Disclaimer: Don't own it.
Buttons.
Why were there so many buttons? Rick Castle lowered his head and focused on the mundane task of slipping one flat disc through its corresponding hole. Why couldn't he ever choose t-shirts or polos like a sensible man? His fingers fumbled with the cold plastic, still tingling with the memory of soft flesh gliding beneath them. Giving up for the moment, he ran a hand through his hair and turned to look at the woman on the other side of the bed who was hastily pulling on her boots and fastening her bra.
He paused, let his hands fall uselessly to his sides, and simply stared at her.
She was miraculous, a living, breathing angel that stole his breath every day. That she was here, leaving his bed, that he could smell her, taste her, touch her, was forever an enormous source of amazement to him.
His eyes traced the smooth curve of her long back, stopping on the small clusters of freckles at her shoulder. His focus slid down her arm to the swell of her breast and he let his gaze linger on the dark imprint of her nipple pushing against the pale, thin lace of her bra. His mouth watered at the memory of silken puckered skin against his tongue and lips and the subtly delicate taste of her. Dark curls cascaded down her arms and his hands clenched at the imprinted memory of sweat-dampened tendrils sliding through his fists.
He felt a strange sensation in his throat as he looked at her, as if words had formed there and were stuck, trying desperately to push their way out and fight their way past his tongue and lips. He felt that if he wasn't constantly vigilant, if he let those words move even a fraction of an inch further, they would come tumbling out in an inexorable torrent. It was a sensation he was becoming more and more familiar with as was the ache beneath his ribs at the growing certainty of what he had to do.
"Kate." He had meant her name to sound firm and resigned coming from his mouth, instead he was embarrassed to find that it emerged as little more than a sighing whisper. He spoke around the words in his throat, the words that just weren't the right ones for this moment. "Kate," he said again with more confidence than he felt, "I don't think I can do this anymore."