Author's Note: Thank you all for welcoming the start of this story. And now for what happened between Castle and Beckett. This chapter is probably rated a strong T, if not a soft M.
Then Came Love
Chapter 2
~7 weeks earlier~
Kate was exhausted. She normally tried to take the stairs up the three flights of stairs to her apartment but today, she took the elevator, sagging against the wall once inside, thankful that she was alone in the elevator so she could. Although really, she was tired enough she might have done so anyway even if she'd had an audience.
She might no longer be spending up to 18 hours a day in the precinct; she'd stopped that practice a week ago after Captain Montgomery had called her on it. But that didn't mean she was really working that much less. She was only poring over old case files at home now rather than in the precinct. It was the only thing she could think of to keep from giving in to the insidious, dangerous pull of the banker's box shoved under her bed, the box she was trying very hard to forget she even had. She wouldn't—couldn't—open that box again; it was worse than Pandora's box for her. She had resisted the temptation in the month since Castle had told her he'd looked into her mom's case but doing so was taking just about every ounce of determination she had and the long hours she was working to keep herself busy and distracted weren't helping.
Just another thing to blame on Castle, she decided grimly, as the elevator door slid closed. All his fault for looking into her mom's case in the first place, prying into her past, trampling all over her most private, visceral emotions with the same thoughtless recklessness she'd always hated in him. And now she had proof of why she'd hated him at first, why she should never have allowed herself to stop hating him. He was a jackass, a selfish, careless jackass who just went ahead and did whatever the hell he wanted without a thought for the consequences to anyone else. Typical entitled celebrity, thinking rules didn't apply to him.
She scowled. She generally tried not to think about him anymore—he wasn't worth the energy of being angry at him—but once she got started, it was hard to stop, her emotions churning and building up, all the worse because she tried to suppress them. All the anger, all the betrayal, and although she hated it, the hurt, the sense of loss underlying it all.
It had been so stupid of her and now it served her right. She should never have started to lower her guard, never have started to enjoy his company, never have started to think of him as a friend of sorts. She should never have started to—oh fine—like him, just a little. But she had and now she was paying for her own stupidity as if for a crime.
The elevator doors slid open on her floor and she stepped outside, rummaging in her bag for her keys. Her hand closed around the cool metal of her keys and then she abruptly stopped, tensing, as a large shadow detached itself from the wall ahead of her, resolving into the figure of a man. The figure of an all-too-familiar man.
Her stomach plummeted, her emotions abruptly surging like waves in a hurricane, battering at her fragile composure. Castle. The absolute last person she wanted to see.
"Castle," she growled. "What the hell are you doing here? How did you even get my address anyway?" she demanded. "No, never mind, I don't care. You found your way into the locked archive room to get my mother's file; finding out my address must have been nothing in comparison."
"I asked Montgomery, begged him really. Beckett, I—"
She pushed her way past him to get to her door. "Just leave me alone, Castle."
"I will, if you'll just give me a chance to explain."
"I don't want to talk to you but I suppose," she added bitterly, "you don't care about that, any more than you cared about what I thought about you looking into my mom's case."
Something like a wince flickered across his face. "No, that's not it. I just want to explain and then if you still don't want to talk to me, I'll go and stop bothering you, I promise. And if you'd responded to any of the times I've tried to contact you, I wouldn't have needed to come here to talk to you in person," he went on with just a hint of irritation entering his tone.
She refused to admit he might have anything approaching a point. It didn't matter how many times he'd tried to contact her, calling multiple times and leaving her three voicemails and sending her five text messages and as if that weren't enough, two emails too, all in the last month and all of which she'd deleted without either listening or reading. "I have nothing more to say to you. I told you we'd be done if you looked into my mom's case; you looked into it, so now we're done. End of story."
"Yeah, well, I have more to say to you. I thought about going to the precinct but I decided showing up at a building full of guys who have little reason to like me right now and who all have guns wasn't smart and I figured you'd prefer not having an audience as it is."
"I have a gun too so how can you be so sure I won't shoot you?"
"I'll take my chances. Besides," he added with a rather rueful grimace, "if anyone has a right to shoot me, it's you."
Damn it, she'd forgotten how disarming he could be sometimes, as infuriating as he was. But she absolutely was not going to soften towards him at this acknowledgment that she had a right to be angry at him. "Fine," she snapped. "Clearly, I'm not getting rid of you without you having your say but I don't promise not to shoot you."
