Bit of a time jump at the start of this chappie too. Thanks for the read and the words, everyone, they're very much appreciated. This isn't my first fanfic, nope, but it's the first time posting here. It's been a lovely experience once I learned formatting ; )
NOW
It's ritualistic, the lighting of candles.
She used to do it in the bathroom of her old place, before the bubbles in her tub were drowned in a shower of bomb and fire. It used to be extreme. Twenty candles, maybe more, as though the time taken to light them extended the anticipation for that first ankle-full of warm water to hit her body.
True bathtub foreplay.
Kate loved the lead up — getting home after a day of bullshit and battle, pouring a glass of wine, grabbing a book and some bubbles. Pure relaxation. It seemed fitting that the moment her old place blew, the tub was the only dependable spot in which she could seek refuge.
The candles? She'd line 'em up along the sill. She'd use the ignition flame in opposition to the weapon she'd been packing all day, and instead of firing something cold and hard against the suppleness of her palm, she'd evoke light. It was soothing. Significant.
Her new place has a gorgeous bathroom with a tub under her shower. It's a smaller area, so Kate has arranged only a handful of candles along the line of her sink as it dips beneath the main window. She loves the intimacy. She's propped a make-up mirror in the corner of the room where she always lights the final candle. It's the only part of the ritual she's retained, and it harks back to something she used to do when she was a teenager.
Light a candle to remind her of lost lives, watch the ghost of her own image haunt the mirror, then plunge into the crispness of bubbles. Now it washes away the grunge of death and another day detecting the scum of NYC streets.
Tonight the candles flicker to a different beat. The light dances across her cheekbones, alerting her downcast eye to a more crowded reflection in the mirror. As she reaches to fire the last in the smaller line of tapers, he moves behind her and watches them in the glass.
'You are so breathtakingly beautiful.'
He hasn't touched her yet, hasn't acted on the impulse that smacked them both in the face when he walked into her apartment about ten minutes ago. Hasn't questioned or made smart comments about why she's wearing a robe or why she just smiled at him and walked away into her bathroom. He'd followed. Not like a puppy dog trotting after a bitch on heat, but like a sophisticated man wearing bedroom eyes and an openness she just has to share.
He hasn't even brushed his fingertips against the tie on her robe.
When all is said and done, this is perhaps the most erotic thing Kate has ever encountered. It's more sexy than his demeanor in The Old Haunt, more ruggedly handsome than the charming rogue standing with a pool cue and his shirt hanging out, more dynamic than any of their previous word play. And she wants him with an intensity bordering on the insane.
It seems so long ago. The red lingerie, the bet, the gauntlet, the pool challenge. Yet as Kate looks into the mirror and waits, she realizes she's wearing more than she did at The Old Haunt. Her single eye patch is a token reminder, but not the only one.
Castle's top is unbuttoned. She can see the rising sprigs of his chest hair at the very bottom of the reflection, his height while she's barefoot allowing more of his body to peep over her shoulder. She knows his shirt is untucked, had heard the quiet rustle of his clothing as he walked behind her into the bathroom, but it's his serious silence that's unnerving. Only the feeling of radiated warmth from his body and his appearance at her side tells her he's really in her bathroom, waiting for what's next.
He knows what's next. So does she. They're hardly bimbette debutantes standing against the barrier at the Dance for Wallflowers hoping to get lucky. Though they're both still rooted to the spot. Why are they always so goddamn inert at these moments?
'Kate?'
Beckett has heard her name spoken in fevered, whispered inquiry too many times of late. She'll never grow tired of Castle using either of her names, but she's weary of his uncertainty. She's sick of Kate?, with a question mark, followed by a problematic pause. He can call her by the formal 'Detective' title on any given occasion. It's been such a turn-on since day one, she doesn't quite know where to start with that, but tonight? There's no more Kate?
She's also sick of her own hesitancy.
The candles flicker in unison as she moves slowly around and past him in a delicate dance of decision. There's not a lot of room to tango, not much air available to over-speak or analyze, and the tension is creating a thickness to the environment that might clog up Beckett's resolve if she doesn't act now. This is the woman who donned her red skin to play pool with the pro in his Old Haunt. Surely she can strip all layers when she's bold and Beckett in her bathroom.
