Chapter 8

Castle, thankfully, was quiet on the way back. Beckett flicked a glance at him to ensure he hadn't actually died without her noticing, but on finding that he was breathing, was happy to ignore him. Quiet was good.

She reached Castle's block without further distractions, and pulled over.

"Night," she said.

"Come up for five minutes," Castle said. "Surely you need a comfort break?"

Beckett did. The traffic back through Manhattan wasn't going to do anything for her comfort, which was already sadly uncomfortable. "Yes, thanks," she said, much against her mental comfort but necessarily for her physical comfort. She should have stopped on the way, but she hadn't.

She tidied up her parking and followed Castle to his loft, experiencing the same shock as the first time she'd seen it. It reminded her forcibly that she was an ordinary detective, and he was a multi-millionaire best-selling playboy celebrity. Two completely different worlds.

"Over there." Castle gestured.

Beckett gratefully disappeared. Her bodily needs met, she noticed that there were two opposing doors to the bathroom. Curiosity took over, and she opened the other door from the one by which she'd entered. Then she shut it again, fast. That had been Castle's bedroom, which was a place she did not want to see.

She opened the door again, quietly, stared around for long enough for trained detective observation skills to remember every detail, and then shut it again. And then she went back out to the main room.

"Thanks. I'd better get home."

Castle made a face at her. "But I just put coffee on for you," he said plaintively, and widened his eyes. He looked like a sad, adorable puppy.

"Does that look work for you with many people?" Beckett asked coolly. "Because it really isn't working for me."

Castle turned up the pathetic wattage.

"Still not working. You can stop now. I'm sure you can manage to drink your coffee on your own and then put yourself to bed without any help." She took a step towards the door.

"You were looking at my bed," Castle said casually. "Did you like it?"

"You what now?" She was absolutely sure she wasn't blushing.

"You looked into my bedroom. Therefore you looked at my bed. What was that all about?"

"I got the wrong door."

"Twice?" Castle smirked. "Really?" His hands made her coffee. His face said I could give you a personal tour. All evening. Or all night. He handed her the cup.

"Thanks." It was clipped off.

"Go sit down in the study."

Beckett did, and looked around. Castle sat down in one chair. Beckett took another, and cradled the mug in her hands, apparently oblivious to its heat.

"I don't mind you looking at my bedroom," he flirted. "I made my bed, and I'm pretty sure I picked my socks up and put them in the hamper."

"I have no idea. I have no interest in your laundry."

"But you are interested in my bedroom. You looked at it twice."

Beckett defiantly drank her coffee, and refused to comment.

Castle twinkled at her. "It's really rather nice. However, it's not appropriate to sit in there. Here's much nicer. Feel free to rummage through my books, just don't poke at my laptop. No spoilers for you or anyone else."

"I wouldn't want them."

"Mean. I know you've read all my books – even the really bad ones when I was just starting out. And I saw them all in your apartment too, so unless you regularly buy books that you don't read, you've read them." He grinned. "So no sneaking spoilers."

Beckett put her cup down with a decided clunk. "Thank you for the coffee. It's time I went."

"Home, or to the precinct? Anyway, you haven't finished your coffee."

"None of your business," she snapped.

"If you're going to work on this case, it is my business. I shadow you. Didn't we have this discussion already?"

"Didn't I tell you that how I work is my business and I don't answer to you?"

Castle changed tack. A fight – another fight – wouldn't help anyone. "Yes, you did. But I want to shadow you. It's interesting and the case is fascinating. I don't want to miss anything."

Beckett's ire receded marginally.

"I really don't want to miss it when you have a revelation about the case."

"We don't have revelations. We work the evidence and the clues to find the right answer. Wonderful coincidences only belong in fiction - bad fiction. There's a lot of drudgery in detecting. You can't skip right to the end and expect it to hold up in court."

Castle grabbed for a notebook and pen, and scribbled.

"What are you doing?"

"That phrase – drudgery in detecting. I don't want to forget it."

Beckett's ire receded a fraction further.

"So don't you ever get sudden realisations or serendipitous information?"

"Sometimes. But you can't rely on that. You have to do the work."

"Just like I have to research and edit," Castle said thoughtfully. "I guess I hoped you'd have easy solutions."

"Like Derrick Storm?"

"No!" Castle said indignantly. "All of that is carefully researched too. I" – he stopped.

"You shadowed someone else to find out," Beckett said. "Huh. How did you get access to those agencies?"

Castle stared. "I thought you just said you didn't do sudden realisations."

