She collapses onto the couch once the tree is finally up, secured in the tree stand, and no longer at risk of falling. They had been decorating the loft since the early evening, taking his car service to the storage unit he had transferred all of the decorations into after their final Christmas together, and loaded the trunk with as much as they could carry. But they had been missing the most necessary piece of Christmas décor, and Kate had requested a drive to the nearest tree farm to peruse what was left of the pines and evergreens until they found one that was suitable for his living room.
Castle plops down to the floor at her feet, dropping his head back against her knees, still trying to catch his breath. They should have gone with a tiny, Charlie Brown style Christmas tree this year.
"Next year, we're buying a tree, pre-lit from the store and all," he wheezes, wiping the sap from his fingers onto his jeans. "Or having one delivered, something."
"Oh, don't pretend you didn't enjoy every second of getting that thing up here," Kate huffs, staring up at the beast of a tree in the middle of the room, magnificent and worth the struggle. She couldn't remember the last time she had heard him laugh so much, the booming melody of his joy resounding through the halls, echoing through the elevator when he had ended up pinned against the wall beside her through the ride up to his floor, the tree taking up all the space.
"Decorating it is going to be fun," Castle chuckles, coiling his fingers around her ankle, nudging her sock out of the way as he circles the bone with his thumb. "But we'll save that for tomorrow."
"We can still do a little more around the loft," she murmurs, casting her gaze over the walls now adorned with glittering paper snowflakes, towards the stairs where garland twines through the railing, twinkling with Christmas lights, and over to the wreathes that shine red and gold hanging in every window. They've made a lot of progress in six hours.
Rick tilts his head back against her knees, his brow arching, upside down and eliciting another gentle bubble of laughter from her chest. "It's almost midnight. But we can do the garland in the doorway to my office if you're that eager."
His brow waggles and Kate nudges him up with her knees, accepts the sticky offering of his fingers to tug her from the sofa. Castle washes his hands in the kitchen while she unravels the long strip of foliage interweaved with Christmas lights, begins to line the entry to his office with the garland, allowing Castle to assist her with the hooks atop the frame, along the bookshelves.
"Crooked?" he murmurs while Kate steps back, inspects their handiwork.
"Looks even," she assesses, noticing Castle still fiddling with the middle section of the thick strip of greenery. "Is it not staying?"
"It'll stay, there's just this piece that's out of place," he mutters, shifting to the side when Kate moves in to take a look, her eyes widening with surprise before her lips part with amusement.
Mistletoe.
Castle drops his hands from the struggle he had staged, the green leaves dangling perfectly from their bright red ribbon in the doorway above them.
"Told you we'd manage to find our way beneath some mistletoe before the night was over."
"You going to follow tradition?" she challenges, crossing her arms over her chest, quirking an eyebrow as he drifts in slowly, waits until the broad wall of his chest is brushing at her folded forearms and he can tower over her without her heels giving her the advantage in height.
Kate flicks her eyes from his darkening gaze to his mouth, attempts to maintain a neutral expression through the burn of him so close, purposely building anticipation. His hands ascend to cup her jaw, the throb of her pulse rioting beneath his fingers, and she unfurls her arms to brace her palms at his chest, curl her fingers in the fabric of his sweater and pull herself in closer.
She arches on her toes, rolls forward like a wave to lap gently at his body, caressing, much like she had that first night, soaked to the bone and wanting in his doorway. The tip of her nose encounters his in a kiss before she's settling back to the soles of her socked feet, studying the glints of light like stars in the night skies of his pupils, the rich darkness all consuming, welcoming.
"You smell like a Christmas tree," he mumbles, skirting his thumb along the hollow of her cheek and her lips begin to curve, but Castle is slanting his mouth over her smile before it can bloom, the petals of her lips blossoming open for him instead.
She gasps as his hips press her back against the frame of the door, his thigh slotting between hers while his tongue plunders, his teeth nipping at her bottom lip and jerking her spine into a bow. Her fingers clutch in the v-shaped neck of his sweater, climbing to band her arms around his neck, to hold on through the questing of his lips along her jaw, the branding of his tongue, his teeth, to the sensitive patch of taut flesh where her throat meets her clavicle.
"You smell like home," she breathes, the words harsh and stuttering against his ear when his nose nudges the fabric of her blouse out of the way, his lips tracing a path along the sharp line of her shoulder.
"Stay with me tonight, Kate."
Her fingers knot in his hair and he lifts to return his forehead to the resting place of hers, the pant of his breath coating her lips as his chest presses against her sternum, allows her to feel the thrashing of his heart. She knows that despite the request, he means more than just a night; he means forever. Richard Castle deserves a forever, needs the promise of it, the proof, and her head tilts with her nod of an answer. She can prove that she knows the meaning of the word that has become so dear to them both. She can still be his always.
"Come home," he remedies, stroking the shell of her ear, skimming the side of her neck. She searches his eyes for uncertainty, for residual doubt, but his entire face is alight with love that steals her breath, slices straight through her chest. "Just come back home."
"Yes." She surges up to smear another kiss to his mouth, trading breaths with him, and tries to contain the desperation rattling around in her chest, the moan swelling thick and urgent in the back of her throat. He wants her to come home. "Please."
Castle pulls her from the wall of the bookshelf at her back, leads her into the bedroom without unwinding his arms from around her body, his lips relentless in their wild and ruthless descent onto hers, swallowing whatever breath she had left. His hands slide beneath her sweater, splay and travel over her skin, creating wildfire in his wake, and she wants to ease the fabric from her body, allow him better access, but she can't stop kissing him.
