I started this fic, thinking it was a quick romp at the end of a long emotional night, with a few confessions to top it off. I had no idea it would take them here, and there, and there, and there.

Many thanks to BerLina. Without her expert beta skills this never would have polished so nicely.

And a big thank you to the people who helped this story hit nearly 40,000 hits and 200+ followers with it's first 13 chapters. Hope the 14th finishes it up nicely for you all!

~K

The Things Mothers Would Approve Of

Chapter 14: Getaway

With each click of her heel across the tile her mind screamed, "Shit. Shit. Shit." The little echoes inside her brain from her words and heels seemed to mock her. Heat licked her face and she wondered how long it would be before someone said something blunt. Had anyone heard her? Had anyone seen?

Beckett wondered how long her Writer Boy would have to hide in the bathroom. She hoped it wasn't till lunch.

She sat down at her desk and went through her email box. Filing things away before deleting them. But still no Castle. When she scanned the room for him again, her eyes connected with Esposito's pair. A small wink.

"Shit." She uttered. Rising from her desk she picked up her keys. She paused at Esposito's desk. "Have you seen him?"

"Nope."

"I'm taking a personal day." She commented, as Esposito fumbled with his coffee mug and sent it spilling. With a dismissive look, she headed in to see Captain Montgomery.

As she walked away Castle's voice echoed around his brain. "Shit. Shit. Shit." With a hiss he pulled the condom off, and threw it onto the counter beside the wrapper. His options were limited, fully erect in the tiny ladies locker room. Expecting an unwelcome guest in less than 10 minutes. Aside from sneaking out the back stairwell and not coming back he really only had 2 options.

Deal with it now or talk it into waiting for lunch. His cock throbbed and his balls ached just thinking about the soft warm places within Kate Beckett. He didn't doubt with a few swift touches he'd have it done, thinking of her was almost enough on its own.

Considering he was alone in a locker room for the opposite gender, in a police station, he thought it better to skip the date with Mary Palm. The only real option was to talk it down and sneak out the back stairwell. She'd give him hell for ditching the station, but he'd have the recent abandonment during a very uncomfortable situation as his defense.

Puppies. Homeless puppies.

What else had he used before? He'd gotten quite good at taming these things over the last 3 years working by her side.

Baseball Stats. Shit, baseball bases. It may have worked before, but not now. Baseball made him think of how amazing her body had responded to him when they made love.

Roadkill. Visualization of the slaughtered deer on the roadside up to the Hamptons last month seemed to do something. He thought about the unnatural way its neck had been turned, the rotten bloat that had set in from the heat. That left the situation manageable.

Careful not to give it anything more in the wrong direction, he pulled up his boxers and pants. Tucking his mostly erect cock upwards and leaving his shirt untucked. If anyone stopped him, he was feeling under the weather. Hopefully that would cover his flush, frustration and his rumpled look.

With a peek out the door, he darted towards the back steps.

Beckett flicked her phone to life, shooting him a text as she boarded the elevator. Montgomery had simply smiled and given a wave for her to go. He hadn't bothered asking for an explanation. She figured in his eyes, one of her dozens of unused days, was trusted to be used well. He had no idea.

A smile crossed her features when she remembered the look in Rick's eyes as he pleaded with her to come two nights before. She clutched her legs together in the elevator down. Orgasm or not, she was still wound up. She rationalized it was the lingering adrenaline from nearly being caught.

Did you get out? She sent off.

Yes. Came back. No thanks to you. Chimed in almost instantly as she stepped off and crossed the lobby.

Would it help if I said I left and was considering a cab to your place?

Where are you right now? Appeared as she stepped out the precinct's front doors. She smiled, and hit her speed dial. When his ringer went of nearly behind her, she jumped.

"Hi." He growled. Her face softened.

"I'm sorry." She told him, meaning it. When she'd realized how close to getting caught they'd come, she'd panicked. There was no way she'd have been able to carry through. But leaving him, on high alert, hadn't been her wisest choice.

He gave a little nod, before stepping into her space. "I'm back to throbbing just seeing your shirt with a missed button." Her horrified gasp revealed that she had no clue that she'd misaligned two button holes in her hurry.

"Damnit Castle!" She threatened. "I just talked to Montgomery and Esposito." She saw his body tense, before he burst into a soft chuckle. He was thankful he hadn't been the first one to give themselves away.

