Demons
"You brought it?" Kate murmured, stepping up behind him on the patio.
Castle tilted his head, smiled back at her as her hand came to rest on his head, fingers toying gently with his hair. She was clad in shorts and a tank top, the straps of her bikini peeking out from beneath the fabric of her shirt, and he had to fight the urge to remove the outer garment from her body and latch his lips onto the bare skin beneath.
"Never know when inspiration might strike."
"I thought you only wrote after we finished a case?"
"Well we did just finish one," he pointed out, setting his pen down in the crease of the binding and reaching up to snag her hand, pull it around his shoulder. The limb came easily as Kate stepped even closer, chest nudging the back of his head as he twined their fingers together and held her close behind him.
"On Wednesday."
"It's only Saturday," he protested with a hint of petulance, and Kate smiled, squeezed his fingers between hers.
"Relax, I'm just kidding."
He grinned, eyes crinkling in the corners in the way Kate absolutely loved, and she felt her lips upturn in response, his happiness contagious as always.
"I don't always write right away," he explained. "Sometimes I need to. Sometimes I don't even make it all the way through the case, depending on how things are going. But sometimes it takes a couple days to decide what really stood out for me."
Kate smiled, wriggled her hand from his grasp and circled the bench to sit down next to Castle. He opened his arms to her immediately, allowing her to settle into his side before draping his arm around her bare shoulder, holding her close. Her head fell to rest on his shoulder as she took in the sparkling waves, the clear sky, the view endless for miles and miles. The sun warmed her skin, wrapped around her, and she sighed contentedly, so happy they'd decided to escape the hustle and bustle of the city for the long weekend. She'd always loved Manhattan, but the freedom out here, the fresh air and serenity, was addicting in its own way.
"I'm glad we came," she murmured, giving voice to her thoughts.
Castle held her tighter, nuzzled into her hair, and when he spoke she could feel his lips against her skull. "Me too."
Kate wasn't sure how long they sat there, soaking in the late summer sun, but they were startled from their reverie when a light breeze whipped through, fluttering the pages of the journal enough to send Castle's pen rolling off the book and onto the tabletop.
He reached forward automatically to catch it at the exact same time as Kate, so when her fingers closed around the pen, he redirected his reach, catching hold of the journal and closing it against the wind, picking it up from the table and moving it to sit next to him on the bench.
"Do you want to read some?" she asked softly, nodding to the small book.
Castle reached for the journal in silent reply, flipped through to find the bookmark. They were more than halfway through now; the entry he'd just been working on was on the second to last page. It'd be strange, writing in a new journal after using the same one for the better part of 6 years, but it only felt right to continue the tradition. He made a mental note to dig out a new one when they returned to the city.
Kate reached out with one hand to smooth down the page, fingers then dropping to twine with his at the edge of the fabric cover.
Dear Kate,
I'm so in love with you. I didn't even know it was possible to feel like this. I didn't know it was possible to fall harder and harder every day. Apparently it is, because that's what happens to me every time I see you. I always think I can't possibly love you more and then you quote Ghostbusters and wear your hair in an adorable braid and climb on top of me like it's no big deal, and let me grope you (accidentally, of course, I'd never do that on purpose) and I fall even harder.
"Castle," Kate scolded, knowing him well enough to be able to separate his sarcastic words from the rest of the paragraph.
"What?"
"You did that on purpose?"
"You didn't seem to mind," he retorted saucily, raising an eyebrow in her direction. But he was met only with the disapproving glare that Kate had so effectively mastered and instinctively began fumbling his way through an explanation. "I mean I didn't exactly... it wasn't on purpose, per se."
He was met with a raised eyebrow.
"My hand slipped and once I realized where it was headed I kind of just... didn't stop myself?" he offered sheepishly.
Kate rolled her eyes in disbelief.
"I didn't want to make things worse."
He looked so adorably flustered, his face screwed up in that way that only he could manage, and she wanted to be annoyed, she really did. But then his words registered in her brain and she found herself suddenly engulfed by memories of his hands and their warmth and how they were large enough to span, well, lots of parts of her. As that realization flooded through her, heat rising in her neck and blood thrumming through her veins with renewed energy, all other trains of thought were completely derailed.
Kate noticed the moment Castle caught onto the change because his mouth formed into a sexy smirk and his hand came up to rest on her waist, beneath the fabric of her shirt, spanning her bare skin just like she'd been imagining.
