I read a conversation on tumblr when the 'Driving Heat' cover art was released regarding Nikki Heat now 'wearing' clothes and this happened. Just published a while later because my life is crazy and finding time to write is hard.

Not So Naked Cover

Her husband – she still didn't tire of calling him that – was still going at the seventh Nikki Heat novel when Gina of all people had called to invite him into the office to look at cover art for 'Driving Heat'. At least it wasn't on a day that Beckett had off, Castle's ex-wife had done that before. It wasn't as if he was missing much at the precinct anyway, it was just a long boring day of seemingly endless paperwork which he wasn't helping with anyway.

She is the first one home which initially surprises her until she thinks back to how long he was last time. That spurs her on to make them some dinner, what exactly it would be wasn't exactly simple. After changing out of her work clothes and into loungewear she returned to the kitchen. First her dinner preparations involved staring in the fridge for a few minutes deciding what on earth they were going to eat. It wasn't that they didn't have anything in the fridge, just nothing jumped out.

After long enough she decided to take the peppers, cucumber, tomatoes and other vegetables out. They all needed cutting up so maybe something will spring to mind while preparing a salad. When she got a text from Castle saying that he'd be home in fifteen minutes she knew that she had to come up with something soon. Looking across to the counter she saw some unopened tortilla wraps. That would be perfect…chicken wraps with all of the vegetables and fruit that she had prepared. With assorted forest fruits with ice cream for dessert; it was as if they were trying to have the five recommended portions of fruit and veg in one meal.

She was still cutting up the chicken breasts as Castle walked through the door, walking straight to greet her with a kiss.

"This looks lovely, what inspired you to cut up every vegetable we have in the fridge and pantry?" Castle joked.

"It needed eating so and then I came up with the chicken to add to the wraps" She said nodding to the wraps laid out ready to be filled.

"Very nice…healthy too." He muttered as he nibbled on some cucumber he'd picked up.

"C'mon then, show me." Kate instructed, as she put the knife down and turned to face him.

"Show you what?" He asked.

"The cover art." Duh! "I know you haven't picked one because otherwise you would be parading it so let me see."

"Okay." He accepted, pulling his phone out he brought up the links to all of the options for the cover art.

Inspecting them carefully, Kate came to a conclusion which she had long since hated…since the first time she saw the cover art for the first Nikki Heat – Nikki was naked on all of them. What kind of respectable book has its cover girl sans clothing? Well, sort of, it was just a black outline of a female body.

"Castle, she's naked. Naked, Castle, she's nake-ed" Kate exclaimed.

"Err…yeah."

"Castle, she's now a captain so don't you think it is time that she got some…you know…clothes? Things that normal people wear to work, even on cover shoots." Kate could be intimidating when she was angry; none more so than with her husband.

"Come on, Kate, what do you want me to do? Tell them to do them all again so that she's got an outline of clothes?"

"Yes." She answered confidently with no doubt in her voice. She wanted Nikki to wear clothes and would push her husband until Nikki was finally clothed.

"You do know that she's not intentionally naked on the covers?" Castle counted.

"I don't care, it would only be a few more lines added. Please, babe, for me?"

"I'll see what I can do but no promises." He responds hoping that it is now the end of the conversation and they can get back to dinner.

"Thank you."

Two days later he shows her the picture of the new selection that has Nikki wearing clothes for the first time. They don't know how many more books there will be in the Nikki Heat series but hopefully they shall all feature Nikki wearing clothes.

Thank you for reading :)