The trial, it turns out, is far less boring than he thought it would be.
He can't remember what was going on with the case the last time he followed Beckett to court, but he does remember that they weren't letting witnesses into the room until it was their turn to testify, and he spent the majority of the day listening to the overweight defense attorney drone on and on, questioning people far less articulate and far less attractive than Beckett.
Cromwell meets them just after security, fifteen minutes before the trial. "You're good to be in the courtroom, today," he says, his eyes running over her body, lingering a little on the curves of her torso, the sleek lines of her calves. "Nice suit," he says.
Beckett chuffs. "Stop flattering yourself."
Castle wants to punch the stupid smug smile right off Cromwell's face. He settles, again, for stepping a little closer to Beckett. Cromwell stares at him, a look that's part assessment, part challenge.
Becket glances between them, rolls her eyes, and walks toward the courtroom. Castle and Cromwell share an awkward breath as Castle starts constructing a carefully-worded speech about valor and honor and the giving up of recreational sexual relationships in the face of an eternal undying love. He's glaring at Cromwell, his brain just working through a tricky bit (sometimes, in the course of one's sexual history, it becomes necessary for one person to dissolve a carnal relationship), when he hears Beckett's voice. "Come on," she's tossing over her shoulder.
He and Cromwell immediately trail after. He realizes they're unconsciously in sync. He resists the urge to stick out a leg and trip him.
They're early. He and Beckett slide in just behind the bar. Just like at the precinct, he can see an inch of her thigh when he glances down. It doesn't make it any less hot now that they're in court.
But then Cromwell's turning around asking, "So, you really think the easiest way to get Latriski to roll would be to bring his brother's timeline into it? Because that's a tricky line to play with Cravitz," and Castle doesn't know these people, and Cromwell is still looking at Beckett like he is someone who is allowed to buy her clothing, and he's back to trying to soothe himself all over again.
To her credit, Beckett's entirely professional with Cromwell, a little cooler, even, since Castle's minor outburst in the precinct, but he hates being left out, hates when he can't theorize with her, hates that she's building any kind of case with anybody else.
He mentally goes back to his speech. It's tricky, but he's gotten most of the way through (I have conjured you by the ties of our common manhood to disavow this relationship) when he realizes Cromwell's turned back around stopped talking, and Beckett's staring. "You okay, Castle?"
"Hmm?" he murmurs.
"Seems like you were in your own little world for a minute."
"Yeah, just –" he flaps his hand vaguely. "The Declaration of Independence."
Beckett's brow furrows. "It may not have been a good idea for you to come to court jetlagged. Are you sure you don't want to go get some rest?"
There's something in her tone, a layer of Don't want to be tired for tonight that he really doesn't think he's just hoping into it, but the thought of abandoning her to Cromwell is enough to make him panic. "No, I'm great. Lots of literary inspiration here." He pauses, eyes flicking over her. "How plausible do you think it would be for Nikki to have a long-lost twin who works in a university library and has a penchant for pencil skirts and romance novels?"
Something about how still she suddenly becomes lets him know that voicing that last part aloud wasn't the best idea he's ever had. Her index finger taps once, twice, three times against her bare knee, like she's considering all the possible ways to maim him with just that one digit.
"Kidding?" he offers weakly.
"Thought so," she says, and then, thank God, Judge Cravitz is walking into the room and all are rising and all are sitting and then Sam is spinning some opening statement in a commanding voice to a dozen rapt jury members. He wants to focus, wants to hone in on the words, wants to pick up pieces of the case and see if he can offer any last minute advice, but he can't devote any of his brain to anything but Beckett. She's observing with a kind of quiet intensity he rarely gets to see in her, a passive kind of passion that at first makes his insides roil with jealousy until he gradually pulls it apart. It's not about Cromwell, or any one person. It's the bare tones of the courthouse: the lilt and rise and fall of Cromwell's voice, yes, but also the quiet, attentive breathing of the audience, the silky shift of Cravitz's robes, the occasionally low hum of assent from one of the young female jury members. This was almost her job, once, this was almost her life, and for some reason today she's not trying to hide just how fascinated she is by all of it.
