Chapter 13

Kate hadn't even managed to get her key into the lock of her apartment door before Rick came for her mouth, backing her against the wall at the end of the hallway and melting into her body when it calmed from the unexpected advance and welcomed him.

The cab ride from Lanie's place had been a test both torturous and titillating, one of will that each, at one point or another, had nearly failed across its just 17-minute stretch through Saturday night traffic. But now there were no prying eyes in a rearview mirror to hold them in check, no kitchen utensils, or intruding hostesses to betray their lust. It was only the two of them, and the lonely bed that awaited.

"If this is the kind of thinking you meant, you can do as much of it as you want." His teeth grazed her shoulder, took aim at her earlobe, and sparked a shiver that only intensified when he whispered into her ear. "You taste even more incredible than you smell."

Kate closed his hair in a fist, tugged him gently back. "We should go inside," she urged, silently cursing the necessity. Another minute of the business his fingers were transacting beneath her sweater and she might well have forgotten where she lived.

On the safer side of the door, Rick tore off his jacket and tossed it aside. "C'mere," he said but met her halfway, lifting her off the floor with his embrace, encouraging her legs open and around his waist. "Can I…?"

She understood his wish without need of the words, brushed his lips with the answer, and he spun them around, carried her off for the bedroom he already knew so well, all the way reciprocating her pepper of kisses with equal frolic.

The lamp there beside the bed had been left on, its light soft and warm, as days before, and that gifted him the exquisite pleasure of watching without restriction as she began to undress.

"You don't need to wait for my permission," Kate informed humorously when he made no move to do the same, though her deadpan delivery masked it well.

Captivated, Rick pushed his hands into the front pockets of his jeans, continued to feast on the sight of her skin as she slowly revealed more and more of it.

"I know it's only been a week, but I missed you. I did. I missed your smile and your laugh and kissing you, touching you." He closed their distance by half, went on when it seemed his candor had left her searching for her voice. "It's okay. You don't have to say it. I know you missed me, too. In case no one's ever told you, your eyes give you away." For both, it was instantly as though he'd positioned the final piece of a puzzle into place, a puzzle they'd each built separately, shared unknowingly.

Lady Raven's parting words.

Kate stood there, unmoving, likewise struck by the bolt, feeling exposed not only by her physical lack of covering, but also by her body's unfaithfulness to her secret and Rick's recognition of it. And it wasn't just that some kooky clairvoyant had ambiguously hinted at the vulnerability. He had also, in the brief moments of their long-ago first encounter inside that bookstore that she hadn't yet brought herself to recollect for him. Maybe she never would.

Close enough to touch her, though the pale pink camisole she'd worn beneath her sweater stood in its way, he traced a delicate finger along the path that so bewitched him, down across her heart and between her breasts.

"I missed all the parts, but I especially missed this one."

Kate placed her hand over his, held it in place there. It wasn't her eyes alone. His told a story as eloquent as those he penned to page, but looking now, she could see in them a story written only for her.

Immersed in its pages, she found his belt and freed it from its buckle, set to work on the buttons of his shirt. He slipped her out of the silk without challenge, guided her backward to the bed and climbed on after her, nestled between her legs.

"Rick, I-"

He relieved her of the thought with a kiss when her tone suggested the weight of it. "Not now," he said and feathered a hand over her skin, eased her willing thigh aside. "Not now."

xxxx

"I want to explain why," Kate announced into the quiet light apropos of nothing. Naked and satiated, her body lay stretched long atop his, her chin propped up by one hand, the other swirling lazy circles on his chest. "Why I asked you to leave that night, after…"

Rick popped open his eyes that'd been shut but a moment. "I think you mean told, Detective. Told me to leave." He stroked a tender trail across her shoulder blades. "Even so, generous as I am, I'm willing to accept that very hearty and very thorough apology you just gave me. I'll even throw in a thank you because I'm such a forgiving guy. Okay, okay, tell me, I'm listening," he blurted when she countered his repartee with a pinch.

"I don't let many people in, Rick," she confessed after a pause, "and I don't give a lot of myself away. It might not seem that way after how fast all of this has been, and part of the reason I needed you to go was because of that, because I scared myself. I mean, I hardly knew you and you were here in my apartment and in my bed. How much I wanted that and wanted you scared me. It was like it suddenly hit me that I'd sabotaged all the work I'd done."

"What work, not to feel something? Feel something good? Kate, you and I may not have years together behind us, but that doesn't mean I can't be the one to break this news to you with a reasonable amount of certainty: A heart like yours can't just be locked away behind some door. It's too big for any room to hold it. That's why it feels like work and why, no matter how much you try, you'll never be able to stop it."

Kate lowered her forehead, rested it against his chest and pressed her lips there. "I think I might've liked you better when you were just some pretty face on a book jacket."

"It is a damn fine face. I can't argue with that," he joked then lifted her chin with his knuckle, cupped her healing cheek. "Only one of us is art."

She kissed him for that, for that and many things.

"The day you wrote me the note…" She stopped herself, hearing how crazy what she was about to admit sounded in her head. How crazy it was. "God, this is-I don't even know why I'm telling you this."

