All I want is you

Chapter 2 – Give me some lovin'

She woke to kisses, feather soft on her skin. Eyelids rising slowly, tentatively, against the glow of the morning sun through the window, the first thing she saw was the top of his head as he brushed his lips over each and every bruise within view. He smiled when he saw her watching him.

"Hi."

"Hey," she replied. "Have you been up long?"

"Not too long. But long enough to make this for you." He pointed to a steaming cup of hot coffee on the night stand next to her. "Here, let me help you." Slowly he eased her into a sitting position. "How are you feeling?"

She snorted. "Like I've been ridden hard and put away wet."

"Wouldn't that be nice!" He said, earning a smack on the arm. She couldn't help but laugh. He picked up the mug and handed it to her, then grabbed the pain killers as well. The laughter left his eyes. "You were moaning in your sleep, this will help."

She wasn't usually one to take medicine unless she absolutely had to, but she knew that the second and third days were always the worst after an injury. And she had injuries in spades. She took the pills and downed them in one swallow.

"I was moaning? Maybe I was just…dreaming." She looked up at him under her lashes, wiggled her eyebrows. With her sexy disheveled hair and creamy skin glowing in the light of the window, she was a vision. A vision wrapped in an ace bandage. When she set her coffee down and began to remove that ace bandage he imagined it was dark red silk ribbon that revealed a gift just for him in every inch of skin it uncovered. Christmas bells began playing in his head. He had to take a breath to stay steady as every drop of blood in his body landed in his lap.

His expression brought on a burst of laughter. "Geez Castle, I'm all banged up. You really are easy!"

"Hey I played hard to get for four years!"

"Yeah right, I could have had you at any time."

He tried to keep it light, but just couldn't. He took a moment, then had to ask. "Why didn't you?"

His tone of voice had her looking up, she could have still tried to play it funny but she could see the sincere question in his eyes.

She sighed and gathered the bandage to set it on the night stand, for the moment the purple bruises around her ribs went unnoticed. She turned to face him. Took a long slow breath. "Castle…everything happens in its own time, and its own way. I just wasn't ready. I know, I could have slept with you and you wouldn't have turned me down, but that would have just created one more bump in the road, one more complication that we just didn't need. So much has happened. Would you have been ready for this four years ago?"

"No," he admitted in a low voice. "Not four years ago. But…a year ago, two years…yes I would have been. I was ready."

"And I was recovering. I heard what you said when I was shot, and I did remember it later, but I didn't know if it was real."

He frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I was dying Castle, how was I to know I wasn't hallucinating? If I wasn't hallucinating, how was I to know that you weren't just panicked and trying to get me to hold on? If you weren't just panicked, how was I to know that you meant it?" She shook her head, looked past him to a spot over his shoulder as she tried to collect her thoughts. "You told me once that you don't say "I love you". How was I to know that this time it was different?"

He reached over and slowly took her hand. "This time is different Kate." He held her eyes until he could see the truth settle in.

She nodded. "I know it is." Her eyes lit with pure unadulterated affection. She didn't say it back. Not yet. But she gave him what she could. "I didn't sleep with you, because with you it could never have been just sex." She reached out and stroked back an unruly lock of hair from his forehead. Let her hand trail down and touch his cheek. Her thumb traced that all too sexy scruff she found there. Her heart quickened. He sat before her, taking care of her, loving her, in nothing but his Scooby Doo boxers, and a hopeful expression. Damn those bruises, she wanted him. She wanted him deep! "NO," she said breathlessly. "No it would never be just sex. Not with you. With you I…" It was too much, she had to do something even if she couldn't do all. She rose to her knees and leaned in, "trust me" she whispered against his mouth a moment before her tongue slipped in and claimed him. He groaned, giving as good as he got. He wanted so much to touch her. She was there in his bed, in his life, kissing him. He pulled back, afraid to hurt her. He'd already plotted the brutal beating of the man who'd tried to kill her ten different ways in his mind, but this eleventh way was doubly brutal if for nothing but stopping him from touching this extraordinary woman.

"No, don't pull away, I can…it's okay Castle, I can handle it. Please, let me touch you." Her voice was a low, sexy, pleading, breathless whisper. He couldn't and wouldn't refuse her. She moved in and kissed him once more, then braced her hands on his shoulders and laid him down slow and easy on the bed. She relaxed against him, matched their bodies limb to limb, laced her fingers through his, and took control.

End of 2nd Scene. Good? Bad? Horse apples? Let me know.