Disclaimer: I do not own these characters. They have in the perfect hands of Marlowe and company.

A/N: Nothing to say about this one other than I am almost physically crawling out of my skin at all of the Caskett goodness Season 5 has afforded us. And sometimes it forces me to write stuff like this.

Thanks for reading. Reviews welcomed, but very far from necessary. Hope you like it.

He comes to her a lot, a soft, pleasant surprise. It makes greater sense in terms of privacy, her place being the one that affords them guaranteed alone time, but she honestly expected to constantly be enticed into staying at the loft. He is so obviously in his element there, every surface, every object reflecting him, this man she knows so well, and he has this unnerving ability to make her feel just as much a part of the place as the books on his shelf. Like she belongs. But he willingly comes to her, and every time she lets him inside, she watches as he carefully memorizes the place piece by piece. He likes to touch, explore, peeling back the layers of the Beckett onion, and though it's unspoken, she knows from the awe and absorption that create a soft tint to his face that he has been waiting for a long time to see this side of her. She, finally, is more than willing to grant him access.

Sharing her space is less of a struggle than she imagined it would be. This isn't Josh or Will, someone she can keep separate, on a distant, unseen shelf to be used when desired. Castle has his own life, of course, but slowly, over the past four years, it has been stitched to hers, whether she noticed or not. So now, now it's not the tremendous upheaval she imagined. Now he comes in with groceries and cooks in her kitchen, now he mindlessly massages her feet while they both read on her couch, now she gets in her tub not with his books but with him. And it's good. It's so good that it floods her heart sometimes when the beauty of this new reality catches up with her, like it's doing right now.

Thanksgiving Eve. Not a true holiday, but everyone she knows seems to hold it dear to their hearts. When she was younger, she and her mom would go to the Frick and then get dinner before walking through the park, and the moment they got home, they would play and sing along to Bing Crosby's "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas". Alexis is currently partaking in the time honored tradition of her own coed years, gathering with high school friends and going out on the town. Thus, technically, why Castle is here, though she suspects he might have been anyway. He fits here, too, just like she fits there.

She's playing the Bing Crosby song now, cradled in the vee of his legs, on the floor, his back against her couch. One of his arms strokes feather-light up and down her arm, the other teasing the ends of her hair. Her head rises and falls so slowly on his chest, and the moment is so uncharacteristically quiet that she thinks the exhaustion of a full workday has lulled her into a half-dream. He's not saying a word, just breathing steadily for her.

Then his mouth descends upon the little space between her earlobe and her jaw, and it's like the sudden striking of a match. The heat of his breath, the plush attention of his lips, the ravenous need of his nipping teeth… she sinks into it, uncaring that she releases a little moan into the sedated air. His arms tighten around her body, fitting all of her so easily within him, and she can feel his first name building rapidly on her tongue. She feels weightless, could do this forever, is addicted to being like this, getting to be touched by the man who has always seemed to know her, in spite of herself.

"It's too early for this song," he kisses into her overly sensitized skin, making her shiver.

"You a big rule follower?" she breathes, her body heaving as his tongue dips teasingly against her jawbone. She licks her lips and discovers the smirk planted firmly there. "No Christmas talk until after Thanksgiving?"

"It's making me wish it was cold," he explains. "Cold, snowy, with nowhere to be except near a fire, cuddled up with you."

He's getting bolder, the eagerness of his hands and mouth calming the thoughts stockpiling in her head at how he essentially just admitted he can't wait for their first Christmas together, that the thought of it gets him excited.

The music is soft, reminds her faintly of a movie or a department store, further burying her in this warm bubble of light and love. It's all just beneath the surface, burbling, how she hasn't had a really good holiday season in so long, no matter how she's tried to put it out of her mind in the past. But already this feels different, having someone to come home to and get excited with. The press of his tongue is worshipful against her skin, and the warm air and lilting music is nothing compared to the numbing heat rushing through her belly.

"Castle…"

She feels his arm release her middle, contains a huff at feeling it go, but she sees out of the corner of her eye him pulling his laptop across the floor towards them. Curious (but mildly frustrated), she watches as he opens it. A black square in the center of the screen flares to life, and within moments she's looking at herself. Castle double-clicks and the image expands to fill the screen. It's them, the two of them in the Precinct break room, standing close while she's on the phone, an annoyed expression on her face. The scene is paused, but Castle's thumb hovers over the space bar, ready to animate it.

"What is this?" she asks faintly, though there's a churning in her stomach, just beneath the magical warmth of his spanning palm, that tells her she knows exactly what this is.

"I talked to the director of the band documentary," he murmurs right into her ear, planting amazing little kisses along the shell in a way so tender she shudders from the contact. "Got a copy of the tape we had to pry out from underneath Gates."

