WARNING: This chapter is rated M. It's safe to read up to the first line break, and you won't miss any plot development if you want to skip forward from there. Hope you enjoy this one. -Bri x

Chapter Ten
Heal Me

They stand together silently after Hunt disappears against the dark shoreline. For just a moment, everything seems normal, like they've just come out to the coast to spend a few uninterrupted days together. Castle rests his chin on Beckett's shoulder and lets his hands fall to her hips, thumbs tracing circles along the ridge of her tailbone because he knows it makes her purr. Sure enough, she lets out a little growl of appreciation and leans back against the hot breadth of his chest.

"Ouch." Castle inhales the word through his teeth.

"Oh! Sorry."

"No worries, it doesn't really hurt that bad," he says, but the dramatic grimace on his face says otherwise.

Kate turns in his arms, eyes sparkling. "Remind me to teach you how to do a proper handbrake turn sometime."

"Yeah, that's probably a good idea."

She's letting him off easy; she could have seriously ribbed him for his stupid moment of bravado in the car. He hopes she never tells Esposito about it. He'd have a field day.

He's still a little too caught up in their reunion to be thinking clearly. She must be as well, because instead of lecturing him, she smiles at him tenderly. "Let's get you inside, tough guy. Your dad's right. We should eat. I'll take a look at your injuries afterwards."

He pulls her back into him, careful not to let them collide anywhere above the waist. Below the waist is absolutely fair game, and he's still stunned at how quickly the contact gives him … ideas. He waggles his eyebrows at her. "Only if you promise to be gentle with me, nurse."

She tilts her chin down and looks up at him saucily. "I will promise no such thing." The innuendo crackles through the air between them, and they're both grateful for it. For how it makes their world straighten a fraction more.

Maybe they should be panicking, planning, running - anything but staying put and doing nothing, but he's doing for her what he's always done, bringing light into the darkness, making her forget about reality so she can just soak in him. In them.

And if he wants to play, she's more than happy to join in. She can feel the burn of his eyes on her ass as she leads him down to the galley, even though her body is mostly hidden by his baggy black hoodie. The moonlight seeps in after them, and she gives him a little show in silhouette as she peels the hoodie off, her shirt riding up and exposing the smooth expanse of her lower back.

"Kate, you're killing me here." He reaches for her, hooking a finger through her belt loop, but she smacks his hand away.

"Food first, " she admonishes, turning to rummage through the cabinets. Her face suddenly feels very warm, but they really do need to eat. Besides, he can wait a few minutes. It's always more fun if she gets him a little worked up first.

"Jeez, Castle, I think your dad's pantry is even more pathetic than mine. What do you want? Spaghettios, mac and cheese with no milk, or Ramen noodles?"

"Better go with the mac and cheese. It has more protein than the others."

They work together in the small space to prepare their meal, brushing against but never bumping into one another. She'd know where he was with her eyes closed. She knows exactly how he moves to counter her steps, and knows how to mold herself around him as he reaches and stretches. It's so ordinary, cooking with him, but Kate's not sure if she's ever been so happy. This morning she thought she'd lost him, and here he is, doing mundane things like boiling water and clattering around bullishly in the cupboards. God, she missed him. It's pathetic, really, because they'd been apart for less than a day, but not knowing where he was made every minute feel like a year.

Before long, their macaroni is ready, and Castle dishes it out into bowls for them. As soon as Beckett smells the food, a vicious hunger rises in her, hollowing out her stomach. She starts shoveling the pasta in, completely unconcerned with being ladylike. But as the silence lengthens, Castle's mood dims. She watches him fade in front of her, the weight of worry settling heavily on his shoulders. He eats slowly, brooding into his bowl. When she finishes, she drops her fork in her empty bowl and props her elbows on the table. Their eyes meet, and his are so sad, so blue, that she just wants to hold him and kiss his worries away.

"Babe? What's up?"

"I just. Are you …" Castle takes a shaky breath and starts again. "Kate, are you sure about this? You know you can turn around whenever you like, right? It sounds like I'll be okay in this safe house place, so if you want to, you can go back to the city. You know I'd never forgive myself if you got hurt, so if you're not sure - "

"Castle." She reaches her hand out and he meets her in the center of the table, winding his fingers between her smaller ones. "I'm sure. Now eat your macaroni."

After they eat, Beckett ushers him into the bedroom to re-dress his wounds. Before switching the bedside table lamp on, she wads up some of Hunt's shirts and stuffs them into the narrow window gap to keep any light from escaping and giving their location away.

Castle perches on the side of the bed and starts in on his shirt buttons. When Kate finishes and turns around, the warm low glow of light reveals him to her clearly for the first time tonight. Her eyes widen as she takes in the mottled green and purple blotches on his chest.

"It looks worse than it feels," he assures her.

