His lips part in surprise, speechless, and Kate arches on her toes, the cup of her palms to his cheek holding him still as she presses her mouth to his, feels his entire body exalt at the touch of her lips. His hands hesitate for only a moment longer before finally ascending to spread along the plates of her shoulder blades.
His mouth is hot, fusing effortlessly with hers, tongue painting the seam of her lips with reverence, seeking repentance when he slips past the weak barrier. And he's just so needful, desperate in how he kisses her, worships her, but equally as gentle, careful with her as if she had been the one to suffer the pierce of a bullet.
Kate's hips cant into the cradle of his, the sound of his moan shooting an arrow of heat through her abdomen, his chest stuttering where it's crushed against hers, ragged heartbeats and panting breaths sealed together. She's aware of his shoulder as she laces her arms around his neck, twining her fingers through his hair at the scale of his lips along her jaw, his mouth open at the taut stretch of skin just below the angle of bone, suckling at the riot of her pulse.
"I want to work together," she gasps, her body thrumming with need that gentles beneath the seal of his forehead to hers, the soothing splay of his palms beneath the wings of her shoulder blades. "And I want - I want other things, with you. But Castle, you have to promise me-"
"Anything," he's already murmuring and she strokes her fingers to his unshaven cheek, soothes some of his desperation and her own. "I'll give you anything. Everything. Whatever you don't already have."
Her breath shudders out of her. Shit.
"No more lies," she states, forcing her eyes open to snag his gaze, finds him already watching her with his attention sharp, a piercing shade of blue that shows her everything. There had always been a layer to him that she couldn't quite peel away, an iron curtain that hid his secrets, pieces of himself she was not allowed to see. Not yet. "About anything."
Castle nods, deadly serious and without hesitation, that curtain gone, everything laid out raw and open for her. "Okay, deal. But that goes for both of us. No more secrets."
She doesn't argue. Of the two of them, he had obviously been the one to put forth the most dishonesty, harboring half-truths, but just because she hadn't blatantly lied to him about anything didn't mean she wasn't guilty of keeping secrets and she could own up to that.
It would be nice, for once, though, to not hold back on anything with someone, to dive in completely.
"It's a deal," she rasps, swallowing hard against the worsening soreness of her throat, catching Castle's attention, igniting a wave of concern through his eyes.
"I know you probably want to go over everything immediately, but I could make you some tea first," he offers, daring to quirk his lips for the first time all night, a pitiful attempt at a smile that scrapes at her heart.
"That'd be great, Rick. Thank you," she whispers, but she doesn't let him go, lowering her arms from his neck to circle loosely around his waist. He watches her with curiosity, with apprehension and nerves, and a form of fear that she's seen arise faintly once or twice, full fledged now. He was afraid she was going to leave.
Kate drops her head to his clavicle, closes her eyes and times her breath to the steadying pound of his heart, allows some of the tension strangling her spine to loosen its grip as Castle's uninjured arm wraps around her shoulders, the other elevating to cradle one of her elbows in his palm.
"I do want to go over everything," she admits on a mumble, her voice not equipped for much more at this point. "But I'm exhausted and I know that you must be too."
"Oh, yeah, of course. I could take you home or to Lanie's, if you-"
"This gorgeous place must have a guest room," she interrupts, hooking her thumbs in the back belt loops of his pants, subduing her smile as his breath hitches with understanding. She shouldn't be smiling, not after everything that occurred with 3XK, not after learning the truth about Castle, and yet…
"It does," he confirms, circling the jut of her elbow with his thumb, his lips dusting the crown of her head. "You're more than welcome to stay there, or you can take my room if you'd rather be downstairs, whichever you want is-"
"Guest room upstairs is fine, Castle," she assures him, rubbing her knuckles along the base of his spine to soothe some of the nervous energy. There was no point in walking on eggshells around her, not now. She's always had the horrible habit of lingering in the past, allowing it to consume her, drive her, like picking at a scab and never allowing it to heal. Instead, all her wounds continue to bleed, but with him, she only wants to look forward, to let the raw spot heal over.
