DAY 3 - Very early Monday morning


He has his tongue in her mouth and his hand is slipping along her naked thigh. He groans, in shocked disbelief besides everything else, that it could come to this, their first time, with so little preamble.

He's enveloped in her presence as his senses, dizzy and overwhelmed, bring him new input for processing again and again; now, the feel of his thigh gently rasping against her impossibly smooth one; now, her scent, floral and musk mixed with the heat and salt he tastes on her skin; now, the sound of her voice made breathy with panting, and the rustle of his body and hers in a lush tangle of finest weave Egyptian cotton sheets.

Her name hoarse in his mouth, his hands buried in her hair, her tongue meeting his, stroke for stroke. The sensory overload is driving him to the edge so fast.

He tears his mouth from hers, his breath ragged in his throat, in his effort to just slow down; it earns him a whine of protest from her. He pulls up, blue gazing intently into darkening hazel, "Kate...are you sure you want-"

"Castle, I want you." She takes his head in her hands, drawing him down to her kiss.

"Kate..." he breathes, before driving his tongue into her mouth, kissing her deeply, his hands moving down, down...


His eyes open slowly and he regains awareness of his surroundings.

He's still on the sofa but has rolled to lie on his side. He is breathing heavily, and as he wipes his face, he wipes away the sheen of sweat. His skin is hot. He seems to have slept off most of the effects of the whiskey; apart from a parching thirst he's pretty sure isn't going to quit anytime soon.

He's unmistakably aroused. He sits up, runs his hand through his hair, as he wills his breathing under control again. He attempts to adjust his pants, which have become uncomfortably tight.

So. Kate dreams. Huh. Okay. It's been a while.

They used to be fairly spicy, and they fuelled some pretty heated, late-night writing sessions; Heat novel chapters that will likely never see the light of day.

He was having regular dreams before the summer, and they peaked around the time he went to LA with her, when he could barely reel in his attraction to her to within socially acceptable limits.

In particular, he keeps dwelling on that moment in that LA hotel room, when he felt for a second or two that they'd reached a kind of tipping point. They were teetering on the edge of something. Something big.

He guesses he'll never know.

But hot dreams turned into nightmares when she was shot. He'd wake in floods of sweat and with a scream trapped in his chest as his overactive writer's mind generated "what if?" after "what if?" that went from bad to worse. What if she died on the operating table? What if she didn't recover? Was incapacitated? What if he never saw her again?

The nightmares tailed off when she didn't call him for three months, and they were replaced by a string of wakeful nights as, increasingly angry and disappointed, he slowly came to the realization that she wasn't going to.

So erotic dreams really aren't too bad, in the grand scheme of things.

But he's definitely the type to believe in fate, and the law of attraction. So nearly dying with her three times in one day last year? And two weeks ago, surviving being a bank hostage? And not dying in the explosion at the bank that ended the siege?

His nights are once again full of the woman that he has trouble enough getting out of his head during daylight hours as it is...his partner, his best friend, the woman he loves, the one he's waiting for.

He knows to pay attention when the Universe is trying to tell him something.

Okay Universe, I get it.


She didn't go see him tonight.

It's been several hours since she came back from her long lunch, and after a light dinner of soup and a glass of white wine, she's still feeling keyed up and hyper.

She's been on call since midnight, and as late as it now is, there's no way she'll be ready to sleep any time soon.

She lies in the bathtub, lavender-scented bubbles swirling around her as she tries to let the quiet of her apartment calm her mind. She focuses on the small sounds...the sporadic, slow leak of water from the old-style bath faucet, the constant slow drip that building maintenance have never been able to stop completely. The quiet strains of Ella Fitzgerald on her iPod, turned down low, and the hum of the central heating. The gentle lapping of the bath water in time with each languid movement of her body.

She gets what Lanie said. It is getting to be late, almost too late, to finally tell Castle the truth. The truth about what she heard him say, the truth about how she feels about him.

But from Kate's perspective, it's still too soon.

If she goes over there, if she's too open, if she's alone with him for too long before she's worked out exactly what she wants herself, she's afraid she might just mess it up.

She tops the bath up with more hot water, settling back down with a folded washcloth covering her eyes.

She's only had a few weeks of therapy since returning to work; she only returned to work a few weeks ago. She's hardly a great candidate for a crucial conversation, or for starting a new relationship, let alone the relationship that might be the most important one of her life.

But one thing she does know now...she's not willing to wait forever. Since the bomb blast in the bank that could have taken him away from her, she's not prepared to risk waiting too long, only to lose out.

She just needs to take a little more time. Soon she'll feel ready to talk. Then they can move forward.

She needs to keep him in the dark about her feelings a just a little while longer.

That shouldn't be too difficult, right?


She's not sure how it happened or who started it, but it did.

It'd been an hour and a half since they finished their impromptu French dinner with his family, adrenaline still coursing through their systems. Sparring over who's saved whom most often became swapping stories, which became reliving, but still not fathoming, this unforgettable day.

It'd been an hour since they'd moved onto the sofa, and the conversation had slowed, the bottle emptied. But instead of standing, handing him her empty glass, grabbing her purse, and making her exit, she kicked off her shoes and moved close enough to him that their thighs were touching, and conversation started giving way to touches and glances.

It'd been thirty minutes since his family saw the writing on the wall and fled the loft for the night.

Now, they're stretched out on the sofa, clothes and hair in disarray, hands everywhere. She's shucked her sweater, and a spaghetti strap of her white silk camisole is at half-mast. She's half-lying on top of him, ankles curled around his, her hands buried in his hair, her mouth swallowing his groan.

The wine glasses they emptied earlier are sitting forgotten on the coffee table next to them.

She's unbuttoned his shirt, is too impatient, hungry to feel the skin of that broad chest under her hands.

His big hands are moving boldly up her thighs, dragging the hem of her floral skirt with them, cupping the curve of her ass, pulling her into him.

Sitting on top of him, she groans as she feels his arousal creating a delicious pressure on her center. She smiles into his kiss, beginning to unbuttoning his pants.

"Kate...Kate, wait." He sits up, tries to calm himself, through his visible arousal and clear mental and physical dishevelment.

She sits up too, confused, climbing off him to sit on the sofa.

"You're... good with this, right? It's not a 'you almost died' crisis thing?"

She moves toward him again, leaning into his side. "I've wanted this for a long time, Castle. I'm sick of lying to myself. I don't want to wait anymore."

He reaches for her and she sighs with the relief of finally giving in, of no more waiting, of never letting him go again.

When they climax together soon afterwards it's with eyes wide open and hands clasped between them, over their thudding hearts.


She's ripped from sleep when her cell phone rings at 4:30am, not long after she's fallen into an uneasy doze, after the last dream woke her up, with tears on her cheeks and a slow, heavy burn between her thighs.

She drags herself across her bed and sits upright, swinging her legs over the side of the bed, swiping a hand over her face, pushing her hair out of her eyes, as she picks up her cell from the nightstand.

"Beckett..."


Author's Note: How're we doing? Sorry I couldn't let them talk to each other yet. BAHAHAHAHAHAHA. (Not sorry)

Thanks to Ky for another brilliant beta, and ALSO for helping me to keep my eyes on what I need to do to publish the next chapter. That's what's keeping me updating more often than every financial quarter! (winky) KY ROCKS!

Thanks to my friends in the fandom and you, readers, reviewers, followers and favoriters, without you I wouldn't even be writing! (heart)

Edited: 21/6/2013: fixed a couple of bugs..