Disclaimer: The only part of Castle that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

A/N This chapter decided to go into M territory. If you don't have a passport for that, please stop reading at "I hope I can surprise you," and begin again at "You were right."

My God, the man can kiss. She may have started it, but wow. Wow. That was the kiss of a man who's–. "Oh, shit." She jumps backward off the sofa.

"Kate?" What happened? She looks terrified. She just gave him the kiss of his life and then this? "Are you all right? Did I hurt you?"

"No. No, no. God, no. It's Lanie."

"Lanie?"

"She's been stopping by every evening since, uh." Since I was such an idiot and had to be hospitalized, she doesn't add.

He's off the sofa now, too, an alarm bell jangling in his head. "Wait, is that why you thought she was at the door? When I knocked?"

"Yes. Oh, God. What time is it? What time is it?" She's pulling the hair off her forehead with such force he's afraid she'll scalp herself. "Where the hell is my watch?"

"It's nine. Nine o'clock."

"I have to text her, right now. I don't want her to come over."

"You don't?"

"Three's definitely a crowd at the moment, Castle." The terror in her face has disappeared, replaced by something he hasn't seen in her before, something he never thought he'd see. The old song "Lucky to Be Me," with full Broadway orchestration, rushes into his head, and silences the alarm bell.

She's talking as she runs to the kitchen where her phone is sitting on the counter. "I have to think, I have to think. No. No. Yes! Got it." She's humming and nodding, typing as fast as if texting were an Olympic sport. "There!" she says triumphantly, holding up the phone like a gold medal.

"What did you tell her?"

"That Madison came over and brought dinner for her and me from her restaurant. You remember her, right?"

Is she serious? He'll never forget Madison Queller of "little Castle babies," the best three words ever spoken in the interrogation room of the Twelfth Precinct. "I do," he says casually, not giving anything away. Little Castle babies? He's already counting on it.

"I said that Madison hadn't seen my new apartment and she wanted to, and that we ate and had some wine so I was calling it a night and would see her tomorrow."

"Good." It's not good, it's fantastically good.

"So," Beckett says, with an irresistible mix of bashfulness and eagerness that makes her seem very young. "Want to go back to the sofa?"

"Sure." He should have come up with something a lot better than "sure," but his brain is too addled.

" 'cause I'd like to start over."

She does, and they do. It's a perfect recreation, maybe even better than the first one. "That didn't feel like forsaken love to me," he says later, trying to refill his lungs with air.

"It didn't?"

"No."

She's feeling braver by the minute. Somehow she'd moved onto, or been moved onto, his lap; her knees are bracketing his thighs, and his breath is warm against her face. She has no idea how long they've been kissing, but she begins to undo his shirt, very slowly. After each button slips free, she brushes her lips against the newly exposed patch of skin. His breath is getting warmer, and faster. "How about this, Castle?" she asks as she looks up at him, one button away from his navel.

"What?" He sounds like he's close to strangling.

"Does this feel like excitement about something in the future?"

"More like, more like"–he slips his hands under her camisole, "excitement about the present." His fingertips come close to meeting behind her back, and he tries not to think how thin she must be for that to be possible. He concentrates instead on her skin, how soft and smooth is, how toned she is beneath it, how her entire body responds to his touch. Bending his head to kiss her in the hollow between the two sides of her rib cage, he slides his palms forward and up. His thumbs make contact first, with the underside of her breasts, and then with her nipples, which are already pebbled and taut. When he runs the pads of his thumbs over them, she moans.

"Don't stop, don't stop."

"Wasn't planning to."

She wriggles against him, and presses her mouth against his ear. "You love copping a feel, don't you?"

"What I really love is feeling up a cop," he says, before her mouth covers his in a kiss so deep that he thinks he might end up unconscious. Deliriously happy, but out cold. He doesn't find out, though, because she breaks off the kiss and nuzzles his neck.

"So hard," she whispers.

"No kidding. I can hardly breathe."

