A/N: Change of rating for this chapter to M, folks, for language and adult themes. Not suitable for reading at work or maybe on the bus or train if you're overlooked. You were warned.
Chapter 10 – Gliding
Previously...
Castle grips her hip, his other hand still woven with hers and pressed against her stomach.
"Careful, Kate," he growls. "Don't start something you can't finish."
"Oh, I intend to finish and then start this up all over again," she warns him in a low, roughened voice, deciding it's time to give them both a gentle nudge forward.
"What if you get called out?" he reminds her again, glancing towards the bedroom where her cell phone is still stowed away in a drawer.
"Even if I get called out," she promises, her nails digging into the muscle of his thigh for emphasis. "So, let's both drop the shy, retiring routine, Castle. I would really like you to touch me now," she says, guiding his hand down across her stomach and between her legs, their fingers still laced together. "Please?" she begs with so much want in her voice. "I need you, Castle," she whispers, her breathing becoming labored, her skin flushed and her eyes drifting closed.
The water moves around them, caressing their tingling skin, almost viscous in its warmth, as Kate drops her head back against Castle's steam slicked shoulder and attempts to slow her breathing.
Castle is fighting a battle of his own given where they find themselves right now – both naked in Kate's bathtub, her slender form constantly brushing against his, every inch of him alive to the glancing touches and gentle, suspended weight of her indescribably beautiful body which is now in the process of resettling against his.
Their fingers are still laced together as they skate over the smooth skin of her abdomen, weaving a languorous path backwards and forwards. Castle forces them to linger, resists Kate's haste to get down to business. He stalls, sweeps back upwards, retracing their steps to brush the underside of her breast with his thumb, and he can't help but smile when Kate lets a sigh of pure bliss escape her lips and shudders under his intuitive touch.
He's intent on taking his time. He's almost overwhelmed to finally be here and he wants her to understand just how much their closeness and her trust means to him.
"Slowly," he whispers, tightening his fingers between hers for a brief second to capture her attention. "We've waited years for this, Kate. Let's not rush it."
She murmurs her agreement and he feels such a swell of love for her – love and excitement – that this is them now, they're going to make it after all, they're going to make a go of this and they're going to be great.
"Love you," he whispers, pressing a lingering kiss to the pale curve of bone behind her right ear that has her squeezing his fingers in tender, wordless reply.
Eventually, he can feel her straining to move onwards, her hips circling slightly against the base of the tub signaling her eagerness to be touched more intimately, and he permits her a brief second to lead again, angling their joined hands south once more. They move deeper beneath the still crystal clear water, and he strokes past the dip of her navel, trailing his thumb over and across the neatly indented dip, before moving on down towards the soft line of her curls.
Kate shudders when he pauses there to fondle her playfully, the lightest caressing brush of his fingertips, and then when she can't stand it anymore she forces his fingers to stall in their tease, pressing his hand onto the bony mound of her pubis, halting just above where she really wants him.
Castle has his mouth open on her neck and she feels hot and feverish as he kisses and then sucks on her throbbing pulse point.
"Relax, Kate," he whispers, licking her ear so that she shivers, her nipples tightening even harder when she shifts, spreading her thighs wider in anticipation. Her breasts rise above the waterline briefly, drawing Castle's attention.
Asking him to touch her was mildly uncomfortable on two levels. Firstly, since they haven't done this before. Much as she's sure they have both probably thought and fantasized about it a lot, even holding hands was a big deal for them. So this progression is huge, and secondly, given the emotional trauma they've had to help one another through over the last twelve hours, she's not surprised that Castle has been a little reticent and careful about pushing the boundaries any further or faster.
She had retained a vain hope that when she finally gave him the green light on their relationship, he would somehow magically shift gears, step things up quite naturally and that they would segue seamlessly into a new phase of intimacy. She realizes now that she was vastly naïve in that hope; that she underrated her partner and his ability to be sensitive, careful, and also easily hurt. These more mature, principled and gentlemanly traits overriding the simple physical attraction she knows they've both been resisting for years. She also underestimated how damaged his trust in her would be by her own cowardly lies.
She is blessed that he such a kind, gentle and forgiving man, and she silently vows to do her best never to let him down again.
Her attention shift from such introspection when Castle raises his knees slightly so that they appear above the waterline, giving her more room to move her legs beneath his.
She lets their hands hover for a second, wanting him to make the next move further down, and he doesn't disappoint. But before she can focus on and enjoy the sensation of him touching her, she feels the caress of his other hand, which is suddenly cupping the weight of her left breast, his thumb circling the soft swell of her areola and the hard bud of her nipple, drawing it up and out of the water.
"Oh, God, yes," she hisses, when he pinches the taut, pink peak between thumb and forefinger before rolling it in the center of his cupped palm. The cool air makes her skin tingle and her fingers tighten around his thighs and squeeze.