"As soon as we get in a cab I'm kissing you." He promised. "And I will personally correct the buttons." Rick provided, already visualizing undoing and redoing one button at a time to give her modesty and a tease.

"Whatever." She told him in a pitch he'd come to realized really meant just that, whatever. He waved as a cab approached.

He held the door as she bent to get in.

"Oh NO!" An oddly familiar voice rang out from the inside, "I remember you! You no listen to me! You make sex into my cab!" He shouted. Beckett's eyes darted over the open door to Castle.

"That's okay." Castle explained, pulling her away from the cab. "We remember you too. We'll get the next one." He shut the door and watched the man peel out, shaking a fist and no doubt shouting obscene Russian.

"What do you suppose the odds of that are?" Rick asked as he hailed the next one.

"About one in 13,000." She offered.

Kate hadn't expected them to head to his apartment in SoHo. So when Rick gave his address to the new cabbie instead of hers, she'd been a little startled. His lips came gently to hers, and when he pulled back, true to his word he corrected the buttons. His gentleness, especially after what they'd done in the station, left her mouth gaping. The only thing he'd done beyond slip the tiny little bits of hard plastic through the holes, was skim a hand ever so gently across her right breast. The result left both nipples painfully hard and full when he pulled away.

"When do you need to be back?" He asked carefully, eyes lingering over her lips.

"I don't. I took the day off."

Leaving Castle speechless was something she could get used to.

Rick hadn't anticipated keeping his hands to himself in the elevator ride up. Especially since his cock continued to throb from the waistband of his boxers in the memory of their last elevator ride. But the presence of old Mrs. Roth left them barely touching. Kate swayed just slightly, brushing her hip against his side. When the elevator stopped at his neighbor's floor, his voice squeaked as he wished her well. Kate floated further into his space and his arm slipped around her waist.

"This is hell." he huffed and explained. "Elevators."

"Probably." She offered as the car stopped at his floor. They slipped apart and he surprised himself when he opened the door without bringing her lips to his own.

"Want anything?" He asked, stopping at the fridge and waving a bottle of water. It amazed her that he'd bothered to ask, knowing how they'd left things at the station. A quick note towards his fly revealed he was either still straining the material of his pants, or simply aroused again. She shook her head no, staring towards his office and the bedroom she knew lay beyond. Last year, she'd spent the night here in his home, but hadn't taken more than a few steps into the section of the loft that was his territory.

"You going to show me your bedroom?" She asked in response.

"God, yes." he confessed, grabbing the water and practically jumping the counter.

She followed behind him, trying to decide how close to trail. When had her every move become so criticized by her brain? He abandoned the water on his dresser top. When she followed his hands with her eyes, they got side tracked by a photo that sat propped in a frame. It was her, wind blowing her hair, as she stood with Lanie. She recognized her friend easily, despite the fact her back was to the camera. The look on her own face the only focus of the photo. "Does it make me a stalker?" He asked, nerves apparent in his voice when she crossed to him to study it.

"I remember this." She replied, touching the frame. "You took it with your phone. We'd been laughing about how good Italian sounded, despite the blood and body we'd just finished with."

"I was stunned it came out so well, but this phone's camera has more megapixels than my first two digital cameras combined." He nodded. She brought his mouth to hers then, and he made no protest when her tongue slipped inside.

"I'm sure." She told him, momentarily confused when he held her back from him. Distance wasn't what she'd expected.

"Of?"

"Everything." She offered. "You told me I needed to be sure, two nights ago. If I was sure then, I'm very sure now. Of this. Of everything." She sighed, as he pulled her to his chest. His heart pounded beneath her ear, it sounded so fast she was actually scared that he was having some sort of anxiety attack.

"I'm in love with you Kate." He told her. His voice, also sure it was the right thing to say.

"I know." She murmured from his chest. "It's the same." She told him, still not able to will it completely to life with her voice. When his lips met hers, it was a sweet torture. Before she'd even realized what she'd confessed the kiss turned from a simmer to a boil.

"Becks." He whispered as he sucked a breath, "God Becks." Her hands snaked into his hair, pulling the short strands as she kept him to her mouth. His body pressed into hers as hers pressed back. Rick shifted them back towards the bed, falling with her.,

"I'm really scared." She confessed as he unbuttoned her shirt. When he bent to unclasp her bra, and sucked a tight nipple into his mouth, she nearly forgot why.

