WARNING: Rated M.
Fantasy Fridays
Chapter Twenty: Uniform
Kate moves through her apartment, the long match burning down as she lights the thick candles on her dresser, the tea lights on her windowsill, more on her bedside table. In her other hand she carries a full glass of deep red wine, and Coltrane coasts out from the vintage record player in the corner.
As soon as they arrived home from the airport, they fell face-first into bed at the loft, too exhausted to care that they were making their jet-lag worse by sleeping through the daylight. When she woke, groggy and fuzzy, she'd grumbled and started pawing through Castle's closet, searching for her warmest nightgown - a soft evening blue trimmed with little pipes of satin.
His closet is huge, and she has her own space there, her shoes lined up neatly, her shirts hanging and her trousers folded over hangers. But her lounge clothes are divided into two leaning stacks on the floor, tops and bottoms, and his socks always end up twisted around in her underwear in the dresser they share.
At her request, he happily accompanied her on a trip back to her apartment to pick up a few things. She was actually nervous to open the door for fear of what strange smell might greet them. Last time, they'd knocked over the creamer during an enthusiastic round on the kitchen counter. They forgot to clean it up somewhere between round two on the floor and round three in bed. They found it a week later, a scent as lurking and rotten as death.
Candles lit, Kate stands at the window for a moment to watch the people on the street below her. She sways to the buttery-smooth jazz. She really loves her apartment, and feels almost guilty for leaving it empty almost every night. A little TLC is definitely in order.
But before Castle gets there, no doubt with aims to distract her, she needs to do some chores, some jobs around the place. Bills, dusting, watering the one plant that's survived the months without her constant presence. She only had desert plants to begin with, and now the tiny purple succulent is all she has left. She mentally adds it to the list of things that will be traveling to the loft tomorrow. She wants to grab some toiletries, some more hair ties and socks and shoes. And clothes. It's time to take some more clothes over to Rick's. And convince him to weed out enough stuff so she can have her own drawer in his dresser, and she's gonna buy an organization system for her half of his closet.
She turns and heads for her own, humming along with the saxophone's melody.
An hour later, she's down to the last corner of her closet. There's a hard-side suitcase brimming with clothes at her feet, and a brown paper grocery bag of smaller items, accessories and tank tops and lingerie. Her wine glass is empty, on the shelf next to her diminishing pile of jeans.
She slides the hangers to one side with a screech and a click, screech and click. And stops when she sees the crisp black broadcloth of the trousers. One more slide of the hanger and there's the shirt, the golden number twelve pins in the collar, the embroidered badges on each arm. The pocket where her silver shield had spent many a day is bare, and she absently touches the spot on her hip where her gold badge used to rest. Officer to Detective to sugar baby of the rich and famous Richard Castle.
She won't take the uniform to the loft; there's no need for it anymore. But when she runs her hands over the fabric, the memories of all the hours she spent on the beat rush over her. Thick, practical shoes, the heavy utility belt, the walkie talkie. The hat that left a red line on her forehead for an hour after she got home.
So she reaches for hem of the sweater she's wearing and tugs it off over her head. Then she puts on the uniform shirt she wore the day before she was sworn in as Detective. The dress blues she wore for that ceremony are in a landfill now, cut to shreds by the hospital scissors they met years later. She has new dress blues, but she hasn't worn them yet, and she wants to keep them at the back of the closet for now.
But these, these she can touch. These she wants to put on, suddenly, to feel her body wrapped in the shield the NYPD gave her, that kept the pain of her mother's murder behind it's fabric walls.
The uniform is itchy and unflattering and makes her feel like a man, but it's a part of her.
And when it's on, she feels at home, feels invincible.
And then she remembers she doesn't work for the NYPD anymore.
She's not a cop anymore.
And that is more foreign to her than any language she's spoken over the past few weeks on their whirlwind trip.
Part of her saw Italy as some lark, a vacation even though she knew she didn't have that kind of time to take off. As she knots the tie at her neck, the reality starts to set in.
This is the uniform she wants to be wearing.
She's twisting her hair into a low bun in preparation for her hat when Castle knocks on the door. She doesn't make a move towards it - it's just his habit, to knock here before he uses his key to come in. Maybe it's just a bit of formality left over from the early days of their relationship. Or, knowing him, romance. A way to remind her of how far they've come.
She puts on the hat and turns. Bites her lip. Waits.
He stops halfway across the bedroom and doesn't say a word. That makes her smile a little.
His hair is damp, and she can smell the crisp bite of his shampoo. There's very few things in the world more irresistible than her fiancé fresh from the shower. Her fiancé in the shower, maybe. Or about to do something that will require a shower after. He's wearing a snazzy, thick pullover with suede at the collar. It's one of her favorites, the material so heavy and warm, cable-knit. She's worn it on multiple occasions. Seems he wanted his comfy clothes too. Funny, she came for a nightgown and she ended up in uniform.
"I know it's stupid, but I couldn't resist trying it on," she says.
"Officer Beckett," Castle drawls. He rakes his gaze over her body, following up with a wolf-whistle.
"Watch it, wise-guy. Unless you want to go down to Central for harassing an officer?"
