A/N: Rating change to 'M' for this chapter.


A Cure for Loneliness

Chapter 7

The sensation of Castle's hands moving beneath her thin shirt had Kate tearing her mouth away from his simply in order to breathe. She gasped a sharp, "Fuck!" as he smoothed his palms up along her ribcage, somehow managing to span her narrow body with his fingers while he circled her nipples with his thumbs and then smothered the weight of her breasts with the warmth of his large palms. She burned everywhere he touched her, a flickering, aching heat that spread like tinder catching fire across her skin.

This guy's hands! Inanely, she wondered if he'd ever thought about having them insured. Then she wondered: if he was this good with his hands, what other body parts might he wield with equal skill? But he cut her off before she could take this thought any further, muddying her mind with his playful banter.

"Another, f-word, Beckett," he scolded against her jaw before wiping her brain of any coherent response when he latched onto her neck with the meaty suction of his open mouth, slowly dragging tongue and teeth over her collarbone and then soothing this punishment with the press of lips that seemed impossibly soft for a man of his size and power.

"Don't mark me," Kate murmured distractedly, the words and her tone working in equal and opposite direction when it came any definitive meaning or an actual instruction. Her brain was failing her. Her 'friend' had some serious skills.

Castle played nice though and moved on. But this only made her clutch at him harder, wanting him back and not wanting him at all, the turmoil like a thundering fury of need inside her that ached and would continue to ache until she did something about it. This was a need she feared, for as she'd already explained: she couldn't be his friend-with-benefits. Never only that. She wasn't built that way. Not for anyone and certainly not for him anymore.


She felt him grasp the hem of her shirt and with his mouth right next to her ear he whispered, "Is this okay?"

Kate shivered and moaned some incoherent sound of approval, matching it with something of a distracted nod as her own fingers shifted to begin work on the front of his shirt.

Wearing no bra, she was bared to him in a heartbeat. He tossed her t-shirt to one side and turned all of his attention on her. He let his hands rest on her narrow waist, holding her out in front of him as if for inspection, his thumbs brushing back and forth over her jutting hip bones like windshield wipers. Despite his track record with women - information Kate had briefly researched in the early days just to prove a point to herself, one which failed to bear fruit - he regarded at her with something close to awe; as if her body somehow went above and beyond any he'd ever seen before. She'd be lying if she didn't feel special in that moment, if he didn't take one look at her breasts and make her feel more adored with a simple look of longing than any man had ever managed to made her feel.

When he covered her right nipple with his mouth, she had to pause in her efforts with his buttons, unable to think or make her fingers function while he worked her body like he owned it, already party to all of its secrets. She slid her fingers through his hair and held his head to her while he teased her nipple into the stiffest little pebble, flicking it around with his tongue, circling and sucking on her areola and then blowing to cool and torture her more, before moving on to the other side and a repeat performance that left her shuddering and weak at the knees.

Eventually, the blood returned and her brain was able to function. She managed to open his shirt all the way down the front until the two sides flapped open and she had access to acres of warm, smooth skin. He was impressive: toned, his skin soft and honeyed from time spent in the sun. His scent was intoxicating in its maleness, it's very Castleness, arousing from this familiarity alone. She felt a flush spread up her neck and her face grew warm. She was giving in to a need she'd tried to temper, to hold back, and this act of giving in thrilled her even more.

She spread her hands up his stomach and across his chest, thrilled by the firmness of the musculature beneath her fingertips. "Off," she commanded, plucking at his shirt, only for her words to be robbed from her lips by another bruising, hungry kiss.

She felt the button on her denim shorts pop open and then the purr of the zipper coming down. Cool air greeted the lower half of her abdomen and, glancing down, she glimpsed a small triangular portion of the bright purple panties she'd been wearing all day, a tiny pink bow winking up at her.

Before she could reciprocate on Castle's jeans, his fingers were slipping down the front of her shorts and cupping her through her damp underwear.

