A/N: The M rating definitely applies to this chapter.


A continuation to chapter 11 (AU to 3x13, Knockdown)


"Is everything okay?" he asks as soon as she opens the door to him. "Your message sounded kind of urgent."

Kate shuts the door as soon as he's inside and proceeds to push him up against it, cupping his neck in her hands and surging up on her toes, fusing her lips to his, savoring the immediate rush of heat. It's only been a few hours since the last time she tasted him, but she's been craving him since the moment they parted.

Castle kisses her back, lips moving against hers out of instinct, but his hands grip her biceps, jerk her back.

"Beckett," he pants, his voice so low, a warning. "Where's Josh?"

"Gone. He saw these," she growls, flipping her hair back, exposing the colorful mural he made on her neck.

"I don't remember you complaining earlier," he snaps, an unexpected spark of anger in his eyes.

She arches her brow in response, grabs the hem of her own shirt and pulls it over her head. His gaze never leaves her, not for the soft fabric of the turtleneck fluttering through the air, nor the exposed planes of flesh now on display for him. He keeps the intense blues of his eyes locked with hers.

"I'm not complaining now."

His willpower falls apart before her eyes and then he's swooping in, confident and determined, holding her face in his hands as he slips his tongue past the weak barrier of her lips.

She gasps when his hands leave her cheeks to travel down the expanse of her exposed skin, brushing over the lace cups of her bra, skimming her sides, her abdomen, circling around to her back.

Her bra hits the ground, his large palms find her breasts, kneading, palming, pinching, and she mewls, loud and uninhibited, while she works on his belt. They're stumbling towards her bedroom - she thinks - but somehow get sidetracked by the dining table. The backs of her knees hit the polished edge of wood and Castle lifts her up, pushes between her parted knees, right against the burning center of her jeans where she needs him the most.

"Castle," she groans, abandoning his pants when his belt finally falls and shoving his jacket off instead, groping at the muscles of his back through the thin material of his dress shirt.

"Do you know how hard it was," he pants, his open mouth against her neck, migrating down, down to nip at her clavicle, down to paint the slope of a breast, circle one of her nipples with his tongue. "Not to drop to my knees when I felt how wet you were?"

She bites her lip, tangles her fingers in his hair as he goes lower, nipping the sensitive skin beneath her navel, smirking at the jump and clench of muscles beneath his lips.

He unbuttons her pants, jerks them down her legs, and she helps, lifting her hips and shoving at the waistband with one of her hands, pushing the drenched material of her thong down with them.

"I wanted to taste you."

"Please," she moans, the pressure between her legs practically painful as his thumbs circle her anklebones and his palms smooth up the path of each leg until he reaches the soft skin of her thighs. He cranes forward to kiss her mouth once before he gently eases her down, her naked back falling to the cool wood of the table, already causing her to arch with need. He hasn't even touched her yet and it's already too much.

He's still completely dressed when he leans over her, trailing fingers down the length of her body before spreading her legs, so in control, so different.

"You're beautiful," he says, just before he kneels between her thighs and touches his mouth to her clit.

She jerks off the table, cuts her nails into the wood beneath her as he sucks, hard, and uses his tongue to thoroughly explore every inch of her. She registers his hands abandoning her knees, feels her thighs clench around his head and her ankles locking at his back as his teeth graze her swollen clit, his tongue lapping at her folds, every sensation a white-hot wave crashing over her until she can barely breathe, can barely get his name past her lips as she sobs.

Her head thumps against the table, but she doesn't feel it. Her hips are bucking against him, her entire body writhing uncontrollably despite the hands holding her down. The spring of pleasure deep in her abdomen is coiled so tightly, it doesn't take much more than the single thrust of his familiar fingers inside of her and the sound of him eating her out to have her gushing, crying her release as she flies apart.

His hands curl around her thighs, gently easing her quivering muscles from around him, dropping kisses to her skin that intensify the shivering aftershocks already wracking her frame.

"You left claw marks in your table," he murmurs and she forces her eyes open to see him towering over her, dusting his fingers over the expanse of wood near her hands in awe.

Her limbs are shaking, every piece of her body like jelly, but she forces herself up, snags her fingers in his shirt and tugs him as close as she can get, aligning their bodies and breathing through the rough tremor that clambers up her spine at the feel of him, hard and clothed and throbbing, pressed against her overly sensitized core.

"Bed." She swallows around the word, glancing from his eyes to his lips, unable to help herself from reaching up to kiss him, humming quietly at the prominent taste of herself in his mouth. "Please just take me to bed already."