A/N: M, really M, for both language and the obviously-adult situation.

He still had her lips locked as he pressed her into the bed with his thighs and hips and chest. Her eyes shot open as he flipped them, eyebrows raised. He wasn't sure if she was mad or impressed that he'd managed to out-maneuver her in her own bed. When he rolled his hips against her center, he felt as much as heard her moan. He let go of her wrists, resting his weight on his elbows, and twined his fingers with hers. She squeezed his hands and pushed her hips up to meet his, obviously content with their positions for the moment.

When she arched her back, pressing her breasts up into his chest, he suddenly needed his hands back. He reached around behind her back and unclasped her bra. She shrugged her shoulders and he dragged the straps free of her arms, tossing the very-unBeckett lingerie off the bed. Now he needed his lips back, too. He broke their kiss, and she whimpered. Kate Beckett, super-detective, bad-ass cop, just whimpered while lying half-naked, pinned under him on her bed. He needed her to make that sound again, frequently, possibly multiple times a day.

As he looked down on her cheeks, pink with arousal, and her eyes, closed in concentration, he knew she was waiting to see what part of her he would explore next. But first he needed to look her in the eye, make sure this was real, make sure she realized what they were doing and what it meant. So he pulled back slightly, framed her face with his hands, and whispered her name.

"Kate…"

With what seemed like focused effort, she opened her lids, blinked once, and stared straight into his soul. Her pupils were dilated, darkening her hazel eyes to almost black. He must have been staring too long, because she smiled shyly.

"What?"

He hadn't broken eye contact because suddenly, he could see everything he needed to know. She wasn't running. She wasn't closed off. She was open and free and she was his.

"You're just so completely beautiful. Sorry, couldn't help staring, especially when I have you this close."

She blushed scarlet and her eyes darted to his left. Her neck and chest bloomed rosy pink right before him.

"Rick…" she sounded so shy and unsure of herself all of a sudden.

"What? You are. Beautiful. Gorgeous. Extraordinary. Don't tell me no one has ever told you that before."

"Sure, but the way you say it," she returned her gaze to his, "I think you actually believe it."

Where was all this insecurity coming from? Kate was the kind of woman who he imagined knew exactly how powerful her spell would be on any man, the kind who had men falling all over themselves to win her favor. Well, if she had never believed a single one of them, she was going to believe him now.

"Katherine Beckett, I would never, ever, lie to you, and I am telling you, you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen."

"Now I really don't believe you. Not with your parade of starlets and supermodels."

"If my life depended on it, I couldn't tell you what a single one of them looked like. I haven't seen anyone but you when I close my eyes for, oh, almost three years now." He wasn't smiling. He wanted her to know this was no platitude. No joke. Not a line he used on the fangirls or the dates his publicist arranged.

"You're delusional." She made a half-hearted attempt to give him a withering look.

"No, I'm in… " He stopped himself for some reason before that four-letter word rolled off his tongue. It was true. Had been for longer than he could remember. But somehow he didn't think she could handle it at this moment, not with everything else.

"…bed with my brilliant, sexy, caring, dedicated, selfless, brave, honest, best friend. I'm ecstatic. I'm floored. I'm baffled by the fact that this is finally happening."

He ran his hands down her arms and up her sides, brushing his thumbs against the underside of her breasts and he felt her ribs expand under his hands as she drew in a breath.

"But I feel you warm and breathing and here, and I never knew you had a freckle right up under here…" He dipped his head to place an open-mouthed kiss against her ribcage between her breasts, eliciting a gasp. "…so I know I must not be dreaming." He slid his hands around her back to pull her ribcage up slightly toward him. Suddenly he was distracted from his diatribe. He hoped he'd said enough to let her know she was the single most captivating woman he had ever met, and that she was loved. He hoped she knew that even if she couldn't handle hearing the words.

He trailed his tongue along the crease beneath one breast, then nuzzled against its outer swell. When he took her pebbled nipple in his mouth, suckling without preamble, she cried out and threw her head back to pant. He released her with a slight pop, then gently stroked his tongue over the pinked peak before moving to her other breast to repeat the performance. God, she was responding with an intensity he had never dreamed possible. He could feel her heart pounding under her ribs. Her breaths were coming in shallow, quick gasps. Her fingers had laced into his hair, feathered over his shoulders and down the back of his neck.

His hands found the waistband of her pants and unfastened them, sliding them down her body to leave her in just her lacy underwear. Wow, either she had one serious premonition the last time she changed her clothes or it was laundry day. How often did she wear stuff like this to work? Things to contemplate when his brain was up for coherent thought again.

"You're wearing too many clothes." If he had thought she had a bedroom voice before, he was sadly mistaken. This was the bedroom voice. She sat up and unfastened his pants, leaving him in his decidedly unsexy gray cotton boxer-briefs. He hoped his obvious "enthusiasm" for their situation made up for his lack of romance-novel-worthy underwear. If the smile that tugged at the corners of her mouth was any indication, she was willing to overlook fashion for function.

She reached out and palmed his length, sliding her warm hand up his shaft through the material. He had to grip her shoulders and shut his eyes to keep from thrusting into her grasp. He was so not going to last long at this rate…

She seemed to sense his battle for control and released him to scoot back on to the bed and pull down the covers.