"I'm a detective. I deduce. And you just confirmed it." She raked him with a glance. "Huh," she said again. "If you were allowed in there – one of them – then you can do more than just sit at a desk and write – and annoy me." The raking glance turned piercing. Interrogation Beckett arrived in an instant. "What else can you do? And no dumb flirtatious answers. Can you spar? Shoot? Techno-whizz?"

"Fence," Castle said, hoping to get away with only that admission. "No techno-whizzing."

"Since the agencies don't usually fight with swords these days, try finishing that answer. Spar, shoot, both?"

"Both," Castle confessed.

Beckett ran a cool, assessing gaze over him. It wasn't in the slightest lustful or flirtatious, though it examined every inch. "I see. That was how you knew the safety catch was on. Don't you think that it might have been useful to tell us that you could spar and shoot – do you carry?"

"No. No permit. No guns here: not with a child."

"Okay. One less thing to worry about." She paused. "Sparring?"

"Yep. Not like I guess you and the boys do, but yes. I do exercise – most mornings, after Alexis has gone to school."

"I see. So all that trailing in two-plus hours after we start has a good reason? You're not just a slugabed" –

"That word!" Castle exclaimed. "That's a wonderful word. Say it again, pleeeeaaaasssse?"

"No."

Castle pouted. He loved it when anyone used unusual words, but in Beckett's clipped, educated tones it went straight to his hindbrain and from there to his groin. "Awwww."

Beckett settled back in her chair, obviously thinking. Unfortunately, her next action was to drain her coffee to the last dregs, and stand up. "I need to go. Home."

"Okay." Castle stood too, and escorted her to the door. "Till tomorrow."

She looked very slightly up as he opened the door. "See you," she said.

Castle gave in to his impulses and hugged her. "Night," he said, letting go before she could do anything, stepped back and closed the door.

Beckett had no idea how she'd got back to her car. Brad Pitt or George Clooney could have escorted her, Serena Williams could have been playing tennis in front of her, and she wouldn't have seen a thing. She inserted herself into the driver's seat, stunned. After a moment, she pulled her brain together from its fractured fractals and drove home.

Safely at home, she stared blankly at her walls as she mechanically readied herself for bed. When he'd stopped flirting offensively, Castle had actually been a good companion. But…shooting? Sparring? Uh, what? And that assessing gaze had found a lot of muscle, which – much as she hated to admit it – matched up with those two scorching kisses. And then he hadn't kissed her. He'd hugged her, just like he'd hug, well, his mother. Huh, with a side order of humph. Not that she'd wanted to be kissed.

Well. She had wanted kissed, but it still wasn't a good idea.

Just an exceedingly pleasurable one.

It was not a good idea. Just like taking a second look at that amazingly large bed had not been a good idea, and nor had been eyeing up the shower stall and thinking that there was plenty of room for two…

Bad. Idea.

One-night stands and flings were a Bad Idea.

If only it wouldn't be so much fun. If only those kisses hadn't been utterly amazing. If only…

Of course, she could kill two birds with one stone. She'd never believed that shadowing her had anything to do with writing books: he'd made it ultra-clear that the goal was getting into her pants. So…if she went for a scorching one-night stand, he'd be bored and go away, and she could concentrate on her life and career.

Now that was a plan. Some meaningless but excellent sex, and getting rid of Castle.

Perfect. Just plain perfect.

And she'd just carry on telling herself that she believed what she'd just thought.

She just wished she'd thought of it three hours earlier, when she could have implemented her plan that evening.

She went to bed, fell asleep instantly, and dreamed scorching dreams of scorching sex with no consequences or continuity, and woke convinced that, despite not normally (not ever) wanting casual flings, one wouldn't hurt.

Tipping back her latte, Beckett surveyed her murder board with an unusual feeling of good cheer. Partly – indeed, mostly – that was occasioned by having had all the sales lists back, and having dumped the pain of cross-matching on Ryan. But partly it was because she had made her decision.

Still, she wasn't going to make it easy.

That was for later. For now, she needed to put her head down and work.

She started by running Kliverson, and once that was safely chugging through, summoned Esposito. "What do we got?"

"We found the van. CSU are dealing with it."

"Where?"

"The impound lot. I'm waiting for them to call me back so I can find out where they towed it from."

"Okay. Harpoon purchases?"

"Mrs Darnley was on the customer list of Coastal. CSU are checking if it's the same harpoon – serial numbers."

"When will they tell us anything?" Beckett asked, a snap of irritation behind her question.

"As soon as they can," Espo said. "Ryan's seeing if he can find this Kliverson in the bronze nail purchases."

