It's storming outside now. It has been all night. Sasha doesn't mind the lake. She'll dive in if Rick tells her to and enjoy it. But she was curled up in a terrified ball underneath his covers by his feet all night once the first boom of thunder rattled the house. He tried letting her out when he got up as Alexis was leaving for school, but he couldn't even get her passed the kitchen. Big baby was so scared of the thunder and lightning. Sasha's never had any accidents in the house thankfully, but he's hoping it dies down soon enough so he can let her out, because right now, it's nearing eight o'clock, and she's still curled up in a ball under his desk.

He's on the floor, laying on his back with his head resting against the curl of her furry body, keeping her company. It's going to be the first morning he hasn't worked out since moving out here, but seeing his dog this scared makes him not want to leave her. With his eyes closed and his hands clasped together over his stomach, Sasha pulls in a breath and lets it out in a huff across the back of his neck as another sudden crack of thunder shakes the ceiling.

It's when the sound of a car door closing makes it passed the pouring rain against the house and the thunder in the clouds that Sasha perks her head up off the floor. Rick pops his eyes open and leans up off of Sasha's side, "That's Beckett," he says to his dog as he starts to climb up off the floor. Rick stops and leans back down, putting his hand around Sasha's ear. "Wanna go see Beckett, huh?"

Sasha just whimpers and curls herself back up in a ball as another low roll of thunder rumbles in the distance.

"Big baby," he says and darts out of his upstairs office, going down the hall and galloping down the stairs to meet her at the door. His bare feet hit the hardwood floor of the downstairs, feeling light-hearted and casual as he quickly makes his way passed the kitchen and into the living room to look out the textured window of the front door.

He sees her just as she's making the last few steps up the stone walkway, clad in a pair of black jeans and a black jacket, her head tilted and her hair down, clutching two white paper cups with brown paper sleeves against her stomach as her hair whips in front of her face with the harsh wind. His heart flutters slightly against the walls of his chest when he sees her, but everything stops when he watches her take the first step up his porch and he sees her fall out of his view.

"Agh!" He can hear her grunt loudly over the thunder and rain and the clatter of her body against the steps.

Rick reacts quickly by unlocking the deadbolt of the door and flinging the door open, seeing her fallen forward against the wooden steps, water running on her head from above where the rain gutter is broken, the two paper cups lying empty on their sides on the steps. Rick goes out to her as quickly as he can, feeling the cold, wet wind wash over his face while Kate tries to climb to her feet.

"Here, I got you," he says to her, going down a few steps and reaching down, taking her upper body in his arms and pulling her up, her black leather jacket and black jeans already soaked from the rain and the water pouring on her from the broken gutter. Kate clammers to her feet while Rick pulls her up right in his arms, keeping her steady. Her cold hands clutch his forearm going across her chest, trying to push passed the sting going into her thighs from where she hit the stairs.

He pulls her up the porch as quickly, but gently as he can, holding her close to his chest. Once she's on her feet, he keeps her held into his side as he ushers her inside.

She let him lead her through the door without a fight, her wet hair dangling in long strands. He leads her inside and only lets her go to close the door behind him, the loud sounds of the harsh storm outside subsiding just as another low growl of thunder rumbles. "You okay?" He asks her on a soft chuckle.

Kate can't help but feel a halfhearted smile tug at her lips, the warmth of his home making her clothes feel cold, clingy, and uncomfortable against her skin, suddenly feeling frozen and rigid, standing in his new lakehouse for the first time. "I'm fine, Castle." She reassures him on a stiff nod from an even stiffer neck, feeling him put a hand on the center of her back as he moves around her.

"You sure?" He asks again, moving around her to stand directly in front of her. "I warned you about those steps, Beckett. Are you sure you aren't hurt?"

She feels another warm smile pull at her lips as she senses his presence near her. She flicks the thick strands of her wet hair out of her face and looks up to him with a smile. "I'm okay."

But when she meets his eyes, something inside of him makes it feel as if the world just stopped.

Standing in front of him, at his door, her hair and her clothes soaking wet, her eyes lit up with happiness, her lips turned up in the smallest hint of a smile that somehow makes it look as if she couldn't be happier...

Rick's throat squeezes shut right after his skin seems to tighten with nerves, looking into her eyes.

I almost died, her words, even the inflection she used rings clearly as day in his ears as if she's saying them to him right now, and all I could think about was you.

His heart races wildly over his straining lungs, his entire body clamming up the more he looks at her.

