eyes and breathe. He asks her if she wants to stop then, the corner of his eyes twinkle in the low light and she can't even form words. This is going to end in some minutes and she will never see him again and he will forget her.
"Don't stop".
He carries the fabric with his hands, up her sides, her chest, past her head. It's when he lets it fall to the ground and she let her arms down that she sees him stop. His eyes are burning a hole through her chest, again.
She never allowed anyone to stare at it. She didn't consider this happening.
His hands quiver at his sides, his face slightly askew. He studies her. It makes her take a step back, put distance from this stranger who somehow seems so close. Like he already knows her.
"Right to the heart", he murmurs.
"What's your story?".
He stares at the scar at her side now, but she doesn't answer. She just takes a step closer, her fingers easily loosing his belt, careful to not hurt him or touch him. She pops the button open, the denim rough against her knuckles and it's impossible not to graze his flesh when she drags the zipper down.
She shivers at the sound of the teeth slowly being opened; he's silent and, in a way, reassuring. There's no shyness nor uncertainly in the way they look at each other. No hiding nor showing off.
She takes the material in her hands and trags it down his hips, his silly Iron Man boxers come into view and she can't help but stifle a laugh at this man. So contradictory.
"Sorry, I'm team Cap", she smirks.
He purses his lips and stumbles toward her, getting rid of his pants with a smile on his face. He braces on her to gain balance, the contact doesn't even make her flinch. His smile fades away then, replaced by a soft look and his tender features.
"I like this". He traces with his thumb the black word inked on her ribs.
Intregrity, he repeats gently.
"It fits", he admits, shifting his gaze to look at her in the eyes.
"It does?".
He hums, dropping to his knees before her, looking up at her again. He hooks his thumbs on the waistband of her pants and starts to drag it down. He moves to the small of her back and pulls again, then back to the front. She wiggles and he laugh, her naked waist too near him now. His eyes gaze her stomach, his lips part, he looks like… he looks like he might kiss her there.
She lets her hand brush his hair out of his forehead, she looks at him from above and there's a flutter, low in her belly, that she can't understand. He makes her limbs quiver, eager to touch. Eager to kiss.
She longs intimacy.
He rises on his feet, helps her step out of the puddle of her pants and starts to walk backward. He keeps her hands in his, his thumb strokes her skin and she smiles. It's easy with this man. He doesn't make her uncomfortable, doesn't push her, his eyes are tender.
He drops on the matress with a thud and he looks like a child, so pleased with himself for making her smile another time.
"You never answered my question".
"Nothing to know", she shrugs, placing her hands on his shoulders and pushing him down. He doesn't resist, just moves around to make room for her and opens his arms.
"You don't want to get involved with me, anyway", she says, taking his offer and lying down with him, her head resting on his chest, her cheek to his heart. Its beating lulls her, his warmth hugs and soothes her own hurting heart.
She doesn't know what he is doing to her.
His hand traces the line of her arm, while the other combs through her hair. Her fingers study his abs, his stomach contracts when she grazes it.
"I want to know you," he admits, enthralled, his strokes moving higher, along her neck. He sounds like a good man, a devoted lover. Exactly what she can't be at the moment. His strokes are so gentle on her skin. She almost feels the urge to cry.
"You don't even know my name."
"Kate is enough."