"I'll get to him. Can we find Kliverson?"

"On it."

Beckett stalked over to Ryan. "Can we find Kliverson in the nail purchases?"

"Not yet."

Beckett growled. "I want him."

"While we're waiting for the cross-match to run, I started on the lists of workers on the Amsterdam site to see if any of them bought harpoons or nails. It's still running too."

Beckett's next growl had half the bullpen ducking. "Why can't it be faster?"

"Because it isn't," Ryan said, turning sideways-on to try to reduce the target area for Beckett's glare. "I can't make the circuits go any faster."

"I want answers," Beckett grumbled. "What about other workers on the Amsterdam site? Someone harassed Mrs Darnley, and I wanna know who."

"Who what?" Castle carolled. "Good morning, good morning."

Beckett scowled.

"Ah, the sunny, shining face of Detective Beckett, scourge of criminals and lowlifes."

"And us," Ryan muttered.

"Share with the class, Ryan?" Beckett snapped.

"Nothing," Ryan said, being a man who believed in discretion. Beckett let it go, having made her point. "I'll just go and see if we've anything through." He scuttled off. Beckett continued to scowl.

"Good morning, Beckett," Castle tried.

"Hey," she growled.

Castle was also a man who believed in discretion, in certain circumstances. Having pushed about as far as he thought he could get away with yesterday, he wandered off to the break room and came back with coffee for himself and for Beckett.

"Thanks," she managed, eyes on her papers.

Her brain was on her decision earlier that morning, but Castle bouncing in like a hyperactive puppy hadn't given her any confidence that she'd made the right choice. Maybe it really was a truly bad idea.

And then Castle sat down, just as usual, and grinned, just as usual, and heat sizzled in his gaze, just as usual…and small muscles tightened low in her stomach, which was certainly not just as usual, while she remembered his interestingly masculine bedroom and its particularly large bed.

Something had changed, Castle realised. Though Beckett was scowling blackly, something had changed. There was an…awareness…in the air between them that hadn't been there the previous day. Now, wasn't that interesting? He hadn't thought that she'd been, um, receptive to his flirting, but suddenly he thought that if he tried again later, she might be.

Later. Not now. Not, though he desperately wanted to find out, not invite her to a private room and kiss hell out of her. Not. Not now.

But maybe, maybe…later. Because something had changed, and there was awareness in the air, and if he gave her his best hot, appreciative look – and he did – there was a matching heat in her gaze even though her scowl would level mountains and boil seas.

Maybe, maybe – there would be a chance to find out. To move towards the words he so badly wanted to say. Maybe.

Before he could do or say something entirely stupid, or premature, he ambled off to make another cup of coffee, which he drank in the break room until he had control of his tongue, then ambled back.

In the time he'd been away, nothing had changed except the intensity of Beckett's irritation, which was now running close to maximum.

Her irritation continued to run hot for most of the day. She declined lunch with Castle, which disappointed but didn't surprise him, and when the databases and cross-matching finally started to spit out results, she buried her head in the information and refused to come out, which was also disappointing but unsurprising.

He sat, observing Beckett on a mission for justice, internalising the ferocious focus she displayed in chasing down every hint of a trail, every whisper of a clue. Tomorrow, he knew, they'd be interviewing. Today was simply the chase: Beckett on the hunt for her prey.

Finally, she stretched, rounded up Ryan and Espo, updated the murder board with tomorrow's list of interviewees, and, all that done, looked at the bombsite of her desk.

"I'll just tidy all this," she said, "then go home."

Castle had that same sense of awareness as he'd had almost all day. He peeked out of the corner of his eye, and spotted Beckett biting her lower lip and peeping through her lashes.

"How about a drink?" he offered. "I know this great little bar – the Old Haunt." Beckett's lip-nibbling intensified. "It has great craft beer and even some food."

Beckett had buried herself in work all day to avoid second-guessing herself every other instant. She could sense Castle's unbridled interest – just as he always was – but today she'd felt her own interest rise in return. If she'd been honest with herself, she'd have admitted that actually, today she'd allowed her own interest to rise in return, and oh, boy had it risen.

But going for a drink committed her to nothing. Absolutely nothing. She could leave any time she wanted to. Any time.

"Okay," she said. Castle's smile, utterly different from his usual I'm-speculating-about-your-underwear smirk, could have lit Times Square. It went straight to her core. "Where is this dingy bar?"

"It's not dingy!" Castle exclaimed. "It's perfectly civilised. Clean, well-lit, comfortable seats – you're messing with me! That's mean. Now you have to come with me to see that I wasn't kidding."

