Just Talking

"Seriously?!" Beckett said as the came to a halt at Castle's front door.

"Why not?" he replied, juggling a bag of take away and his jacket in his left hand whilst unlocking the door with his right.

"Why not? Castle, Brian Jackson was six foot two and three times her size. You're suggesting that not only did Amy overpower her husband in order to break his neck, but she then dragged him down her apartment hallway, lifted him through the window, pushed him down the fire escape stairs, at four o'clock in the afternoon, all without being seen?"

"Like I said, why not?" The smirk on Castle's face as they walked through the door suggested that he had already noticed more than a few holes in his theory.

The case had been tedious and, at day four with few leads and no viable suspects, Beckett had called home time. Ryan and Esposito had walked bleary-eyed out of the 12th while Beckett and Castle had decided that his couch, bed, anything that they could get their feet up on, was calling their names.

At the loft they moved smoothly through what had become their evening eating routine. Castle uncorking wine while Beckett unpacked the Chinese boxes and headed to the couch. She sat down for all of three seconds before standing again, moving back towards the bedroom. "You know what, I'm gonna go take off my pants… Not… like that!" she continued, in answer to Castle's raised eyebrow and then waved her hands up and down her figure. "I just wanna take work… off."

"Sure, go take off as much as you want. I don't mind, but if you take too long I'm going to eat all the Moo Shu Pork." Castle stated as he moved to the couch.

"Not if you want to see me with everything off later," Beckett's slightly muffled voice threw back from the bedroom.

"Promise?" he asked.

"Guess you'll never know," she chuckled as she walked back towards him, now changed into leggings and a blue t-shirt that hung off her shoulder. She'd thrown her hair into a loose braid and while she was still tired she at least felt relaxed enough to eat now.

"Wow, that was a quick change," Castle stated, his eyes drifting up and down, perusing her body. "How come it takes you so much longer to get dressed in the morning?"

"You're kidding me right?" she said, looking at him incredulously and then continued before he could answer. "For starters in the morning I have to put on work clothes and make-up and do my hair properly but, more than that, YOU take longer than me to get ready in the morning and have less clothing to put on!"

"You could always go bra-less, then we'd have the same amount to put on," he

said, raising his eyebrows a couple of times suggestively.

Beckett shook her head and punched him in the arm as she slid in next to him on the couch. "Because we'd get so much more work done with you picturing what underwear I'm not wearing."

He smiled dreamily, "Yeah, well maybe we'll just leave the bra-lessness for home." Then sliding the back of his hand up her side he though he'd check her current state of dress. "Ahh, you not wearing one either." He beamed at her. She grinned back triumphantly. "Eat your Kung Pao, Castle."

They ate in companionable silence until Beckett conclusively thudded her box down on the coffee table and stretched. "What time is it?" she asked looking around for her phone, before remembering it was probably in her pants, on the floor of the bedroom. Mentally she reminded herself that she should hang them up in the wardrobe before going to bed. Last time she left her jeans on the floor he'd ended up kicking them under the bed and she couldn't find them for a week. That was the hassle of having stuff at two houses; sometimes she couldn't remember at which place she had taken her clothes off. At least if she put things away in his wardrobe it narrowed down the search area. Not that there wasn't already plenty of her stuff in his wardrobe, and drawers and bathroom. "Not quite half," she reminded herself accidently out loud.

"Not quite half, what?" Asked Castle.

"Nothing," she answered. Nope. She was definitely not ready for that discussion tonight.

"It's nine," said Castle as he started packing up their leftovers before heading to put the boxes in the fridge.

"Huh?" Beckett asked.

"You asked the time. It's nine. Man, you are tired." He closed the fridge and picked up the bottle of wine on the way back over to her.

"Yeah, well you kept me up kind of late last night."

"Oh, I think you did your fair share of keeping up, Beckett." He held up quotation fingers for the 'keeping up' part of his sentence.

"And you're complaining?"

"Me? I never complain about being… kept… up," he said, pausing between each word as he leaned in to kiss her gently. She reached up to cup his cheek before humming into his lips.

"Mmmmmm, garlic." He pulled back slightly to huff a gentle laugh.

"Which is why we both eat it, so it doesn't matter." Then he leaned back in, initiating a firmer kiss that started pushing her down onto the couch. This time one of her hands weaved back into the soft hair at the base of his head while the other slid under his shirt to feather up his sides. Slowly he slid down on top of her as he deepened the kiss. She mumbled into his lips.

"Martha?"

"No, I'm Castle. Ow!" he yelped, rubbing the side where she had pinched him.

"Gross," she mumbled, still kissing him until she pulled back a bit. "I mean, where is she?"

"Up state, " he replied, leaning back in to connect their lips again.

"Over…night?" she questioned, between locked lips.

"Yup." He grinned into her. Then his legs slid down as Beckett lifted hers up to wrap around his thighs. Once again there was no space between their lips to talk.

She moved both hands to his hips to pull him tighter onto her. Deftly, he slid his left hand under the elastic at the back of her leggings while his right hand glided up her t-shirt, on a familiar path home. Her humming turned to a deeper, more driven groaning, as they started to lose themselves in what was, for them, more akin to charting than exploring each other's bodies. Nimbly, her fingers unbuttoned his shirt and her nails grazed softly over his chest. All the sounds around them muted as the couple became absorbed in their own groans and gasps. The drone of the city outside disappeared completely, the fridge stopped humming and neither heard the slight 'click' at his heavy front door.