A/N: Apologies for the delay in updating this. As I said with the last chapter, my assignments had to take precedence and I was busy writing one of them. That being said, I would really like to thank so many of you for being so understanding (and for ignoring the temporary typos and mistakes that were in the chapter!). Those of you who reviewed, htbuzz, GeekMom, hfce, alwayscastle2, TORONTOSUN, jellybean96 and the anonymous reviewer, thank you. I say it every week, but I really do enjoy reading your thoughts on the chapters. Before I shut up and let you all read the next chapter, you may want to just reread the last chapter because I made some minor additions (mainly to Ryan and Esposito's speech).
When the cake came back, Castle rubbed his palms together greedily, eyebrows quirking in expectation of how amazing it was going to taste. Everyone was handed a plate with a generous slice – the four tiered cake easily feeding all of their guests with plenty to spare – and he couldn't help moaning after the first bite, licking the remaining icing and crumbs off the fork.
"Even better than the tasting," he mumbled. He caught sight of Kate's devious grin for a split second before her slice of cake mushed against his closed, chewing mouth. He could hear her laughter, melodic against his ears as he grinned, flashing his icing-covered teeth at her. "More for me!"
"Castle, you have to give me your slice now," she said, still laughing.
"Na uh, you didn't have to give me your piece," he argued, licking his lips and wiping away the crumbs and icing his tongue couldn't reach with his fingers.
"Don't be a pig," Kate scolded, bumping her hip into his side.
He made a big deal of splitting his slice of cake into two, sighing and giving her long looks the entire time before pressing his sticky lips against her cheek as he handed her the slightly bigger half.
Lanie waltzed past with her second slice of cake. "This is really good, guys. Amazing cake! Wish you'd brought me to the tasting."
They both laugh good-naturedly; trying not to let the memory of what had happened to the rest of the cake sample they had been given when they left the bakery show on their faces. Lanie was right though, it was good cake, moist and soft with the perfect amount of coffee in the sponge, though the icing held more caffeine. Wiping his sticky fingers on his napkin, Rick abandoned his plate on a passing waiter's tray.
They received a nod from the venue's manager when the dining area had been cleared and the dance floor prepared.
As Kate retrieved her bouquet from where a member of staff had been kind enough to leave it at the side of the room, Rick corralled everyone into coming back for Kate to toss it. She rolled her eyes as he arranged people, purposefully positioning his mother and Alexis at the back of the crowd and where they were least likely to be able to catch the flowers.
"Everybody ready?" Kate called, already facing away from their guests.
Lanie was the loudest, yelling back, "Hell, yeah! Get on with it already, girl!"
Laughing to herself, Kate launched the bouquet of flowers into the air and turned to watch as one of the uniforms she saw on a daily basis caught them.
Across the room, the lined up guys laughed as Officer Williams called, "What do you say then, Martinez, ready to take me up on my offer yet?"
Castle helped Kate step down from the band's stage she had thrown the flowers from and murmured into her ear, "Am I missing something? Williams and Martinez, really?"
"You really don't know about those two?" Castle shook his head so she continued, "He's been chasing her for years but she just won't give him the time of day. Kind of sad really."
Castle looked over at Officer Martinez, taking in the way she kept flitting her eyes over to Williams and glancing at him from under her dark fringe, and smirked before replying, "Oh, I don't know, I think she'll come around eventually."
"You sound quite sure of that."
"I've just got a feeling, that's all."
"Care to quantify that feeling?" she asked as they stopped in the middle of the dance floor without even really realising.
"Detective Beckett, are you asking me to place a bet on whether Martinez will agree to let Williams take her out on a date?"
Kate rolled her eyes at his feigned shock. "If you like. I'm just curious about what makes you think she will."
"Well, Beckett, I can't help but remember another police officer who took quite a while to see the man of her dreams as just that – if you get my drift."
"Man of my dreams? Don't think you're being a little vain there, do you, Castle?"
He gave her a lopsided grin and a shrug. "Mark my words, she wants him too, she just doesn't know it yet. She doesn't know why her eyes are constantly drawn to him, why he captivates her attention when he walks in the room-"
"-Maybe because he's such a loudmouth," Kate interrupted, gripping Castle's bicep as he wrapped an arm around her waist and tugged her closer as the band they'd hired finished setting up and checking over their instruments.
