This chapter is rated M, as is the rest of the story.

Chapter 4

While Beckett was endeavouring to assassinate the damned brainworm, Castle had acquired a cake and taken a bite. She sniggered.

"What?"

"You've got frosting on your nose." He swiped at it. "Better," she approved.

"It's good," he said through a mouthful of cake. "C'n I get another?"

"Didn't you have dinner?" Beckett snipped. She hadn't eaten any of her cakes yet, and she hadn't had dinner.

"Yes, so? It's cake." He grinned like a five-year old. "I can always manage to eat more cake."

Abruptly, the import of his words dawned on Beckett. "You want more?"

"Sure. It's good. Bit plain – couldn't you put a Christmas design on it? – but really nice."

"More?" she squeaked.

"Yes. More. You're not going to ration me, are you? That wouldn't be nice. Enjoyable things should be enjoyed as much as possible."

"You stopped kissing me," Beckett's mouth said without input from her brain. "Didn't you enjoy that?"

Castle's face instantly became intent and predatory. "So much," he murmured. "But that sort of enjoyment should be anticipated. Savoured. Taken slowly." His arms tightened around her, one hand slipping up to cradle her skull. "Like this," he continued, and kissed her. Slowly, deeply, and with expertise. And this time, he didn't stop until Beckett's stomach rumbled loudly. "Didn't you get dinner?"

"Nope."

"Tut-tut. You shouldn't miss meals. It's not good for you. You'll get thin and waste away and then what'll I cuddle?"

"Your pillow," Beckett snarked.

"You'd be so much nicer," Castle oozed. (He'd be a good pillow, the brainworm also oozed. Nice and warm and, ahem, firm.) "See, you fit just perfectly." He drew her closer into him, which Beckett wouldn't have thought possible, and tucked her in. She did fit perfectly. (He'd fit perfectly into you, sniggered the brainworm, with a filthy smirk.) A kiss landed on top of her head, which was all very cute but not where kisses should be landing right now.

"We should get you dinner," he said.

"Let me eat cake," Beckett snipped.

"Your name's Kate, not Marie-Antoinette. Though it would be a lovely middle name, and you'd definitely be totally cute in those shepherdess dresses and I could get you one for Christmas though maybe a bit more like the Fragonard ones than royalty" – he stopped. Beckett's million-watt glare was currently destroying small countries and the occasional passing asteroid. "Okay, cake." He let go of her.

Beckett produced two plates and, looking at her thick-piled frosting, forks – she had no desire to imitate Castle, especially by allowing frosting to decorate her nose – and then took them and the cake box to the table. Castle made the coffee, which was likely rather presumptuous but seemed appropriate to the moment.

There was a short silence, during which Beckett disposed of three cakes in swift succession and chased them with two full mugs of coffee. (Her French press held six mugsful. It had never seemed too large to her.) Castle had proved his earlier point by eating another one with evident enjoyment, and was currently scraping up every last molecule of buttercream frosting and licking it off the fork. The sight of the tip of his tongue investigating the crevices of the fork was inducing very strange sensations in the general vicinity (Ha! gloated the brainworm. I know exactly where you mean) of Beckett's stomach.

"What's up?" Castle asked.

"Huh? Nothing." In fact, Beckett was thoroughly impressed with – and astounded at – the edibility of her cakes.

"You look surprised. Why on earth would you be surprised by your…own…cooking – oh. You never cook. You're famous for never cooking. You boast about never cooking" –

"I do not!"

"Do so. Anyway… have you ever cooked cupcakes before?"

"Yes."

Castle looked inquisitively at her. "When?"

"Plenty of times." Well, twice before was plenty – plenty enough for her. "But I hadn't piped frosting till these ones." Which carefully gave nothing away, while being perfectly honest.

"Well, they're good. Will you make them for the precinct?"

"I guess so." Which also didn't admit that she couldn't actually bake anything else. Maybe next time she'd try cookies – in a century or so. She ate another cake. It wasn't exactly a healthy dinner, but it was food, it was nice, and it was there.

"Mmm," Castle said happily. "Are you done?"

Beckett put her plate down, and poured herself more coffee, then topped off Castle's mug. "Done with the cakes. I'll be ill if I eat any more."

"Can I tempt you to a chocolate?" His eyes glinted mischievously.