"I meant this," she says, unzipping his jeans in one lightning move, and wrapping her hand around him. "Time to get off, Castle."

He laughs at that. "Why, Detective, so bold."

"Off the sofa, buster. Time to get off the sofa and into my bed."

Only days ago he would have thought this an impossibility. Wished for it, yes; dreamed of it, many times, but reality? No way. And yet here it is, here she is, here he is, here they are. They're a they now. And much as he wants that, longs for it, a tiny part of him detaches and tries to assess Kate's emotional state. He knows–though obviously she doesn't want him to know–that she was under such extreme stress that she had to be hospitalized. He knows that she's frighteningly underweight. And he knows–though she'd be furious if she knew how he knows–that she's in love with him. He's had a couple of bad months; hers have been worse. And it's their own fault. It's misery of their own making, but it can be righted, is being righted. Still, she's vulnerable, and frail. Will she regret this rushing in? Should he take this more slowly? They're both naked from the waist up, and he concentrates on keeping his eyes on hers. "Are you okay with this, Kate?" he asks. "Are you sure?"

Those eyes are immediately blazing, and she shoves her hand hard against his chest. "Are you insane? Do I act like I'm not sure or not ready?"

He engulfs her hand with his before she can take it away. "Shhh. A few hours ago we were a wreck. We hadn't seen each other in months, we weren't speaking, and now look at us. I just want to be careful with"–

"Careful with what, Castle? My heart? What? Are you not sure about me?"

"I've never been so sure of anything in my life."

She looks at him for a long time, or what seems like a long time. Not that he minds. Not when she's looking at him the way she is now. She begins to dissolve against him; it's like being in a bath of Beckett.

"Then let's go," she says softly, and tilts her head slightly to the left. "My bedroom's that way. Wanna race me?"

"No." He runs his arms down her body and scoops her up. "I want us to get there at the same time."

He's halfway across the floor when she starts kicking him in the small of his back. "Hurry."

" 'm not hurrying." When he reaches the bed he deposits her carefully there, her head on her pillow, then crawls up her body until he's directly over her, propped up on his forearms. "We're not hurrying this. It's gonna be like slow cooking."

"Slow cooking? You calling me a hunk of meat?"

"Never. Although in my dreams you've always been delicious."

"You've dreamed of me, huh? Of eating"–

"I've dreamed of everything about you."

"Me, too."

"I hope not," he says, caressing her cheek. "I hope I can surprise you."

And he does, oh, how he does. It astonishes her that a man of his size and disposition can be so tender, so gentle, and so focussed completely on her. He touches her everywhere–that's no surprise–but so delicately that sometimes she thinks that he's lost contact with her skin. But then he changes the pressure, massaging where he had been feathering, and when he adds his tongue she can no longer hold still. He uses one hand to hold her down, while the other continues to work her up. How does he have such self-control here when he exhibits it nowhere else? She feels as if she's about to burst, so why doesn't he? She's trying to meet his patience with her own, but any second now it will be out of the question.

He's been whispering sweet things to her off and on, mostly nonsense, and then things change. He's pushed her legs almost as far apart as they can go, and his lips are at her right ear, his voice husky and urgent. "Are you ready?"

"Yes, yes, c'mon, please. I can't"–

"Shh. Are you ready for me to fuck you with my tongue?"

She can't answer because she–because she can't. He slides down her slick body so fast that she's afraid he'll shoot off the end of the bed, but he doesn't. And the tongue that a microsecond ago was at her earlobe is now licking the inside of her thigh, first right, then left. It's obscenely good.

"Oh," he says, and licks her again, a little higher up.

"You're." Lick. Higher still, and for longer.

"So." Lick, all around her clitoris. He stays there for a bit, licking her to distraction, then raises his head just long enough to say, "Juicy."

No lick this time, because this time his warm, probing, wicked, miraculous tongue is inside her, and whatever self-control she'd had is gone, wherever it is that self-control goes. She comes hard and fast around him, screaming she has no idea what. It takes her a while to recover, and when she does she opens her eyes into his.

