A/N: Massive thanks to uofmcowgirl for her inspirational ideas and a much-needed pep talk this week. I will be forever thankful that writing for this fandom has put me in touch with such awesome chicas like her.

Episode Tie-In: 5x22 The Squab and the Quail

Warning: Rated M

Fantasy Fridays
Chapter Eight: Until You Break

There must be a concert or something nearby, because there hadn't been an inch of parking space to be found within three blocks of where Castle asked her to meet him. And she's very good at parallel parking. She could double-park, claim later that she was on duty, but it's more trouble than it's worth. The walk will do her good, even though the cool of twilight is descending.

She's been holed up in her apartment for two days, and somehow, after a decade of being completely okay with that, she's sick of being alone. She'd told Castle that she just needed to get some things done - pay bills, do laundry and stuff - but really she'd just been sick of his pouting and his sudden inferiority complex. His stupid attempts to impress and pamper her, even though Eric Vaughn wasn't there to compete against anymore. And now, after only two freaking days alone, she's just sick of herself. Annoyed that she still needs him so damn much. She'd woken up with a dream of him still fresh on her lips. The tingle between her thighs hadn't subsided until she'd shaken it off with a run in Central Park.

She's obviously been spoiled if she can't survive a few days without sex.

She plows through the Friday night crowds, the clack of her heels on the filthy pavement a determined march that contrasts the bendy-legged swagger of a group of club-hoppers.

She thought she could just gloss over it, shut down the emotions that surged up when he'd completely ignored her after she'd asked where they were going. Some small part of her yelled 'I told you so! She'd promptly clamped down on 'd resisted her feelings for so long, because he hurt her so badly that summer after Tom, and because of his reputation. It would be crushing to find out that he hadn't changed as much as she thought he had.

Could he be tired of her already? When she's so very, very far from being tired of him? Could it have been more about the chase, the capture, and now that he's won her, the thrill's gone? Well, she sure as hell isn't going to put out until she's convinced that that isn't the case.

Besides, what the hell is she doing here, meeting him on a street corner like a hooker?

She's so lost in her own steaming thoughts that she misses their rendezvous point and has to double back past a few buildings. She scans the intersection, the crosswalks and corners, but she doesn't see him anywhere.

She blows her hair out of her eyes and pulls her phone out to text him when she feels a hand at the small of her back.

"Whoa. Jumpy, Kate?"

She spins to find her boyfriend with his hair perfectly gelled, in a vibrant blue shirt that he knows gets to her, and that just fuels the fire. She bites out at him.

"What's going on, Castle?"

He looks a bit taken aback, just for a flash, before he recovers his charm and offers his arm.

"Just go with it, okay?"

"It's not your turn. Tonight's supposed to be my fantasy." She won't admit to him that she hadn't been in the mood to plan anything.

"Uh, let's have a week off, okay? Just hang out?"

He brings his other hand up, strokes his thumb over the soft skin of her knuckles, and if she wasn't at war with herself already, she certainly would be now.

They walk in silence a block further, and the atmosphere of the street changes, the saturated yellow wash turning to the clean, white light spilling from one of New York City's finest hotels. He wonders how he figured out that it's her favorite one.

It's not the Fairwick, where she'd stayed with Vaughn, but she can see this little charade for exactly what it is. She stops in the middle of the sidewalk, and a few people grunt as they push around them, an island in the nightlife of the city.

"Seriously?!"

"What?"

"Castle, you don't have to do this. Can we just go back to your apartment?"

"We could, yeah. But I want to be with you, and you deserve to be treated to something nice every now and then. Is that a crime?"

"No, but you don't have to throw your money around just to prove yourself. I know that this is still about Vaughn. Don't pretend that it isn't."

Castle's an idiot if he thinks she'd been dazzled by Vaughn's money. She'd rather be with her partner in a cardboard box than with anyone else in the penthouse suite. Even if it means she's insane for thinking it. But if she told him that now, it'd give him the upper hand, and she's feeling pathetically way more invested in the relationship than he is already. Obviously. All he wants to do is play. Play video games, play with her, play their little fantasy game. She needed a serious answer from him and he sidestepped. And then he'd given her that stupid massage, and her body had gone limp and buzzing under his touch, and even though her mind was screaming that it was stupid, she'd let him make love to her.

Sent the wrong message there, Kate. Not much point in withholding sex now, he won't have a clue what she's upset about.

He seems to notice that she's pissed off. Finally.

"Kate, I'm not entirely sure what I've done wrong, but will you humor me for an hour? Come up to the room? If you still want to go back to mine, or yours, after an hour, we can."

She nods curtly. She follows him through the hotel doors, through the plush, starlight twinkle of the lobby, and watches stone-faced as he retrieves the keycard from the concierge, nodding when the man tells him that their bags are already waiting for them upstairs. Because of course he packed her a bag - there's enough of her stuff at his loft for it. He knows exactly what she needs for a night away from home now. No one's ever known that before. Ever.

She's silent in the elevator, and she knows she's sabotaging this, knows that she's the one that's making it difficult, and when she looks over at him he's staring blankly at the panel of buttons. She can hear his cogs turning, that fascinating mind processing, trying to understand what's motivating her, how he should react. She wants to shrug off the anger, more than anything, but it's fizzling and building and she just wants to slap him or something. He's being an idiot and he needs to be punished.

