AN: Just to keep I'm Widget happy ... another chapter :)
Unlocking the door they went in, turned on the light and looked around. "I don't think there is going to be room for all three of us in here, Rick, why don't you and I go through things and Alexis can make a note of whether it's for keeping, charity or dumping. Any boxes or items of interest we can place outside and go through together?"
Rick looked around the accumulated items of furniture, appliances, boxes and bric-a-brac and puffed out his cheeks. Kate patted him on the cheek and said "The quicker we get through this the quicker we can shower!"
"Oh god! You two … get a room!" said Alexis as she rolled her eyes.
They spent the afternoon going through the contents of the storage, listing what was to go and what was to be left. Each time they came across a box it was taken out to the passageway. Once they'd finished with the contents inside the storage they started on the boxes. Rick and Alexis took one each whilst Kate made notes, ooh'd and aah'd with Alexis over childhood memories and ridiculed Rick over his man-child ones. Items were moved from one box to another depending on their destination and it wasn't till they only had four boxes to go that the real motive behind the search bore any fruit.
It was in a box containing girl comics, magazines and a number of Alexis' childhood drawings that they found the stack of binders similar to the one that Kate had discovered days before. The box was quickly put aside and the remainder checked for anything of interest. It was at the bottom of the same open-topped box Kate had found that Alexis came across the first of 'her' stories 'Monkey-Bunkey at the Zoo'. It was added to the box with the other binders and the rest of the boxes returned to the storage room.
Worn out, dusty, but with the satisfaction of a good job done and the 'treasure' retrieved, all three returned to the loft, Rick carrying the box 'of evidence' as he referred to it.
With the box deposited on the kitchen island, the empty water bottles in the bin and Alexis heading up the stairs to her room, Rick turned to his partner, took in her appearance and couldn't help the grin spreading across his face.
She was slightly flushed, her old t-shirt and pants showing patches of dust and perspiration, her hair, originally pulled back in a ponytail was somewhat dishevelled, loose strands hanging round her face, and clinging to her neck, a smudge of something suspiciously like oil or grease on her cheekbone giving her a slightly Rambo look.
She paused in the act of stretching, her look of inquiry changing to a suspicious glare as she saw him drinking her in. "What?" she growled and he tried smothering the laughter that threatened to bubble out.
He held out his hand to her and when she took it, pulled her through the study, the bedroom and into the bathroom. There he spun her round by the shoulders until she was facing the mirror. She took one look at herself and started laughing, her eyes moving up to lock with his as he stood behind her, his arms circling her waist to hold her against him and his chin resting on her head. "And you thought you'd found a glamour-puss did you Castle?"
"Oh, I have Beckett, but I also like the really smart, very savvy, haunting good looks and really hot and dirty one too" the double entendre, the glint in his eyes and the feel of his chest behind her had shivers running up and down her back and her hot and bothered look was no longer down to just the moving of boxes and furniture.
His hands slid to the hem of her t-shirt and began to slowly pull it up. Her eyes watched his in the mirror her body reacting to the intensity of his look as the cloth rose up her chest. She was pushing back into him, aware of his arousal, her own reaction intensifying and making her breath catch in her throat. She raised her arms, closed her eyes a moment as he lifted the t-shirt over her head and opened them again as he let it drop to the floor beside her.
One moment they were before the mirror, her body pressed backwards into his, next he had whipped her round and pulled her with him into the shower, clothes and all. Never one to shirk her duty, Kate made sure that Ricks' savvy, good looking, really hot and dirty glamour-puss lived up to expectations, after all, she knew her plumber would!