A smut chapter. That is, if I did my job right.
I hope it's okay…

It's definitely M rated, so if it's not your thing, don't read it

Well let's not dwaddle.
Read, you!
Don't forget to review.
And or rhyme.
Great sutff.


Combustion

Castle entered the observation room. It was a small room located right behind Interrogation room number four. The room's dynamic was completely different from its partner's- while the interrogation room had harsh white lights designed to emanate heat and a certain degree of intimidation, the observation room was darker, only the other rooms luminance lighting it. In fact, the only thing the two rooms had in common was a wall.

More importantly, a mirror.
Or a window, depending what side of it you were on.

Castle took a seat- there were no chairs but only a long metal table, which he shared with Ryan and Esposito. He would have brought popcorn, but Esposito beat him to the punch, and he and Ryan sat beside him, munching away.

"Will you stop chewing so loudly?" Castle asked them. "It's about to start." If Beckett heard them now, they would probably be worse off than the man in the room. Instead of contemplating which appendage she would dismember first, he refocused his attention to the man in the next room.

Matthew Gregory was young. Not young-young, but a kid compared to the past occupants of that room. Way younger than Castle imagined he would be. He had a head of shaggy blonde hair that was begging for a cut and a long, lanky build. He could pass for a teenager, although his file promised he wasn't a day under 27. He had been pacing the brightly lit room for a good twenty minutes now, after a full two hours of sitting and stewing. He had lasted longer than most.

It is when Castle begins to think this when the door opens on Gregory's side of the window. A cool, calm and collected Kate Beckett strolled in, the door falling shut behind her with a soft click. Beads of perspiration were forming on his hairline and a vein in his temple contracted, involuntarily. She swung open the door connecting the two rooms, calmly, shutting it behind her with a soft click accompanied by the same serene demeanor. Castle couldn't see her face, as she was facing away from them, but he could envision the look she was giving her suspect. She just stared at him for a few prolonged minutes, not saying anything. He met her strong gaze, evenly. Despite his cool nerves, she could all but see the frantic energy emanating off him.

"You pointed a gun at me," she stated. It wasn't a question, and she dare not blink.

Silence.

"You tried to shoot me, and I'm going to give you a chance to correct it," she told him, simply, an eerie calm cloaking her words. She folded her hands together on the table in front of her. "When was the last time you saw Patrick Wayne?" She asked, placing a photograph on the table between them. She received no immediate reaction, but a long hard stare.

"No."

"When is the last time you saw John Marcus?"

A shrug was the only response she got that time.

"What, you're not sure?"

"No," and at this third blatant lie, Beckett stood up, abruptly. Her chair flew from under her, making an unpleasant scraping noise across the floor. She left the room entirely, slamming the door behind her, leaving Gregory alone to sweat it out. She joined Castle and her boys in the dark room behind the mirror, taking a seat next to Castle on the table. They studied him in silence, their legs swinging in cadence.

"He's lying through his teeth," She said, biting down on her lip, hard.

"You gonna go back in there?" Ryan braved to ask.

"In a minute. After I get a soda," She said, sliding off the metal table and making her way out.

She came back with a Pepsi from the hallway's vending machine, reclaiming her seat on the table, maybe a smidgen too close to Castle. She popped open the top and sipped the caramel-colored liquid, the carbonation coursing down her throat and the caffeine hitting her bloodline.

"It was awesomely uncanny how creepy-calm you got in there. Like you could just spontaneously combust at any given moment. The finale was very cool, too. You can really act, Beckett. What are you going to do now?" Castle asked.

"Let him roast. Then go act pissed. I am kind of pissed," she admitted.

"Kind of? I can practically feel the anger and pent up energy radiating off you! Where is this aggravation coming from? Work? Boy trouble? Is this sexual frustration you're experiencing?"

"Excuse me?" she had to bite back the comment she had sitting on top of her tongue and made a mental note to remember this moment later.

"That's a yes."

"Okay. I'm going back in." She decided to ignore his comment altogether and stood, reaching over and grabbing some of the popcorn Esposito failed to hide, popping a few kernels into her mouth before marching out as quickly as she came. This time she blew through the door, angrily, letting it slam on the doorstop and swing back belligerently.

"You were with him Friday night!" She shouted in Gregory's ear, invading his personal space. "You went to his apartment and you slit his throat, isn't that right?" She circled the table, whipping her previously abandoned chair back rather ferociously and sitting, her whole stature rigid. "Why did you lie to me, Matthew?"

"I don't know what you are talking about," the man said. He was staring at a spot on the wall behind her, his eyes focused and unmoving. He had a strong shell, and she could see it- years of no doubt torment and abuse had reduced him to exoskeleton. She had seen it countless times- kids with the life he must have had. But these shells were not the manmade kind. They were very, very fragile.

"No?" she laughed a laugh even she didn't recognize as her own, irony filling her voice. "Let me try and jog your memory, mmm?" She asked. Castle decided right then and there that the only thing scarier than her passive aggressive demeanor was her livid one. She circled the table again, this time stopping right beside Gregory. "You were at home. What, did you get a phone call? How did you find out? What did you find out? Whatever it was, it made you angry, didn't it?" She was posing her story as questions but they were anything but. "You tried to call him. You tried, over and over again but the bastard wouldn't pick it up, would he? After you got the answering machine for the sixth, maybe the seventh time, you were fed up. You threw the phone across the room and you grabbed your coat and the nearest sharp object. It was time to take matters into your own hands."

