A/N: Just the epilogue to go. Thank you for reading.
There is a split second between watching her explode apart - beautiful and uninhibited, frantic beneath his touch, wet and hot all over his mouth - and being pinned under her that Castle almost misses.
She's loud, with her head thrown back and her hand high above her holding onto the sheets and she screams his name with the dirtiest fucking inflection he has ever heard.
She draws out the S like a serpent, letting it slither and slide over her tongue before tumbling through the L and E on a filthy groan that just begs for him to do that again.
And he will, oh, he plans on doing that every fucking night from here to eternity, as many times as they can before one of them passes out from exhaustion.
Her hips bounce and twitch against the bed as he rolls himself over her, climbing the length of the mattress slowly and surely, watching every fevered reaction of the orgasm that just tore its way through her body.
It was a fucking glorious sight and he wants to see it again, wants to fry her synapses and firing pleasure zones with the taste of everything he did to her on her own lips as he kisses her.
Castle slips a knee between her thighs and presses close, aligning the length and angles of his body with hers so he can sink down over her, watch and touch and taste it all.
He traces her ribs and watches her skin dance with each ragged drawn in breath, skates her ribs with his nails so she groans and shudders.
Castle finds Kate's fingers coiled up above her head, her knuckles white from the force of her grip and a rush of pride bursts through him for her strength. A healthy fear too for the muscles he remembers that tighten and clench and threaten to drive him to insanity.
Her skin is red and pink, the heat of release fading over her flesh like a lazy sunset and Castle slips his fingers into her hair and strokes her cheek until her eyes open. They flit to him, delirious, chest rising rapidly as she pants and then laughs and grabs for him, stealing his moment to create one of her own as she kisses him hard and with certainty.
Their tongues slide together and she hums, moans and draws a similar sound from the depths of his chest. Kate Beckett, in his arms, tasting thoroughly ravished and she rolls her hips, lifts her leg to bring him closer, hooks her knee at the back of his calf.
Her hand splays wide at his back and her long, slender fingers fist in his hair, her mouth unrelenting and suddenly, without warning and holy fuck, she's amazing, he's on his back staring up.
Beckett laughs into his mouth, a dirty vibration of sound that presses her nipples into his chest, the wetness of her body glancing his thighs and making his skin tight and hot and pulsating with need.
She slides her hands out from under him and he watches as she crawls backwards down the bed, rolling her body along the length of his, her eyes locked on his lips.
He knows they must still glisten with the remnants of her pleasure and he touches his tongue to the edge of his mouth to taste her.
She mimics him, unknowingly.
Castle watches as her tongue darts out and traces the coral pink line of her own mouth, wetting the skin to resemble his own as she stares at him hungrily.
Without warning she drops her focus, low and steady, her lips parting so slowly that time seems to stand still as he comes to terms with her dastardly intent.
Fuck, no way in hell will he survive that.
She looks almost demonic in her possession of him, her thumbs digging into his hips and the strands of her hair falling down to tickle his skin. Coiling around him like silk.
Beckett smooths a flat palm across his stomach and he almost bucks up into her as she dances her fingertips close but doesn't actually touch him.
She looks up then, something beyond hunger and wanting in the burnt umber flare of her iris and he thinks that maybe questions still linger here for both of them.
With their gazes unbreakable, she watches him, reads him, gives up something with the flash of truth in her pupils and her fingers wrap around him, hard and tight and fuck, Kate, yes, just like that.
Her mouth opens, lips parting just inches above him as she stares up and the heat that radiates from her mouth is scorching his skin, a threat and a promise of so much that he wants and needs that it burns, burns in the most fucking fantastic way and she hasn't even -
"Tell me." She whispers and his focus snaps back immediately. Does she know? Is he that obvious with his new found love for her that it's written all over his face?
She blows down the length of him, a deliberate breath rising the hairs on his balls and flesh tightening and sending a cascading wave of goosebumps out across his thighs and down his legs. His skin jumps in reaction to her, has from the moment they met, and Castle feels himself swell within the heated confines of her palm, bombarding her very skin with an incessant demand for release.
"Tell me." She lowers her head, heat and moisture emanating from her mouth at his tip and she swallows hard, her fingers rippling and contracting in a way that tells him she's fighting to hold back.
She wants him.
