Beckett is not an easily flustered woman. She deals with dodgy men who are high on questionable substances, murderous ex-wives and sadistic killers on a daily basis; she can't afford to be easily flustered.

Interrogating a serial killer without batting an eyelash? She can do that.

Sprinting through traffic in ridiculous heels while barely breaking a sweat? That too.

But accidentally kissing a certain Richard Castle in the middle of the precinct? She may have broken her cool. Just a little bit.

It didn't help that as she stormed into the morgue with messed-up hair and a flushed face, the first words out of Lanie's mouth were,

"Jeez, Becks, have you been making out with Writer Boy or what?"

Kate's jaw dropped, her eyes widening in indignation.

"Not on purpose!" she rushed, the shade of red painted across her face deepening several shades. One glance at Lanie's incredulous face and she realized she had quite a bit of explaining - and blushing - to do.

"You- not on purpose?" Both eyebrows shot up towards Lanie's hairline. Beckett avoided her friend's gaze, instead choosing to fix her eyes on a particularly intriguing stain on the polished floor.

"I... I didn't mean to." she mumbled to the stain, debating whether to clamp her teeth down on her lower lip - or possibly just tape her mouth shut - before she worsened her situation any further. But then again, a determined Lanie was quite a scary prospect.

"You didn't- sweetie, I think you have a bit of explaining to do."

Kate took a deep breath, wondering absently what exactly had caused the mark on the floor. "Well, I was walking around a corner, and Castle was, um, also walking around that corner, you know, in the other direction. And we were walking kind of fast and we sort of-" she broke off and gestured wildly with her hands as all her choices of words suddenly decided to desert her.

"You sort of-?" Lanie prodded.

"We sort of... crashed together? Collided? Especially... you know, our mouths. And such."

"So what you're trying to say amongst your obscene blushing and gesturing is that you crashed into Castle and the two of you got smoochy without meaning to?"

"Yes. But it may not have- been entirely without meaning to. I mean, I kind of forgot that we had just crashed into each other, and I think he might have too, so he kind of... held my waist in a totally platonic way? Yes. That. And there may have been a small amount of mouth action."

Lanie visibly struggled to hold in a squeak. "And by a bit, you mean..?"

"Yes. Well. We may have gotten just a teensy bit carried away at one point... just in the heat of the moment. Several moments really. Well, not really moments. Minutes? Quite a few minutes. Until Ryan and Esposito came gallivanting around the corner."

"Oh no."

"Oh yes. I am never, ever going to live this down." Kate buried her face in her hands, her cheeks becoming yet another very interesting shade of pink.

"Maybe the boys will be mature about it, Kate." Lanie pressed her lips together and tried to hide a smile.

"Lanie. Lanie, they caught me making out with Castle in the middle of the precinct. Tongues were involved."

"What did they say?" the M.E squeaked. This was way, way better than any of the Temptation Lane episodes she had ever watched. Just a buckett of popcorn and she'd be set.

"They- I don't want to tell you." At this, Lanie poked Kate hard in the arm with the point of a finger.

"Fine. They.. they said that while we weren't allowed to, um, participate in that kind of activity in the middle of the bullpen, they could rent out a hall closet or possibly an interrogation room to us. For fifty bucks an hour." Beckett choked out.

Lanie was unable to contain her laughter, it was rolling through her in great waves that cramped her stomach. She creased down the middle, slapping her thigh and snorting until Kate kicked her in the knee.

"Shut up, shut UP!" the detective hissed desperately, seemingly unsure whether crawl into a hole and hide forever or attack Lanie, possibly with a few pieces of the conveniently nearby medical equipment.

The M.E pulled a bad poker face and straightened up, putting a hand on her friend's shoulder.

"Are you just going to hide in here for the rest of the day? I think you should, because quite frankly the look on your face when you talked about the hall closet tells me you were thinking about it. And we do not need one of the rookies to open up that door and find you and Castle madly fuuurghghhh-"

Kate clamped a hand over Lanie's mouth.

"Actually, I was thinking the interrogation room. Much more spacious."