On Sunday afternoon, Daniel was actually a little sad when the sleek black limo pulled to the curb outside his apartment building; he didn't want this weekend of revelry and camaraderie to end. But on the other hand, he did want to see his girl - the guys talking about how their wives would corrupt his sweet Andrea with ideas for pregnancy and wedding sex had given him ideas and he'd had to check himself on Saturday night from rolling over and cuddling up with Esposito in the hotel bed.

As there was only himself and Castle left in the limo, the man hopped out with him, helped him with his luggage from the trunk. Daniel wasn't surprised when the man pulled him in for a quick, tight hug.

'Thanks for everything this weekend, man.'

'And just think, next weekend, Valentine's with your baby mama and then your wedding,' Castle grinned. 'Think you can handle it?'

'I help bring babies into the world, Castle, I think I've got it covered.'

'Yeah, you say that now. Javier Esposito survived a bullet wound and psycho-ex-girlfriend trying to boot Meredeth from the hospital and he was shaking like a leaf in a high wind.'

Daniel laughed. 'Maybe it just hasn't hit me yet.'

'Trust me, you'll be like the rest of us, waiting impatiently at the altar and fussing with your tie, wondering why it has to be so tight.'

'Take care man, see you soon.'

He watched Castle hop back in the limo to head back to SoHo while Daniel went inside, up to his apartment to find his own sweet bride was in the shower. As her suitcase and purse were still by the end of the couch he knew she'd just barely beaten him home. He knocked on the bathroom door, stuck his head in. 'Andrea, honey?'

'Oh, Jesus!' In the shower, Andrea jumped about a foot out of her skin. 'Daniel, you scared me!'

'Sorry. You just get home?'

'Yeah, about ten minutes ago. Wanna join me?'

'Sure.'

Pulling his sweater over his head and dragging off the rest of his clothes, Daniel pushed the curtain back to find Andrea with suds in her hair and her face covered in some weird neon-blue goop. 'Did a Smurf run into you and go splat?'

'It's an all-natural beauty mask, the girls got it for me as a gift. We had a whole spa day yesterday.'

'Did you now?' he grinned, reaching past her for the shampoo for himself as Andrea rinsed the sticky cream from her face.

'Mm-hmm. We got our hair trimmed and styled, mani-pedis, facials, wraps, waxing, even massages, our choice of Swedish or shiatsu. I went for shiatsu. Nothing like that deep-down feeling of awesome. I've been waxed and buffed and pummeled and polished.'

'You guys didn't go out to a strip club or something equally embarrassing?'

'Nope.' Andrea held the shower-bar tightly, stretched to her tips toes to kiss her fiance. 'They came to us.'

'Come again?'

'The girls had the strippers come to us out at the house in the Hamptons. There was a pair of firefighters and a guy I think was supposed to be the Lone Ranger but he looked more like Zorro.'

Daniel had to chuckle. 'I heard stories on the weekend about what that lot did to Meredeth her last weekend as a single lady. Bet you she-wolves ate those poor guys alive.'

'Oh, no animals were harmed in the celebration of my last weekend as a single woman.' Andrea wrinkled her nose as she rinsed her auburn mane. 'I've always thought that was such a weird way to put it. I'm not single, I haven't been single in over a year.'

'I think it was originally meant as 'unmarried', as in not legally binding.'

'Well, even so I...oh, who cares,' she laughed. 'Two weeks from today, we'll be on our way to Greece to celebrate our first weeks together as husband and wife.'

'Damn right we are. In fact, once we get out of this shower, I think we should practice for that night.'

He rooted at her throat, effectively washing the soap from his hair and making Andrea sputter at water that poured off his forehead. 'Once we're done in here.'

'Fine, if you insist.' The mock annoyance in Daniel's voice was undercut with a grin. 'Just as well, the bed is far safer and more spacious than a shower. Although, there was that little dip we took on New Years at Castle's place.'

'Oh, man, don't even joke about that. After hearing the stories I did this weekend, well...suffice to say I'll use the downstairs bathroom more often when we visit.'

'That bad huh?'

'Dell was conceived in that upstairs bathroom, amongst other goings-on,' Andrea told him, which had Daniel chuckling.

'Not surprising from the way I heard Kevin Ryan brag about his wife this weekend. At least we can tell our little one we made him or her on the living room floor.'

'And won't that make family movie night just delightful?' she giggled, shutting off the water and ripping back the shower curtain for a towel. 'Here, we'll share.'

