Disclaimer: They're not mine. I'm only borrowing them for the summer. Andrew Marlowe is doing a spectacular job. Way better than I could ever do.


And All The Mornings Ever After

Chapter 56 – Atlas Shrugged

The steam in the bathroom was cleansing as it swirled around them like a fragrant fog, caressing their damp skin and easing away the stress of the day before rising up towards the ceiling in a haze of wispy, opaque curls.

"These heated mirrors are impressive," commented Kate, enjoying the ability to apply her make-up, even with the humidity from their overly long, overly (ahem) busy, shared shower still filling the room.

"Oh, yessss," nodded Castle, pleased as punch, as he dipped his razor back under the faucet to rinse it off in the stinging hot water.

The lower half of his face was covered in an aromatic, light blue foam; extra sensitive shaving gel that he ordered online from some fancy French website.

Kate bumped her hip playfully against his.

"Got any other beauty secrets you'd care to share?" she teased, watching him ogle her shamelessly as she leant towards the mirror once more with her lip liner poised in her hand.

Her breasts hung down when she bent forward, soft, rounded and full, her hips and stomach pressed to the edge of the vanity, and she could swear she heard Castle swallow, even over the sound of running water, his eyes trained on her body relentlessly.

"You…uh…" he stared at her, the razor now forgotten, still dripping in his hand.

"Yes?" she asked innocently, feeling like a powerful vixen as she teased him mercilessly.

"Sorry, it's gone," he said honestly, shaking his head. "You got me, Kate. Naked like that…no chance," he laughed, depositing a blob of blue foam on the end of her nose in revenge.

"Hey," she laughed, scooping it off with the tip of her finger.

When she turned to look at Castle, for somewhere to wipe the foam, she noticed that the fine hair on the back of his neck had grown back in, and so she deposited it there.

"What are you…?" he laughed, flinching away from her.

"Your neck needs shaved," she explained, wrapping her fingers round his bicep to bring him closer. "Here, let me?" she said, holding out her hand for the razor.

"My barber usually takes care of it. But things have been a little…crazy lately. Are you sure?" he asked, watching Kate pick up the can of shaving gel and shake it.

"Course. Don't worry, I won't cut you, if that's what you're thinking," she said, sliding one hand across his shoulder, soaking in the warmth of his skin beneath her fingertips as she turned him to face away from to her.

"No. No, it's not that," he said, sounding hesitant and just a little reluctant as she gently massaged a soft peak of foam into the tan skin all the way around the back of his neck.

"Then what?" asked Kate, puzzled by his reticence.

"I just…no one has ever offered to do that for me before," he answered truthfully.

"Why not?"

Kate frowned, stilling the light movement of her fingers through the silky lather to listen to him.

"I dunno…" he shrugged a little uncomfortably, embarrassed perhaps. "I suppose no one ever cared enough before," he replied, with heart-breaking candor.

Not for the first time Kate wanted to round up Castle's two ex-wives and lock them in a room together, with no mirrors, no make-up, and only one hairdryer between them, see how they liked that for a week or two. Let the selfish harpies fight it out amongst themselves.

"Well, that's just wrong," said Kate, planting a soft kiss between his shoulder blades, and then taking the razor from his hand, she began to carefully shave his neck.


She used her fingertips to press against the swell of his skull, just behind his ear, to tilt his head gently to the side, stretching the skin taut and angling him just so as she worked her way around. The fingers of her free hand settled low on his waist, slid down round his hip, holding him still, and Castle groaned, straining against her touch, slightly embarrassed by his body's obvious response to this simple, intimate task she was performing for him.

Kate kissed his shoulder, silently telling him it was okay. Her eyes met his in the mirror, flicked lower and then back up to his face. The sight of him so excited left her cheeks flushed with pleasure, her lips suddenly in need of moisture that she quickly supplied with a sweep of her tongue, drawing another groan from Castle and a throaty laugh from Kate.

When her nails grazed the sensitive skin of his scalp, he let out a long, slow breath through his nose, accompanied by the barest of allover shivers.