Ignoring her, Castle carried on, remembering all the things Kate would do before they got together. "Why she gets that little hitch in her heartbeat and her breathing when he talks to her, why sometimes it feels like he knows exactly what she's going to say, why she finds that suddenly her favourite colour isn't, oh I don't know – purple(!) anymore, but a charcoal grey that's indescribably similar to his eyes…"
Castle drifted off as the band's front man stepped towards the microphone, cleared his throat and announced, "If you would all join us for the bride and groom's first dance."
The first notes of I've Had the Time of my Life began and the singers warbled away whilst Rick twirled Kate around the dance floor, the movements as smooth and sure as his featherweight grip on her waist and the feel of his hand cupped around hers. When they'd picked the song, Kate had worried it might be kind of corny, but there was no song with truer words in her opinion.
In the instrumental, Castle pulled her close and allowed her to tuck her head under his chin, resting her cheek on the lapel of his jacket. "I love you, Kate." It came out on a content sigh, as though he wasn't even really aware that he'd vocalised his thoughts. "I don't want this to end."
"We have to let everyone else dance sometime," she joked.
"You know what I mean."
She nodded, her nose brushing against his neck with the movement. She did know. She remembered the dedication from his last book.
May the dance never end and the music never stop.
But whilst they would have to eventually stop dancing, they were moving into a new stage of their relationship, into a new kind of dance.
After dancing with Kate, Rick was forced to let go of his beautiful wife (he still couldn't get enough of calling her that) and take his mother's hand for a classical piece that the string players performed perfectly whilst Kate twirled around with her father. After that they had everyone else on the dance floor with them and Lanie pulling Kate into a hug, the boys clapping him on the back, Alexis asking for a dance.
If that wasn't enough, the interruptions became constant; every guy in the room seeming to think Kate was the only girl they could dance with. He didn't care if they were his friends; he just wanted her all to himself. He growled low and quiet in the back of his throat every time someone approached them in the more upbeat songs that had Kate leaving his embrace.
"Would you relax? You're acting like some kind of Neanderthal, Castle," she said to him, raising her voice to be heard over the band's swing number.
"I just want you all to myself," he explained. "Is that so much of a problem?"
"You'll have me all to yourself later," she promised, her eyes cheekily glinting, "and you can act like a Neanderthal all you like when we're alone."
Still, they were so busy that there was barely a moment to just take everything in. He didn't even notice Ryan and Espo sticking a sign on his back that read, 'The New Mrs Castle.'
Finally, they withdrew from the dance floor before Kate had her feet murdered from so many guys not realising that they couldn't dance at all. At the bar, they found Lanie. After catching the bartender's eye, Rick ordered three glasses of wine (all of them going onto his tab for the night) and handed one to Beckett, not missing her glare as she realised he'd bought that wine for her, and another to Lanie though he soon found himself downing his wine and leaving as they started talking about which guys Lanie was interested in in far too much detail for him. Instead he, found Ryan and Esposito and sat with them at the side of the room, watching some of the other guests still dancing to the band's cheesiest selection of songs. Spotting his mother out there with a man young enough to be his brother doing all the moves to the YMCA was enough to satisfactorily embarrass him and stop him from considering joining Alexis even though she had been exasperatedly beckoning him every time he looked her way for a minute or so.
"Dude, be cool," Esposito instructed Ryan in a mutter that Castle just heard.
"What?"
Again Ryan sniggered until Esposito fixed him with a warning glare.
Castle couldn't help thinking something was going on, but since he couldn't yet figure out what the boys were up to, he dismissed the thought and glanced back towards Kate and Lanie, who were still sitting at the bar.
Kate smirked slightly as Lanie swayed in her seat, evidently having had too much to drink.
"I want another one of these," she said, holding up her empty wine glass.
"Two more please," Kate told the bartender as she finished up her own glass. It was a good bottle that Castle had chosen. Thankfully, it didn't have the same effect on Lanie as it did on her. Already she could feel her blood heating, pooling low in her stomach as she glanced at Castle, looking ruggedly handsome after Ryan pulled the stupid sign off his back for him and pushed it into his face, catching a few bits of his hair and giving him the messier look she remembered from their early days.
"I'm telling you, I'm ready. I'm gonna get back out there. I'm done with being single and I'm done with waiting for Javi to get his head out of his ass and make a move. In fact," Lanie exclaimed, hopping down from the stool she'd been occupying at the bar, "I'm gonna do it right now. Thanks for the drinks, Kate!"
"Everything okay?"
Kate jumped at the sound of his voice so close behind her, his head suddenly resting on her shoulder and his arms creeping around her midriff.
"I think you owe me some money," she told him, swivelling on the stool to see him properly.
