There is refusal in his eyes, abject and devastating in its intensity.
Refusal to tear his eyes away from hers, refusal to just skim the surface when he can dive in deep, refusal to rush into what comes next when he can take his time and linger.
Castle hovers over her naked body, staring down with hunger, raw and vivid, and he bathes her in the heat of connection, their connection, until her skin starts to tingle head to toe.
The whisper of knuckles brush her calf, fingers unfurling and squeezing the muscle, making her judder and quake and when the warmth of his mouth - wet and hot - surrounds her hip bone, a trail of fire sparks up into the pit of her stomach and down low to where her body aches wetly for his attention.
Castle's skin glances hers, thighs and chest, the shuddering sweep of his stomach grazing her navel and Kate feels her eyes widen, her vision full of him, enveloping him, absorbing him, before her body can do the same.
Every blink fractures out over his skin, luring him down to her. Every sweeping glance and heated pupil clash pulsates and ricochets over their skin in a frenzy, cresting into a beautiful peak of bliss that quivers through them both, their eyes locked and unblinking.
Her fingers shake as she reaches for him, palming the muscles that tense and flex, low and quick across his abdomen, disappearing into his pelvis, inviting her exploration lower.
Kate opens her hands, palms reaching and fingers spread wide as she touches the smooth heat of his skin. He's warm and deliciously male, soft, yet hard with a familiar aroma that envelopes her. She wants the tactile feel of flesh all over her, Kate wants the everyday and the most intimate parts of their bodies to kiss and she finds herself missing his shirt suddenly, for no reason other than she wants to have something to scrunch tight in her hands and drag him to her.
Fuck, she needs him closer.
With her thighs spread wide and her eyes feeding from his, Kate feels the press of his fingers into her skin, the way he smooths over her legs and hitches her knee higher.
She wiggles her toes against the dancing muscles of his side, feels him shake and groan a laugh in response, ticklish, and Kate flexes out past his waist to push her heel into the bunched up material at his hips, divesting Castle of his underwear.
He shifts his weight to one knee and complies to her silent request, the both of them naked in her bed and Castle rocks onto one knee, the weight of his body driving him down into her, towering above her.
With her leg still raised, hips driven wide, she finds herself open and vulnerable, splayed for his attention.
Waiting.
Heat races to her cheeks and with every indrawn breath her body quivers and shakes, muscles clamping around nothing but air. She blinks, lets her eyes and heart fill with him again when her lashes part slowly and her hips flex up toward him, yearning for more.
He's closer now, his grip firm on the swell of her calf muscle, his body angled to one side, their elbows touching, the thick feel of him heavy against her thigh in a way that makes her insides flutter with anticipation.
Castle drops his head and holds her gaze, his mouth opening wide as he moves for her nipple. With deliberation born of patience she never knew he was capable of, he bathes in her the knowledge that he plans to pull her apart slowly and meticulously. And as many times as she's capable of surviving.
"Kate."
He hums her name low and feral, almost claiming, the letters in vibration around her erect, pink skin and though she was focused on him before, her sight and senses full of nothing but Castle and the way their bodies reacted, just the call of her name, the way his teeth graze and then sink into the bud, bring the world into pin-point precision.
He slides her into his mouth and her eyes slip shut on a shudder, needle darts of pleasure shooting out with each sultry suck of her skin into the burning depths of his mouth.
His fingers dance over her hip, trickle around and under her calf, clamping over her knee and pulling her lower suddenly, splaying her wider than before even as his mouth works her breast, tongue swirling as he rumbles sounds of bliss and she fights to breathe.
Her hair leaves a shadowed trail on the pillows as she glides lower and Kate feels the weight of a world of pleasure holding her eyelids shut tight yet she fights it, battles with everything she has to open and look down at him feasting on her.
She's wet and hot and shivering under the pressure of his body. Kate finds herself pushed deep into her own mattress so that it creaks and protests and she wants to laugh at the dirty sounds that surround them.
As if he knows, Castle anticipates her movement and his fingers dip low, spearing her so suddenly she gasps. She wants to laugh and moan and writhe and oh, oh, god yes, cry out when his fingers part her carefully, slowly.
He caresses her lips with his thumb and forefinger, and his demanding, insistent invasion is a beautiful counterpoint to the gentle and unrelenting suckling of her breast.
He strokes her silken skin as she's made of a fine and unknown fabric, testing her softness as she parts around his fingers and the firmness of her muscles when he presses inside.
His invasion is torturously paced, thorough and searching Kate can feel her slippery and shaken reaction against the tips of his fingers. He evokes a rolling wave of ecstasy and she clenches tight, wishing he was buried deep inside her.
When he finally slides a finger in and circles slowly, Kate moans, her breath an explosion of air that chases his name from her mouth in a frantic rush.
"God, Castle!"