"I am too." He told her as he trailed his mouth across to the other dark nub as his hand slipped down to tease her mound tucked within her pants. "It's new, but you don't have to worry." He offered, lifting himself up and helping her slip the open bra and shirt from her shoulders. Resting up on his knees between her hips, his shirt flew across the room. "This is just another layer of us. The rest is still there." He offered knowing, deep down, change scared almost everyone. Their remaining clothes disappeared in a frenzy. He found himself on his back as her mouth trailed over his body. When her teeth scrapped across his nipple, he gasped. Her answering smirk was etched into his memory.

He didn't hide the groan that roared to life when her hot lips surrounded him and drew him deep. She licked and sucked the tang of salt from his tip, her hand lightly fondling his balls as they hugged tightly against his body in desperate need for release.

"Kate. Kate. Kate. I love you." He vaguely heard his own voice confess again. Without the risk of drowning from the shower, she found it easier to consume him. Her answering hum sent his hips flying up, "You gotta stop." He begged. With a defeated sigh she released him to roll on a condom. Crawling up his chest, her body almost seemed to vibrate against him.

"Were you wishing for pigtails to pull?" She teased.

"No." He confirmed, "This." He moaned as he brought her down and slipped easily into her drenched heat. She rode him, arms braced on the headboard of his bed. His struggled with a battle between gripping her hips and capturing a swaying breast. He took the time for both, stopping to roll the nipple gently between his fingers. When her muscles pulled him tighter, he thought he'd die.

"Oh." She cried out, with a final rotation of her hips. Her eyes found his, and he saw it. More clearly than he had before, the spark of her that loved him, without needing to say the words.

Before she'd recovered, he'd flipped them. Her hair spilled across the pillow and he felt unworthy of her grace. Her hips met his, thrust for thrust as he felt his balls tighten even further. "Rick." She gasped, her hands rising to hold onto his arms tightly. His breath came in little moaning pants accentuated by his thrusts. At last he dropped his head and buried his face in her cherry scented hair, moaning softly in her ear. The tickle of his hot breath, the feel of his cock swelling inside her as his pelvis connected firmly with her nerves was enough. She came with him.

His weight fell on her and she didn't even care. She liked the feeling of being pressed into the bed by Richard Castle. A man her heart had fallen in love bits at a time first through books, then from his jokes, crazy ideas and caring soul. She loved him. One and done.

The tears caught her by surprise as he rolled away to throw the condom, his arm still clinging at her waist, not allowing their bodies to fully part. He sighed, sounding both hurt and defeated as he returned to fully look at her. Her eyes found his, and he brushed a tear off her cheek. "Why?" He asked, confused at why the tears were back. Was this forever going to be a challenge?

"Love." She choked, "I love you." As her body cried in earnest, his kiss brushed across her forehead, before he swiped more tears.

"Get it together." He teased, "You can't cry every time we make love or it's going to crush my spirit." A broken chuckle came from her lips as she sat up, not bothering to pull a sheet to cover her naked chest. She smiled watery at him and he rose to sit beside her.

"I worry what my mother would say." She told him, leaning into his chest.

"She'd probably tell you to skip the details." He offered, "But don't you think she'd want this for you? To be happy? You are happy, right?"

"Yes. Yes." She confirmed with a shaky breath.

"Then she approves." He promised. "I think she would approve of you flying to St. Lucia for 10 days as well. So it's not an obscene waste of money and sunshine."

"You overbid on that trip."

"It was a good cause and I had an eye on this girl I wanted to take." He confessed. She stared at him incrediously.

"I'm asking you on vacation. Sun, sand, sex and marvelously murder free." Rick told her seriously, "I'm not asking you to marry me."

"I sure as hell hope not." Blurted from her mouth.

"Maybe a long someday from now." He whispered.

"Will we survive until then?" Kate asked.

"Never been so sure of anything in my life." He told her with promise.

"Me too." She confirmed.

And meant it.

Sex to Sap. Anything sweeter would just cross the delicate in-character line.

Thanks for reading this wonderful project to the end. I certainly hope it was as much fun to read as it was to write!