"Money?" he asked, digging around in his pockets and pulling them out to show her he didn't have his wallet on him. "Sorry I'm all out of money. I will quite happily pay you in sexual favours though," he said candidly.
"What kind of sexual favours are we talking?"
"Well," he drawled. "I know how much you like it when I do that thing with your feet hooked behind my neck..."
Just the thought had Kate reaching for him, pulling him closer until he was standing between her legs, her thighs either side of his hips, anchoring him right where she wanted him.
"Don't tease," she told him, a little breathlessly he noticed.
He smiled before taking pity on her. "Fine, let's go dance again." At least that would give him a way to hide his growing arousal. Luckily for him, the band had started playing the slower songs, ready to round the night up for them.
It came as a shock for Kate and Rick both when it was time for them to leave and head up to their room for the night. In the lift, they were quiet, Kate resting her head on his shoulder as he held her close with an arm around her back, his fingers occasionally reaching up and brushing the bare skin under her shoulder blades. He could tell she was tired without looking to see her eyes closing every few seconds.
When the elevator came to a gradual stop, Kate didn't even rouse for the dinging of the bell or the grating of the doors sliding open.
"Kate, darling, this is our floor," Castle murmured, using his arm around her to start pulling her along with him as he walked out into the hotel corridor and began searching for their room, chanting the number to himself with every door they passed. Finally, they were outside and after inserting the key card, Castle ducked down and scooped his wife up, ignoring her quiet chuckles as he carried her across the threshold. The door was kicked shut without him even turning around; his quest to carry Kate straight to their suite's king size, deluxe, four-poster bed far too important for such trivialities.
Her dress rustled against the sheets as he threw her onto the bed, watching as she bounced upwards. Already he was sliding his arms out of his suit jacket and throwing the garment onto the chair in the corner of the room. Normally, he'd have at least had the mind to drape the jacket over the back of a chair to stop it getting wrinkles.
He disappeared in the bathroom for a second, telling Kate he'd 'be back in a second,' when he got the zipper of his pants caught and needed brighter light to be able to see what he was doing. He really didn't want to be getting any injuries or anything caught in the fly, after all. It took a few minutes of careful, firm tugging, but eventually he was free, the dress pants falling down his legs, leaving him in his unbuttoned shirt, his boxers and his socks. Padding back out to the bed, Rick licked his lips, wondering if Kate would have untied her dress or left the honour to him. He hoped she'd left the job to him. All those laces, it would be like unwrapping a Christmas present.
He grinned as he caught sight of Kate lying right where he left her, in the middle of the bed, her dress still on. She didn't flinch as he pulled off the last vestiges of his clothing, leaving the shirt and silk boxers in a pile on the floor at the foot of the bed.
He stood in all his glory, hands on his hips, waiting for Kate's reaction.
"Kate?"
It was odd. Normally, having him stood naked in front of her, it would have been impossible for her to keep her hands off of him. He'd never been particularly proud of his physique, but Kate didn't seem to have a problem with the absence of a body builder's muscles. And that was good enough for him. He'd been expecting her to reach for him like she usually did, or at least stand and join him, but she just continued to lay there and that was when he realised that her eyes were closed.
"Oh ha ha, Kate," he quipped, voice dripping with sarcasm.
At the sound of his voice, Kate sighed, her breathing evening out.
"Kate?" Rick exhaled loudly before flopping onto the bed. "Great. You're asleep."
He hovered over her, dithering over whether she would hate him if he tried to revive her before figuring that she could do with the rest. She would probably wake up in the middle of the night and want his help getting out of the dress anyway. Gathering his boxers from the floor, Rick pulled them back on and lay on his side with an arm around his wife, gently fingering the patterns embroidered in lace on her dress whilst he thought back on the day, remembering her smile as she finally came to a stop beside him at the end of the aisle. He still couldn't quite believe she was his – not that Kate would appreciate his possessive thoughts, he knew. In fact, she'd probably call him a chauvinist, Neanderthal pig. and that thought made him chuckle against the smooth skin of her bare arm before he pressed a kiss there, freezing as Kate mumbled something and rolled over, clearly wide awake once more.
It took her all of five seconds to see his erection was still eagerly present. He was painfully aware of it as he felt her gaze lingering over him before she finally met his eyes, probably completely unaware of what she was doing to him by licking her lips.
she was deadly serious as she asked, "Gonna help me out of this dress then, Castle? Or are you going to just sit there and stare?"
Huh, maybe he would get lucky on his wedding night after all.
A/N: Hope you enjoyed this chapter. Next up: the honeymoon.