It astounds him, delights him, draws blood from his already dizzy head and sends it pouring south in a volcanic gush.
Does she know he's in love with her? He's not sure, he thought he saw something similar in her own eyes at the party and since then there have been flashes, but as she stares down at his skin, demanding something from him he's scared it could send her running, he knows she feels it too.
Then, as if he's waited too long, she surprises him, flips his world on its head and grins mischievously, "Tell me about the other book."
Her mouth opens, lips part and her tongue swirls out over him.
He throws his head back hard and stars dance on the black background of his closed eyelids.
She takes him deep, mouth wide as she sucks him inside, hot and strong and fuck, Kate, "It doesn't ... matter." He croaks, the feel of her and everything they do in this bed the be all and end all of his existence.
She releases him with a pop and he chokes out a gasped breath, swallows down a yelp when she laves him from root to tip, stroking and squeezing with her palms and fingertips in a unrelenting tempo.
"Yes, it does." She whispers against his skin, her voice a near silent roar of truth that lets him know, as she raises her gaze to find him again, that this isn't an interrogation - though it would be fucking delicious if it was.
With sincerity in her eyes and devilry in her fingers Beckett lets him see that she knows it means something to him, the chance to write the other books, something beyond fame and recognition.
"Yes. It does." She states, sinking back over him, and he can see that she's okay with it, that she gets it, maybe not all of it, but enough for now and yes, yes, oh god yes, she uses the heat of her mouth to make a searing promise.
She brands his skin with the knowledge that what they have, what they're starting right now, goes way beyond Nikki Heat.
She nips with her teeth, waiting for his response, still wanting an answer. Kate Beckett, ever the detective.
He yelps, tries to glare down at her but she flicks her tongue and hums along his length.
"Later." His voice is an almost squeal of happiness, "God, Beckett ... later."
She does it again, claiming, over him, around him, all of him.
"I'll hold you to that." She promises, threateningly, gleefully, before everything is swallowed up in the graze of her teeth and the heat of her mouth and growl of sinful satisfaction that rolls through her as she sucks on his hardened flesh.
She takes him to the brink, hollows out her cheeks and threatens to let him spill hotly inside her mouth only to withdraw and run her hands over his thighs, across his stomach and up the broad expanse of his chest.
She lingers at the beat of his heart as it thunders against the tips of her fingers and he pants, trying to regain his self control. She's tender in her touches, mapping his body with want of knowledge and understanding, gathering his reactions like treasures, each one sparking delight in her eyes.
She's going to kill him, his blood pounding hard, rushing through his ears and his whole body on fire for her touch. His head thuds back on the pillows only to snap forward again, not wanting to miss a second of what they share.
She watches him with every little bit of it there, out in the open, unspoken but no less evident.
Love.
In her eyes and her kisses, in the broad sweep of her fingers.
"What are you doing to me?" He croaks, emotion wracking him, pleasure a constant hot shimmer through his veins, his voice a screaming plea that she never, ever stop.
Her eyes are soft when she responds, quiet and sweet, "No more than you do to me."
She kisses him then, hot fingers dancing between them with dexterous skill as she envelops him in latex. He sits up as best he can, his hands on her hips to steady her as she parts herself with glistening fingertips, dropping her forehead to his when touching herself elicits a dark shiver of excitement.
She sinks down onto him slowly, a litany of fevered curse words escaping with every drawn out inch she consumes and when their hips finally, tortuously touch her muscles clamp around him so hard he almost comes right there and then.
She sighs and shifts and wraps her arms around his neck as Castle tries to breathe through the delicious feel of being buried inside her again, hot, wet and tight against his straining skin.
His fingers slip from her hips, frantic in their mapping of her body. He strokes over her ass, cupping the cheeks and he palms the pliant flesh dragging his hands up her sides, smoothing down her back in a repetitive sweep, wanting to touch as much of her as he can, to make this last as long as possible.
He's already fighting a losing battle.
She shivers again as her muscles relax and he thumbs the taut peaks of her nipples, dances his fingers across the rosy flesh and rocks up inside her, desperate for his own release.
With eyes that know him too well suddenly focused on his face, Beckett presses her palms into his chest and pushes him back, making Castle lay against her pillows as she leans forward.
Her hands find his and she joins them once again palm to palm. Their sweaty skin sticks them together, fingers fused as their digits slip in between each other, interlocked and unbreakable.
