She knew once she told him she loved him, they would be crossing that line she had been so wary of coming anywhere close to since they had begun doing this dance again. There was no going back, no more one foot out the door just to be safe, and as he walked her backwards, past the threshold of his bedroom, she accepted she didn't ever want to return to the way things were.
She wanted to dive in with him. For good this time.
Kate took a step back from him and lifted her turtleneck, tugged the grey cashmere over her head and dropped it to the armchair by the entryway while his fingers fumbled along the buttons of his shirt, the white bandage entering her vision and reminding her to be careful of his brutalized hand. She gently knocked his fingers away and glided her own down the trail of buttons with ease until his dress shirt was hanging open and she could smooth her hands along the warm expanse of bared flesh.
She pressed her cheek to his, dusted a kiss to the tender spot below his ear and felt his good hand in her hair, weaving through the strands to massage at her scalp and she hummed, nipped at the stubble he had yet to shave away.
Her fingers trickled down to his belt and pushed at the black fabric of his slacks. Castle stepped out of his shoes, his socks, and then his pants, until he stood in only his underwear and she palmed the front of his navy silk boxers, releasing a throaty chuckle as the hand in her hair slid down to her nape and squeezed hard. He retaliated with his injured hand at her back, his fingers still functional enough to unclasp her bra and slide the satin down her arms. She felt the bandage scratch against her skin and she tilted her head upwards, blindly searching for his mouth, but landing a kiss against his cheekbone instead, and then closer to his nose before finally finding his lips.
She wound an arm around his waist, sucked his upper lip into her mouth and moaned in the same exact way she had in the parking lot earlier that night. The sound had him jerking her closer, crushing her against him and taking everything from her. She had abstained from losing herself in him - in the aggressive kiss he had pushed against her lips and the possessive hold he had drawn her into - during their little ruse, too intent on the purpose it served in saving Ryan and Esposito, but now she let him wipe her mind clean with the scorch of his fingers and the sweep of his tongue.
She fell back on her elbows when the backs of her knees hit the edge of the mattress and Castle swiftly knelt down to slide her boots off and yank her unzipped pants down her legs until they were both in their underwear, equal in their state of undress. But Kate quickly sat up, shimmied the lace thong past her legs and then proceeded to tug his boxers down so they pooled at his ankles.
He crawled over her and she threaded her fingers through the soft strands of his hair, kissing him languidly as he positioned them higher on the bed, so that when she dropped backwards her head fell into his pillow.
Kate closed her hand around him once he was situated between her legs, stroked the firm length of his arousal just to feel the growl he released against her swollen lips. She smiled and tilted her hips up, positioned him at her entrance, and moved her hand to splay at his back, over the branches of bone and muscle that led to his scapula. He didn't tease or make her wait tonight and she was grateful for the effortless push of his length inside her.
It had been an exhausting night, an exhausting few months really, and all she wanted was the weight of his body moving with hers, pulling pleasure from every orifice of her flesh, and then she wanted to curl up with him in the sweat stained sheets and sleep for a few uninterrupted hours.
Her fingers fisted in his hair and her nails cut into his back at the long, deliberate measure of his strokes, but she didn't rush or try to hurry their pace. Instead, she used her toes to propel her body upwards in time with his, meeting his thrusts in a well-practiced dance.
"Say it again," he murmured into the hollow of her cheek, nipping at her ear and grinning when her breathing fell shallow, an uninhibited little gasp slipping free.
But Kate recovered a piece of the shaky control he stole so well, hooked her legs around his in a move she had learned in combat training years ago, and flipped him over with fluent ease.
She grinded down, clenching around him and watching with a smirk as his eyes rolled back before leaning forward, pressing her lips to his ear.
"I love you," she whispered and smiled when he turned his head to catch her upturned lips, kissing her softly until she undulated her hips and he choked on a breath. "I love you, Rick."
Her body draped over his, her breasts crushed against his chest, and his hands slithered down her sides to cup her ass, short nails carving crescents into her flesh as her body adeptly rolled into his.
The intensity of their movements slowly dwindled down into something more reverent as she stared down at him, noses touching and lips brushing, ardent but just as intoxicating. Even the orgasm that washed over them was like the pleasant caress of a flame, sending her head into the crook of his neck as the fire spread and she tried to find her breath, calm the heavy slam of her heart against her heaving ribs.
"I love you too." She heard him murmur over the rush of blood settling in her ears and Kate grinned against his throat as she let the words soak into her skin and settle inside the unprotected walls of her heart. "So much, Kate."
She nuzzled his neck, dipped a kiss into the hollow of his throat, and slid off of him. His breath was still unsteady, his heart still stampeding in his chest when she placed her palm there, but Castle cupped the back of her skull, kissed her long and leisurely.
When she broke away, he had a blissful smile firmly in place.
"How's the hand?" she whispered, feeling guilty for almost forgetting about the injury completely.
His eyes narrowed in confusion for a moment before they brightened with clarity. Apparently, she had not been the only one to neglect his bruised skin and battered bones.
"Oh," he murmured, lifting his bandaged knuckles from his side to rest on his abdomen. "Fine. Honestly the last thing on my mind."
"I'm sure that won't be the case tomorrow when the effect of sex and medication has worn off," she smirked, but he waved her off, hooked his foot in the tangled sheets and comforter at the edge of the bed and hauled them closer.
"You'll just have to take care of me then," he winked, draping the bedding over them both and curving an arm at her waist when she turned on her side away from him, fitting his chest to her bare back.
"Don't worry, Castle," she yawned, lazily sweeping her nails through the soft plains of hair on his forearm. "I've got your back."
