Now:
Their second night together is so blissful, Castle feels as though he's been whipped in candy floss, sizzled round the sexiest theme-park in France, and floated back along the Seine while being suckled, french kissed, devoured.
He has gorged. He's as light as a pink sugared feather, as satiated as a wildebeest on a pride-of-lions diet, as in love as he's ever been in his life ...
Not that he's admitted it in so many words. Either has she, although he's sure he heard something about love when he'd hoisted her onto the kitchen counter, crammed his body between her knees and fed her berry-covered waffles.
Beckett is easy to feed. She's not as gutturally responsive to food as her old friend Maddy — what with her groans of edible gratitude within a restaurant setting — but Kate's more instinctual. Responsive to visceral sensation. Starving when she's hungry, purring when she's satisfied. Punching her lips together with the pleasure of taste and raw yum. She saves her moans for sexual mischief, although she punctuates their eating with a skillet of kissing, a pan of touching, and a waffle load of smiling.
And for this, Richard Castle thanks the foodie gods of love, sex and sweet-savory brunch.
It's her grin that's almost killing him this morning. He offers to escort her to the ophthalmologist. When she agrees on the condition that she can drive the Ferrari downtown, Castle orders a cab. He expects a verbal mouthful — as opposed to the explicitly carnal, sensational mouthfuls he's experienced in the past twelve hours. Instead, she tosses him a cheeky smile, a tilt of the head and a Beckett pull on his t-shirt so they're as close as they can possibly be, fully dressed.
'So? As soon as I get the all clear today from the doc, we launch the Ferrari, right? Driving to the wedding, remember?'
Castle knows it's kinkily wrong to find an aggressive, determined Beckett to be the hottest thing since a freaking inferno on the planet Mercury, but he does. The smiling, sexily-happy Beckett is something else. She's graphically flirty, can be downright dirty, and every single time she flashes a pearler his way, Castle has to pinch himself to make sure he's not hallucinating.
'If you get the all clear today, you may drive to the wedding with both eyes open,' he says, placing his hands against her lower back and dragging her upward for a kiss. Just because he can … and dear God, but she's smiling beneath his lips, so he pulls up for air. 'But … upon recollection, you didn't win the bet at The Old Haunt entitling you to drive. Do you even remember that, Detective Beckett?'
Her hands are beneath his t-shirt, her flattened palms working the skin of his back, clever fingers playing the keyboard of his spine. He waits for the inevitable — when she uses the loosened elastic of his pyjama bottoms to lever her palms further downward in a journey of pinching, stroking … cupping. It's a standing position that's been so commonly adopted over the last little while, Castle wants to finance it to be set in bronze.
A statue … or a mount. In their honour.
'Was that bet made before or after you nearly blinded me with a cue stick, Castle?' she mouths in his ear, in time with an assault on his PJ bottoms. Her hands? He wonders if he'll ever get tired of them doing what hands do, like pinching, stroking, touching?
'I can't remember,' he whispers in her ear, wondering if he should remind her of the time it will take to get to her specialist, or continue to prove the pundits wrong — that testosterone levels don't dip after forty, and that man is capable of acting stiffly and deftly even if he's getting long in the tooth. Longer in the length?
Besides, Beckett's only in her thirties. Women have vast, wanton needs round this age and it would be neglectful of him not to provide that.
It's his duty. Some men become special agents and fulfill important requirements with homeland security. Other guys drive ambulances, pilot jets, perform open-heart surgery, but he, Richard Castle? It's his duty to service the most important member of the NYPD. If she's happy, then crimes will solve themselves, murder will decline and pots of pure gold will be found at the end of every rainbow.
'We should go if we want to make the doctor on time,' he says, all the while letting himself get pushed backward towards his unmade bed. He estimates there's about five steps left before the back of his knees hit the mattress, giving him about two seconds to work out a way to pivot her around and flip her over like an upended turtle. It's romantic, right, thinking about Beckett in these terms? She has his thoughts all over the place ever since she's come out of her shell.
'We have time.'
They don't, but apparently they do, as she lets him reverse the pushing process and he's lying on top of her before he has the chance to talk about the traffic at this time of day.
'What are you going to say when the doctor asks you why your eye's uncovered?' he asks her, as she pulls his t-shirt up and over his head.
