Chapter 7
"I don't think I quite heard that."
He had so heard it. But she needed it. Him. And surrendering would feel so good – though her revenge would feel even better. He was going to regret trying to make her surrender... oh, he would so regret it. And she wouldn't surrender.
"Don't stop," she said, more strongly. For the first time, Castle looked just a tad uncertain. Good. She smiled edgily. He smiled back, equally edgily.
"Like to switch both ways, don't you? So do I. But right now, I'm on top." His hand returned to her sternum and his face returned to wolfish confidence. "I'm going to enjoy you." His eyes were wholly dark. "You're gorgeous when you're out of control."
Castle, despite some faint concern about what Beckett might do when given her chance, was far too desperate to turn her into a writhing, melted mess to worry about it now. He had her exactly where he'd wanted to have her for quite some time: in his bed, hot and wet and open and his, and now he was going to take full advantage of her.
He leaned forward (the position was killing his knees, but it was in a good cause) and unfolded, to lie between her legs and rest his face between those glorious breasts: satin smooth and proudly pink-tipped, deliciously there by his mouth. Decisions, decisions: which to begin with? Or...
His hand cupped and covered one side – oh, how perfectly she fitted his palm: not large, but firm and perfectly formed for his hand or mouth – his mouth took possession of the other, and she liked that, oh, how she liked that, she was so sensitive and so responsive and those noises just made him want to never stop causing them. The day before when he'd done this had been fast and hard and they'd just plain gone for each other, but that evening he could take his time and he surely meant to do so.
He lipped softly at one side, and played more firmly on the other. Then he switched, repeated, switched again, repeated... and it didn't take long at all for Beckett to be squirming and frantic beneath his ministrations, trying to direct his head – he stopped that by recapturing her hands, and really wished for a headboard that had spindles because she had the grip of an industrial vice – and vocalising orders with such profanity that he could barely discern the key words.
Of course, he ignored the orders. She, after all, had already come. Twice that he was sure about, and if he weren't very careful for the next few moments, again. The balance didn't seem entirely fair, especially since she was right there open for him, already crying out for him, totally ready and oh fuck why was he waiting at all when it was what they both wanted so badly and he surged up and covered her and thrust home and into her mouth simultaneously and two hard, short strokes later he'd gone.
He hadn't come that fast since he was eighteen, which was embarrassing. He was supposed to be cool, smooth, sophisticated – he'd done better than that the previous night... well. Not really, but they'd both been so over-excited that it had exploded and she'd shattered as fast as he had.
Not this time. She was still, quite clearly, unsatisfied. That suited Castle just fine: after all, she'd still come apart far more than he had, and he had plans which hadn't yet come to fruition: largely involving turning Beckett into a melted mess of sheer lust, utterly desperate for him. Only for him. He could no longer imagine anyone else in his bed other than her, and he was going to ensure that she felt the same way. She had to feel the same way, because he didn't know what he'd do if she didn't. He had to show her how good they were, would be, together.
He slid out of her, and turned on to his back, grasping for her hands and finding them so that she couldn't escape his seductive strategy. Both her slim wrists ended up within one large grip, which left him with a conveniently free hand, roaming freely over her taut abdomen and hard-tipped breasts. She murmured discontentedly.
"Just catching up," he pointed out. "Consequences." There was a distinct growl. "That's not nice. It's naughty." The growl re-emerged. Castle didn't like the growl: he preferred her purring. Or moaning. Or, best of all, screaming his name. He redirected his roaming to encompass a wider span: taking time to fondle at the top of the stroke, gliding through slick folds at the bottom. The growl promptly dissipated.
"That's better," he grinned, and leaned up on his elbow to be able to see her properly: sweat-sheened, frustrated, aroused and gorgeous. He couldn't help but kiss her full mouth, and then he couldn't help but explore, raid and ravage, defeating her attempts to conquer him (he was already totally conquered, he just wasn't going to let her know how wholly he was her prisoner); and then he couldn't help moving to nip sharply on her earlobe, kiss it better, and then lick and suck on her neck – so careful not to leave a mark where it might later be seen, that wouldn't be cool – where it made her gasp and wriggle and then whimper.
