A/N: So here is another M chapter and, like the last one, it can be skipped or savored as you desire.
I did one to make one other apology - I reread the last chapter and realized that if was full of mistakes, mostly tense issues. i'm afraid I have been rather lax when it comes to editing at this point and I apologize since you wonderful readers deserve better. Hopefully this chapter has fewer problems.
The cab ride was sheer torture. They sat on cracked vinyl, surrounded by the scent of stale Doritos and wet shoes, but he could catalog every place their bodies were touching: the slight graze of their knees, the brush of their shoulders, the way their hips bumped as the car navigated the pothole riddled streets. Each point of contact blazed with electricity and his heart thudded so hard he was amazed the cabby couldn't hear it. He knew she felt it too, her heightened respiration and the way she jerked with each of their collisions gave that much away, but he could also sense her nerves.
On the way out of the precinct, she had held tight to her usual Beckett bravado, but now, forced to sit and allowed to think, he knew that all their years building to this point were weighing heavily on her. In her lap her fingers coiled together and he worried that he was losing her to second guesses. He reached over and covered her twisting hands, stilling them. She looked up at him and gave him a tense smile. His own lips curling upward, he brought her hand to his mouth and gently kissed her palm before folding her fingers and returning her hand to her lap. She seemed to relax, letting out a small sigh and leaning into him.
Finally they reached his building. "Keep the change," he said as he passed a wad of cash to the driver. Then he grabbed Kate's hand and pulled her out into the chill air. By the time they finished their dash into the building, Kate, as usual, was the one leading him. She dragged him into the elevator and used her free hand to hit the button for his floor. Whatever trepidation she had felt in the taxi appeared to be gone now that she was free to act.
Castle grinned at her lasciviously. "Alone at last," he quipped.
"So why are you still talking?" she asked before stepping in close to him.
Castle was not about to argue with that. He pivoted them around so that her back was to the wall and pressed his mouth to hers, his hands finding their way under her shirt to splay out along her ribs, his thumbs just grazing the swell of her breasts. She gasped at the feel of his cold fingers against her skin and he captured the sound with his mouth, his tongue sliding in to graze the roof of her mouth. It was a short ride up but when the elevator shuddered to a halt and the doors slid open, he detached one hand from her waist and slapped it up against the door to hold it open, his only thought to prolong the bliss of this moment.
Kate too, was drunk with his caresses. It took several moments for the insistent dinging of someone trying to call the car to penetrate her senses. She used both her hands to push Castle away, then smiled at his dazed expression when he finally stepped back.
"I thought the idea was to take this somewhere more private," she said.
He looked around the elevator and quirked an eyebrow. "I don't see anyone else."
She tilted her head towards his arm, still braced against the doorway and gave a sexy chuckle low in her throat. "Maybe not, but I'd prefer you to have the use of both your hands."
His eyes widened as his imagination ran away with her statement but it had the desired effect. He stepped out of the cramped car and fumbled for the keys to his loft. She stood behind him, pressed against his hip, her nails tracing the muscles of his back through his shirt, as he tried to fit the key into the lock with fingers shaking with desire. Her hand worked its way around his waist, fingers running across his belly, feeling his abs tighten in their wake, then dipped lower to slide just a little way into the top of his jeans. He gave a startled "Oh," and dropped the keys entirely.
She chuckled low in her throat and brought her lips to his ear. "Need help getting it in? Because you're starting to worry me here."
He was quite sure he liked this new, and rather suggestive, Beckett but he was not about to relinquish his title as the king of double entendre just yet. "Not that I'm complaining, but I think your help is the problem. If you could just restrain yourself for a moment I might actually be able to get inside." Then he ruined the effect by laughing himself.
Their brief bout of levity finally steadied his fingers and moments later they were both spilling through the door, giggling like teenagers. Her lips still quirking upwards with mirth, she plucked the keys from his hand and tossed them onto a table near the door. Then she ran her hands up his chest and began walking him backwards until his back hit the nearest pillar.
