Disclaimer: The only part of Castle that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.
A/N And we're back in T territory, at least for now.
Her alarm goes off at 5:30. It's already light, though it's not quite sunrise. When she taps the snooze button on the phone, she's grateful that it's programmed to ring then—who knows when she'd have woken up otherwise. She still can't believe that she's here, even as she rolls over to look at her sleeping partner. Wow, partner. They're that kind of partners now.
They're both naked, and the only thing left on the bed is the fitted bottom sheet and some tormented pillows. She has to shower and get ready for work—thank God she has makeup, clean underwear and a blouse in her bag, and pants and shoes in her locker at the precinct—but she can't bear the idea of getting up yet. The alarm will ring again in seven minutes; she can spoon with Castle until then. Between the unimaginably great sex and the talking, they'd been up virtually all night. He can stay in bed, but she'll have to run on adrenaline and caffeine all day. She turns on her side again to snuggle up to him; her mind is drifting happily when she feels him begin to nuzzle her neck.
"It's summer, Castle. I can't cover up with a scarf, and if you leave a mark on me I'll fucking kill you."
"You're fucking killing me already."
"You're speaking metaphorically, I'm not," she says, as his hand sneaks under her arm and cups her breast.
"No one has ever said 'metaphorically' to me in bed before. You wouldn't believe how sexy that is."
She turns her head so that she can look over her shoulder at him; they're almost touching noses. "I don't want to know what anyone else has said to you in bed, ever. Got that?"
"Got it," he says, and runs his tongue behind her ear. "You know what else I got?" He runs his palm down her stomach, strokes the crease of her hip and feels her shiver.
"What?"
"You."
"Aww." She folds her hand over his and brings it to her lips to kiss it. The instant she lets go, he puts it right back were it was. She has no objection whatsoever.
"How are you feeling?"
"Ecstatic. Ecstatic but exhausted. I'm not sure that I can walk."
"Yeah, well, after what you did to me, I really have to do an inventory of my body parts, make sure that everything is functioning."
She giggles. When had she turned into a giggler? She moves backwards and bumps up against him. "Well, one thing's definitely functioning."
"Should I test it? Test drive? Take you for a spin?"
"No time." She can't help laughing. "I have to take a shower and go to work."
"We could shower together."
"Really? And that will save time?"
"I could wash your…back."
"You're insatiable," she says, and rolls over to kiss him.
"Look who's talking."
"Must be the Boston cream pie you had, Castle."
"Could be. But I'd much rather be eating—"
"Don't even start," she says, covering his mouth with her hand.
She'd washed her hair at his house last night, after swimming, so she doesn't need to do that; the shower is a quick one. It's only when she's out, and dripping onto the mat, that she realizes that the soap she'd just used is English pear and freesia. It's her favorite, but so expensive that she buys it only once in a while, as a treat. She walks a few steps to the freestanding wooden cabinet, opens the door, and finds nine bars on the shelf. How the hell had he known? Oh, she remembers. The evening after her apartment had been bombed she'd had too much wine and said morosely, "Shit, that son of a bitch even blew up my Jo Malone pear and freesia soap." And this is what he'd done. She almost weeps.
Wrapped in an enormous blue towel, she's in front of the mirror now, unzipping her small cosmetics bag. The door opens and Castle comes in, wearing his boxers, and she wants to jump him on the spot, but she can't. Work; she has to go to work. She promised. Work.
"Don't," he says, stopping behind her, pressing his chest to her back, and putting his hand over the little bag.
"Don't what?" She's watching his reflection.
"I've never seen you without make-up, Kate. You're so beautiful, so unbelievably beautiful."
She can't meet his eyes, so she just looks down at the countertop. "Thanks, Castle, but I do have to put on a little make-up for work."
"Okay," he says, putting both hands up in surrender. "Promise me something?"
"I'll try."
"Before we go to bed tonight, take off your make-up."
For this, she can meet his eyes, and she's beaming. "Think we're going to bed tonight, huh?"
"And you don't?"
"No."
"No?"
"I was thinking more like late afternoon. I get off shift at four. Now let me finish, I've gotta get going."
He races into the bedroom, and she thinks she hears him going through his pockets. He comes back into the bath, holding his phone up triumphantly and waving it in the steamy air. "Done!"
"What?"
"I set the alarm for three-forty so I can get everything ready before you come back here."
"What makes you think that I'm not going to my place?"
"You told me that your air conditioner died, so we should be here, shouldn't we? If last night proved anything, it's that we really, really heat up a room."
"What a line, Castle."
"Can't help it. You've reduced me to corn mush."
"Okay, cornball. Now move, please, so I can get dressed."
"I'll make you some coffee to take with you."
"Are you kidding? I walk in with one of your cups and you don't think Espo and Ryan might suspect something?"
"First of all, I doubt that they've catalogued my china, and second, I happen to have some anonymous paper to-go cups."
"I'm not going to ask why. I just hope they're not for the other women you've had here and had to hustle out the door before Alexis woke up."
"Kate. Kate, look at me." He's turning her in his arms, and he's deeply serious. "I've never, ever let a woman stay here, except Meredith occasionally, for which I profoundly apologize. But at least she's Alexis's mother, biologically, anyway. I don't want Alexis exposed to that. But you? That's a different story. So: I have the cups for mornings when I've had to hustle my daughter off to school, when we were running late and I wanted coffee while I took her there." He pulls her in close to him. He smells of sex and she's desperate to get right back in bed with him. "All right?"