What's the worst thing that could happen?
He could walk away. She shrugs mentally; it's worth the risk.
'Wanna see water boil, Castle?' she mouths, as she drops her robe, turns her back and jumps in.
Then:
The sext messages fly over NYC like the flashiest lightening splitting the horniest sky.
Castle finds it hard — in so many, many ways — to hide his initial delight, but as the hours wear on and Beckett ratchets up her responses, it becomes difficult to stop checking his phone every other minute. And impossible to text with sensuality and stealth when Martha and Alexis are around.
He silences the message alert tone to vibration. Every time his pocket jingles, lower, lower, so close to his groin, he thinks of Beckett. Every time his pouch buzzes — inward and inward — he imagines Kate on the end of his line. Every time he reads her words, he scrunches up his face in disbelief and asks his brain to process whether the messages are really from her or if he's suffering Beckett withdrawal.
'You guys sending me texts?' he asks Esposito and Ryan.
It's two days after he's left Kate, in a frenzied flap of laughter and intense arousal. Castle is still celebrating the fact that she didn't want him to leave. He is high on the handful of messages they've already sent to each other, and is just waiting for an invitation back into the bosom of her apartment. He's nearly passing out from the anticipation, and not in a good way.
'Why, bro?' asks Esposito, looking up from his computer screen with a smile. 'You want us to message you, all sexy like? You lonely with Beckett away?'
He is. Castle doesn't even bother sitting in his usual spot, preferring not to look into the vacant chair. He recalls the days of stealing her seat, just so he could tease her piggy-tails that little harder, stir the pot a little more. Once she's well and back at work, he'll remember to cause the chaos that she so desperately hates, if only to be the one in her life who has the means to splash her pot.
So it boils.
Thinking about pots and stirring causes him to wonder about his phone. Castle checks it again, forgetting that he has the full attention of Esposito and the groom-in-waiting from across the room.
Oh, there's a 'Becks-tex' — his latest, titillating term to describe Kate and the art of sexting.
This morning's exchange is still in his phone's memory, and when he doesn't hear from her for a half-hour here and there throughout the day, Castle rereads it to ensure he's not hallucinating:
"R u up?"
"*checks* Yes. But only 4 U"
"Classy. I'm hungry. Wot U eating?"
"U?"
"Not yet. Cook me pancakes & u could get lucky"
"Really?"
"No."
"Oh!"
"Ur so easy."
"U have no idea."
Without paying too much attention to the text ID in his phone, Castle clicks into the message and immediately reads:
"Hey Castle. I luv u. I want u and need to feel u up. Have 4 so long. Come. Oh, and come ovr to my place 2. 2night. Love, Kate — ur hot detective. *hearts* *hearts*"
The instant he looks at these words, Castle struggles to see. It's like he has been poked in both eyes by two stiff sticks from The Old Haunt, what with the blood pounding in his head, his vision blurring, his throat dry. He's in shock. It's like an anaphylactic eating his weight in peanuts, he feels bloated, breathless and dizzy.
'Oh?'
Castle doesn't mean to say this aloud. All he wants to do is escape to a lonely interrogation room, reread what he thinks he has seen, and respond as best he can. That, and catch the fastest cab in NYC over to Kate's cocoon, all the while plotting the many ways he'll make serious love to her.
He errs in his confusion and looks up from his phone, immediately noticing Esposito almost keel over with laughter, and Ryan choking at the text he's put into 'Jenny's work phone' keypad and sent to Rick. Castle knew the 'I luv u' wasn't from Beckett. It had only been wishful thinking on his part that had befuddled his brain.
'Right. Right. Very funny. Very, very funny,' he says, sipping the final dregs of his lonely coffee. Hot beverages without the hottie are nearly as chilly as wearing his shirt untucked in the middle of winter, but if Kate ever wants him to do that again, he'll brave the cold and flap about like a cock with over-sized wings.
Oh yeah, he hears his diabolical, pool playing voice suggest. Over sized cock is the image of win!
Regaining what's left of his concentration, Castle listens to the continuing banter of his colleagues. Esposito and Ryan are brotherly in their comment, and if Castle wasn't focusing his thoughts on Beckett and cock and how to get into her pants … um, apartment again, he'd be happy to mix it up with the fraternity.
