A/N: To the guest reviewer who asked about the phrase 笨天生的一堆肉: I have no idea what it's supposed to mean either, but apparently it had been used as an insult in Firefly. It was my little nod to the show.

To my other reviewers: thanks so much for hanging around so long, and I'm glad you're still liking the story.

Now, onward we go!

Chapter Twenty-Five

Kate toyed with the rim of her drink as she cast surreptitious eyes at the club around her. Strobing lights flashed in a blinding rhythm, every slap of the heavy bass jogging her organs out of place. The dance floor was crowded with grinding bodies and slithering limbs, alcohol and inhibitions flying free.

Three days she'd been dangled as bait on this case, and she still had no idea whether Barkley was going to bite or not. Rance Barkley operated a mid-level call-girl service, and he was in need of new blood after Vice's last run at him almost managed to dismantle his business. Unfortunately, Barkley himself had managed to slip the noose through the use of a number of convenient scapegoats, but rumor was that he was looking to rebuild his mini-empire.

And Kate was going to be the one to take him down.

It gave her something to do, at least, in the weeks after Montgomery booted her off both her mother's case and Coonan's. It still rankled every time she thought about it, but she'd learned to subvert that frustration and anger into sharp determination to do her job and do it well.

If she became the best detective in the precinct—hell, in the whole damn city—who was Montgomery to tell her she couldn't take her cases?

The fact that the cases had been passed onto Esposito and not Slaughter was somewhat mollifying, but even though the OC detective kept up her up to date with the investigation, the sad truth was that there wasn't much to go on past Vong's rattling fear. And so it stagnated.

Esposito assured her that the case was open and still a priority for him and his partner, Ike Thornton, but she understood as well as he did that it was the lure of netting an international drug cartel that propped the case open, and not her mother's murder. That Johanna Beckett's name came up in the investigation was incidental and, in some ways, entirely irrelevant.

Kate suppressed a shiver when the door to the club swung open, and the frigid February breeze filtered in past bodies grinding up on each other on the dance floor. The days had been unaccountably warm for this time of year, but dressed to kill as she was in a tight red sheath that showed off her long legs and clung tenderly to the curves of her body, the brisk gust was enough to give her goosebumps.

She felt the heat of his body warming her back before she heard the deep murmur of his voice. "What's a beautiful girl like you doing sitting all by your lonesome?"

Kate stifled an inward groan at the line, but she forced her lips to curve up in a seductive quirk of her mouth as she cast him a shadowed glance. He leaned over her shoulder, his body coming far too close to be innocent as he waved for the bartender to get her another drink.

"Castle," she drawled with a long, slow blink, nothing about her demeanor giving away how absolutely livid at him she was. "What the hell are you doing here?"

She trailed her fingernails across the broad width of his shoulders, and she found herself wishing that he was wearing a tie. Then she could choke him with it.

As it was, the first three buttons of his deep blue shirt was parted, giving her an enticing view of firm muscles and a sprinkling of soft, downy hair. She hated him for how much the glimpse of his bare chest totally did it for her.

"Just helping you take a break is all." His gaze dipped down her body in a swift, hot perusal that sent flurries of heat erupting low in her abdomen.

That just ticked her off even more.

"Castle, I've been working this bar for days now to get Barkley to recruit me for his call-girl ring. I will hurt you if you ruin all that work for me."

"Hey, lookit that! I've been downgraded from certain death to certain pain. Progress."

"Castle—"

"Okay, okay. Evans sent me in here to tell you today's a wrap."

"What? I just got here."

"Yeah well, apparently you've been reassigned."

"What?!"

"Hey, I'm just the messenger. The only one here who, and I quote, 'looks like a rich, bored thrill-seeker looking for a good time.' I think it's supposed to be a compliment."

She grit her teeth, but knew that today was bust. This was stupid, taking her out in the middle of a sting, but she knew better than to argue right now.

Beckett slipped off the stool and pressed up close to Castle, unwilling to break character in case she needed to pick up this case again later. She couldn't resist digging her nails into the sensitive skin of the nape of his neck hard enough to leave marks.