Cromwell sits, and the defense begins, an older woman with a cutting voice and a harsh, commanding presence. Again, he can't quite bring himself to care, not when Beckett's looking like this. Her eyes have this spark in them, and the slender column of her throat arcs just so when someone makes a particularly good point, and sometimes, every so often, she'll shift and cross her legs and the skirt will slide along her skin and he'll have to remind himself to continue to inhale, because there is absolutely no way he will allow himself to die before their Combat Moves Live date.
The first witness is a man with a sharp nose and an awful stutter, and even Beckett's attention fades. Her eyes flick over the jury, the defense table, and finally Cromwell, her gaze settling on the back of his head, and oh, no, he understands the man can spin a mean opening statement and has impeccable taste in women's suiting, but this simply will not do.
Before he can think better of it, he inches a finger over and slides it onto the outside of her lower thigh. He can't help the instant where he mentally praises Cromwell for lacking the foresight to provide any kind of pantyhose; her skin is gloriously bare and warm and supple beneath him, and then there's the leap and jump of her muscles as she hisses "Castle" underneath her breath.
In an utterly fascinating development, she's not disemboweling him or jerking sharply away. He glances around, but they're sitting directly next to one another and, short of someone in the row behind them suddenly jumping up, nobody has a good line of sight to their laps. He trails his finger in a small circle, once, then again.
And ouch, there it is, she's reached down and flicked his knuckle, hard, before he could even begin to anticipate it, but as she's doing that there's the tiniest hitch to her breathing. "I don't like it that rough," he whispers, because it really does sting and honesty is the best policy in cases like this and he figures it's best to set boundaries at first in what he's sure will be a long-lasting relationship. He fights through the pain like a man and leaves his fingers resolutely on her thigh.
"Shhhhhhhhhhhh," she hisses.
He leans over, drops his whisper down to just a breath of air. "Can you make that noise again? You're helping Nikki's Naughty Librarian twin come to life right now. I think her name will be Nicolette."
"We are in court, shut up," she growls, but a little too loudly, and Cromwell's turning around and shooting her a look that's all incredulity. He thinks that the flush that's creeping into her cheeks is probably only partially made up of arousal, since the glare she shoots him seems to be mostly composed of pure rage.
He slides his hand to the top of her thigh. Her muscles ripple tightly, but he's fairly certain she won't make a sound or do anything horrible enough to him that he would make a sound. He trails his fingers lightly over her skin, reveling the barely-there hitch of her breath, in the way her fingers twitch tensely on her lap.
He lets his hand slip up a little higher, until he hits the sleek fabric of the skirt, and then he slides his pinky up and under it, flattens his palm against her hot skin. Her jaw tightens; her shoulders jolt almost imperceptibly. She's staring intensely at the jury, but her eyes are unfocused, and he'd bet someone a nice hunk of his Derrick Storm profits that she has very little idea about what's happening in the trial right now.
All from his hand on her thigh.
The thought sends a shiver through him, makes his pants tighten in a not-yet-unpleasant way, and he chances sneaking his ring and pinkie fingers another inch up under her skirt.
She inhales long and low and slow, her chest rising and falling beneath the tailored suit. He has to forcibly drag his eyes away from her. His gaze trips over the back of Cromwell's head, and he can't help but swell with an odd kind of pride. You might have bought the skirt, but you're not the one with your hand up it, you smug bastard.
Beckett lets out a tiny sigh. This is an infinitely improved court experience. Grisham might have been onto something after all.
And then all the sudden everyone in front of the bar is yelling – the witness is jumping up from the stand and screaming at Lapinski and the court police are running forward and the Defender is yelling "Objection" and Cravitz is banging his gavel and shouting about hooligans (Hooligans? What?) in his court room. Castle yanks his hand off her leg like it burns him.
He tries to get over the initial shock of it all, tries to quiet the sudden pound of his heart in his sternum from the startling commotion. He leans over to speak into her ear. "Does this happen often in court? I've been missing out."
