A/N: My birthday was this past weekend (Liv Wilder's also! Go wish her a happy belated birthday!), so I'm sorry I didn't get to update sooner. But, with the help of my faithful friends Tree23 and supermandy77, I'm here now!

While we're at this, let me just share these few milestones with you: over 100 favorites, 340 followers and 60,000 views. I'm pretty sure these are pathetic numbers for our greatest authors, but to me? For my first story? This is amazing. Thank you! So to all of you, especially my wonderful, silent readers – could you leave me a few words? Share your thoughts, give me suggestions… give me a gift in form of a review? ;)

By the way, I always forget to do this since I usually reply individually to each of you, but I'd like to thank all reviewers who can't accept PMs (guests or otherwise) for taking the time to tell me what you think. These messages keep me going and help improve this fanfic.

PREVIOUSLY:

"Look." She took his hand and pulled him closer to her. "This really just took me by surprise. It's not about hiding this from them, okay? It's just about not wanting this scenario to be how they find out that..." she trailed off.

"That…?" he pushed.

"That we're involved."

His smile was so filled with happiness that it brought the same reaction out of her.

He lowered his lips to hers and kissed her caringly, lovingly, gently stroking her hair as she ran her hands over his lower back, the entire embrace familiar and yet oddly unlike their past displays of affection.

Once their lips parted, it was obvious that Castle's smile went from happy to smug. "So, you're admitting we're in a relationship, huh?"

Teasing him, she retorted, "Well, we are in some sort of a relationship. I never said we were exclusive, though." At his puppy dog look, she rolled her eyes. "I don't know how you go from ladies' man to Mr. Darcy in a blink of an eye," she joked.

There was nothing humorous about the way he stared into her eyes and answered, "Truthfully."

Beckett's stroll was a bit hurried as she moved past the yellow tape and made her way through the crime scene in Tompkins Square Park.

She was late.

Well, not actually late, but it was almost 8:30 and Esposito had already called her asking about her whereabouts. A fair question, since the call from dispatch informing her about the dead body found in the park's outdoor mini pool had come almost an hour before – precisely at the moment she had managed to step out of Castle's loft unnoticed by his family, thanks to a bit of luck and a lot of sneaking.

Still relieved at her clean exit earlier in the morning, Beckett sighed contently and sped up her pace. The last thing she wanted was to face the boys cracking jokes about her oversleeping if she took another minute to get to the crime scene, even though oversleeping was so not the reason for her tardiness.

She could already spot Lanie, waist-deep in water as she examined the floating cadaver, when her phone rang. "Beckett," she answered without checking the caller ID, but also without missing a stride.

"You're responsible, right?"

The detective recognized his voice immediately, although the question made no sense to her. "Castle," she started in a low voice as she came closer to the pool, "what's going on?"

"This morning, in the shower –"

"Rick!" She immediately hissed, interrupting him. Is he calling me for phone sex? Seriously?

Only Castle interrupted her back. "I didn't wear a condom."

Oh.

That was not what she had been expecting.

His voice floated through her phone again as he started justifying his actions, "We got so caught up in the moment, and…"

"Rick." She quietly interjected as she stopped a few steps away from the dead body, trying to get his attention and, at the same time, not tip Lanie off on her conversation. "I know, I was there too. It's not…" she stopped talking once she made the connection between his anxiety over not wearing a condom and his first question once she had answered the phone. Turning her back to the M.E., she marched away from the mini pool again before resuming, in a very quiet voice, "Is this you asking me if I'm on the pill?"

"Yes." Castle admitted, a little reticent. "I think maybe we should talk about these things, don't you?"

Self-consciously, Kate looked over her shoulder to glance at Lanie, who was still checking on the dead body, before addressing Rick's question. "Look, I know that you're worried and maybe we should talk about these things..." she said, running her free hand through her hair before lowering her voice even more to continue, "It's just… can we do this some other time? You can rest assured that you're safe – I'm on the pill, and I'm not some crazy bimbo fan trying to have your baby –"

Immediately, the writer cut in, "I never meant to question your –"

Kate didn't even let him finish. "I know, I know. I didn't mean to imply you did. I just…" she sighed, trying to gather her thoughts.