"Let's go, messenger boy."

To his credit, he barely flinched at the sharp pain as he pulled her tight against him with an arm around her waist and lowered his mouth to her ear. "Careful, Beckett. The next time you sink your claws into me, I can't be held accountable for my actions."

A blaze of heat swept through her, exhilarating and wild, incinerating good sense along with caution.

She gave his cheek a mockingly fond pat. Pitching her voice low and dark, she issued her challenge.

"Just try me."

…

Castle's heart thumped hard in his chest, the potency of her sensuality slapping him across the face and pitching a ball of molten flames into his abdomen.

They'd been treading a fine line for weeks.

Ever since Beckett got kicked off the Coonan case, she'd been edgier. Dangerous. Not just with her work, either.

While their previous banter had been fun and easy with just of touch of sexy, now she volleyed his light-hearted innuendo with dark seductive glances that burned. Every interaction with her was a balancing act and more often than not, he cut himself on her whetted edges.

The bigger, better part of him knew that she was acting out and that it'd be unwise to cross that line with her while she was still floundering emotionally, but man, she was making it hard resist. No pun intended.

Or maybe pun intended.

Either way, Castle didn't know how much more pushing he could take before he pushed back.

As it was, he'd already written out his frustration in scenes that left his computer screen smoking and his pants uncomfortably tight. Most of them would never see the light of day, and the few that he was contemplating using would require heavy editing unless he wanted to change genres from mystery-thriller to bodice-ripper.

Somehow he didn't think Beckett would much appreciate the Nikki Heat: cop by day, hooker by night tag line. Especially since she didn't even know that Nikki existed yet.

Or that he planned on changing the whole trajectory of his next novel to revolve around Nikki.

Yeah. Probably good reasons to be nervous.

It didn't help matters that he was trapped in a car with an already pissed-off Beckett because of the impromptu end to her case. The potential for dismemberment was alarmingly high.

Beckett had been only slightly mollified when Evans told her it was Montgomery himself who'd ordered the pull in order to assign her on another case specifying her name. Of course, her temper flared up again when she realized she didn't have time to change since Montgomery wanted her at the new location stat.

Throwing on a standard NYPD windbreaker stashed in the trunk of her cruiser, Beckett dared him to say something about how the hem of her dress crawled up and up and up as she drove.

Castle knew better and decided to enjoy the view instead.

He thought about broaching the subject of Nikki—Gina was getting on his case about showing her an excerpt of his top-secret new novel, which he refused to do before getting permission from Beckett, and it'd gotten to the point where his publisher thought it was a scam and that he really had nothing written—but when he saw the unbanked fire in Beckett's eyes, he thought better of it.

In her current temper, she was liable—with the slightest provocation—to bite his head off.

And he wasn't exactly positive which one she'd go after first.

…

The way Castle kept flicking his gaze over at her was grating all the wrong nerves. His jaw bobbed up and down, like he wanted to say something but then couldn't decide if he should.

It was infinitely more distracting than his constant chatter. At least then she could just tune him out. Now her curiosity was piqued and he refused to satisfy that damn itch.

"Castle," she finally snapped, her tone sharper than she meant it to be.

He turned startled eyes to her. "What?"

"Just spit it out."

"I didn't say anything."

"Exactly. You weren't saying anything very loudly."

Instead of volleying back with some quip, he fell silent as he considered her. She had the uncanny feeling that he was deciding whether or not it'd be safe to break it to her while she drove.

Uh oh. That can't be good.

"Hypothetically—" he began.

Uh huh. Hypothetically. Riiiight.

"—how would you feel about a novel based on you?"

"A what?!"

Beckett would have slammed on the brakes if the taxi behind her hadn't been practically kissing her bumper the whole block down.

"It's just that this character—she's so vivid, I've never had a character talk to me the way she does. She's incredible and fascinating and the perfect character to segue away from Derrick Storm with—"

"Whoa, wait, what? You're not writing Derrick Storm anymore?"

She shouldn't feel so betrayed, nor should her stomach hollow out the way it was doing. A cloak of dread settled over her shoulders and her heart felt heavy with the thought of a world without the iconic ex-spy.