She opens her mouth to respond (and oh, the way her lips part slightly, moist and inviting, maybe he shouldn't find it so titillating but it's impossible not to when he's so close to her; it's been two weeks since the second time he's ever tasted her mouth and he wants her so badly it burns), but right as she does the Cravitz yells, "Twenty minute recess!"
"Fun day already," Cromwell says, turning and smiling at Beckett.
Castle tries not to bristle about how happy the man is: between buying an admittedly delectable suit for the hottest woman to step into this courtroom and the meltdown of one of the defense's witnesses, he might have a right to his smile, but does he really need to turn it on Beckett like that?
She quirks half a grin back at Cromwell, then turns to Castle. "I'm going to the bathroom," she says, lifting an eyebrow at him and then walking away.
He stays pinned to his seat for a minute by that eyebrow. Was she making a subtle commentary on the ridiculous state of the courtroom? Was she trying to let him know Cromwell wasn't a real threat? But no, no, no matter how he replays it, that eyebrow is saying follow me, follow me. He hopes.
He jumps to his feet before he can convince himself not to, hits the entrance to the courtroom, and halts dead. If she was asking him to follow her (and she can't have been, can't have been, he must be insane, but he'd be even more crazy if he never tried to find out), there's a unisex stall somewhere – somewhere left.
He finally finds it right on the edge of security, tests the handle, raps firmly on the door with his knuckles. It immediately swings open, and then there's a hand on the collar of his shirt dragging him into the room and he sends up a brief prayer that it's Beckett, because if it isn't then he's most likely about to be brutally murdered.
"Took you long enough," she growls into his mouth, scraping her teeth over his lips as she reaches behind him and flips the lock.
"Ummmmmm," he manages to hum into her kiss, his hands smoothing over her cheek, her neck, up between her jacket and her shirt, anywhere he can touch her.
She breaks away, glances briefly down at her watch. "We have thirteen minutes," she says, tilting her body so that her hips are pressed up against his leg and she's subtly rolling her pelvis in a way that will take him an entire lifetime to forget.
He drops his head to her neck while his fingers work at the button of her blazer and then the top two buttons of her blouse, just enough to give him a little more access, and then he's kissing down her neck and running his teeth over the sharp ridge of her collarbone and she's exhaling in this breathy way that absolutely does it for him in every way imaginable. "So," he murmurs, sure she can feel his smile, "Did you miss me?"
"No," she grits out as he untucks her blouse, runs his finger along the rippling muscles of her abdomen, dips below the waistband of the skirt.
"Okay," he says, stilling his hand and mouth against her.
She growls darkly in frustration. "We have ten minutes. I know you are not playing games with me right now."
He keeps his left hand on her hip, digging into the skin hard enough to bruise, and drops the right one to her leg, just below her skirt, starts trailing it lightly up the inside of her thigh. "Who's playing games, Beckett? I was just asking if you missed me." He tilts forward, draws her earlobe into his mouth, bites down gently. "I missed you, you know," he rumbles. "I missed you a lot."
He slides his hand up, and the breathy moan that escapes her, God, ten minutes, probably nine now, is not nearly enough time. A lifetime is not nearly enough time.
His fingers hit the crease of her thigh and she's biting down hard on his shoulder, through his dress shirt, hard enough that it's going to bruise tomorrow, and the spark of pain jerks his body into more action. He drags her skirt up, nudges her legs apart, sucks hard on the edge of her clavicle.
"Richard Castle," she gasps against his neck, her voice dripping with so much arousal that his hips jerk reflexively. "I still have to testify. If you wrinkle this skirt I will castrate you."
He stills again. "Are you really talking about castrating me at a time like this?"
"Yes," she hisses, digging her nails into his back.
He stays still. "We have, what, seven minutes? I was just trying to speed the process along." He slowly, deliberately lifts his hand between her legs, trails a finger lightly over the dampness of her underwear.
She gasps. "God, never mind, wrinkle it, I don't care, just move," she growls.