His muscles are hard, immense almost, and she can't quite get to grips with being able to touch him either. His body feels so good beneath her hands, her fingers; smooth skin and the light coating of hair on his legs against the firm musculature and definition of his thighs that has never been done a service by his dress pants or the casual jeans he wears, she can now see. Her hands look tiny, dwarfed by the impressive bulk of his rock hard quads, and God if this isn't doing it for her even more.
She makes a mental note to tell him this and maybe suggest they go shopping at some point to pick out pants for him that will do his physique better justice. And now she can't believe she's mentally planning shopping trips, while her partner of three-plus some years is playing with her naked breasts. Her thought process is so garbled and muddled by love, lust and excitement that she almost laughs aloud at her own ridiculousness.
But then Castle's deep voice cuts through the overactive melee going on inside her head to snap her brain back to attention.
"Kate?" he whispers, smoothing her hair away from her damp neck with his cheek and nose to kiss the top of her spine. "Let me, okay?" he asks, easing his fingers out from between hers to take control of her pleasure by himself.
She's more than happy to give him control. She feels dizzy with the heat of the water, the steamy bathroom air, her racing pulse, the feel of Castle's naked, unquestionably masculine body finally surrounding her. She's high with desperate anticipation of the intimate acts they're engaging in now. But she can't find any words to answer him, so she tips her head back, twisting to capture his mouth in a lazy, sloppy, open-mouthed kiss, arching back against him to open her body up to his explorative touch.
Her tongue darts between his open lips as his middle finger finally grazes her clit and begins to circle the sensitive bundle of nerves.
Kate hisses and Castle catches the sound is a hungry kiss, as he begins to feed off her eager mouth, tangling her tongue with his own and then breaking the seal to flick it wetly against her top lip.
Her chest heaves, breasts arching out above the waterline. Waves ripple out to lap at the sides of the bathtub and then bounce back in; the entire surface a fragmented plane of broken, flashing reflections, snapshots of light refracted and deflected off the water's choppy surface.
"Rick, please," begs Kate, her lips moving listlessly against his jaw, her voice strained, hoarse; her throat parched by the too warm air.
"Patience, Kate," he whispers, grazing her upturned cheek with his nose and then his scruff covered chin. "All in good time," he tells her, soothing her with a gentle kiss.
Kate swears she can hear him chuckle, and part of her - an old, frustrated part - wants to get mad at him for keep her hanging like this. For teasing her even though she is plainly begging to be touched. But she can't find it in herself to snap at him anymore or even take charge this time. She's in his hands, quite literally, and there's nowhere else she'd rather be. So she just lets go.
Castle rewards her acquiescence immediately, moving his fingers lower, spreading her lips, the length of his middle finger still dragging over the nub of her clit, torturing a strangled cry from her chest. This change of location drags a loud groan of surprise from Castle too. She's so slick, glossy with her own juices, and Castle marvels at how soft and silky she feels. He moves lower, swirls his flattened fingers in a slow circle, smearing her already swollen, pulsating folds so that they are coated with the abundance of her body's own lubrication. Even in the warm bathwater, the evidence of her arousal is plain for him to feel, and he doubts he's ever had a more intimate or erotic experience with another human being.
"Fuck, Kate," he curses, immediately apologizing for his outburst, while Kate bites her lip and fights back a giggle.
"Swear box," she pants, squeezing her knees together briefly, trapping his hand between her legs. "Think we're gonna need one if you keep touching me like this."
She feels Castle dip his head behind her, rubbing his face against her hair, and when he speaks she can hear the amused devilment in his voice. "You mean when I touch you like this?" he whispers, his voice sounding louder than it actually is in the close, silent confines of her tiled bathroom.
Every groove, bump, pad and joint on each of the three fingers he's using to spread her wide and stroke her adds its own magical layer of friction. He skates back and forth between her legs, one strong arm around her ribs holding her prisoner against his chest, the other working her into an erotic frenzy that is quickly driving her out of her mind.
Her arms are out of the tub now, hands gripping the sides to stop her from moving too much or they will slosh the water right out onto the floor. She's loving what the cooler air is doing to ease her flushed skin; needs it like a cold drink of water as the temperature in the room soars. Her chest and neck are flushed red with arousal and contained exertion that mostly involves her racing heart and rapid, shallow breathing.
She's shivering and quivering, her entire body rigid in seconds as Castle works her higher and higher, stroking her in a way that confirms he knows her better than anyone, even in this – the first time he's ever touched her this way.
"Feel good?" he asks, nipping at her ear, a surprise sensation that stabs and throbs low in her abdomen.
"Oh, God, yes," pants Kate, letting go one side of the bathtub to force his fingers further between her legs, attempting to get him to slide into her.