'The truth,' she says, in between kisses. To his chin, his chest, a carnivorous one to his nipple. 'That a pirate pulled it off.'
'Oh, very nice, Beckett!' he huffs out, guiding her head back to his level, tucking her underneath him so they fit together as surely as a piece of Lego and its regulation play mat. He ponders whether he's the Lego piece or the mat, but she pulls down his pyjama pants from the back and his mind is blocked.
'I'll tell him the patch was pulled off by the same pirate who stabbed me in the eye in the first place.'
How is it that she's speaking so fluently, so assertively, when he's finding it hard to breathe? She must be distracted by the talk of pirate and patches, so Castle elects to rumble between their bodies, use the mattress to his advantage, and jack her up so he can fumble with the buttons of the top she's wearing.
It's his. If Castle wasn't so overjoyed that Kate Beckett is in his loft, smiling and being saucy and sexy, he'd be throwing a party about the fact that's she's wearing a blue, designer pyjama top of his, with underwear beneath, just so she could be modest while being hand-fed berry covered waffles on the kitchen counter. He's so in love with his life right now, it's ridiculous.
'Is this pirate a buccaneer, pray tell?' he whispers, low and suggestively in her ear, loving that the front of his pyjama top is now undone, and his hands have access to all areas. He hasn't lost count of the number of times they've made love, but if their first time was an awkward, fairly quick rumba in her bathtub after she'd been crying into her bubbles, then each subsequent interlude has been measured by learning, increased intimacy, precision worthy of extended experience.
Castle has been infatuation with anything Kate Beckett for a long time. Now that she's finally letting down her some defenses, he's going ensure he tries to solve every question there is about her. Even if it's by addressing their differences over public displays of affection, or her need to be bossy at work, or her fierce determination to flip him over so he's on his back.
He doesn't let her. Not this time, and the tactile struggle, the breezy push-pull of effort, and all the squirmy movements result in the most electrifying foreplay and erogenous tweaking.
'Move, Castle. I want to move.'
'You can move, all you want down there. But you need to tell me more about this buccaneer. Now … he wouldn't let you move.'
'I could shove that buccaneer on his ass,' she says, suddenly content to lie quietly and kiss. She touches him gently and seems willing to let him pilot his ship from top position despite her words. Or so he thinks ...
'Of course you could, Kate,' he says, in a slightly patronizing tone. 'You could kick any pirate on his—'
Her fingers lock on one ear, her tongue delves into the other, while her hand wiggles just low enough so that he's distracted by the chance that he's going to get hurt in the part that, moments ago, was about to get lucky. Grabbing at his rudder is not part of pirate play!
And in a flash, the man on a missionary above, is broken and entered from below. Um, or something equally as dirty-sounding as that.
Not that Castle cares too much. When Beckett, straddles him, bends her head and sucks along the line of his neck down his chest, he's happy enough to be the pirate who has had his wooden limb stolen by the deck monkey and now has no leg to stand on.
'You were saying, Rick?'
His name works its way around her palate and is spoken on a risen sigh. She's not as unaffected as she was before, and the glaze of both her eyes is enough to have Castle crossing his vision, and his fingers, in the mad hope that he will always be able to make her look this way.
Flushed. Worked up, so aroused, he feels as though she might break him.
'What were you saying? About me not being able to kick that buccaneer in his …'
When Castle sits up, uses his bulk to change everything angled and inward in a slick, incisive move, Kate can't even mutter the final word. His mouth is at the side of her face, into her hair, his tongue fiddling with her ear, and he grins to himself with the sheer pleasure of being able to render her speechless. Her lips are apart. Her legs fall either side of his hips. Her hair is messed, her skull lolls back and eyes shutter closed as though there's nothing more important to her than to gasp at what she's seeing behind those lids. What she's feeling inside those seconds of spasm and release.
Eventually.
Castle finally lets up. He's sweaty and sure, as though he's conquered another part of the hidden treasure, and he wishes his name was Roger. He could go on and on to Beckett about how Jolly his Roger is today.
'And that, Katherine Beckett, is what we know in our seafaring world as successfully walking the plank.'
She laughs.
'And what a hard length of wood it is! Yes?'