"Chocolate is not a temptation. Chocolate is a fundamental human right." Castle's mouth opened, and closed again in a severe attack of common sense. "And since the chocolates were a present, I'll still have them in the morning."

"No, no, no. You can't be deprived of a fundamental human right." Castle hopped up, bounced to the kitchen, and came back with the delightfully oversized box. He flipped the lid open, and considered for only a microsecond. "This one," he said, and slowly conveyed it to Beckett's lips. They opened. Beckett's brain had absolutely nothing to do with the act, nor with the chewing, the savouring, or the unwitting sigh of utter pleasure.

Neither of their brains had anything to do with Castle slowly leaning in and taking her mouth. That was all pure instinct and sheer desire. Beckett's niggle that he didn't really want her, buried under enough chocolate to suffocate an elephant, dissolved in the heat of his kiss. His hands sneaked under her top, and left sparks running all through her skin and down her nerves. The touch sizzled. Her share of the kiss turned hard and predatory, overtaking Castle's seductive approach and conquering him in one swift attack. It lit him up, and his embrace became a cage: his hand sliding into her hair and re-angling her head: her body pulled against his, her mouth invaded, raided, and ravaged.

Breathing quickened, fabric rustled: the chocolates and the cakes sat, ignored, on the table. Beckett's busy fingers forced their way between their bodies and undid Castle's shirt, his questing hand pulled her top off over her head with only the briefest lift of his mouth from hers. Hands touched frantically, clutching and grasping: lips clashed and teeth nipped, tongues twisting; slim fingernails dug and broad digits pressed.

Castle fell back on the couch and pulled Beckett with him, never releasing her mouth; his hand slipping down over her back to her taut rear and pushing her into his rolling hips; she opened over him, their lower bodies still fully clad, and hard weight rubbed against the hot cleft. He tried to roll them, and was stopped by the back of the couch.

At that point Beckett realised what they were doing, and lifted off.

"Come back."

She stared down at him. "What just happened?"

"Well, when two people really, really like each other" –

She growled. Castle pulled her head down and kissed her again, till the growl became a purr. That hadn't quite been what she had meant to happen. (But you liked it, the worm wiggled.) He brought her head down on to his shoulder and nuzzled into her hair.

"Usually, I call it kissing," he said.

"Usually? You do this often?"

"I'm forty, not four. Of course I've kissed women before. Just not recently."

Beckett stared. Castle coloured deep red. "Did you mean to say that?" she asked, astounded.

"Uh…um… uh…" He gave up on words and kissed her again. Unfortunately, Beckett now had an investigative line to pull, and lifted off and away. (You know that lets him stare at your breasts? Of course she did. He'd be too distracted by them to be evasive. It was a very pretty bra.)

"How not-recently?"

Castle wibbled incoherently. Beckett wiggled, which produced a very nice shimmy of the curves above her waist. His eyes widened and darkened, and he swelled where she was planted over his pelvis. She shimmied again, rather lower down.

"Er-urgh…" Another shimmy, slow and sensual. She bit her lip, and soothed it with her tongue, then had a better idea and reached over to take a chocolate. Rather than bite it, she slid it partway between her lips, paused, and let the tip of her tongue peek out around it. Castle couldn't take his eyes from it. His hands clamped around her hips. She sucked the chocolate in with a tiny, wetly obscene sound and a hollowing of her cheeks.

"How not-recently?" she repeated, and shimmied.

"April…"

She almost choked on the chocolate. "April?" That was when his ex had shown up. He hadn't kissed anyone since April? What the hell? She sat across his thighs, completely blindsided, and reflexively swallowed the chocolate without really tasting it.

"Uh… Beckett? Beckett? Beckett!" Castle managed to sit up, with her still straddling him, and wobble her shoulders. "Earth to Beckett?" It had no effect. "I'm eating the chocolates."

"Get your paws off the chocolates!" She abruptly returned to the real world. "My chocolates."

"Wow. You're really possessive about what's yours, aren't you?" His eyes were scorching. "That's really hot. But I do need to correct one thing. They're my chocolates. I brought them."

"You gave them to me. So they're mine. It was a present."

"It's not Christmas yet…" Castle trailed, exceedingly interested in this unwontedly possessive Beckett. Now if he could simply convince her to be that possessive about him, he'd be happy. He simply hadn't meant to admit that he hadn't kissed anyone seriously since Meredith. Beckett wasn't shy of taking any advantage she could get.