He doesn't laugh, doesn't gloat into her skin or chuckle or do anything at all other than press down firmly with his thumb, withdraw and slide his finger deeper, to the next knuckle, making her hips buck up and her eyes open wide.
There is a dedication behind the movement of each digit, behind the controlled way he works her. There is no tease, just sincerity, and it's startling.
Castle basks in the way she clenches around him, his mouth parting from her skin wetly, the heated warmth of his forehead against her stomach as he dips his head low to watch the motion of his own hand. He inhales hotly across her navel wetting his lips at the sight of his fingers darting inside her, the way his wrist works her suddenly more focused and intent and she gasps, gasps, gasps again as he curls up and under, her vision whiting out.
Castle abandons his steady, slow, sliding pace and his breath picks up, fast, hard pants against her skin and his mouth lands on her stomach, tasting her sweat, mixing it with his own.
He sucks her slowly, circles her belly button and fuck, she's ready to come apart wholly and completely when his eyes flick up and find her own.
He holds her in the intensity of his gaze as she fights to breathe, another finger sliding in and working back and forth, love and promise openly flowing from the stunning blue depths that she's about to fall into.
Kate breathes his name and he mmm's his response, not wanting to talk, but content to answer if she initiates, tasting and testing, learning and observing and so open she's not sure she's going to survive doing this with him.
He's big, all of him is huge and surrounding, encompassing and thick and his fingers feel wonderful inside her, stroking her lips lightly and spreading moisture high and low as she pulsates around him.
But more than that, Castle's watching her with a forever kind of haze behind his lust fused eyes that it makes her wonder at what lies beyond this night. Not just for her own heart but for his.
He steals her thoughts, sets them loose before they can take over, gentle then firm and shifting his movement so constantly that she never has time to become used to the slowly mounting movement before she's bombarded with the sensations of the next.
Her backside hits the mattress time and again, her hips dancing up and down, a lewd and almost lonely imitation of the act yet to come. Heavy thumps bounce her in time with his movements and Kate feels the ferocity of his actions welling up inside her driving her closer.
Her orgasm threatens hotly, a thundering fire she can't escape, her body doused in an inferno of flames that cascade and ripple and shimmer.
Igniting from within.
She can't hold on.
But she can cling and she does.
Her nails dig into his shoulder, rake through his hair and slide down his back to grip the arm that lays almost idly trapped between them, his fingers drift and somehow he finds her palms, allowing Kate to curl her fingers within his as her other hand fists tight in the sheets at her side.
She clings.
A raging torrent of heat cascades down her spine, sending liquid lava spilling out into her limbs, red hot gushes of blood to her cheeks as they flame, her chest a blush of vivid color.
The fire feeds her, feeds from her and she surrenders.
She can't hold on.
His name becomes a plea that hovers above her open mouth just out of reach, and she gropes for it, calls it lower, begs it down to her as she arches up, but all that leaves her lips is a babbling, incoherent murmur for more.
Kate pants and squirms and his fingers ripple inside her, stroking over ridges of flesh that thrum, her eyes rolling back slowly, darkness surrounding her body as brilliant white light darts through her veins.
Embers flutter behind her closed eyes, spreading sparks of yellow, orange and gold.
His tongue strokes, circles and laves her nipple, a wet pop and lewd slurp fluttering her eyes open and drawing her gaze low once again as Castle slides past her breast and sinks his teeth again.
How he does that so gently and so perfectly - fiercely - she doesn't know, but he works her skin back and forth inside his mouth, leaving a purpling mark that seems to palpitate and hum with awareness even when he releases it and kisses his way across her ribs.
The fire crackles against the force of his palm as Castle presses the heel of his hand into the molten heat of her and she feels herself open wider to him, desperate to devour him.
Looking up he holds her gaze for the longest moment, staring, his eyes dancing with pleasure as the flit between the pink and glistening skin of her breasts only to dart dirtily downwards, between her legs, where his fingers continue to touch and stroke over her slowly.
She's glossy with arousal, wet, wanting, and Kate touches her fingers to his lips, electricity crackling through her when Castle's tongue darts out to lave across the pad.
He moans around the digit, scraping his teeth with intent, kissing her palm before sliding down the bed, each slow blink thundering with meaning.
He hitches her heel over his shoulder and breathes deeply, his tongue lolling out and wetting his lips.
He falls onto her with fervor and fever and the fire consumes her head to toe.
Kate splinters apart the moment he touches her with his mouth. Shards of blissful pleasure welling up and bursting apart within her, so intense that she croaks and gasps and moans, long and loud into the darkened silence of her bedroom.
Her hands tighten in his hair, in the sheets, and she cries out again.
And again.
And again.
With the blatant and all consuming heat of his hunger throbbing through her, devouring her, his tongue and lips and fingers drive her body higher and higher, relentless until - his name spills out perversely over her lips - the world explodes around her in a shimmering cascade of white light.