'Aw, Castle. Text message got you all hotted up with the I wuv yous?'
'Dude? Think you're gonna get more than a poke in the eye this time?
'The texting got you all jumpy over there, hey Castle? Interested in giving Beckett some texual healing?'
They rib him for as long as it takes Montgomery to remind them to follow-up the lead from earlier in the day, and for Castle to remember he's in the precinct to give insight, not to wait for an invite.
Doesn't stop him checking his phone every time the guys look away from where he's standing. The moment the vibration becomes a great big Beckett bulge in his pants pocket, Castle wants to flaunt the message in their faces. He doesn't. He can barely move due to the repressed excitement.
"Can u visit 2night? Wear soft shoes and b quiet. Round 9?"
There are a million things Castle wants to text back. Stuff about Lanie and blood pressure and whether to pack a toothbrush and condoms. About staying over and appropriate sexual positions for eye injuries and the impending wedding night, now just a week away.
He stifles the urge to get complicated. He's a guy — hey, he's Rick Castle — and if a beautiful woman invites him over with soft shoes and a round 9 (he's sure that can be interpreted in a dirty way too) then he's there. Without question.
"C u then. U'll be up?"
"No. But you might b"
Unable to form words — either sextual or actual — Castle doesn't even pretend to hear what Ryan and Esposito are talking about for the rest of the afternoon.
He rushes home.
He hurries through dinner preparation for the three of them, only barely registering that Alexis is trying to talk about what to buy Ashley for his birthday. He couldn't give a rat's tail about Ashley at the moment. He cares about Alexis, of course, but when his mind is on being 'up with' Beckett in a few hours, Ashley's birthday is as important as a saddle on a killer rhinoceros.
Noone's gonna ride that! But yeah, they're horny!
Ohhh! Riding? Now, he can think of THAT with a smile on his face and a spring in his pants … um, step.
Castle flurries through eating and flashes by clean up.
'How's Kate faring,' asks Martha, happy to pour a second glass of red wine to help her get through the stacking of the dishwasher and the wiping of kitchen surfaces.
'She's … she's …'
How is she, exactly, he thinks as he notices Alexis prick up her ears at talk of Beckett. Perhaps he needs to be delicate here? He doesn't need to say 'she's so sexy, I want to rip off her eye-patch and do pirate-things to her har-de-har-har parts.' Castle doesn't need to suggest 'I'm going over to her place, round 9, to DO HER. Just like I should have done in The Old Haunt, just like we've been wanting to do for three years.'
He needs to filter. He needs his Father Filter.
'She's faring okay, Mother. She's getting better, with the help of Dr Parish, and I'm going to visit tonight. I haven't seen her for several days—'
'But your text has been running hot, Dad,' says Alexis, exchanging what Castle thinks is an all-too-knowing look with Martha. Damn, do they know? Does everyone know that he and Beckett have been having post eye-poking sext? Without a com-dom?
He smiles at his inner witticism and Martha interprets it as something else.
'Yes, Richard. It has. Been running hot. And you seem to be running hot tonight, too.'
'You been missing Detective Beckett, Dad?'
'He's certainly in a mad hurry to do something, darling,' says Martha, with a quiet laugh. 'Anyone would think that your father is going on his first date. I haven't seen him quite this intense since he was fifteen and meeting up with—'
'And that's where we stop reminiscing,' says Castle, with a flourish of his hand and a shoulder hug for his daughter. 'Yes, Alexis. I've been missing my work with Detective Beckett. We share a great deal of responsibility for the safety of the streets, you know.'
He waggles his eyebrow to distract Martha and Alexis from the fact that he's almost turning into a befuddled, excited, anxious puddle of Alexander right in front of them. His kitchen clock shows 8 pm. Why does he feel like he's been the glorious, golden coach on the way to the ball, but suddenly his sides are splitting from the strain of the emerging pumpkin.
It's like his clothes have become so confining, his insides are turning to vegetable. Orange, bulging pulp, needing to emerge.
God. He needs to be naked. The message is clear. He needs to slip Cinderella his calling card and let her steer his (under) carriage with the edge of her glass, Beckett-heeled slipper.
