A/N: Hope you guys have had a great week! TGIF :)

WARNING: RATED M.

Fantasy Fridays
Chapter Eleven : Hide and Seek

It's dark in the loft when Castle begins to stir. Pale yellow and red triangles of light dissect the smooth white of the ceiling. He must have forgotten to close the curtains again.

He buries his cheek in his pillow. He misses having Beckett in bed with him. Before she'd moved to D.C. his room had been their haven; always warm, soft, and safe. He misses her skin, just slightly damp, sticking to him from chest to shin. His body curved around hers, their blood at exactly the same temperature. He loves lying with her until he can't tell where his veins end and hers begin.

Sometimes he wakes up spooning her pillow, the phantom warmth of her body dissipating with the dawn. But tonight … tonight he can smell her too. The hot, intoxicating scent that radiates from the crown of her head. It's muted, probably just a trace left on her pillow from last weekend. For a second, there's a spark of hope that she might actually be there with him, but he reasons it away.

It's his turn to come to her. He'd wanted to fly up today, actually, but she needed to stay in D.C. for more training, so they'd agreed on next Friday. Besides, the air he's breathing is too fresh and too cold for her to be near. But that smell… maybe he should open his eyes just to check. The intention surfaces in his mind, dragging him fully into consciousness. He opens his eyes slowly.

It still disorients him to find her side of the bed empty. He squeezes his eyes shut and tries to go back to sleep.

In the very beginning of their relationship, he'd wake sometimes to find her gone. She'd be in his office, reading, or in the kitchen doing a crossword. Then her absences had become more brief, a trip to get a glass of water or go to the bathroom. Finally she stopped leaving his bed in the middle of the night altogether, staying curled up in him until the alarm or her phone rang.

His shoulders feel achy, and he absently wonders what he did the day before that could have made him sore. The last time he did anything overly physical was last weekend. The corners of his mouth twitch up as he recalls some positively sinful images of her last visit. Their trip to the Verit Club. How she'd been groping him the whole way home, even though she'd come three times in their private room overlooking the dance floor. How, when they'd come through his front door, he'd let her climb him and held her so high against the wall that her head had hit the ceiling as his tongue worked lustrous strokes over her.

His own head lightens, his blood rushing fast to more interesting parts of his body. Damn if it doesn't catch him by surprise every time he thinks of how they love. The things they can make each other feel.

He needs desperately to call her.

He tries to roll over to reach for his phone. That's when he hears it. The delicate clink of metal on metal. A chain, but not a very long or large one.

He knows that sound.

His eyes fly open. Now that he's fully awake, he realizes that his arms are twisted behind his back. He moves his wrists experimentally, confirming his suspicions. They're encircled with the smooth metal of her handcuffs. That explains the shoulder ache. He can't help but shiver as a thrill runs though him. Turns out her promise of 'except without the tiger' was much more than a one time offer.

"Kate?" He whispers into the room. She must be nearby. She wouldn't want to miss his moment of realization.

Suddenly the duvet starts moving, inching slowly down like it's being pulled from the foot of the bed. The cool night air hits his chest, puckering his skin into a field of goosebumps.

"It's about time you woke up," she murmurs.

Her voice is lower than he's ever heard it, and sexy as fuck. He swells instantly, still warm and concealed under the traveling duvet. She can get him so hard so quickly, it's almost unfair.

He cranes his head to look towards the foot of the bed and for a moment he can't breathe. Kate sits at the foot of the bed in the velvet high-backed chair reserved for dropping his clothes onto at the end of the day. Her whole body is askew, one elbow leaning on the arm of the chair. The tip of one finger is held teasingly between her teeth, but there's no hint of a smile. She's wearing the dress shirt he'd had on earlier that day, but it's completely unbuttoned and he can see the smooth inside curves of her breasts. Her legs are crossed at an unnatural angle and she grips the edge of the duvet between the toes of one foot. Her thighs are bare but in shadow, and he's ninety-nine percent sure that there's nothing between his eyes and the core of her.

But her eyes are what really does it for him.

She looks hungry.

Her stare is full of pure power and raw desire. He knows exactly what she wants to see. The cuffs make it uncomfortable, but he rolls onto his back anyway.

The sheets keep moving until his entire chest is exposed. Down, down, down it travels. When the tip of his erection peeks out, the duvet stops moving, just for a millisecond. He lifts his hips by a fraction and Kate's breath quickens. God, he loves it when she's trying to act tough and he can break her with a millimeter of movement. She's got one peculiar weakness, his cop, but he's not about to argue with her choice of favorite body part. He'd feel a little bit used if he didn't know how in love with all of him she is.

The duvet continues to move downwards. Her eyes glaze over when he finally springs free, all of his firm glory lying against his belly. He lies very still for a moment. Then he flexes some very private muscles. His cock jumps towards the ceiling then bounces back down, tapping against his stomach. He never thought of it as more than a weird party trick until the first time he'd bounced for her and seen the flame of lust consume her.

The room is perfectly silent as she holds her breath. When she's ready to breathe again, the rhythm is significantly faster, dappled with gorgeous, ragged catches. He just fucking loves the noises she makes.

"Kate?" he asks in a voice that's both lower and steadier than he expects.

"Mmm?"

"How are you going to get through this if just looking at my cock nearly undoes you?"

She smirks. "Oh, I'm far from being undone. Much like those restraints on your wrists."

She uncrosses her legs, leaving the duvet halfway down his thighs.

"Oh and by the way, I confiscated your backup keys this time. What is it you said? Cuff me once?"