"All right." She reluctantly moves out of his embrace Now, go make me coffee please, and I'll get dressed."
At the front door, she almost turns back, but steels herself. Still in her flat-heel boots, she gets up on tiptoes and brushes her lips lightly over his.
"I want a real kiss, Kate, not that."
"Okay, but no tongue, or I'll never leave."
"Fine," he says, sweeping her up and giving her a very long, X-rated kiss.
"Castle!" she says, swatting his chest when she's caught her breath. "You agreed, no tongue."
"Had my fingers crossed, doesn't count."
"Oh, God. Give me strength. And give me my coffee, please." She holds him off with one arm and extends the other for the cup. "Thank you. Bye."
"I'll call you!"
As she walks down the hall to the elevator, she waves a hand over her shoulder. If she were to turn around and see his face, she'd be a goner.
She'd had left plenty of time so that she's at the Twelfth well ahead of Esposito and Ryan, and can change into other pants and a pair of heels. When they arrive she's already at her desk, sipping her coffee and reading departmental emails.
"Have a good afternoon, Beckett?" Ryan asks.
"Yes, thanks."
"Do anything special?" Espo asks, parking his butt on the corner of her desk. "Get your lunch off your pants?"
"I did, not that it's any of your business."
"What else?"
Why is he asking? Can he tell? Shit, does she look like she just got laid? Four times? "Well, Esposito, since you're clearly so riveted by every detail of my personal life, I'll tell you. You're a detective, right?"
"That's what my badge says."
"Fine. Then you may have detected that we've just had a blistering heat wave. The fascinating news is that my A/C broke over the weekend but every store was sold out. So I took advantage of the break in the heat yesterday, and the restocking of the stores, and went shopping for a new one. There. Satisfied? I'm happy to tell you all the most interesting details, too, like how many stores I checked out, what brand I chose, number of BTUs, color of the trim, the efficiency rating, price, and how much I'll tip the kid who's going to install it for me after work today."
"Geez, so touchy."
"Geez, so nosy. Now excuse me, but I have to finish a bunch of emails that are almost as boring as shopping for air conditioners, but I'm paid to read them." She gives him a semi-death glare and he retreats to his desk. She knows that she should be ashamed of how easily she'd just lied to him, but she's not. She's kind of proud of it, in fact. It's the kind of thing Castle can do so well. He's really gotten into her—blood rushes to her face. Yes, he's gotten into her a lot in the last few hours. She takes a deep breath. Besides, she lied for a good reason: she's not supposed to be having sex with a colleague. Except she can name four, no, eight, cops she knows who are. Four couples. So now she knows five, and she and Castle shouldn't count, anyway. He isn't a cop, he's not paid, even if he should be, considering how useful he is. Her hands are shaking as she picks up her cup. Shit. She's drunk it all?
She hears the elevator doors open but she's not paying any attention. She needs to concentrate on her work, needs to get through the day without doing something idiotic. When she hears Ryan say "hey!" she barely registers it. But then she hears Esposito.
"Yo!"
She raises her head just as a thumb and four fingers—oh, those fingers, what they did to her last night and this morning—unwrap themselves from a coffee cup and rest it on her desk. "Castle?"
"Morning, Beckett, guys." He smiles at all three of them and Ryan and Espo jump up from their chairs to come greet their friend.
"Look who the cat dragged in," Espo says, giving Castle a hug.
"Not the cat, the Kate."
"What?" Ryan says.
She will kill him. She will drop him from the window by his heels. She will strangle him, shoot him, stab him, and for good measure drown him in the Hudson River. Although the look she's giving him should do the trick, rendering other homicidal methods unnecessary. What the hell was he thinking? She's on the edge of panic, and a song floods her brain.
Don't throw bouquets at me,
Don't please my folks too much.
Don't laugh at my jokes too much,
People will say we're in love!
He's looking at her. Right straight at her.
Don't sigh and gaze at me,
Your sighs are so like mine.
Your eyes mustn't glow like mine,
People will say we're in love!
"Yeah," he says nonchalantly. "I ran into her last night."
"You did, huh?" That's Espo.
"Outside PC Richards," she interjects. "Where I had just dropped three days' pretax pay on a new air conditioner."
"So I took pity on her and bought her a drink."
"Shoulda bought her an air conditioner, bro. You can afford it."
"I offered, but she refused."
"Very gentlemanly of you, Castle," Ryan says. "Good to see you, man. We missed you around here."
"Didn't expect you 'til September. You just stoppin' by or you back?"
"Oh, I'm back."
"Beckett didn't tell us."
"I didn't know." It's almost the only truthful sentence she's uttered since she'd gotten to work this morning.
"You get tired of hangin' out by the pool all day?"
"No, I got tired of my ex-wife nagging me about writing. Or not writing. Or anything else that came into her mind, like my tracking sand into the house. Until I reminded her that it's my house, not hers."
She hates to do it, but she has to keep up appearances, which means that she has to join the snark fest. "Trouble in paradise, huh, Castle?" Please, please, please let him understand why she's doing it.
"Not any more, Beckett. Gina and I have parted ways—except professionally, which can't be helped."
"Sorry to hear it," she says, returning to lying mode.
"Don't be. I have a fantastic contract. And I am a very happy man." He turns his head just enough so that she can see his face, but the boys can't. "Beyond happy," he says, and gives her such a smile that her knees shake, and her thighs tremble, and her eyes fill with tears.
TBC
