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A/N: I would love not to have a life outside of my online friends and writing for you guys. Sadly, this is not the case. Massive apologies for the slowness of the update – exams and moving etc interfered.
"Get down!" Kate yelled. She was lucky Richard had been paying more attention – she shouted a good few seconds after the bullet would have gone through his shoulder if he hadn't ducked. It had come from behind them so they had no choice but to ride in the opposite direction, further out into the countryside and away from the safety of civilisation.
"Kate?" Richard shouted as she began to ride towards a forest. "I don't know what you know about gothic novels, but in my experience, riding into a dark, scary looking forest when people are chasing you never turns out well."
Kate didn't change direction. "This isn't one of your books, Castle. We'll be able to lose them in there."
They hadn't actually seen their pursuer. Richard's horses were fast; there was a good chance they'd lost the shooter already, but Kate could feel a fear building in the pit of her stomach nonetheless, a fear she hadn't felt for almost ten years.
They reached the treeline and slowed the horses; Kate dismounted and carefully made her way to where she could see a fair distance off.
"I think we've lost them," she said quietly. "But we shouldn't return for a while."
Richard, who had dismounted too, let Whisper and Royal go so they could find some water. He put his arm around Kate; he could tell she was afraid.
"It doesn't necessarily mean the worst," he said, trying to comfort her. Kate knew he was right.
"I think they just wanted to scare me. The shooter, if he's from them, would be much better trained. He would have hit us. And they wouldn't have lost us nearly so easily."
"Well, that's good. It means we're safe."
"They just don't want me to get away from it." Kate sighed. The day was warm; she took off her jacket and absent mindedly rubbed her hand under her shirt, over the scar on her stomach. "They're never going to let me forget."
Richard took the jacket from her and set it on a rock, then pulled her into his arms.
"We are going to stop them," he promised.
Kate forced herself not to lean on him, to show him she was strong.
"I know," she said firmly. Richard moved back to put his hands on her shoulders, bending down slightly to level his eyes with hers.
"I know you know," he told her. "But you don't have to be so strong all the time, not when you're with me, not if you don't want to be."
"I have to protect myself," Kate said shortly. Richard looked at her face, the afternoon sun making glowing patterns on her perfect skin.
"Not now. I'll protect you," he said softly, reaching round to undo her hair until it tumbled down in loose curls. The gentle teasing of his fingers made Kate feel instantly warmer; he could change her mood in a moment.
"But..." she protested half heartedly. "We were almost shot..."
"You said it was just to scare you. And even if they are after us, we're hiding. If they find us... wouldn't you like this to be the last thing we do together, rather than running scared?"
If his words didn't convince her, his hands certainly did. Her shirt was off in a moment and she felt the sun on her body, caressing her skin as he attempted to remove her boots.
"This is absurd," he muttered after a minute, having no success at all with the tiny hooks.
"You need the... thing," Kate said, annoyed at being brought back from where she had been drifting. She forced herself further into reality and bent down; she untucked her pants from the boots and took them off.
"That do?" she asked. Richard shuddered. She took that as a yes.
After a look at the ground, covered in pine needles, Richard decided he might keep his boots on as well. Kate laughed.
"But you were going to take mine off? That's not very considerate."
Richard dropped his jacket, pants, and shirt, on the rock where Kate's clothes were.
"Your feet won't be on the ground," he muttered, bending down to kiss her roughly, fisting handfuls of her hair, then moving his hands down to explore her flesh.
"Forgotten yet?" he muttered.
"Forgotten what?" she asked honestly, digging her fingernails into his shoulder blades as she stood on tiptoe, reaching up to have more power over the kiss. They battled for control, Kate desperate for escape, Richard determined to give it to her. They stumbled towards a tree with a wide, relatively smooth trunk. Richard slammed Kate into it; she grunted as the air was knocked out of her and she had to remember to breathe. Richard gave her another reason to gasp, pinning her against the tree, his hands massaging her breasts as his lips moved their assault down to her neck.
