Tigress
Her mind isn't racing; she's also not shutting down. She's thinking, and she's going through her logic step by step, and even though she knows this isn't always something reasonable, it still makes perfect sense. What he said at lunch. It makes sense.
And this is the first time she's not felt the need to run to her therapist for a way through the maze.
They don't say anything as they lick slowly melting ice cream from their cones; Kate has to capture a drop of strawberry before it escapes down her wrist. She finishes the last of the waffle cone with a crunch, her mind made up, tosses the paper into the trash can.
This time when she looks over at him, she realizes that the distance she always thought she saw is really just the space between them. Space of their own making. Her own making. Space that can be breached.
Castle is still working at his ice cream; she thinks it's because he spent so much time watching her. Her tongue. Her lips around the pink-rimmed cone. It only convinced her of what she's known, and what she knows comes next.
As he tries to keep from getting completely messy, eating the cone over the dirt just as he had to with his lunch, Kate pulls her phone from her pocket and calls Gates. She gets voicemail and leaves a message, feeling Castle's startled eyes on her.
"This is Beckett. I'm taking a half day, sir. I need a long weekend."
When she ends the call and looks over at him, he's got a slow grin working its way across his face. "Half day. Playing hooky?"
"Just doing what needs to be done," she says, relishing the slow burn in her blood, the way his eyes make her warm. She points at his ice cream. "You done?"
"Not-"
She takes it out of his hands, tosses the last of it into the trash can beside their bench. His jaw drops; he looks like he's about to protest. Before he can, she reaches for him instead.
Hands curled in his jacket, she pulls herself across the short span between them, and she presses her mouth to his, open and ready.
Castle doesn't hesitate. His lips part and his tongue swipes at hers, slides inside. She tastes butter pecan and strawberry, the heat of his mouth, the rhythm of her kiss and his, the delicious and sharp bite of her teeth at his lip.
He pulls back first, staring right down into her, his breath on a groan.
Kate finally breathes. "Come home with me."
He's not saying no, he's not saying anything; his hand is tightly fisted around hers in the elevator.
She's glad he doesn't ask, grateful he doesn't need an explanation, but she wonders if it's entirely fair to him. She tries to formulated an answer as the lift rises towards her floor.
When the doors part and she steps out into her hall, Castle follows.
She has no problem getting the door unlocked; her hands are steady. She puts everything on the floor, steps out of her shoes, tugs on him until he crosses the threshold of her foyer and comes up against her in the kitchen. Mm, that's good.
She lets go of his hand to place her palms flat against his chest, slides his jacket off.
The sharp shock of his breath reminds her. She should say - something. He deserves to know before she - before she pounces on him.
"I've been thinking about this all wrong," she starts, pleased when his jacket hits the floor. "If my life is a maze that I have to work through to the end of-" She starts on the buttons of his shirt; she can already feel the hard pound of his heart. "-if it's as easy and as complicated as finding my way, if there's no wall between us, Rick, and I already love you, then why hold back?"
His hands grip her elbows. "You already-"
"Love you," she finishes, sliding her arms up his chest and around his neck, dislodging his bruising fingers. His eyes, his whole face is breaking open with light.
She lifts on her toes, surprised by the height difference now without her shoes, tugs on his neck to pull him down to her.
"Kate." Warning and need.
She narrows her eyes at him, intent, and takes what she wants.
"You're killing me," he groans.
She growls back at him and nudges him with her hips, pushing towards the bedroom. He's trying to get at the buttons of her shirt, but there's no space; he makes a noise in his throat that flares in her, makes her stumble and clutch at him.
He knocks his elbow into a bookcase; she realizes he's heading for her office, wrong way, tries to push him back with a shove, lips breaking apart. He retaliates by thudding her into the shelves and she arches on a gasp as his mouth claims her neck.
She lifts her thigh, rocks forward, hooks her fingers into the back of his belt and tugs him away, where she needs him to go. Castle trips at the edge of the couch, their bodies tangling and going down.
She laughs into his collarbone, presses his skin between her teeth, touches her tongue to it as they sink to the floor.
"Where the hell is your bed?" he pants, hands at her thighs and squeezing, thumbs pressing hard into her sartorious muscle, making her knees tighten around his hips, making her want want want.
"Not sure I can make it all that way," she says, something feral in her clawing to get out, take him here, finally have him.
"Not-uh," he mutters, and suddenly he's on his feet, dragging her up and then stepping away. "Not on the floor, Beckett."
She grins back at him, sly and intent, stalks towards him. She snags him by the front of his gaping open shirt, pulls him with her towards her bedroom.
"Gorgeous," he gasps, hands roaming, over and around and down and stroking up, never still, never staying where she wants, needs, but oh - oh - that - and- "You're so gorgeous, and your body feels so good-"
She bites into his neck, claiming him, the arch of her back pulling her away even as he does it again, again, makes her vision shrink to nothing and then sunburst apart, flames licking through her world.
Castle.
When her frenzied heart finally lets her, she lifts up from his chest and slides to the sheets, her body close, cheek against the slack of his bicep. His arm curls lazily up and his fingers play at her ear, but his eyes don't open.
She watches him until she can't stay awake any longer.