The Heart Wants What it Wants
For Kate Beckett and Richard Castle being together is impossible...or is it? [AU Future World / Companion to "The Illusion of Perfect"] 3 Parts.
A/N: As promised this is the slightly darker companion to The Illusion of Perfect. It is not completely necessary to read that fic before this on in order to understand, but it is recommended.
Clearing her throat, Kate Beckett lifted her hand and rapped her knuckles against the doorway to the penthouse of that Broome Street apartment building. She dropped her hand and first tucked her fingers into her front jean pocket, but then almost immediately moved her arms so they were crossed in front of her. Then, second guessing her position, she moved both hands to her back pockets instead. A moment later she dropped her chin to her chest and let out a long exhale still wondering if her decision to go to the Castle loft that evening had been a good idea or one of the worst she'd ever had.
As always, the writer had been quite a convincing force. After he'd saved her life, he maintained concern about her well-being, continually asking if she was all right or if she needed to go to a hospital. Once the EMT's gave them the all-clear to go home and clean up after their impromptu swim, he'd invited her over to his place, saying that she shouldn't be alone just in case she felt the ill effects of her near-drowning later on. She assured him she was fine, but he wouldn't accept her answer and insisted that she come over for dinner so she could spend the evening relaxing. After her initial refusal, he texted her three times in an hour until she finally gave in just so he'd let her finish her reports in peace.
Really, the entire day had been a mess right from the start when she blew a fuse in her apartment trying to dry her hair. Considering how run-down her building was, blowing a fuse happened once a week on average, but that morning it really set the pace for her mess of a day, which by noon-time had her police cruiser plunging hood-first into the Hudson. She knew she would be mentally kicking herself for weeks to follow for not realizing their mob-affiliated suspect had lured her and her partner to the dock under the guise of providing information on their latest case only to make an attempt on their lives. He would have succeeded, too, were it not for Castle.
Kate doubted she would ever not be amazed by the way her writer-turned-investigator partner stayed calm as water flooded their vehicle. While she panicked despite her cop training, he maintained the wherewithal to retrieve her gun, which had fallen to the floor in the back, destroy her stuck seatbelt, swim them both to safety, and then resuscitate her after she passed out from gulping in the river water. She owed him her life for that moment—and many others—which was the other reason she was at his apartment that night; Richard Castle deserved a very genuine thank you for all he had done for her.
"Hey! C'mon in!" The writer greeted her with his perfect grin and sparkling blue eyes as he ushered her into his apartment. Of course, as he was one of the first born from the new, genetically perfected brand of human eggs, there really was no other way for Castle to smile other than perfectly and his eyes never lost their luster. As one of the original Ultra-Elites, born over forty years prior, he did differ slightly from the one born those days: his skin had freckles and not all his features were perfectly symmetrical, but compared to Defects like her? He was in another class entirely, both inside and out.
"So I was thinking maybe we'd do some comfort food given everything we went through today. Mac and cheese sound good? I also have some steaks if you'd rather—I know you usually like it when I make those."
She chuckled inwardly as she hung up her jacket by the door. Yes, she did enjoy Castle's steaks, mainly because she only ever ate steaks when she was with him, as they were an item far too pricy for her meager budget. "Mac and cheese is fine, Castle; no need to go to any special trouble for me."
"I disagree—we're celebrating our survival, remember?" He winked at her and then walked back towards his kitchen, beckoning for her to follow.
Kate unzipped her boots, left them by the door, and followed the writer, her sock-covered feet padding against the familiar smooth wooden floor. Though she'd been partners with Castle for over three years and thus been in his apartment many times, she never felt at ease there, only out of her element. The loft felt like a museum with shiny floors, clean walls and luxurious furniture. She did the best she could to keep her apartment tidy and was never purposefully dirty, but there was only so much she could do with the cracked flooring, peeling paint and hand-me-down furniture that came with her rental.
"Speaking of our survival," Kate began, hovering at the edge of the counter as he poured two glasses of red wine, another luxury she rarely enjoyed outside the writer's presence. "You, ah, left kind of quickly at the pier."