He tries to shove the skirt higher, up around her hips, but the fabric has no give and it fits her so well and her legs are spread enough that it's not moving. "Stuck," he groans into her ear. "I hate pencil skirts." He tries in vain to work the fabric over her hips. "Nicolette's going to wear miniskirts instead. Or sarongs," he says against her jaw. "Maybe she'll be a Tahitian librarian."
"Are you kidding me," she snarls, twisting and wriggling and dropping a hand to help him until she has the freedom to lean her shoulders back against the wall and twine one leg up around his and he can finally slide his hand underneath her underwear, the slippery fabric on one side of his fingers, the slick warmth of her on the other.
She drops her head back, exhales in a sobbing gasp that he revels in for an instant before he remembers where they are. "Beckett," he says, but they have maybe four minutes now and he's far too far gone to create coherent sentences. "Shhhhh," is all he can finally get out, but there's no time and all he can do is slide a finger into her and circle his thumb over her and she's moaning so loudly that it's echoing through the tiny room and he thought it was impossible but he's even harder now and oh, oh, they are in court and she cannot make these noises.
He lifts his left hand, presses it firmly against her mouth so that they at least have a prayer of not getting arrested for some kind of public indecency (although if Cromwell saw them being led away in handcuffs together it would be nearly worth it), and damn if it doesn't do that for her even more, because suddenly her hips are pumping frantically against him and she's sobbing broken incoherent words into his palm and wrapping her fingers around his neck and practically climbing up his body before she finally comes down, chest heaving, muscles trembling.
He gulps, tries to compose himself, runs the hand that was covering her mouth through her hair as she drops her head briefly to his shoulder. He twists his wrist briefly to check his watch. "And we still have a minute left," he says. He'd been going for jovial, but his voice comes out hoarse, strained.
She lifts a hand, pats his chest and then pushes off of him to stand on still-shaky legs. She glances down sympathetically. "You might want to carry your jacket in front of you," she murmurs, smiling in a way that is the opposite of innocent. She pulls down her skirt, shakes out her hair, takes a deep breath and squares up her shoulders, and damn if suddenly the only evidence left on her isn't the slightest swelling of her lips and glinting in her eyes. "I'll make it worth your while tonight."
"That is not a thought that will help me," he says, leaning forward, crashing his lips into hers in a brief, harsh kiss.
And then she's brushing her thumb over his chin and smiling at him sinfully and flipping the lock and sauntering out of the bathroom.
He twists the lock back, leans his forehead against the door as he tries to compose himself. But no, okay, she was right, he's not going to be composed again until probably next week at the earliest. He washes his hands, takes his jacket off, sighs deeply, and steps through the door.
Cromwell is standing right there.
"Oh," Castle says, fingers clutching his jacket tightly. Could he be any more obvious? "Um. Court?"
"Right," Cromwell says, looking nearly as flustered as Castle feels. "They – Cravitz that is – we took another ten minutes."
"Are you fucking serious," Castle growls under his breath. The things they could have done with another ten minutes.
"What?" Cromwell asks, tilting his head.
Castle pastes on what he hopes is a sunny smile but which he has to admit probably looks more like he is in the midst of some type of horrible death throe. "Nothing," he grits out. "Nothing at all."
"So," Cromwell says, gesturing. "You and…" he trails off, like maybe saying her name will make it real.
"Yup," Castle responds.
"Right," Cromwell says, and he seems to be taking it mostly graciously. "Sorry about that whole – skirt thing."
"You know what?" Castle can't help but smile, and all of the sudden he decides that Cromwell's not really such a bad guy after all. "Don't worry about it."
Extra special thanks to Cora Clavia, whose dedications I will never in a million billion trillion years be able to match and who is entirely responsible for this fic, to Sandiane Carter and chezchukles and shimmeryshine, for talking me through my incessant ridiculousness, and to all the utterly wonderful people who left reviews and encouraged me to not run and hide under a gigantic rock because I am still abnormally terrified of writing M fic.