Close Encounters 3.5
Kate moved slowly after physical therapy; she took a shallow breath and pressed the heel of her hand into her chest. The ache started in her back and drilled straight through, made it feel like she had a knife just under her shoulder blade. Robert had been disgusted with her for the fresh injuries to her new stitches and had cut their session short. I can't do anything with you like this. Stop being an idiot.
Beckett swallowed hard at the memory and pressed her thumb into her eyebrow, trying not to cry.
Robert, that sadistic son of a bitch, loved to torture her. But not even that had made him put her through the full workout. She was more than an idiot, she was reckless and self-destructive. And she knew that, had known that, but-
She needed to be better than this. For him.
Speaking of. She hadn't seen Castle since this morning; in fact, Logan had been the one who'd woken her up. She wondered where he always went off to on these therapy mornings; she'd assumed he was doing work, closeting himself at a desk somewhere.
When she managed to walk down to the kitchen, her exhaustion made food completely unattractive. She should eat, but she'd be more likely to if Castle made it for her. And yeah, she hated that, but she'd suffer his hovering if he made her lunch.
So she set out again, moving slowly, letting her breathing dictate how fast she explored the house. Or rather, just how miserably slow. She had to stop and rest against the wall, her shoulder screaming, her back like a hot ribbon of agony. But she'd done this - she'd torn her stitches trying to prove something. Riding a damn horse to prove herself strong enough. What a massive idiot.
She'd only failed. And set back her progress a couple of weeks.
The house. She'd not made it upstairs yet, but that seemed daunting with the pain lancing down her back, so she just continued past the kitchen towards the long hall. The floors creaked, but there was some commotion from down here - the sound of voices, a laugh, metal clanking.
She knew that Ragle was here - the director - and then there was a trauma doctor, her physical therapist, Logan the medical tech, and at least one other patient/inmate. She'd not seen the wounded man and the physical therapist, Robert, had said something about him not yet being mobile. Dr King drove in from somewhere else, so he wasn't usually on the grounds.
So who was this?
When she'd gotten to the other end of the hall opposite theirs, she heard a deep male grunt; it echoed like a fist in her gut. She stumbled to a stop at the sound, heart kicking up, fingers tingling.
It was Castle. She knew it without even looking; she could never mistake his voice. In pain or pleasure, the way he sounded-
She gripped the top of the chair rail and eased forward to investigate, her mouth dry as she heard it come again. Grunting, a groan that sent goose bumps over her skin, and then the rattling clang of metal again.
Weight lifting? Was he-
She paused at the edge of an open door at the end of the hall, sunlight streaming through the bare windows. Castle was on his back at a bench press, the taut and trembling line of his bare abs glistening with sweat, staining the waistband of his dark grey workout pants. A growl came out of his throat as he heaved the barbell over his head, loaded down with what had to be two hundred pounds or more.
His spotter was close but didn't look concerned, and Castle went through his reps slowly, evenly, grunting with every exhale.
She leaned against the wall, eyes riveted, and wondered why he'd been keeping this such a secret. He'd spent each morning away from her - she'd thought he was trying to give her time to recover after physical therapy, get her pain under control, wash up a little, that he was finally learning to give her space.
But he was training.
Wow. Really training. Hard.
She covered her mouth to keep from groaning in time to the flare of his body as he bench pressed, blinking at the ripple of skin and tendons and muscle. She'd never gone in for body builders - it seemed too much, too ridiculous - but his chest was so broad and wide and - hard. Not too much at all. Not ripped, but defined. So very defined.
And his biceps were massive.
Before she could move - and she wasn't quick anyway - Castle was letting the barbell go back, the spotter guiding it to the rack. Castle sat up and gave the spotter a gesture, the younger man moving off, and-
And then Castle saw her there.
He froze, but Beckett was stalking towards him.
Well.
Not stalking.
She had that predator look in her eyes, but her body was a little ragged, her hair pulled back at her neck and curling, her gait slow and pained. His heart tripped at the sight of her, both so stunningly beautiful and also so broken.