He passed over her glass with a grimace. "Sorry I just wanted to get home and out of my soaking wet socks and underwear."
She nodded, completely understanding the sentiments as she had hated her very damp ride back to the Twelfth. "Not judging, Castle, just commenting. And thanks for the wine. I just meant that you left before I had a chance to really thank you for saving my life."
He shrugged as casually as if he'd merely provided her with a ride home from work. "Of course, Kate; we're partners."
Kate fought the urge to wince visibly at how he labeled them. They were partners—she'd never think of them otherwise, but therein lay the problem. Being 'partners' was all they could ever be.
"Still, you saved me…again." She added with a light laugh.
The writer set his glass down on the edge of the counter and approached her slowly, purposefully. "I'll save you as many times as I have to, Kate Beckett."
He stopped in front of her, the heat pouring out of his eyes with such intensity that Kate was surprised the wine in her goblet did not begin to boil. She cleared her throat and dropped her gaze to the stem of the glass, unable to tolerate the way his expression of desire made her heart flutter and ache all the same. They had shared a similar moment once he'd hoisted them both up onto the pier. They were breathless and clinging to each other. Their faces had been so close, so close that she had almost—
No. She wouldn't have such thoughts; she couldn't.
"Kate."
The husk in his tone made her gaze up at him, her heart hammering against her rib cage. God, the way he was looking at her; she could barely endure the way it twisted her stomach in her gut. All her life she'd pushed herself away from people, so she'd never experienced wanting someone the way she wanted him. The feeling was visceral and practically molecular, but she couldn't have him, no matter how much she ached; no matter how much it tore her up inside.
Castle reached out, took her wine glass, and set it on the counter beside them. He then skimmed his left hand across her forearm until it dropped down to her side, just above her hip; she gasped and instinctively reached out her hand to close around his bicep. "What are you doing?" They had rarely, if ever, been in such close physical contact, events when he was carrying her injured body away from a firefight or a sinking police cruiser aside.
"We could have died today, Kate. Died without ever having this moment that I know we both want."
"W-what moment is that?" she responded, her voice a little shaky. She played dumb, afraid to believe it even though she was quite positive she understood his implication.
Ever the showman, the writer didn't respond directly, but instead used his hand against her waist to pull her closer so that their hips were almost flush. He dipped his head so that his lips grazed across her forehead and up over the top of her head. She sucked in a breath, her heart jumping up into her throat, and his right hand skimmed beneath her jaw so he could tilt her chin upwards.
"This moment," he said simply before lowering his head further so that his lips hovered over hers.
Kate could feel it, his hot breath on her face, the feather-light touch of his lips over hers. She could give in so easily—give in to the thing that yes, of course they both wanted—but she maintained just enough of her senses to remain strong. Just before he could kiss her, she pushed herself away using her hands on his biceps. "Castle, no. Stop."
A pained expression skirted across his face. "But why? You want this don't you?"
Ignoring his second question she replied. "You know why—it's illegal."
Obviously undeterred, he took two sauntering steps towards her. "Technically, kissing isn't illegal."
She grunted and moved around to the other side of the kitchen counter so that it separated them hoping the distance would allow her to think with her brain and not her heart. "'Intimate relations' includes kissing, Castle." She reminded him, quoting the law she'd memorized by the time she was sixteen.
Ultra-Elites, like the one that stood before her, were born from DNA harvested from their parents that was placed into a lab-created blank embryo. They were designed to be flawless inside and out; free from genetic abnormalities that would make them susceptible to illnesses or detrimental genetic conditions as well as any that would give them less-desirable external qualities. Kate, on the other hand, had been born from natural conception, a practice that was illegal at the time of her birth.
Not every family had to pay the tens of thousands of dollars to have an Ultra-Elite baby, but couples were required to go through genetic counselling and have lab harvesting done to make sure defect-free eggs and sperm were used for conception. Defiant to these brand new, too-harsh rulings, the Becketts had chosen not to do this and were thusly punished. Kate's mother was jailed when Kate's defective-status was discovered when she tried to enter kindergarten; she died in a prison riot three years later. So as not to burden the foster system with an undesirable child, Kate's father was allowed to raise his daughter, though they faced much scrutiny and opposition.