"Did you - I can let you borrow some clothes to sleep in," Castle suggests, his gaze flickering down to assess the pantsuit she had slipped into before she had exited her apartment. She hadn't expected to need a packed bag when she'd left, but she probably should have.
Jerry Tyson had tainted her home with his unwelcome presence and she wouldn't let the trepidation last, wouldn't let a serial killer ruin her love for an apartment she's adored for over five years now, but it would take her a while to become comfortable there again. And Castle's guest bedroom seemed like as good a place as any to stay in the meantime.
"Yeah, please," she murmurs, drawing her hands up to splay across the sides of his ribcage as he takes a reluctant step back, lingers for a moment too long before staining a kiss to her temple and starting towards an entryway that opens into an office.
Kate drifts after him, curious to see the layout of his lavish home, the opposite of what she would have envisioned.
"Hey Castle?" He stops in the doorway, turning his head over his shoulder to lift his brow at her in question while she catches up to him in the spacious office, dusts her fingers along the walls constructed of bookshelves, jammed with what has to be hundreds of novels. "What's a spy doing in a SoHo loft?"
A laugh startles out of him, relieved and a little hysterical, like he had expected a far more complicated question.
"Not to burst your bubble, but a tech analyst and journalist combined couldn't afford a place like this," she points out, following after him when he continues through the office, nudges open a second doorway that leads to – oh, his bedroom.
"No, they couldn't," Rick chuckles, tugging open the top drawer of a dresser placed against the wall adjacent to the king size bed in the middle of the room. "Honestly, I hadn't come up with a way to explain this to you yet. My father and some other agent, probably North, his second in command, picked out the place."
"No interior decorators in the CIA?" she muses, trailing her fingertips along the bare walls of his bedroom. For a man with such a vibrant personality, she hadn't expected his personal space to be so bland. No art on the walls, no knick-knacks or picture frames on the nightstand, even the bedspread a boring shade of midnight blue and plain white pillows that lacked covers.
"I had intended to try and decorate before I brought you here," he admits with a sheepish grin that is still too wary for her liking, folding a t-shirt over his arm, but he shifts nervously on his feet, not even trying to hide the language of his body or mask it with feigned arrogance anymore. "But other than that… making things personal, it's never a smart idea. The more personal it is, the more memorable, and - memorable doesn't work well when you're usually a ghost."
He doesn't look at her while he says it, withdrawing a pair of sweatpants for her, but his brow is knit, tugged down like the troubled frown on his lips, and Kate drifts deeper into his room, past him to ease down onto the edge of his bed.
The mattress was a little too soft for her liking, but it was comfortable. The entire loft lacked the personal touches of the man living in it, but as long as Castle was in the apartment with her, the place definitely held the charm and appeal of comfort.
"What about now?" she asks, staring up at him as he turns, the clothes draped over his forearm and confusion muddling his gaze. "I think you've made it quite personal with me, Agent Castle. Definitely pretty memorable."
Rick lifts his arm to rake his fingers through his hair, a bad habit that sets the locks in a state of disarray, and hisses at the flare of pain that must spike through his shoulder at the thoughtless movement.
"Unless this isn't personal for you, of course," she hums, challenges, secretly pleased by the fire it ignites in his eyes.
The lights are off in his bedroom, the glow from the office lamp the only illumination aside from the spill of city lights through the slits of slated blinds concealing the windows, streaks of white and gold staining the skin of his arms, his throat and jaw, as he comes towards her. Castle drops his clothes into her lap, skims his left hand along the line of her jaw, suffuses his fingers in her hair, that confidence she knows well slowly beginning to return and ridding him of the awful apprehension that was already beginning to drive her insane.
"How many other women have you seduced for information?" she continues, the blue flames of his irises crackling with tamed indignation, bolts of electricity flashing through his pupils.
"Seduced? A few," he admits, shrugging his good shoulder, circling his thumb along the back of her skull. "But there's a difference between coaxing information out of a person, using them as a means to an end, and making it personal. Tell me, Beckett, which do you think happened with you?"