Of course, once he'd started, he couldn't stop. He moved straight south, lamenting the inability to tease her curves, but he had a goal in the little mind he had left. He nuzzled at her navel, tantalised it a little, brought her hands down with him to protect his head and ears, and ended up exactly where he'd intended all along, nestled firmly with his shoulders between her legs and his face an inch from the ultimate temptation.
And then he stopped, and waited, and simply breathed, ruffling the neat, dark curls, holding himself back. Soon, she was making needy little noises, mewling, voicelessly asking for more than he was giving.
"What do you want?" he asked, knowing exactly what she wanted.
"You," she forced out. He thought he heard some disobliging commentary following that, though there had only been the one word. How sweet. She was already hotter, just for him. Heat should be cooled... He ran a feathery touch over those delightfully soft curls, missing every significant area.
Oh. Okay then. Her legs slid over his shoulders and clamped around his head. Clearly, he hadn't missed every significant area. Still, he liked his skull unbroken. He propped himself up, peeled off one magnificent leg, slowly and with considerable attention to the satin skin, and tucked it under his shoulder, then repeated for the other leg. He put her hands up beside her ears.
"Leave them there," he said silkily. She wriggled them. "I said, leave them. If you move them, I'll stop." Another decidedly non-badass Beckett pout arrived. Castle crawled up her body simply to kiss it, and then kissed his way back down again, ending just above the swollen knot of nerves which was just waiting for him.
And then he stopped messing around to tantalise her because he really couldn't hold himself back any longer, settled comfortably and took a long, slow lick from one end to the other. Beckett positively yowled, which he heard with huge satisfaction. He did it again, savouring her taste, her texture, her movement as he slowly drove her wild. It didn't take long for her to be moaning and writhing, but her hands remained on the pillow though her hips rose to his mouth. He circled with his tongue, brought his fingers to her and made matching circles at her soaked entrance, only penetrating a tiny amount and finding her fluttering, trying to bring him deeper. He wouldn't be cajoled or coerced: she was going to find just how good he could be. His fingers slipped in and out, mimicking that greater penetration that would come again later; his mouth wound her tighter and higher.
He lapped and licked; circled and sucked and held her tightly for his feasting, forcing himself to slow down, to keep her burning. Her moans turned to his name, but though his own body shrieked for him to take her and own her and make her his in the most primitive way possible: to leave her limp and sated and caught into him – he wanted her total capitulation. His primitive instincts all simply said mine.
He raised his head. "What do you want?"
"Castle," she moaned.
"Not an answer," he pointed out, and teased her again with experienced fingers. "Feels like you want more, but you need to ask for it." More teasing, which produced more moans, and his name. He held her expertly on the edge, never quite letting her fall, and asked again. "What do you want?"
"Get me off," she forced out.
"I thought we'd established that I don't take orders?" Castle said smoothly. It cost him huge amounts of effort to keep his voice stable: dark and dangerous. He played some more, and had to hold her still. "Ask nicely, and I might do it." He leaned down again, and added his mouth to the mix until she was wordless, and stopped.
"You" –
"Tut-tut," and he did it all over again.
Beckett was surprisingly resistant to his ploys, but she surely wasn't resistant to his touch and mouth, and it was a battle Castle intended to win. He wasn't going to be her toy every time or even most times: he was no sub, and he wasn't starting then. She was going to admit that she needed him too and if it took him a whole night of edging her into begging then that was what he'd do.
Of course, it would be an amazing night.
He continued to work her up and then interrogate, work her up and then interrogate: her responses began to come on a long pleading sigh but she wasn't asking, still less begging; so he simply... continued. He could enjoy himself erotically torturing her for a very long time.
