2 chapters left after this. I promise I'll get them up sooner rather than later.
{Will you, won't you, be the one I'll always know}
Rick paces the fiesta like a caged animal while he waits for Kate. The children have been given permission to stay up late, and they're intermixed with the staff throughout the room. Hartley is with Lupe again. Rick tries, really he does, to be social and debonair. He dances with Elena, a six-year-old who stands on his feet while they dance and giggles every time he spins her. He drinks punch with Juan Carlos and Esteban. He talks to Gustavo about going to school in the States. But he's only half there. He wants to see Kate.
He's lurking by the entrance of the gym waiting for her when the double doors open. He holds his breath, but it's only Natalie. She smirks at him.
"Waiting for someone special, Ricardo?"
Rick lets Esteban greet his wife before he asks, "Where is she?"
Natalie smirks again and nods over his shoulder. "Right there, Casanova."
Rick whirls around, and sure enough there she is. And she looks…his writer brain can't think of a word. It's that kind of look.
"Hi," she says when he doesn't say anything.
The dress is beautiful. It's a deep red, and it wraps around her neck, fits tightly down to her hips, and then flares out and stops at her knees. The shoes catch his eye, a pair of very high, very red heels, and he has the sudden urge to loosen his tie.
"Rick," she says.
He snaps his gaze up to her face and sees her smirking faintly. "Hi," he finally says.
"Wipe the drool off your chin," Natalie hisses in his ear. He's so busy staring he actually wipes at his chin, which makes Natalie laugh loudly. He feels her pat him on the shoulder.
"We'll see you two later."
Rick glances over his shoulder to see them walking away and then he turns back to Kate.
"You look amazing," he says.
She smiles. "Thank you."
And then it's back. The silence that's been between them all day. And it stays. An hour passes and they barely speak. They stand next to each other, he gets her some punch, they even dance once. But they don't talk. They talk to Natalie and Esteban, to Juan Carlos and the kids, but not to each other.
He thinks it's because they waited so long. Because they're both overanalyzing what the other is thinking instead of just coming out and asking. They haven't done this dance in a long time, but now there's so much more at stake, they're at stake, and they're both paralyzed.
"I'm going to run to the bathroom," she says abruptly, turning toward him.
He nods. "Yeah. Okay."
He watches her disappear out of the double doors. He stands frozen for about half a second before he takes off after her.
X-X-X-X-X
Kate is halfway down the hall on her way back to the gym when a hand wraps around her forearm. She whips her head around, suddenly on guard, but relaxes when she sees Rick. He yanks her out of the hall and into a classroom, and suddenly she's annoyed.
"Rick, what the hell—"
He doesn't answer. He slams the door shut and then shoves her up against it. She's irritated that he's whipping her around like a rag doll. She glares up at him as he plants his hands on the door on either side of her head.
"You got something to say, Castle?"
He reaches down and locks the door in response. The click of the lock echoes through the dark room, and Kate glances down at his hand and then back up into his eyes. He leans forward quickly, captures her lips in a rough kiss, and then pulls away again.
They stare at each other for a moment, the silence between them welling up into a deafening crescendo. And then it's all over. They move at the same time. Their lips collide and she holds his face in her hands while he tugs her backward by gripping her hips. Either he lifts her into his arms or she wraps her legs around him, but suddenly she's sitting on top of one of the lab tables and he's standing between her legs. She pulls her panties down over her high heels and then slides them into his pants pocket.
It's hot and quick and rough and when she comes back to herself she's lying flat on her back on the lab table with him bent over her. Her nails are dug into his back through his shirt. He's panting harshly into her neck and she's panting too. She's going to be sore tomorrow.
As their breathing slows she relaxes her grip on him and trails her hands over his back, up into his hair at the nape of his neck. He kisses her neck, but doesn't move. The silence, shattered for a while by moans and sharp intakes of breath, is back with a vengeance. She can't take it anymore.
"Is this what we do now?" she asks him in a whisper. "We can't talk to each other, but this is easier than ever?"
