His heart twisted through every cringe, gasp, and quiet moan of pain she had unwillingly emitted while he'd extracted the glass embedded into her scalp. But tending to her injuries was worth the crescent shaped marks he's almost certain adorn his hips, where he had allowed her to grip his bones through the agony.
It could have been worse. The shards of glass had been small but visible, easy for him to locate amidst the strands of her hair and remove from her skin without trouble. The process had taken him a near fifteen minutes, but her wounds were clean, the bleeding had stopped, and now he's running Kate Beckett a bath in his Jacuzzi tub, filling it will lavender scented bubble bath and some Epsom salt.
He's still having a hard time believing that she's here, that all of this is real, that he had kissed her, felt her body arching for more against his. He'd almost missed out on all of it, almost lost her completely-
"It's really beautiful here," Kate murmurs, entering the bathroom with eyes that are bloodshot but soft when they reach him. "I wish we had time to go down to the beach."
"Why wouldn't we be able to go down to the beach?" he asks, dipping his fingers into the sudsy water as steam begins to rise. Hot but not scalding, a perfect temperature for her to lounge in. "We have the time. Until Ryan and Esposito call with an update, that is."
She doesn't answer him, her gaze falling to the tiled flooring, and Castle sighs, winces through the pop of his knees as he rises from the side of the tub.
"Kate, we're not running from this, you know that, right?" he inquires, cupping her shoulder in his palm, stroking his thumb along the harsh bone that he can so easily locate through the thin fabric of her t-shirt. He should go reheat her pancakes, see if he can feed them to her while she's unwinding in his tub. "But you almost died less than twelve hours ago. We can't take on Bracken like this."
"I didn't want you to be a part of this," she mumbles, shaking her head, but Castle stills her, curves his fingers along the back of her neck.
"I was the one who started all of this, remember?" he states, the ugly truth of it all, but Kate's brow furrows and Castle lets her go, starts back towards the filling tub. "I'm the one who started digging into your mom's case even after you told me what it would do. I'm the one who dragged you back into it. I made myself a part of it from the beginning."
"It would have happened with or without you," she reasons, the quiet sound of her bare feet on the cool tile coming towards him. "Dick Coonan still would have shown up. The truth of what Montgomery did would have eventually come out. You aren't responsible for any of this, Castle. If anything, you just made it more bearable." She's said words to him like that before – you make my job a little more fun – but he still glances back to her in surprise. "I always thought that I had to do this alone, that it could only be me, but having you as my partner… I wouldn't have made it this far without you."
"Kate, I've been - I haven't been your partner for over a year. I left you to do this on your own," he argues, the image of her face on his phone screen flashing through his mind, the guilt he had put off for the last year overflowing, beginning to choke him.
He feels her presence at his back, like a magnet, the electric charge of her crackling along his spine before she's even touched him. "It took hanging off the side of a building, believing it was the end for me to see that there was more to my life than my mother's case. To finally realize that I wanted more. But prior to that, I - I was intent on dying for my cause."
Castle cuts his eyes to her over his shoulder, to witness the small smile on her lips, the echo of his words in her mouth.
"You walked out on me because I gave you no choice." His mouth opens with another protest, but Kate silences him, hushes him with the brush of her thumb to his lips. "We can discuss this as much as you want, Rick, but I don't want to dwell on it. It's the past now."
She's right, he knows that, and it makes him proud of her, to experience this newfound ability to let go of the past instead of allowing it to consume her future.
Castle is careful when he leans in, presses a kiss to an unscathed place atop her head. "You're right. I'm with you now, Beckett. No more going up against this thing on your own. "
"Okay," she exhales, not exactly thrilled with his determination, but accepting of it, and that's all he needs.
The water is rising to the top of the bathtub and Castle squeezes her shoulder before he bends forward to turn the faucet off and ensure that the jets along the sides of the tub are set to the right speed.