"Of course you did," she says quickly as a means of covering up the feeling spinning like a web through her whole body, trapping it within so that he won't know how this all makes her feel. But he does know, he does, because though she hasn't confirmed it with the exact three words yet, she says it a million times a day, how this ride they've embarked on is big and scary and worth it worth it worth every goddamn second of waiting and doubt and fear. She sinks back into him instinctively, eyes glued to the screen in thrilling anticipation, her body made fluid by the arousing rush of his breath against her ear.

He leans his forehead against her temple, breathing slowly, with temperance, as if soaking this all in before it becomes too much. She turns her head to look at him, beholding his shut eyes, and can't help her burst of affection that leaks through in a kiss against his wrinkled brow, her eyelashes skimming the well-worn and well-loved terrain of his face.

He opens his eyes, locks gazes with her. "You wanna watch?" he asks quietly, a bit tentatively.

She automatically cups his face, brings it to hers, pushes her tongue inside the warm, wet cove of his mouth, which provides a perfect shelter for her zealous adoration.

"Yes, Castle," she whispers into him. She feels them smile against each other's lips, spurring her on, fanning the dual flames of desire and fondness within her. "Yes, I want to watch us."

She hears the click of the keyboard and has to drag her eyes to the screen, to purposefully divert her attention from the man whose love for her radiates from his body like an aura. When she does look, she sees herself as she often feels, disgruntled, bogged down by a case. But within a moment, he moves for her, like he can't help it, like he's drawn in by the stray strand of hair that frames her frustrated face. She watches herself melt under his touch, and she feels time slow, thicken around her throat, send her heart into a panicked, overheated flurry as his fingers cradle her face in a gentle caress. She smiles, leans into it, wraps his fingers within her own. She can't see his eyes because of the camera angle, but she sees those crinkles she loves, the ones she traces when they're in bed and he's barely awake, still grinning at her through his lull. The ones that fan out from the corners of his eyes like his love is an earthquake, moving out from his center to the surface, where she can see it, confront it, be swept up in it. She watches them in the sweet moment before she realizes that the camera has caught them as she feels his rapid breathing at her back, caught between the sight of them and the protective wall of his chest. It's too much, far too much, except it doesn't drown her as she might have expected that it would. No, not with him. Not with this.

She shoots out her hand to close the laptop and spins around so that she's on her knees between his legs, her face a breath away from his. Her whole body is straining, her muscles throbbing against the cage of her skeleton, needing to touch him everywhere, all at once. His gaze is so focused on her, so blue, that she finds herself holding in a cry under its scrutiny and wraps her hands around his neck, needing him so intensely that is paralyzes her.

"Kate," he says, touching her face like he did in the footage, his eyes sweeping over her like he is a bird unsure where to land. "Kate."

The desperation – the love – in his voice matches the thrumming pulse shaking her entire body, a battle cry that urges the words out of her. For once, Kate, for once, say the words for him.

"Rick – "

His lips are on fire against her, robbing her of her breath as he latches onto her face with mouth and hands. She submits instantly, giving up her weight to the force of his as he leans forward, pressing her back until she is stretched out against the rug beneath him. He seems as unwilling to stop kissing her as she is to let him go, but after a few feverish moments he travels down the exposed slope of her neck as his hands skim her arms, not stopping until they reach her wrists, fumble as they discover the ecstatic rhythm of her pulse.

He pulls back with a gasp, and when she opens her eyes, she sees him as a reflection of herself, mouth open in a silent exclamation, not needing air as much as they need each other. His chest is a violent storm, a thrashing sea, and the sight of it sends a reactionary motion into her legs. They twitch, pine, seek him out, wrap around his waist in a quest for not just friction but connection. To see that look in his eye without being bound to him in every way possible feels as if it makes a fallacy of this pure, beautiful thing they have, and she cannot spare another moment not having him.

She watches him as he draws his eyes to his right hand, which seems to be moving of its own accord, trailing down her whole body in a slow but deliberate path. He reaches the sliver of nude skin between the rucked up hem of her shirt and her pants and devours it with touch. His fingers unfurl into a hand that is wide enough to dwarf her entire side, drawing into it her hip. She arches up, her open lips unleashing breathy pants at the combined heat of his completely invested touch and the gaze that bores right through her, spears her with its earnest, unrelenting devotion. He watches himself touch her, and it completely does it for her, sends her over some hazy edge where her control is no longer hers and she just needs.

"Castle," she moans, feels the pads of his fingers like brands, his grip bruising and perfect. "Castle, never stop showing me. Please, please, never stop showing me."

