She stands there, wrapped in a towel, listening to him hum while he finishes his shower. She's breathlessly hoping he'll come in here, where there is a curtain, and at the same time hopes he doesn't because there's no way she can be quiet enough to remain undiscovered should someone else walk into the room.

She closes her eyes to imagine him in the other side of the wall, covered in suds. She imagines being in there with him, her fingers stroking up and down, up and down his big... hard... chest. And arms, too. Those arms are perfectly lickable. She's feeling flushed again just thinking about his upper body and tries to force her mind to not imagine anything lower on his anatomy. But he wouldn't be humming if he had already turned the water to cold, so she can't help but imagine - no, remember - in vivid detail -

"Rrrrrr! Cold cold cold cold!" She hears him gasping through the wall and laughs out loud at him. "Not funny! You can walk around all hot and bothered and not cause a scene! It's not fair!"

She would normally roll her eyes and make a snide remark about him being so arrogant, thinking it would cause a scene for him to walk around like that, but now that she's seen him at full attention... "Karpowski would faint."

Rick laughs at that and turns off his cold shower. It's not lost on him that Kate just agreed with his boast. He towels off and pulls on his sinfully soft silk boxers. That's what she'd called them when she'd pulled a pair on as shorts at some point over the weekend. Kate Beckett wore my silk boxers and my tee shirt to lounge around my apartment between rounds of sex in my bed. With me.

Unable to stop his grin, he redresses in his smart, gray, tailored suit. He leaves the top button of his collar open because he's noticed how she watches his adam's apple move when he speaks. The shirt is royal blue because he catches her secretly staring even more when he wears blue... she's done that the whole time he's shadowed her and has never learned that he knows she checks him out, too.

He checks his hair in the mirror. Perfect. Of course, how could she not check me out? Hmm... that's definitely a thought I don't need to say out loud.

"Kate? Are you about ready?"

"Yeah. Just a minute." She had stood there trying to cool herself down for several minutes and is now finally getting dressed.

She checks herself in the mirror and wonders if she looks pretty today. Usually, she gets dressed confident that she looks good, or at least good enough to chase down killers, but over the last four years she's wondered more frequently what Castle thinks of particular outfits. Of course, she's noticed when he checks her out. Sometimes he doesn't even bother to hide it, like when she was bent down writing on the murder board, and he was unabashedly staring at her ass. She smiles at the memory. She looked over at him, and his eyes slowly made their way up her body, finally meeting her eyes with a wicked grin. She'd straightened up and looked flustered, and Ryan saw the whole silent episode.

It wasn't that she disliked him looking at her like that... it was that she liked it too much.

I bet I could dress as a bag lady, and he'd still look at me like that. No man had ever made her feel so wanted. Even so, she still touche up her make up. She doesn't even bother to lie to herself and say it isn't to look good for him.

When she finally walks out of the locker room, he's leaning a shoulder against the wall with his back to her, fully engrossed in a game on his phone. She takes in his broad shoulders and closes her eyes to try and push away the memory of what kind of power is hidden under that coat. Closing her eyes only makes it easier to visualise, though. She reaches him in three steps and places a warm, soft kiss on the back of his neck, snaking an arm around him. "Let's get back to work."

He pockets his phone, takes her hand, and leads them to the elevator. She expected him to turn around and kiss her. How does he have more self control than I do?

Once the are in the elevator, he pulls her firmly against him and kisses her passionately, just long enough to leave her breathless again. "I might have to do that several times today. Then he pushes the button for the homicide floor.

When they exit the elevator, they're talking and looking perfectly normal. "Coffee?" he offers.

"Yeah. Okay, Ryan, what do we got?" She walks to the other two detectives as Castle heads to the breakroom.

Her fingers tingle when his touch them while passing her her cup. She simply nods at the murder board. "What's it going to be today, Castle? CIA, aliens, or demons?" Her normally mocking smile is gone, now replaced by a sweet smile simply teasing him.

"An alien possessed by a demon being manipulated by the CIA." Esposito grins (mostly because he likes how Beckett is smiling) and Ryan shake his head. "What? check it out. It's a solid theory."

"Yeah, Castle. How is it a solid theory?" She's mocking him a little bit.

He points at a picture on the board. "That woman is an alien - from Jordan - and she's gotten out of so much trouble that it's possible that she's somebody's asset - why not the CIA? - and did you see what kind of trouble she caused? Totally demon posessed. Or just really OCD. Stalking, associating with other known stalkers... I'm glad I don't have a big tree in my back yard. They'd stake their claim on different branches just to see in the windows-"

"Castle! When did this become about women stalking you? So she followed the guy around. That doesn't mean she killed him." Kate looked at him, something worrying her. "Do you have a stalker?"

"Not at the moment, but I have before. Why? Are you jealous?"

"No, that was just rather detailed about the tree." Ryan and Esposito wander back to their desks and pretend to not eavesdrop.

"Oh, yeah. The cabin in Oregon we used to go to had a big tree, and somebody climbed it to peep in." He quiets his voice. "Don't worry. No one will be able to see you in my bed. We could do it on the balcony if you want an audience, though." He grins as she whacks him on his arm.

"Keep it up, and we won't make it to the bed."

Knowing she meant he wouldn't be getting any if he didn't cool it at work, he deliberately misunderstood. He lowered his voice and nearly growled in her ear, "Keeping it up isn't a problem, neither is not making it to the bed. I'm quite sure we won't even manage to make it out of this building."

Her heart pounds, wondering if he'd already found a spot they could sneak off to where they wouldn't get caught. Lunch break would be coming soon, and she might have to satisfy her appetite then.

Please review! I'm addicted to them. They're like the wonderful sound of a good fire crackling, the smell of a campfire, and the warm crispy gooiness of a slightly burnt marshmallow.

And the "Bolivia" story I linked to has been updated, too. You should go read it. You'll like it. And FanficwriterGHC has a cool original story you might like. The link is on her profile.