Thank you all so much for reading and re-reading, and for your lovely comments. They never fail to make me smile.
Tackle Hug
He pushes through the door, lets it fall closed behind him with a weary sigh, his fatigue bone-deep as he leans his back against the solid wood. It's been a long few weeks, and he can hunt criminals all day, or write through the night until the pale gray of dawn brushes across the horizon, but a day full of meetings at his publishers drains him like nothing else. He runs a hand down his face, tries to gather the wherewithal to even move.
Maybe they need a vacation, he thinks - get away for a couple of weeks. Someplace warm, quiet, solitary. Just he and Kate and the crash and curl of the ocean, the kiss of the breeze onto naked, sun-kissed skin. The mere imagery suffuses him with a fresh bout of energy and he pushes off the door, cold fingers starting to unbutton his heavy winter coat.
"Castle?" She calls his name from the bedroom, more like a squeal actually and he barely has time to drop his laptop bag, wiggle free from his constricting coat when Kate comes racing toward him, her feet fast, flying across the hardwood floor, her grin so wide that it captures his breath in his lungs. And then she tackles him, jumping on him, her arms around his neck and her legs wrapped to his hips. He staggers backwards a bit from the sheer force of it, can just about catch himself as he grips her beneath the rear.
"Rick…" She sighs his name, breathless and sweet and so blissful that he forgets every frustrating conversation and unsatisfying meeting of his day, the irritation sluicing off of him like soap bubbles in the shower. Her face is pressed to his neck, her breath warm as it caresses his skin. "Rick, Rick, Rick…"
"Hi Baby," he murmurs, giving her time as he savors her lithe body in his arms, the coil of warmth and strength that lives beneath her skin. She's so soft and supple, so beautiful inside and out. He still wonders sometimes what he did right in his life to deserve the love of this extraordinary woman. He feels like weeping, tears collecting in the corners of his eyes when he has no idea what's going on but it's something. Something good.
"It worked, Rick…" She whispers at last, her lips trailing a line of tender kisses up his neck and the side of his jaw until she lingers at the corner of his mouth. "It worked." Kate adjusts in his arms, her hands framing his face as she looks at him, such pure joy shining in her wide, beautiful eyes, practically dripping from her breathtaking smile.
"I'm pregnant."