"Christmas is a waste of time," Beckett said crossly. "Over-consumerised" –

"Is that a word?"

"Yes. Over-consumerised, expensive, and pointless. Nobody believes in the message, just in the shopping."

"You don't like shopping? Every woman I've ever met adores shopping."

"You've been meeting the wrong women. Or you have a job as the doorman at Macy's."

Castle snickered. "But do you honestly hate shopping? Because I've never seen so many shoes and coats as you have."

"One shopping visit, when the sales start. And I take good care of them." She grinned sardonically. "I always treat the bloodstains with cold water."

He snickered again, then turned serious. "You don't like Christmas?"

"Nope."

"Why? What's not to like? There's good food, company, decorations, parties, presents, snow…"

"Like you said."

"You don't like any of that?"

"I like the good food, but I can get that any time. I can get company any time." Castle regarded her closely, and Beckett found her cheeks heating. "I can," she argued.

"You just don't. Criminals don't count."

"You're technically a criminal."

"I am not!" Castle squawked, highly offended.

"You've been arrested. More than once."

"The horse enjoyed it. And I was never charged. Well, the charges were dropped. So I'm not a criminal." Beckett raised her eyebrows. "Though I am criminally sexy," he grinned. She groaned. Then, in an effort to be distracting, she wriggled. Even flattering his already oversized ego was better than talking about Christmas.

"So," she purred, and Castle's eyes darkened, "if you haven't kissed anyone properly since April, hadn't you better make sure you're doing it right?"

"How will I know?" he flirted.

"I'll tell you."

"Will you? I don't think you'll be able to talk."

"Who said anything about telling you in words?" Beckett flipped back.

"Mm. If that's the way you wanna play" – and he hauled her in and demonstrated kisses. Very definitely proper kisses. Talking wasn't an option. His hands wandered from the bare skin of her lower back upwards to the catch of her bra, which promptly opened. The kisses wandered down her throat to the centre of her clavicles, and then to the centre of her cleavage. Castle had turned them slightly and dipped her back for better access, but discomfort was overtaking lust. She sat up, and stretched her spine.

"Come back."

"Not comfy."

His eyes gleamed. Suddenly, all his usual silliness had fallen away, and the wholly adult man behind the boyish façade was firmly in evidence. "Then let's find somewhere more comfortable."

He stood up, which forced her to stand as well – oh. She wasn't standing. At least, her feet weren't on the floor. She wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck, and marvelled at the unusual and extremely arousing sensation of simply being picked up and carried. She nipped at his ear, and he growled deep in his chest and brought her closer.

"I've caught you," he rasped. "Mine." Still holding her as if she weighed nothing, he took her mouth with authority and rakish verve. Sensation overwhelmed her, and all she could do was cling on, drowning without a struggle in the onslaught. She barely noticed as he laid her down on the bed, stroking down her arms and taking her bra away: following with his lips, straight down to the button of her pants. She squirmed. "Something you'd like? 'Cause there's someone I'd like." The voice stroked her nerves from the inside outward. He undid the button; the zipper zinged; she gasped and he growled and then took her pants and panties down in one smooth, seductive motion.

"I'm still hungry," he breathed, and fell to: broad shoulders spreading her, firm hands gripping her hips against her increasingly frantic movement; soft, mobile lips working with tantalising tongue and the scrape of teeth to destroy her cool composure and leave her writhing and gasping; small moans and he didn't stop and it was too much and not enough and more and Castle! she cried and came on his name.

He slithered up the sheets with a satisfied, wolfish expression, and wrapped her in against him. "I love desserts," he murmured. "Especially if they come in pretty packages." He petted, gently sensual, not quite openly erotic. "I love unwrapping pretty packages and finding presents."

Beckett snuggled around him, twining her legs into his and finding the rhythmic beat of his heart under her ear reassuringly soothing. She didn't want to think about anything: just enjoy the moment. In a moment, she'd wriggle into a more useful position. In a moment…

Castle peered awkwardly down at Beckett's dark head, which lay heavy on his chest, and smiled fondly. She was asleep, and it was at once seriously cute and totally flattering. He was also precisely where he'd wanted to be: in bed with her. Okay, so it had all exploded rather faster than he had intended, but he had every intention of sticking around and slow hadn't exactly worked out well for either of them.

Chocolate and cake, on the other hand, had worked out perfectly.

