A/N: Sunday hugs, hope everyone is bundled up snugly and relaxing. Thank you for reading and reviewing!
She could get used to kissing him, get lost in the soft feel of his lips moving in time with hers, in the way he holds her and guides her where he wants her only to suddenly pull back and let her take control.
They have a partnership in the way their mouths connect, a united force that she could get lost in. The delicate feel of his hair under her hands and the way her fingertips glide over his face seeping into her bones and lulling her gently so that she leans into him.
The tips of her fingers glance his earlobes and everything zooms in suddenly. Him and her and the way they touch, the way they fit together. She could quite easily fall in love with the man in her arms.
She thinks she may have already done just that.
She strokes her fingers over his ears again, feels him brush the tip of his nose over her own and she stares directly into the warm liquid blue of his eyes barely a breath from her own. He strokes over her face and her lashes flutter.
He's been hard, firm, demanding and focused on their pleasure. Now he's gentle, it catches her off guard.
Their sighs and panting breaths die down to soft inhales, a shared space and the look that holds her to him lingers on
"Beckett, that was -"
Oh, god.
Panic wells up, he talks and his voice holds the quiver of something, something she's not sure of, something that sounds like it could be regret. It races through the words, brings the cold light of reality flooding back in.
Fear and anger race up her spine like icy fingers.
She's a fucking idiot.
He's about to say it was a mistake that they shouldn't have done it because he's leaving to write a certain British spy - and she pretty much pushed him out the door to do it - that it was nice and fun while it lasted and maybe they could keep in touch.
Stay friends.
A thousand cliches ricochet through her head and every one of them hurts, hurts like rusted daggers under the tender surface of her aching skin, and she shoves him away.
She needs the distance.
Beckett ignores Castle as he stumbles, she just has to make it to the basin and throw cold water on her face before she bursts into tears.
She will not fucking cry!
Glaring at herself in the mirror Kate can see clearly how torn apart she looks, how completely he has decimated her defenses. Castle has bulldozed right through every meager barrier she's erected around herself and left a glassy eyed fool in his wake.
She stares shocked at the woman in the mirror, at how thoroughly sexed and satisfied and wanton she looks.
Her lips are swollen and red, there are light pink grazes covering her cheeks - burning over her thighs - and she works her hands into her hair, trying to straighten the tangled mess left by his fingers.
Kate pulls down the dress from where they'd hiked it up, smooths her hands over the flat plains of her stomach and ignores the ripple of muscle that protests at her touch. She tries desperately to restore some semblance of normality to herself and all the while her reflection stares back, a mockery that pities her.
With quivering hands, Kate splashes her face with cold water, needs to look calm and composed when she turns back around to face him.
She needs to look normal.
She needs to not look like she just fucked a renowned author at his own book signing in some vain attempt of convincing them both she's a worthy inspiration.
There's more to the character and there's a hell of a lot more to the woman behind her. But right now, mired in doubt, all she can do is question herself.
Did she have sex with him to prove that point?
More to the character.
Or did she use that as an excuse because she really wanted him? Just him. The man behind the words?
A little of one and far too much of the other is her answer because halfway through that last kiss - with his fingers in her hair and his thumbs tracing idle patterns on her jaw - she started picturing herself in bed with him, being woken by that same kiss on a lazy Sunday morning.
She's fucked up. She's a glutton for punishment and she knows what kind of man he is. He doesn't do real.
He starts to speak and she can't bear it, can't bear hearing him placate her and evade before fleeing into the night with her as yet another notch on his bedpost.
A conquest.
She covers his mouth, demands silence before he can break her heart and she growls out the words into the little bathroom, shocking herself with how vicious they sound.
"Shut up."
His eyes open wide, sunny-day blue questioning, and his lips press into her skin, memories instantly flooding her.
She startles, tries to shake it off but the touch of his warm mouth to her palm sends darts of needful knowledge straight to every little bit of her that he kissed.
He looks shocked too, frightened even, maybe hurt. She ignores it, doesn't want the lies that will inevitably fall from his mouth.
Kate shoves him away, blurts out the truth and heads for the door. She throws her confession over her shoulder as she leaves, "You have no idea how much more there is to Nikki Heat."
He thinks of them as one and the same, so why shouldn't she?
The rigidity of anger in her spine holds her up even as the cavity of her chest feels like it's caving in on itself and Kate storms through the door, feels it catch against her back as it slams shut again.
Instantaneously she is met with a flash of light.
Then another, whiter more blinding than the one before.
Then another.
And another.
The stuttered gasp of a million flashbulbs rise up to steal her breath from her chest. Her eyes close, a hand flaring up to protect her corneas from the violent assault and though years of tactical training tells her to keep moving, Kate finds herself frozen and immobile.