She slinks to the side of the bed, then crawls onto it with the slow grace and danger of a wildcat. She grazes his hip with the tip of her nose, then stretches out next to him. He rolls onto his side again, the cuffs already digging painfully into flesh and leaving marks on his wrist and back.

"You wouldn't be so uncomfortable if you'd get around to installing those D-rings on our headboard," she purrs. "I'd much rather have your wrists cuffed to them than have your hands behind my back. It makes it much harder to ride you." She trails a fingertip down his chest. Her shirt opens, falling away to reveal one rose-pink nipple.

She catches the hungry gleam in his eye. "You want a taste?"

He nods enthusiastically. She rises up onto her knees, then lowers her chest over him, brushing his chin and jaw with the tip of her breast. He lets her lead, lets her rub herself over his scruff, waits until she nudges at his closed lips before taking her inside his mouth.

He loves doing this when she's suspended over him, loves being in the warm shadows as she drops heavily into his mouth. He circles his tongue, clamps lightly with his teeth, stroking and sucking at her until she moans and tears away, only to return with her other, cooler breast. He brings it up to temperature, then locks his eyes on hers, pleading, his fingers twitching with the need to touch her. She knows how hard it is for him not to use his hands. It's part of why she loves tying him up so damn much.

"If you want to touch me, you're going to have to find a way to get those cuffs off."

He's done enough research to know that the cuffs aren't coming off without a key or a lock pick.

"I'll take your word for it that you cleared out all my backup keys," he says.

"You'll just have to find the original, then, won't you?"

"Oooh. Is this a game of hide and seek?"

"Sure. But, you get only get three guesses. I'll give you a hint. It's very, very close."

"Hmm." Castle wriggles until his head's off his pillow, then he uses his teeth to flip it. "Not under my pillow."

He rolls halfway onto Kate, crushing the air from her lungs as she giggles, then searches the breast pocket of the shirt she's wearing with the hard jut of his chin.

"Not in your - my - shirt pocket."

He looks over at his bedside table, decides that would be too easy, and uses his feet to explore the rest of the bed.

"Not under the covers. Guess my three guesses are up."

She moves then. Pulls herself up to kneeling. He has no idea what's coming. Well, hopefully her, and then him, in that order if he can manage it.

"If you make me come, it'll earn you another guess," she says slyly, then tosses one leg over his shoulder and straddles his face.

It takes him only a second to recover, finding her so hot and close, and then he arches his neck up and licks her. Her hands land with a thump on the padded headboard. He knows how incredible she looks when she rides his mouth, because they've taped it. The images have his body straining naked against the air. His cock feels miles away from his head.

He draws patterns against her clit that perfectly counteract the swivel of her hips. When he starts to feel her getting used to the strokes, he drags his tongue flatly over her to cool her down before going in hard again.

She's hovering a bit too high, and he wants her to let go, to grind on him, to take what she needs. He turns his head to her thigh and bites her. "Come on, Kate. Bear down."

The words are all she needs to hear. She spreads her knees further apart on the mattress and lowers herself further onto him.

He starts working in earnest, keeping up a pace he knows will break her fast. She's panting above him, flushed and starting to curse as she grips the top of the headboard.

He dips into her with his tongue. She's told him that it's not her favorite move, but he likes to mix it up, and tonight she bucks over him and moans out his name on a long breath.

So he does it again. Deeper. And again.

And when his tongue scrapes along the edge of something hard inside her, he nearly loses his mind.

The key. The key is inside her.

For a moment, he can't move. She looks down at him, her hair falling in a halo around her face.

"Something wrong?" she asks coyly.

"You're so fucking naughty, Kate."

She laughs, a husky, drowsy laugh, then she covers his mouth with her wetness again to shut him up.

He dives in with his tongue, stroking, maneuvering, working until his entire mouth aches with the effort of moving the key down. Finally, he gets it close enough to her entrance to grab with his teeth, and he pulls it from her triumphantly.

She looks impressed, but tells him that she's not ready to unlock him quite yet.

He understands. He turns his head and spits the key out onto her pillow. He's not sure who moves first, but his mouth is back on her and all it takes is a few lighting-fast circles and a few strong sucks to have her coming above him, her legs closing around his ears as she says his name.

It's nearly dawn when they finally concede that they should probably stop for sleep. Castle beams at his fiancé, limp and happy in the blue wash just before the sun rises.

"You know," she says, her eyes still closed, "all the research I did suggested it wouldn't be possible for you to get that key out with your tongue. But I had faith in you. You have a very, very talented tongue."

"I very much enjoyed exploring." Castle traces a line from her scar to her belly button. "I thought you had to stay in D.C this weekend?"

"Training got rescheduled at the last minute. The agent giving the classes got called away on a field assignment. Could have stayed, unpacked some boxes, but I needed you."

"I needed you, too." He presses a kiss to her forehead. Castle feels the cuffs digging into his back and winces as he tugs them out from underneath their bodies.

"Hey, these look familiar." He perks up. "Please tell me they let you keep your NYPD cuffs." They'd built up quite collection in her bedside table drawer, but she'd been adamant about not using her service pair.

"Well, we couldn't use them before because I would have been thinking about you every time I slapped them on some skeezy lowlife's wrists. But now that I have a shiny new pair courtesy of the AG's office, I figured my NYPD ones could be put to better use."

She drops a kiss to his lips and turns in his arms, nestling into what's become their favorite sleeping position.

"Welcome home, Kate," he whispers into her hair, long after she's fallen asleep.

A/N: Let me know what you think :)