"Now, I know we washed the blood out of your hair downstairs, but if you want me to go through it again, I can. Otherwise…" Castle turns back to tell her he'd be right in the next room if she needed anything, but his words dissipate on his tongue, his mind going blank as he catches sight of Kate shimmying out of her pants, kicking them towards the t-shirt pooled on the floor near her feet. "Um." Oh, Kate Beckett in a black bra, underwear, and nothing else is enough to leave him speechless for a while. "I'll just-"
She glances up, quirks an eyebrow at him, takes a step towards him, and Rick nearly stumbles back, falls into the giant bathtub.
"You're right, it's definitely a master bathtub," Kate assesses, lowering her eyes to the large pool of steaming water and the mass of bubbles floating along the surface. "Big enough for two."
"Well, yes, but I don't-" She reaches behind her, unclasps the fastening of her bra, but Castle stops her before the lingerie can fall, covers the bare skin of her arms with his palms. "Kate."
"Not going to join me?" she murmurs, rolling her shoulder beneath the weight of his hand, causing one of the satin straps to slip downwards, hooking in his thumb.
He can't help caressing the naked curve of her shoulder, closing his eyes as she sways into him, so gentle but determined, all too alluring. Kate arches on the tips of her toes, their noses bumping before her lips dust along his, offering the chance to pull away if he needs it. But his arms manage to wind around her waist before his mind can have a say in the action, his hands gliding up the smooth skin of her back, desperate to memorize every dip of flesh and rise of bone, the heat of her beneath his palms.
The soft cotton of her bra lands at his feet, her breasts flush against his chest as she coils her arms around his neck.
"Maybe a bath wouldn't be so bad," he reasons, sucking her upturned bottom lip into his mouth, laving it with his tongue just to hear the titillating sound of her moan.
He squeezes her hips before he gently draws her away, murmuring into her cheek about the water growing cold while he begins to undo the buttons of his own shirt, his fingers fumbling down the line as he watches her remove her underwear and dip her toes into the hot water.
Castle listens to the ripple of water as she sinks into the tub, but his back remains turned while he finishes undressing, the sensation of Kate's eyes roaming over each newly bared part of him reoccurring.
"Thought staring was creepy," he mumbles, keeping his eyes on the water and the islands of bubbles atop the surface, the space left behind her for him to settle in.
"Mm, couldn't resist," she answers, no shame in her voice as she glances over her shoulder, unabashedly raking her eyes along his chest once he's sitting at her back, breathing a sigh of contentment at the jets that immediately soothe the tense muscles crowding along his spine.
Castle relaxes back into the curve of the tub, holds his breath when Kate follows his descent, suppresses the wholly inappropriate moan that swells in his throat when she rests her back to his chest, tucks her head beneath his chin.
"Breathe, Castle," she reminds him, amusement trickling through her tone, but it's affectionate. She's affectionate, far more than he would have ever expected, and Kate finds his uncertain hands in the water, guides them to tangle around her midsection and hums against him in contentment.
But he can't seem to relax, to silence the clashing of surprise and delight and apprehension all rioting through his brain, and he knows she can hear the uproar as she combs her nails along the hair decorating his forearm.
"You know I like to read in the bath, don't you?" she asks, the question throwing him off his hectic train of thought, but he nods from behind her.
"You mentioned it once, I think. Either that, or I just assumed, since I know your character so well."
Kate scoffs, but she's smiling, the rise of her cheeks visible and lovely. "It was always something I looked forward to, especially after a long day at the precinct or a stressful case. And it's something I never would have considered sharing with anyone else. That was my time to relax, let the hot water work out some of the built up tension in my muscles, get lost in a book."
"Preferably, my books."
"Mm, sometimes," she reveals, laughing at his gasp of surprise.
"I'm so glad you're telling me this story while I'm actually in a bath with you, makes it far more enjoyable," Castle grins, growing a little bolder and splaying his hands over the naked plane of her abdomen, feeling the taut muscles beneath his palms jump and contract.