By the time she was a teen, Kate discovered the full ramifications of her parent's decision. Though no legal restrictions on where she could live or work existed, the fact that she did not carry any level of Elite ID card made her easy to discriminate against. Subject to many prejudices, she worked hard to have the best grades and high school resume she could to get into a good college in hopes of having a career as a lawyer like her parents. Unfortunately, a vicious incident during her freshmen year altered the course of her life; she dropped out of her Ivey League college and instead attended the police academy, intent on trying to the world a better place even though the world had turned its back on her long ago.
Kate had been satisfied with her life, satisfied with the good she did as a homicide detective, until the fateful day on which she met Richard Castle. She knew of him, of course—had even read his novels, which was how she was able to pick up on the murder scene that strongly resembled one in his books. Per the unofficial social rules in Manhattan, she interacted with Ultra-Elites as little as possible, so speaking with the writer was a departure from her routine in many ways.
Unlike the other Ultra-Elites she encountered, instead of being repulsed by her, Castle seemed intrigued. He was kind to her and surprisingly helpful, but she never could have anticipated him requesting to shadow her and using his relationship with the mayor as leverage for her captain to agree to the unprecedented arrangement. At first, she resisted him on the mantra that she needed to keep her distance, but he eventually wore her down, and three years later she considered him a dear friend.
The events of her youth had made Kate certain that she would live out her life—however long that was given her dangerous profession—in solitude. As an answer to navigating the murky waters of who she was legally allowed to be in a relationship with, Kate opted to be in a relationship with no one and had accepted that as her fate…until Castle had cradled her against his chest, protecting her injured body from flying bullets, and she realized that despite all efforts to maintain her distance, she'd fallen for him.
Ever since that moment nearly a year earlier, she'd had a continuous war raging inside her heart. She tried to sabotage their partnership and push him away, but it never worked; he always came back so she'd given up and accepted his friendship despite continuous warnings that she was toeing the line more than ever, but Castle made her smile, he made her laugh, he made her happy and that just wasn't something she was willing to give up.
Kate wasn't stupid—she was a detective and a damn good one at that—and she knew the looks her partner gave her. She suspected he felt the same or at least felt something for her and had more or less just proved it by trying to kiss her, but no matter how much they wanted it, they couldn't. Intimate relations between Defects like her and Ultra-Elites like him were illegal. Yes, technically 'relations' referred to sex, which could lead to accidental procreation, but she imagined a federal law enforcer in a bad mood wouldn't hesitate to throw the book at them both for even a simple kiss.
Walking steadily towards her he said, "Intimate relations could be kissing…but it also could be something else and, as a perfect gentleman, I wouldn't dream of crossing that line—at least, not on the first date." He finished with a smirk.
Kate scooted away from him before he could reach out and touch her. "This isn't a date."
"Really? Food, wine…and if I light some candles it could definitely be a date."
He reached out for her hand but she twisted away just before he could touch her. "Castle—stop! We would both end up in prison, you realize that, right?"
He shrugged. "Worth it."
She growled at his cavalier attitude. "Castle. I'm a cop; I'd get killed in prison."
The gravity of this statement wiped the teasing-expression from his face and he approached her with a more serious tone. "Kate, I would never, ever want you to be in danger, but I don't think you are. I'm not asking you to make out with me in the middle of Time's Square; no one is going to catch us."
Shaking her head and raking her fingers through her hair, Kate gazed over at him with a small amount of disbelief. "I can't even believe we're having this conversation."
"Might I suggest having it over dinner?" he asked, making a sweeping gesture towards his macaroni and cheese casserole.
Though her appetite had diminished significantly, Kate nodded and took a seat at his expansive dining room table. While Castle brought over the casserole and their salad she tried to calm her heartrate and process what had just transpired in his kitchen. Castle had, effectively, said he wanted to make love to her, which, if she was being honest with herself, was something that she wanted as well, but knew she could never have owing to the fact that she really, really did not want to go to prison.