Kate can sense him. It's in the way he's looking at her, with those wide, shocked eyes. Like something is going through his mind that he can't stop. Her body shivers with the cold, her breath shuddering violently at the same time her conscience converges with her heart to remind her of that night, soaked to the bone, standing at his door after coming just a fingertip away from losing her life and only thinking about him... only thinking that there's only one that mattered to her at the end of her life and that's what she wanted to focus on... him.

In perfect harmony, they both come back in that instant, looking away from each other and shutting off their raw emotions as Rick takes a step away from her. "I-I'll uh..." he struggles, wiping his hand off on the thigh of his slacks as he shuffles away from her, "I'll go get you a towel?" He says in a questioning tone, pointing behind him.

All Kate can do is smile and nod nervously and stand rigid in his foyer, her heart acting like a wild butterfly inside of her.

"Right," Rick says and turns around to head through the living room and toward his home gym and the downstairs bathroom, "you just got over being sick, we don't need to go there again." He remarks, trying to lighten the tense air in the house.

"Yeah," Kate chuckles as she watches him dart through the living room and round the corner in front of the dining area with the French doors leading outside, catching sight of him a few seconds through the kitchen as he goes to the back of the house.

But as Rick makes it to the hall closet and puts his hand on a dark blue town sitting on a shelf, his breath gets heavy and he stops.

He got away... and I didn't care, her words echo in his heart again. Rick's eyes drift shut as his breath comes in hard, heavy pants. I almost died... and all I could think about was you.

He's never mattered that much to someone before. He's never been the be all and end all before. He's never been someone's endgame. Never once in his life has he been the one that felt like he mattered that much to anyone. She was the very first one to feel that way for him. She was the one that proved to herself, through some crucible she went through on her own, that at the end of it all, just him and who he was was enough to her. Rick feels his heart ache painfully as his hand wrenches the towel on the shelf in front of him.

I just want you.

Kate's heartbeat gets heavier and heavier the longer she stands in his home, the natural warmth and love his home exudes starting to pull her in. Her eyes drift shut, her body feeling weak and off-balance as her mind starts to wander, the memory of his hands and his body on her for the very first time going on a full assault of her conscience. In her entire life, she'd never felt that connected to someone, like what she was doing not only felt that natural but felt that deep and meaningful. It wasn't a physical act for them that night. It was almost spiritual.

God, she can still feel his lips and his hands on her.

Her eyes pop open at the sound of a floorboard creaking. Her entire body locks up when she sees him storming up to her with darkened eyes. Her breath hitches as his hand grabs her face, his fingers digging into the back of her neck. He pushes her back to the door with such ease, it's almost like she's floating. She locks up completely when his lips find her's in a long, hard, passionate kiss that vices her between him and the thick textured window on the door, his warm hand cupping her face. The force of his incredible kiss makes her legs buckle and her heart feels like it just exploded into pieces.

He catches her with his other hand on her hip, pressing her body back against the door as he takes a step into her, moving his lips against her and capturing her in a kiss that seems to shotgun her with a level of passion she could only ever get from him.

"Mmm..." she moans shakingly, her body weak and limp her he kisses her.

It's when he moves to deepen the slow, intense kiss even further that her mind is given a spark and she finds herself again. She reaches up and puts her hands on his chest, using all of her strength to ball her fists up in his dark burgundy shirt and push him back. She can't have this if it's another one time thing. She can't live with it if it is.

As she pushes him off, Rick leans forward to try and keep the kiss, his lips slowly peeling off her and his shakey breath hitting her ears. Kate's eyes pop open just as his thumb is brushing a smooth line across her cheekbone and she sees his eyes closed and his brow arched emotionally. Her heart stops when she sees his face and feels his hand still on her, now moving down to the side of her neck with his thumb brushing over her jawline.

When he opens his eyes and she sees they've almost reddened and he's looking directly at her, exuding honest want and need, not anger or hostility or impatience, but openness... in that moment, she knows.

And in that moment, she lets out an emotional, breathy chuckle as a smile splits across her face and her heart swells larger than it ever has before. She puts her hands on his face and leaps forward, taking his lips back in a firey kiss that's lit with raw emotion and more longing than she's ever felt for anyone in her life.

"Mmm!" She moans loudly as he puts an arm around her back and pushes her back against his front door again, pinning her helplessly. He melds his lips against her in that perfect way, just as he did that night, his hands going up and down her body wantingly while she pulls, grasps, and pushes at his back, putting her fingers in his hair and taking every kiss, tasting his tongue as much as she can with every long, passionate motion his lips make.