Derrick Storm had helped her through some of her darkest days and to imagine a world without any more of his stories?

Castle waved a hand at her, brushing off her turmoil of losing one of her most beloved characters in recent years.

"I've been thinking about killing him off for months now. Derrick is getting too dark, and he just wants to be put out of his misery."

"You can't do that!"

She stared at him in horror for so long that the impatient taxi driver tagging her bumper startled them with a loud honk.

Castle ignored her, a manic gleam in his eyes that was at once both fascinating and frightening.

"But Nikki. She's perfect. She's not this amoral character who'll do whatever it takes to finish the job. She's got a story, a fantastic story. She's strong, compassionate, but there's tragedy there too. She's hurt deep inside, but that's what makes her so very compelling."

"Stop! Just…stop."

Something of the absolute horror in her voice must have finally burned through the fog of fictional anticipation he'd enshrouded himself in.

Face ashen and eyes wide with something that looked disturbingly like betrayal, Beckett's knuckles glared white with her steel-fisted grip on the steering wheel.

"Beckett…"

"My life, Castle. Are you writing my life?"

It took him a fraction too long to understand, but when it finally clicked, the rosy glow of Nikki faded until all he saw was the reality of Beckett looking like he'd slapped her.

"No! I mean, yes, but no! It'll be you, but no one will know it's you."

He stared at her with wide eyes, childlike in their intensity and earnestness and she felt a piece of that fear of invasiveness dislodge itself because she knew he wouldn't intentionally put her life out there to be torn apart by the veracious appetites of the media.

"And my past? My mother?"

"It won't be the same. I swear, it won't be the same."

He held her stony gaze for as long as she could afford pinning him with it as traffic crawled by, and all she could see was the sincerity that colored his eyes a deep, hypnotic blue.

"You've already written the character, haven't you?" She accompanied the inevitable conclusion with a resigned sigh.

"Well…yes."

"So you're basically just telling me you've already done it. You're not asking for permission so much as you're informing me about something you've already decided."

He squinted his eyes and pursed his lips. "The Chinese have an idiom. 'Execute first; report after.'"

"Why do I feel like that's the principle you live your life on?"

"It's a good principle."

"For dynastic China maybe."

"Hey, if it works…" She shot him a glare and he lifted his hands in surrender. Then he dropped the jackass act, his eyes darkened by solemnity. "Look, if you're really that uncomfortable with this, I won't do it."

Part of her—the part that coveted privacy and relished life out of the limelight—wanted to tell him not to do it. Even if nobody knew it was her, Kate knew. And she didn't like the idea of her being put out there so cavalierly.

Yet, the other part of her—the part that still couldn't believe she interacted with her favorite author on an almost daily basis… That part of her was giddy and curious about how he saw her. And to have a whole character—a whole novel—based on her? It was a fangirl's dream come true. (Not that she was a fangirl.)

"And nothing about my mother's real case?"

"Absolutely nothing."

"And nothing that will make it obvious that the character is based on me?"

"Nothing."

She blew out a long breath. Maybe she'd been spending too much time with Castle because it could only be a fit of insanity that's making her agree to this.

"What's her name?"

"Nikki."

Nikki. Kate rolled the name around in her mouth and decided it wasn't awful. A little more California-surfer-chick than she preferred, but it could've been worse.

"Nikki…Heat," he said with relish.

Son of a…

"Nikki what?"

"Nikki Heat. Catchy, doncha think?"

"No. Change it, Castle."

"What? Why? It's a good name."

"It's a stripper name."

"Ah well, did I mention she's kinda slutty?"

"Castle—"

"Oh, hey look! We're pulling up to our address on the right."

Beckett swerved into a space on the curb just large enough to fit her cruiser, sending Castle a vicious glare as she slammed the gear into park and turned off the ignition.

"We are not done with this conversation," she warned, voice pitched low and dangerous. Then she kicked open her door and stomped out.

"Nice driving!" Castle called out belatedly.

Then he grinned.

That went well.

A/N: As always, I'd appreciate hearing your thoughts. Thanks!