She moves silently, dropping to her knees before him, unzipping the massive and very well-stocked first aid kit she'd found in the kitchen. Her fingers are light and quick as she works, and he watches her the whole time, amazed by the soft adoration in her eyes and the gentle care with which she handles him now. It's so different to the hostile venom she'd spat at him in the very beginning of their partnership. He sometimes can't believe that they were any other way than they are now. That they were anything but kind to one another.

She's healing him with her touch as much as she is with medicine and bandages. He wonders if she feels the same as he feels about their short separation. He'd been numb with the shock of it, but he knows if they'd been apart much longer no amount of painkiller could have kept the heartbreak from destroying him.

But they're here together now, healing in more ways than one. Even though the time and place are probably completely inappropriate, he finds himself wanting more. Wanting to reconnect, reaffirm. She must be feeling the same pull, if the way she looks at him when her fingers finally still is any indication. They're staring, locked in a gaze that means a million things, the air thickening with the intensity of their connection.

"There. All fixed up," she whispers, letting enough of the pressure off to snap him back into breathing.

"Not quite," Castle says, glancing sheepishly down at his thigh.

"Is that from the crash too?" she asks, even though she looks like she knows the answer.

"No. I sorta kinda had a fishing lure stuck in my leg."

"Sorry I missed it, she grins, shaking her head in amusement. "Must have been a sight."

"You know, I'm not sure I did a very good job patching it up earlier," Castle hints. Her eyes darken when she looks up at him.

"Well, I'd better change your bandage, then," she says, reaching for his belt and slipping the leather from his buckle slowly. She curls her fingers under the waistband of his pants and looks up at him with kittenish eyes. God, those eyes, the thick rim of her lashes framing the entrancing hazel arousal. There is nothing sexier than Katherine Beckett when she's hell-bent on driving him absolutely crazy.

Castle helps her peel his pants off. Her fingers dance at his knee, then she's sliding her hands up, pressing the thin fabric of his boxer briefs into the crease of his thigh so she has better access to his wound.

She tries to remove the old bandaid carefully, but a few hairs get yanked along with it. He pinches his eyes shut and keeps them closed as she rubs antibiotic ointment along the gash and seals it under a fresh bandage.

He opens them when he feels her drop her head against his knee. She's inhaling him, fingers twirling at his ankle, her own eyes closed in reverence. He almost doesn't hear her, the words are so quiet.

"I thought I'd lost you, Castle."

He doesn't know what to say that isn't stupidly obvious, so instead he twines one hand into her hair and just lets her bathe in her relief. He knows exactly how she feels. She's lucky that she gets to touch him, because when he'd found out she was awake after her grueling cardiac surgery, all he'd wanted to do was touch her, make sure she was real, drink her in and flush all of the horror from his veins, and he simply couldn't. So he'll be silent for her, be still until she wants him to move.

Unfortunately, his body has other ideas. It must be a Pavlovian response to Beckett kneeling on the ground between his legs. He won't say anything. He'll just sit quietly and not move - well, not move any of the muscles he has control over - and hope that she doesn't notice the growing situation just inches from her face.

Her eyes are still closed, but somehow she knows.

"I take it you missed me, then?"

"Very much," he croaks.

She opens her eyes then, sleepily, staring straight ahead at where he's firming for her.

And then she trails her fingers up, up, up, sliding her thumb under his shorts, seeking the warmth caught in the angle where his leg meets his torso before pulling back and tracing the edge of the bandage with her fingernail. He crushes out her name, and she responds instantly, letting her hand rush over the front of his boxers, her palm molding tightly over the shape of him, eyes locking hotly on his.

And then she rises, standing tall before him, guiding his fingers to the button on her pants even as she carefully draws his shirt down over his shoulders. She leans down to him, connecting with his mouth again, and he can't hold back. He tugs her and they both topple backwards, her hips settling warmly over his, pinning him down, and her control snaps as well. For a moment, it's fast and ferocious and desperate, and he breaks their kiss to tug her shirt roughly off over her head, but then she forces herself to slow down, to take her time when she kisses him.

A few days after their first real kiss, when she realized that he truly was her forever, she made a silent promise to herself that she'd never take him for granted. She's worried that she's already failed. They used to spend ridiculous amounts of time just kissing. One specific occasion springs to mind, when Castle needed to catch a flight to Chicago for a book signing. She remembers sitting on the counter in her kitchen, swinging her legs as she watched him rush through a breakfast of buttered toast because they'd used up their pancake making time making…other things. When she'd followed him to the door, a quick goodbye kiss had turned into a twenty-minute make out session against the wall. And damn, nobody kisses quite like Rick Castle. The rest of her body had just faded away. He'd kept himself carefully apart from her, cocky with the knowledge that he was liquifying her with only his mouth and the one warm palm spread against her cheek. The kiss was exquisitely slow, and she drank in every slide of his flesh against hers, felt every nerve light up when he touched her with his lips, tongue, teeth, thumb. It was like he could read her mind, knowing exactly when she needed him to deepen the kiss, or slow down, or bite her lower lip and tug gently.