"I think you'll see that my plan is actually quite sound."
Kate gazed suspiciously up at the man placing a large dollop of still steaming-hot cheesy pasta on his plate. "Is that so?"
He bobbed his head. "Yes, like all of my plans."
Kate let out a bark of laughter at his statement which was entirely false. With all his wild theories, she doubted more than forty percent could be considered 'quite sound'. "All of your plans!? Castle, have you met you?"
"I have no idea to what you're referring."
She grumbled at his innocent expression and turned to the plate in front of her which she'd made half salad and half pasta. She tried to concentrate on her food, but despite the fact that she enjoyed the rich, silky flavor of the melted cheese blend (another thing too pricy for her budget) she just couldn't focus. She struggled to conceptualize what kind of plan the writer could concoct that was remotely plausible and also did not end with them being hauled away in shackles. Unable to live with the nagging curiosity, Kate set down her fork, took a sip of wine, and stared her companion down.
"Okay, Castle, let's assume for a second you have not completely lost your mind, what exactly is your foolproof plan? We have a one-night affair? What would that get us? If it was wonderful, we'd both be miserable—we'd want to do it again and again and we probably would, but then what? Would we stop? Walk away? Or keep going until we were caught? Because those are pretty much our only two options: one night together or prison."
Shaking his head he said, "Kate, you're being far too dramatic about this."
She squeaked with indignation. "Too dramatic? Do you know what my life is like, Castle?" She faced animosity at nearly every turn. Doing her job was nearly impossible because suspects merely sneered at her and victim's families often requested a different investigator even after her captain pointed out to them that she was their precinct's highest ranked detective. The man across from her, however, had practically had his life handed to him on a silver platter, so of course he would see every situation through rose-colored glasses.
Resting his fork against the edge of his plate, Castle skimmed out his now-free right hand so it could grasp onto hers across the table. "I do, actually. You've been through so much Kate, so much heartache and hardship. I just want to give you something good; I want you to be happy."
Despite the fact that his warm fingers against hers made her skin tingle, Kate gazed away and said, "I'm not allowed to be happy, Castle; the government has made sure of that."
His hand gave hers a squeeze and he pleaded, "Kate."
She took in a shaky deep breath and fought back the tears forming at the edge of her eyes. As she had rarely faced such kindness before in her life, Kate did not always know how to react when Castle treated her in such a way, but she'd come to learn over the prior year it was just his way. A mean bone didn't exist in his body and he was the type of person who wanted to fix the world, impossible as it seemed. She appreciated that his positive outlook counteracted her negative one in many ways, but there were just some situations that he couldn't charm his way out of and this was one of them.
"I appreciate what you're saying Castle, I really do. It's so sweet and I wish…I wish it wasn't illegal but-"
"What if it wasn't?"
She turned her gaze back to him and asked slightly dumbfounded, "What?"
"What if it wasn't illegal?"
Her brow wrinkled as she tried to process what he was saying, but she simply did not have the mental capacity at that time. "…okay? I don't even know what that means." Relations between people like her and people like him had been illegal since the year before her birth and that was not going to change—ever, she imagined.
He smoothed his fingertips over her palm. "It's illegal here, Kate; in the US, but if we moved somewhere else—Canada, Europe—where the laws aren't as-"
"You cannot possibly be serious!" Kate gasped and stood so quickly that she nearly tipped over her chair. She managed to catch it just in time and then stood behind it, her hands gripping on to the top of the seat back until her knuckles were white.
His gaze ever-steady, he said, "I am serious."
Kate shook her head as she looked down at him. Clearly, he had completely lost his mind. He was suggesting that they run away together—run away to another country together, despite the fact that they'd never kissed and never been in anything close to a romantic relationship. Hoping to argue him back to sanity with a more overt reason, she said, "Castle, if we did that we'd have to leave everyone behind and we could never come back. Your mother, your daughter, all of your friends and-"
"I'd do it." He stood from his seat and walked around the end of the table so he was just two feet in front of her. "I'd do it for you, Kate, because I-"
"No." She whimpered out, fearful what his next confession would be. "Don't…don't."
