Author's Note: Thank you all for the lovely response to the first chapter! Your comments and reviews are much appreciated :)

3x14 – Lucky Stiff

"Just give me a few minutes," Kate says as she steps into her apartment, Castle on her heels.

She leaves him in the living room without a backwards glance, crosses to her bedroom, and he can't help but allow his mind to wander as to what her bedroom might look like and what they could be doing in there and what she looks like right now, taking her clothes off behind that door. Just a fairly thin slab of wood separates the two of them right now and she has a boyfriend but Castle loves her too and he just...

Needs to get a grip.

He needs to get a grip, or he's not going to make it through the night. The thought of going to a club with Kate Beckett already has him completely on edge. So he calls forth his self-restraint and forces himself to sit down on the sofa and stare at his feet rather than allow his eyes...and mind...to wander.

When she appears a few minutes later, his carefully constructed control all but vanishes.

He gapes, can't help himself, eyes raking over her form, and it's so un-gentlemanly but he can't help himself because she's wearing a tight black dress that falls high on her thighs and her heels make her legs look a mile long and she's just so...

"Castle," she scolds. He blinks and forces himself to look away, but not before he catches the flush of her cheeks and the way her pupils have dilated under his perusal.

"Sorry." He shakes his head. "I mean...you just...look really good," he stammers awkwardly, cursing his lack of eloquence.

"Uh, thanks," she replies, voice strained and tinged with more than a little arousal and she won't admit it but she feels a swell of pride at the fact that she can reduce her favorite author almost to speechlessness with just a dress.

Granted it's a very sexy dress, and she's well aware of that. But still...

"Let's, ummm, go," Castle offers after an awkward moment, standing and crossing to the door, eyes still resolutely not fixed on her.

"Right, sure." Kate slips into a jacket, grabs a clutch that contains her phone, keys, badge, and gun, and follows him out of her apartment. She just wants to get this over with. The thrill of going undercover wore off when she was a uniform and though it's always more interesting with Castle, hitting on a drug dealer slash potential murderer is never high on her priority list.

Plus, she's only been wearing this dress for five minutes and she already feels hot and flustered.

They haven't even made it to the club yet.

Castle takes a giant gulp of his drink, feels the alcohol burn down his throat, but he needs more. A lot more, if he's going to survive the rest of the night. Because Kate Beckett is wearing an alluring black dress and she just went from soft and sexy and flirty to kicking a guy in the nuts and cuffing a sleazy drug dealer in under a minute.

All while wearing that barely-there dress and sky-high heels, her stunning curves and long legs highlighted so stunningly by her attire. Or lack thereof.

He takes another swig, nearly finishing his drink, but she's dealing with Oz and he still has her drink in his other hand and at this point he's probably going to down both of them within the next few minutes.

He does.

Unis are stationed just down the block just in case and Kate drags Oz out of the club, hands him over to them because he's been ogling her since the minute she approached him and it was semi-flattering at first but now it's just disgusting.

By the furious look on Castle's face as he glares at the back of the man's head, she's pretty sure he feels the same, although why she's even noticing this is a mystery to her.

An even greater mystery is why she kind of likes this possessive side of Castle. She hasn't even had any alcohol tonight so she decides it must just be the adrenaline of the undercover takedown that has her heart beating a confused rhythm in her chest.

It has nothing to do with the fact that Castle looks good tonight, or the darkness of his eyes when she danced for him, or the way she caught him so blatantly checking out her ass.

Or the way that he's standing next to her now with his eyes not-subtly fixed on her chest.

She clears her throat and he snaps his eyes up, at least having the decency to look embarrassed. Kate just raises an eyebrow at him before extending an arm.

"Can I have my coat please?"

Castle startles, realizes that it's not exactly warm outside and she's wearing...well, not much...and he's been standing there clinging to her coat while staring at her on the cold and dark sidewalks of Manhattan.

"Right, right, sorry," he hastily replies, rights the jacket and holds it open for her.

She wants to protest but she's cold and she has to get back to the precinct and after the sweaty disgustingness of that club she really just wants to go home and take a shower. So she turns obligingly, allows him to guide the garment up her arms and over her shoulders.

The shiver that races through her when he untucks her hair from her collar and his fingers accidentally brush the skin of her neck is just from the cold, she tells herself.

The flutter of her heart when he gently turns her and adjusts the collar in the front of her jacket is just the adrenaline draining from her body.

The way he guides her back to the Ferrari with a hand on her lower back is just him being a gentleman.

But when he hands Kate the keys once again and can't tear his eyes away from her as she drives them back to the precinct, hand dexterous on the gear shift, she really can't deny the heat in his eyes, the dark arousal staring back at her when she briefly flicks her gaze in his direction.

He wants her. Badly. He has since the moment she emerged from her bedroom over an hour ago.

She has a boyfriend and a job to do.

But she wants him too.

Castle can't decide if he's sad or relieved when Kate reappears wearing her work clothes.

Because he's had so many fantasies involving her and a lack of clothing and the interrogation room or various other enclosed spaces in the precinct.

And after tonight, with the club and the alcohol and the dancing, Kate Beckett interrogating someone while wearing a skimpy black number just might be his undoing.

Ah, who is he kidding? He's already completely undone. He has been since the day she sauntered away from him on the sidewalk two years back, but after that kiss last week and that moan and the little black dress and the heady gleam in her eyes as she danced for him, he doesn't stand a chance.

She may have a boyfriend but the way she looked at him in that club, undercover or not, told a very different story.

She wants him.

He wants her too.

Thoughts?