Gregory was shaking his head, and with his, his tenacity. His fingers were twitching, fidgeting, a tell Beckett didn't fail to notice. "No," was all he said. His expressionless face was clouded by anger. "No," he repeated, more forcefully, but Beckett didn't let up. She moved to his other side and continued spinning her tale.

"You knock, he answers. You force your way in, the two of you fight. You pull out the knife- it was just lying around, it's not like your brother would miss it. He just wouldn't listen to you, would he?" she asked, and she could tell with those words the last of his resolve crumbled in defeat around him.

"He just wouldn't listen!" He cried out, loudly. If Beckett was surprised she didn't show it, but just watched as the calm man in front of her folded into an hysterical murderer. "He just wouldn't shut up," He was running a hand through his hair, and his fingers were still twitching with what was probably pent up frustration and leftover anger. The wave of rage subsided and Beckett watched as he rode it out. When he came to his senses, he looked up at her, still standing tall next to him. She towered over his slumped over frame.

When he spoke again, his words were not wrought with fury or frustration, but hushed, shameful and spoke with what she recognized as apology. "He just wouldn't listen."


"That was so damn hot," Rick said, pushing Kate up against the door of his apartment. His mouth latched onto hers, pushing her up against the door and in turn against his body, relishing the feeling of her. She returned in equal passion, wrapping her arms around his neck, burying her fingers in his hair, needing him closer. She reacted to his touch, his hands moving up her body to hold her waist, where they became restless.

Clothes.
She was wearing too many damn clothes.

There was a tearing sound and he had managed to get the first few buttons undone, but he was too lost in her to focus. It was then he pulled back. "We should slow down," he told her, shakily. She looked at him- was that annoyance?

"Stop being so nice," she told him, ridding him of his shirt in one clean motion before pulling him with extreme force towards her. That was all the encouragement he needed, and with those words let hanging in the air between them, their bodies collided once again. A trail of denim and cotton formed as they made their way across his living room. Somewhere on the steps he lost both his socks and she her top completely, then the rest of their clothes pooled outside his door.

He backed her up against the bed, his lips locked on hers as her body remained flush against his. "Castle," she says with a cute mixture of eagerness and annoyance. He dipped his head, trailing his tongue down her neck and clamping down over her pulse point, scraping his teeth over it lightly before using his tongue once again. "Rick," she says, and this time for another reason entirely. Every synapse fired in her and the gasp she released made him smile against her skin as he made his way back up to claim her lips in a searing kiss.

She was growing impatient, so she twisted them around, using her upper body strength to push him backwards on the bed. He grabbed her waist and to that effect pulled her down with him. She regained equilibrium and straddled his waist. It was like the world slowed to thirty three and a third and the fast paced passion became an unhurried affair. She bent her head over him, creating a trail of fire filled kissed up his chest, along the side of his neck, his cheek, his chin, and finally his mouth. He secured an arm around her, and inadvertently shifted her on him, her center brushing over his.

He let out an involuntary moan at the contact and it was her turn to smile. She continued her ministrations, flesh meeting flesh and teeth meeting flesh and him meeting her.

"Kate," he says, because he can't take much more. Again she smiled, and locked her lips with his before sinking on to him. He swallows her gasp and she accidentally sinks her teeth into his lower lip, but he really doesn't care because they are finally together and it feels so right.

"Kate," he says again, because he needs more. His hand trails up her back, creating soft patterns against her damp skin, contrasting the soothing action with a nip at her neck.

She knows she's going to be wearing a lot of makeup tomorrow but she doesn't really care because she's moving and he's moving and they are moving together. She is seconds from release and then she's there, on that edge, and then he's with her and they are tiptoeing around it until she decides she can't take it anymore, sinking on to him one more time before they both give in to their release.

It takes them both a moment to recover, but when they do she is snuggled up against him, draping an arm and a leg over his body, lazily. Her head rests on his chest, and she plants a kiss there as he returns to her, taking a moment longer. He is still tracing lines on her back, trying to sooth sleep into her body, making it harder and harder for her to fight its pull.

"Today was a good day," she said, smiling contently. Beneath her she felt the rumble of a laugh reverberating in Rick's chest. "What?" It was."

"She says after she has been run from, beat up, and shot at. Not to mention the verbal filleting that happened earlier in the box," he told her.

He was right, and both of them knew it. Today was not a good day, by any means. But none of that mattered, and they both knew that, too. Life happened, death happened, and in the end, she was alive and he was alive and they both proved it to each other. He planted a kiss on her temple, taking pleasure in the feeling of her beside him, wrapped around him and with him.

"You got your man," he told her, his words vibrating in his chest under her ear as he spoke. Kate after a closed case was a wonderful thing to behold.

"Yeah," she sighed the word, planting another open mouthed kiss on his chest. "And I caught that bastard, Gregory, too."


So I know I may be dipping my toe into the kiddie pool of clichés, but the ending was too perfect to resist. I crack myself up sometimes.

Thanks goes to em, as usual, for putting up with my late night tendencies and craziness. For the talks. And the jokes. And the sex. What? No. (yes)

To Andy, for the title. Cause she rocks socks.

And to my lovely reviewers, you beautiful people you.
This is probably bad, but your reviews make me write that much faster.

The green button.
Whatever you do, don't press it.
Seriously.
(but more seriously, do it. Just to see what happens.)

softer