He jostles her all the way up the stairs, then ogles the smooth, hard velvet of her legs when she pulls ahead of him, reaching out to let his fingers trail down her calf. He can hear the catch in her even breathing when he does that. Of course, Castle is panting by the time they reach the second floor landing of his apartment building.
"This was so not a good idea, Detective," he wheezes, and leans over with his hands on his knees, making her stop as well.
Kate takes another couple steps back down to him; he can't see anything but her calves, and yet he knows that she's smirking. He can feel it.
"Looks like it was exactly the right idea, Castle. Man up."
He groans and lifts, his chest expanding to take in air, then gives her a narrow look and suddenly sprints past her.
Kate doesn't shriek, doesn't gasp in surprise, she just takes off after him, her shoes slapping each step as she gains on him. Castle strains, his knees popping as he shoves off against the stairs, trying to keep up his pace, trying to show her up, just this once.
He can feel her coming up behind him on the stairs as he eats up the landing with his stride, taking the turn to the last flight of stairs. They are both slowing down though, gravity doing a number on their energy, and he can feel her struggling to slip past him on the stairs. His bulk blocks the way, mostly, and he forces his knees to lift, to make it that last step up.
Castle lunges for the stair door, slapping it with his palm just as Kate reaches it.
"Ha!" he gasps, then crashes back against the wall to catch his breath. "I win."
She glares at him; she hates to be beaten, especially unfairly, but she's too winded to come up with a good rebuke either. He grins at her as he sucks in air like a flailing fish, leans his head back to the cinderblock wall of the stairwell.
Kate jerks open the door and heads out into the hallway of his apartment building, so Castle follows. His chest is tight as he forces his lungs to expand; there's a mean stitch in his side from all the water he drank before they started their walk back.
"You cheated," she says from ahead of him, taking limping steps down the hall. Rick hustles to come up beside her, his conscience pricked at the sight.
"You ok?"
"Ankle's twinged. It's fine."
"Doesn't look fine," he insists, putting a hand at her elbow, forgetting himself.
She shakes him off, of course, and pulls her key from the little pocket sewn into her waistband.
"Did it last night," she explains. "Then something funny on the stairs just now. Made itself known."
He doesn't say anything, but he makes a note to watch her later, see if it's really a twinge, or if it's something to push her about.
Kate opens up their front door and steps inside, a hand at her neck wiping at the sweat curling her hair; Castle is right behind her when Dashiell comes rocketing towards her, head down for his favorite greeting.
Castle catches Kate neatly as she's plowed backwards, an arm at her waist, even as he instinctively grabs for Dash. The boy butts Kate again, making happy, excited noises, and she holds him off as she tries to regain her balance. The three of them end up tangled together.
Once they manage to get past the threshold, Castle collars Dash and swings the boy into his arms, letting Kate get free and close the door behind them.
"Hey now, wild man." Dash wriggles in his arms, then stiffens dramatically when he puts a hand on Castle's sweaty shirt. "I'm sweaty. So is mommy. So calm down."
"Sutty." Dash wrinkles his nose and rears back in Castle's arms, trying to escape now, and Castle lets him down.
Kate is already heading for the shower, dropping a hand down to brush through Dashiell's hair as he paces her.
"Alexis?" Castle rounds into the living room to find her in the kitchen, sliding one foot along the floor. "What are you doing?"
The girl startles and flashes him a guilty look. "I spilled juice all in the floor. I'm trying to get up all the sticky stuff." She lifts her foot and Castle sees the wet paper towel just under her toes.
All right. "Leave it for now." Alexis can be a little OCD about cleaning. "Can you come get Dash while, uh. . .Kate and I shower?" He lifts his eyebrows at her.
Alexis blushes. "Ew. Dad."
He does her the courtesy of not grinning like a fool, but he knows it's probably there in his eyes.
"Yeah, yeah, okay," she mutters, and leaves the kitchen to follow him towards the bedroom.
"Dash!" Castle calls out. "Come play with Alexis."