She laughs again, and the noise conks through her nose straight into his chest like the sweetest scent on offer.
The pirate theme continues all the way to the ophthalmologist, and the contagious nature of her happiness is enough to keep Castle on top of the world for at least a two-hour period of no-touching.
Though he sneaks a quick kiss in the back of a cab.
She half expects to have another lunatic cab driver. Kate wouldn't be surprised to see the manic expression of crazy Kurt coming at them from the front of the taxi as they travel downtown towards her eye specialist appointment.
The fact they have an efficient, friendly female only adds sunshine to an already vibrant day. Kate allows her thoughts to linger long enough on what she's actually feeling, and although she'd like to deny it, she doubts she's ever been this upbeat in her life.
If she could form an 'ewww' with her lips, she would, but the truth is she'd much rather be crashing them against Castle's reddened pair of lushness. It's a fact! He's been using his lips so much over the last few days, it looks like Castle has dabbled in one of her lipsticks and is now Rick the Red.
'You been using my lipstick?' she says, before she can stop herself muttering into his ear. 'Your mouth looks red. Shiny.'
'There's a very good, very satisfying reason …'
Castle darts her a look. A crooked smile and a quirk of his eyebrow is all it seems to take these days to make her restless with need. She cannot stop looking at his mouth, and he laps it up by puckering his lips in kissing mimicry.
'Imagine what Dr I Amcat will say when he sees my lips? He'll check out my puss, just like you're doing.'
'What? Just no, Castle.'
'What do you mean?'
'You don't need to use the word 'puss' when you meet Dr Amcat. It's not … that … it's not such a great word to use.'
'Beckett?' Castle starts, swinging an arm around her shoulders and pressing into her side. Kate doesn't move despite her convictions the previous night. 'A simple look into Irish history will tell you that the word 'puss' is equivalent to 'mouth'. And it's all a funny word pun, given that your ophthalmologist's name is Amcat and that puss is feline and relates to—'
'Here's your stop, folks,' says their cabdriver, negating Kate's need to press her fingers to his puss to shut him up.
He steals a kiss in the back of the cab, just before they alight. It reminds her of his words from the night before, about never swatting his hand away, never turning her head from his kiss in a public forum. The fact she doesn't — granted, she's not given much forewarning — plays on her mind as they locate the rooms of the ophthalmologist she'd (not) seen in the hospital.
The eminent Dr I Amcat.
Castle makes so many cracks about Dr I Amcat that by the time Kate and he are riding the elevator up to the ninth floor — 'ooooh, nine lives, Beckett. Dr I Amcat has nine lives' — she's about to make a fist and hit him in his reddened puss. Luckily, the elevator doors open and they're surrounded by Opthalmology Suite 101. There are pictures of eyes, models of corrective lenses, diagrams of the new technology relating to visual research.
Kate doesn't need to look at Castle to know that his eyes are agog and his mind is twinkling with interesting, trivia-related visions about the open consulting room space.
'Kate Beckett to see Dr Amcat,' she says to the receptionist, ignoring Castle as he finds a pitched-for-kids, foam eyeball and starts spinning it on his fingertip like a basketball. He's oblivious to Liz, the receptionist, and her stare-of-death pointing in his direction. Castle only has eyes for his basketball orb.
'What is he doing?' asks Liz, her nose twitching in annoyance at the mature man unsettling the pile of expensive, appropriate children's toys.
'He, um, touches things.'
The receptionist stiffens. She's unable to hide her agitation at Castle, but is flustered enough to address Kate. 'Ian Amcat is unwell and on extended leave. Um, you saw him during your recent hospital stay, I see?' When Kate nods, Liz continues with one angry eye on Castle, now jiggling the foam eyeball from hand-to-hand in a shout out to a weird form of eyeball sports. 'You'll have to see his colleague, Ms Beckett. It's Dr Furnace. She'll be with you shortly. If you'll have a seat? And sir? Put the eyeball down!'
Kate tries to hide her grin when Castle responds with his typical look of surprise, but he has evidently been listening attentively. 'No Dr I Amcat today? What's wrong with him? I hope he's not feline too badly and—'
'Castle!'
