A/N: Your continued support and enthusiasm for this story astound me. hugs and thank you for reading x
It's startling and terrifying and uplifting all at once and the part inside him that shattered at the realization - he's in love with her - still quivers. Knowledge and want merge together and culminate in a great creaking wave of need that rushes up inside of him, threatening to spill over and he tells her everything.
He might know a few sentences about her, words and phrases, chapter headings here and there, but that fierce part of himself - the part he protects, the part that trembles at the thought of being in love with Beckett - keeps splintering open and looking for more.
He doesn't just want the story - he sighs, watching the butterfly flutter of her lashes stroking over her gossamer cheek - he wants the very gaps between every word and the truth that lies within.
He wants her.
All of her. And it feels as if she might understand that as he whispers his confession into the hollows of her skin.
It's not easy and they're not even close to being done with talking about this, but he lets loose the ache of his disclosure - she hurt him - and he waits her out.
It's terrifying and wonderful and his heart thunders in awe as he speaks, until, with the words now silent between them, Castle finds he has nothing left to say, nothing left to do but kiss her.
She still tastes like mint.
Mint and so much more.
His lips press over Beckett's and she opens her mouth slowly, surely, no blazing rage or biting fire. Just her. Soft and sweet.
Castle feels the stuttered and startled inhale of her breath as she gasps when he takes the chance to deepen the kiss, and her eyes close a split second before his own drift shut, lost in the taste and feel of her - Kate - already so familiar.
There is a moment between action, thought and acceptance where he half expects a knee to the groin or for the hands that rise up on his chest to push him away. The fear of rejection digs its claws in, vicious and unrelenting, and he kisses her to silence it. Silence that little voice that tells him it won't be enough.
He kisses her with hope and with exhilaration.
He kisses her for all he's worth just in case, in case the unthinkable happens and this will be the last time he gets to.
He kisses her like his life depends on it because - fuck - if this is the last time, he wants them both weak at the knees and completely devastated by it.
He kisses her like time will stop and the motion of the elevator is nothing but a whisper of wind in the distance.
He kisses her like he's waiting for her to kill him.
He kisses her prepared for the worst and instead Castle feels the entirety of her body tremble, and as though she's come to a conclusion - made a conscious choice in the silent confines of their meeting lips - Beckett rises up on her toes and kisses him back.
Her fingers cover the hand that smooths over her face and she presses him tighter, holds him there against the warmth of her skin. Her hand fists in his shirt, tugging him nearer, an almost unheard noise of command leaving her lips until she gets him where she wants. Then her hand is drifting, climbing, claiming and suddenly in his hair, her fingers spreading wide and moving almost lazily.
She kisses him back and - fuck - that might just kill him anyway.
She feeds from his mouth, frantic and sure, and he traces her lips with his tongue before he peppers her with more kisses, each one connected to the one before, like a long, loving, drawn out of sigh of contentment. She opens willingly, bubbling up with warmth only to draw back, and it sounds fucking crazy to his own ears even as he thinks it, but she's shy about it, softer, lighter.
It's not the blazing heat of an argument and war waged between their lips.
It's not brimstone or the coal smolder and fire burning afterglow of sex.
This feels real and everything - oh, absolutely everything - a first kiss should be.
It's full of promise and maybe and just a little more. A little bit more.
His fingers tangle in her hair, hers in his, and together they move around each other, angling jaws for sweet brushes of lips and stroking over cheeks for deeper, more penetrating kisses.
It lasts a lifetime, those few brief seconds, and his heart hammers for escape, the feel of hers against his chest in perfect rhythm spurring him on to kiss her harder, deeper, softer, sweeter.
They break apart suddenly and desperately, the heated air between them fought over as they gulp it down and though he's still breathing heavily, Castle can't let go.
He's astounded by her, intoxicated and still not convinced the moment he releases her she's not going to reach for her gun - wherever she may have it squirreled away in that sinfully tight dress.
Castle's nose touches the tip of her Kate's, startling her eyes open and then he's kissing her cheek, her jaw, her neck and collarbone. He covers every inch of exposed skin in warm, wet, open mouthed kisses that leave her squirming and gasping under his touch.
Her palms span his back and pull him in tighter, need a driving piston that forces him into her, her into the wall of the creaking elevator and them into each other. They become so suddenly and so very perfectly tangled up together that Castle only just catches her when her knees quiver, her body shaking as he slides a thigh between her own, pressing her hips hard into the wall and hissing at the connection.
She mumbles something like a reprimand against his mouth, nips at his lower lip in punishment. She bites the air between them only to sink her teeth into him anyway, before giving and immediate unspoken apology with another kiss.
She kisses and kisses and rocks hard against him.
Hands roaming, body like liquid as she molds around him.
He smirks and she growls and something inside of him gets giddy and excited and fuck yes, that's so much more like it.
This is what he expected with them. Give and take and the smoky taste of battle.
No anger. Just passion.
His hand drops from the wall behind her, his balance lost instantly and his whole body falling into Beckett's. He dwarfs her with the width of his chest and she groans and tugs him nearer, fingers in his belt and yes, yes, more.
Castle palms her neck, squeezes her hip, his fingers and thumbs finding magnetized sparks of connection wherever they land. Touching and stroking over her body just like he did earlier.
Like he never has before.
They gasp and draw apart and she spins them, her arm up around his neck and the sweeping pant of her breath over his cheek.
Nose to nose, lips wet with each other, they stare unblinking once again, only for the elevator doors to open behind them.
Castle opens his mouth to speak, no fucking clue what will come out, hoping that might work in his favor. But Beckett makes the first move.
She stuns him into silence, his mouth gaping and she smiles, a slow unfurling thing of beauty that he watches transform her face. She takes a step backwards on unsteady, shaking legs, away from him and towards the door and the corridor that lays beyond.
There is a tug of movement, his eyes dropping instantly to find her fingers hooked through his belt and snagging tight to his hand, pulling him with her. His eyes snap up and she takes another step, laughing at him as he follows her, laughing at him as he stumbles.
Laughing until he strides forward, catches her by surprise, tastes the gasp as it leaves her mouth and kisses her again.
They slam into her front door and he steals the next laugh straight from her lips.