Beckett clung to one thought only: that she wasn't going to surrender; wouldn't submit to Castle's demand for her concession. She'd conceded quite enough already. She didn't care how much she wanted to give in, she wasn't going to. (Yes you will, said the brainworm. You know you will. Just because you're not admitting that sometimes you like to be the one who's cuffed... as often as not... Think what he could do if he knew how much you liked that? She ignored it. If it wouldn't just die when she killed it, she could ignore it.)
What she couldn't ignore was Castle. He'd found every critical erogenous zone she knew about and at least five she'd never known existed. She was on fire: scalded and liquid, on the edge of boiling over but never quite allowed to. She could feel every stroke of his tongue and thrust of his fingers; every arch and curve and writhe of her body as he lashed her higher and hotter and impossibly wetter but if she gave in now she'd be admitting a whole lot more than she wanted to admit and they'd be going back to Manhattan in two days and the entire interlude would be done and if she let him know when nothing would ever happen again (who the fuck are you kidding, exploded the infuriated brainworm. You're out of your mind crazy. Stop this? Let him go? No way) then it would happen again and that just wasn't going to happen because obviously it would never ever work. (You are definitely crazy, the brainworm shrieked. You think he's going to let you go now?) Fun was one thing, but letting him into her head was another. (He's already in your dumb head, idiot, howled the brainworm, which was promptly dumped into a can of lye. It did the backstroke, and smirked, resolutely undissolving.)
She couldn't stop herself moving, just as she couldn't stop the frankly pathetic noises exiting her mouth, and she certainly couldn't stop Castle doing anything he chose to because the last word she'd be saying right now was no but she wasn't wasn't wasn't going to surrender no matter how long he kept her wanting and desperate and he knew exactly when she was almost there and kept freaking stopping when he should carry on and get her off dammit right now. Surely he wouldn't be able to resist for long? He hadn't earlier. (Yeah, but he didn't get you off, he took you instead. And you loved every second of it, even if he was...quick, piped up that damn brainworm. What'll you do if he's got more patience than you? Not that that's hard.)
"All you have to do is ask nicely," Castle purred darkly from her lower body. "I can keep this up all night."
"Stop teasing," she tried to order.
"I keep telling you, I don't take orders," he pointed out. "Ask nicely, Beckett."
She clamped her lips shut on the words gathering in her throat. She was not going to give in.
Seconds later she was trembling under his touch and squirming desperately, soaring higher as he pleasured her until she cried out his name over and over and he still wouldn't let her fall and he did it again and again until her last brain cell fried with sheer lust and desperation and finally –
"Please," she half-sobbed, and Castle slid up her body and took her: hard and thick and filling her totally, just the right side of too much, moved within her and she took him deeper until there was nothing more but his body and her body and them joined and his hand moved between them and she exploded.
Afterwards, she found herself snuggled in, which was simultaneously satisfying and sticky.
"Shower," she muttered.
"Sure. I'll wash your back."
"I can wash my own back," she pointed out. She wasn't going to let him have it all his own way... oh. "Let go. I want a shower."
"And I want you," he purred darkly. "Guess who's going to win that one?" His arms were closed around her, lazily petting at hip and breast. That was – oh God, that was good. She wriggled under his touch, and found firm signs of interest. "You don't even want to win. You're all soft and strokable. My Beckett."
"Not yours."
"Sure you are." He didn't even have the decency to sound doubtful. "All warm and wet and wriggly and mine."
She would have argued. She really meant to argue. But his evil, hypnotic fingers were doing evilly wicked things which shouldn't have been allowed and she couldn't get thought or breath to construct an argument or to get out of his bed before she didn't want to get out, because he was sliding into her from behind and it just felt so good and then he touched her intimately and she lost the world for a moment.
"How about a shower now?"
Move? She hadn't found her knees yet. Moving wasn't in the equation.
"Up you come."
Uh? No. She wasn't moving. She clung to a handy pillow, which proved to be no help at all as Castle swept her off the bed.
"I'd put it down," he smirked. "It won't appreciate the shower."