"Something on your mind?" he murmured teasingly, leaning in so his breath was wafting over the delicate skin beneath her ear.
Her response was breathy and completely lacking any type of filter, and she was almost embarrassed at how easily he'd managed to rile her up without actually doing anything. "No."
His fingers traveled further beneath her shirt, skimming the sensitive skin at the base of her spine, and she automatically arched into him, a shiver running through her as the sensation sent a heady rush of sparks tingling across her back and into her limbs.
"You sure?"
"Positive," she stammered, voice breaking on the first syllable.
He shrugged, aiming for unaffectedness. "Okay, well I guess we should get back to reading then, huh?"
He withdrew his hand, leaned back so his warm breath no longer played at her skin, and Kate barely managed to bite back a disappointed sigh. Not that it would have mattered, because she knew he knew what he'd done to her just now.
Castle fixed her with a smug grin and she was torn between kissing it from his face or teasing him just as mercilessly, because maybe he could get to her easily, but she had her own arsenal of tricks, and she could have him stumbling over his words in thirty seconds flat. Given the dark want swirling in his eyes and the slight shallowness of his breaths, Kate could tell he was just as turned on as she was. Agreeing to continue reading instead of… taking care of things could be just as teasingly evil as anything else she was considering doing to him.
So she merely nodded, adjusted next to him, careful to brush the back of her hand against him ever so slightly as she shifted. She felt his sharp intake of breath, smiled to herself as she settled back in and began to read. She didn't even need to sneak in a glance to know that he was staring at her heatedly, eyes swimming with lust.
By the way, that sound you made? Sexy as hell. I think you kind of enjoyed it, didn't you? I know I did. In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I'd like to repeat it as often as possible (though maybe next time without you standing on my shoulders with your shoes on). And preferably without all the other surrounding activities as well, such as creepy flickering lights and rats and corpses falling on my back.
Kate had to laugh at that, remembering the way he'd screamed like a girl and, in typical Castle fashion, reacted with a dramatic flair that had to have been inherited from his mother.
"Shut up," he mumbled, and Kate clamped down on her tongue to hold back any more sounds, but he still caught sight of the smile twitching the corners of her mouth.
On a more serious topic, though, I'm glad we were able to solve this case. This one and the one from twenty years ago. It's encouraging to know that not all cold cases go forever unsolved. It has to give you some hope, too. Even though it would be dangerous for you to dive back in right now, it gives me hope that someday there will be justice.
In the meantime, we'll keep tracking down killers, you and me. We do get to go on some pretty entertaining adventures in the process. And adventures with you...well, those are always high on my priority list.
Love,
Rick
"You're such a dork," Kate said with a laugh as she finished reading.
His eyes were twinkling as their gazes met, happiness tinted with the lingering arousal from just minutes earlier.
"But you love me anyway," he murmured, leaning in so his lips caressed the shell of her ear as he spoke, and he felt Kate's body cant into his.
"So," he prompted a moment later, setting the journal aside with one hand while the other once again began dancing across the skin of her lower back. "Any adventures you'd like to have while we're out here?"
Kate tugged her bottom lip between her teeth, debating where to even begin with answering his question, before deciding to turn it back around on him.
"I don't know, Rick," she teased, his name rolling off of her tongue, and she watched his eyes darken instantly, gaze flicking down to her lips and back up. "Did you have something in mind?"
"Well we could always..." He was cut off by Kate's sudden movement, deftly whirling around so she was straddling him on the bench. He was momentarily stunned but Kate saw the instant he came to because his hands wasted no time in ridding her of her shirt, discarding it somewhere behind her. As his fingers made their way to the tie of her bathing suit she rocked into him, their hips meeting sharply, and he groaned as she gasped and the rest of his answer was lost to the whispers and moans and fiery passion of their love.
Dearest readers, where oh where have you gone?
I'll be the first to admit that I don't like to beg for reviews because, frankly, I feel like they mean more when people don't feel obligated to leave them. However, I'll also willingly admit that the decreased response recently has been a bit discouraging.
I don't write and publish fanfic for the purpose of getting reviews. I write because it's my outlet and my hobby and I publish it because I love Castle and I like to share my work with the fandom. That being said, reviews are very helpful, not only because receiving feedback is how writers improve, but also because I've been given some fantastic suggestions from readers that have inspired quite a few of these chapters.
So just this once, I'm going to ask for your comments because if I'm losing people's interest or if things are getting too repetitive or mundane, I'd really like to know so I can switch it up a bit.
Thanks in advance!