Nocturne Chapter Two
"But as you let your eyes adjust to the darkness deep within,
Sifting through the ash and dust, we are the places that we've been."
-Mary Chapin Carpenter, Ashes and Roses, 2012 Rounder Records
No copyright infringement intended.
Songs I listened to while writing: see my twitter or tumblr or this link on youtube
Youtube dot com slash playlist ?list=PLnXP8GXCbzfUFfhqEpWCAz4-3xPWCzhKC
The heat of his body is pressing her into the bed, but somehow she's still shivering.
It's the adrenaline; she knows that edgy crest of anticipation. But the last time she felt it in bed was, well it was the night she lost her virginity.
Nerve endings that jitter, buzz, refuse to quiet—these are the pent up product of four years of saving up, staving off, delaying, denying.
She's just told him she doesn't want to wait, and she can't understand how the words made it out of her mouth without a hiccough or a stutter. Her teeth are going to start chattering at any moment.
But he's pinning her, making delicious contact with so much skin. Not enough skin. She wants him to touch every quivering inch of skin.
His face is hovering, frozen over hers, eyes already dark and swimming, but turning impossibly darker as her words filter through the haze.
Those eyes have always seen her for what she is, so she doesn't doubt they are finding the lust and the hunger and the nerves swirling together into a wave of exquisite clarity. Nothing has ever felt so utterly right in the universe as their bodies pressed together, their breath mingling, their lips melding.
She thinks of all the ways she's seen these eyes in four years, and she can't help the tiny curve of her lips upward. Earlier today, she thought she might never see them again, but here she is, her whole self reflected back in their depths, both lost and found.
His look changes, begins to thaw with her smile.
Firm, steady hands slide under her to the center of her back, and she arches up to give him access where he needs it. The clasp of her bra releases and he slides his knees up on either side of her hips to straddle her lap, take the weight off his hands, off her body.
As he slips the straps gently forward, off her shoulders, down her arms, the feather-light touch brings to life every nerve. And then he's sliding the lingerie away, laying it off to the side so delicately, hesitantly sweeping his eyes down to see her.
Her nipples are already peaking from the cold, from her arousal, but his hands are limp on his knees. His eyes are riveted on the rise and fall of her chest with each ragged breath, but he isn't touching her. She can't read if this is fear or awe or his own nerves, but it needs to stop. Her hands come to rest over his, squeeze gently, slide down to stroke the wiry hair dusting his thighs. When she finds her voice again, it's gruff and a full octave deeper than she remembers.
"I want your hands on me."
Blinking once, slowly, he meets her eyes and does as she asks. His fingers trail up past her waist, find her scar on the left, pause briefly there to demarcate the curve and splay of it, takes it in with fingertips but not eyes, silently acknowledges how lucky...
When his thumbs brush the outer swell of her breasts, the tendrils of tenuous want coiled in her chest finally begin to uncurl and she sighs out a breath.
Her reaction makes him bolder, and his thumbs skirt the curves of supple flesh, almost where she needs them. But then he cups her, presses up and in with his warm, wide palms, and lets the heat soak in through her skin.
She arches involuntarily into his touch, curving up like a cat, stretching the tight muscles of her back and shoulders. Oh, she could almost purr. The only things anchoring her to earth are her nails gripping his thighs. He's just holding her breasts and every cell in her body is singing. Holy God, what will she do when he's inside her?
Her eyes shoot open when he rolls one nipple between his thumb and forefinger, and she's just in time to see him lean in and take the other between his lips. His tongue is flattened against her, and her hips are bucking off the bed in gorgeous frustration, and then he's suckling, and his teeth close gently around her, and she can't hold it in anymore.
"Castle."
Though his eyes meet hers, he doesn't disengage, just pinches her other nipple lightly between the pads of his finger and thumb, and she's desperate now. Desperate to feel him everywhere. Desperate to have him. And she can't bring herself to shut her eyes again. She just keeps watching him, enraptured, as he loves her.
She's spiraling up in the pleasure of it, feels the delicate unfurling—feathered wings, stretching and fluttering, freeing her heart as he works over her body.