Her body writhes, alive and needful, stumbling with him towards the bed, and she fails to stop the moan, has to gasp past the overwhelming pound of her heart, battering itself against her ribs, once her upper body is nearly bare and Castle is staring in quiet awe at the fill of her half naked in his arms. His thumb skims the underlining black lace of her bra, his mouth dusts the slope of her breast, and Kate snags the hand at her waist, guides his fingers to the clasp at her back.
The lingerie falls and she doesn't hesitate in pressing her bare chest to him, choking on something far too close to a sob when his hands cradle her there, holding her like something precious as she stains her lips to his throat. The faint impression of how much he wants her strains between them, but he doesn't rush, allows her the unhurried worshipping of her mouth at his throat, traveling to seek forgiveness at the altar of his mouth.
"I want to show you," she breathes, the part of his lips beneath hers like a confessional, open for her sins, her sanctity, and sinks down to his lap when he descends to the edge of the bed.
Kate eases the sweater over his head, allows it to drop to the pile with his belt, and savors the contact of his chest bare and radiating heat beneath her hands. She wants him, her yearning a current strong enough to sweep her into the undertow, but it's been years, just short of two long years, and she wants to do this right, to drape her body atop his, give him back every piece, take back all she's been without.
"Show me?" he echoes, gliding his palms down the canvas of her back, painting over her skin to clutch the narrow ridges of her hips.
"How I missed you." His eyes burn, blue flames amidst the darkness, accents of gold lighting the night, and he skates his hand up her spine, the heat of his palm licking at her nape before his fingers curl in the hair at the back of her skull. Castle angles her closer, their lips brushing, brimming with promise, and she breathes the words into the sanctuary of his mouth. "How I love you."
She ignores the calls of sleep, refuses the embrace of slumber in favor of his. Kate tilts into the trickle of his fingers at her cheek, awareness rushing back as her chest expands with a deep breath to fill her lungs.
"Better than you remembered?" Castle hums from above her, tracing patterns over her stomach, coasting north to outline the ghost of an incision scar, higher to the less familiar, jagged line of a bullet's graze that had been poorly treated.
"Amazing," she agrees, dipping her hand into the pool of moonlight leaking in through the window to drip along the column of his throat and drawing him down from the support of his elbow to taste the starlight on his lips. "Always amazing."
"You have to be up in three hours," he mumbles, combing the errant strands of hair back from her forehead. "Unless you intend to play hooky and build that blanket fort with me."
Her fingers dance up his sides, a low, unintentionally seductive chuckle rising up to her lips as Rick squirms away to lie beside her instead, dragging her loose limbs and pliable muscles along with him.
"I want to decorate the tree," she sighs out against his throat, feeling his heart trading beats with hers, the damp skin of his chest grazing hers with each breath.
After so long apart, they had been thorough, voracious, and her blood sings with pleasure beneath her cooling flesh, rejoices with the reward of repentance.
"Is that a yes to playing hooky?" Castle gasps, still tangling his hands in her hair, undoing the damage of his fingers, and she tilts her head back against the crook of his elbow.
"I could miss a day," she mumbles, strumming the chords of his ribs like strings of an instrument, relishing in the beautiful intimacy of sharing breath and heat and heartbeats. "Work a little extra these next few days to make up for it, then take off for Christmas."
Rick beams, tentative joy streaming through the lines running like channels through the map of his face. "Yeah?"
"I haven't taken Christmas off since the last one we spent together. There's always work to be done, but it's not necessary that I be there," she explains, tracing the parenthesis around his mouth. "Not needed as much as I was when I was a detective."
"They still need you," Castle refutes. "You hold the place together, Beckett."
His hands soothing over the sharp wings of her shoulder blades ease the rounded bones from their hunched position, a defensive posture she hadn't even realized her body had adopted. "I just don't know if it's where I belong anymore," she confesses the fear she's been too afraid to voice to herself, closes her eyes as it spills onto the sheets beneath them.
"Are you happy?"
Her gaze lifts to him, so close their lashes thread together, and she hasn't been happy in so long, the automatic no already dances on the tip of her tongue. And she may not be content in her work these days, the unwelcome uncertainties that she recognizes from years past stirring in her chest, but maybe in repairing the wreckage of her personal life, her professional life could renovated as well.
And if not… she would figure it out. They could figure it out. Just as they had before.
"Yes," she whispers, knowing he had been referring to her job, but she's lost in this moment, blissfully immersed in the perfect alignment of his body alongside hers, the hope for a future she thought had been sacrificed, self-sabotaged, swirling in her chest. "I'm happy."
Her body is exhausted, too tender and aching, but she twines her fingers through his hair, brings his mouth down to hers in a kiss that leads to nowhere but offers him everything. Castle sighs, draws a palm down her spine as he eases onto his back, lets her sink, molten and heavy, into the cradle of his body beneath hers.
"M'happy too," he mumbles, pulling the sheet up from their waists to drape across their bodies as they drift, a languorous grin claiming his lips. "And you love me."
"Yeah, Castle." Kate nuzzles his throat, finding comfort in the cove of his neck and pressing one last kiss to the hinge of his jaw before her lashes dust over his skin a final time. Like this, happiness was more tangible than it had ever been before. "I love you."