He sank his teeth into her then soothed the skin with his soft tongue a moment later. Kate moaned with pleasure, her hands finding any part of him they could reach, though his angle meant she couldn't get to what she initially grabbed for.
"Time for that later," he murmured into her skin, before nipping her delectable collarbone. His right hand was creeping lower and lower but he brushed her only once before he grasped her hips firmly and hoisted her up. She wrapped her legs around him; he felt her boots dig into his behind and pushed forward involuntarily, scraping her up against the tree a little as he positioned her so his hungry mouth could reach her breasts.
Kate clung to his neck, gripping him with her thighs as he sucked on her left nipple. The pressure of his body on hers, the sunlight, the bark of the tree, brought on several sensations which increased the pitch and volume of her moaning. The nerves his tongue was dancing with seemed to have a direct line to an area much lower down; he moved to the other breast and Kate slid her hand down between them, brushing against her own centre before finally touching him. Her other hand stroked his chest; her right found him already hard, and she tried to guide him into her but his hips forced her too tightly against the tree.
He realised what she was doing and lifted her quickly, stepping back to help her onto him before almost falling into the tree again, thrusting into her hard. All the concentration Kate had left was on keeping her legs wrapped tightly around him, keeping their bodies as close as she could. She didn't even feel her back scraping against the bark; her hand was still between them and in a few more seconds she was shattering around him, screaming out his name into the forest, the golden glow of the sunlight burning behind her eyes.
Richard followed her moment later, pouring into her, his mouth finding her neck again as waves of pleasure flowed through him. He just prevented his knees from giving out, leaning against her and the tree as he tried to calm his breathing. Kate murmured in protest when he moved away a minute later to lift her off him; he handed her her jacket. She shivered. She hadn't realised she was cold until now. She grinned at Richard, but realised he looked worried.
"I thought the point of that was to stop the-" she began, but she realised what he was thinking about.
"Castle, if you had even attempted to move out of me I might have ripped your head off. I needed that."
"But what if..?"
Kate sighed. "Well it's always possible. At any time. But if we did just... make a baby... there's no one I would rather have a child with." She flashed him a smile, pinching her tongue between her teeth the way she did when she was honestly happy. Richard had to smile back.
"You're so adorable when you do that."
Kate picked up her whip. "Call me adorable again and I'll prove you wrong."
Richard chuckled. "I feel the same way, by the way... if I'm having another child, there's no one better than you to be its mother."
They got dressed, looking around in the fading light.
"You were right," Richard said. "They didn't follow us."
Kate laughed. "And if they had been looking, I don't think we would have been hard to find."
"No... Well, we should be getting back. It's late."
The horses weren't far away; they had found a stream to rest by and were happy to be on the move again. Kate and Richard both found themselves a little sensitive, getting back in the saddle so soon. They exchanged several sideways glances on the way back, and kept their talking to a minimum, both content to keep their minds relaxed for a while longer.
They talked one back in the carriage though. They began to talk a little more about babies. They had to. Richard wasn't the sort to ignore that kind of thing, and although Kate was more the type to cross bridges when and if she came to them, she knew they had to have the conversation. It was actually not anything like as uncomfortable as she'd thought. Though Richard did say he would marry her, he wasn't gallant about it, just friendly, putting it out there but not forcing anything on her, or making her feel like he thought he was doing her a huge favour.
And then they talked about Sally.
"We were shot at today," Kate muttered, feeling the fear press down on her again, her high from their earlier activities having almost completely dissipated.
"You know they wanted to scare you," Richard said gently. "And yes, we were scared, but that doesn't mean they've won. In fact, I think it means the opposite. They feel the need to prove to you that they're in control – which means they aren't confident. If they were, they wouldn't feel as if they had to scare you more."
Kate smiled at him, his face so earnest and sincere.
"You really mean it. You always find a story to make me feel better."
"It's not a story," he insisted. Kate reached out and took his hand.
"My whole life feels like a fairytale," she said. "But I know. It's not. We'll win."
Richard squeezed the hand she had given him.
"We will."
A/N: I think you can tell this is an apology chapter... Thank you so much for your continued interest, please review! xo