"Oh god, I could get used to this. Mm-hmm," he hummed, his eyes drifting closed as Kate's naked breasts brushed up against the warm, smooth skin of his back when she leant past him to rinse the blade off one more time.

"Not the only one," countered Kate, molding herself to him once she finished, their bodies pressed together, both needing to soak in this moment, holding the world at bay just a little longer.

Kate rocked them back and forth, gently, one arm draped across his chest, her front to his back, her lips on his shoulder as she watched them in the mirror until she had to force herself to let go.


She wiped the remaining foam from his now smooth, clean skin with a towel, patted it dry, and then handed it to him with a flourish.

"All done? Am I good to go?" he asked, clearing his throat. Keeping hidden the tight swell of emotion filling his chest at how grateful he felt to have her.

"Just one last thing," said Kate, digging around in her cosmetics purse.

Castle looked a little worried now.

"You're not going to pluck my eyebrows, Beckett, because I might be a metrosexual, but even I draw a line?"

Kate laughed.

"Your nails," she said, taking his right hand and lifting it up for inspection.

"They need cut, I know. But how did you…?" he asked, sliding his eyes up from their joined hands to her face.

Oh, he would never tire of that beautiful, expressive face.

"Because you have this thing that you do when they're getting too long, and…"

Kate stopped talking when Castle stared at her, amazed, and the silence between them grew heavy.

"…and you're not the only one who observes things, Castle," she said, surprising him with her honesty.

"What thing?" he asked, pleased at the interest she was showing in his wellbeing, beyond delighted by the attention and her admission that she watched him too.

"You clench your hands into fists until your nails dig into your palms and then I see you looking at them, inspecting the length as if they're annoying you."

"They are," he admitted.

"Well then," said Kate, uncurling his fingers from around her own, "hold them out."

"Wait," he said, pulling back a little.

"What? You don't trust me all of a sudden?" she laughed, a wonderful tinkling sound that bounced off the tiled walls.

"No. No!" he shook his head like she was a crazy person. Of course he trusted her. "Alexis normally does this for me," he explained.

"Oh, like a father-daughter ritual. I'm sorry. I didn't know," said Kate, now the one doing the pulling away.

"Kate," he said softly, watching her with a smile, "No, she'll be thrilled. I used to have to press-gang her into it. She hated doing it. And…" his voice dropped low and rich, rumbling in her ear and raising goose bumps along her skin, "...after everything you've been through today, that you would even notice, or…or care. I'm…it means a lot," he confessed, leaning down to kiss her, his mouth moving slowly, tenderly, and oh so thoroughly over her lips, showing her just how much her care had touched him.

When they finally came back down to earth and pulled themselves together, Kate quickly, deftly, went about trimming his nails with her clippers, while Castle used his free hand to…yeah, basically grope her.

"This'll go a lot faster if you keep both hands where I can see them," she sighed, as if talking to a perp, looking in the mirror as she spoke to him, just shaking her head at the impish grin he gave her in reply.

"But what would be the fun in that?" he asked, pressing a noisy, wet kiss to her shoulder.

"It might save you from losing the tip of a finger," observed Kate dryly.

"Now she tells me," he sighed, and then he rolled his eyes like the true drama queen he was.

"Too late. You're all done," said Kate, tidying the clippers away, and then patting him playfully on the butt.

"Thank you," he said sincerely, kissing her lightly on the lips, letting his fingers trip across her stomach to squeeze her hip before he released her, and she moved back into her own space at the vanity to finish putting on her make-up.


"What are you wearing?" called Kate, five minutes later, from inside Castle's closet.

The writer was lying on the bed, stretched out, stark naked, his hands pillowed behind his head, trying to take a little nap before they had to leave to meet the guys at The Old Haunt.

"What am I…?" he mumbled, cracking open one eye at the question.

Kate popped her head out of the closet.

"Yeah. So we don't match," she explained a little breathlessly.

"Why are you out of breath?" he asked, definitely awake now, propping himself up against the headboard to watch her.

"I was stretching up for a pair of shoes. The ones you put on a really high shelf," she explained, crossing her arms over her chest, dressed in just her black lace underwear. "So, like I said, what are you wearing, Castle?"