"Oooh, wow. Even your voice is different. Deeper."
Kate shrugs. "Gotta be a bit tougher when you're on the street."
"You must have been an amazing beat cop," he says, full of awe.
"I was okay, I guess. Not enough muscle for some of the work, really, but Royce helped with that. And I could run pretty fast, which came in handy."
"I would have loved to ride along with you back then."
Kate grunts. "I'm sure you've got some romantic, patriotic idea of what it was like. You would have hated working with me back then. It was rare that I came across any incident with a decent story. Just perverts in Central Park exposing themselves in the middle of the day, petty theft, domestic disturbances. Nothing so interesting as serial killers and conspiracies and stone-cold murderers."
"Yeah, but look at you. I wouldn't have cared if all we did was eat donuts and drink coffee." He steps in to her, rubs his nose so lightly over her hair, his breath warm on her ear. "You're hot in uniform, Katherine Beckett."
He smoothes one finger over her tie, then tightens the knot, his eyes piercing and blue in the candlelight. She flushes with heat.
"How is it we've never played with this? You know I love a woman in uniform."
"I don't know… I guess I thought it might remind you of my dress blues."
"Well, these are black, for one thing. And even if they were your dress blues, doesn't change the fact that you're hot in uniform."
She looks away, smiles but it's paper-thin.
"Kate?" She reads the question in his eyes clearly, asking if she's thinking about the day she was shot.
"No, no, it's not that." She lays a palm on his cheek. "Stop thinking about that. It's…I think I want my job back, Castle. No, I know it. I wanna be a cop. It's all I ever wanted to be."
"So let's get your job back," he smiles, like he has all the faith in the world in her, and what's beautiful is that he does. "But it's late, maybe we can work on that tomorrow. For now…"
He moves in to kiss her, and she tilts her head up, parts her lips. Closes her eyes, waiting for the moment he lays his mouth on hers. Her eyelashes flutter open at the feather touch of him, their breath gathering warm between them.
"Will you arrest me if I kiss you, Officer?"
"Well, it happens to be your lucky day. Someone dirtbag took my cuffs and my gun, so I guess I'll just have to kiss you back."
He lands on her, his lips plundering, hers working courageously to keep up. He drives her backwards into the closet, up against the row of hanging clothes. The hangers clatter on the rail, and one of them falls to the floor.
Castle pulls back to run his finger reverently over the pins on the collar, and then over the line of her jaw. He tips the hat back to better angle in, catching her up in a vortex of kisses. Her face is flushed, her lips slick and swollen, sucked and bitten.
She arches under him, spreading her feet on the floor, hoping he'll read her. He does, of course, and slides a knee between hers, knocking them even further apart.
She sinks onto his thigh, desperate to do something about the dull hum between her legs. Only two ways to deal with it - stoke it until it lights and burns, or cool down and walk away. It's amazing that she never has to walk away. Will never have to again, as promised by the rock on her finger and the intensity and honesty in her fiancé's eyes.
Castle pulls back, his mouth soft and wet and open as he breathes, and starts to loosen her tie.
"Is that your gun, Officer, or are you just excited to see me?"
It's the sort of comment that would usually make her roll her eyes, but instead she rolls her hips.
"I think you're the only one of us packing heat," she purrs. Sure enough, the thick column pressing against her through his pants is feverishly warm.
Her hanging clothes fall around them, hiding them in the already dim closet, the rustle of silk on one side and the swishing clicks of something beaded on the other - maybe the red dress he'd bought her for the fundraiser so many years ago. Bippity Boppity Boo.
When he unbuttons her shirt and finds her naked underneath, he lets out what can only be described as a growl.
He doesn't waste time then. He rips her trousers down to her knees, then falls to his, burying his nose in the dark, seductive scent of her. He nips first, through her underwear, at the nerves that are standing at attention, all the while working one leg of her pants off over her foot.
He slides her underwear down more slowly, eyes grinning like a hungry cat but his mouth flat and serious. When she's exposed, he just stares. Breathes.
Then he hitches her knee over his shoulder and dives in. He's so very, very good at this. His mouth is a whirlpool of sensation, gobbling her up whole, and he can be delicate and precise with it but right now he's messy and wild, working over her with great long licks and open-mouthed sucks, and the sounds it makes are downright obscene.
Her head thrashes from side to side until she's almost completely covered with her hanging clothes. And when he shoves two fingers into her, no warning, she screams. A good scream. A very good scream.
And then he's pumping them, and then she's shattering around those fingers, but he won't draw back, won't stop laving and rolling her clit with his tongue, and he coaxes out every last corner of dark tension from her body, leaving her limp and loose and warm. Just for fun, he sucks on her once more, hard, and she spasms in his arms, curses and slaps at him to stop, that it's too much.
And when she gets her breath back, she puts her foot on his shoulder and shoves him down to the floor. Her hat stays on the whole time.
A/N: 20 chapters, wow! I had no idea I had so much smut in my brain. Thank you all for continuing on this titillating journey with me. I won't be able to post a chapter next week, but the week after I will be back with bells on, I promise!