Disclaimer: The only part of Castle that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

A/N This chapter spends some time in M territory. If you'd rather not read that part, you can stop after the sixth paragraph ("You did") and resume with the paragraph that begins "She recovers her voice first."

Maybe he shouldn't have asked, "Was there what?" Maybe he should have known what she was talking about. Maybe part of him did know, but wanted to hear her say it. And maybe part of him also wanted to see her expression when she said it.

"Fucking."

Ordinarily he wouldn't describe that word as lyrical, but here and now? From her? It's poetry. It's Shakespeare. It's Shelley, it's Browning, it's Donne. His response will not be lyrical, but it will be direct.

"You bet there was fucking. Up against the wall of the break room. Break being the operative word, too, since you nearly broke me."

"I did, huh?"

"You did."

"Did I do this?" While she's asking, and looking right into his eyes, she takes hold of the waistband of his boxers, pulls them down, and wraps her fingers around him.

God, she has long fingers. Oh, God, also very nimble. Very nimble, long fingers. Nimble and long and knowing. How does she know just how? He doesn't want to know.

"And this?"

She's very, very lightly tickling his balls—

"How about this?"

Before he really registers that she has slid halfway down his body, he twitches at her touch. Holy shit, her tongue on his nipple was a kindergarten move compared to this. Her tongue is warm and wet, and she's using it to put pressure hard and flat against the very tip of—and then he loses track because her lips have come into play along with her tongue and her fingers. Is levitation possible? He's about to levitate to the ceiling and crash right into it. She's killing him, and if he dies here it's fine with him, because he dies an ecstatic death. Wait, wait, wait. Where did she go? He opens his eyes: she's looking up at him from between his thighs, her hands regrettably now on her hips. Put them back, put them back, put them back.

"Shouldn't we be standing?" she asks.

"Standing?" Even in his state he can hear that his voice is at best a croak.

"Up against the wall. If you want to reenact the dream. Except for the part about being in the precinct. I have to draw the line somewhere." Her fingernail sketches a line straight down his belly and he twitches again. "You do want to reenact it, don't you, Castle? But you're gonna have to tell me." She flicks her tongue out. "Show and tell me."

"I love show and tell."

She's reaching for his hand. "Up and at 'em," she says.

" 'm already up."

"Yeah, Castle, I know. I'm impressed." More than impressed, way, way more. Stunned, staggered, reeling, excited to the point of almost uncontainable, but she's trying to be cool. Teasingly cool. She wants to extend this moment until they simultaneously combust. "I said stand up." She tugs on his hand and manages to bring him to his feet.

What she hadn't counted on was losing her own footing. Not literally: she hasn't tripped or fallen. But she and Castle are almost toe-to-toe now, with nothing in between them but pheromone-laced air and his spectacular erection. As she looks down, she feels wobbly. There's no way she can stand. Oh, oh, oh, what's she thinking? Her brain seems to be slipping a little. It doesn't matter that she's too Jell-O-kneed to stand because he'll do the standing and she'll put her legs around his waist. His legs can take it. Jesus, those muscles in his legs. It'll be fine unless she collapses first. Maybe it's because she's been through a self-imposed sexual dry spell lately. She's not dry now, anything but dry. No, it's him. Definitely him. He's done this to her. She grabs on to both his forearms. "Pick me up, please. Please, please."

While she's losing her senses he's regaining his.

"No need to ask twice," he says, gathering her up in one easy move. Her legs are gripping so tightly around him that he can barely walk, but he makes it to the wall, kissing her the entire time. She's plastered against him; he can feel how hot and wet she is, feel every beat of her heart against his chest.

"Were we like this?" she gasps against his neck.

"Yes."

"Exactly like this?"

He's gasping, too. "No panties. You weren't wearing any."

She's trying to yank hers off, but she's pressed so hard against both the wall and him that she can't do it.

With an agility he didn't know he had—although he's never been this motivated—he takes them off her without dropping her or wounding either one of them. But she's so slick against him now that he needs to steady them, and cradles her butt with one hand. That's better, better, it's heaven. Okay, they're steady now, but as he moves his hand away she circles his wrist.

"Ride it, I want to ride it, Castle," her cheekbone against his ear.

The touch and feel, the smell and taste of her are so overwhelming that he's hardly aware of curling one, then two fingers inside her before she explodes around him. He holds her fast while she shudders and tries to catch her breath.

"Jesus, Castle, what did you do?" she says at last.

What? What did he do? "Did I hurt you? I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

She feebly swats his chest. "No, no, how did you make me come so fast? You have witchy powers."

"Warlock. Warlocky powers."

"Whatever. I've never, ever. God. Ever." She kisses him again, her hair almost as damp as her skin. "Take me to bed?"