Kate bites her lip and swallows, refuses to wince at the lick of fire her saliva elicits as it sluices down the raw passage of her throat, and scoots back on Castle's bed instead, forcing his arm to stretch, hand still tangled in her hair, and his knee to dig into the edge of the mattress between both of hers.
"Mm, I'd hope option two. Especially since you didn't get much information out of me."
"Oh yeah?" Castle tosses back, placing weight onto the knee balanced between hers, and Beckett curves her palm to the back of his thigh, feels his muscles ripple beneath the curl of her fingers. "I think I got plenty. I know your favorite color, your order at Remy's, where you went to college, that you have a tattoo I've yet to see-"
"Not the kind of information you came searching for," she corrects, ignoring the flutter of delight the pride in his eyes evokes, how proud he is just to know useless facts about her.
"No, better," he counters with a grin, skating his thumb along her scalp to caress the sensitive flesh behind her ear. "Kate, I want you to know-"
"You don't have to," she starts before he can, whatever it is he plans to say that has the teasing glimmer fading from his eyes, the serious expression overtaking it. She's drained, too drained to hear anything more, anything that could break her.
"There's never been anyone like you," he says it anyway, his eyes like summer skies, cloudless and blue, clear and endless. "And you are so… this is so very personal to me."
His hand falls away from her hair, tripping down her throat to graze her shoulder before he draws it back to his side, but Kate catches him by the wrist, clings to his metacarpal bones like a lifeline.
The tenderness in his eyes breaks her just as she'd feared, the accompanying need cracks her chest wide open, all of her jagged pieces exposed, vulnerable to his greedy hands, welcome to decimate her further. Or heal her, soothe the sharp edges and lessen the emptiness that consumes so much of her.
He's hurt her, sprinkled embers of anger through her system with his betrayal, but… it's harder than she would have expected to hold onto the pang of heartache, the simmering fury that fades further with every glimpse of his fingertips to her skin. She's been drowning for so long in death and conspiracies, in Loksat and even her career at times, but since she had met Rick, keeping her head above water, inhaling deep breaths of fresh air, had become so much easier.
It would take time, but she wanted him badly enough to get over being hurt.
"How much does your shoulder hurt?" she whispers, tugging on his left hand, his good side, watching his body sway towards her but feeling him resist. "Rick-"
"Not - not too bad," he murmurs, his right hand rising to snag her fingers when they toy with the bottom button of his shirt. "Kate. I wasn't - this isn't-"
The lower half of his shirt fans open, allows her fingers the opportunity to steal beneath the fabric, spread along the taut planes of his abs, the muscles contracting beneath her palm.
"Too soon," he husks, but his eyes have screwed shut, his brow threaded with concentration, with the willpower to pull away from her, and maybe he was right. Maybe it was too soon to take this step, but it's one she's been aching to take for quite a while now, and despite it all, she doesn't want to wait anymore.
"I want to," she breathes, more buttons of his shirt coming undone.
"Your throat, you're - I'll hurt you, make it worse-"
Kate fists her hands in the open ends of his shirt, his chest now bare and exposed to the cool air of the bedroom, the hot strokes of her fingers, and holds on as she descends to her back on his bed, giving him no choice but to follow.
"You can't make it worse," Beckett promises, no longer sure if it's her injuries they're talking about.
"Fuck, I've already made it worse," he grunts, supporting his body above hers with only one of his elbows, but lowering his head to dust his lips along the red line marring her neck, following the column of her throat with his mouth.
"Then make it better," she gasps, hooking one of her legs around his thigh, closing her eyes at the utter of his moan, the vibration of the sound against her skin.
Castle collapses atop her, controls the collision of his body into hers, but Kate still arches at the fit of his hips, the weight of his chest over hers, the pressure of his carefully controlled want between her legs. It's not his first time on top of her, but this was so different from a sparring session in the gym, so much better with his lips on her skin, his hand roaming her side to slip under her shirt, his touch painting brushstrokes of heat that sear through her flesh.