Reluctantly, she did. Castle carried her through, deposited her in the shower, and switched on the water with one hand, holding her up with the other.
"Let's get you clean," he said.
"I thought you were trying to get me dirty?" Beckett's game re-emerged.
"You wanted to be clean. I'm quite happy with you dirty." He didn't even blink. Instead, he found the shower gel, and began to massage it in with strict attention to small details, such as the exact way to roll her nipples, the best way to palm her breasts for the most interesting reactions, and careful avoidance of areas which might shorten their playtime.
"My hair needs to be washed," she pointed out. She might have been developing some immunity to Castle's fingers, because she'd developed a plan. He was going to beg. Oh yes. He would whimper. He had absolutely no idea, and even better, he'd think that he was getting a treat. He would be. For a while. "You could wash it for me," she added enticingly, smiled, licked her lips, and slithered down to her knees in front of him. He sprang to full attention, which appeared to have paralysed his brain.
"Castle! Shampoo?" That was almost too easy. He wouldn't last five minutes before he was on his knees. Metaphorically.
Beckett allowed Castle a few instants in which to apply shampoo and begin to massage her scalp, at which he was surprisingly good. Then she leaned forward, rubbed her cheek against his hip, let the tip of her tongue slide from her lips, and traced a delicate path across his stomach, a miniscule but significant distance above her ultimate aim. All his muscles tensed, and the hairwashing stopped. She made a noise of annoyance, and also stopped. Hairwashing resumed, rather more tentatively. Beckett resumed, not tentatively at all. More... hmmmm... torturingly. If that were even a word. It seemed to fit.
She barely touched him – and yet he gave a strangulated groan. She took a slightly longer, lascivious lick, and he made the same primal noise again. Very satisfactory. She played in the same way, attending to each hard inch, for a while. Make her beg, would he? Her revenge would be honey-sweet, and she'd enjoy every last instant. He was already losing dexterity – just as well her hair was self-rinsing under the really quite wonderful shower.
Finally, when Castle's fingers were clamping around her head and he had degraded to animalistic growling and groaning, she took him in her mouth. Only a little bit, however. Just enough to give him an – er – taste of bliss. Then she went back to enjoying her very adult lollipop-licking. He whimpered, painfully. He was certainly, well, engorged.
"Sounds like you're enjoying it," she purred evilly.
"Beckett," he whimpered again, and his fingers clutched at her hair.
"Could you put some conditioner in?" she asked, and smirked.
"Beckett."
"Something you want?" She paused. "Someone you want?"
"That's no-ohhhhhh Beckett – fair."
"Funny, it was when you did it. What do you want, Castle?"
"You-oooohhhh," he forced out. "Beckett."
"Not an answer, as someone said earlier." She pointed her moral with a decidedly immoral suck. "Ask nicely. You can start by saying please." She took him fully into her mouth, and used a trick that she knew would bring strong men (such as Castle, bounced the brainworm, and don't you just love that he is?) to their metaphorical knees, and his noises hit falsetto pitch. She released him, and caught his hands before they could do anything.
"No touching. Hands by your sides or I'll stop."
"But...oh fuck Beckett."
"Doesn't sound like please to me," she noted. "Ask for what you want. Nicely." She did her trick again, and released him. "In fact, beg." She stopped entirely.
"Oh fuck Beckett please."
"Better, but not enough."
"Don't make me wait. Please."
"You did." She smirked. "So now you have to wait."
"Please," he cried out. She waited, flicking her tongue a little: not enough for him. "Don't stop, please Beckett. Fuck don't stop."
She thought that would do nicely – and it had taken her a lot less time to bring him to begging than vice versa – and anyway her knees were a little sore. She licked, sucked – and he came in a hot gush and then sagged to the floor of the shower. She unfolded, standing up, and calmly smoothed conditioner through her hair.
Thank you to all readers and reviewers.
Beckett's revenge is not yet complete...
In other news, the cover picture of my original novel is on my Twitter, at Garrae_writes. Coming shortly to Amazon.
