For Ketty, who asked. (Pleaded, cajoled, begged.)
Sorry it's so short.
There's no broad expanse to cross.
Sometimes she wants it, wants to be able to slide her hand slowly across the sheets, brush her fingertips to his ribs and watch him startle. But the way his body surrounds her - his palms hot at her abdomen - it's good.
He hums against her shoulder blade, catches the delicate skin there between his teeth, his tongue darting out. There's not even anything suggestive about it, no trace of a yearning for more. He just wants to see what she tastes like right there and so he tastes.
She knows. She does it too.
"Mm, Castle." She breathes it, manages to fight the loose and languid muscles of her body, get a hand up to settle over his on her stomach.
He kisses the smooth patch of skin behind her ear, his eyelashes sharpening her awareness as they brush over the shell of it. "Yeah?"
"Do you think Lerner told Ryan?"
His arms tighten around her as if he thinks she's going somewhere, as if she'd leave. Everyone knows now, might as well give them something to tease her over.
"I think so," he nudges her until she turns to face him, his mouth at her forehead. "The way he sounded on the phone, I think he knows."
She sighs, arches her neck to get her teeth at his jaw, scrape over the stubble she finds there. Mm, he's-
He's delicious. Yeah. She's not even ashamed to think it anymore because it's so very, very true.
"So Espo and Lanie know now too." She groans, buries her head against his chest. His hands slide up until the heels of his palms rest at her shoulder blades, his fingertips curling into her clavicles. Such big hands. "Do you think they'd tell Gates?"
He kisses the top of her head, uses his foot to tug the covers up and over them. In another life, another bed, she'd sigh; tell him to just use his damn hands. But it's sweet, here in the Hamptons, how he wants her. "No. They know the rules just like you. They'll tease us mercilessly, but I don't think for a moment they'll do anything to get you fired."
"Damn. Not looking forward to the teasing." She shakes her head, the smile with her tongue showing between her teeth that spreads across her face so easily all the time now.
He grins back, chuckles at her. "What, the great Detective Beckett can't handle a little ribbing from her brothers?"
"It's not me I'm worried about." She reaches for his ribcage, lines her fingers up in the gaps between his bones. "What about you? What if they haze you? Give you the big brother talk?"
He grimaces, sucks in a breath through his teeth. "Do you think they'd hurt me? How does that even work anyway since we're also Mom and Dad?"
She hums, the sound drenched with sun and saltwater and the heady closeness of his body. "No. They won't hurt you. Not unless you hurt me."
"Not planning on it." And his kiss is sweet with indignation.