But Castle resists, and she startles, surprised, the single grip she has on the opposite side of the tub, coupled with the buoyancy of the water, making her skid slightly against the bottom. She is forced to let go her pressure on his hand and grab for the side instead to rebalance herself.
Castle chuckles low in her ear. "Now, now, Kate," he warns her, sending sparks of electricity racing down her spine with his voice alone. "Who's in charge?"
She bites down on her lip again, fighting against her own nature, her urge to tell him exactly who is boss. Being the submissive one is not her usual role where she and Castle are concerned. But then Castle getting her off in her bathtub is a first too, so she has plenty of change to get used to, and so far everything she is feeling and experiencing goes above and beyond anything she ever dreamed it could be.
"Tell me?" he presses her, stilling his hand completely by way of encouragement, enticement or punishment, she's not quite sure which.
Kate growls in frustration. "You are," she admits, with a shake of her head.
"Good," he nods, flicking her ear with his tongue, his breath coolly fanning out across her sweat-dampened neck. "Right answer."
When he begins to touch her again, he can tell she's getting close. Despite the bathwater, she's even wetter, and he can feel the gentle pulse of her muscles every now and again. She arches up against his fingers this time, which are still spread three-abreast, laid long and flat between her swollen lips, coasting up and down over her hyper-stimulated nerves, but never actually entering her.
"God, Castle, inside. Please?" she begs, pushing her body down onto his hand.
"Shh," he soothes, drawing back to kiss her spine right between her shoulder blades where she's most sensitive. She flinches, fingers tightening on the tub sides wondering again how on earth he knows all this detailed stuff about her body already.
He begins to touch her in other places now too - lengthening her pleasure. He massages her shoulders, strokes his fingers down her arms, lightly scratching her skin with his short nails until she begs him to stop. He spreads the water droplets that coat her skin into a more even sheen that cools her down some more as he trails his fingertips up and over her arms and chest.
He kisses her neck again and again, arches her head back to reach her elongated, elegant throat – the focus of so many of his visual fantasies in the pedestrian, institutional dullness of the precinct, where she always shone out to him like some rare flower in the desert. He would find himself staring at her some days, often getting caught, his gaze focused on her long, pale neck wondering what if would feel like to kiss and lick the dips and curves, to suck on her flawless skin, and now that he knows, he grows harder just thinking about doing it, even as he revels in the fantastic reality of the act.
She quiets under his touch, the relentless, soothing, sometimes stirring caress of his familiar and yet unfamiliar hands - at least at this level of intimacy. He already knows that she likes his hands. He has caught her watching him too, and has felt her take risks to make a physical connection between them, to break the invisible boundary that always kept them at a safe distance from one another – brushing his knuckles accidently on purpose as she walks extra close to him, or stroking his fingertips in a deliberate act that he's supposed to think was casual and glancing when he hands her a cup of coffee, a file folder or even a pen. A few weeks ago, in a supposed act of sympathy, she even held his hand in front of his mother and daughter when Martha massacred the story of his childhood by turning it into a fantastical play.
"Let me do this for you, Kate, please?" he whispers at length. "Lie back against me. Come on, I've got you. Let me hold you," he encourages, tilting them both further back at a steeper angle by sliding down beneath the water just a fraction more.
It's an act of trust for Kate - totally relinquishing control to her partner - and a moment of wonder for Castle. Kate is aroused, that is an indisputable fact. But Castle is equally stimulated by the movement, the feel and the visual reality of having Kate's naked body floating up against his.
"Okay, now, spread your legs for me," he instructs, stroking his hand up along the inside of her thigh, dragging his fingertip lightly from apex to knee.
She raises her legs and then drops her knees wide, mirroring his position, so that she becomes even more open for him; giving him even better access to her.
Castle never pictured her as this needy or wanton or openly desperate in any fantasy he played around with in his head. But it's because this is Kate, he knows, that she appears more eager and all the more striking for it simply being her – his partner of four years, now begging him to push his fingers inside her to increase her pleasure and speed her onto the orgasm she's so desperately chasing.
They don't do this - at least they didn't until today - yet now they do, and he's finding that the mental adjustment is massive.
He has this one special, almost emotionally driven fantasy of his own that he's been holding onto the last few years: that the first time they ever make love he will make her come with his body. He doesn't mind making her climax in the bathtub, but he wants the first time he pushes inside her for their two bodies to actually be joined together.
Rather than break the moment by explaining this in any detail, he just takes charge again and tells her what's going to happen.
When she breathlessly asks, "What are you doing? Why are you holding back?" and turns her head to look at him in near delirium, he silences her with the thick pulse of his tongue, pushing it between her bruised lips - thickly, hotly - distracting her and stoking her desire even more.
Then he gets to work with his fingers, taking control of her body; working her up until she gets ever closer to shattering on the shores of oblivion.