"Fuck," she heard Castle groan against her neck when he felt how her arousal had soaked through her panties already. "You're so wet."

Kate let out a breathy giggle that shocked even her. "I think we need a swear jar," she said.

"Screw it, I'll cut you a check right now if you want," Castle cursed, assaulting her mouth with his tongue and his teeth until she was forced to break away once more, her lungs begging for air.

Their breathing was labored and they clung on for balance, both chests heaving in time. They eyed one another fearfully, caught up in a heated moment of crazed lust, wondering how far to take things. And more than that, how far was too far at this point?

Kate nodded off Castle's wide-eyed stare. "Go on," she urged, realizing that he was waiting for permission to carry on touching her, to move beyond clothing and get down to business.

"Sure?" he checked again, pressing a kiss to her cheek and nuzzling her nose with his own in a gesture that felt more loving and tender than she expected from him at this early stage. "You're one hundred percent sure?"

She nodded. "Castle, I want you to touch me. Touch me," she whispered against his cheek.

She arched up on tiptoe and clung to his shoulders when he slid his hand beneath her panties, cupping her while his thumb joined the party last, sliding down the groove that led to her clit and hovering there, holding her maddeningly still while she throbbed with a white hot, pulse in the palm of his hand.

"Move. Please?" she begged, inching her legs open wider to give him more access and to entice him on. She was still wearing her shorts, and though they opened far enough to allow his hand inside, the restriction of movement was in turns a frustration and a total turn on for how it trapped his fingers hard against her sex.

Eventually, after she nipped at his jaw, he withdrew his hand a little way, smearing her wetness liberally over her labia before he parted their silky folds and slid back in again, finally stroking through her slippery heat with the dexterous skill of a blind man.

She hung onto him, her arm around his neck. "Oh, God," they both groaned at the flood of sensation. He stroked back and forth a few times, fingering her with two stiffened digits that she began to ride, coasting her hips in a controlled, rhythmic motion back and forth over the hard ridges of his bones, already trying to get herself off with this moderate friction.

"Too many clothes," she complained after a moment, feeling her body getting closer and closer to release, but wanting to feel his naked skin against hers when she finally came.

"You want me to stop?" Castle asked, misinterpreting her protest.

"Only to get naked," she surprised him by saying.

"You're sure?" He was being chivalrous. To a fault. And Kate wanted none of it.

"Castle, when I tell you to get naked, don't ask me if I'm sure. Stop being so polite and get your goddamn clothes off."

"Yes, ma'am," he laughed, with the pitch of a giddy child, breaking the tension between them.


With just shorts and her soaked panties to remove, Kate was naked first. Castle was so distracted by her body that he could barely concentrate to remove his own clothes.

"You're…you're stunning," he confessed, missing the fastening on his jeans for the third time in a row before Kate stilled his hands and then popped the metal jeans button open for him.

She moved back a little distance to lie down on the sofa, and Castle hovered over her, openly staring as she spread herself out beneath him while he undid his cuffs and then finally stripped off his shirt and threw it across the room. His erection rose pointedly to one side of the opening in his boxer shorts as soon as his jeans were on the floor. Beyond the obvious engorgement, a damp circle in the pale blue fabric spoke to his advanced state of arousal, as it had done with Kate.

She held her arms out to him and motioned him down on top of her. He knelt carefully, with one knee between her open thighs and one on the outer edge of the cushion, bearing his weight on his hands and arms until he lowered over her. She arched up to kiss him and ran one hand through his hair, teasing his scalp with her nails. When she brushed his ear with her mouth, he shivered. "Let's take these off," she suggested, tugging at the waistband of his shorts with her toes.

Once he was completely naked, she reached for him, encircling the silky smoothness with her palm and stroking up and down his hardened length. She watched the strain on Castle's face as he closed his eyes against this bliss and arched his back, holding himself in careful check while she wrecked merry, torturous hell on his body. His arms trembled and his Adam's apple bobbed when she moved to stroke his balls, watching with tingling anticipation as his rigid length danced against the pale plane of her forearm.