She opened her door and stalked inside her apartment, not bothering to invite him in but knowing that he would follow her in, which he did. She ignored him, taking off her shoes to give her tired feet a break. A new case had dropped today so she and the boys had spent the day going up and down the hallways of the victim's apartment building trying to see if anyone had heard anything or could tell them anything more about the victim. She almost never drank on a week night but she eyed the cabinet where she kept her alcohol as she dropped her purse onto her couch. She refused to offer any hospitality but once he was gone, she decided to pour herself a drink. Or two. After listening to Castle justify himself and refraining from shooting him, she would deserve it.
She turned to face him. And hated herself for noticing how tall he was, how broad-shouldered. He always had been of course but with her heels off, the height difference between them struck her all over again. Damn it. God, she hated this, hated him. Hated him for looking so good, hated herself more for noticing because she did notice even though she didn't want to. It was so damn unfair, that he could look so good even though she knew he was a jackass. Really, would it have been too much of the universe to make him just a little less attractive? She'd become mostly immune to his looks, his presence, after seeing him nearly every day for the few months they'd been working together but now, after not having seen him for a month, all her hard-won immunity had been lost and she noticed him, again. Damn it. And damn him anyway.
She set her jaw. "Well, talk."
Castle jerked his eyes back to her from glancing around her apartment with his usual curiosity and she was momentarily thankful that she'd already cleared all his books from her bookshelves, dumping them in a box so they were out of sight. She'd been seriously tempted to dump the box in the trash too but decided against it. No need to cut off her nose to spite her face and while she could not readily imagine wanting to read any of his books again, she accepted she might change her mind in the future and his books themselves had their own significance to her, unconnected with him. "Nice place," he began, more obviously ill at ease in a social situation than she'd ever seen him, no trace of the suave celebrity now.
"I'm not interested in small talk," she snapped. "You said you wanted to talk so talk and then you can get out."
"I, uh, I didn't mean to meddle, not really. Not at first."
Was he kidding? Sparks of anger kindled inside her. "Oh, so you just accidentally looked into my mom's case?" she interrupted with corrosive sarcasm. "Were you hypnotized? Your body taken over by aliens?"
"No! Will you just let me talk! I wasn't planning on doing anything; I asked to look at your mom's case file because I was curious and then, well, I started thinking about it and thought I could help."
"Help?! By doing exactly what I told you not to do? I told you not to look into my mom's case!"
"I'd already asked my guy to look at your mom's case before you told me that! And maybe I shouldn't have, I get that, but by that point, it was already done and then when he told me what he'd found, I had to tell you. What was I supposed to do, just sit on the information he gave me and not tell you about it? I couldn't have done that!"
She heard what he said but was in no state of mind to process the meaning of it or care even if she had. "And is that supposed to make it all better? You had no right! It's my mom's case, my life, and you've just been running around, treating my life like it's your own personal jungle gym. Playing at being a cop was bad enough but then you had to pry into my mom's case too. It's all just some game to you, isn't it. 'Clue,' in real life. It was the butler in the alley with a knife who killed my mom," she bit off sarcastically.
"I wasn't thinking of it as a game! That's not—"
She cut him off. "You weren't thinking at all! You have no idea what you're doing. You're like some kid running around with scissors, never thinking about the consequences. You have no idea, none, what my mom's case means to me, what it does to me!" Her voice came perilously close to cracking at that and she swallowed and grasped onto her anger again, anger being safer, easier. "What if I don't want to know? Did you ever think of that? What if I'm not ready? What if I can't deal with it? I've tried, Castle, I spent years going over my mom's case and it almost killed me to put it away and now you just want to rip open all the old wounds. And for what, to satisfy your curiosity?"
"I get it, Beckett, I do," he responded with jarring quietness. "You're afraid that you'll end up going down the rabbit hole again but you won't. We have good leads this time, solid leads, and you won't be looking into it alone."
No doubt he meant to calm her but his tone had the opposite effect, throwing a match on gasoline. Her already-rampaging temper started to get the better of her. "Don't you dare tell me what I'm feeling or psychoanalyze me! I'm not a character in one of your books and you don't know what will happen! You don't get it at all! This is my mom's case, my past that you decided to dig up! And you have no right! You had no right to look into my past, no right to look into my mom's case! You dredged up my past for you, Castle, not me, and you're too selfish to even see it!"
