...Then his mouth captures hers again, and his big, warm hands engulf the backs of her bare thighs, pulling the hemline of her dress up over her hips, hoisting her off her feet to clamp her body to his; she wraps her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist.
He grinds into her. She groans; clings to him. Dizzy with wanting him and with a flood of sensation, so long restrained, now set free to roam her body. Desire wreaks havoc, makes her pant and sigh; makes her skin hot; her hands hungry for him, for his touch.
She clings to him, with her mouth, with her body, never wanting to let go. His hand creeps down between them, and sets loose a moan from deep within her. Her head drops back against the wall-
"Kate... what are you...?"
His voice pierces her consciousness.
She's half-sitting, half sprawled over the arm of the sofa, cell phone in her lap, as she becomes aware of her surroundings. She shifts fully upright, squirming as the inner springs inside the back cushion of the ancient, faux-leather-clad seat dig into her lower back, which is now bent out of shape by the awkward position she's been dozing in.
She sits up with a groan, looks around, blinking, leaning forward and rubbing the kinks out of her vertebrae. Voices, footfalls echoing on hard corridor floors, doors opening and clanging shut; it all filters into her awareness. Precinct. I'm in the precinct.
"Kate...are you okay?"
She swivels her head in the direction of his voice...and blushes to see her nightclub lover at the break room door. He's looking at her, his head tilted to one side, brow slightly furrowed. She blushes. How long has he been there? "Castle..."
He strides the couple of steps to sit beside her on the sofa.
Approaching her seems to have eased any concern he has. He breaks into a grin. "Were you sleeping, Detective Beckett? Sorry we're keeping you up..."
She drops her gaze to her hands, fussing with her cell, losing any vain hope she had that he's not going to make a big deal about this.
"Kate...were you having a nightmare?" She notes with dismay that he's got that look – his eyes have a sparkle, and he had spoken fast, clearly on the trail of a Beckett-related mystery. And he won't stop asking questions till he's revealed some embarrassing secret about her.
Oh god, what did he hear? She blushes anew, and she feels the burn of tears behind her eyes. It's one thing to have feelings for a guy, but it's quite another to put them right out there where he can see them.
Worst of all, in her workplace.
She puts her hands over her face, rubbing suddenly damp eyes, and tries to keep further symptoms of her extreme embarrassment under wraps. "I haven't been sleeping very well lately. Got called out to a scene at four thirty this morning. When I got back here I could barely keep my eyes open. Thought I'd just rest my eyes for a couple minutes." She checks the time display of her cell phone. "Oh no. I've been out for thirty minutes."
At that moment, her phone rings loud in her hand. She startles and drops it, and it falls with a clatter onto the hardwood floor. She sighs and bends down from her seat to pick it up, glances at the caller ID but doesn't answer.
She stares into her lap, and then peeks at Castle through her lashes. He's still beside her, but has started to lean in towards her.
He's got his gaze fixed on her and has a sly smirk on his face. "Kate...! Were you..."
She stands abruptly, backing away, while sneaking a glance at the workstations outside. Gates and the boys are still away from their desks.
"I need to get set up, Castle. And I need a coffee." She turns towards the coffee machine.
He looms in her peripheral vision. "Kate..."
She glances up at him, then her gaze swerves down, away from his, hovering around his jawline. And embarrassment is replaced with...something. She notes that he hasn't shaved, and tries not to dwell too long on the fact that he looks...scruffy.
And delicious. Like he used to look in the early days - when she found herself drawn to him against her will, and when she honestly thought he was trying to drive her mad. With irritation or lust; she's not sure what.
Their relationship's different now; he's different - they both are - they're both older, but she still finds herself a little dazzled by his looks.
He moves and she looks up and suddenly he's right there. He's looking down at her, and there's something; a warmth. Or a trick of the light. Something in his eyes that wasn't there last week.
Now he's staring at her. And grinning. Dammit. So not helping. She drops her gaze further to where the vibrant blue shirt meets the tan skin of his neck, and the tempting hollow at the base of his throat, peeking out of the open collar that invites further investigation by curious fingers. Or maybe a tongue. Oh god.
Her gaze is drawn to his mouth, and her breath hitches in her chest. She feels her cheeks burning. Again. She feels an urge to escalate this. To not step back or take cover. To step forward, instead of retreating, and seeing what happens.