"The point," she mumbles, allowing his hands to wander, to send her muscles rippling and goosebumps up the exposed pieces of her arms. "I thought about this, about – about what it could be like to just come home with you, draw a bath like always but with you there, just like this."
His hands have gone still, every sliver of hesitance that had resided within his body having disappeared, drained into the water surrounding them, just as she'd intended by telling him this little story, by reminding him, proving that he had never been as alone and in love with her as he had once thought.
"Does this live up to those expectations?" he murmurs, a grin spilling across his lips when Kate leans her head back against his shoulder, smears a kiss to his neck.
"You have no idea," she mumbles, submerging her hands beneath the water to traverse along the outsides of the thighs cradling her, trailing her fingertips over his skin.
"Oh, I got a decent one earlier, in the kitchen, against the door-"
"Castle," she huffs, nipping at his jawline, and he ducks his head to avoid the pleasant burn of her mouth before this turns into more than a relaxing bath. "That was nothing compared to what I want to do to you."
"Kate," he groans, dropping his forehead to the slick skin of her shoulder and snatching her hands from his thighs, trapping them beneath his at her chest.
She goes very still for a moment, though, and Castle lifts his head in question, finds his answer in the wiggle of her fingers beneath his, their left hands right over her heart and the bullet that scars it. A scar he's never actually seen.
"I know it's… I hate it, but it's fading well, almost unnoticeable," she explains and he doesn't understand why she's suddenly so stiff and self-conscious in his arms, why she would think – oh. Oh no, she thinks her scar will upset him? "I wish you could have seen before I-"
"Kate," he admonishes softly, retracting her hand from the spot between her breasts, catching a glimpse of the raised flesh that is almost easy to miss, fading into a subtle white against her olive skin. "Turn around."
She hesitates, guiding his hands down her sides as she sits forward, intentionally drawing his fingers along the incision scar beneath the bottom rung of her ribcage, not visible to him beneath the bubbles, but he's always known of its existence.
Kate shifts away from him in the water, readjusts herself to face him, and he reaches for her, the tightness that had begun to form in his chest loosening when she comes without resistance. Having a serious conversation in a bubble bath with Kate wrapped around him, certainly able to feel his want for her between them, probably isn't the most ideal way to do this, but he craves the contact, already addicted to it after a mere few hours.
"You're beautiful," he murmurs, finding her hands in the water to restrict them from rising to cover her chest. "You have to know that."
"I hated looking at them," she deflects, her lashes hiding her eyes, but Kate lifts one of her hands from the water, splays it over his chest. "Still do most of the time."
"I don't," he states, caressing the marred skin along her side, tracing the lattice of her ribs that expand beneath his touch. "They're a part of you, Kate. But they aren't everything, they don't make you any less breathtaking."
His fingertips skim the underside of her breast and she shudders, catches his hand and drags the pads of his fingers up to the round scar in the middle of her sternum, the memories of how she had earned it still so vivid and clear, so devastating.
Castle slips his fingers free from beneath the cove of her hand, leans forward to replace them with the press of his lips to her scar, bracketing her waist with his hands when she bows over him.
He draws back as her heart begins to quicken, as her fingers clench in his hair, and it takes every ounce of willpower he possesses not to touch his mouth to the perfect slopes of her breasts so bare and inviting before him, to wait.
"Staying in this tub much longer is probably not a good idea," he decides, grinning at the breathless laugh she releases.
"No, probably not," she agrees, but before he can offer to grab them both towels, Kate curls forward, slips her arms around his neck and releases a sigh against his chest.
He doesn't question it, never would, and cradles her there against him, places his hands to her shoulder blades and feels her heart slow, evening out beneath his palms.
"Thank you, Castle."
His response is instantaneous, a word that has always been reserved only for her and no longer tastes like acid in his mouth once he speaks it.
"Always."