He couldn't move, but she was leaning into him now, her hands on his shoulders, and of course his came up to steady her, fingers curling at her hips, and her eyes were so dark and they seemed to swirl with an undercurrent of pain.
"Beckett?"
He was straddling the bench and suddenly she was straddling his leg, her thighs squeezing tightly, her fingers clenching on his shoulders. He stared at her, gripped her waist harder to keep her upright, but she leaned in against him, her forearms propping herself up against his chest.
"Castle," she murmured, but her eyes darted down to his lips and back up again. He felt his exhaustion push him over the edge into lust, muscles tensing, and then she leaned in and touched her tongue to his skin.
"Fuck," he groaned, his head dropping back as she scraped her teeth at his collarbone.
"Don't make promises I can't keep," she said, her voice rich and low, sultry.
He choked out a laugh. He'd heard that voice a thousand times in his dreams, and a hundred more in her bed, a voice that invited him into danger.
"Your mouth," he panted, thumbs pushing into the soft skin above her hips, making her rock forward slowly.
"You taste like sweat," she murmured and dragged her lips up to his chin, nibbled at the scar there.
He dropped his head down and devoured her mouth, sucking her tongue into his and scraping his teeth against her, taking what she teased him with. Her fingers scratched over his jaw and into his scalp, and he gripped her by the nape of her neck to hold her there.
He pressed a hand to her spine to get her closer and his fingers brushed at the edge of her bandage, sticky with surgical tape. He paused, breathing around the assault of her mouth, tried to gather his senses.
"Beckett," he muttered, making his fingers light, trailing them along the hard ridge of her vertebrae. "Beckett, wait."
She curled her fingers around his ears, stroking the shell, the earlobe, angling her mouth to scrape their cheeks together, her fingers ranging over his pecs, down his abs, skimming and discovering and mapping.
"Beckett," he tried again, his fingers at the edge of her stitches as a reminder to himself, to his traitorous body. She breathed hotly at his ear and moaned, that needy and whimpering noise that made him instantly ready for her, and his hips rolled up without his say.
She groaned and stiffened, her forehead coming down hard against his shoulder, her body shuddering.
Had he made her-
"I can't. I hate this," she muttered, and her voice was close to tears. "I hate this and I can't - I shouldn't have-"
She pushed off of him like she was going to flee, but she could barely get her legs to work, and there was no way he was letting her go now.
Castle gripped her neck tighter and kept her at his side, drew his other arm under her knees to let her huddle in a ball against him as she rode out the pain constricting her muscles. Her hands were in fists at his back and she arched, a grunt pushing out of her lips, and if it weren't for the cold sweat on her forehead, it would be one of the most erotic sights he'd ever seen.
But she was in pain.
And his arousal dampened immediately.
She had a hard time distinguishing the pain from the need, the agony of her inadvertent movement with the ache for more.
She wanted him. So badly.
And for the first time in weeks, he'd responded to her like she wasn't some broken shell of her former self, wasn't something that needed to be coddled and kept in cotton and tiptoed around. He'd responded like she was the woman he knew, his partner, and she wanted that more than she wanted sex.
Which was saying something.
Sex was - this was everything they were.
No. No, it wasn't everything, but they connected-
Shit, she sounded like an ass.
She just needed that with him, wanted it back, and she knew it would make her feel so much more like herself if she could just-
lead him back to their bed and have her way with him. Make him beg for her. Make him come undone.
So strict, so disciplined, so maintained, but he always fell apart at her touch, like all the pieces that his father and his work and his lifestyle had hardened over him were merely armor plating. And when she loved him, she could strip it all away.
She could have him. The man she'd wanted from the beginning, the man at war with his darker duty, the man who'd shuddered when he told her about Colleen, the lost little boy on the side of the road.
She missed him.
She ached for him.
"Kate," he murmured.
She lifted her head and found him, right there, his eyes needy and yearning and guilty.
She curled her arms tight around his ribs and drew her knees up, buried her face against the neck of the man who loved her.