Daniel stepped out to give her some room and standing on the bathmat, watched her rub the soft terrycloth over her shoulders, around to her breasts, down her torso; each pass had him swallowing tightly and he felt the blood run hotter in his veins as he watched that soft, womanly lower half of her torso where their baby was quietly growing inside her. When she'd finished, she handed him the towel and smiled gently with her grey eyes sparkling like misty jewels.

'Here, your turn.'

He took the towel, dried off the beaded water from his skin, then looped it around her waist, pulled her close for a kiss. He lingered on her lips, hands on her backside to keep her close. 'Mm, Andrea, my love, I must have you now.'

'Heehee, you sound like a hero from some Harlequin romance novel.'

'Ja, my name is Hans, and I've come to ravish you my little edelweiss,' he said in an exaggerated Germanic accent. With his cinderblock-sized arms, he scooped up his beautiful girl and carried her into their bedroom and twisted so when he landed on the bed Andrea sprawled on his chest. Reaching up a tender, gentle hand, he tucked the rope of damp auburn hair behind her ear. 'My gorgeous girl.'

Andrea leaned down, pressed her lips to his. He tasted fresh and masculine, and smelled even better from their shower together. The feel of him already hot and growing hard against her made her sigh into his mouth. Here was love, arousing and comforting all in one - her gorgeous man with his even more beautiful mind and heart and soul. She moved so her body stretched on top of his, legs tangling and hips against his, her sweet secretive places touching his.

Daniel groaned as his hands traced over her smooth back, pulling her tight to him; the feel of her breasts against the fine blonde hair hairs on his chest made him move underneath her. He touched her brow, saw the look in her eyes and nipped her lower lip. It would not be the acrobatics his friends had hinted at, but love-making in the truest sense of the word: showing this woman, his bride and the mother of his unborn child, how much she meant to him by giving her nothing but pleasure in its purest form. He twined one rope of her fiery hair around his finger, then groaned even louder when she arched against him.

'Andrea, you feel so good, baby.'

'I missed you.'

'I missed you too. Both of you,' he added, rolling so she was underneath him and he could stroke a hand over her belly and let it drift up to her breast. They'd already started to become heavy with hormones from pregnancy and in his mind, had never looked better. His thumb grazed her nipple and she sighed in reflex, hips grinding against his. Daniel grinned, she'd always loved his hands on her body and was no longer shy about letting him know just how much she loved them touching her. His other moved over the soft skin of her torso to the other one.

'Daniel.' Andrea sighed out his name, shifting so her legs hooked over his hips. The sensation of his touch so sweet on her body, where all those nerve endings were clustered together and sending white-hot bullets of lust zipping through her system and ending in the place between her thighs where her fiance was cradled. She let her hands fall away as she arched her back into his touch so she filled his hands. When he lowered his mouth to one, she let out a loud gasp at the gentle rasp of his tongue against such sensitive skin.

He smiled as he suckled and teased her; the heat rising from her body was enough for a man to drown and that's what he planned to do. After, of course, he'd made her see stars and she him. When he lifted his head to see her face, saw it was lax with the twin powers of love and lust, he stroked his palm down to where they were pressed together so intimately and touched her to test her readiness.

'Andrea.' Her name was a murmur, a promise on his lips as she closed her hand over him and guided him inside her wet, womanly vault. He moaned as her hips bucked upwards so he was buried deep inside her; he watched her eyes glaze cloud with erotic delight as they began to move together.

It was amazing, Andrea thought, as her nails dug light furrows in the soft skin between his shoulder-blades. This beautiful and powerful man could be so impossibly sweet and tender, and always managed to make her feel like the sexiest, most gorgeous woman in the world. Most especially in moments like this; it was her last conscious thought as the first tremors began to overtake her body. Then it was like being crushed by an ocean wave, as the orgasm swamped her senses and she gasped out his name in broken breaths and syllables with the pleasure cresting inside her.

Daniel closed his eyes, his face buried at her throat as he felt her come in a single glorious explosion. She clenched vise-like around him, her hips moving at a frenetic rhythm against his, yet somehow he managed to stay focused on giving her what she needed. There'd been times in their relationship when it had been reversed, where it was her setting the pace to show him how much she loved him and he knew there would be times like that in their marriage as well, but in the last few months, it was about him being there for her. Right now, it was not a hard sacrifice to make, he knew.

Then everything was gone and there was only her telling him she was coming again, and this time when she shuddered against him in pleasure, he let himself shudder and succumb with her.

They lay twined together in their big, comfy bed, the afternoon light glinting through the window as they both tried to catch their breath.

'Well,' Daniel murmured, pulling the sheets up and over their cooling bodies, 'that's one way to welcome each other home.'

R&R&Enjoy!