Another flash of lightening brightens the room, highlights the outline of his arousal as his hips hold, unmoving. She knows he's delaying, restraining his own need, trying to slow down, savor this moment and this act. But they have all night—hell they have the rest of their lives to go slow—and right now, she craves consummation.
Curling up, she separates him from her breast with a quiet pop and a low hum of disappointment. When her fingers find the edge of his boxers, sneak underneath, he understands and rises up on his knees, shifts to one side, lets her sit up and slide the fabric up and over his erection, then down.
He's glorious—long, thick, and so ready for her. She's staring, she knows she is, but she can't tear her eyes away. This is happening. This is Castle, and they are about to-
Heat rises in her cheeks as she shifts her gaze back up to his eyes, and he gives her a shy little smile that she just has to kiss. He finally shifts to shimmy the shorts the rest of the way down his legs, reaches for her last piece of clothing, snags the lace at either hip and tugs down, still sipping at her lips. When he can't reach low enough to get them off, he breaks from the kiss, lays the little swath of black silk aside, and now he's the one taking her in as he kneels beside her.
His eyes make a slow ascent absorbing everything he can, considering the darkness. The lights still haven't come back on, and she' grateful—not yet ready to explain the bruises she knows are on their way to blooming over her body. She knows if he sees the evidence of her fight for her life, he'll touch her with kid gloves, and she doesn't want gentle right now. Soft and tentative can happen later; this time she wants hard and fast and life-affirming.
Save for gasping out her name, he hasn't spoken in minutes, but he finds his voice now—gravel and benediction.
"You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. How are you even real? How are you here?"
No conscious thought spurs her to rise up to her knees to answer with her mouth; she's acting on instinct when she grips his biceps, speaks between their lips.
"I'm right here. Not going anywhere."
As she cants her hips into his, his length asserts itself against her belly, and she wants nothing more than to have it buried inside her. She has waited so long—and now she's having the same trouble believing this is real.
Insistent arms band around her waist, pull her flush against him from knees to chest. Tongues are tangling again, franticly diving, confirming all their earlier discoveries. And her well-tended restraint finally deliquesces.
Pulling away, she avoids the chase of his lips to find his eyes.
"Make love with me. Now. Right now."
Midnight blues focus through the fog of lust, and he steals a light, sloppy kiss.
Then he's leaning away toward his bedside table when she stops him with a hand on his chest.
"You don't have to... I've got it covered, and I'm clean."
One of his hands is still wrapped around her waist, and he flexes his fingers there as he looks back into her eyes.
"So am I."
He straightens up from where he's been leaning.
"Even since—"
One hand comes to her face, fingers splaying from the bridge of her nose to beneath her jaw. He looks at her mouth, serious, stern. Returns to her eyes.
"There's been no one in over a year, Kate."
But that horrible blonde last month… she was sure…
"You asked me to wait, so I waited."
Reverently, he brushes a thumb over her cheek, tracing a careful curve under her eye.
"You waited all that time for this?"
Forehead tipping down into hers, he leans in, eyes so close he's out of focus.
"I was waiting for you."
And with those simple words, she sinks into the gut-wrenching beauty of finally giving in.
Lips connect, get nipped in their enthusiasm, soothed with soft strokes of their tongues.
Her hands find the bunching muscles of his back, his shoulders, his ass. His reach around her, mapping dips and hollows along the ridges of her spine, the curve of her hips, the points of her elbows.
Twisting them around, she presses him down to the mattress, straddles his lap.
Both well past the point of seduction, he seems only too happy to be taken as he falls back against his billowing pillows and tugs her down with him.
Time stops for one blessed instant, as she sees the scope of everything that has led them here, the magnitude of this moment. She is certain, feels it down to her bones that he has spent as many hours fantasizing about this one tiny tick of the universe's clock as she has.
God she's nervous.
Nerves do not happen to Kate Beckett in bed. Kate Beckett is fearless and powerful and she gets her way exactly how and when she wants it. But with this man… with this man she's thinking about him. And she's thinking about four years of expectations. And she's thinking, period.
Because she loves him.
It hits her like a blast of heat, suffuses her skin, fills her lungs, sizzles down her spine, short circuits through her limbs.