"But it's true."
He reached out a hand towards her but she twisted away and back towards the other end of the table. Brushing a stray tear from the corner of her eye she said, "No, Castle I just…I can't talk about this right now. Today has been too…too much." She hadn't yet fully processed the fact that she nearly drowned and she definitely could not handle any emotional confession from her partner in the same evening.
He nodded and raised his hands up with palms facing out defensively. "That's fair. Just eat and relax. And then we can talk about it later or whenever. You can even stay the night."
Kate rolled her eyes as she pulled out her chair in order to sit back down at her plate of food; clearly, his sanity had not yet returned. "I obviously cannot do that Castle."
"Why not? It'll be as friends. You'll be 'sleeping in the couch.'"
Her brow wrinkled at his hand gestures. "What's with the air quotes?"
"Because I actually mean my bed."
"Castle!" She scolded, though he seemed unfazed.
"Alexis is at a sleepover and god only knows where Mother is; no one will know. Just think about it." He added casually before sitting back down in his chair and continuing with dinner as though they'd been discussing the weather. Not as confident as her partner, Kate tentatively picked up her fork and took a small bite of food, still not sure what other surprises the evening would have for her.
Richard Castle did not like to think of himself as a conceded man. He had many successes but tried not to overtly gloat about them or seem too arrogant or ungrateful. There were, however, several occasions on which he was positively thrilled with himself. Many related to the solving of a particularly tricky homicide case, but on that particular evening, he prided himself on convincing his lovely partner to spend the night with him; sometimes he even amazed himself with his skills of persuasion.
Castle stood beside his bed, smoothing down the covers and making sure all decorative throw pillows were tossed aside so his bed was ready for a night of restful slumber. Yes, they would only be sleeping that night—a condition of Kate's agreement to stay—but he wasn't complaining about that—not even a little bit. Nervous butterflies filled his stomach as he heard her finishing up in the bathroom, shutting off the water tap and making muted shuffling noises. This was really happening—really and truly. After over a year of wanting her it really was hard to believe.
"This is a terrible idea."
Castle looked over to see his companion standing just outside the bathroom doorway dressed in the t-shirt and boxer shorts he provided her and he grinned. "Are you sure you didn't hit your head when we crashed into the water? You seem to have replaced the world 'excellent' with 'terrible' in that sentence."
She gave him a look. "Very funny, Castle."
"Relax, Kate; no one will ever know." In addition to his enticing tone, he smoothed his hand over the far side of the bed, giving it a pat and encouraging her forward with the nod of his head. She stepped up to the edge of the bed, flipped back to corner of the sheet and duvet, but merely gazed down at it cautiously as her left index finger grazed over the scar on her cheek. Castle recognized this action as one she did while deep in thought, though he doubted she was consciously aware of it. As he had observed her nearly five days a week for over three years, he was intimately familiar with all her movements and actions—and loved every one of them.
Given how long he'd known her Castle no longer noticed the scar that went from just below the outside corner of her right eye almost the entire way across her face to the edge of her nostril. The mark didn't strike him as offensive or repulsive—it never had, even if she was one of the only people with a visible scar that he knew. The raised strip of skin was simply part of her story albeit one of the sadder chapters.
"C'mon." He encouraged. "Just test it out and if you're not comfortable, I'll move to the couch."
She flicked her eyes up to meet his and said with mild horror, "You will not. I'll just…leave."
"This late?"
"I have my badge and gun with me."
"Still too dangerous, Kate. No, you'll just…have to stay." He sighed in a somewhat overly dramatic way, flopping himself down onto the mattress. Then, grinning up at her, he patted her side of the bed once more.
With an expression of reluctance, she placed her right knee down on the bed and sunk down onto her right hip, pulling her left leg up in front of her as she sat. She skimmed her hands across the silky sheets and smiled softly. "This is nice. I've never been in a king-sized before."