"I'm sorry, Kate," she heard the voice coming through her phone.

"No. Don't be, Rick," she tried to reassure him, feeling a bit more confident about this matter. "You were right to bring this up." Only this was so not the time or the place for this. "But maybe we could this discuss this later? I just got to a crime scene and I should really go now."

"Of course, yeah." After a few seconds, he tentatively intoned, "Kate?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm really glad you spent the night."

Beckett couldn't help but smile at his tender words. Before she had a chance to reply, though, she heard the click on the line.

He had hung up.

Sighing fondly, she spoke into the dead phone anyway. "Me too."

Once Beckett made her way back to the pool and to Lanie, she was immediately welcomed by Esposito and Ryan's curious stares.

"You're late," the Latino pointed out.

The brunette pinned him with one of her "drop it" glares.

Espo purposefully didn't take the hint, though. "And she's secretive," he commented to his partner.

"More than usual," Ryan was quick to add.

Okay, so they weren't dropping anything.

"I overslept," Beckett lied. Better this than the alternative.

"Big night?" Esposito was quick to question, the implication clear in his tone.

"You were there," the brunette told them, crossing her arms in front of her chest as if daring both the boys to say anything else.

Lanie, with her eyebrows raised at her friend's words, finally butted in, "Okay, clearly I'm missing something and I hate missing things. What's going on here?"

Kate parted her lips but the words took a while longer to leave her mouth as she decided on how she would tell her friend about their evening at Rick Castle's loft. "Nothing, really. Castle invited the Captain, the boys and I to his place last night for poker," she said as nonchalantly as she could.

Though by the wide eyes in Lanie's face, clearly not nonchalantly enough.

"Castle? As in millionaire best-selling novelist – not to mention cutie – Richard Castle?" the M.E. asked loudly.

While Ryan smirked and Esposito scowled, Beckett replied, rolling her eyes, "Yes, Lanie. Rick Castle."

"Girl, you've been holding out on me! How come I hadn't heard a word about you all getting invited to that man's apartment for poker night?"

"It's more of a loft, actually," Ryan mused out loud.

"A two-story loft," Espo piped in.

"You two think that's the part I'm interested in?" Lanie berated them, before casting an interrogating stare at Kate's direction. "I'm still waiting, Kate Beckett."

"There's nothing to tell," Beckett tried to deflect, feeling tense. "He showed up at the precinct last week asking to join in on a case – which he didn't," she answered before Lanie had the chance to get the words out to form the question, "and he ended up inviting us and the Captain to a poker night. That's it."

But the M.E. was letting this go that easily. "You expect me to believe that's all there is to it?"

"It is, Lanie!"

"Technically, we also stayed to play some Xbox," Ryan interjected.

Lanie turned to her friend, eyebrows raised again. "Xbox?"

"Well, these guys were very excited about it and it got me curious!" Kate tried to defend herself. "We all left around two."

"Assuming she really did leave," Esposito remarked, throwing Beckett under the bus.

"Assuming?" Lanie asked, mouth already open to form another question.

"For your information, I left right after you guys," the brunette immediately lied through her teeth. At her friends' disbelieving looks, she rolled her eyes, put on her best professional face and nodded at the lifeless body floating face down in the three-feet deep mini pool. "Speaking of assumptions, I'm assuming our vic didn't drown here, at least not without some help."

Lanie recognized that this was Kate's way of saying that their conversation about Castle was over. "Don't think this is over, Kate," the M.E. warned anyway, pointing a threatening finger at her friend before resignedly relaying her preliminary findings on the cadaver to the detectives.

As she listened to her friend recount her medical opinion on what had happened to their victim, finally dropping the personal interrogation, Kate managed to breathe again.