He brushed one last kiss to the skin of her nape before she felt his forehead press against her shoulder blade, how he usually slept when he was curled up behind her like this.
They hadn't shared space this intimately in a while now, always too cautious and careful with one another. They hadn't even shared a bed since the summer. The last couple of months, he had always been kind enough to leave after sex at her place and she had never possessed the courage to stay at his, always politely declining if he had the nerve to ask.
She huffed at her previous actions, circled his wrist with her thin fingers in an apology that he wouldn't possibly understand, but he dusted his fingertips at her navel in response.
"Kate," he mumbled, sleep already lacing his voice. "It's okay. Stop thinking."
She sighed, brought his wrist to her lips and grazed a kiss to the bone before lowering their tangled hands to rest between her breasts.
She loved him. He loved her. It wasn't so scary anymore.
The pale morning light filtering through the window had him blinking awake, but it was the sight of her naked back bent over the side of his bed that had his eyes remaining peeled open.
"Kate," he rasped, sliding his hand over the curve of her side, wincing when his knuckles throbbed at the action. "I thought Montgomery gave you the day off."
"He did," she murmured quietly, but not ceasing in her rummaging around under the side of his bed, searching for her bra he was sure. He doubted she would find it, he had kicked it pretty far under the bed for a reason.
He snuck a glance at the alarm clock on the bedside table, wanted to groan when he saw it was barely six a.m.
"Then why are you awake?"
"I'm going to head over to Sing Sing, interview Hal Lockwood."
The last tendrils of sleep slipped away from him, releasing their hold and surrendering him to full wakefulness and worry.
"Beckett."
"Castle," she parroted back, finally turning over to face him. She looked exhausted and he wondered how long she must have lain awake beside him, thinking about her mother and that makeshift murder board hidden behind shutters back at her apartment.
"Do you remember, before, when we made that deal?"
Her eyebrows drew together for just a moment before clarity had them straightening out and protest rose in her eyes.
"Rick, I'm fine. I don't-"
"You didn't want to fall back down the rabbit hole, you didn't want to become obsessed to the point where your own judgment faltered," he continued on despite the way her bottom lip started to quake. "And you promised me that if I thought that was going to happen, I had the right to pull you away. To make you stop."
"It was different then," she mumbled, but he caught the fingers in the sheets between them, tugged her hand to his chest to keep her from withdrawing.
"You'll be in that prison week after week, Beckett. You'll never let it go until he cracks and we both know he won't."
Her lips pursed in irritation and she shook her head at him, like he had betrayed her by speaking a truth she did not want to hear.
"I should have made you stop the day you slammed Vulcan Simmons into the mirror."
Shame had her eyes flashing downwards, but he wasn't trying to make her feel guilty. He had seen her after a bout with this case, after she had killed Coonan. He had seen the box filled with mementos and photos of her mother and how the ferocious need for justice ate her alive from the inside out like a parasite. He had held her through nightmares and a really difficult Mother's Day last spring. He had seen her at her worst, torn up like Montgomery had said, and he knew she couldn't just let it go, but he was the one who had done this to her, the least he could do was attempt to keep her afloat in the sea of desperation. And that meant keeping her away from any more triggering situations.
Visiting Hal Lockwood struck him as one of those situations.
Kate freed her hand from his and twined her arm around his neck instead, used his body as leverage to haul herself across the space between them, and dropped her head to the middle of his chest. He cradled her skull with one hand, traced the other down her spine to settle at the small of her back. It wasn't like her, to seek out contact like this when she was in disagreement with him.
"I just want the truth," she whispered, her voice choked and he held her just a little tighter. "She deserves it, she deserves the truth, Rick," she moaned, the visceral pain laced in her words setting up a fault line in his heart.
"We'll find the truth, we will, Kate, I swear to you," he breathed into the hair covering her ear. "But without you dying for your cause, because when we were in that coffee shop-"
Her arms squeezed at his neck and it helped dispel the image of her with blood spatter splayed across her chest, over the area where her heart resided unprotected.
"We'll never find the truth if we run away," she murmured in what felt like her last dying argument and he sighed, rolled them over so she was on her back and he was hovering above her.
"We'll never find the truth if we're dead," he countered gently, brushing the layers of her hair back behind her ear. "We're not running away, we're not giving up. The truth is out there and we will find it. Just not today."
Her eyes glistened, but she reluctantly nodded her acceptance.
"Will you-" She swallowed, flicked her gaze away from him for a moment before releasing a shaky breath and smoothing her hands along his biceps. "Will you distract me for the day? I can't – I need to not think about it."
He lifted an eyebrow. "I don't know if I have the stamina to distract you the entire day, Beckett."
"Not like that," she huffed, but her lips turned upwards and that had really been his only ambition, to induce at least a shimmer of amusement. "I meant, can we just spend the day being normal?"
"We've never been normal," he teased affectionately. "But we can try."
She grinned and he felt her legs kick the sheets downwards, freeing them to wrap around his waist. "I want to go to that new bookstore that opened up a few blocks from my place and then maybe…" Her breath expelled unsteadily from her lungs but just like always, she chased away the uncertainty with determination. "Maybe we can work on taking down the murder board in my apartment."
He could have wept with the relief of her suggestion, but instead he just smiled gently at her in agreement.
"After lunch?"
She nodded, her eyes lightening to a soft gold at the forming plans for their day and he lowered his head, kissed her nose and chuckled when her forehead scrunched in disapproval.
"But first…" She tilted her hips upwards and smirked at him when his breath hitched. "Distract me, Castle."