...but she takes a step back. Not today, Kate. Not the time or the place.
Then she feels him curl a warm hand around her elbow, tugging her gently towards him, and they're suddenly so close together she catches a heady waft of spice from his cologne. She can't help but close her eyes briefly to regain her composure.
She opens her eyes again. He's watching and waiting; his eyes are soft and warm on her. He dips his head towards her. She stands her ground. Tracks him as he moves into her orbit, and stops. So close. Then he squeezes her upper arm and says into her ear, his voice barely above a murmur, "I'll make you a coffee, go get set up."
Her breathing kicks in again on her way back out to the bullpen, and she curses herself - again - for not calling him this morning. It was fatigue and fear doing her thinking for her, she knows that, but she's not just uncomfortable. Things are getting awkward now and Castle knows something is up too.
She just hopes she can make it through the rest of the day with him in close proximity.
She's pretty sure he can be trusted to be professional in the workplace. But right now? She's not entirely sure she can.
And that's the whole problem.
He watches her closely as she paces back and forth, pinning evidence onto a whiteboard: crime scene photographs, eight-by-ten shots of the victim, suspects, persons of interest. It's a familiar dance.
But today she's been different. There's a tremor in her hands. When she drops a crime scene photograph, and it skids unhelpfully under her desk, and she sighs and squats down to pick it up, she bumps her hip against the desk on the way down and her head on the way back up. She mutters a curse under her breath, rubbing at her temple. But she still won't look at him.
Yet she keeps shooting him sideways glances. Is she nervous? Checking me out? What? (He's doubtful, but he totally hopes she's checking him out.)
But yeah, something's up.
And what he witnessed before...Heavy breathing. Shuddering breaths, gasping, whispering, the way she sank her teeth into her bottom lip.
The deep red she blushed, the moment she saw him sitting by her in the break room.
And she said something, though he didn't catch the words. He feels a distracting flash of heat to his groin as he speculates exactly what was going on there.
He suppresses further reflection on that topic - for now - and he walks over and leans back to sit on the edge of her desk, observing her as she finishes assembling the evidence.
Leaving aside her demeanor, he's a little confused. She's barely mentioned the case, and she's quiet. Too quiet. Not a word about not calling him about the murder this morning.
"So...you caught a murder?"
She huffs out a sigh. Cuts him a glance and looks away. "Yeah...Castle, I'm sorry I didn't call you-" Another light blush.
"What happened?" he asks gently, noting her obvious discomfiture. He's not all that insulted. It's just... a murder without a call from her is unusual enough to raise a red flag with him. A real odd sock.
She's still looking at the board, but flicks a glance in his direction, before paying overly-minute attention to the board again. "Oh, it was so early, and I was really zonked out after a bad night. It slipped my mind to call you...I'm sorry..."
He regards her a few moments longer. He's willing to give her the benefit of the doubt, but... there's got to be more to it than that. Beckett has had late nights followed by early starts before but they certainly haven't made her so upset...jumpy even.
So he resolves to observe her closely today. Watch and learn. See what's going on with her. Because of the moments they've been having today in between the awkward, when her blushes and eye contact looked like something else.
Because if what's going on with her is anything like he's been experiencing lately, maybe the universe is trying to tell them both something.
He won't push. But with everything he is, he needs to know.
And he wants for them to be able to talk. Soon. About all of it.
Their kiss last year. The look he knows he saw on her face when she busted him out of that bank vault a couple of weeks ago.
The way he feels about her. And the way he hopes she feels about him-
"So Castle...you wanna hear about this case or not?"
He refocuses his gaze again, from somewhere on the back wall behind her head to see she's facing him, an eyebrow raised, with a grin that looks like Detective Beckett's back in her comfort zone; almost back to her old self.
He jerks up from his leaning position against her desk to a stand.
"Sure. So where are we?" He steps up to join her at the board.
While she begins to talk him through the case so far, he smiles to himself. So where are they indeed? He knows now, more than ever, he wants them to talk about this thing. About what they are, what they're going to be.
Not here, not now. It'll keep.
But soon...he needs to get her alone and they're going to talk.
Author's Note: Hey! I missed you! Thanks to honeyandvodka and OnkelJo for beta services. Let me know what you think!
