When Esposito stumbled into the house, he was ready to die. Hell, he'd even consider being shot again a breeze after those hellacious two days. Though the clock in the dash of his car had said it was only eleven fifty-two in the morning, he'd been up for almost forty-four hours straight. Ryan was using a month of his parental leave to bond with his new baby and spend quality time with Honey-Milk so they were a man down to begin with. On top of which he'd already worked a double when he'd been called in with Beckett and Castle to a scene at a health club where a pool attendant was found strangle to death inside a steam room and tied to one of the broken pipes. The heat and the stench were both enormous and because the pipes were controlled by the building, not the club, they'd had to wait to notify the other tenants of the building that the water was being shut off. After they'd gotten the official city permission to do so, of course.

He'd nearly clocked out when they'd made it back to the station after discovering a second body inside the boiler itself, saying he was done and ready for his regulation eight hours between shifts, but he remembered the photo of the ring in his wallet and the look he'd see on Meredeth's face when he presented it to her and it had been worth the extra six hours he'd put in with Beckett culling through phone records. By the time eleven thirty had rolled around, and he'd whacked his head on his desk because he was so god-damn tired, his boss had cut him off.

'Esposito,' she'd all but shaken her finger in his face. 'Go home. Sleep.'

'I'm good, really.'

'Then why did you try to write your notes with your coffee stir-stick and put a pen in your latte?'

Esposito had looked over at his mug, swore when he saw the lidded top of the Bic ballpoint stick out of his mug that Ryan had bought which read 'Don't Make Me Taser You, Bro. 'I can catch a few hours downtime in the break room.'

'You have a three level town in Chelsea with a queen sized bed, wouldn't that be more comfortable?'

'Isn't it obvious, Beckett?' Castle swung through, hanging up from a phone call with his daughter. 'Meredeth's not there to go home to.'

Beckett turned back to her detective, whose golden cheeks were now flushed pink in embarrassment. 'Seriously? Is that why you're copping all this extra overtime?'

'Somewhat. But, really, Beckett. I'm fine. Just pump me up with a double espresso.'

'No. You're not. You've been on the clock for almost two days straight. I'm going to get Castle to drive you home.'

He relented, only because he knew his superior officer would shoot him to stop his protests. Instead, he'd handed over his keys to the novelist and they'd cruised from the precinct back to Chelsea.

Once there Esposito took Arturo to the curb, scooped up after him, then went back inside and toddled into the kitchen in search of food. He'd been thankful that Meredeth had left the little menu planner so he wouldn't blaze through everything in the freezer. He'd invited Gil over a couple of times, and Ike Thornton and his family as well to have a little life in the house, carefully following Meredeth's directions so he didn't give his oldest friends from the force upset stomachs.

And if he happened to eat from Tierney's once or twice just to make her remaining pre-made soups and casseroles last a little longer in the freezer, well he was entitled to it, right? He worked hard, didn't he? Besides, it wasn't like he'd just chowed down on wings for dinner. He'd ordered salad too, and forgone the beer in favour of ice water. He was still getting back into shape from being off sick. Added to which, this way he would even appreciate the fine art of her culinary skill.

But if that wasn't the biggest pile of crap just to make himself feel better that those little bits of Meredeth were still in the house while she was still gone, he was definitely losing his edge as a detective.

He missed Meredeth. Plain and simple, old-fashioned missed her. It felt so weird to sleep alone; after they'd begun dating he'd barely spent a night on his own. He didn't see it as needy, not in the slightest. He'd been someone who'd always valued his space, but somewhere in the back of his head had known that when he found the right woman, he'd barely be able to nap, never mind sleep in her absence. He'd washed the linens when he'd done his laundry three days before, and when he'd gone to bed, there was no cucumber soap and French perfume scent lingering on the sheets; Esposito had even tried using her soap on his skin, but it just wasn't the same.

He stood in front of the fridge, then the cupboards, then the fridge again. When he heard the dog wander into the kitchen and park his butt on the floor behind him, Esposito only shook his head.

'I don't need to eat, I need sleep,' he told the dog. Trudging upstairs, Esposito found himself briefly thinking about filling the old-fashioned claw-foot tub in the main bathroom with cool water, but out of fear of drowning in his sleep, he simply went into the bedroom. He stripped down naked, then went face first onto the covers; again, he briefly thought about pulling the summer-weight duvet around his chest and settled the soft, freshly washed plum coloured sheet around his waist. Sleep, glorious sleep, was seeping into every fibre of his being and he wasn't about to fight it off. With welcoming arms, Esposito embraced the blackness.

Less than three minutes later, he lifted his head from his pillow to snarl at the ringing house phone. 'I pulled a double and I have to be back on nights at seven pm, I just want some sleep,' he grumbled as he picked up the receiver. 'Unless this is my girlfriend promising me phone sex from the other side of the world, fuck off and die.'

'Nice to see your phone manners are still the same.'

His eyes flew open at Meredeth's chipper-sounding voice. Sleep was a distant memory; it had been three days since he'd heard her voice live - because of the time difference, she'd been forced to leave voice mail most of the time. 'Hi baby, didn't expect to hear from you. What's happening on Hokkaido?'