She's careful when she pushes the edges of his shirt from his shoulders, the bones rolling beneath her palms as he maneuvers the fabric from his torso, shrugging it from his left side with ease. He has to pause with his teeth grit at her jaw to breathe through the work of removing the right side from his arm, exhaling with relief as her delicate fingers assist, guide the dress shirt past his elbow so he can slide the material from his body.
She dusts those fingers along the bandaged curve of his shoulder, lets the digits trickle down the path of his arm, the impressive bulge of his bicep, the solid length of his forearm.
"Still not too bad?" she whispers, watching the travel of his eyes above her, his gaze caressing with every blink as he skates it along her body laid out beneath him. God, he hadn't even seen her naked yet and he already looked so awestruck, so enamored and adoring of her.
She doesn't think anyone's ever looked at her the way Castle does. Not even close.
"Not bad," he confirms, coaxing her body upwards on the bed, her head finding rest atop a pillow that smells strongly of him.
She would need to flip them over soon, eliminate the strain that hovering above her like this places on his injured shoulder, but for just a few seconds, she relishes in the sensation of Castle pressing her deep into the mattress, his body draped atop hers and his mouth descending to sip from her lips, rich and soft and so addictive.
Kate cradles his face to keep him there, brushes her thumbs to the corners of his eyes, abrades her fingertips on the line of his jaw rough with stubble, absorbs the warmth of his skin and fervent race of his heart against hers. Too good to give up.
"You feel so good," she mumbles against his jaw, grazing her lips along the hard line of his bone, touching her tongue to the dip of his chin. "Really good, Castle."
"Kate," he breathes, feeling his heart pounding, certain she can hear the thunderous roar from beneath his ribs as she presses a kiss to his bottom lip. The objective of his mission had been to distract her, gain her trust and redirect her focus from her hunt for LokSat, and he was succeeding. Well, for a single night, he was kind of succeeding, even if there was no longer a mission goal to work towards. He had her body crushed against him, her tongue teasing at the corner of his mouth, but he didn't want her to be an objective, a task to mark off his list, he wanted… he wanted Kate Beckett, wanted her in every way possible, and he wanted her to know, so badly wanted her to know every last truth he had left- "I just want you."
Kate's eyes flutter open, her lashes lifting to tangle with his, and he cups a hand to her cheek, cradles the slash of bone, the rise of her gentle smile in his palm.
"You have me."
He was falling in love with her.
No, it was worse. He was in love with her, tangled and at risk of drowning with no chance of getting out.
Fuck. This was bad.
Kate's mouth opening beneath his provides beautiful distraction, the haven of her body welcoming him closer, drawing him in deep, wiping his mind clean of everything but her and the heat of her flesh searing through the barriers of their clothes, the noises falling like a symphony from her lips.
Growing louder as he travels down the length of her body, peels the clothes from her skin and touches his mouth to every inch of exposed flesh, nipping at the quivering muscles of her abdomen, feathering his lips between her breasts, and questing along the warm canvas of her body until he returns to the altar of her mouth for worship, moaning at the velvet crush of her lips, the warm stroke of her tongue.
"Don't stop," she gets out, her breath hitching with a gasp, the wings of her lashes threatening to flutter closed at her cheeks, but Kate fights to keep her eyes open, on him. "Castle, please-"
"I can't," he groans out, panting hard against her cheek, catching his breath before he returns to the refuge of her lips, smudging a kiss to the corner of her mouth, her jaw, her neck. "Can't stop with you."
Kate mewls beneath him, her hips rocking upwards, her knees clamping hard at his waist, and then she's rolling them over, effortless and impressive, her body landing atop his in a graceful straddle that has the slosh of arousal through his system spilling over.
He swallows back a moan as she rises over him, her skin bare and glorious in the soft light of the city's glow, the golden shards of the lamp stretching to reach the bed. Gold like the shimmering pools of her eyes, glittering above him, lighting her face enough for him to catch the gentle twitch of her lips as her spine curves, bowing over him until she can reach his mouth once more.
Kate's lips brush his when she speaks, sparks of electricity that surge through his veins as the single syllable falls from her mouth onto his. "Good."