He does the same thing now, drawing the firm line of his tongue over the slippery skin that he's caught. There's a tiny spark of pain when his teeth dig into the flesh that she chewed to bits over the course of the day, but it's not unpleasant.

"You've been biting your lip," he says, and she knows he's tasting the same silvery sting that she tastes, knows he feels the same raw patches.

"Yeah, well, it was a rough day."

"I'm so sorry, Kate."

"Not your fault."

"If I hadn't written - "

"Not your fault, Castle."

She shuts him up in what's maybe the second-best way possible, by dragging the lace of her bra over his lips.

"Mmm, this is new," he says, and then he uses his teeth to nip at the line of ivory fabric at the curve of her breast. There are clusters of tiny pearls sewn all over, and it looks so decadent and feminine that he instantly knows it's the bra she must have been wearing under her wedding dress.

He catches just a shadow of despondency in the hazel glades of her irises, but instead of lamenting with her, he pulls her back to the light.

"I'd better do some spelunking. Find out if this is a matching set."

She smiles and rocks back, giving him access to her zipper, and his large hands sweep the fabric of her trousers down, warmly grasping the outside of her thighs as his thumbs sweep over the underwear that do indeed match the bra. It's everything he imagined Katherine Beckett as a bride would be.

"You're exquisite, Kate."

"Yeah, well, you should have seen the garters."

He groans, slipping his hands under the lace, roughly attempting to gather every last bit of her perfect ass into his hands. She grinds against him in response, and the friction is so powerful that he wonders if either of them will last long enough to get their clothes off.

Apparently not. Kate reaches down between them and pulls him out, rubbing him twice, long, tight strokes with her fist, before shoving her underwear to one side and dragging herself hotly against him. She's still upright, the muscles in her stomach rippling as she fights to keep her balance, and he knows she's trying not to hurt him, not to touch his chest, but he wants her closer. Not that he doesn't love this view, this magnificent, triumphant woman towering above him, mouth dropped open with pleasure, but after the day they've had he just needs to be able to kiss her.

He weaves his hands into hers, spreading her fingers wide around his thicker ones until they curl together into two heavy fists before bringing them down towards his ears. She falls forward, catching herself just in time, her nipples just millimeters from his raw skin. Her hair falls in a curtain around them, wrapping them up in the humidity of their shared breath.

She moves her body down, just a little bit, finding him with the hot hollow of her entrance, teasing them both as she aligns them. And then she kisses him, dropping her lips to his, timing it perfectly with the drop of her hips. She engulfs him in one fierce swallow, and he's not sure who makes more noise, their moans turning into one in the combined cavern of their mouths.

They move slowly at first, reveling in every sparkling sensation, but with each stroke the pleasure tugs at them. With every tiny acceleration there's a stronger pull towards the edge of ecstasy, and they start rocking faster and faster until there's only a split second of normalcy between long stretches of amazing, and then she's moving so quickly above him that it's just one long, constant hum of electricity.

He's reduced to a single muscle, straining upwards until he thinks he might be in her very soul.

She slams down onto his thighs repetitively, moving so quickly that he knows she's completely forgotten about being careful with him. The cut on his thigh is getting battered, but she's lost control and he doesn't care. After a few more hard slides, the natural morphine of sex replaces all the soreness in his body with fizzing pleasure. He drives up into her with all his force. Her agonized 'Oh!' resonates through the small room. He might regret it later, but fuck, he loves the way she shudders forward, reaching desperately for something to hold onto even though she must know the wall is smooth.

He does it again. Over and over, rough hard jolts until she breaks, pulling him into a nosedive of pleasure with her. She stops riding, just stiffens as she comes, but he can't stop. He crashes up into her, both of them grinding desperate words of love from their hearts.

She must suddenly remember that he's hurt because she stops herself just as she's about to collapse onto him. She rolls to the side, pink and panting and gorgeous. He really didn't know beauty until he saw Kate Beckett post-orgasm.

"You know, Castle, if I didn't know any better, I'd have thought you got beat up just to lure me close to your pants-less self."

He squeezes the damp round curve of her shoulder, trying to catch his breath. "Who me? Never. Besides, we probably would have ended up naked anyway."

"Probably. It's all your fault, you know."

"My fault? Excuse me, Miss I'm-going-to-slink-around-and-remove-my sweatshirt-provocatively."

"Shut up and get dressed, Castle."

"Have I told you recently that I love you?"

"You may have mentioned it."

Kate drops one leg off the side of the bed, winding her toes in the fabric of his discarded pants. With one swift move, she sends them flying, and they land squarely on his face.

"By the way, I love you too, you ridiculous man."