Misconception
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Kate bows her head forward, trying to catch her breath, gather the scattered leaves of her thoughts. She's trembling, half-naked on his counter, and his mother is outside the front door demanding to be let inside.
Castle is heaving. His hands are on her thighs, heavy, pulsing with the effort of blood through his body. He swallows and she realizes she's just staring at him, everything in her leaning out to him but not able to touch.
Martha, from outside the door, Don't mind me, oh no. I'll just go on an expedition for my keys. You keep on with her.
Her. The blonde.
"I - need my shirt," she mutters. "And your shirt is-"
The door rattles again, Martha trilling something charmingly elegant but deadly beyond.
Castle glances wildly around and comes up with her shirt, but he seems to have trouble giving it back to her. "I hate this shirt," he growls at her, and then to the door. "One minute, Mother."
"Be nice," she admonishes automatically - out of her mouth before she can stop it.
Castle's eyes flare back to hers, and she knows that look on his face, intent, but she pulls in her knees and toes him back, the soles of her feet flat to his bare stomach. But her legs tremble, and it's erotic despite herself.
His hands clutch her ankles, that fierce desire igniting on his face. Her toes curl at the place where his ribcage expands and she wants, vividly, to spread her thighs and draw him back to her.
No.
"Let me down," she says roughly. She can't think. His mother is rattling the door, telling them a really inventive and salacious story of her own escapades - a man in a tuxedo, a night after a show-
"Mother," Castle bellows. "For the love of-"
Kate chokes, taken by the urge to laugh, maybe hysterically, but it gives her the impetus to slide off the granite counter, shivering. Goose bumps pebble her skin as Castle steps back. He's swallowing hard and trying not to look at her. She struggles to draw on her shirt, but she can't quite get there - still rattled by their interruption, by his mother's arrival, by the words. The buttons don't seem to work.
"Castle, your shirt-" she says breathlessly.
Castle pauses, only a few feet from her. "You need it?"
"No, your shirt - unbuttoned and - your pants," she says, helplessly.
He glances down, back at her, and then scowls fiercely. "I hate your shirt."
Kate blinks back at him, and now Martha is regaling them through the door about a piano player with nimble fingers, and Kate's face flushes hard as she forces the buttons through her damn shirt. But they - they just won't go.
She doesn't like the shirt much either.
"Stop buttoning it up," Castle says petulantly, coming back to her and stilling her hands. "I can't stand it. I have... a t-shirt in the laundry room. Or one of Ale-"
"No," she groans, shoving him away. "Castle. Your mother is out there. Get your clothes straightened out and answer the door."
But right at that moment, they hear the rattle of keys in the lock and share a horrified look as the door swings open and Martha blazes inside.
"Richard, ha! I finally found my keys, darling. Don't stop on my account, oh no, keep plugging away at it-" Martha falls off into shocked silence. "Oh, my God. Katherine."
Kate closes her shirt with one fist and turns slowly to meet his mother.
She doesn't even get a word out of her mouth before Martha is flying towards them around the kitchen island and embracing Kate with an effusiveness that practically swings Kate around. Her breath leaves her. She can see Castle hurrying to zip his pants - oh, God - while Kate clutches at her own shirt and Martha's shoulder and tries to ride it out.
"Oh, darling Katherine, what a delightful sight." A squeeze as she lets Kate go, still clinging to Kate's arms. "Please do excuse my rather sordid little tale from beyond the door. If I'd known it was you he had-" Martha recovers quite gracefully from her slip by turning around and reaching out to Castle, squeezing his cheeks with both hands. "You should have said it was Katherine. I'd have stayed away, Richard."
"I wish you had," Castle says mourns.
"In the kitchen, I see," Martha ignores him, glancing around at their state of dishabille, counter included. "You could have picked a better spot. There's a knife lying around. Tsk, tsk, Richard. As I was saying, the piano makes for-"
"Mother," Castle barks. Kate is entirely too overwhelmed by the whole thing to offer any help; all she can do is meet his eyes with her own and keep her shirt together with one fist and really try not to laugh.
It's not funny. It's absolutely, frustratingly mortifying. Being caught by his mother when all Kate can think about it how that stupid blonde got further than she did. She hates that she's thinking about it, and she wants to kick him for doing it, and at the same time, she wants to drag him by the belt loops back into his bedroom and show him who - who really is in charge here.
Martha pats her shoulder. "Oh, you two, don't let me interrupt. I can stay upstairs all night. Although perhaps I should be the one to cook our dinner. Well, the walls are bookshelves, so perhaps not right away-"
The walls are shelves. Oh, God. His bedroom. And his mother. And-
"Kate, I really hate that shirt," Castle mutters. He scrapes both hands roughly back through his hair, his own plaid still hanging open.
"Darling, perhaps if we're going to stand here conversing, you should let the poor dear button her shirt. You might do the same." Martha reaches out as if she might actually do it for him, but before they can react, she's plucking the ultrasound photo from his pocket.
Castles squeaks.
Martha's whole act drops. Just - gone. The silence is so complete that Kate can hear her own heartbeat. And maybe his as well.
And that's when Kate finds her tongue. "Martha, as you can see, we have some things to talk about. But let me find something to put on. And yes, Castle, I know you hate this shirt. Half the buttons are missing."
"Oh, is that what I stepped on?" Martha says gamely. But she's clutching the ultrasound against her chest, cradling it as she gazes down in a cloud of perfumed haziness, and Kate thinks the woman might cry. Or be crying already.
"Give us a minute, Martha," Kate says quietly. "And then we'll answer every question. Rick?"
Castle heaves a breath that looks both relieved and entirely frustrated. But he reaches out and takes her offered hand, squeezing her fingers, and Kate leads him - once more - back to his bedroom.
But this time everything is different.
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