He would figure out a way to stay out of the house during his workouts. The climbing was good, of course, but he'd need something to replace the weight training. He could do it. If it meant not dangling himself in front of Beckett, if it meant not having her come upon him with that dark hunger in her eyes that he couldn't help responding to-
Yeah, he'd make it work.
For now, he sat on the bench with her curled around his body.
"Tell me what to do," he said softly, wishing he could cradle her, but knowing that the tightness in her fists and the way her forehead pressed hard against his chest meant she could barely move. "Kate. Tell me how to help you."
"I want-" she moaned. "I want you to touch me."
His startled hands obeyed before he could think better of it.
He touched.
Her hair, the spot at her neck where the muscle bunched and shivered under his fingers. The sweet corner of her mouth, the so soft skin above her belly button, pulling away quickly when her abs contracted and her mouth pinched in pain.
"I shouldn't-"
"Don't stop," she begged.
He closed his eyes and skimmed his fingers up her stomach to the place at her chest where her heart beat, where the bullet entered into her back and nearly killed her. He wished the press of his fingers could draw the pain out of her and into himself.
She'd been shot because of him.
"I know something else," he said, easing her back so he could look in her eyes. She blinked twice to clear the haze and then frowned.
"What?"
"Have you had lunch?"
She shook her head slowly, and a flash of irrational pride welled up in him at her movement. Just a few days ago, she was still working in physical therapy on that head shake, unable to complete it without pain.
"Me neither. Let me make you something, Kate. I promise I won't try to feed you. And-" he pressed his thumb to the crease of her thigh, right at her hipbone. "You can tell me about this."
And despite the lines of stress and ache that riddled her face, her lips twisted past their grimace into a beautiful, heartbreaking smile.
"My tattoo?" she said, lowering her eyes to the hipbone where he was still stroking. "For lunch? Hmm, okay. Deal, Castle."
She leaned against the wall behind the bench and picked at her scrambled eggs with two fingers, scooping it slowly towards her mouth. Castle was watching her like he was hungry - and not for food - and that was enough.
He'd finished his eggs and whole wheat toast an hour ago, but he was going slowly with his banana and grapefruit, stretching it out she thought, and she smiled at him to show she appreciated it. Next time maybe she'd have him make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, potato chips. No more breakfasts.
"And did your dad ever find out?" he asked softly.
She shook her head. "He knows I got one. He's never seen it."
"I should hope I'm one of the few."
She tilted her head at him, narrowed her eyes. "Are you. . .asking for my number, Castle?"
He stopped suddenly, then a swift and wolfish grin flashed over his face. "I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours."
She studied him, the rough set of his features but the smooth, lovely line of his jaw. Those blue eyes. Oh, those hands. And in nearly every war-torn country and more besides that.
She didn't want to know.
"You don't really want to know," she said slowly. "You think you do. But you don't."
"Fine. Be that way. Then you have to tell me something equally as personal and revealing."
"Like?"
He narrowed his eyes at her and she could tell he was thinking hard; it'd be a big one, wouldn't it? He'd ask-
"Your guilty pleasure," he said, and it sounded like he relished the question.
She pressed her lips together to keep from smirking, shifted a little in her seat to get at the last of the morning light coming in through the east windows. Her skin was warm.
"Hmm, 'Temptation Lane'," she said finally, a little shrug when she saw the smugly delighted look on his face. "And what's yours?"
"Mine's music, actually."
"Music?"
"Ah. Lyle Lovett."
"No!" she gasped, blinking and laughing at him. "Country?"
He sighed. "Not really country. Lyle Lovett and Bruce Springsteen, those are my two."
"Nothing wrong with the Boss," she said quickly, felt heat climb her face.
He shared a sly smile with her and reached out a finger to nudge her plate in silent request. She took another forkful of scrambled eggs, glad they were still warm, and swallowed them to make him happy.
"So name your favorite Springsteen song," he said.
"It's a three-way tie."