"Clothes, Kate. It's customary, to avoid arrest in this uptight city of ours. You?"

"I'm thinking jeans and my purple silk shirt."

"Not a skirt?"

She raised an eyebrow at him.

"Heels then?" he asked hopefully.

"For you…yeah, I thought these," she said, holding up the sexy pair of spike-heeled, black platform stilettos she'd just managed to wrestle down off the top shelf, without miraculously cracking a rib in the process.

"Nice," he grinned, nodding his approval. "Well, our shoes definitely won't clash…or match for that matter," he reassured her with a wink.


"Rick, if we're late and you've been napping in there," Kate called out, tapping her foot impatiently as she stood by the kitchen island reading the New York Times, her jeans too tight to sit down in at this point in the evening.

Castle's voice right next to her ear made her jump, and her heart flew into her throat.

"What are you…?" she squeaked, as his hands skimmed past her ears to lift something over her head.

He fastened the clasp at the back of her neck and then eased her hair out from underneath a fine silver chain.

Kate felt the weight of a pendant slide down the silk of her loose, flowing shirt, skid across the fabric, and then settle to nestle between her breasts.

"Castle, what did you do?" she gasped, her fingers reaching up to touch the cool, curved outline of the silver pendant.

"Happy one week anniversary, Kate," he whispered in her ear, kissing her lightly on the cheek to avoid smudging the spectacular job she'd done with her red lipstick.

"When…?" she asked weakly, holding the circular, silver pendant up so she could look at it.

When on earth had he managed to organize this in amongst all the madness of the last week?

Castle's voice drew her back to the present, and the cool weight of the piece of jewelry nestling in her palm.

"It's called Atlas," he explained. "Inspired by the gilded clock that hangs above the main entrance to the Tiffany store on Fifth Avenue," he added, pointing out the Roman numerals placed at twelve, three, six and nine between the inner and outer rings of the pendant, arranged exactly like the face of a clock.

"It's beautiful," breathed Kate. "But you shouldn't have," she said, turning in his arms to kiss him, this miraculous gift of a man.

"But I wanted to. And it's symbolic, Kate. Of time, of waiting for you, of our life together…past, present and future."

"You're such a romantic," said Kate, clutching at his shirt to hold him close, though she was pretty sure he was going nowhere right now.

"I'm such a hopeless romantic, you mean," he grinned, playfully nudging her nose with his own as she grinned at him.

"I love you," said Kate all of a sudden, her voice trembling with emotion. She bit her lip at the rush of admission, a frown knitting her brow at how fiercely she felt for him in that moment; the strength of her feelings surprising even to her as her heart hammered in her chest.

Her cheeks took on a faint blush with the unexpected rush of blood to her head, and her pupils dilated, turning her irises into molten pools of dark chocolate.

"Feeling's mutual, Kate. Never doubt it," murmured Castle, brushing his lips against hers, so very lightly, making her ache, the pressure barely there at all. The excruciating stroke of soft skin over even softer skin, like a whispered promise, making her shiver, before he kissed her soundly, fingers sliding through her hair while he drank her in until they were finally forced apart, flushed, shaking, and breathless.

"We're going to be late if we don't…" said Kate weakly, resting her forehead against his, breathing the same air, eyes locked, fingers tangling together at their sides.

"To be continued?" suggested Castle hopefully, watching her watching him, the moment fizzing with the electricity that arced between them.

"Always," nodded Kate, taking his hand and leading him towards the front door, a glint of silver gilding the purple silk that flowed around her.

A/N: Ah Caskett. You just can't beat them. Hope you enjoyed this brief interlude from casework and the like. The neck-shaving scene's been haunting me for a while, the intimacy of it, a way for her to show how deeply she cares for him, as a counterpoint to his previous relationships. I hope it worked.

And OMG The PROMO! Did you see the thing that looked like flowing curtains – but was actually Castle starting to remove his shirt from Kate's naked body. When she smiles as she leans in for a kiss her shoulders are bare and she isn't wearing the shirt anymore! And given the last sentence I just typed, it's quite possible I need to get a life right now! Haha. Liv