Castle blisters and blusters through the rest of the conversation, not caring if he doesn't make sense, playing along with the gentle teasing and questions of his favourite family females.
Because they are. His favourites, but they gather under his subheading of 'family', and that doesn't include Beckett. Yet. His 'other' favourite female awaits, his coachman is jockeying for position, straining to keep the magic alive — and in his pants — until midnight.
After that, the pumpkin is outta the coach. Or something as nonsensical.
She grins in reply to his hesitant knock on her door.
It's so quiet, Lanie wouldn't even notice it if she was still in the apartment. The fact he's here, right on the dot of nine and being so damn stealth is so hot that Kate's smile vanishes quickly. It's time. She's never been so ready to get wet.
She steps forward, then retreats.
Beckett could weigh it all up even now, create the negative self-talk that would have her running away again. She could call out 'just a minute', walk to her bedroom, flip off her bathrobe and climb into jeans and something modest. She could shut the bathroom door. Pretend the tub is full from a previous submerging. She could even be really cliche. She could tell herself that it would be better to wait for the wedding night before she initiates proceedings that are sure to domino effect all the way to bed and back. All the way to work and back. All the way to her fucking heart, and back.
But it's not their wedding night next week, for chrissake.
There's no reversing this. Maybe she's never been so sure that she wants to go forward?
If she keeps standing in the middle of the kitchen, dressed in the most decadent robe in the entire city, she's going to be made inert by the softest, reddest material she's ever owned. She bought this robe on a whim, a knee-jerk reaction to her last one being burnt to a crisp. If Kate's honest with herself, she bought the robe with a view to taking it off slowly, letting it fall in a heap on the ground, allowing her body to be flushed with excitement and anticipation of …
Him. Watching her. It was never for Josh, and there's no guilt or regret attached to that particular admission.
The knock is quiet again, but more insistent. If Kate wants the face truth, she bought the robe while in fantasy land, imagining a time where she might flounce around in front of Castle, light some candles, whisper some words, have him graze the sluice of her neck muscles with his teeth.
Doing it. Doing HIM as he does her.
She opens the door as she will her robe, all grace and determined fluidity, and immediately the colour pays off. His face reflects the richness, his smile reaches his eyes and he hands her a bottle of wine in the same shade.
'Hey,' he whispers, the corner of his mouth quirking upward in the effort to keep his voice down. 'I bought over a screw top bottle so there'd be no uncorking noise. You look … um … you look … red ... um, rested.'
Kate takes the wine, uncertain whether she should come clean about them being entirely alone, then decides it's way to sexy to have him speak with his eyes. He is. He's practically burning down this apartment with the sparks that are flying from his visual appraisal. He looks at the robe like it's a monarch's wedding gown. He wants to rip it off to get to the crown jewels.
'I feel better.'
'I bet you do.'
Kate arches an eyebrow in time with the double entendre and she's disappointed to see him backtrack just a little. It's all too easy to banter when they're at the Precinct or in the company of others or via text. It's so intense in this situation, he lets his eyes drop, makes a drinking gesture with his hand and heads into the kitchen to get some glasses.
He tiptoes. Beckett doesn't know whether to laugh or squish him to death. The latter would lead to sex on the floor or her kitchen counter. Maybe that's in order?
The idea causes a cavalcade of emotions and feelings to drip inside her robe. Blatant desire. Red-wire arousal. Flat-line anxiety. Damn, she is a debutante bimbette at the Wallflower Ball. Why is this all so complicated when it should be a wonderful outpouring of estrogen bombs, endorphin kicks and testosterone torpedoes?
'So? Kate? I've liked your messages over the last couple of days,' he tries to joke, handing her the wine glass, sipping at his own, but looking at her like he wants to take a mouthful of flesh. 'Um, and … I like your … your robe.'
'Uh-huh.'
What's a horny woman to say to the guy she's wanted to bandy about on a bed for three years? Even longer, if she counts the fangirl crush she had on his writing before he came to work with her. Fuck! What's it going to take? A pool cue up the ass?
Nope. It's not a good image. Beckett tries to focus on seducing him with her eyes. She takes in his black, loose-fitting shirt, the fact it lounges beneath his belt into his jeans. Then there's his 5 o'clock shadow, finding a way to make love to his jaw and upper lip in the most timely matter. She wants some of that, too. Against her face. Along her neck.