"Oh?"
"'Girls in their Summer Clothes', 'Secret Garden', and 'Dancing in the Dark'."
"'Secret Garden'?" he laughed. "Are you kidding me?"
"You did say guilty pleasure, did you not?"
"Yeah, but that song is terrible."
"Shut up." She lifted her foot from the bench and settled it on his knee, pushing a little when the resistance didn't make spasms start in her back. "Fine, then. What's your favorite Bruce Springsteen song?"
"'Born to Run'," he answered immediately.
She hummed. "I like that one too."
"And 'Dancing in the Dark'?" He narrowed his eyes and half-sang. "'Hey there, baby, I could use just a little more help. This gun's for hire, even if we're just dancing in the dark.'"
She lifted her eyes to him, rivers of heat curling in her belly, but he grinned that lopsided smile, crooked and adorable, and she took another bite of eggs.
"You've had a thing for spies longer than you care to admit," he said with a grin. "This gun for hire?"
"Spies or assassins," she hummed, lifting her eyebrows. "And you. 'Tramps like us, baby, we were born to run. . .'"
And it was too true and not true at all, and he was looking at her like she'd unveiled a mystery.
"Castle," she said quickly. And stopped. Because she realized she'd been about to close it down, darken the room, push him out the door.
And he'd been trying to establish their connection like this, through breakfast-for-lunch and their stories rather than through breakfast and their mouths, breakfast and her hands roaming, breakfast and her shirt shucked over her head and Castle dragging her back towards her room with syrup.
Could he make her come and meet him here in the place where they existed together? In the silence between their stories, in the moment when tattoo turned into music lyrics turned into the language of their love.
"Yeah?" he said.
So she jumped in.
"When I was in fifth grade, I told my mother that when I had kids, I'd never make them do the dishes. Because I hated it, and I'd never do that to my kids. And she told me, 'Katie, sweetheart, do you think I like doing the dishes? That's why you have kids - so they can do them.' And then, with my dad laughing at the horrified look on my face, my mom said, 'I can't wait until you have kids. I have a whole list of I told you sos.' But she didn't make it, and now I think. . .I won't have kids because she's not here to rub my nose in it."
"Just because she's not here, doesn't mean she can't still tell you I told you so. I think you'll know - when you have kids - you'll know those moments because you'll hear yourself sound exactly like your mother."
Her chest eased and she found she could lift the corners of her mouth into a grateful smile. She'd shared something - deep and dark - and look how well that had gone. She wasn't blown apart with grief, and in fact, he'd made her smile about it.
"He's never touched me," Castle said suddenly.
Her mind blanked and reformed terribly, horribly, a too-insistent negative, but he winced and shook his head.
"Not what I - shit, well, I guess now I'm grateful I don't mean that," he sighed. "But no. He never - nothing. I just mean I got nothing from him. I was five years old, Kate, and he opened the back door of his car and said, Come. We're going."
"Your father," she said quickly, afraid to lose the thread.
"It was Christmas break."
She blanched, had to close her eyes. "I'd always - I thought you said summer. I thought it was at the end of school. . ."
"No."
"Christmas," she said, horrified.
"No," he said slowly, more emphatic, a stress in the syllable that let her know.
He'd spent his first Christmas without his mother. . .with a man who hadn't touch him in love or pride or appreciation. With a man who hadn't celebrated the holiday either. Five years old. Not a hug, not a squeezed shoulder, not a laugh or an I told you so. Nothing.
She bit her bottom lip to keep from crying, knew he'd hate it, and she would too; she was so tired of crying.
So she cleared her throat and lifted her eyes to him, slid her hand across the table until she circled his wrist. "If we had. . .ours. . .they would never be without. Mother or touch," she said and hoped he understood. "Never."
And the ice in his eyes seemed to melt away right in front of her with the heat of his smile. "We'd have cute kids, Kate Beckett. Klutzy, stubborn, cute kids."
She couldn't smile back, not yet, but she sighed and said, "We would. We'd have beautiful kids."