The high-pitched plea catches his attention enough that he looks up at her face, a blend of misapprehension and lust fogging up his eyes. It sends a straight lightning bolt of desire through her, and she moans, the sound cresting over the words that come spilling out of her.

"Castle, I… I'm going to need you to show me. You're so good, Castle. So good at this." His fingers sink even deeper into her skin; the pulse in his neck flutters wildly. She bites her lip as her own desire makes itself apparent between her legs. "Castle," she cries, "I don't think I could bear it if you ever gave up on me, if you ever stopped looking at me like –"

She is silenced by a deep, primitive groan that rumbles out of his mouth and into her skin as he falls forward, pressing his face against her stomach. Her thighs are trembling because his breath is hot, wicked against her, and his tongue is wet and generous. Her hands fly to his head, finding urgent purchase in his hair. She writhes underneath his ministrations, and she knows that every fiber in her being means it – after all of this, the past four years, the last six months, she knows she wouldn't be able to live without this.

"God, Castle," she pants, her heading tilting back against the floor as he bites her just beneath her bellybutton. She knows he's not teasing her on purpose, lingering just shy of where is she aching for him, but it still sends her crawling out of her skin. She has never wanted anyone like this in her life, and each encounter shatters her previous notions, that it can't possibly get more intense, more beautiful, more liberating than it already is.

"How can I show you, Kate?" he asks into her skin, though she can hear no fierceness in his muffled tone. Some of the delicious tension uncoils in her belly because she knows that he knows he doesn't have to prove it anymore. The past few weeks flash through her mind, him sitting helpless in a holding cell, his voice over the phone with a gun pointed at the back of her head.

No matter what happens, it's okay.

He deftly slides the button of her pants free.

Don't worry.

He tugs down the zipper.

No, never. Never.

"How, Kate?" he's asking against her hipbone as he pulls her pants down her legs. His wet mouth travels to meet the wet lace of her underwear, his lips pushing firm kisses against her. She feels cold tears gather in the far corners of her eyes as she swears under her breath.

"I want you," she pants, her shaking hands falling to his shoulders, and even now, even this, is not enough for her. "Castle, look at me."

He does as she says, his stare piercing her as his teeth close around the waistband of her panties. "Make me naked," she breathes out, wrangling back a sob as he frees her of her underwear with an obliging smile. Once she's bare, his lips get distracted swirling patterns on her inner thighs, painting on her like she's a blank canvas. She tries to remind him that she's not completely nude yet – and she wants to be, wants to be totally vulnerable to him – but instead she howls at the firm, swift flick of his tongue inside of her. She feels blinded, the world a white, burning haze behind her eyes, but he's gone a moment later, leaving her arching up with futility against the air. He pins her back against the floor as he licks a path across her thigh.

"You feel that, Kate?" he laves into the sensitive space at the back of her knee. "You feel how wet you are for me?"

Some strangled sound pushes out of her gritted teeth as she nods furiously, needing him to know how good it feels, not just the foreplay, but how good it feels that he finally knows how much he affects her, can taste how much she wants him. It's not a private release, not a secret, not a gleaming, far-off goal to claw her way towards. It's real now, consuming her, and it's far better than she dreamed on even her most wild, restless nights.

Desperate, she pulls her black blouse up over her head quickly and throws it across the room, taking her bra at the same. Once the air hits her skin, she sighs, the sound full of mirth, satisfaction, a breathy little laugh that causes him to dive back into her like she's a well he is unafraid to empty for his own purposes. To quench his own desperate thirst.

This time, when he retreats, he brings his tongue, freshly coated in her arousal, in a circle around her navel. Then he dips inside it and she lets some tension out, scratches at the floor, screams his name without care of her volume.

"It's so easy to show you, Kate," he inscribes against her body as he goes yet again for her throbbing, soaked center. His mouth pulls out and then he finds her nipple, licking it thoroughly, sending a pleasure through her that is so sharp it bows her back, sets fire to her vocal chords. He shows the same care for the other nipple, dousing the left one with the evidence of her desire while his hand roughly massages the right one. She isn't even aware of the sounds she's producing any longer; it's just an unending stream of reactions, filling her once empty apartment with a soundtrack of togetherness that is so beautiful and so right she starts to form the words, the words she knows he wants, and even more, ones that dare to ask for a future, for a forever.

But she's stalled, because he goes again, pleased to find even more arousal to plunder greedily, and once he's had his fill he drags a trail of it along her neck.

"You make it so easy for me to love you, Kate."