'Do you want to sit down, Kate?' He's still whispering. It's so endearing, she forgets her rage at his inability to make the first move. 'Do you want to go somewhere else? Where we won't wake Lanie—'
That's it!
Without touching, she uses visual cues to stalk his gaze, and pounces. She smiles, tilts her head, swivels on bare feet and floorboards, and pads towards the bubbles she needs to pop. Or is it her Castle cherry she needs to pop? Oh, yes. That's the one! Whether he joins her or not is another question, but her eye is paining and she's sure it's from the referred headache that is Richard Castle.
Bending over the tub to test the temperature, she tops it up with some water and a delicate blob of bubble goo. He's beside her in an instant, but it's only when he turns up in her mirror and tells her that she's beautiful that Kate allows herself the luxury of full immersion.
NOW AGAIN:
'Kate?'
It's awkward. He hasn't felt this awkward since he tried to jerk-off to what he thought was a porn video, only to find that neighbours had recorded some special moments in their pet's lives on home film over the episode of 'Naked Nikita Does New York'. He'd been fifteen. He hadn't been into beastiality.
Castle feels like he's fourteen and pimply as he stands in her kitchen. Like he's pubescent and all distended cock, as she wears her red robe like she'd worn that thing in The Old Haunt. Like he's fifteen year-old Randy Andy, desperate to get laid when she visually responds to his come-on joke with a look that sends him straight to the shaft of his penis.
Metaphorically.
NO! That's bullshit! There is no metaphor. He's actually there, round the shaft of his dick. The metaphor idea is just to make him feel better. Normal.
It's all awkward. Hadn't they kissed intimately just days before? Hadn't she touched his butt and told him she's wanted to 'do him' for years? Yeah, but he's nervous, goddamn it, he is.
But as soon as she bares her body in a movement of unravelling that leaves him stunned, Castle is back on the front foot and doesn't have to try and read her mind anymore. Whether she's hot, cold, hypertensive, moody, loud, horny, funny, high, angry, frigid, grieving over her most recent (wrong) boyfriend, in pain, playing him for a sex-charged fool ...
With the release of her robe, it's all so much easier. And no, Castle refuses to feel guilty about Kate making that first, pivotal move. He has always wanted her — he loves everything about her — but she has the ability to hurt his heart like no other. His heart. It wouldn't have stood a true Kate Beckett rejection to any real advances, despite the roguish mask he tries to wear.
He watches the water bubble, and is mesmerized. It might as well be boiling, hissing, in reaction to the way she sits and reclines like the Queen of Sheba, except with way different hair. Oh, her hair! It's bunched up and ready for his fingers. And her neck, it's pressing back against the edge of the tub, ready for his fingers. Oh, and her body? Well, it's somewhere down there, getting frosted by bubbles and waiting for his fingers.
Castle realizes his mouth is ajar and his mind is a-crazed. He's making her wait when all he wants to do is make her—
'Rick?'
He's behind her before she can sound the 'ck' at the end of his name. He's on his knees, gently releasing her hair, running his hands through its softness, pressing his face into the side of her neck and whispering things. Castle thinks they might be garbled, but she laughs when he thinks he says 'Oh, my God. There's no fire in this apartment, but it's so damn hot' and 'this is more fun than a poke in the eye with a stick.'
She turns her head, grabs at his face and pulls him toward her. There's no physical way she can get him into her bath, so she uses the power of her lips to shape them into his mouth, to coax him closer. As soon as she streams her tongue along his lower lip, Castle is pulling at his own shirt, flicking it open and fumbling the cuffs over his hands. Without breaking the kiss, he bundles it up and flings it down on her robe.
'Getting in?' she asks, almost moaning when he turns her shoulders away from him and proceeds to kneel behind her.
'Not yet.'
He can feel himself panting, straining to get to her, so he uses the hardness of the bath to steel the cap of his erection, extending the moment of anticipation where he'll be able to glaze it into her.
It almost kills him.
It's when he starts washing her hair, using a combination of scalp massage techniques he discovered to soothe Alexis's fear of water when she'd been young, that it gets serious again. There's a lot of silence, impregnated with some sighing, some breathy cooing, some purring. She's fluid. She's letting him do all the work and he takes it, until the moment he stops to get some more shampoo.
