Castle texts her as soon as he hears his daughter's bedroom door shut.

He hasn't even moved from his stool at the kitchen counter or touched the remnants of their post-Zarkana ice cream party where they'd debated the merits of Castle enrolling himself in tightrope-walking classes. (The conclusion was no.) He doesn't wait, just texts her a simple "come over" and, after 30 seconds of staring at their text conversation waiting for her response, flips to e-mail to respond to the congratulatory notes piling up from industry friends who already have their hands on a copy of Frozen Heat.

Twenty minutes go by before he looks up again and realizes how engrossed he got in the process, cursing as he hurries to clean up, putting their bowls in the sink right before hearing a quiet knock on the front door. He opens it to a Kate Beckett clad in yoga pants and a t-shirt, dark-painted toes peeking out in the flip-flops that she slips off as she slides past him into the entryway.

"Hi." She grins like she can't help it, leaning against the wall, and he finds himself grinning back as he gingerly closes the door behind him. He gestures toward the living room and trails behind her as she makes her way towards the couch, leaning against an arm.

"How was the show?"

"Alexis won't let me take tightrope-walking lessons," he sighs dramatically, watches her purse her lips as she smiles and he steps into her against the couch, hands coming to bracket her waist, thumbs rubbing against the hem of her t-shirt. "I didn't know if you were coming."

"Castle, you only just saw me eight hours ago." She's teasing him, her voice soft, but his hands tighten against her waist, bringing his mouth right to her ear.

"I couldn't touch you eight hours ago," his voice rumbles against her ear, tongue circling the rim, and he feels her breath hitch. "Do you know how difficult it is to watch you take someone down, to see you go at them in the interrogation room, and then not be able to put my hands all over you?"

"Okay, well first of all," she starts, and he can tell she's going for Detective Beckett but the shakiness of her voice and the way she uncrosses her ankles to help herself get some kind of balance against the couch betrays the ferocity she's trying to exude. "You were the one who thought this would be fun when we talked about it. 'Like spies on a mission,' I believe your exact words were. And secondly," she bats his hands away from where they're creeping up her shirt. "Stop it, because I'm not having sex with you in your living room."

"Hmm," he hums against her, not putting any distance between them. "That's not what you said the other night when you came over after poker night and asked me to–"

She pushes his chest back, narrowing her eyes at him and covering his mouth with her hand, which he promptly sticks his tongue out and licks.

"Ew! Castle, seriously?" She makes a face and goes to wipe her hand on her pants before she reconsiders and goes for his shirt. "Are you five?"

"Also not what you said the other night when I –"

"Oh my god, okay," she rolls her eyes. "Different circumstances, your daughter is upstairs and I refuse to scar her for life. Also, I think you're going to have a situation in there if you don't act now." She inclines her head in the direction of his kitchen and he swears, remembering the ice cream.

"Uhh, give me a sec?" He releases her, pushing her towards his bedroom. "Bedroom. I'll join you. Let me clean up real fast."

She pads off in the opposite direction as he runs into the kitchen and stuffs lids on the now-melting containers of strawberry and chocolate ice cream, throwing the candy and chocolate sauce back in their proper places, running his eyes quickly around the kitchen before convincing himself that he got everything.

He heads toward his bedroom but he's not even through the door to his office when he sees her, silhouetted against the desk lamp she must have turned on, facing away from him with her head bent like she's reading something. He goes through a mental checklist of everything that's usually on his desk, more curious than worried about whatever she's found.

"Beckett?"

He steps into the room and she turns around, holding his copy of Frozen Heat in her hands, open to the dedication page. She's smiling slightly, holding the book close to her chest, and even though her hair is longer and she's in the opposite of a form-fitting blue dress, he's struck by instant déjà vu. The past two years suddenly hit him like a ton of bricks and his heart is tight in his chest, overwhelmed by everything that's happened since and the fact that they've actually made it to here.

He realizes that they're both just gazing at each other after a few seconds and he clears his throat, trying to figure out where to start. He only hears his own words echoing inside his head: To all the remarkable, challenging, frustrating people who inspire us to do great things...

"Sorry, I was going to, um… present it?" He scratches his head awkwardly, bringing the same hand to his hip and then immediately dropping it. What's the protocol for this sort of thing now?

"It's you, though. The dedication," he clarifies. "I was going to explain this better in my head. Shit, I don't–"

She cuts him off again, this time with her mouth, teeth and tongues clashing as he grunts against her sudden assault. He feels the book hit his back when she throws her arms over his shoulders right before he hears it hit the floor, her hands fisting in his hair. His own hands find her ass, dragging her against him and starting to take as much as she's giving, stroking the inside of her mouth with his tongue.

