Kate sits in the chair in her room, knees drawn up, and watches the night city outside her window, letting the faint sense of panic at being so exposed come from the clear glass and open line of sight rather than the man in the bed behind her.

He could kill her. One shot to the heart.

She is not unaware of the irony.

Kate gets up and draws the shutters over the window, creating one less opportunity for paranoia. Now for the other one in the room, the other window into her living, beating heart.

Richard Castle sleeps in her bed. The longing to slide back into bed and draw his body over hers, warm and weighted, is crippling. She can't move to do it, but sitting alone in the darkness of her room is so very bleak, and pointless, that she hates herself for even submitting to the sabotaging impulse in the first place.

She's hopeless at this. She needs him and she's standing at the edge of the bed. Why? Why does she do this?

She needs him. So. Kate Beckett, what are you going to do?

With a crushing grip on her psyche, she unlocks her body from the cage of its panic and crawls back into bed, heart pounding. She wakes him a little, just enough, and his arm slides around her back and presses her against him, his eyes still closed, but trapping her in the bed. Thank goodness.

She expects a quickening of his hand, an invitation, but he just hums against her skin and sighs contentment. His left hand draws under her pillow to pull her just that much closer. He just. . .wants to hold her? She didn't expect that, though she should. It is Rick Castle.

Kate strokes her fingers along his jaw, kisses the side of his throat, his adam's apple, the hollow where his collarbones dips. Rick wakes a little more and rubs a hand up and down her back, slowly, opening his eyes.

"Still night?" he whispers, but it's raw and sex-filled, releasing an arrow of desire straight to her belly. Her hips rock towards his - entirely without her say so - and he grins. "Ahhha. . .you like-"

She smothers his words with her mouth, kissing away the smirk, leaving him breathless and awake. "Still night," she says finally.

Castle rubs her back with his palm, up and down, hypnotizing, brings his mouth back towards hers, gentle but entirely too erotic. He seems more intent on teasing her than actually doing anything about the arousal heating her blood, but she lets him touch, lets him skim the sides of her breasts and hover his lips over her skin, barely there kisses to her chest, her shoulder, the column of her throat, the sweep of her jaw.

Her mouth gulps air, her fingers curl around his back, her body arching towards his.

Just when it's all too much, too good, Rick pulls away, brushes his hand along her cheek, smooths her hair back from her face. She opens her eyes, trying to breathe again, and he grins at her.

"You squeaked."

She blinks to clear the haze from her vision. "What?"

"Like a mouse. Like one of those squeeze toys for a dog."

"I did not." She narrows her eyes at him, her heart still pounding. "And doesn't that make you the dog?"

He grins wider. "Yeah, you did. Squeak, squeak. More than once."

"I don't squeak, Castle."

"It was cute," he insists, drawing her closer. His lips come to her jaw, mouth hot on her skin, before he chuckles. "I've never heard that sound from you before. It's sexy."

Oh jeez, just that voice in her ear, the rumble that vibrates her bones and curls in her belly. She can't even care about the stupid squeak, not when his fingers trail fire up her thigh, his voice caressing her, his mouth heading down to meet his hands.

Suddenly, his lips flatten against her chest and blow a raspberry against her skin. She shrieks and curls around him, laughing, twisting away from the fingers feathering against her sides.

Kate grabs his ears and shoves his head away from her, gasping with laughter, trying to squirm away from him. He shakes her off and lays over her, pinning her down, trapping her hands over her head.

Her laughter fades as she opens her eyes, blinking through breathlessness, and she sees his gorgeous face over her, cracked open with joy.

"Rick," she breathes, struck by it.

"That was a squeak if I ever heard one."

She grins and tugs against his hands circling her wrists; he lets her go and she wraps her arms around his neck, lifts her head to steal a kiss.

She pulls back only slightly, nudges his nose with hers. "That was a shriek. Not a squeak. No more tickling, Rick Castle."

"You can't lay down rules like that. Not without asking me first. What if I said, No more moaning? You'd be in trouble, wouldn't you-"

She surges up and flips him over, easily, laughing into his shocked face. "Shut up, Castle."

"Another rule?" he pouts but she sees the flicker of a smile at the back of his eyes, the craftiness lurking there. In a moment, he's used her distraction to capture her mouth, his teeth tugging her bottom lip. He pulls her down against him, chest to chest, gentles his kiss, draws the corner of her mouth into his. His hand drifts, flickering fire down her spine, lower, then opens her up.

She moans, eyes slamming shut.

"Ah-ah, no moaning, Kate," he murmurs.

She laughs, breathless, her laughter dissolving into a gasp. When she manages to open her eyes, he's watching her, intent and proud and fierce.

He makes her fall apart without warning.