Liz is about to erupt. Her detective instincts on fire, Kate takes the dispensed-with foam eyeball from the reception counter, gives it back to Castle with a nod of her head to where he needs to put it away. Castle takes the toy, shoots her a lascivious grin and cocks his head at Liz. 'We're seeing Dr Furnace? I wonder if she's hot ..'
Just as Liz looks like she's about to direct a receptionist rant at Rick, a well-dressed woman appears from a nearby door. She's tall, ebony-haired, assertive and eye-catching.
'Kate Beckett?' she notes, looking down at the file, and then out past the reception area into a well-appointed waiting room. 'Appears like the gentleman scheduled before you has cancelled, so, guess what?'
Dr Furnace gives Kate a smile so warm, she finds herself heated by Castle on one side, the ophthalmologist on the other. But it's her foam eyeball friend that answers the rhetorical question. 'That gentleman lost sight of the time?'
The doctor glances from Kate to Rick and smiles wryly. 'I could make you guess again, um … friend of Ms Beckett, but I'm afraid we need to get started.'
She walks ahead of them, down the beautifully minimalist hallway and into the specialist area of the office. It's dimly lit. As the doctor takes a seat at her desk and encourages Kate to sit beside her, she flaps her hand to an empty chair near the door where Castle is expected to go.
'I'm Iris, by the way. Welcome, Kate. May I call you Kate?'
There's something about Iris that's very familiar, she thinks as she spots Castle in the eye-chart mirror mouthing "Iris Furnace"? and grinning as though he's won the character-naming lottery. She can imagine him saying 'who the hell names an ophthalmologist Iris Furnace, when (a) she is hot, (b) she's an eye doctor and hel-lo, IRIS! And (c) there's too many 's' sounds in that name?'
He stays quiet, but Kate knows that he's dying to say something. Somewhere, a voice taps at her head, screaming at her about knowing him far too well. She ignores that too and answers Iris.
'Kate's fine. This is Rick.'
Beckett watches with amusement as Iris Furnace merely nods in Castle's direction, as though she's oblivious to the fun he's having with her name. She seems very focused, almost one-eyed in her manner of examination and appraisal — oh, and now she's making ridiculous puns, Kate chastises herself as Iris lines up her ophthalmoscope for a viewing of the injured site.
There's no delicate way to get the eye examined. Kate learned this in the hospital when one of the consultant ophthalmologists had gotten so close to her with the scope, she felt as though he was angling for a kiss. It's no different with Iris Furnace. She might smell nicer than a registrar who has been on shift for twelve hours, but she's close enough for Kate to hear the bolt of her pulse.
'So, Kate? You took a pool cue to the eye, right? Must have affected your game?'
If there's anything more uncomfortable than having Dr Furnace speaking into her open mouth, it's that Iris is taking so much time looking into her good eye. Kate doesn't want to breathe in case the doctor is affected by the fumes of her recently ingested coffee. Iris asks her to look this way and that. To focus on the pinpoint light. To gaze into the corner of the room.
She spots Castle in the field of the mirror again and a breezy laugh escapes into Iris's face. Dr Furnace reacts with a smile, withdraws the scope and sits back for a moment.
'I take it your game was ruined after that particular incident? You know, Kate? You have incredible eyes.'
Kate waits for Iris Furnace to add '… for someone who has had a recent injury' or 'for a woman over thirty' or even 'because you have something special happening to the retina …' but it doesn't happen. The 'incredible eyes' comment is left there and the doctor directs her attention to the injured side.
'Yes. Really big eyes, huge dilation and exquisite colouring.'
'All the better to see you with, my dear.'
Castle's comment breaks the tension for Kate. She hears herself chuckle, and a small rumble from his spot in the room as he appreciates his own cleverness. Iris Furnace continues on as if Rick Castle isn't even around or worth the air in her practice.
'Do you play pool often, Kate?' she asks, drawing out the syllables, moving closer still to Kate's face and pivoting around with her scope. 'I bet you're good at it.'
'No. No, I'm not that good.'
Iris chuckles and it's soft, light and whispered so low, Beckett is sure that Castle can't hear it. 'I'm sure you're great at everything, Kate.'