Alone at home after Alexis had left for school and Martha for an audition, Castle sat in his office, feet propped up on his desk, typing away his personal morning adventures into what he decided would be Storm's last novel. Shower sex and 'Operation Sneak Out' had been too incredible to be left out of the annals of history.

Well, fictional history.

As he'd sat down to write, Rick had briefly entertained the idea of Derrick Storm falling into bed with "Detective [KB]" (he really needed a name for her character, stat) after one night of too many drinks over Clara Strike's untimely death. After his phone call with Kate, though, the idea had been squashed – Castle had felt as if the NYPD detective was special enough to have a story of her own.

So, the writer had set his mind on having Storm share with [KB] one of his fonder memories of his time with Strike. A story about how on a particular Sunday morning in February, after an entire night of lovemaking, Derrick had had to sneak out of Clara's resort hotel room in Varadero because their target – an international arms dealer Clara had managed to charm the night before – had come looking for her unexpectedly. Castle chuckled as he described in the novel how Clara had lured the man out to the balcony for breakfast, affording Derrick the opportunity to secretly leave the room, much as it had happened earlier in the morning with Kate.

Well, except in Derrick's version, he had no mother and daughter complaining about having to endure the cold mid-November weather in Manhattan as they had breakfast outdoors.

Still, Castle smiled.

Mid-November or not, he had managed to convince his family to have breakfast in their oversized terrace anyway, granting Kate enough time to slip out of the apartment undetected.

All in all, 'Operation Sneak Out' had been a stealthy success in Castle's opinion.

Beckett spent the rest of her Wednesday running leads with the boys, trying to build up a case on the latest murder victim with the little they had found out so far. No matter how tired she felt from the very physical – and pleasant – nature of her almost all-nighter, Kate was first and foremost committed to her job.

The explanation she had given Castle during their conversation the night before had been completely true – her job meant bringing justice and closure to victims and their families, and being able to achieve that was the main reason she was a homicide detective. So no matter what was going on in her private life, she needed to dedicate her full attention to the case at hand.

She had been so focused on the murder investigation throughout the day that it wasn't until close to 11 pm that she remembered that at some point earlier in the evening Castle had texted her. Finally taking a break to check the message, she noticed how casual he had been – asking her about her day and trying to casually remind her of their pending conversation about pills and safe sex.

Kate felt her cheeks flush as if she were an inexperienced teenager attending a sex education class then.

Thank God Ryan and Esposito had just left the station.

Too drained and unexcited to discuss the subject of protection and contraception with Castle over the phone so late in the evening, Kate quickly typed out a reply on her phone telling him she was still at the precinct and would call him some other time, when she got the chance.

Soon after, her phone beeped with a new text from Rick – "Of course. Until tomorrow."

Only the following day – and the one after that – had Castle and Beckett not talking again, save the occasional text message to let the other know how busy they both were. The novelist had spent his time holed up in his office writing his last Storm book, while the detective had been immersed in her murder investigation.

No matter how busy he'd been, though, his time writing hadn't stopped Castle from missing Beckett. In fact, the more he wrote about her fictional version, the more he craved for the real life version. He wanted to see her, learn more about her, her fears, her desires… she intrigued him in a way no other woman had ever done.

And she also inspired him to write. She made it interesting again. She made it fun.

Castle was really enjoying all of this writing about "Detective [KB]". He already had a ton of images in his mind about what she was like, her intelligence, insights and haunting good looks…

She needed a story of her own, he decided. He would write an entire book just for her.

Oh boy, he stopped himself.

He really needed to talk to Beckett about this.

"It's Friday night, Kiddo. Aren't you going out?"

Rick raised his eyes and found his mother, clad in her usual glitzy clothes, leaning against the office doorframe.

"I have to send Gina the final manuscript for my book by the end of the weekend."

"That's never stopped you before." She approached his desk, before questioning conspiratorially, "This wouldn't have anything to do with a certain female NYPD detective, now would it?"