'Alexis and I are on Honshu now, and Alexis is out with some people she met, a pair of female students doing what she's doing. I think they're out at a karaoke bar around the corner from here, so I'm home alone.'

'So you thought you'd call me?'

'I was missing you, thought I might catch you on your day off.'

'Aw, what a softie. I miss you too babe. Arturo keeps staring at your side of the bed and growling at me, wondering why exactly you're not here.'

'Poor little guy. How's the big bad city?'

'Still big, still bad. How's the tour?'

'Good. My translator is lovely, and she's teaching Alexis a lot of phrases so she can get around the city.'

He heard the hesitation in her voice. 'Mere? Everything alright?'

'Yeah, it's ...well, I'm just missing you so much and I thought, maybe, we might...have a little bedtime story?'

Now he was really awake. 'Seriously?'

'Javi, it's one-thirty in the morning and I'm catching an eight am train out to Fujimita tomorrow. I couldn't sleep, and I've tried everything. Hot tea, a bath, a boring book. Nothing, so I thought, maybe...'

'Ooh.' Intrigued now, Esposito rolled to his back, wedged the phone between his ear and shoulder as he kicked back the sheet. It had become one of his biggest turn-ons in bed, hearing the way she'd paint a one-hundred percent smutty word-picture, and now she wanted to turn it into phone sex, which would let him live out another of his top-five sex-with-Meredeth fantasies. 'Even fourteen time zones away, you still can't resist your Puerto Rican Valentino, can you?'

'Any more than you can resist your Danish sex goddess, who is wearing almost nothing to bed.'

'How much is almost nothing?'

'Nothing except the NYPD panties you gave me at Valentine's Day.'

Esposito groaned in frustrated pleasure. 'That's hot, Mere. You like fine in those.'

'Yeah, just lying here in my panties, fresh out of a coconut milk bath.'

'Coconut?'

'Mm-hmm, the real deal too. My skin's all soft and smooth and smells like the beach, the way it does when you like to take a big bite out of it.'

'Damn. So what would we be doing, if I was there?'

'You'd kiss me, long and deep, as you put your hands on me. Those big, strong hands on my breasts, caressing them and squeezing them, rubbing your thumbs over my nipples making me cry out for more.'

He had a mental flash of her naked but for the panties she described, felt himself harden at the fantasy of her smelling so fresh and delicious as she glided those hands of hers over her own body while she spoke to him.

'Then what?'

'You leave one hand on my breast, and use your mouth on the other; your tongue flicking over my nipple and it's making me so wet for you. I'm moaning and writhing beneath you and you make me beg for your tongue between my thighs.'

'You're such a tease, Mere.' He wasn't sure if he said it out loud, not when he'd started to rub his hand over his lower stomach, feeling the blood rushing south of the equator. 'What next?'

Her voice had gone to a whispering purr, dropping nearly an octave as her own libido had begun to throb and she was tracing her finger tips over her stomach, each pass closer and closer to her breasts. 'Finally you give in, and you're kissing your way up my inner thigh until you hit the honeypot, flicking your tongue over me, and I'm already so hot and so wet for you, babe, I'm ready to come.'

'I know the feeling.' He ached for her now, as he stroked himself, steeped in the fantasy she so vividly described. He shifted so he lay flat on his back on the bed and imagined she was there with him.

'But before I can, you slow down, making me call out your name again and again. My fingers hold you in place as I'm begging for more until you take two fingers to part my swollen, heated lips and drive your tongue inside me, and it shatters me. I come so hard I almost black out. I beg you not to stop and you don't; I can feel the second one coming soon as you lick me clean.'

'Jesus, Mere.' He wasn't sure she heard him, as he could hear her own breathing growing ragged, the way it did when she was close to climax.

'By now you can't wait any longer either, so you move up my body and sink that beautiful hardness inside me. I plead for it to be hard and fast, but you make it so slow and deep, thrusting yourself in and out at almost full length, each pass rubbing up against that sweet trigger between my thighs.' Meredeth moved her hand down her body to slip between her legs, felt the moisture through her panties and for a brief moment as she closed her eyes, she was in New York with her lover. 'I call out to you I'm coming, and as I do, you lower your mouth to my breast, suckling at me as you start to come with me. God!'

She ended on an oath as the orgasm zipped speedily through her blood, whimpering partly from the pleasure she felt, partly in frustration it was not nearly as satisfying as what she really wanted.

'Mere-' He couldn't take it anymore; teeth clenched, he gasped out her name as his body shuddered. He felt the ooze in his hand; propping the phone against his shoulder, he reached for the bedside box of Kleenex to mop up the worst of the damage. When he'd sufficiently tidied himself, he flopped back onto the bed. 'Damn, you give good phone.'

'Right back at you. That certainly made me feel more relaxed.'

'Question.'

'Yes?'

'When are you back here?'

'Twleve days, why?'

'Just so I know how long I have to wait to do that to you in person.' He glanced at the clock, did a quick calculation. 'It's almost two am, babe. Try to get some sleep.'

Meredeth grinned as she rolled to her side. 'Sex as a sedative. Never fails.'

'Love you.'

'Love you too.'

When she clicked off, Esposito hung up the phone, and just stared at the ceiling for a second or two, then dropped into sleep like a stone into a rippling pond. It was the best he'd slept since coming back from California.

R&R&Enjoy!