A/N: Thank you all so much for all your love and encouragement on this story, hope you'll enjoy this chapter as well! Until next time, xxxx

He follows her home, not that she minds because it only means more pleasure, but now… he's spooning her, his fingers tracing her naked skin, and it feels so damn great. It also scares her to pieces. The day is playing out in her head now and it's… do much. It's too much of a… a relationship. And this is not a relationship. She regrets not having suggested they'd go to his loft, because if they had she would've been able to leave. But it feels rude to ask him to leave, especially considering he's done nothing wrong.

"Hey," he whispers as she can feel the dip in the bed when he's supposedly rising onto his elbow in order to be able to look at her.

She only glances towards him with her eyes, which gives him enough courage to voice whatever's on his mind.

"What's wrong?"

She closes her eyes. "Nothing, just tired," she says and she feels his fingers stop their trace.

"You sure?" he asks and she bites the inside of her cheeks.

"Yeah," she says, turning her head just to try and smile reassuringly at him. His blue eyes look back with so much concern and emotion that her smile almost falters, almost.

"Okay," he says with a nod, leaning down to kiss her shoulder before he lies down again behind her, his arm going around her in a hug.

It feels so damn comfortable, safe. And yet that scares her the most. How comfortable and safe she feels with him, as if nothing can hurt her. But he can.

Her mind keeps on rambling and somewhere along the line she actually falls asleep.

Kate makes sure not to let him have any more of her free days. Not because she's not tempted, he makes it very hard to resist, but she can't… she just can't. They do continue to have one night here, one night there, but she tries to stay away, she truly does. Her body just… isn't working with her. Not when he can make her squirm like he does. Not when he teases her like he does, it's impossible to control her emotions. They go for weeks like this, her trying not to give in, him continuing to nestle his way in, she following him home only to leave in the middle of the night once he's fallen asleep. She's tried leaving earlier a couple of times but when he looks at her with those big blue ocean eyes, begging her to stay, she can't help but find it hard to say no. So now she waits, she always waits. She's discovered he's trying to stay awake longer, tries to hug her tighter, but he's a deep sleeper.

"Hey Beckett! Caught a case?" Castle asks in a cheering tone and she rolls her eyes.

"Why else would I call you here?" she asks before she thinks and glares at him before he can answer something inappropriate in front of her coworkers.

"W-I don't know," he shrugs with fake detachment. She can still see the mischief in his eyes though. "So, what do we have?"

She shakes her head discreetly as she turns to Lanie, who's starting to give them all the information she's gathered so far. Once they have everything they can get from the hotel room Kate and her partner leave to see if they can find out more information from their victim's work. The second they're out of hearing from their coworkers Kate feels his hand brush past her hand.

"Castle, stop it," she hisses and he furrows his eyes.

"What?"

"We're not…" she starts and then shuts herself up. "Let's focus on the case."

It works, for a while. Then he starts questioning what she was going to say. She's not answering him though, keeps coming up with questions or statements to say connected with their case. The day turns into evening. He tries to get her to go home but she refuses when the case is still active, she does insist on him going home though. She can tell he's irritated, and one part of her is really upset with herself for making him that way, another part just tells her it's inevitable. He'll leave soon enough anyway. She does as much work as she can but when it's up to things out of her control, like questioning more of the victim's friends and family, which she can't do at night, she leaves for her own bed. Once in her bed she pulls her second pillow closer to her body, it's when the pillow is close to her face she suddenly understands why. It smells of him. How that's even possible since he hasn't been here in weeks, she doesn't know.

"Hey."

It's soft and she's sitting upright in no time with her gun in her hand, directing it towards the voice in the chair only to see it's her partner.

"Goddamn it Castle, what the hell?!" she exclaims as she puts back her gun into her night table.

"I'm sorry but I need answers," he says as he's standing up and she raises her brows.

"So you decided to sneak up on me, frightening me to death? What if I'd shot you? And what in hell made you think you have the right to use my spare key anytime you want?" she's yelling at him, scolding him, because she's mad. And scared.

"You're angry," he states and she lets go of a frustrated growl.