"You know," he says, "I'm kind of a superstitious guy, and ordinarily on Friday the thirteenth I wouldn't leave home. Figure only bad things would happen to me outside. But I've been off my game lately, and I didn't even realize until I was at your door that today's the thirteenth of August, Friday."

She rolls over, in the process rolling him onto his back. "So what are you saying, Castle? You saying you got lucky today?"

"Oh, yeah."

"Well, here's news you can use. You're just about to get lucky again. Maybe luckier. But if you keep me waiting like you did a while ago, I will kill you."

He puts his hands up, palms out. "Please, please don't shoot me!"

She rises up on her still slightly quivering knees, takes him in her hand, and sinks down slowly. God, it feels good, he feels good. Indescribably good. She nods at him as she starts to move. "You're the one who's gonna do the shooting."

He wants to make this last as long as he can, but she's making it impossible, clenching around him, rocking, leaning at such an angle that he can see the sweat glistening between her breasts. If he's coming, she's damn well coming with him, and he has just enough wits remaining to take his thumb and press down hard on her at the perfect moment. And perfect is exactly what it is.

"You were right," he says afterwards, when their heart rates are back to normal. More or less, anyway. "I was even luckier that time."

She giggles–something else that he'd never expected her to do. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. But that line about me doing the shooting? Corny."

"I thought you liked corny," she says, tickling him. "I know you liked the shooting."

"I like both," he says, grabbing a pillow and putting it under his head. "Hey. This smells of my aftershave." He sniffs it again. "Verbena and lime, definitely my aftershave."

"Of course it does. You've been all over it." Oh, hell, he's caught her red-handed.

"But I didn't use any today. I got a shave when I got a haircut and he doesn't carry the brand I use." He looks a little sick. "Please don't tell me Demming uses this."

That's worse, so much worse than the truth that she fesses up. She thought that she'd be mortified, but telling him was actually exhilarating, and he loved it.

"Olfactory research, Beckett? I'm impressed. But you were that far gone on me already that you tracked down my aftershave and sprinkled it on your pillow?"

The reality of that catches in her throat. "Yeah," she says, her voice a little wobbly. "I was in a pretty bad way this summer."

"I'm sorry."

"Me, too." She takes his hand between both of hers. "I didn't eat much. I guess you figured that out."

"Pretty hard to miss."

"I'm sorry I'm so skinny, Castle. I could carry an egg in my collarbone. I probably bruised you with my bony arms and legs. Lanie says I look terrible, and she's right. "

"Hey, you're beautiful. And Lanie says a lot of things."

"Like what?"

"Like I look terrible. Blowfish, she called me. Sorry I'm so fat, Beckett."

"I don't care." She pinches his waist. "They're called love handles for a reason, you know."

"Shall we put them to the test?"

"Definitely. We have a lot to catch up on." It's probably four o'clock before they finally fall asleep.

A few hours later, in the hallway outside Kate's apartment, Lanie checks her watch. 7:30. Kate's an early riser, but she didn't answer the first or the second knock. She's probably still asleep, maybe from the wine. It'll do her good.

Lanie gets the key, quietly turns it in the lock, and steps inside. The curtains are still closed, but there's enough strong summer light filtering through them to make the living room visible. It's tidy as ever, except for two things on the floor next to the sofa: a tiny camisole that she knows belongs to Kate and a blue shirt that she recognizes at once as Castle's. In the distance she can see the bedroom door, which is open a crack; the room is dark.

She wants to sing and dance and hoot and holler and pop open champagne. Instead, she puts the to-go cup of coffee that she's carrying on the kitchen counter, and digs around in her purse for a pen and the little package of Post-its that she keeps in a pocket. "Guess I should have brought two cups," she writes. "You'll just have to share. xo" She sticks it on the plastic lid, tiptoes back out, and pulls the front door shut.

"My work is done," she says to herself happily on the way to the stairs. "You go, girl."

TBC

A/N Thank you for your wonderful enthusiasm, and special thanks to the guests whom I can't thank any other way.