A/N: The beginning of this chapter is more fluff. The second half is similar to plot, but I'm not sure if you could actually call it that. Either way, Kate and Rick are separated, so can't exactly be called fluff. :-)
Kate sighed. At that moment, she was warm and blissfully content, but persistent thoughts kept intruding to lessen the happy. Her alarm would sound in ten minutes, she would have to leave the warm circle of Rick's arms to get ready for work and then Castle would be leaving for the summer. For good this time. To finally go get some work done on his book. A large part of her didn't want him to go; she was only just discovering how much fun Rick was to be with when her guard around him was gone. But she knew he needed to work too, without the distractions of the city... or a new relationship. Kate had tentative plans to visit him on weekends, or after a case ended, but she was still waiting for Castle to suggest it first. Rick was supposed to be working, so Kate didn't want to get in the way if she wasn't welcome. She had to caution herself not to overanalyze and focused instead on the warmth surrounding her.
Kate lay on her side, her head pillowed on Rick's bicep. His big body was pressed close to the back of hers and his free arm was draped across her waist. Kate wiggled back a little, snuggling closer to him and readjusting her hips in the process.
There was a gust of air on her hair as Rick heavily breathed out only two seconds before he spoke. "You keep twitching your back side like that, you're going to wake Big Rick," he warned. "And then you'd be late to work and you'd have no one to blame but yourself."
It was a pleasant sound this early in the morning, Kate decided; Rick's husky voice, low and scratchy from sleep. She sighed happily then and Rick's hand fanned out over her abdomen. So she readjusted her hips again, moving back even closer to him and smiled when his body proved his threat true.
Rick sighed this time and said unhappily- acting a bit- "Now you've done it. Big Rick's awake and he's not going away until you make him happy."
"But I have to get ready for work," Kate faux-complained, joining Rick's game.
"I'm sorry, but you woke him. You have to play with him now."
"If I must," she said resignedly. But when she turned over to face him, she was smiling happily. She wrapped her arms around his neck, slid her leg over his hip and leaned in to kiss him. "Good morning, Mr. Castle," she said when she finally pulled away, her voice now low and husky too.
"Miss Beckett," he replied in greeting. "I believe there's someone else waiting for his morning kiss," he added pointedly, and just in case Kate somehow missed his meaning, Rick moved his hips against her, rubbing a very-much-awake-now 'Big Rick' against the inside of her thigh.
It was a simple matter of shifting her own hips and Rick was pressing into her body. With slow, languid strokes they began moving together, each loving the way they were always in sync, always on the same page and always seemed to want the same kind of love making at the same time. When she wanted hard and fast, he took her hard and fast because that was the way he wanted her at the time. And now, when she felt happy, lazy and content, he took her slow and soft because he wanted to feel the tender side of her he only saw glimpses of in the past.
Rick's hand skated up her arm and bushed her hair back off her neck and shoulder. When his fingers buried themselves in her hair, holding her head, Castle's mouth descended to taste the skin he'd just exposed.
"I love you, Kate," Rick said, just before he took her earlobe into his mouth.
Instead of repeating his words, Kate thought of something else that would mean essentially the same thing, and reveal a little more of her self in the process. "I'm going to miss you when you leave for the summer. So much."
There was a smile in his voice when he replied, "You're just going to miss your bed warmer." Rick was a bit surprised actually, that he was able to carry on this little conversation at all, when Kate's body was moving with his. So, just to muddle his brain a little more, he grasped her calf, hitching her leg higher around his waist and pulling her against him at the same time. Yup, there it was. His brain was now sufficiently scrambled to permit no more talking.
Kate gasped when he pressed deeper into her. "I'm going to miss this," she said breathlessly.
With the muddled brain and all, Rick could only shake his head at her. He did try to come up with a reply but before he could, Kate's alarm clock began blaring, distracting him. He glared at the offending noisemaker, annoyed that it had not only distracted him from making a reply, but from enjoying these precious moments with Kate. He pushed her onto her back, rolling with her and swept his arm across her night stand, sending the obnoxious noisemaker crashing to the floor where it abruptly shut up.
"That's better," Rick decided and before Kate could get a really good glare going, he leaned down and kissed her.
Kate frowned and was about to complain about him breaking her stuff when his hand moved to cover her breast and she decided that at that moment, the last thing she wanted was to talk. Besides, she was kind of glad the alarm wasn't what had woken up her this morning. And Kate was definitely feeling wide away right about now.
