Disclaimer: If I was Marlowe i could afford a cell phone that actually works.

Chapter Twenty-Five

"No I cannot get you out"

"Dinner was great wasn't it?" Castle asked between heavy breaths and kisses.

They were back at the loft again and both Castle's mother and daughter had gone up to their rooms, leaving Castle and Beckett alone. Rick had Kate pinned against the wall in the living room and was currently attacking her neck with his lips. She moaned as he reached her pulse point and started sucking feverously on it.

"It was," she agreed, barely able to speak. She wished he would stop talking. She just wanted his lips on hers and his hands to roam her body.

"I love how easily you, Alexis, and my mother can talk," he admitted.

"Your family is great," she told him sincerely.

"You're a part of my family too you know." He backed up a step so he was no longer touching her as his blue eyes searched for her hazel ones.

"I know," she said in a small voice. It scared her how okay with that she was. If any other man had said that to her she would have ran, but here and now with this man who loved her and whom she loved, she was okay with it. She really did adore his daughter and mother and was glad that she had been accepted into this little family.

"I mean, I know you still need your space and all and you're not ready to move in yet but I love having you around here so much and I don't want you to go back to your apartment even after it's deemed safe." He was rambling on now and she cut off his words with her lips.

"Rick, I promise you we will discuss this. Just not now. I'm not saying I never want to live with you, but at the moment it's just too soon."

"Okay," he agreed. "Just let me know when because I can have the closet cleaned out in no time and..."

Her finger went over his lips and she gave him a sultry little smile. "Castle, shut up and show me what else your mouth can do." She wanted his lips on hers now. She wanted them on her breasts, on her thighs. Then there was his fingers; she wanted his fingers to trail all over his body until they reached the spot she wanted them the most.

His mouth met hers, hot and wet. Pulling on each other's lips with their teeth and sucking on each other's tongues, hands started to roam and clothes started coming off.

"Castle, I think you better take me to your bedroom now," the detective panted.

For once the writer did exactly what he was told.

~O.o.O.o.O~

Sometime after round three, Castle was laying next to Kate, lost in thought.

"What's wrong?" Kate asked him, trailing her fingers through his hair.

"I didn't realize you were still awake," he said, pulling her closer to him in his arms.

"Have been for a while," she admitted, "What's on your mind?"

"Alexis," he finally sighed, "I just can't believe she's going off to college in a month."

Kate wondered when this issue was going to come up. She knew he was worried that going off to college meant Alexis would be going to more parties and getting involved with more boys but Alexis was a good kid and could handle it.

"She'll be fine Castle. She's smart."

"I know she is," Castle agreed, "I'm just worried that I'll never get to see her. I feel like I'm being abandoned."

"You're not being abandoned Rick," she told him, running the back of her hand down his cheek. "She'll still be in the city," she reassured, "you'll still get to see her." Lightening her tone she added, "Besides, your mother and I are still here. You're not getting me out of your life that easy."

She kissed the cheek where her hand had just been and he relaxed. She was right, he was being irrational in thinking that he would never get to see his daughter. She was also right when she said he still had her and his mother.

Just a couple of short months ago, if you had told Rick that he would be lying in bed with the woman he loved while she reassured him that he wasn't getting her out of his life anytime soon, he would have thought it was impossible. After he heard her tell the bombing suspect in interrogation that she remembered everything about her shooting, he figured she didn't love him back. He had been so very wrong about that.

~O.o.O.o.O~

The call came just before six in the morning. Beckett answered her phone sleepily and Ryan's voice came through the other end informing her that a body had been found in an abandoned warehouse. Not just any body: Abby White's body, and she had been tortured and beaten to death.

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