Her eye snaps open. 'You're still not naked in my tub.'
'Yeah, well I'm busy.'
She shifts distractedly, impatiently beneath his hands, as he finishes washing her hair, following it with some strong massage contractions down the side of her neck and into her shoulder blades. She's so damn fine. Willowy and lithe, but with the added veneer of toughness, the armour she wears that's so hard to penetrate unless you 'keep turning up'.
He's here, and he's up.
He finds an empty plastic bowl and uses it to cup warm, clean water to rinse off, loving the feel of his chest against her wet hair, reveling in the sensuality of slow, rhythmic movement. Castle uses his other hand to shield her eye patch. He watches her tilt back her head, so it nestles below the triangle formed by his nipples and chest hair, and simply stares. She is breathtakingly beautiful. She is sex-on-a-stick, LA-swimsuit hot, wet, relaxing, incredibly sublime … oh, and she's opening her one good eye again, oh, yes … and she's so … so … oh … she's …
Crying?
'Hey?" he says, his immediate concern rendering his erection-hard factor (his EHF) drop from twelve outta ten to 10.5. 'Whattsa matter?'
It's difficult to deduce whether the seepage round her eye is an effect of the steamy bath or if she's upset, but as soon as Castle observes her facial expression, the line of her mouth … it doesn't take New York's best detective to figure out that she's emotional.
'Get in.'
She's using Beckett talk, so Castle is out of his pants and into a spin before he has time to assess that his EHF has rocketed to a factor of 110.
'I'm getting in. I'm getting in!'
With less elegance than Kate, Castle is one with the bubbles of her tub before the next teary streak has escaped the corner of her eye. He sits opposite her, his legs scrunched up so that he can lean forward and bring her inwards to his chest. Naturally, she straddles him and they fit like Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. He wants to say a thousand things, but all thought is cut off as she kisses him with every desperate desire he has housed for three years.
The spark flares to inferno.
'Hey?' he bites out between oral onslaught, as mouths press, collapse and fuse closer than their lower bodies. 'Hey, Kate?' He's loving it, but he wants to tell her so. 'There's no … rush … '
'Really? Wanna wait another three years before we get around to scratching this?'
She hits the words out in a whip of tongue and nips and soft, soft lips. Her look is pure LA pool exit, but her one uncovered eye is not wearing any war paint. She's so vulnerable — patched — that he wants to gentle the kisses before making profound love to her. Not a quickie in the bath. Well not yet. Not until he gets a handle on all the things that make Beckett tick.
But she wants it, and there's something about a fired-up, determined Beckett that he cannot resist even if he wasn't beneath her, naked and instinctive, in the sleek, hot wet of her tub. Castle tries to say something about condoms, about comfort, but she bunts things like 'tests are fine, are yours up to date?' — Oh, god yes, they are — and 'contraception covered'. He tries to tempt her with mumblings of a soft mattress, extended pleasures, ongoing, sensual experiences, but she's so persuasive with her angle of hips, with her licking of his neck, with her placement of … everything.
Okay, it's awkward. It's like his very first time, and when he thinks about that later, after he manages to get her into her bed and spend time over her body, that's significant. She's around him before he has the chance to comprehend that she's taking him. Kate reaches between them, finds him ribald and ready against her inner thigh and just owns him.
He submits and loves it. He presses upwards, harder and faster than he initially wanted, but he loves it. She shudders against him, removes her tongue from his ear and groans a kiss into his mouth. And he loves her. It really is that simple.
Castle has no clue how long it lasts — the grind and pump of flesh, the taste of wine and desire, the damp crisp of bubbles against his thigh and back, but when it's over and she comes in the instant before she kills him with her quakes, he doesn't care. He does take notice when she slumps against his shoulder and let's her hair frame her face in the aftermath. Castle brushes it back from her cheek, finds the trail of some tears and kisses a path between her eye and lips.
'Come to bed, Kate.'
She smiles and kisses him, and that's enough for Castle at the moment. Until she says 'Rick' again and then it will be all about the protracted loving.
It's a struggle to move, but as with most things Beckett, the struggle is well worth the effort.
