AN: Thank you for reading x and love for those that put up with me on my not so good days.
How he comes to be in her home she never questions and how he gained entry when the door remains locked is a conundrum her logical mind should leap at and attack, but the only word that leaves her mouth is the silken, sweet moan of his name.
"Castle." It slips out on a gasp and she shivers.
He growls again.
Inhaling slowly through his nose, Kate watches as he angles his head like a predator, his eyes on her unblinking and drinking her in. She gasps again, the noise escaping her chest and she curses silently at her own ragged heartbeat. The slightest shift of material as she breathes deeply attracts his attention and his gaze travels over her body like a heated blur. From the locking of their pupils to the swell of her lips and down to the rise and fall of her cleavage - bound tight in her costume.
She doesn't need words, doesn't need talk, doesn't need heated discussion or debate and the storm that starts to roll in across the sky feels like the embodiment of the one within her.
Sometimes things come to a head and a great roar of emotion rises up, takes holds, rips everything to shreds - tonight she doesn't need; she wants. And it's welling up inside like a tempest, tearing everything asunder.
He knows, he must! And another growl tears through him, low and guttural and though he is still on the other side of the room she can feel it all over her skin, in the follicles of her hair as they stand on end, and licking out low and hard between her legs.
His very breath has her burning for him. The looks he casts her in, igniting the flame until she's dancing on a pyre of deepest, darkest desire. And still he hasn't touched her.
Yet.
"Castle." She croaks, blinking slowly only to find that in that millisecond of time it takes for her to speak he has crossed the room, and now he hovers before her, eyes low and his nose brushing just above the skin of her cheek.
How?
She doesn't know, doesn't understand how he could move that fast, because for one second they stood a rooms width apart and in the time it took for his name to weave its way free of her lips he was next to her, reaching for her, as close as could be but not quite touching.
She inhales to say his name again, to call him out, to break her silence with more than her desperate breath but all she does is draw him closer and her hands claw for his shirt with a will of their own, as if she is drowning in his very presence, so overwhelmed is she by the closeness of this version of her partner. She's drowning and she needs an anchor.
She needs him.
Closer.
His head dips and he watches her through lashes that cast long spidery shadows over his cheeks. He stares down, unwavering, the force of his gaze penetrating her clothing, through layers of cotton and leather down to her skin, through flesh and blood and bone and deep down further inside, to that place within her he has somehow always been able to see.
Since day one, when he watched her eyes shimmer with tears as he told her story carelessly, almost callously, until now, when he looks and sees that darkness within her, steps into it and makes it his own.
Her very own hero. Dark Castle. Her partner. The man who stands beside her no matter what.
He doesn't blink, but rather holds her eyes within his own, their mixed reflection staring back at her as one hand opens and the fingers of his larger, warmer hands coil about her wrist.
The thick length of his thumb strokes across her pulse point and she shudders unable to resist. Without thought or second guessing her hand lifts and the tips of her fingers reach out - tentative yet sure - to stroke across the curve of his lower lip.
Each pad trips lightly over his skin and her heart thunders as her fingers quiver and though they stand now in the middle of the living room with one step - his hands at her waist - he drives them back into the wall of her bedroom.
One single step that spans the entire room, one step that should be twenty, one step that leaves her eyes wide as another mystery crashes over her. Floating, levitating, flying? As if he had lifted her from her feet and catapulted them both here.
Impossible, mysterious, intriguing.
Deadly.
A million words race through her head and he chuckles darkly, as if he can hear every single one of them. She opens her eyes to find him staring down at her, one fist coiling in the tangled laces at her back, fingertips making urgent sweeps between cotton and leather.
With barely a breath of space between them he reaches for her hand and draws it up above her head, moving in. Her eyes slam shut once more as she waits for, longs, hopes and wishes for him to kiss her.
Instead his nose nudges at her cheek, his heated exhale chasing across her skin as he nuzzles in closer, tilting her head to one side and making her gasp when the rough pad of his tongue grazes over the column of her throat.
Outside lightning lights up the sky and a boom of thunder sets her on edge as the storm finally hits and like a spark of electricity through her already bubbling blood - she jumps - she clutches him tighter and clings to him for support.
He hums something soothing into her ear and the very vibrations of his voice make her legs weak. They tremble until they give out completely and even the confidence boosting leather boots are powerless to hold her up.
The hand at her back drifts, as his mouth settles over her pulse, and she startles when his fingers slip beneath the short ruffled layers of her shirt. His thumb drifting out across her stomach until her abdominal muscles are dancing to the erotic beat of his forbidden touch.
His thumbs hook in her belt loop and the sharp press of his canines dig into her shoulder when he finds the leather and rides the material down the length of her long legs. His fingers open and close as he moves, until his wide hands are dwarfing her thigs and he's lifting, tugging at the tensing muscle, pulling and wrapping her leg around his waist.
She tries to find breath but her fingers map his chest instead and slide below the collar of his shirt, she tries to open her eyes but the silken slip of his body over hers holds them shut. He presses in closer and makes her shiver, invokes a darker power with each touch, makes earth, air, wind and fire race over her skin.
He speaks her name, rocks forwards, chases each letter with the touch of his lips, his teeth, his tongue to her body and her eyes open wide in disbelief, and close again in pleasure just from the feel of him.
He moves in to take that first, sweet seductive kiss, his lips hot and moist over hers and everything in her screams that she needs to see him, to look deeply into him when it happens like this and she smiles and opens her eyes.
Opens her eyes only to find herself alone in bed, burning head to toe with the mistaken memory of his touch.
Her heart aches in her chest and she catches the sob before it can escape into the night.
It was a dream and she hates herself for not having the thing she wants most, for not allowing herself this one desire. She knows sleep won't come easy tonight, now her mind burns with the raging fever of what if and any peace she finds will be broken by his name echoing from her lips a thousand times over.
Giving up she slides from the bed, reaches for the paper and begins to write.
Sometimes I dream of him.
I wake in darkness and my heart races, thunders against the rip through my chest and for a few seconds I think I see him in the doorway, then I blink and he's gone and once again I'm alone.
Sometimes I wish he was there, not a specter floating in my mind.
Sometimes I wish he was with me and he'd stay.