He realised that he still had his pants on, which seemed a bit unfair, and then had a considerably more interesting thought. He slipped out of the bed, into the main room, and came back again. Then he divested himself of his pants and socks and slipped back into bed, gathering in his delightful Beckett-bundle and noticing, still smugly, that he'd exhausted her. She was absolutely sound asleep. He resisted the temptation to wake her, but not the temptation to play with her hair. He loved the scent of her hair, and he'd never had the chance to find out if it was as silky as it looked, especially now that she was growing out that short, spiky cut. He curled it round his fingers, and noticed with interest that it stayed curled. She kept that well-hidden. Her hair was always as controlled as the rest of her, in public.

He liked her uncontrolled. Eating too much cake or too many chocolates; curly hair not model-smooth; and especially wildly uncontrolled with him, in bed. It was a facet of Beckett which he'd never seen: she was rarely anything but cool.

Which, he thought, made it especially surprising that she had been a little flustered and a lot flattered that he'd liked the cakes. They'd been good, too. Plain, but good. His busy mind began to process. Beckett hated cooking – but Beckett had said she'd made cupcakes – quote – plenty of times. Beckett also hated looking dumb, though from the gossip round the bullpen she didn't look stupid when she turned up with another year's supply of burnt mince pies, more…um…annoyed. Nobody had ever had the guts – or lack of brain – to challenge her. Hang on. That totally didn't match up. If she could make competent cupcakes, why'd she take in burnt mince pies? That didn't make sense at all.

Castle rapidly reached the conclusion that Beckett had only decided to do cupcakes very recently. The question was why – and the only answer was that he was there this year and hadn't been previously. He was as conscious as she of the unspoken competition between them: solving cases, spotting the killer, wits and words and even shooting. Christmas cooking seemed to have joined the list.

He smiled happily. He'd won, whatever the outcome, because there he was in bed with a naked Beckett, who was tucked up against him and completely at ease. He cuddled her closer, pulling her up on to his chest, and sank into peaceful reverie.

Beckett awoke with a start, unused to another's breathing or bulk in her bed. Huh – oh, Castle. That was okay then… what? She fell asleep? What a waste of time.

"Hey," he breathed into her hair. She wriggled a little further up his body to lean up and look down at him. His eyes were sleepily sexy, the warm blue currently tending to hot as he surveyed her form. "Gorgeous. C'mere."

He lazily pulled her down over him, and simply kissed her, hands roaming her back and rear, apparently perfectly content to be under her. She cupped his face, rubbing across the hint of scruffy stubble with her thumbs, and kissed him in return, smooth and sensual, gentle, but with intent. Castle rumbled comfortably, and then rolled her over so that he was leaning up and not kissing her, which was not fair. He slipped a strong thigh between her legs, an arm under her neck, cuddled her into him – good – and then let go again, which was definitely doubleplusungood.

"Close your eyes," he enticed.

"Why?"

"Close your eyes, and you'll see."

"That's childish." Castle pressed her against him. He didn't feel like a child. "Oh, okay. If you must."

"Don't you like surprises?"

"No."

"But don't you like surprise presents?"

"No. They'd be disappointing. Nice, organised list. That way everyone gets what they want and like and they're all happy."

"I love surprises," Castle said. "They're always exciting. How can you not like them?"

"Because they're always a disappointment."

"I was a surprise," he said provocatively.

"Nope. You were predictable."

"Predictable?" Castle gasped. "I'm not predictable."

"Yep, you are. Flirted, hit on me, didn't get the right response, stalked me under the guise of research."

"Oh." Then he perked up. "But aren't you glad I did?" She quirked an eyebrow. "Don't be mean. I know you are." The other eyebrow rose. "You're here." He wrapped her in again, kissing her forcefully between words. "If you weren't, I wouldn't be here. I'd be dead." He kissed her some more. She didn't have much of an argument against him.

"Now, c'mon. Lemme give you a nice surprise."

She wriggled. "That's not a surprise in your pocket, that's you pleased to see me."

"That wouldn't be a surprise, my dear detective." She blinked. "I'm always pleased to see you." He smiled down at her. "Especially when you're dressed – or undressed – like this." His free hand, previously resting on her waist, detoured northward, then south. "But I do have a nice surprise for you, so c'mon, close your eyes."

"Oh, okay. Five-year old." She shut her eyes.

Thank you to all readers and reviewers. Very much appreciated.