Every movement is agony and ecstasy and nowhere near enough and she pants hard against him, lets him know she feels exactly the same way.
His hands land just above his head and she arches her body over him, feline and feminine and achingly beautiful. Castle catches at her mouth and though he's pinned beneath her he steals a kiss, and then another, drawing her back for more.
When she moves then, finally, she doesn't lift and sink down and slam herself into him. Kate rolls her body, graceful and slow, barely losing an inch as he slips free before twisting her hips in a tight circle, squeezing and clenching around him.
Their nipples skim past each other, stomachs graze and they can't breathe as she moves like this, kissing all the while. Their mouths pop apart as Kate growls, her skin wet with sweat and flushed and his mind is running a mile a minute as she does it again.
Sinks down, twists, clenches him so fucking tight that he can see and feel and think nothing but her.
Kate.
It thunders under his skin, coils at the base of his spine, pinpricks of agony dancing in the most erotic way.
She sits up, pulls him with her, their mouths wet lines that meet and share breath and she's desperate in her chase for bliss, arching, she bounces on the spot so suddenly he cries her name in shock.
"Kate!"
She grunts, bounces, up and down, up and down, up and down, short sharp, rough little movements, rubbing herself against him and he spirals so fast, so fucking perfectly that he can't do anything but cling to her and feel!
She releases his hands and claws his back, her nails like talons that sink into his skin and she curses so darkly into his ear that the sound of her voice alone forces him up, hard, inside her.
She cries out, growls, shakes and moans, begs him to do it again.
It hits him then, a fist to the gut, a ricochet of feeling through his pounding heart. He needs to tell her.
Castle's fingers slip between them, one hand curving over her breast and squeezing her in time to her clenching inner muscles. The other hand drops low and touches where they're joined, traces the edge of her lips with a knowing caress, touching her, then himself, then her again.
"Beckett?" He groans, his voice rough with enjoyment, gravel and desire, tongue darting out to lick at her neck as she sinks her nails into his skin again, low down on his back.
"Beckett?" His fingers dance and the room spins and she shudders and rocks and the sloppy twists of their bodies in synchronicity tell him they're both close, galloping hard through ragged fire, toward an end that will scorch them raw.
His nails dig into her flesh, slow her hips with patience he doesn't understand even as it swamps his own body. His mind consumed with one lone thought.
Her eyes finds his, confusion and delight awash, and he shifts his hips, slow and deliberate the sinful inches he gains inside her burning to the very depths of her soul.
She hisses.
"Fuck...yessss."
Lightning pleasure whip cracks through the both of them and Castle stares, watching the way her lids flutter and dance and her teeth sink into her lip, marring the skin and he can't have that.
He has to kiss her.
He has to tell her.
She has to know.
She meets his rhythm with determination and Castle needs to bury every truth he has so deeply inside her that she understands. That there is no doubt about it.
He loves her.
"Beckett?" They rock slowly, suddenly, and her eyes open, lashes trembling and sending cascades of shadow out over her cheeks. He pushes himself up and kisses them, chasing the butterfly wings of darkness low on her jaw until he meets her lips.
What happens here is monumental and amazing and just the beginning of all the things he suddenly knows he wants for them.
She pants and opens to him, letting him sooth the indentations of her teeth in her succulent skin, her hips jerking in response as his vision starts to white out.
This isn't the first chapter of their story he promises, driving inside her, withdrawing slowly and sinking back in as she lowers herself to meet him at an agonizing pace.
This isn't the first line on a page smudged with words and what if's and mistakes, he swears, tracing his tongue over her lips, rising to meet her as she quakes above him, dragging their joined hands up her thighs and letting go only to wrap himself around her tighter.
He thrusts hard, calls her name and her eyes open. Glistening, green and brown and doused with flame.
He loves her.
"Kate?"
And this, this magical moment between them, this night, everything they've done together is the preface to so much more.
"Mmm." She smiles, short quivering circular movements twisting her around him. Hot and delicious and wet and fuck, fuck, together they are extraordinary and he has to tell her.
In the only way he knows how, right now.
He fists his hands in her hair, surges up hard so they both see nothing but stars and each other as they splinter apart in each others arms.
Eyes locked, lips brushing.
"Kate, it's not about the books anymore."