He pulls away, puts his hands on either side of her head and holds himself above her. His gaze trails over her face, finally comes to rest on her eyes.
"I love you."
She bites the inside of her lip and then shakes her head. "That's not talking, Rick."
She sits up, forcing him to move backward. She moves him farther by a push to the chest. She puts her feet on the ground and then pauses for a second to take stock of herself, stubbornly avoiding his eyes. They're both silent as they clean themselves up, and he doesn't stop her when she darts her hand into his pocket for her underwear. After she pulls them back on, she smoothes her dress back to where it should be and heads for the door. He catches her wrist.
"You don't get to walk away this time, Kate."
She looks at him. "Give me a reason to stay."
"Will you give me a chance?"
She pulls her wrist from his grasp. "I'm listening."
He breaks eye contact and runs his hand through his hair with a sigh. "I don't know what…I've been trying to…"
He clenches his jaw and shakes his head. Kate stares at him. She hasn't seen him like this in a long time. Part of her is frightened by it, the same part that Paula got to the other day. She moves toward him, stopping a few inches away. She waits until he looks at her.
"It's just me," she whispers.
"You scare me."
"I scare you? Or the idea of losing me scares you?"
He puts the tips of his fingers on her bare shoulder, trails down her arm and clutches her hand. He stares at her for a minute, gripping her hand, and then turns away and walks to the other side of the room to the wall with windows. She can see him watching her in the reflection of one of the windows, as if watching her reflection scares him less than looking right at her.
"I think I figured it out," he starts. "It took me a while to get it, but I think I've got it now."
He waits. She nods. "I'm listening."
He lets out a deep breath. "When I signed the divorce papers for Gina I realized I wanted to be done. Not just with marriage, but with any type of long term, committed relationship. They hadn't worked for me, and I didn't see how that would change. Until I met you."
There's a brief pause, but Kate doesn't say anything. She knows he's not done.
"When Alexis turned sixteen, I realized that if I was done with committed relationships, then I wasn't going to have any more kids. There wasn't anyone I wanted to share it with, and I had no desire to do it alone."
He finally turns around and looks at her.
"And then I fell for you."
He's staring at her so intensely that she has to look away. "I'm sensing a pattern," she murmurs lamely, staring at her shoes. He waits until she looks at him again before he continues.
"You're new, Kate."
She frowns in confusion. He smiles.
"I've spent the past twenty-four hours trying to figure out how to explain to you that I've done all this before. The commitment and the kids and marriage. I've done it and you haven't, so maybe you want it more than I do. Maybe you need it and I don't. But I was wrong."
Now he moves toward her, closing the distance, and Kate feels her heart jolt and then start thumping harder.
"Everything is new to me. The way I feel, the way you are, the way we are. It's all as new for me as it is for you. And I'm not worried that you want to do it all with someone else who's experiencing it for the first time, because I'm experiencing it for the first time. I haven't done it with you. And you're all that matters."
His last sentence hovers between them for a long moment. She can feel the corners of her mouth turn up slightly.
"Always a writer, aren't you?" she all but whispers.
His lips break into a wide smile, and with it some of the tension evaporates. "It's a tough habit to break."
She nods. She reaches for him, pulling him toward her by his tie, and when he wraps an arm around her waist it feels like the most natural thing in the world. Maybe because it is.
"Ask me again, Kate," he murmurs, pushing her hair away from her face.
She looks up at him. "Ask you what?"
"Ask me what I want."
"What do you want, Rick?"
He smiles. "I want to dance with you at the fiesta down the hall. I want to pick up Hartley from Lupe and take him back to the bungalow and tuck him in. I want to take you to bed. And tomorrow morning I want us to say goodbye, and get on a plane, and fly back to New York."
Her heart stops. Maybe he can hear it, or feel it, or maybe he just knows, because he holds her closer.
"And when we get back," he continues, his voice just above a whisper, "I want to look at us, and our home, and our life, and decide together if Hartley fits."