A/N: Happy Castle Monday as well as CastleFanficMonday! We survived the three week hiatus!

This little story began to form after hearing the song quoted below and this is what it turned in to.

This will be a 3-shot. Hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Castle or the characters used in this story!

To Make You Want Me

"I want to taste her lips
Yeah, 'cause they taste like you
I want to drown myself
In a bottle of her perfume
I want her long blonde hair
I want her magic touch
Yeah, 'cause maybe then
You'd want me just as much."

-Girl Crush by Little Big Town

She watches from the shadows, a broken woman yearning for the touch of a lover. But not just any lover, no. She wants Castle, wants his broad arms wrapped around her slender frame and his lips on her skin. Instead, she's done something to ruin the progress they were making, has halted their forward momentum and sent it hurling backwards. Something, but she has no idea what. And now she watches from the dark shadows that have fallen across the New York night, watches as the fun and uncomplicated blonde screeches Castle's car to a jerking stop and scurries across the street to his loft.

Jacinda is different. Nothing that Kate would peg as Richard Castle's type after knowing him for four years. In the beginning, perhaps the curvy, flaunting blonde is exactly who she would have expected him to leave the precinct with, but not now, not after truly knowing him.

Castle has surprised her more often than not, but this behavior, it's too much like he was in the past and it hurts, god, it hurts. So she remains where she is, hunched in the darkness, a privacy that the large building she's leaning against provides, while she watches all of the things she could have had disappear on the fleeting movement of a flight attendant.

Who knows how long Kate stands there, watching, waiting, and desperate for a different ending to this story. But the longer she stands there, ridiculously alone, she knows that the pen has already scribbled its words across the paper, that the ink has already began to dry, confirming that her chance is gone.

And then the sound of heels clicking across the pavement alerts her to the sight she can hardly bear to witness. Long, blonde hair whips violently around the face of the flight attendant as she makes her way back across the street. The wind dances across Jacinda's exposed skin, forces her to adjust her already twisted, red dress as she sinks into the driver's seat of a car that doesn't belong to her.

Her scent fills the space around her, sweet perfume sweeping across the shadows and surrounding Kate, drowning her in it.

Jealousy builds, flooding its way through every vein in Kate's body until she's burning with it, desperate to eradicate the feelings coursing through her. She stares at Jacinda, yearns to be everything that the woman is, because she knows her lips taste like Castle's, knows her skin is painted with the scent of him. And maybe if she was blonde and flaky, fun and uncomplicated, Castle would want her just as much as he wants Jacinda.

Maybe he would still be waiting for her.

Maybe.

A broken sob rips it way through her body as she watches the car pull away, and suddenly the hard wall behind her isn't even enough to hold her up. She crumbles to the ground, curls in on herself and sobs into the hard, unforgiving pavement.

And once she's completely spent, all strength seeming to have dissipated from her body, she somehow stumbles to a cab and grits out her address, because standing in the shadows is killing her.

"I don't get no sleep, I don't get no peace
Thinking about her, under your bed sheets
The way that she's whispering,
The way that she's pulling you in,
Lord knows I've tried,
I can't get her off my mind."

The walk from the cab to her apartment is a blur, tears that she can't stop blinding and if she didn't know the way, she would never have made it inside her apartment.

But the sleep she yearns for doesn't come, instead, she's left with images of Jacinda, vivid imagery that she tries to swipe away, and yet it takes a permanent place in her mind. Scenes between the flight attendant and Castle paint themselves over every inch of her, relentless and demanding until she's so submerged under the weight of them that she thinks she'll drown.

This must be her punishment for holding him at arm's length for so long, for lying to him for a year about the words that she can't get out of her mind. Words that she's sure no longer hold any meaning to him.

And it's that very reason that love has always scared her, because at any moment the love can walk away and the emotional wreckage it leaves behind is devastating.

The next morning at the precinct is torture, watching Castle continue to pull away from her. And then watching him waltz off with Jacinda, completely clueless to what he's doing to her.

Or is he?

But it's so unlike Castle to act this way, so not in him to intentionally hurt someone. Kate can't fathom any reason that he would be doing this purposely, until the one reason that would completely justify everything that he's doing clicks and she has to get away, has to escape the mess that she's made.

She walks for hours, but the destination that she finds herself at is no surprise. Alone in the shadows once again, watching the outcome that is no one's fault but her own.

Except this time, she's not watching from her place across the street, she's not going to stand there and watch a woman who knows nothing about the things that Castle has been through, swoop in and take him away.

This time, she's going to re-write their ending.

Kate sprints across the street, cuts off Jacinda's path just before the blonde reaches the lobby doors of Castle's building.

And that burning jealousy returns the moment that their eyes connect, because the icy blue pools speak more than Kate ever wanted to know.

She doesn't want to know all of the places Castle has touched Jacinda, doesn't want to know all of the words he's whispered against her tan skin, she just wants to forget the woman ever existed.

"I'm sorry, I'm going to have to ruin your plans this evening, I've just received a break on the case I'm working and I need Castle's assistance."

It's a lie, a ridiculously made-up lie, but she doesn't care as long as it gets the job done and sends the uncomplicated blonde away.

"Hmm, I think if given the option, Rick would much rather spend his evening with me," Jacinda bites back, raking her eyes disapprovingly over Kate.

"What makes you think that?" Kate asks, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Maybe you should ask him yourself, Detective Beckett."

Kate shoots her a glare, speaking more words with one look than she could have if she chose to speak again. And the look does its job because Jacinda backs down, steps away from the door and starts back down the street, but she stops just before she gets to the car, turning back towards Kate who's still standing in the same spot.

"You can try to fix what you've already thrown away, Detective, but sometimes it's too late."

Kate watches as the woman speeds away, and then her words truly sink in. She may be fighting a lost cause here, but there's only one way to find out.

Would love to hear your thoughts! xo