He caresses every nerve ending he knows to exist without even entering her at all. His fingers smooth and stroke between her silky folds. They rub against and tease her clit as he drags his hand rhythmically back and forth between her thighs. He steals her breath away with demanding kisses, and feels his own hardness grown rocklike between their bodies the more tightly wound Kate becomes.
Just before she shatters against his palm, the speed of his strokes rapid and relentless, water sloshes out of the tub for the first time, splashing onto the tiled floor. Castle tries to ignore it, slowing their movement back and forth against the bottom of the tub by bracing his feet at the far end, while still maintaining the pace that's driving Kate to the brink.
"Oh, shit. Castle, I'm coming," she mewls through gritted teeth, fingers griping so fiercely to the side of the bathtub that her knuckles are white. And Castle thinks this might be the most perfect sound he's ever heard her make.
In the next second he feels her begin to flutter against his hand, and he slows slightly, easing his pace to work her through her orgasm, every stroke teasing more and more perfect, aching, ripples of pleasure from her body, as she relinquishes complete control of her sexual experience to his innate talent, her eyes closed and her brow furrowed in ecstatic concentration.
At one point he has to reach between their bodies to touch himself, stroking his own length a few times as he coasts in the warm water with her naked body pressed against his, enjoying the dying embers of her orgasm with her. But then he steels his mind to resist the urge he has to chase the same feeling of blissful release Kate has just experienced and focus back on his partner for the time being instead.
Kate slowly opens her eyes, her head resting back against his right shoulder while Castle continues to stroke her lazily, watching her shiver and jerk against his fingers, her cheeks and lips spread into a devastated smile, until sensitivity takes over and she comes back to earth, exhausted, spent, sagging against him.
He palms her breast, circling her perfect areola with his index finger, while she grins up at him looking like she thinks she's so clever or maybe that he's the clever one, he's not quite sure, since her face is currently upside down to him.
"You okay? Just take it easy for a second," he tells her, smoothing one hand down her raised thigh. "You are so sexy, you know that," he whispers in her ear, making her giggle, sending shock waves wafting out across the surface of the tub once more.
"What? I mean it. You drive me insane, Kate," he insists on telling her, even if she's going to laugh at him.
"You just obliterated me," she says, grinning at him upside down. "But you were mean."
Castle barks out a laugh of surprise. "I was mean?"
"Yeah. Why wouldn't you…you know, enter me?" she asks, suddenly finding herself scrabbling around for words.
Castle sighs, and then he shifts slightly beneath her, and Kate moves to help him, sitting a little higher up so that less of her weigh is pressed back against him.
"I'll tell you why a little later," he promises, kissing her sweetly on the side of her temple, wrapping both his arms around her body once more.
"What?" she asks, twisting round to look at him. "No, now," she insists, with a curious little frown.
"You're so cute when you're—"
"Angry. Yes, I know. You've said that before," she interrupts, cutting him off.
"Actually, Detective, I was going to say bossy. You're so cute when you're bossy," he informs her, tapping her lightly on the end of her nose.
"Whatever, Castle. Stop avoiding the question," she grins, when he chuckles, a low rumble in his chest that ripples through his frame and vibrates into her own body.
"Okay, if you insist."
"I do," she says, her tone still amused, as she takes his hand and sandwiches it between her own, comparing the size and length of their fingers with a child-like fascination.
"I—I always had this…this 'fantasy' I suppose you'd call it," he begins, a little awkward at first.
Kate stops moving, and still holding his hand, urges him to continue. "Go on," she tells him, suddenly acutely aware that he's not joking around anymore.
Castle glances down at her and she's staring straight ahead, biting her lip while she listens to him.
"Well, you know I've been in love with you for a long time, and I was attracted to you long before that. So, anyway, I always harbored this…this hope, I suppose, that the first time I made love to you…"
"Stop," whispers Kate, with some urgency, reaching back to press her damp fingers over his mouth.
"What? Is it the phone?" asks Castle in a moment of guilty, blind panic, his hopes crashing and his heart sinking.
"No. No, just…I think I know what you're going to say. And you don't have to. I'd really like that too," she assures him, caressing his jaw, skating her thumb over his lower lip, her eyes locked with his in a moment of the purest honesty.
"You would?" he asks, his voice rising, coated with utter relief.
"Yes, I really would."
"Then how about if we actually bathe proper while we're in here, before we turn into a couple of prunes, and then take this somewhere a little less…splashy," he grins, cupping the back of Kate's neck and drawing her into a deep, lingering, aching kiss that has her squirming all over again.
If Kate could talk right now, she'd say that she couldn't agree more. As it is, she's rather busy, so she nods her head instead and sighs her agreement into Castle's mouth.
TBC...
A/N: Hope those that are lucky enough to get to watch the show live tonight enjoy the new episode. Happy Castle Monday. Love to hear your thoughts.