AN: Little bit behind with my post epis as you can see ;) There will be four chapters of this posted over the next four/five days. I dedicate it to my girlies, without whom I would be more than a little lost. I'm not quite Charlie, but it's okay because they're not quite angels. Hugs and Happy Castle Monday! x
"Days like these lead to...
Nights like this lead to
Love like ours.
You light the spark in my bonfire heart."
It's the offer to sleep on his side of the bed that does it, the blatant sexual overtones that simmer just under the surface of the words and the fact she really would like to get him back into her territory ASAP. And maybe absolutely everything to do with the seashells he kept and framed and hung on the wall.
Their seashells.
She slinks in close, all feline mysticism and working her womanly mojo, to steal a kiss, that tongue curling, lip biting one that makes him weak at the knees and so likely to cave to her demands - both alphas her shiny leather clad ass - only he's got a grip on her fingers and he's all pleased with himself and streaking towards the bed before she can even press herself against him.
She narrows her eyes and trails along after him. No kiss to knock him senseless and get her way and though she pouts a little she laughs too, not really minding, his determined stride and predatory smile lead her to believe there may have been some planning going on with all the space defining and lair talk.
Kate lets him drag her towards the bed and gives in - with barely any resistance - to the hot growl that vibrates across the back of her neck. It elicits a full body shiver, his hot breath hitting that space between shoulder and ear that makes her quiver and squirm deliciously.
She feels the tug of memory and the flicker of candle light in the bedroom casts her back to his house in the Hamptons almost a year ago and Kate begins ditching items of clothing as he does the same on the other side of the bed.
When she's in nothing but her underwear he freezes, shirt sleeves falling from his arms into a muted grey puddle on the floor and he holds her eyes for the longest second. Her breath catches when he stills - shirtless - eyes her head to toe and stalks the distance between them.
Every footfall feels like an inch and a mile all at once. The closer he comes the further away he feels and the nearer she wants him.
Castle steps towards her, claims the curve of her waist and long slender line of her neck with the width of his palms. His fingers dance through her hair, tug and close over the strands as he pulls her into him.
Their lips graze in a feather light touch and Kate lifts to her toes, misses his mouth when his kiss lands on her cheek instead. A little hitch of movement to her hips throws her back in time again and the way his eyes flicker tell her he knows.
Castle knows all too well.
He smirks and pounces and lifts her feet from the floor.
She doesn't squeal, doesn't make an horrendously damsel in distress sounding noise when he launches her onto the bed, making her gasp, and she most definitely doesn't shudder head to toe when Castle follows her a second later, with a flash of his eyes - and teeth - and a deep seductive rumble of a growl echoing through his chest.
Her fingers tangle in dark linen sheets, white knuckles aching and her legs dropping apart in open and blatant invitation. Her heart pounds and her teeth meet at the edge of her lip, watching him.
He crawls slowly, hands and knees to the bed and the closer he gets the faster her chest flutters, breath nothing but a wisp across her tongue. He crawls, eyes on her all the while until he hovers over her, hands planting themselves each side of her body, staring down.
The warmth that radiates from him raises goosebumps over her skin and his body - muscular, hard lines, soft skin, the way he crowds her on the bed - all of it, a slow, long, drawn out undulation that ripples over hers with hot, searing rhythm until she's plastered beneath him, reaching for him and curling an ankle at the back of his thigh to pull him closer.
She doesn't laugh when his mouth opens hot and wet just below her ear and he whispers her name - before meowing.
But then she does, she does do all of those things. The girly and the silly and giggly things that leave her breathless when the scorching heat of his chest smooths over the flat lines of her stomach and their bellies meet - flesh to flesh - in fact it's all she can do to keep her eyes open.
Why should she? There's no reason other than the added pleasure of watching him. But he touches so gently, then harder harder, finds her thighs with deft and knowing fingers, traces, teases, tastes the line of her lips with the tip of his tongue and she can hold her eyes open no longer.
So she doesn't.
But she does give in.