It's not the realization of the emotion. She's known it, owned up to it inside her own head for a long time. It's the connection between that emotion and what they are about to do.
This is different from anything she has done before.
For all the physical pleasure they are about to extract from one another, this goes deeper.
And she is done with waiting.
She lowers herself down, slicks along his length, lets him feel what he's done to her. He has her by the waist, fingers splayed out wide and warm over the expanse of her naked skin, flexing and hissing at this first real intimate contact.
All the darkness in the room can't hide the brightness in his eyes as he watches her rising to join them. And suddenly her trembling has ceased, because she knows that no matter what happens, he's there to catch her, steadfast, sure, solid—before her, beneath her, inside her.
Castle is still, letting her lead despite the strain she can see in every flexing muscle.
He's even holding his breath—she can see his ribs expanded, lips parted, but no puff of warm air tickles her nose where it's aligned with his.
Just as she starts to sink, as the glorious pressure is about to spread her wide, his brow furrows, lashes splay in surprise at the sensation, and he lets out that breath like a prayer, grazes her lips with the whispered words, so quietly spoken that she recognizes them by feel alone.
"I love you, Kate. So much. Love you."
Relaxing every tight and transient tether on her control, she sinks, and they merge, and she's defenseless above him, around him, within him.
"Oh Rick, yes. Yes."
As much as she wants the right words to tumble out, she can't let them slip past her lips now—so blithe and blissful. They have meaning that reaches beyond this act, and so she wants the first time for each to be its own revelation.
Then he's inside her, stretching her wide and deep, filling spaces she forgot were empty, spaces that might never have existed before this night. She settles against his hips, takes his lips tenderly—light, lilting flutters that trace their unerring curve—until he surges up, flesh into flesh, tongue devouring.
Without a conscious thought, she's moving with him, tight, pulsing rolls of her hips that separate her from his mouth, make her suck down air in staccato gasps just to keep up with the reckless, wanton waves of sensation.
Their lips are open now, brushing, so close to a kiss, closer, even—sharing breath—but neither can focus enough to make contact when so many other more luscious sensations are carrying them up, faster and higher.
Flexing hips push up into her, startling her out of her passion-induced trance. And the astonished, helpless noise that she makes in response only spurs him on.
His wandering hands settle at the base of her spine, apply pressure to pull her closer. He's figured out her tells already. And why should she be surprised? He has always read her better than anyone.
Her hands tuck into the short, silky hair at the base of his scull trying to fasten some small part of her to reality when everything is falling away—everything except for the connection between them.
Every breath, every heartbeat, every pulse of blood through her body emanates from that press of warm, wet flesh. The link is strong—stronger than she's ever known it could be between two bodies locked into an embrace. She can feel him synching with her. She can feel his pulse and breath and every muscle as it strains.
In the maelstrom, it's that link that secures her, but it's also that link that does her in. She hasn't just allowed his body inside hers; she has allowed his soul.
She feels the first flutters low in her belly, where he's bumping up against her with every thrust. This is too fast—she wants it to go on—she can't fathom that it might be over so soon. But her hips clench forward, stiffen against him, grip him so tight with every spasm, let his motion take over—take her flying, freefalling through air and light and warmth.
Her release begins to overtake her, but she finds his eyes, waiting for him to follow. Instead of abandon, she sees something more familiar—determination. He is watching her, taking in every flicker of her lashes, every lip-parting pant as she hits the precipice. He's with her, in just as deep, but he's held on to burn her image on to his memory.
Kissing him as she starts to come down from the high, she's not sure if she should be flattered that he waited or offended that he even could. His voice, breathing into her mouth, settles that argument.
"Do you know how amazing you are? That was so gorgeous. And now you're going to do it again, so I can go with you."
Rationally, she might blame her boneless limbs, her hazy brain, but if she's honest with herself, the reason he's able to tuck her into his chest and roll her beneath him is that she wants him to. She wants to be cradled against him, burdened by the weight of his body as it drives inside her once again.
She's not sure she can find her way back up again with him—she's so spent by this intensity. Her hearing has fuzzed out, and her vision is blurred at the edges, as if all her senses are conspiring to converge on those eyes—God those eyes—snapping blue and black, flashing the contents of his soul down upon her with every strike of lightening.
