There's more to be said, more to work out, oh, but she's laughing as he drives her into the door. To hell with the words, he feels too good, tastes too delicious and Kate laughs, devilish and loud and fucking pleased with herself when he stumbles.
She laughs and snakes her hands low and teasing, laughs and tugs on his belt. Laughs right up until he steals the sound straight from her mouth and makes her fight to hold on instead.
She stutters, shocked and exhilarated.
Her back collides with her own front door and - fuck him, yes please - Castle plasters his body to hers, a determined thrust bringing the lines of who they are so solidly and intimately together that they may as well be naked.
Why the fuck are they not naked?
He covers her completely, twines himself around her, slides his thigh between hers and pulls her up into his kiss. He kisses her, kisses until she forgets who she is and where she is and everything, everything except the feel of him.
Hot and perfect and so fucking good.
Castle feeds from her mouth as if her tongue is a foreign delicacy that he has never tasted before, never tried, can't get enough of, must sample again and again, punishing her just a little bit for giggling at him.
Kate plans on finding him hilarious so long as he keeps doing that!
He swipes at her bottom lip, sets her alight from the inside out with the ripple of his fingers up her sides, dancing over her ribs and trailing her chest. The broad sweep of his thumbs skirt the underside of her breasts, tease over her nipples and make her gasp deeply into his mouth.
He takes the noise, devours it, and comes back for more.
He's hard and soft, gentle and everywhere all around her and her arm hooks itself around his neck so she can just hang on and - fuck - they need to get inside.
His fingers drum her skin, caress her openly and lovingly.
She catches his eyes, sees the mirrored reflection of truth there in the tender swathe of deep desire and midnight blue. Love, yes love, reflecting back and echoed loudly and her heart thunders through their next kiss.
Disbelief melts away, shock replaced by desire and a boldness in the ripple of movement through his body sends goosebumps shooting out across her skin. The rhythmic press of his leg shocking in it's reminder that she's naked underneath her dress.
Naked and not close enough. Naked and outside and not upside down in the bed croaking his name towards the heavens.
Her nails drag against his scalp and Castle presses closer, reads her mind and her silent pleas, his fingers suddenly in her hair and over her face and trailing the line of her breasts at the edge of the blue material and fuck, fuck fuck, they really need to get inside.
Kate rocks against him and her hands claw their way down his back, under his jacket, rucking up the back of his shirt to get at his skin.
They're not on an even footing yet, she knows that, knows that there is so much more to be said. They'll fight - no doubt about it - they're both still hurt, and, behind that, anger will simmer. But underneath it all she thinks, with his hands in her hair and their mouths fused together, there is something here worth fighting for!
Love, in its earliest form.
But the words will come later.
Later, when the vast majority of her vocabulary is coherent, when she's not tongue tied, when it's not the minimalist repetition of yes, more, oh, god Castle. When her breath isn't chased by an explosion of four letter words.
Fuck.
He seeks out her retreating mouth as she tries to breathe around the last kiss they shared, hones in, tracks her down with precision and catches her. Castle swallows her up whole in the next lip tingling, knee weakening kiss.
Good.
They're so good at this already.
Amazing and completely insane.
She's in love with the most annoying man, in love with the tag along writer, in love with Castle and even though sometimes he can be a jackass - kind, sweet, tender, nipping at her lips and stealing her heart - it feels like it might ... it might be okay.
He's warm when she finally touches his skin and Kate groans at the feel of him. Warm as though he's been standing shirtless in the sun and it hits her like a ricochet of imagined light through every limb, that she has never seen him undressed.
They had sex, yes. But now, now they have time to explore! To get to know each other.
What felt like the end is just the beginning and Kate makes herself push him away, makes that part of her that could quite easily climb him, here, in the hallway, push back. She steadies herself, gasping a few desperate breaths over lips that feel scalded and retaliates.
Kate pulls her hands out from his shirt and watches her fingers move of their own volition, tip-tapping across his abdomen and up over his chest.
She has always been a tactile person and his skin is practically screaming out to be touched - her palms burn with it - yet somehow with a crooked eyebrow and a quirked lip Kate quells her immediate desire in favor of the long game.
The slow burn.
She wants him naked and writhing in her bed and the force of that need overwhelms her. She wants him under her and over her and, with the tip of one finger to his chest, Kate pushes Castle backwards, spinning slowly to unlock the door.
She's met with a growl of annoyance that leaves his lips only to cascade in a frantic rush down her spine and Castle is on her immediately.
The key slips precariously from her fingers when his hands grope her hips, digging in to drag her back by the waist, so her pelvis aligns perfectly with his.
Castle cups her ass and she drops her head back onto his shoulder, feels the large span of his hands across the curves of both cheeks. He works their bodies in a slow sensual twist, the thick swell of him hard and evident rubbing against her and a needful sound escapes her mouth.
He palms her thighs and wraps his hands around her stomach, sighing out in bliss when Kate shudders. Castle caresses her slowly, works her up and a wave of heat branches out from the tips of his fingers. It pools wetly between her legs, hot needle like arrows of need and want darting up and into her stomach forcing her to shift back and rub herself against him.
Castle growls, low and slow, coaxing a similar sound from Kate when he breathes her name on a long caress directly into her ear.
It's the most powerful aphrodisiac.
He nips the lobe, lets each letter shudder across his tongue before lathing its path into the safety of her skin.
He gyrates, circles his hips, the restrained power of his body in motion stark and evident in the forceful press of every inch at her back.
She remembers what it feels like to have him driving himself inside her, to feel him lift her and guide her and sweep the world away with the surge of his body.
She remembers and she wants it again.
Now.
Kate drops her head to the door, both palms and the narrow strip of her forehead resting against the wooden surface as she faces away from him, trying to get inside as fire licks the underside of skin.
She's melting from the inside out, bright red flames staining her cheeks as heat licks a tantalizing path down low between her legs.
Castle draws one of her hands slowly down from the door frame and she flinches in shock. He lays claim to her fingers, sliding his own in between each of hers in an act so soft and delicate in it's heated perfection that he may as well be sliding them inside her.
Her breath stutters, chest dancing as she sucks in air. The sound of her dress a rough, lewd scrape against the wood.
He gathers her palms in his and together they find the lock, casting the metal into submission just as his mouth lands on the slender curve of her throat.
He sucks and the door opens.
His teeth nip and they stumble inside.
Castle bites down as Kate groans, his mouth open and hot on the tender beat of her pulse and somehow she's colliding with the door again.
Only this time they're finally inside her apartment.