Castle clicks his tongue as he peels her out of her clothes, making little purrs and growls and grunting sounds at the back of his throat that she grins at, laughs at, copies, gets seduced by, until the simple act of him running his nose along her jawline, inhaling and kissing his way to her lips, has her arching up from the bed and whispering for more.
After that it's one long, animalistic ride of pleasure until she's forgotten all about the stupid lion and she can barely even remember her own name.
She rolls with him, panting and still on his side of the bed, a sated hum vibrating through her chest chased by a giggle that tangles at the back of her throat, tickling its way free. Her fingers dance in the sweat drenched skin of his chest, nails raking, leaving claw marks over his heart and down across his stomach to match the ones burning brightly on his back.
They curl into each other, bookends of peace, sedation and tranquility. The Alpha and Omega - the beginning and the end - and the everything of their story unraveling beautifully in between them.
"Seashells." She mumbles almost too quietly for him to hear over the pounding of his own blood in his ears. His eyes remain closed but he smiles when he feels her fingers trace over his face, touch at his cheeks lightly. Then she's turning his head towards her and muttering his name in annoyance as if she suspects he's fallen asleep.
"Mmmmm." Castle grins, finds a strand of her hair and twists it around his finger.
"Why?" She asks, because when she said he didn't have to do it - that beautiful gesture with shells and small pieces of their history collected together and displayed proudly in his home - she meant it.
"Why wh- ?" He blinks one eye open and falls silent at the look on her face. His brain is still a bit muddled, thoughts still disjointed segments of carnal delight. His body sticky and fused to hers.
Her lips are open against his chest and every breath tickles out over him, hot and heavy with the approach of sleep - it's lovely but very distracting. Castle fights to hold on to the train of thought that Kate started as he looks down at her.
Her eyes are warm, as liquid and gentle as her thoroughly relaxed body and he follows her gaze, the weighted flutter of her eyelids, as she blinks off into the distance. He's not sure where she goes but he wants to go with her.
Castle twists, pulling her with him, lifting his chin from the top of her head, his palm spread wide as he holds her, fingers swirling in the damp strands of her hair where they fall limply at her back. He stares with her, content with her pace and and the steady droop of his eyelids.
"You kept them." She says finally, the flat of her palm laying out over his heart as she pushes herself up a bit, to find his eyes. "The shells." Her fingers are hot pinpricks of sensation as they tap out over his face, thumb sliding heatedly against his lower lip. "Why?"
"We were -"
"New?"
"Learning each other." He counters. "You were -"
"Wary." She admits. Her heart had been his for a while but trusting him not to shatter it into a million pieces had taken her longer than she'd care to admit.
He nods knowingly, fingers squeezing lightly. "And I was -"
"Still trying to prove yourself." She scrunches up at the memory, fingers tracing the beat of his heart and hating that he felt he had to - that she made him think it was necessary.
"Showing off."
Kate laughs, eyes widening as she mocks him, "Never!"
"A bit."
"Mmm you and your big ... house." She laughs again, fingers sliding down low, teasing skin that should be too sleepy to react. Yet it does.
"Not that." He hums, sighs, catching her wrist and sliding his fingers between hers, skimming her elbow and trailing her arm to capture her hand. "I wanted you to enjoy yourself there."
"I did."
"Because it's true." He says quietly, ignoring her and twisting, fingers drifting, finding her chin and tilting her face up towards him. "It was always true, Kate." He rolls again, rolls until he's staring down at her, stroking skin that still tingles, still sparks and crackles like fire. "Every memory we made that day, every second we spent together." He smiles, when she grins, when he watches it all come to life in her heart and mind as much as it is in his.
Her hands wind about to pull him closer, legs wrapping around him to trap him to her, "Before the dead guy in the pool." the trace of a tease licking out at words, chasing them from her lips.
"Even after." He kisses her cheek, her ear, holds her eyes in the blue haze of his own, "It made it clear to me what I'd been missing every other time I'd been there." His nose nudges hers, soft strokes and demanding touches melding into one beautiful melody of movement.
"You." He breathes out, just like the first time, the first realization.
She kisses him, slowly and with surety, her head and heart filling up with the words that started it all that day.
None of them were you.