"Yes. I'll take you in bed, too." A minute later, they're both rolling on the duvet, and she's giggling. It's the second time tonight she's done that, and it's one of the best things he's ever heard.

"Your hand's not what I'm riding this time," she says, as she flips him onto his back.

This. This. This she has dreamed of, more than once. More times than she's counted, though if she went through her notebook she could get the actual number. She doesn't need to go through it to remind herself of what it was like to see light play in his blue-blue-blue eyes, to recall the sensation of him cupping her breasts or the elation of him smiling up at her. In her dreams, it's just the two of them in their private universe. She's ready for the reality of it now, more than ready, and she lowers herself onto him, painstakingly slowly. It is truly a little painful at first, because she's never been with a man this big, but her body stretches to take him in.

Neither one of them says a word, but almost immediately they find a rhythm as if they're two jazz musicians who have been together for years, each anticipating the other's moves, playing off and with them, riffing, teasing, switching leads back and forth, still surprising each other. Then, as with most great jazz, things heat up, the sounds not of saxophone and bass but of skin slapping against skin, susurrations and yelps, sighs and moans. She's no longer on top, and he's driving into her as she tries to pull him impossibly closer. And then she tightens around him, both inside and out, her control gone.

He thinks she has never been more beautiful than she is at that moment, and he forces himself to stop just to look at her. But he has only so much self-control, too, and he follows her into what the infinitesimal portion of his brain that can think in these circumstances is already calling Orgasm Eden.

She recovers her voice first. "That can't have been like your dream, Castle."

"Why not?" he says from flat on his back, as he draws her into his side.

"If that's the nearly broken you, I can't imagine what the unbroken version is like."

His chest is still heaving, and he waits a few moments before replying. "That so surpassed my dream. Seriously. You're unbelievable. I think I've been waiting for you for decades without knowing it."

"Me, too. Aren't you glad we didn't go to the precinct for a reenactment? 'cause you know Ryan or Espo would have caught us. Plus there's no bed. This is a hell of a bed."

"Yeah, wait 'til you try mine."

"Let's go."

"Not ready yet. Gotta regroup for a minute." He hears another giggle as he closes his eyes.

A minute turns into several as he dozes, one arm around her. As she watches him, she senses that everything about her, not just her body, has stretched. Everything has expanded. Her life. Her expectations. Her ideas. Her future. Him. And they're in bed and everything she's always thought about sex and fun and love—though for now she uses that last word only in her head—has changed. She's starting to get cold, and when she moves to pull the covers over her, he wakes up.

"Hi."

"Hi." She's surprised that she doesn't feel shy. "Castle?"

"Mmm hmm?"

She rolls on top of him again. "What was the first time you dreamed about me?"

"A year ago. March. During our second case. It was very explicit, but nowhere near as good as this. I was such a jerk then. When I saw you the next morning at the precinct I practically had to go take a cold shower. I must have looked like I just got laid, since in my unconscious I had, and there you were, the layer-layee, right in front of me."

She snorts into his chest. "Layer-layee? Geez, so romantic."

"Told you I was a jerk then." Her hair is long enough now that he can tuck it behind her ear. It's one of so many intimate gestures that he's been aching to make, and now he can. "What about you? When did you start dreaming about me?"

"Took me a little longer. May fifth, last year. The child-abduction case when you wore a wire. I dreamed we were making out when we were on a stakeout in some disgusting alley. We didn't have sex, but pretty close."

"May fifth, huh? That's precise."

"Told ya. I have a notebook."

That will be a conversation for the future, not now. "When's the first time you really, really wanted to kiss me, Beckett?"

"Really wanted to? That was a lot later. This past October, after the awful summer when I was so furious at you." She buries her nose in the hollow between his collarbones. "It was when you didn't take the James Bond book contract. But the most important time? That was right after new year's when when you gave a hundred thousand dollars, just like that, to try to catch my mother's killer. It was—." She shakes her head. "That you would do that for me, for nothing."

"Not for nothing, Kate." He swallows hard. He's going to risk it, has to risk it, after this. "You're everything."

She doesn't move, so at least she's not on the run. Finally she lifts her head up and kisses him. "I'm beginning to know," she says, running a finger around his ear, "that you're everything, too."

He kisses her back. "So, dreams, huh?"

"Yeah. Amazing."

"But this is a million times better, isn't it?"

She smiles the most loving smile that he's ever been lucky to see. "It is. But dreams have to start somewhere."

A/N Thank you for hanging out with me in dreamland, and thanks again to Perspex13 for letting me co-opt a line of his that became the prompt for this. I hope to be back soon with another story. Until then, happy new year.