Whoa. She's not sure where that came from. But it gives her an idea. The corner of her mouth tilts up slyly, but he doesn't notice, fixated as he is, and when the elevator doors slide open on the top floor, right into the room because of course he reserved a room that is as large as an entire floor, she stalks straight to the phone.

She's been to enough hotels with him to know that he makes it a point to know and trust the concierge before arriving. What she's about to ask for might even be something he's requested before, for all she knows.

"Hello - yes, everything's fine, thanks. Mr. Castle would like some handcuffs brought up please."

Castle sputters, and she claps a hand over his mouth.

The voice on the other end of the phone is still talking, and she presses the phone to her ear to catch it.

"What? Um, okay. Thank you. Sorry to trouble you."

She hangs up the phone, glares at Castle, and opens the drawer under the phone.

Where there are several lengths of black silk and a pair of handcuffs.

"What?" he whines. "They're our favorite toys, I don't go anywhere without them! Why are you so mad at me?"

She plucks the handcuffs out of the drawer and shoves him backwards until he falls onto the bed.

"I don't know, but I am. And so help me, I've missed being with you." She can't explain it without risking her heart. But she does know that the immediate problem, his behavior, can be fixed pretty easily. "You need to stop with all this. I don't want Vaughn's shadow hanging over us. Shit, we shouldn't even be saying his name right now."

"I'll stop. Okay, I'll stop," he says, and then she crawls over his body and he lurches up to kiss her. She almost gets lost in it for a second, but then she remembers that she's in charge tonight. Has to be. Or she'll be too weak against him. Someone once told her that in relationships, there's always one person who loves the other person more. And she's so besotted with Castle that she must be the underdog. It doesn't settle well with her, being the weak one.

She shoves his wrists above his head, jerks the cuffs onto one. Threads them through the ironwork of the headboard, then closes them around his other wrist.

"What are you going to do to me?" he asks, eyes sparkling with a humor that barely masks his arousal.

"I'm going to take what I want from you."

She strips him quickly and efficiently, leaving his shirt tangled at his elbows, then climbs off the bed to shed her own clothes.

She crawls back on like some kind of feral cat, then swings a leg over him.

"What, no fore - " she sinks down onto him in one harsh glide, cutting him off with a groan.

"Not a chance," she rasps.

And then she rides him until they break. Like a woman possessed. He wonders if she even knows it's him under her.

She makes him wait when she feels that he's close, pulls off of him and grabs his ears, kissing him fiercely until he's got his control back. She makes him watch while she touches herself, and then finally, finally, only after he begs, she climbs back onto him.

It doesn't take long after that.

She collapses on his chest, feels his heaving breaths rock her like the ocean. They lay like that until they calm. He combs his fingers through her hair, and something's off - she's missing something -

His fingers. In her hair. But he's cuffed to the bed. Was cuffed?

Before she can raise her head, her world tumbles and rolls and then she's the one bearing the weight of him, pressing her hotly into the mattress, and her arms are stretched out above her head.

The click of metal sounds so final as the cuffs close around her wrists.

"What the hell?"

"Yeah…you didn't think I'd bring cuffs that I couldn't get out of, did you?" Castle waggles the key that he must have had hidden somewhere, then tosses it over the side of the bed where it lands on the carpet with a small thud.

"You know, Beckett, you've never gone all … angry on me before. It was kind of hot. But I think I have a little anger I need to get out of my system too. So now it's my turn to take what I want."

She wriggles underneath him and he slams her hips against the bed.

"I didn't help you bring those walls down just so Eric Freaking Vaughn could waltz right in. You put in most of the work, Kate, but I put a lot in too."

She's still reeling from the power shift. His eyes flash dangerously, the lines on his face deeper and darker, and she feels her pulse jump up again, her body suddenly taut and humming for round two.

"You know, you're kind of sexy when you're pissed off," she hums, craning her neck up to catch a kiss. "I just don't really get why you're pissed off."

"I'm pissed off because you're mine," he growls.

She wants to argue, because she's not a piece of property to be owned, but fuck, her heart does completely belong to him and she doesn't have the energy to argue.

"You're mine," Castle continues, "and he tried to coax you away, charm you into his ivory tower."

She'd laugh at his dramatics if she didn't see the well of hurt underneath. Is it possible that their relationship is an exception to the rule? That he's just as invested? That he feels out of his element and weak sometimes with it? She wants to believe that. Or maybe that they take turns being the one with the upper hand, the one who's more in love.

He slinks down her body, dropping kisses along the way, and when he licks her it's rough and perfect and so skilled that she's lost again, completely his puppet as he brings her to an exquisite, shimmering orgasm under his tongue.

"Still want to go home?" he asks.

She shakes her head, half to answer him and half to clear the haze.

He kisses her sweetly. He's a sappy guy, her Castle, and this is usually when he tells her that he loves her, but neither of them seem to be ready to give in, to admit that they are one another's everything. The anger's gone but the fear is still there in both of them. Neither of them know that the other one wants this to be forever. The misunderstanding lies like a heavy cloud between them.

And then she flips him. Sends the cuffs flying across the room, where they land with a clatter on a pointless glass table.

Castle gasps like a schoolgirl. "What the - "

"You're not the only one who can pick locks."

A/N: Once we get clear of the finale arc, we'll get back to some lighthearted wild romps.

Thoughts?