She makes the first move by grabbing the sides of her jacket and whipping it off her shoulders, giving him both permission and the signal that it's real. He follows her and moves his hands to her legs, grabbing her by the back of the thighs and taking her full weight on his hips, moving her legs around his waist at the same time her jacket falls to the floor with a wet plop. His fingers greedily dig into her thighs while he breaks away from her lips to drag his mouth down her jaw and onto her neck.

"Aww!" Kate moans loudly over another roll of thunder outside, one of her hands moving over his shoulder and around his neck with the other traveling up his neck and disheveling his hair, pushing his mouth against her neck. His hot breath fanning down her wet, clinging shirt and across her neck makes her entire body crawl and tingle with excitement, his lips pressing and massaging her flesh perfectly. "Oh, Castle..." She moans into his ear, her head falling back against the door.

He kisses her pulse point and down over her jugular, eventually moving a hand off her thigh while the other moves to her ass as he reaches up to pull the neck of her shirt from the store down, kissing her chest as low as he can. Kate leans forward and presses her lips to his hair, moving both her hands up and sliding her fingers through it. Her legs vice his waist with as much strength as she can muster, her body letting out a violent shiver of ecstasy.

Rick lets out a hard breath that fans down her wet shirt. Kate takes that as a sign to put her hands on the sides of his head, leaning him back until he's looking up at her. She pauses for a moment, still seeing that same openness and want in his sharp blue eyes as she did before. When she sees it, her heart swells again and leans down, capturing his lips in a hard, passionate kiss.

"Bedroom?" She pants against his lips as she fumbles to find the buttons of his shirt.

"Mmm," he moans into her kiss, his hands greedily digging into the taught fabric of her jeans over her ass, "all the way upstairs."

"Mmm," she moans after him, kissing him again as passionately as she can. After another slow motion against his incredible mouth, she pops her eyes open and looks passed him and to the left. "Couch is right there." She slurs while kissing him.

"Good..." he tries, returning her kiss, "good call," he moans, her hands moving across his jaw and up into his hair again. "Just hold on."

"What?" She asks in a tight voice as her smile spreads brightly across her face. His hands pull her against him and her legs grip his waist as tight as she can as he steps back away from the door, carrying her with him with one hand on her ass and the other bracing her back. "Wow." She smiles against his lips.

"I've been working out." He brags as he reaches for her lips again, pressing their foreheads together as he carries her backward toward the couch.

"Mmm..." she moans again and kisses him, reaching down to start to unbutton his shirt.

She's halfway down his shirt when he falls back into the center of his couch. She finds his mouth again and kisses him back against the cushion, finishing unbuttoning his shirt and whipping it open at the sides. She doesn't waste any time in pressing her palms flat against his naked chest, massaging his hard, toned muscles greedily and wantingly.

"Mmm..." she moans deeply, her palms feeling the clear outline of his abs just as she feels his hands slide up under the sides of her shirt. "I'm not as patient as I was that night, Rick." She says into his mouth.

Suddenly, he leans up and whips her shirt off and over her head, laying his hand flat on her back over the strap of her bra in the same motion that she uses to press his shirt off his shoulders and pull it out from behind him. He captures her mouth in a hot, frenzied kiss as he wraps his bare arms around her, his bicep bulging against her ribs on her side while her bra comes undone, falling off her shoulders between them.

She sucks at his bottom lip hotly, reaching up and yanking her bra and tossing it to the other end of the couch. She presses him back against the couch with her bare chest against his, making her entire body crawl with want and excitement at their warm skin coming in contact again, and leans her forehead against his and moving her arms around his shoulders while he moves his hands up the dip of her spine.

She kisses him slowly again for a long few seconds before pressing her hands against his chest and leaning up, her eyes never leaving his. She pets his chest for a moment before she speaks, "I love you, Rick."

His eyes dance around her features for a moment, looking up at her haunting beauty just as he did that night, with her hair still wet and stringy. His heart feels so full right now. "I believe you."

A smile overtakes her and she reaches up, taking his jaw in her hands and kissing him in as passionate a kiss as she's ever given him. She reaches down and pushes her shoes off her feet before moving around and finding the button of his pants, their lips never parting. "I love you," she says again into his mouth as she undoes his pants. He presses his hips up against her, making her breath hitch as she moves to kiss him again. He pushes his pants off in that motion, ending with him laying back in the couch with her only in a pair of wet denim jeans, straddling him.

She moves to kiss him again just as his arm goes around her side and urges her to lay across the length of the couch. He steadies himself over her, his mouth never moving away from her's. Once she's on her back, she presses her palms to his hard muscles again and feels him undo the button on her jeans, prying the wet, clinging denim off her long, perfectly toned legs with one hand. As he leans up to pull the pants off her legs, she spreads her legs in front of him as he leans back down on top of her.