Rick opens his eyes to the morning.

Turns his head. Breathes in.

Kate.

She grins at him. Her hand slides across the space between them; her finger brushes his nose. "Hi," she whispers.

He thinks his heart will break, there is so much, too much.

"H-hey." Here she is. "Kate."

Her thumb skirts his chin. "Is this where I say you rocked my world?"

Rick laughs and circles her wrist lightly with his fingers, drags his hand up her forearm. "Only if it's true. Though we both know it's true."

Her lips widen, her eyes dazzling. "Oh, really? Then it goes unsaid."

He cups her elbow in his palm, then scrapes the back of his hand up her tricep to her shoulder, pressing flat against her scapula. She smiles broadly at him, a question in her eyes.

So Rick pulls her in. "Too much goes unsaid."

He tastes her lips, deepens to taste her mouth, sex and stale breath all. She hums, her fingers curl at his jaw, and he breaks the kiss to play with the hair at the nape of her neck, watch her eyes drinking him in.

In bed, the morning light cascading over them, two together.

"I love you."

Rick starts the shower, sticking his hand in the spray to feel the temperature. Kate brushes her lips against his shoulder blade, his skin shivering. She crowds close but doesn't touch more than her mouth to one spot at a time, her heat between them.

When it gets hot enough she follows him in; they are wordless, soap and shampoo and fingers slipping. She laughs at him when he stumbles into the wall, the cold tile bringing goose bumps to his skin. She laughs and presses her mouth to his sternum, bringing warmth with her, backing him up against that same wall, having her way with him.

He likes it. He likes seeing Kate naked, of course, but more, he likes seeing her *naked* in front of him, all that happiness building up behind the dam in her eyes and flooding out of her. He can see all around them the high-water mark, where that flood has crept up to, and the way it fills up between them, higher and higher. He would gladly drown in it.

When he wraps the towel around her shoulders, rubs briskly, she slides a few fingers around the ends to hold on. From under her eyelashes, she gives him that little girl smile again, bright and adoring. She - she adores him? Wow. He can see it. He's not sure he deserves that, not sure he can live up to it, but he will spend his whole life trying.

She lifts onto her toes and kisses his bottom lip; his breath catches in his throat. He has to hold on to her to keep standing.

He needs her again, like a sharp ache. He shivers with the cool air drying the water on his back, keeps still to prolong the agony of need, his heart thundering for more. She must see it on his face, or feel the tension under her mouth, because she grins against his cheek.

"Rick."

He can't help himself. He needs her again.

Especially when she says his name like that.

"Can we talk?" he says, watching from the floor as she slides clothes out of her closet. She flicks a look back at him, pauses, her lip pulled in between her teeth. He's got his legs spread out in front of him, his back against the bed, boxers and tshirt on, his hair still damp from the shower. He sort of. . .sank to the floor when she started to get dressed, and he hasn't found the will to look away.

"Yes," she says, in only underwear and a bra, sauntering closer to him. "But you keep looking at me like that, and I won't want to do any talking."

Oh. Oh, yeah. He claims her waist when she straddles him, meets her mouth for a crushing kiss.

He has - had - things to say. But her hot body batters at his. He-

She pulls back, wicked grin on her face. "What did you want to talk about?"

"That's not fair," he groans, gulping for breath, closing his eyes and tilting his head up. Except why close his eyes? Such a beautiful sight-

She lifts up; he feels her go. "If you're gonna get clean clothes, we need to leave in fifteen minutes."

"Damn. I could-"

She kicks at his feet. "No, Castle. I'm tired of smelling myself on your shirt."

He grins. "I'm not."

"Stand up. Get dressed. You can stare all you like, if you'll just get moving." She reaches down for his hands to help him up; he grasps hers and for a moment, the balance between them is too perfect, timeless, and he stays poised there, half up and half down, the two of them suspended.

And then he's on his feet and she brushing her fingers at his waist and throwing him his jeans. They do smell rather ripe. They smell like her apartment too. And sex. And love, he adds happily, pulling them on.

In the cab, she fiddles with his fingers, tracing her nails around his knuckles, up the path of a vein, then smooths his skin with her thumbs. This is a different Kate. This is a happy Kate. Relaxed in the seat beside him, a little absent-minded as she stares out the window, playing with his hand, that half-smile on her face, like she has an amazing secret.

Him. *He* is the amazing secret. Damn.

He leans in and kisses that bare spot just behind her ear, breathes in the scent of her hair. He likes that she smells like them. The scent of cherries and musk, a combination of a shower together and a night of love.

She brings her hand up to brush his cheek. "What did you want to talk about?"

"I don't know. You kinda wiped it clean out of my head."