"If you were, I'm going straight home."

Castle grinned boyishly. "I'm not. So come see, so I can prove it."

Beckett tidied her last sheaf of paper away, put a file on top of the drawer, switched off her computer, picked up her wallet, and locked her desk. "Where are we going?"

How about bed? Castle thought, and forcibly stopped himself from saying it. "This way. It's only a short walk from the precinct."

Sure enough, only a few moments later Castle stopped at a small, grubby stairwell with an iron rail. "Here we are." He regarded her expression. "It's nice inside," he said. "I'll show you."

Her expression screamed scepticism, but she followed him down.

"See?" he said. "Nothing like the outside. One of the undiscovered gems of Manhattan." He smiled. "What would you like to drink?"

"Craft beer, please. You pick."

"Go sit down. You pick."

Beckett looked around. The bar had small tables with wooden, uncomfortable-looking chairs, or it had booths, which were cosy, comfortable – and cramped. She faced the choice between backache or rather close up and personal with Castle. Still, she could leave after one beer if she wanted. Any time she liked.

She took a booth. It was better than a crushed vertebra, she told herself. She'd never had a single twinge in her spine in her whole life, she carefully forgot.

Castle ambled up bearing two craft beers and glasses to pour them into, sat down and expertly poured her beer without a hint of the head foaming over the glass edge.

"Bartender?" Beckett asked.

"Yes. While I was waiting for someone to take my first book. I took any job that would pay me enough to make my rent and bills."

Beckett hummed thoughtfully. She'd done plenty of basic jobs in college too, but somehow she'd never considered that Castle might have had to. Maybe there was more to him than a rich playboy, who splashed the cash and catted around. She took a sip of her beer. "That's nice," she said. "Thanks."

Castle wriggled a little further into the booth, which left a gap of, oh, at least one whole inch between them. "That's better," he said. "I was falling off the edge."

Beckett couldn't wriggle away, because she would fall off the edge of the seat, which she didn't want to do. She sipped her beer again, in lieu of conversation, mainly because she had no idea what to talk about. Having accepted the offer of a drink, she now couldn't decide what to do with the situation. Common sense, perched like an angel on her right shoulder, said drink up and get out. Desire, whispering in her left ear with temptations of the devil, said move in. Neither option was attractive. She stared into her beer.

"Are you okay?" Castle asked.

"Yeah," she said, and looked up from her drink to find worried big blue eyes gazing into hers.

"You sure? You look, um, pensive."

Castle wasn't lying. Beckett did look pensive. Pensive, however, as he well knew, wasn't the same as upset…but that didn't stop his next impulse.

He curled an arm around her and tucked her into a hug. At least, that was what he told himself he was doing. Hugging. He'd hugged her before. He had. He'd even kissed her – and she'd kissed him. He knew how touching her scorched through him.

So it really shouldn't have been a surprise that, when she nibbled at her lip, he couldn't stop himself leaning down and kissing her again, gently, almost tentatively. But not quite. If she'd shown the slightest hint of uncertainty, he'd have backed off.

Uncertainty was the last thing she showed.

When Castle slipped an arm around her, Beckett's highly unusual indecisiveness intensified. She could move away. She could remove his arm at the shoulder. Or, alternatively, she could kiss him. She did what she always did in moments of indecisiveness, or indeed at any point in which thinking might be involved, and chewed on her lip.

With hindsight, that might have been a mistake, but how was she supposed to know that nibbling her lower lip would incite Castle to kiss her? He hadn't done it any other time. It was just not fair. She'd entirely failed to make up her mind and now here he was…making it up for her.

And then he stopped, and drew back. What the hell? That was just not acceptable. She stared at him. "What was that?"

"An impulse," Castle said smoothly.

"I see." Beckett tried to wriggle away.

"Don't pull away. I didn't say it was a mistake. I'm just…waiting for you to decide if you think it's a mistake." His fingers wandered over the top of her arm, petting softly. "Because you've been different all day and you came out for a drink, rather than a quick burger before you went back to the bullpen." He let that hang between them for a moment. "And because kissing you in the car was amazing," he added in a dark, furry baritone. "You kissing me was amazing too. We should be amazing more often." His voice slithered down Beckett's skin and seeped into her synapses, where it stroked sensually all the way through her body. "How about you drink up and we go back to yours – where there aren't any interruptions – and discuss it?" He paused. "Unless you think it was a mistake."

Beckett emptied her glass, stood up, and took a step. "You coming, Castle?"

Thank you to all readers and reviewers.

Please note that chapter 9 is M-rated, starting from the opening words.