Her heart bursts, stunned, all her blood halted in its much-needed dispensing throughout her body. He hasn't said it in so long. Hasn't said it because he is a patient, patient man, knows she needs to be ready, and he's not going to let this thing go on in any way that doesn't feel mutual. But he's said it now, and she can't even react, he doesn't let her, because all semblance of control is gone from his face and he thrusts two fingers straight into her. He pumps mercilessly, panting, a smile playing at the corners of his lips. She screams, turning her head into the rug and biting down on it. But he doesn't make her come; he retreats too fast, leaving her wanting once again, and she thrashes her head in his direction to see him wrap his gifted tongue around his digits. Their stares lock heatedly as he licks himself clean of her, his grunts proof enough of how much she affects him in turn. It makes her want to trap him between her thighs until she blacks out from pleasure.

He's breathless, smiling down at her, and she barely has a chance to smile back before his hands are clamped down on her knees and he's spreading her apart. He's on her in a moment, swiping, sucking, caressing her clit wildly, leaving her right on the razor-sharp edge before he is gone and lunging for her mouth. His tongue is down her throat and she's burning, burning with love, because she can taste it on him, how much she'll let go for him. It's love, and it's shared by them, caught somewhere between their lips.

She moves her lips across his jaw, over the ridge of his chin into the rough, stubbled landscape of his neck. He's ragged now, completely undone, his forehead pressing against the top of her head as he tries to hold on. She removes his shirt, lights small fires against his chest with her fingertips that she puts out with her trailing mouth. He's a quivering heap by the time she cups him through his pants, pushing his name into his mouth as she hurriedly frees him from his jeans.

"Make me come," she murmurs against his brow while his tongue lathers her jugular.

He goes to push into her, but her reflexes kick in quickly enough that she grabs him first, squeezes, catches his cascading groan with her mouth. Sucking sweetly on his bottom lip, stroking him, kneading him, she tells him, "You're gonna make me come while I scream your name, so that you can't forget the reason I'm coming apart."

She brushes her thumb against the head of him, encountering a wetness she wishes was in her mouth, but she isn't as patient as he is, needs to attain release more than she needs to draw it out. He's choking back sobs, biting her name into her neck, and it's the perfect contrast of pain against pleasure when she begins rubbing him against herself.

She's already wound so tightly that it doesn't take long to get her to the place where she has to act quickly. Either she can change it up a bit and make it last longer, or she can fall into that perfect abyss that is nothing but the wonder of his body unleashing her.

"It's for you," he tells him, right in his ear. "Castle, it's for you. For you. For you." She's chanting as she presses the hard, thick length of him against herself at the perfect angle, and then there's ecstasy, traveling through her legs, making them spring up and convulse in midair. It lasts so long, overtakes her entire body, a fire started with the kindling of his cock against her. And she would scream his name if he wasn't kissing her like it's the last thing he'll ever do on this earth.

He doesn't give her time to come down. He knows that the aftereffect is something she loves, but tonight is not a night that she will get a chance to relish it, because they've lived through too much and have come too far and loved each other for too long to stop when they have barely gotten started. He flips her over so that her heaving stomach comes in contact with the rug, so soft and warm, now stained with a puddle of her release that makes her tremble when she feels it. He kisses the long, lithe length of her back, kisses her everywhere, because it is an easy, effective way to get her worked up again quickly. She moans so loudly against the floor that the sound floods her ears, makes her deaf to the world, renders her useless as he slides inside of her. His fingers find her when his strokes get too sloppy, tangling up in her nerves, crooking and curling where she likes it. She tells him to smack her ass; he does. As a reward for the way she cries out at the contact, he makes her come almost instantly. He tells her to lick the come off his fingers; she does. When he finally spills into her, she's smiling against the floor, sated, happy, in love, a willing receptacle of all the love he is capable of giving.

When he fucks her against her front door, she actually cries.

When she fucks him while he's carrying her into her bedroom, he tells her again, doesn't care if she never says it back; it hardly matters when they're like this, so blissfully, undeniably perfect. Amazing together, just like he promised.

When he's laid her across her mattress, she cups his face and tells him with such tenderness in her eyes and voice to go get his computer. He can barely breathe, his love for her suffocating him, but he goes, brings it back to her like a supplicant, and she takes it and opens it on her bedside table. She brings his head into the warm cradle of her neck and uses her thighs to urge him back inside of her for one last time before they pass out, spent, drunk on each other. This time it's slow, this time it's languid, this time it's while she watches the look on her face on the computer screen, the evidence of how happy he makes her blooming like a flower that she never, ever wants to pick. And it amazes her all over again, the way this man has gotten past every wall she has built around her heart. That the man thrusting with such skill and delicate precision inside of her is the same one who has betrayed and hurt her, has held her during her nightmares, has made her a part of his world, his life. Believes in her. Challenges her. Lightens her. Wants her. Loves her.

Just before she falls asleep in his embrace, she realizes that tomorrow, when everyone says what he or she is thankful for, all she will have to do to answer in honesty is look at him.