"Then you'd better live it up." He encouraged. Her hesitant expression slowly morphing into a smile, she threw herself down against his pile of pillows and flung her arms out above her head. In doing so, she inadvertently caused the shirt she wore to rise up, exposing a few inches of her lower stomach, particularly where the waistband of his boxers was too large for her. Normally, this would not have been a very notable incident however in that particular case it allowed him to view the scars he knew were there but had never seen.
As she said, "This is rather nice," his stare remained fixed on the twin neat lines, half an inch each on either side of her belly button, though several inches below, and the third, angrier and more rugged looking one in between the other two. Without even thinking, Castle reached out his hand to touch the spot, but Kate evidently noticed what he was doing and realized her exposure, because she sat up quickly, wrenched her shirt down and said, "Don't."
"Kate." He began with a soft tone, as though he was approaching a wounded animal. "Please let me see."
She spoke without looking at him. "Why would you want to? They're just scars."
"I want to see." He promised her. His hand landed on her shoulder feather-light at first, but then he gave it a solid squeeze. He skimmed his hand up and down her left side for the better part of thirty seconds before she gazed over at him as tentative as ever. He smiled at her calm, steady, and reassuring until she finally lay back down and exposed barely a centimeter of her stomach to him.
Scooting a bit closer to her, Castle pulled her shirt up to the bottom of her ribs with his right hand and then ran his palm across her low belly while examining the scars. He knew their story, but seeing them added gravity to the situation. As much as he wished the cruelty Kate had faced to be an elaborate tale, it was clearly very, very real.
The two neater, smaller scars he knew to be from the sterilization surgery she had at the age of sixteen. It had taken nearly two years of partnership to get that confession from her and it had initially been born of snide anger towards a government employee speaking down to her while they were trying to investigate a case. He'd questioned, thinking he misheard, and she'd clammed up until they were alone in the bullpen later that night while she filled out paperwork for their case.
What started as a routine physical exam meant to clear her for participating in a school sport had morphed into an unanticipated horror, when the doctor had innocently recommended bloodwork since she had never had it done before. Two days later representatives from the Federal Reproductive Committee were at her door explaining that there were so many abnormalities in her DNA they simply could not risk her procreating accidentally. Despite her lawyer father's protest, she was hauled into a medical facility and her fallopian tubes were cauterized and one of her ovaries was removed thereby making it practically impossible for her to procreate.
At the time, Castle was not aware that government-mandated sterilizations were done. Thanks to the genetic advancements in the decades leading up to his birth, Castle knew only about fifteen percent of those in his generation were purely Normal-born, like Kate, which was not a high number, but not an impossibly low one either. When Normal conception was banned, her merely thought fines or jail time were used as methods of deterrence, not something so horrific and barbaric.
Terrible as the story behind her twin scars was, the one behind the largest of the three was far worse. Castle brushed his thumb over the rough edges of that scar and then closed his eyes with his hand resting over the spot as he took in a deep breath and tried to keep himself from being sick at the memory of her heart-wrenching tale.
Being a man with a high level of social decorum, Castle never asked Kate about her facial scar, though he had been curious about it from the moment they met. In the weeks following when he was formulating the character inspired by her in his mind, he asked her why she chose a career in law enforcement. Though many decades prior such a job would have been a noble, respected one, with the onset of crime-solving robots and computers it had become decidedly less so and was most commonly done by former military, which she was not. She told him it was an event from her past, he asked if it had to with her scar, she said yes, but would say no more on the subject.
Nine months later, after they'd truly found their rhythm as partners, she had a particularly adverse reaction to a male NYU student who had stabbed his girlfriend to death in a rage of jealousy. As their investigation came to a close, she finally shared with him the true nature of her injuries.
During the first week of her second semester at Stanford, Kate was randomly assigned to a male lab partner. Though during their first class he seemed annoyed, he was much more pleasant during the second and even asked her out to coffee so they could get to know each other. Flattered and slightly disarmed by his charming Ultra-Elite smile, she agreed and he was to meet her at her dorm later that night.
When he picked her up, they'd barely made it across campus and were walking through a poorly lit area when she suddenly felt a sharp pain on her face. Disoriented from being slashed, she fell to the ground, where the man promptly pounced on her. She initially feared being raped, but then she heard the vitriol pouring from his mouth. This man believed Defects like her did not deserve to breathe the same air as Elites and needed to be destroyed. Then, he stabbed her in the gut.