"We could take a break and go back to" -he waggled his eyebrows- "not talking if you want. I still have a few moves in my back pocket that you haven't seen yet. Trust me, you'll want to see them. Many, many times."

Kate smiled nervously.

"Rick, everything Lady Raven told you, she told me, too." By his expression, it didn't register at all. "Lanie thought me going to a psychic would be fun or funny or helpful or…I don't know what she thought. She made the appointment. I knew nothing about it until that afternoon. If I had, I never would've agreed to it."

Rick nearly rolled her over the edge of the bed when he pushed himself upright.

"Let me-I need to make sure I'm getting this right, because my brain is definitely running in sex-hangover mode. You're saying you went to a psychic, just a couple of days before I did, and of all the psychics that must work in this city, it was the same psychic I went to?"

Kate wrapped the mess of sheets and blankets up around her shoulders. A part of her desperately wished she could shove the cork back into the bottle, erase the previous minute from existence altogether. The other part of her-the part that was falling so damn hard for him so damn fast-was warmed by his endearing awe.

Like he'd been woken by a bucket of cold water to the face, it all abruptly hit. "Wait, what do you mean everything she told me?"

She swallowed a laugh. If he could've seen his face, he would've understood how difficult that was.

She mocked Lady Raven using a goofy voice. "'Come with me to your future, Kate.' Lanie should've paid her in Monopoly money." When she looked up, Rick's brow was hoisted halfway up his forehead. "Okay, the woman only said three words to me in the ten minutes I was in that closet she called an office." She rolled her eyes, watched his grow wider and wider as she revealed what they were. "Sound familiar?"

Rick slowly scanned the bedroom, from one side clear to the other. "There are hidden cameras in here, right? I'm being recorded. This is all a prank cooked up by my publisher ex-wife because she's pissed at me for killing off Storm?"

Just like that, it was Kate's turn for a swim in the shock pool.

"You're killing Derrick Storm? What? Why?"

"Oh, don't even try to change the subject, Beckett. We're not even close to done with your thing, and yes I did just call you Beckett because I like it and I'm going to do it more times so you'd better just get used to it."

Without a warning, Kate rocked forward and kissed him, brief but passionate. "I like it, too," she said and with a nuzzle of her lips soothed away the sting they'd just rendered. "And there is no prank. Cameras we can talk about after I've seen these other moves of yours."

"Busy later?" he quipped and welcomed her back into his body, his arm curled around her, her head tucked against his shoulder.

"I still don't know what any of it's supposed to mean, Rick, or if it's supposed to mean anything, and I'm sorry but I don't know what to believe, not yet. I only know that doing what I do every day, people don't surprise me very often anymore." She caressed the line of his jaw. "You surprised me." She waited a beat. "I mean, believe in aliens? Are you serious?"

"And here I thought you were getting mushy on me, which, incidentally, I quite enjoyed." He lifted his chin into the air, peered down at her from the corner of his eye. "Just for that, I might not put out after our date later."

Kate raised her mouth to his neck, teased it with her tongue. "Yeah, you will," she grinned and then quickly pivoted back. "Hey…Derrick Storm. Are you really killing him off?"

"You're such a fan," he whispered smugly. "I am, and my ex-wife hates it, which makes me love the idea even more. You shouldn't think less of me for that, by the way. I can play you some of her voicemails. I've actually been wondering if she should be the writer. She's come up with a pretty creative list of things she thinks I should stick places."

Kate giggled.

"It's time," he said, more solemn. "It's been time for a while. It's just not always easy to move when you're comfortable." He hugged her in closer, kissed her forehead. "Kind of like right now."

"Yeah," she agreed thoughtfully. "So, what will you do? What will you write about?"

"I have a few ideas kicking around this pretty head of mine. Maybe I'll give one of those a try. Or, better yet, maybe I'll write about an insanely gorgeous, no-nonsense, sexy, badass, NYPD detective who, thanks to the benevolent universe, crosses paths with an insanely gorgeous, no-nonsense, sexy, badass writer who finds a way to convince her aliens and fate exist and spends the rest of his life proving to her he's the best surprise she'll ever know."

It was supposed to be a joke, but then, maybe it wasn't.

Kate pulled back, cocked an eyebrow. "Not straying from fiction, I guess."

"Now, there, that's wisecrack number two. If I were you, Beckett, I'd proceed with caution. Keep going and I might just decide not to show you all the magical things this tongue can do."

On all fours, she leaned in for his ear. "No, you won't, Castle," she contended cheekily, gave him a peck on the lips. "Stay. We're not done here yet. I'll be right back," she said and tiptoed off to the bathroom.

As soon as he heard the click of the door, Rick dove to the end of the bed, dug through the pile of their clothes on the floor and found his phone. Opening his list of text messages, he tapped on Gina's name and speedily typed: "Can't talk now, but I've had a vision, Gina, seen my literary future, and Storm has definitely passed."

XXX

"My whole life has been pledged to this meeting with you…" A. Pushkin