She smiles, turns her head to look at him. "It's hard to have a conversation with you when you look like you just rolled out of my bed."

"I did," he agrees happily. Everything should have 'happily' tacked onto the end of it today. "I did just roll out of your bed."

"You did," she says softly, her eyes soft, her hand on his cheek soft, her body soft. Everything she does today will have 'soft' added to the mix; he can already tell.

He brings his lips to that spot again. "But."

"But?"

"Tonight can we roll into my bed?"

She laughs and pecks his cheek, which is entirely not good enough; Rick captures a deeper kiss, dominating her with the swipe of his tongue, and she squeezes his ear, brings him closer. Not ear-twisting, exactly, but still her commanding, demanding insistence he do as she asks.

When she breaks from him, she's a little breathless, and laughing, her forehead against his. "Tonight we can roll into your bed. Is. . .your family-?"

"They'll be home." Happily.

She watches him, some of that softness imbued with a new meaning. "Is this one of the things you wanted to talk about?"

"No." He shakes his head and feels her skin against his forehead, smiles again.

She pulls back, strokes a finger down the side of his face. "Okay. So. I can. . .I just show up? And stay?"

"Yes." Is Kate blushing? Interesting.

"Okay."

He wraps his hand around hers and leans back against the seat; she laces their fingers together, rubs his thumb with hers.

"Will they - will they be at your place now?"

"Yes. Well, Mother will be. Alexis gets to school early." He turns and looks at her profile. Still soft, joyful, like he's given her a gift. Of what? His home? "Is this a big deal?"

She laughs and turns to look over at him. "Well, yes. It is. But you seem to have no idea."

"I've spent three nights in your bed, Kate. They already know."

She *is* blushing, trying to smother a little bit of laughter that sounds breathless. "Okay. Well. Yes."

He grins back. "I love you. They know that."

She nods slowly, her eyes dark and thoughtful, but still limned with happiness. "Yeah. You kinda. . .haven't been quiet about that, Castle."

Is she upset by that? No. No, she looks. . .a little proud. A little overwhelmed, a lot happy. Yeah, 'happily' is a good word for today.

"You knew," he remembers. His hand drifts up to her face, his fingers hovering at her temple, her hairline, his thumb at her cheek. A mirror of his touch the morning of the Captain's funeral, when his life shattered apart with the flare off a rifle scope.

For a second, the face he sees is that face from his memory, bathed in sunlight and pain, sunlight and hopelessness, but the image resolves, adjusts, and it's sunlight again, but certainty, sunlight and peace, sunlight and acceptance.

She takes his hand, brings it down, squeezes his fingers sharply, pulling him from memories. "I knew. I know." She looks almost apologetic, but what does she have to be sorry for? "I kinda thought I'd. . .have time to adjust. But." She shrugs, still with that half-smile on her face. "Here we are."

"Good," he says back, smiling at her in relief. "Because keeping me quiet about this? It's a lost cause."

Castle unlocks the door and pushes it open as softly as possible. It's too close to seven for his daughter to still be here; she likes to get to school eary and study or hang out with friends. But it's possible his mother is up-

"Ha, so who's doing the walk of shame now, kiddo?" his mother crows, sweeping from the kitchen into the living room with her hand raised in either mazel tov or moral victory.

When Kate steps slowly into the foyer from the hallway, his mother's face is priceless. Castle glances back to Kate, sees the shy smile flirting with her lips, and he takes her hand, tugging her into his apartment.

"No shame here," Castle says to his mother. "What's to be ashamed of? I gotta get some clothes."

He moves towards his room and feels Kate's hand clutch at his; he stops and turns around. She has her bottom lip in her teeth.

Martha waves her hand at them. "Don't mind me. I was just having some orange juice and going over the class schedule. Go, go."

As soon as his mother turns back to the kitchen, Kate crowds him, nudging him back to his bedroom. Castle lifts an eyebrow at her and moves. "What's this about?"

"You got to stare at me. My turn."

His bark of laughter echoes in the hall as he stares at her, momentarily caught off-guard. Here he thought he was dealing with a momentarily shy Katherine Beckett; he should've known better.

This might actually be horny Kate Beckett. Or amused. Or naughty. He likes that one too.

Castle starts tugging his shirt off before he even gets to the bedroom, feels Kate's fingers at his lower back, then swears he feels her lips ghosting over his shoulderblade, can't help the shiver that crawls up his skin.

"Jeez, Kate. I thought you said we only had-"

"I padded our time," she says, using her knuckles to shove him towards his room. "Just in case."

They cross the threshold and she shuts the door behind them, then turns and faces him. While he can see laughter in her eyes, there's something deadly serious in the gaze she levels on him.

"Take it off, Castle."

Yes. Yes, ma'am.