That had hit a nerve. It was rare for someone faced with the force of her wrath to actually stand up to her but Castle was, taking an angry step forward, his eyes dark, his expression one she'd never seen on him before. "I wasn't being selfish! You told me about your mom's case and I could see how much it hurt you and I wanted to make it hurt less. I was trying to help you, damn it!"
Her long spate of words had left her breathless and she sucked in a deep breath. Shit, he smelled good. The unwanted thought seemed to assault her, making her almost dizzy with the force of her mental and emotional recoil. She didn't want to notice that, didn't want to notice anything about him as a person at all, not his scent or his height or the strength and tension radiating off him. "I didn't ask for your help! I don't want your help!"
"Maybe not but it doesn't change the fact that I didn't mean to hurt you. I only wanted to help you!"
"You don't have the right to decide that I need help or that the best way to help me is to pry into my past!"
"Well, it's too late for that now. So sue me for wanting to help you!"
Later, it occurred to her that his tone had not been flippant, even if his words seemed to be, but at the moment, she didn't notice. All she knew was that he seemed to be making light of what he'd done, just like the frivolous jackass she'd thought he was. For one fateful moment, she teetered on a knife's edge, the last strands of control she had over herself snapping. Her heart was pounding, anger coiled tightly in her chest, her blood rushing hot and fast through her veins. How dare he! Every emotion he'd provoked in the last few months of working together seemed to coalesce into one molten ball—all her fury, all her irritation, and something that wasn't anger at all. All threatening to erupt like lava from a volcano.
She wanted to hit him, could have punched him, the solid punch of the police officer she was. She didn't.
He'd wanted to help her—ha! All she'd ever wanted from him was—not this. She'd wanted something else. "The only way you could possibly help me is this!"
She grabbed his face between her hands and yanked him forward to press her lips to his. It made no sense and she had no explanation or justification for what she later thought was quite possibly the worst, stupidest thing she'd ever done but she was past the point of thinking. She just acted. And she kissed him, hard, angry and a little punishing.
He froze and stiffened in shock for a split second and then like a switch had been flipped, his arms closed around her with enough force to knock the breath from her lungs and make her gasp and he took advantage, his tongue invading her mouth.
Her head spun, all the heat of anger in her body abruptly converting into heat of a different kind, flaring up, burning her skin. She couldn't think and didn't try, only responded, her hands sliding into his hair (his hair was soft, as soft as she'd imagined—because shit, she had imagined it, thought about this.) She held him in place as she devoured his mouth in return, not that he seemed inclined to go anywhere, nipping at his lower lip. It was his turn to gasp into her mouth and she let out a strangled moan.
The sound did something to her and she came to a fuzzy, belated realization of what she was doing and with whom but then his tongue swept into her mouth, curled around her tongue, and somehow that was it, the last fleeting chance of her regaining her sanity dissolving like a puff of smoke, as she flattened herself against him, arched into him. His body was so hard and strong and hot against hers and she was almost climbing him in desperation, one leg curling around his, bringing his hips rocking forward, the hard bulge in his pants pressed against her.
Shit, oh shit, this was crazy, so very stupid, but at the moment, she didn't care. Later, much later, she thought that it might have been a form of revenge, taking pleasure from him as recompense for the hurt he'd caused her, but then that could just be an excuse and certainly not something that crossed her mind at that moment. She didn't think anything at the moment. She just wanted. Wanted him (as maybe she'd always wanted him).
She slid one hand between them, cupped the bulge in his pants, and he groaned, his hips jerking, and then his hand slid down her back to cup her butt, bringing her arching against him. His hand slid up, finding the hem of her pants and pulling at her shirt until he found the bare skin of her back, his hand so hot against her skin.
She lost her mind after that. Lost her mind more than she already had, that was. Afterwards, her memory was a jumbled blur of heat and lust and passion and desperation and some lingering anger, her entire world narrowing down to him, to his hands on her, her hands on him, his body so hot and hard against hers. She had no clear memories of what happened but at some point, they stumbled back until she hit her kitchen counter. His hands were quick and impatient as he dealt with her pants, her own hands equally so as she did away with his. She remembered him sucking on her neck, his tongue swirling over her pulse point, until she gasped and dragged his mouth back to hers.
His hands were all over her, eager and searching and so very good, from her breasts and then sliding down her sides and roaming over her stomach and back and then lower, between her legs where she really wanted him, and her hands were no less eager, exploring, keeping him close.