But then he begins to move, and she's powerless and omnipotent all at once, hips rising to meet his, holding, circling, rocking. Before she knows it, she's building up again, and she wants it just as badly as the first time. More, because she knows this time he'll fall with her, into her.
There are no acrobatics, no artifice at all in their coupling. Everything flows—simple, skin and heat and limbs entwining. Despite his earlier self-denial, he is methodical, listening and responding to every change of angle, every shift in her breathing as he moves inside her; she is the one who urges him faster.
His forehead is nudging her chin, drops of perspiration passing from his sweaty skin to hers as his lips stretch to trace the hollow between her collarbones. His hands snake under the curve of her spine, tug upward until her hips are tilting into the sweet undulations of his.
Everything aligns in that breath, and she cries out, drawing his attention back up to her face. His look deepens to a question.
She's close, and she thinks he sees it, hears it, feels it. But he's second guessing, and so she gives him a tiny nod and a plea.
"Please."
Time speeds up, space shrinks down to a tiny point of light. He's plunging deep, letting himself take from her after all this giving. But she wants him wild. She wants him wanton and coming apart with her name on his lips, withholding nothing. So she urges him on, meets him thrust for thrust.
With the imaging of his reckless abandon pounding inside her head, she registers the warbling waves of her own climax beginning to crest. She arcs into his body, digs her nails into the flesh at his hips, feel the strength of his muscles as they surge forward, push her over the edge.
And she's keening; air can't leave her lungs without sound streaming out.
His brow furrows in concentration, lips part, strokes become erratic, and he's crying out her name and spilling inside her with his eyes wide open, love spilling over, pulsing, filling her.
She's drowning in the joy of it. He's collapsing against her chest, arms still tucked tightly around her, as they parse the aftershocks, slow their breaths, try to pull their tangled souls back inside.
Kate finds that she can't separate hers from his. She is clinging, literally, to his solid form above her, not caring that she doesn't do this, doesn't feel this way after sex. She's giddy—luxuriating in the certainty of his desire, the strength of his love, the physical presence of his skin and muscle and bone pressing her into the mattress.
Finally he begins to shift, raises up to take his weight onto his arms. She draws in a sharp breath when he separates from her, still so over-sensitized.
She could make love with this man all night long.
Finding her lips, he kisses her gently before rolling away, tugging down covers and rearranging pillows around her head, which is useful, since she is not capable of concerted thought, coordinated movement. She barely makes it under the sheet in her love-drunk exhaustion, but once she does, he's pulling her into his side, draping her over his body, finding her fingers to clutch at them as they lie on his chest.
His words register half through the air and half through the vibration of his chest against her ear.
"Kate, that was…"
Despite her delirium, she's conscious enough to be intrigued. It's quite a thought—hearing her favorite author describe their love-making.
"…I don't have words."
Smiling up at him then, she memorizes the ruffled outline of his hair backlit by lightening, the sharp edge of his nose in the shadows.
She's left him speechless.
If she could find the energy to climb up to find his mouth, she would kiss it. Instead, she places a soft, open-mouthed caress to his chest, feels the muscle jump under her lips as they bow upward.
"I'll take that as a compliment."
His fingers are charting aimless cartography over her back, dipping below the sheet that's drawn up to the points of her shoulder blades. She's having her own trouble with words. As she succumbs to the languishing tendrils of sleep, she thinks she's found one for this feeling, though, sated and warm in his arms.
This feels like home.
# * # * # * #
For Joy, who brings joy, and acts as equal parts editor and psychiatrist. I thank her from the bottom of my heart, because she says I'm wonderful even when I'm not and even tells me I can use big words if I want to. May every writer be so lucky as to have her own Dr. Worf to talk her down off ledges. (Trekkies, I do not mean to imply Joy is an actual Klingon, but if she were, she'd kick ass with a bat'leth, trust me.)
To everyone who has reviewed, you have made my day. To everyone who has favorited and followed, I hope I inspire you to review someday, but until then, I hope you keep reading and enjoying.
Twitter: Kate_Christie_
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