She wakes up at four thirty in the morning and decides it was a dream.
All a dream.
Her mind is sleepily drifting through the soft fog of semi-consciousness, and she finds herself bitter, bitter that it wasn't real.
But it's not like that would be the first time she's dreamed it.
She stretches out, long limbs, making a little noise in the back of her throat, and- wait. There is warm warm skin behind her, around her, a heavy arm draped over the bare skin of her stomach. She's naked.
Oh. God.
It wasn't a dream. It was not a dream. She wasn't dreaming.
She is naked in bed and Richard Castle is wrapped around her.
He is also naked.
Because they slept together, and it was amazing.
Castle stirs against her, his knees pressing into the backs of her thighs, and she savours the skin-to-skin contact, the way that the hair on his legs is rough against the bare skin of hers.
Beckett twists in his arms, curling around so that they are pressed together, thigh to thigh, chest to chest, nose to nose. His face is slack with sleep, long eyelashes brushing his cheeks. She can't resist.
She dips her head forward that fraction of an inch needed and captures his bottom lip between hers, sucks softly, pressing her tongue against the even line of his teeth.
Looking back, she's not exactly sure why she does it, but she thinks it's probably just because he's Castle and she's finally allowed to kiss him.
He'll never know that she woke up in the middle of the night and kissed him.
A part of her thrills at that.
Beckett snuggles back down in his arms, the curve of his jaw resting on the crown of her head, her face against the impossibly soft skin of his neck. He smells like sweat and sex and Castle.
"I love you."
She tests the words in her head, and then says them to the dark air of his bedroom.
He's still asleep.
"I love you, Castle."
Her eyes drift shut as she nuzzles his neck.
"Love you." she murmurs.
And she does.