Castle froze.

Did she know something about him and Kate? She certainly hadn't mentioned anything to that effect during breakfast the morning Beckett had had to sneak out of the loft or since. In fact, other than sharing how much she had enjoyed their poker night and how interesting and entertaining his police friends were, his mother hadn't even talked about that night at all.

"What? You mean Beckett?" he tried for indifference.

"Oh, come on now, Richard. Don't play coy."

Even though he was close to panicked, he hoped he was doing a good enough job of hiding it. "Mother, what are you talking about?"

"You are taken with the girl."

"What?!" he squeaked.

Okay, so maybe he wasn't doing the best job of playing it cool.

"Well, first you make a big deal of staying silent about your recent dates, despite the fact that you love gloating about your social life. Then there's the fact that you've suddenly made friends with a crew of police detectives, and that you attempted to play knight in shining armor for her –"

"Wha– Mother, when have I ever tried to do that?"

"Don't even bother denying it. I checked your cards that night – you let her win."

Uh-oh. Busted.

"That doesn't mean anything, okay?" he said after a moment. "I was just being nice. I didn't want to take her money in front of all her friends."

"Mm-hmm," Martha hummed noncommittally, as she nodded in disbelief. "Listen, Darling. Kate Beckett does not seem to be some bimbo who needs big, strong you to look out for her. She strikes me as a real woman, and a real woman does not want to be patronized," she lectured her son.

"Yeah, she's already chewed my head off for that one," he admitted absentmindedly.

"Oh, so you've spoken to her since?" she smirked.

Whoops. Busted again.

"Does that Jedi mind-tricking thing pass down genetically? Because I want that," Rick deflected, at the same time silently conceding that she was right.

Martha's smirk stayed on her lips for a few seconds before it morphed into a soft smile. "All I can say is I'm impressed, Richard."

"Impressed?"

"Yes. Kate Beckett is a bright, classy woman."

He smiled affectionately at the thought of the brunette. "She is."

Martha's smile turned pleased then. "Well, Darling, I don't think I've ever seen you this much in love with a woman."

Her sentence immediately got his attention. "Whoa, hang on. Love? Mother, I'm not –"

"Save it, Richard," The redhead interrupted him. "You're not fooling me here."

Castle slumped against his chair and pondered his mother's words. Was he actually in love with Kate?

He knew it was soon, but he had admittedly fallen in love faster than that in the past – he had also gotten burned in the past precisely for that reason. And even if he had fallen for women at the speed of light, he had also fallen out of love just as quickly.

He had to admit it, though. He didn't think he had ever felt this strongly about any other woman in his life.

His mother's voice brought him out of his reverie. "If you're not ready to admit it to me, at least be honest with yourself, Darling."

He stared into the older woman's eyes. "I don't…" he paused. "I can't stop thinking about her."

Martha beamed. "Just follow your heart, Kiddo."

He smiled fondly at his mother, silently thanking her for her words. Before she had a chance to leave the room, though, he spoke up. "Mother? Please be discreet about this."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, Kate and I are still trying to figure out how everything will work out and she's not ready to –"

Pulling up a hand to stop him, the redhead cut in, "Say no more, Darling. I won't say a word about this to anyone."

"Not even to Alexis?"

"Not even Alexis."

"And especially not to Kate if she comes by?"

Looking up at the ceiling in frustration, she commented, "Really, Richard, who do you take me for?"

He smirked teasingly at his mother. "Please don't make me answer that."

Taking his nudge humorously, she waved at him dismissively before closing his office door.

Once again alone in the room, Castle's thoughts went back to the remarkable brunette he was falling in love with. He wanted – needed – to hear her voice.

Before he had a chance to pick up his phone, though, the device started ringing on its own.

His smile was blinding once he checked the caller ID and answered the call. "Kate? Hi."

TBC

(All characters and even some of the quotes in this fanfic don't belong to me. This is made available for entertainment only and not for profit. No copyright infringement is intended.)