Every time with Rick was... better than she'd ever imagined it. And she'd always imagined it would be pretty damn good. But she was glad he had waited for love because every time he filled her body, he touched her soul. Kate thought that- the love they both felt- was the main reason the sex between them was so good. Sure Castle had good- okay, great- technique, but with love, with all the walls between them gone, the careful walls Kate built to protect herself, the act was not only physically pleasing, but joyful and heartwarming too.
When her body shattered beneath him, Rick buried his face in the curve of her neck and groaned his own release. Kate shoved her fingers through his hair to hold him to her, powerful shudders of pleasure wracking her body. Rick turned his head to kiss her, trailing tender kisses from her neck to her jaw and finally to her mouth. Kate continued to run her fingers through his hair and when he pulled back to look at her, Kate smiled. His normally perfect hair was mussed and standing on end and Kate thought he'd never looked sexier.
Kate stretched her body under his, arching her back a little to shake the last of the sleepy feeling from her limbs. Then she pushed Castle away, shoving his body off of her own and quickly leaving her bed, heading to the bathroom.
"Where are you going?" he called after her, whining a little.
"I have to get ready for work. You've made me late already."
Rick got up quickly to follow her and as she turned on the shower, he said, "I told you, it's your own fault. You woke Big Rick."
Kate folded her arms across her bare chest and leaned against the counter as she gave him a wry look. "Somehow, I'm not even surprised that you named your... self. Or that its name includes a flattering descriptor."
"I was going to name it 'The Hammer,' but..." Rick trailed off and shrugged.
Kate laughed and turned to get into the shower, hoping she'd waited long enough by now that the water would be warm. When Castle stepped in behind her, she frowned. "What are you doing? I'm already running late, we're not-"
"I know," he cut her off. "I have to get ready to leave too." He grinned impishly and added, "Unless you want to leave me alone all day in your apartment."
"Fine," she said and angled the shower head to spray him over her shoulder. "But you're not allowed to touch me anymore. I won't be late for work."
"Fine, no touching," he agreed. But he reached over her to angle the shower head back down and put his hands on her hips to move her under the water.
"Castle!" she snapped, exasperated, as she moved away and reached for a bottle.
"I thought you meant inappropriate touching," he complained. Kate lifted her arms then to lather shampoo into her hair and Castle smiled. He found a bar of soap and began rubbing his sudsy hands over her chest. "See, I'm helping."
Kate rolled her eyes, but smiled too. "What is it with you and showers?"
He gave her a look that asked, 'are you really asking me that question?' but he answered her nonetheless. "Naked. Wet. Slippery. Soapy. Wet. And naked," he listed his reasons for her. "Need I go on?"
Smiling, she pointed out, "You said wet and naked twice."
"Well, they should count twice as they are the two most important reasons I'm so fascinated by you and showers."
Despite her protests, Kate entered the precinct twenty minutes late that morning.
"Good morning," she called when she approached her desk, and she found two men staring at her with mouths gaping open in shock.
"What?" she snapped at Ryan and Esposito.
"You're late," Esposito said at the exact same time Ryan pointed out, "You're smiling."
"So?" she challenged them.
"You're never late," Esposito argued at the same time- again- that Ryan said, "You never sm-" He broke off when Beckett turned her glare on him and he shifted his gaze down to something on his desk instead.
"Lanie told me you broke up with Demming," Esposito said, stating a fact but asking a question at the same time.
"She told you that, did she?" Kate replied.
When her eyes narrowed in anger, Esposito back tracked, "I mean, I figured it out on my own but I asked her just to be sure."
"Right," Kate said dubiously. "Maybe I should pay our M.E. a visit."
"Oh," Ryan called after her when she turned to do what she threatened. "Could you ask her about our lab results while you're there?"
"Dude!" Esposito turned to glare at his partner, and threw his pencil at him in annoyance.
"What?" Ryan asked, oblivious.
But Kate thought she knew why Esposito was annoyed that he didn't have an excuse to go down to the morgue now, and she smiled as she sauntered away from the men.
When she entered the morgue, Kate had to remind herself not to whistle; an autopsy room was not the appropriate venue for a whistled rendition of "Dream A Little Dream Of Me." Instead she smiled brightly at her best friend and chirped, "Morning, Lane."
"Hey girl," she replied automatically even as she wondered, Lane? It wasn't that she didn't like the nickname or that she'd never been called Lane before, but Kate had never called her that before. The M.E. looked up and studied her best friend for only a moment before her eyebrows began to disappear into her hair line. "I thought you cancelled your bed and breakfast weekend with Demming?" she asked pointedly.