Oh-kay, so Iris has a furnace that's nowhere near her eye. Kate decides it might be time to set the record straight, that she's here for a professional consult, not to be hit on by an attractive doctor with a scope in her hand. But she's so damn closetoherface. So close. Any way Kate turns, any word she utters, is absorbed straight into the doctor's aura, and horrifically? Kate's suddenly developed a tickle to her throat that's making her want to cough due to the irritation of her uvula.
She suppresses the cough reflex, but moves forward in her restraint and bunts so, so close to Iris Furnace. It's one of those awkward, 'I wish I had just coughed' moments.
'So, Iris?' says Castle, from somewhere beyond the furnace of eye doctor face-on-face. 'What are ophthalmologist students called in med school? Um, are they pupils? Do they lens each other their notes? Are their dorms usually like pig styes?'
Castle is so noisy in the background, Iris has little choice but to acknowledge his presence. Kate hears a tiny moan of annoyance escape the doctor's lips — she could hear her breakfast wander down her esophagus she's so freakishly close — and Dr Furnace is forced to move back from her examination at the sound of a clatter from near his seat. He's spun a model eyeball around on one of her desks and it topples over, drawing Iris to stare in his direction. Kate is part-flummoxed and-part relieved. At least she has some breathing space.
'Oops, sorry Iris. I think I knocked your model and put it into a glau-coma.'
As Iris mutters something about the need for care in her consulting rooms and starts to speak to Kate about the excellent recuperation of her eye, Castle throws her a look of bemusement. Beckett might have rolled her eyes at his corny jokes, his need to be part of the Iris hit-on, but she so pleased to have her personal space back, she simply smiles. Seems like she's been doing that a lot, and she wonders if it suits her.
'I can see you're very happy about the prognosis, Kate?' says Dr Furnace, dipping closer again, but without the excuse of her scope. 'You have any further questions.'
Like what about a date?
It's in Kate's head, but she wonders if it's on the tip of Castle's tongue, on the cusp of Iris's mind. She must be one sexy NYPD cop at the minute, because she's knocking the eye patches off a couple of admirers. And loving it. All this smiling must be very damn becoming.
'Am I okay to drive?' Kate asks.
'Absolutely. Going someplace special?' asks the doctor, a little less intrusively.
'Um, sure. A wedding. Gotta be at a wedding.'
Dr Furnace looks down at Kate's file, writes a couple of notes, and prepares to continue the final part of the examination with the aid of eye drops. 'Your own?'
Kate laughs, blushes and looks anywhere but over at Castle. What is with the personal questions and oversharing in this consulting room? The next time Beckett needs an eye appointment, she's going to demand to see Dr I Amcat's puss rather than being subjected to Iris's Furnace.
'Nope. But I get to drive a Ferrari …'
'As long as you see fit, Dr Furnace,' adds Castle, using only the tiniest eye pun.
'I see.'
Later, when all eyes are dotted and 'ts' are crossed, Castle stands, collects his coat and prepares to open the door for a eye-drop stunned Beckett. She can find her way with assistance, but the residue of the drops has left her vision fuzzy and her peripheral sight non-existent.
'Thank you,' Kate says, feeling slightly drunk and more content with her final treatment at the hands of Dr Iris Furnace. 'Good bye.'
The doctor farewells them both, but just as she is about to veer towards reception for her next patient, she diverts to Castle's elbow and nudges him gently.
'Oh, and if we meet again, Rick? Please don't ever think you can make cornea jokes than me. Okay?'
Castle nods in his appreciation, smiles and escorts Kate to the elevator in his best guide-dog-cute puppy manner. 'She was funny,' he says, pushing the button to call the lift and running his fingers along the inside of Kate's wrist just to get a reaction.
She pushes him away with a scoff. 'Castle! She was hitting on me.'
'I know! Wasn't it hot?'
She mutters something for his ears only, about double standards and how he would have been jealous if a male doctor had been doing the same thing. 'You're so predictable, Castle. But in a good way, sometimes …'
'Aww. A compliment! Hey, but Iris was looking at me lustily too, Kate,' he says, snatching her back against his arm with the slight downward step into the elevator. 'Did you ever think that maybe she's bifocal?'
Kate swallows a laugh, links her arm in his and asks to be taken to The Old Haunt. She needs a drink. Suddenly her throat feels like a furnace.