He glanced behind himself. "I do believe I'm going to like the way my life is imitating my art."
"Shut up, Castle, and kiss me." Then her mouth slanted across his own, one hand tangling itself in his hair as she pulled him closer.
Frantic hands worked coats off shoulders and pulled up shirts in their quest to find warm skin. Despite the memory of his story that was reverberating in both their minds, they left the pillar and slowly made their way towards the stairs, a trail of clothing like breadcrumbs in their wake. They stumbled up the steps, half dressed but making reasonable progress until his hand found its way into the unbuttoned waistband of her pants. His fingers slid south and brought her up short, a sudden gasp escaping her as she leaned back into him. He was not prepared for the sudden cessation of their movement and it knocked him off balance. They both tumbled onto the steps, his frantic grab for the railing the only thing preventing them from slipping downward.
Once their position was secure, the sight of her sprawled in front of him encouraged him to continue what he had started. He worked his hand back into her pants, two fingers finding the satin, damp with her arousal, and pressing rhythmically against her sensitive nub. She moaned, her head hanging forward, her hair falling in a curtain around her face, and he pressed his lips to the curve where her neck joined her shoulders, sucking hard and reveling in the taste of her.
She shuddered as his fingers twitched aside her panties and slid through her wet folds, but the edge of a stair was digging into her thigh and her fingers ached from holding onto a banister for balance. "Bedroom," she gasped. "Now."
He wasn't always good at taking orders, but this was one he wasn't going to argue with. Seconds later, they were in his room and he had gently pushed her down onto the bed. He took a moment to admire the view, then bent over and hooked his fingers into her pants. She lifted her hips to help him and once both pants and panties were on the floor, he glided his fingers up her calves, pausing to caress the sensitive skin behind her knees before continuing his journey upward. She shivered as they trailed up her inner thighs before taking a detour to trace the lines of her hips. He bent over her, his breath warming her belly as he breathed her in. His mouth left a wet trail across the smooth skin of her stomach and her skin tingled in its wake. Then his lips found their target and her world narrowed down to the sensations he was creating.
It wasn't long before he had her writhing on the bed, his tongue working magic against her clit as his fingers curled inside her until they hit her right there and she broke apart around him. He waited until her tremors stilled before moving away to shuck off the rest of his own clothes. She pushed herself up and reached out to run her fingers down his torso before wrapping them around his hard length. She pumped her hand once, then twice, then bent her head down and did something with her tongue that was purely evil.
"Kate," he choked out and she raised her head to smile up at him, slow and sexy, and pulled him down onto the bed beside her.
She rolled onto her side and hooked a leg around him. he could feel the wet of her against his thigh and the delicious friction of his erection pressed against her belly as he leaned in to capture her mouth. When the need to breathe finally forced them apart, his fingers tightened against her hip as she moved her mouth to his ear, teeth just barely nipping at the lobe.
"Take me now," she whispered. "I need to feel you inside me."
He rolled her over, finding his place between her thighs and felt his whole world tilt when he finally sheaths himself in her wet heat. She made a little mewling sound of want that he could feel vibrate against his shoulder where she had buried her face and it undid him. Any hope he had of taking this slow or making it last vanished with that one tiny sound and the scrape of her nails against his back. She met him thrust for thrust and her name was on his lips as he spilled himself inside her.
It took a long time before he could collect himself enough to speak, but once he was able, he raised himself up on one elbow and gazed down at her, gently brushing a few sweat dampened strands of hair from her face. "That," he said, "was amazing."
Her lips quirked up in a secret smile. "If I agree with you, is there still going to be room for both me and your ego in the bed."
"Always. There will always be room for you … in my bed, in my heart, in my life - and should you ever want it - in my home."
She looked at him, her eyes a little uncertain, but shining with emotion. Her hand reached up to cup his cheek, her thumb brushing across his lips. "One step at a time, Castle, one step at a time.