Just as he's gained composure, she pulls back, staring at him with wide eyes and flushed cheeks and he just wants to nudge her backwards in the direction of his bedroom and–

"You write books about me," she breathes, and it's so unexpected that his knee-jerk reaction is to laugh, his hands squeezing.

"Yeah, Beckett, there are actually three more if you want to catch up."

She growls at him, something like protectiveness in her eyes before she's on him again, biting his lip and sucking it into her mouth. His whole body jerks towards her instinctively, pushing her towards his desk and saying a prayer that the rest of his mental catalogue of his desktop is accurate. He knows his computer is by the bed from where he was writing earlier and he's trying to remember if he left any pens or letter openers around when her backside hits the edge and their hips knock together, erasing everything else from his mind.

His hand snakes around to rub against her through the stretchy cotton, the material providing very little barrier as her hips cant into his hand, mouths separating and she groans into the air between them, hands trailing down to grip at his biceps. He concentrates his hand down to one particular point and she whimpers, trying and failing to climb up his body.

"Castle. Just," she grunts out, pulling his hand away and pushing her pants down her legs, hopping as they get tangled around her feet. She manages to get both feet out and kicks them across the room, pushing herself up onto the desk and wrapping her legs around his waist, sloppily affixing her mouth back to his and rocking into him as she starts to unbutton his shirt. They make quick work of each other's clothes and soon it's skin to skin, her underwear the only barrier between the two of them as he palms her breast and tweaks a nipple, hard, her squeak echoing around inside of his mouth.

She climbs down to kick her underwear off her ankles but resists when he tries to hoist her back up onto his desk and he's confused for a moment because wasn't she the one who started this in here? when suddenly he's on his back on the desk instead and oh god, she's climbing up over him. Her hair hangs like a curtain around her face as she positions herself, rubbing against his erection that's trapped between their bodies, eyes closing and head falling back as he grabs at her hips.

"Kate," he gets out and her head comes back up to look down at him, her body still moving, heavy-lidded eyes meeting his. "How is- how is my office different than the living room?"

She laughs, her head seemingly too heavy for her shoulders at the effort of it as she bows it down towards his chest, hair spreading out, tickling his sides.

"I mean, besides the fact that everyone hearing you scream my name from blocks away should be enough to warn them off?" He can't believe he's teasing her while she's on top of him, rubbing herself off against him because the fact that he writes Nikki Heat turns her on, but then again his own brain amazes even himself sometimes.

Sure enough though, her hips pause at that, and he can see the glint in her eye as she raises her head up, using the weight of her hands on his chest to push herself to her knees and take him in hand, running him slick through her wetness before positioning him at her entrance, sinking down only the slightest bit before then pulling her body back up. Castle's hips jerk up towards her as he lets out an expletive, clenching his teeth.

"Shh, Castle," she whispers, an expression of mock-concern on her face. "Wouldn't want the neighbors to hear."

She sinks down fully on him then, body arching backwards, pausing for just a moment before she begins to slowly rise up and back down, hips gaining speed as she twists above him. One of her hands is resting by his hip and he grabs it, entwining their fingers as she squeezes his hand and he's mesmerized by her long, slim fingers in his own, the ones that write her story, right here at this very desk.

She moans and his eyes snap back to her body, hips getting more frantic and he realizes the hand not clutching his is touching herself, rubbing small circles, eyes closed as she fiercely bites her bottom lip.

He watches her climb higher and higher, can tell she's close by the jerk of her hips and he suddenly releases her hand to sit up and clutch her to his chest, thrusting his hips up into her in the middle of the desk. Her oh of surprise seems to get caught in her throat as she snaps, going rigid against him as her hands clutch at his back, stuttering a cry into his shoulder and biting down, the shock of her teeth on his skin making his own orgasm chase the tail end of hers.

They sit there for a moment not moving, breathing heavily, before Castle runs a hand through her hair and shifts, nudging her off his shoulder. "That was really fun, but we really need to get into a room where the walls aren't bookshelves."

Her laugh is breathy as she climbs off of him, grabbing pieces of clothing wherever she finds them on the floor, throwing a pile at him before scooping the rest of them up. She pauses, hesistant, eyes flicking back between the load in her arms and Castle still sitting on the desk.

"Thank you," she says, and he's not sure if she's thanking him for the sex, the dedication, or hell, even the past four years so he simply nods, mouth curving into a smile.

"Remind me to write books about you more often."