He crawled up the length of her nearly-naked form, brushing his lips along her thighs, over her right hip, and up past her navel. She spread her legs to allow his hips to hover over her center. When she arched up to him he gave in to the urge to push her down into the mattress with his weight. He attached his lips to her neck, her shoulders, and finally her mouth. When he couldn't take any more teasing, he pulled away to sit back on his heels and catch one fingertip into either side of the waist of her underwear. He looked her in the eye as he slid the lace down slowly, revealing that final patch of ivory skin and dark curls. She drew her legs together to allow him to slip off her final barrier. She sat up slightly and reached to do the same for him. Once they were equally bare, she wrapped her fingers around his length and he couldn't help the jerk of hips into her hand.

"Kate…"

He slid up beside her, pressing as much of his skin against hers as he could. They ended up face to face, each propped up on an elbow, staring into each others' eyes as if not quite sure what to do next. He gripped her hipbone and pulled her pelvis flush against him. As if to one-up him, she slid her leg up and over his hip, using her calf and heel to pull his length flush with her core. That was when he realized that her "enthusiasm" likely rivaled his own. He devoured her mouth. His delved into the far back corners, swept across the roughness of her palate, nipped at her swollen lower lip. Her hand was busy tracing random patterns over his back and shoulders and biceps. She suddenly surged forward, rolling him beneath her and straddling his hips, never breaking contact in their kiss. As she slid her center along his length, he felt his control slipping. She pulled back from the kiss to meet his eyes. She adjusted her hips and aligned him with her entrance. He held his breath, silently praying that if this was a dream, he wouldn't wake up right now.

Kate sank slowly, and she inhaled sharply as his tip parted her folds. She could see he was struggling to remain perfectly still, to allow her full control of how this all began. As she lowered herself further, her eyes closed briefly and she caught her lower lip between her teeth. She exhaled and consciously relaxed her inner muscles slightly as she sank the final inches. When her pelvis met his hips, he couldn't hold back a tiny thrust up to meet her. She gasped as she felt him bottom out against the entrance to her womb. She was stretching almost to the point of pain, but he felt so amazing, putting delicious pressure on the sweet spot on her inner wall without even trying.

"Rick—God—so perfect."

She lowered herself until her breasts were pressed against his chest, until her nose, buried in the skin just below his ear, was flooded with his scent, and then she rocked ever so gently against him. He reached for her hips to pull her firmly down as he thrust up to meet her. She pulled back to see blue eyes, familiar, open and searching. They were so intense, so dark and serious, if she didn't know better she would think he was furious. As she undulated against him, she aligned herself to make perfect contact with his pelvis. At this rate, she was going to peak in about a minute and a half. The benefits of three years of foreplay—she couldn't help chuckling slightly. Rick's whole expression changed to a perplexed grin.

"What are you laughing at, Kate?"

"Just thinking that three years of innuendo apparently has me pretty revved up." She sounded breathy even to herself. "I'm really close, Rick."

"Or maybe I'm just that good?" he was grinning like an idiot and his eyes were twinkling up at her as he raised one eyebrow.

"Remind me to smack you for that later."

She ducked her head and kissed the spot where his neck met his shoulder.

"Mmmm. Only kidding, dear." She felt his lips brush her ear as he whispered, "Actually, we're just that good. It figures we'd be just as in tune with this as we are with everything else."

She felt the beginnings of a tingle at the base of her spine and lost her ability to process speech. He must have cued in to the shift in her breathing, and he began thrusting harder up and into her.

She gasped and clung to him as the first wave hit her, warm and tight across her belly. She was not vocal in bed. Or at least, she never had been before. Now she wasn't sure she had any control over the desperate little cries that escaped as she panted in his ear. Her breath was coming so quickly she started to feel the room spin and made an effort to slow herself down.

"Kate, oh Kate."

His lips against her ear pulled her out of her haze and she pulled back to look down into his eyes again.

"Rick. I, that was, you…" she huffed out a breath and he chuckled slightly. "Wow. Your turn."

He smiled brilliantly up at her complete incoherence.

"Eloquent much?"

"Hey, my inability to speak should be a compliment... Do not make fun of me or else you won't get to be speechless later."

"But you don't really think I'm going to let you get away with only one, do you?"

"Oh God, I'm not sure – oh."

He had thrust up into her again, obviously undeterred by her attempt at declining his challenge.

"Thought so. Maybe I'll join you this time."

"Maybe? What the hell, Castle? Where did all this self control come from all of a sudden?"

He was continuing to rock his hips up and against hers, making it progressively more difficult to form coherent sentences.

"So it's back to 'Castle' now?"

"I can't help it when you're being frustrating."

"Seriously? This is frustrating? Seriously."

His hands gripped her hips and pulled her flush against him to illustrate his point.

"You had better go with me this time." As she curled her hips toward him, she couldn't deny that she was already primed for another round. She wasn't a prude by any stretch of the imagination, but she'd never been with someone who had made it his goal to see how many times he could send her over the edge-he angled his head up to find the spot on her neck that made her squirm and suckled-that was apparently Rick's plan at the moment.

Fuck.

She was close again. How did he do this to her?

He laughed a startled, belly laugh. She pulled away from her new favorite spot at the curve of his neck and pinned him with her eyes, hoping her complete mortification was not evident.

"Oh God, I said that out loud, didn't I?"

"It's OK, Kate, I think it's sexy that you talk dirty in bed."

"I do not talk dirty in bed. Well, I guess until now. Fuck."

He chuckled again.

"Guess you just needed the right inspiration."

"And you're nothing if you're not inspiring, Rick."