Kate's pulled off her shirt and tennis shoes, but that's as far as she's made it. Instead, she's trying to put clothes back into the laundry hamper even as Dashiell yanks them out. Alexis clears her throat beside him and Kate turns.
"Oh good. You. Get him," she says, glaring at Castle.
Rick scoops up Dashiell, yanking a pair of underwear out of his hands and tossing them back towards Kate. Alexis looks somewhere between uncomfortable and amused, maybe because Kate is half undressed, but she reaches out for her brother without saying another word.
"Hey kiddo. Give us a few minutes to get clean, right? No more sweaty."
"Sutty," he repeats, and wrinkles his nose again, still squirming in Alexis's grip. "No, no, no. Down!"
"How about trains, bubba?" Alexis is already turning to leave, wrestling to get a good grip on him even as he tries to escape. "Stop, Dash. I'm gonna drop you and then Daddy'll really be mad at us both."
Castle shuts the door after her, wants to lock it but doesn't, and turns back to Kate. Still in her underwear, a little sweaty, her hair damp at her neck, now wriggling out of her shorts.
How quickly he wants her. Needs her. "Hey." His voice is gruff, and she spikes an eyebrow his way.
"What're you doing?" She gets a grip on her sports bra and tugs it over her head.
He's momentarily breathless, and it's not leftover from their sprint up the stairs. He takes a beat to recover, then tries to pass himself off as nonchalant. "I'm gonna take a shower. What're you doing?"
She throws her sports bra at his face and disappears into the bathroom.
"I love the way you smell," she murmurs, barely aware she's even saying it out loud. Kate takes another deep breath: soap and Old Spice deodorant, a layer of skin oil fresh from that workout in the shower, and then the cologne or aftershave or whatever it is that's musky and faint and clings to his skin, and then to hers as well when she's this close.
It gets her every time.
And why? It didn't use to. When she first met him, it's not like that Castle olfactory combination really knocked her out. She barely remembers noticing a smell at all, and yet, now he comes out of the shower, clean and spiky-haired, and her whole body responds.
Like she's not just been thoroughly had in the shower. Like she didn't just brush out her hair, put on clean clothes, and hear her son squawking in the living room.
Kate indulges and steps in closer to him, her feet between his, pressing her nose to his neck. Flat-footed, she's only four inches shorter than him, and she likes the curve of her body over his torso, the natural fit of her head against his shoulder. She takes another breath as his hands feather along her spine, afraid to be too bold. He's not wearing a shirt; he's very warm.
"You love the way I smell," he hums, nudging her cheek with his chin.
She's usually breaking off right about now, usually shutting it down, moving on. Why does she do that? Kate's not sure, only that it's been habit for so long now. Not against him, just against life in general. But Castle brought up Rilke, and the talk about letting life hold you, feeling the pain, living it. . .
Being a solitary person doesn't mean she can't stand here for a minute with her eyes closed, breathing him in.
Words are good. Words are necessary, a lot more necessary than she used to think, as it's become quite clear to her recently. But words are so inadequate to explain this, to describe this, to get it right. What she feels, how she feels, the way everything in her opens for him, like a night-blooming tuberose.
Kate lifts her eyes, finds him watching her with a peculiar look on his face. Almost like hesitation. She draws her hand up and wraps it around his neck, gives him a gentler kiss than the ones from their shower, lets tenderness creep in.
Castle makes her like this; Castle does this to her.
No. Not the truth. It's not Castle. It's what they have that does it. It's this life. Her family, her son, a baseball game, a race up the stairs, making love against the wall with the spray hitting him and goosebumps on her arms even as the heat builds. It's all of this that does this to her. This thing she's got and didn't ask for, this thing she's made, fought for, been given.
This is what makes her like this. An ouroboros, never-ending.
She traces the edge of his bottom lip with her tongue, draws back to breathe again, awash in the rich sensation of him: smell, taste, touch.
"This," she murmurs against his mouth.
Then his voice, like a rasping growl vibrating the air.
"This? Take *this* back off." He tugs at her jeans.
And she does, empowered by the urgency in his tone and helpless to the need in her own.