Her breath stops as he grasps her hip with one hand, feeling the tip of his hard cock tickle her wanting folds. Her brow arches emotionally as her heart starts to pound. "Nothing's changed from that night, Rick." She says in an emotional voice, petting his chest. "I just want you."

He pants as his eyes drift shut and he leans down, pressing his forehead down onto her's, easing himself inside of her quivering folds as deep as he can.

"Ahh!" She moans loudly as he dives inside of her. "Just you, Rick." She breathes, moving her arms around him.

He moves out of her, diving back in with a smooth, hard thrust, his forehead leaning down against her's in a loving reverence as he takes her. Feeling him thrust into her with long, smooth, gentle strokes, she can feel her eyes burn as he moves to press his full, solid weight down against her along the length of the couch.

"Faster," she pleads, moving a hand into his hair and putting his mouth in the crook of her neck. "Please... faster!" She begs him, feeling his hard length dive into her with agonizingly slow thrusts. "Oh, Castle!" She vocalizes her need of him loudly into his ear as his hand finds her ass and tugs her hips against him in a hard thrust, pounding into her. "Oh!" She gasps emotionally, her legs wrapping around him, her ankles hooking together at the small of his back.

Rick pounds into her in a whirlwind of movements, gaining in speed and want with every hard thrust that she eggs out of him. "Oh, Kate," he groans as his fingers dig into the flesh of her ass, pulling her hips against him as he starts to grind against her.

A watery smile spreads across her face, putting a hand in his hair again as she looks up to the ceiling with hot tears stinging her eyes. "Rick," she parrots his name back to him, feeling connected to him again... truly connected to him. "Don't stop... please, don't stop, Rick." She begs him, taking a fistful of his hair, pressing her lips to his jaw.

He reaches his lips out to feather a kiss below her ear as he moves in and out of her. There's only one other time in his life he's felt this connected to someone, on such a base level. And it was with her... the night after she told him she loved him for the first time, at the peak of their relationship. As this thought quickly consumes his heart, his body can't help but kick into overdrive, pounding into her as deep as he can, burying himself in her folds.

"Ah!" She cries, her nails digging into his tightly muscled back. "Rick," She strains, her entire body coiling under him as he continues to thrust into her, "I'm coming."

"Ugh-" he groans in a strained voice into her ear. "Kate."

"Kiss me," she demands. "Kiss me, Rick."

His lips smash against her's in a hard, passionate kiss, pouring every ounce of raw emotion they can into each other as her body tightens and coils underneath him. "Mmm!" She moans against his lips, tears falling out of her eyes, feeling his motions get harder and harder. She moves her arms around his neck and pins him down on top of her, kissing him as hard as she can right as she explodes around him, her entire body rocking and vibrating wildly. "Mmm!" She moans loudly, her lips smashed against his, feeling him press her hips down into the cushion of the couch, spilling and pulsating inside of her.

Their bodies stiffen over one another, her limbs clinging to him tightly and her lips sealed against his as they ride out their joint orgasm with each other. On a shaky breath, their bodies start to come down and they release the kiss, starting to relax against each other. With a soft pluck, she lets his lips go as he starts to relax down on top of her, his full weight laying on top of her.

Both panting, a thick layer of sweat permeating their skin and the air, his head lobs off to the side and her arms fall limply down across his back, her leg falling off the couch and hanging over the edge of the couch.

But once she comes down from the incredible orgasm, there's a moment when fear and dread starts to set in. Her heart jumps up into her throat and tears begin to sting her eyes, thinking that they might have just let things get out of hand again, that what just happened was just... scratching an itch.

But when he turns his head into her neck and begins to feather light, lazy kisses against her skin, his hand lazily traveling up her leg, the tears of fear quickly turn to hot tears of joy as a smile spreads across her face.

Kate closes her eyes and wraps her arms around the man she loves, feeling him brush kiss after kiss across her neck, and hugs him. She starts to laugh, her happiness bubbling up inside of her. It soon turns into choked sobs, her body jumping underneath him as she hugs him, clings to him.

After all she went through, all the pain she went through, all the failures she dealt with and mistakes she's admitted to and tried her hardest to make up for, she finally has him back.

As she holds her arms around his neck, pressing her face into the side of his neck, tears falling out of her eyes, she decides to remember this moment. The moment when she got the love of her life back.


A/N: Sorry about the delay. It's been weird lately. I said that it would be a minimum of two scenes if I upped the rating, and I delivered. Hope the set up was worth it. Let me know. I'll try to have another chapter up sometime this weekend of things work out. Thanks again for the ups and support. You guys rock. /=]