She wakes to find him curled at the foot of the bed, his hair flopping down over his forehead, eyes shining brightly. The low sounds of his murmurs fill the room, washing over her with the late afternoon sunshine, warming her skin. He grins up at her when she twines her fingers through his hair, nails scraping over his scalp. The brush of his stubble makes her jump when he presses a quick kiss to the swell of her abdomen before shimmying up the bed to gather as much of her in his arms as he can.
"The kid gets a kiss before I do? That's how it's gonna be now?"
He laughs when she yawns, her jaw clicking loudly. "The kid was awake. You weren't."
"Mm-hmm," she hums, tugging him in for a long kiss, the slick slide of his lips pulling her the rest of the way to consciousness. "You've been greeting my stomach before my face for at least three months."
"Well, it's the first thing to enter the room so -" Castle trails off as she swipes at him, her palm connecting solidly with his shoulder. Kate glares at him and he grins down at her, wrapping his fingers around her wrist and dropping his lips to the base of her palm. "Save the physical abuse for the delivery, Beckett," he advises, damp lips dragging over her pounding pulse. He climbs over the mountain of her stomach, settling himself down behind her, sweeps the long sheet of hair from her neck. She can't help the groan that rumbles in her chest when his fingers dig into her tense muscles, seeking out the stubborn knots she's been carrying almost as long as the baby. "One week to go," he whispers, his sock covered toes pushing into the arch of her left foot.
"I know." Kate shakes her head, her cheek pressing into the pillow as she spreads her fingers across her distended abdomen. The baby hasn't stopped fidgeting in days, a constant series of flips and kicks that keep her up at all hours, her mind over-tired and her body over-stimulated. "Seems like just yesterday we were sneaking off to have drunken sex in the stairwell at your book launch."
His breath is hot against her neck when he chuckles, hips bumping gently against the curve of her ass. "We can never tell her the story of her conception."
"That's not a story anyone needs to hear, Castle, much less our daughter."
"You realize that since all of our milestones involve sex or alcohol -"
"Or both."
" - that we literally have no stories that are acceptable to tell our kid?"
"Well, then," Kate sighs, a shiver sliding lazily down her spine as his lips ghost over her neck, "it's a good thing I married a man that makes stuff up for a living."