Finally, out of patience for the main event, she tugged him down towards her. He opened his eyes, swallowing nervously and staring at her in wonderment. She smiled and nodded, parting her knees even wider so that his head nudged at the entrance to her core. After a couple of misfired attempts, he took himself in hand and eased the very tip inside. He paused, his gaze locked with Kate's the entire time, before a nudge of his hips and an arching of hers pushed him beyond her entrance and he slid inside, finally joining them together.

Kate gripped one muscular shoulder, savoring the intrusion, feeling the slow drum beat of her own body as it pulsed and tightened around his tumescent length. She smoothed her other hand over his hip and around to his buttock, better for leverage to guide him in and out. She was hungry for this, the fear that had held her back all this time forgotten in her reckless intoxication.

They moved slowly to begin with, watching one another, and wasn't that the sexist thing: their gaze locked both in shock and amazement that they were doing this at all, that this surprising day, this box of delights, had brought them here.

"Feels good?" Castle whispered, roughly, his eyes cloudy with a mixture of lust and concern for her.

"Mm," Kate hummed in agreement, giving him a nod. Her smile was lost to the call of pleasure and her eyes slipped shut. "So good," she concurred, sinking her teeth into her bottom lip.

Gradually, they began to pick up the pace, an effortless, intuitive motion that came from somewhere primal. His body glided easily in and out of hers, and soon Castle settled into a rhythm that allowed him to ravish her breasts one minute and then wipe her mind to a blank slate with the stroke of his tongue pulsing in and out of her mouth in time with the thrust of his hips.

He kept her senses confused. In no time at all, he had wound her higher and tighter, until she thought her body might explode. Kate thrashed her head against the cushions and clawed at whatever she could reach, but inch by inch Castle took command over everything. She panted and moaned and chanted his name without any thought to how needy she sounded or how desperately she clung onto him. Her nails dug crescents into his buttocks and back as she urged him further and deeper inside of her, using him and cursing every time he hit the sweetest spot and her control threatened to give way.

Finally, skin glistening with sweat and almost out of breath, her pleasure reached its peak. She felt her body seize and begin to flutter, muscles spasming around the thickness of his length, and, for those last few seconds, she rode him even harder, using each tight surge and glistening withdrawal to drag every last ounce of sensation from her orgasm.

Once Castle was sure she'd reached a release, he allowed himself to let go and follow her over the edge. Grinding until he cried out and bucking to a stop when he spasmed, spilling hotly inside her. He stole the last of her breath with a punishing kiss that made her lungs burn and her vision white out, then they collapsed on her sofa in a heap of shaking limbs and naked flesh.


"Wow!" Kate laughed, the first one of them to make any coherent sound beyond that which was necessary to stay alive. "Happy Memorial Day! Don't think I'll forget this one in a while."

Her laugh sounded a little crazed and Castle opened his eyes to check on her, swiping at his face just in time as bead of sweat ran down his nose.

He eased off her a little. "You okay? I didn't hurt you, did I?"

Kate gave him one of her trademark looks - withering blended with warm amusement.

"I didn't mean that," he chided, realizing that she thought he was boasting about his manhood or his sexual prowess.

"Good," she said, slapping his bare ass.

After a moment in which they merely looked at one another, silly with exhaustion, she reached up and pulled him to her for a more tender, lingering kiss than he ever would have expected from Kate Beckett, especially after sex. She was smiling against his lips and that fact alone made his heart hammer hard for her.

"You sure you're okay?" he checked again.

"Castle, I'm great. Now stop fussing and help me get up before we stain my sofa and I have to get the cushions dry cleaned."

"Bossy, beautiful and great in bed," Castle teased, before easing out of her, grabbing a napkin and then helping her to her feet.

TBC...


Thank you for reading.