And then he was inside her and it was hot and fast and frantic and she was fisting her hands in his shirt and desperately trying to get even closer and she vaguely remembered moaning a string of incoherent words as her whole body seized and she shattered.
It was a long, long moment before her head stopped spinning and she was able to open her eyes as some sanity returned to her in a rush.
Oh god, had that really just happened?
Her hands trembled as she pushed him away and tried to straighten up on legs that felt distinctly wobbly beneath her. Shit. She looked down at the floor, at her pants down around her ankles—oh god—anywhere but at him as she tried to catch her breath, tried to make sense of what had just happened. Not just the having sex with Castle part—shit, she'd just had sex with Castle—but the intensity of it, the fit of it, the way they'd moved in tandem. The dizzying force of lust that had swept her up like a tornado and left her wrecked and with a very bad, stupid, sinking sense that she had never had sex so intense and so very, very good in her life and might never have it again.
No oh no, she cut off the thought almost as soon as it formed because it was insane, stupid, and utterly wrong. It could not be.
"Beckett?" His voice was quiet, almost hesitant, in a way she'd never heard before.
And stupidly, the sound of his voice sent a tingle through her body, something inside her seeming to clench in response. No no no, she could not still want him, not now.
"I… um, is this… what was this?"
She shut her eyes, shut her heart. "This was a mistake," she said flatly.
Even without looking, she somehow sensed his flinch, knew she'd hurt him and couldn't stop the tug of guilt. But what else could she say? It had been a moment of insanity, that was all, and now the insanity was over.
She couldn't summon up any active anger anymore—maybe she'd exorcised the anger—but it didn't make what he'd done in looking into her mom's case okay either.
There was a moment of heavy silence and then she heard vague rustling noises, the sound of a zipper, and knew he was putting himself to rights again. Making her belatedly aware of the fact that she was still a mess, her shirt more than half undone, her bra unfastened, and her body mostly naked. She was still wearing her socks. She almost choked on the absurd realization, the ridiculousness of the situation. But in spite of everything, she refused to show the embarrassment and shame starting to prickle over her skin by rushing to put her clothes to rights, forced herself to do so at a reasonably normal pace.
And it was only when she was once again dressed that she allowed herself to look at him, although she couldn't quite meet his eyes.
He looked… deflated, if that made any sense, his eyes dull, his mouth set. She focused her gaze on the collar of his shirt instead. Forcibly tugged her mind away from a sudden memory of nipping at his Adam's apple.
"I… didn't mean for this to happen," he finally said, heavily, and she wasn't quite sure if he meant the sex or hurting her, not that it mattered.
"I know," she admitted. "But now it's done. We're done."
"Beckett, I…"
She didn't know what he was going to say but the softness of his voice, the vulnerability in it, shook her and she cut him off, could not listen to him anymore. "You said you'd leave after you had your say. You had it. Now go home."
He hesitated for a long second and then he sighed.
She finally risked a glance up at his face, momentarily met his eyes.
"For what it's worth, I meant it when I said you're extraordinary."
She sternly stamped down the little quiver in her chest. "Goodbye, Castle."
"Night, Beckett." He paused. "Take care."
He hesitated again, one hand lifting as if to touch her before it dropped. And then he was walking out of her apartment and closing the door behind him.
She tried not to think of the click of her door closing as sounding like some final knell, the end of something. (God, when had she started to think in such melodramatic terms?)
She wasn't quite sure why but she stayed frozen in place for another few seconds and it was only when she was sure he must have reached the elevator and was well and truly away that she stirred.
She headed straight to her bathroom and stood under the hot spray of her shower, scrubbing herself more thoroughly than necessary, as if she could somehow wash the regret from her skin at the same time as she tried to wash the memory of his touch from her mind, her senses.
For months, she'd told herself and told herself she wouldn't give in, wouldn't sleep with him as he so clearly wanted her to. And now she had. Fine, she had gotten him out of her system-because she could admit that she had wanted him, thought about having sex with him, from the beginning, even if she had refused to admit it—and now they could be done. They had scratched the itch as it were and had sex, which was all she'd wanted from him and was certainly all he'd wanted from her anyway, so they could both move on.
She would never see Castle again and she was just fine with that.
And tried desperately to believe it.
~To be continued…~
A/N 2: I hope this answered at least some of your questions. Thank you all for reading and reviewing.