Kate managed to crawl her way towards a sidewalk, where she was found by a passer-by and rushed into surgery. Doctors surmised that her life was most likely saved by her assailant's knife glancing off the metal button on her jeans before piercing her flesh. As it was, she suffered damage to her intestines and uterus and remained hospitalized for several weeks before she was well enough to return back to her home in New York.
Castle could not being to express on how many levels her tale sickened him, but he was certain of one thing. The moment he watched the tears stream down her face as she confidently told him her reasons for joining the police force was the one in which he fell in love with her. She was extraordinary beyond words even though she had no reason to be so and he wanted nothing more than to be with her.
Sadly, the world had a different viewpoint.
As a man who believed that the right side would always win, Castle dedicated himself to funding politicians fighting for fairer treatment of Normal-borns. He hoped laws could be put in place to end discrimination, but since politicians were mainly Elites, their cause had yet to be successful, but he would never stop trying.
In his mind they had finally reached a breaking point when their car plunged into the Hudson and he dragged her limp body out of the water. Convinced he was about to lose her without ever being able to love her the way he wanted, Castle knew they were facing a now-or-never moment, though he still wasn't sure how it would end.
Drawing his focus back to the pale but toned flesh of his companion, Castle lowered his head so he could place his lips just over the rough edge of the scar. He heard her breath in sharply when he kissed her belly, but she didn't shy away, so he pressed his lips to each of her three scars before kissing the worst a second time.
Naturally, he had asked about the fate of her attacker, and she'd responded with a bitter laugh. Despite her testimony and the evidence literally written on her face, the Ultra-Elite had pled out to a minor assault charge and faced only a fine instead of a prison sentence for attempted murder. Castle could feel the bile roiling in his gut at the thought of that smug bastard getting away with his crimes, which, from his years with the police force, he knew only made him more likely to strike again.
"If I ever came across that guy I'd make him pay for what he did to you." The writer said with confidence as he gazed at his companion.
She shook her head, sniffled slightly, and pulled her shirt back down over her stomach. "You shouldn't say that."
Shifting so that his hands were braced against her sides as he hovered over her, he asked, "Why are you crying?"
"I'm not."
"Kate."
She shut her eyes and a tear dripped out of the corner of each and landed against the steel-gray pillow cover. "I…I've never let anyone touch them before. I've never let anyone see this much of me before. I've never let myself just…"
Castle could stand the temptation no longer. She was there, in his bed, as vulnerable as he'd ever seen her and god he loved her—god, he wanted her. He just couldn't hold himself back a moment longer so he dove forward and closed his lips over hers.
Kate breathed in sharply and froze for the span of three seconds before a whimper escaped her lips and her arms rose up from the bed to encircle his waist. Seeing this as a positive sign, Castle lowered himself down and groaned as he pulled her in close. God, being close to her was so much better than he thought it ever could be.
He kissed her again and again, completely losing himself in the feeling of her body beneath his. Their position in bed working to his advantage, he nudged his knee in between hers and threaded their legs together to pull her even closer. She fisted her hands in his t-shirt, but only for a few moments before she pushed her hands firmly against his ribs to break their connection.
"Castle; we can't."
Instead of sounding afraid, she sounded disappointed, and he couldn't say he disagreed. Huffing out, "I know," he dropped his head to her shoulder, kissed the hollow of her throat, and then rolled back to his side of the bed. He watched as she readjusted her position with he hands tucked beneath her head as she lay on her side facing him. The soft smile playing at the edge of her lips brought him an endless amount of pride.
"You don't have to stay all the way over there, you know." He opened up his arms, encourage her to snuggle up to him, and she did so, resting her head on his upper chest before he closed his arms around her body.
"Oh Castle." She sighed down into his chest. "Why is the world like this?"
He brushed his lips over the crown of her head. "I'd change it for you if I could."
Her hand skimmed down over his chest so she could squeeze his side. "I know you would."