"I did," Kate replied, confused. "Why?"
"Because you got this little smirk that won't go away and this glowy look like you just got laid." She cocked one eyebrow at Kate- taking in the in-too-much-of-a-rush-after-having-sex-this-morning messy bun her hair was pulled into- and added, "And laid good by the look of you."
Kate didn't reply, but her permanent smirk grew into a full blown, self-satisfied grin.
"What did you do this weekend?" Lanie prompted. "Or should that be who?"
"Good girls don't kiss and tell," Kate informed her nosy friend sanctimoniously.
"Lucky for me you've never been a good girl," Lanie retorted with a smirk of her own.
Kate laughed, not at all offended that Lanie saw through the perfect façade of 'Detective Beckett' to the sometimes wild woman beneath. She hopped up onto the neighboring stainless steel table facing Lanie where the M.E. was still at work. "I went to the beach this weekend," she finally confessed, biting at her lip a little.
Lanie immediately gasped and lit up with a huge smile. "With writer-boy?" she gushed.
"Writer-Man, Lanie," Kate corrected vehemently. Her eyes took on a dreamy look as she concluded, "Writer-Man."
Lanie shrieked in excitement and began bouncing in place. "Was he as good as he thinks he is?"
Kate sighed, her eyes still dreamy. "Better," she replied, and her cheeks heated up.
Lanie suddenly stopped bouncing, her face turning worried instead of happy. Hesitantly, Lanie asked, "You're not falling in love with him, are you?"
Confused, Kate looked back at her friend. "Aren't you the one who kept urging me to hook up with him?"
"You're too young to be so serious all the time. Having some fun with Castle would be good for you. But…" Lanie trailed off, shaking her head.
"He is good for me. And he is a lot of fun," Kate assured her.
"But what about…" Lanie paused, thinking for a second about how to phrase her question without insulting Kate inadvertently. "What about when his goldfish-like attention span inevitably snaps?"
"I think we underestimate him sometimes, Lanie," Kate began arguing passionately.
"Kate," Lanie began in denial, but Kate held her hands up to stop her friend.
"Really," she insisted. "He's been around for two years now and in all of that time, I never gave him any real reason to believe anything would happen between us. But he stuck around and I truly believe it's because he cares about me. When I decided to go with him this weekend, I thought I'd finally do what you've been telling me to do and just have some fun. I threw myself at him- several times- but he wouldn't do it. He wouldn't take advantage of me, even though I was offering. He told me he wanted me to be in love with him the first time we were together."
"That's really sweet," Lanie acknowledged. She sighed and then tried to smile. "Just be careful, okay?"
"Thank you, Lanie," Kate said, smiling sentimentally at her friend. It was gratifying to know the sisterly love she felt for her best friend was returned.
"You're my girl," Lanie replied by way of saying 'you're welcome.' "There isn't anything I wouldn't do for you." Lanie's smile returned in full force when she added, "Including falsify an autopsy report if Castle ever breaks your heart."
Kate scoffed. "If that happens, there won't be a need for an autopsy report. When I get done with him, there won't be a body left to report on."
Lanie laughed. "Well, I'll help you hide the pieces."
Kate joined in her friend's laughter and hopped down from the table. "I'd hug you, but you're…" she gestured with her hands, indicating Lanie's gloved, gooey hands and the various fluids that had stained her medical gown. "Ew," Kate eventually concluded.
"Thanks," Lanie rolled her eyes.
"Oh, there are some lab results Ryan wanted me to check on," Kate recalled before pushing through the doors to leave.
"Oh," Lanie said hesitantly. The way Lanie acted, looking disappointed and obviously trying to come up with an excuse why Kate shouldn't take the reports, Kate was happy to note that Esposito's unspoken feelings were returned. Finally, she gestured with the scalpel in her hand and said, "They're on the counter over there. Will you explain the results to those half wits you work with?"
Kate found the files and then smirked at Lanie. "Are you sure you don't want to explain these to the guys?" she asked in a teasing voice.
"What's that supposed to mean?" she snapped. When Kate just continued to smirk at her, Lanie turned on the attitude. "Girl, take those folders and get out of here."
Kate did as told, laughing on her way out of the morgue. Maybe Kate wouldn't be the only one to find happiness at work, she contemplated as she headed back up to the guys.