"Of course I'm angry! It's not your position to show up like this! It's not your decision!" she goes on and she sees his blues turn angry, and desperate.

"What do you mean not my position? Yeah, sure, we don't live together but we've been sleeping together for months and I'm worried about you," he hisses.

"That's right Castle, we've been sleeping together. Nothing less, nothing more. We're not together, Castle!" she scolds and she immediately sees the hurt in his blues, as if she's stabbed him.

He's quiet for a few seconds, just staring at her with wide eyes and she can't help but feel a pang of guilt in the pit of her stomach. A pang of hurt too.

"Is that all this is to you? Sex?" he asks and she clenches her teeth shut. "That day at the zoo… it meant nothing to you? All the talks, all the…" his voice dies.

"Yes," she says, just above a whisper. Any louder and she knows he'll hear the pain in it, and so she keeps quiet, her eyes not looking at him but trained on the floor. If she looks up she's afraid he'll see right through her. She has a feeling he's not exactly looking at her either for the same reason.

"I guess this is it then," he whispers and she holds back a sob. "I-bye Kate."

She doesn't look up, hears his feet lead out of her bedroom, through the small corridor towards her door. The lock turns and soon enough she hears the door close behind him and she feels her insides break apart. She makes quick work of following his footsteps to lock the door, because once she does she feels her knees give out and she slides down the door to the floor. Her eyes are blurry and she can't see anything, can only feel. Feel everything she didn't want to feel. This is even worse than her mother dying.

For the next week she's a robot by day and wreck by night. During the day she's doing her best at shutting everything off except for the detective inside her, he hasn't shown up so it's been quite easy for her to ignore everything about him. At least that's what she's telling herself, lying to herself. The boys were about to ask her that first day, but something about her had them changing their question in the middle of them asking it. Lanie had seen it immediately and had asked but when Kate had just pleaded with her to stop she had.

"What are you still doing here, Beckett?"

Kate jumps a bit at the sound of her captain and she looks at him with wide eyes.

"I'm… working, sir," she says and he gives her one of those disapproving looks.

"Case is closed, if it's the report you can continue it tomorrow," he says and she shakes her head.

"No, sir, I can do it now. It's no struggle," she promises and he holds up a hand.

"Go home, Beckett. It's an order," he says and when she's not making a move to leave his eyebrows rise in challenge and she slumps her shoulders in defeat as she starts to put away her work.

He's not leaving until she is and it both frustrates her and makes her work quick to get out of there. Once out on the streets she decides to take a walk instead of taking a cab. She doesn't want to go home. She hasn't wanted to go home since their fight. Their break. She's furious with herself for letting her get so vulnerable with him. She knew from the start they would never work out and still she kept going back to him. It's frustrating and, god, it's painful. She should've never agreed to that debriefing. It all comes down to that one, stupid, decision. If she didn't know how he tasted, how he felt, his scent, she would've never suffered the way she is now.

"Excuse me, miss, are you okay?" Kate blinks a few times to see the woman in front of her.

"Yeah, thanks," she answers as her fingers wipe away the tears that had somehow managed to leave her eyes without her permission, or knowledge.

It's time to head home. She doesn't need anyone to see this. Without hesitation she walks away from the woman and starts to look around to figure out where she is.

"Damnit," she hisses under her breath when she sees his building right around the corner. This isn't where she is supposed to be at.

Without hesitation she hails a cab and gets out of there before he or his family sees her there. In the cab she tries to hold herself together for long enough to get to her own building, once she's inside her apartment though… all hell breaks loose again. The feelings inside her break through the wall she's created at work, her face scrunching up as the mask she's worn all day is dissipating.

When she's cried all tears she can get out the first round she's grabbing a bottle of water to hydrate herself. She picks up her phone and looks at the photo she'd snapped of them that day at the zoo. The way he looks at her makes her eyes sting again, because it looks like she's the only one there. She truly blew it, didn't she?

She shakes her head, puts the phone down and walks into her bedroom. She can't deal with getting herself ready right now, she'll do it later, and so she lies down in her bed. She grabs that pillow and hugs it close to her heart. It doesn't smell like him anymore, but she imagines it does, and that helps a little bit. But not enough.