Happy (hopefully not overly angsty) Castle Monday!
#9 Steamed Up
Castle finds her in the break room, in front of the espresso machine. He leans against the doorframe for just a moment, watches her. It is often during these trivial moments that it strikes him most. How indescribably beautiful she is. Long legs and lithe arms, her hair cascading over her shoulders like liquid gold. How his heart somersaults when she is near. How extraordinary she truly is, and so unassuming; not even aware how she knocks everybody she meets for a loop. How much he loves her.
She clears out the old coffee grounds, then refills the metal filter basket with fresh coffee and tamps the grounds until they are compressed tightly. With swift and efficient movements, she reattaches the basket to the brew group, flips the switch and the familiar thumping sounds of bar pressure building within the machine fill the silence.
He almost always makes her coffee when he is at the precinct, and yet she has come to master the espresso machine. He isn't surprised but he wonders when, wonders if she had to during one of their summers apart, and the thought stabs, like it always does.
He is surprised she hasn't noticed him yet. Then again, maybe she is just not acknowledging him on purpose. She is used to his staring- oh that makes him sound creepy.
Kate waits for the espresso shot to extract, reaches for the milk and then a cappuccino mug.
She pauses, watches her coffee while she starts rotating her neck. She groans, encountering stiff muscles, and curves her hands over each of her shoulders. He observes for a moment as she drops her head, digs her fingertips into the flesh of her neck and the top of her shoulders, winces audibly.
That's all it takes, her visible, audible pain, for him to move, to walk up behind her. It aches him to see her hurt; he can't not try to help her in some way. He doesn't even think about the boundary he is crossing until he frames her narrow shoulders with his broad palms.
"Let me," he murmurs behind her and she stiffens under his touch. He freezes.
They usually don't touch. Not like this. They avoid too much contact; its implications are too dangerous, too tempting, and they both know it. And so they circle around each other, drawn to each other like moths to the flame until the brightness blinds them and they fear that they'll get burned.
But- Here they are. And he realizes that he fears the fire dying down more now than he fears getting burned.
"Relax," he whispers next to her ear, and feels her shiver against his hands. The heat of her skin seeps through her clothes, into his palms, tingles up his arms, the answering flutter strong inside his chest. He catches himself, draws a deep breath, focuses.
Castle begins by slowly stroking his hands along her shoulders, up her neck and down to her shoulder blades, then back. Repeats the motion a few times with only slight pressure to warm her muscles underneath. Finally she relaxes, allows her shoulders to slump under his hands, her muscles to slacken.
Moving back up, he starts kneading the flesh of her shoulders. Adding strength now, he digs his fingers and thumbs into her skin, seeking out pressure points and stiff areas. Her muscles are very tight, all her stress bound up into hard painful knots. He isn't surprised that she is as stiffened, given her intense and demanding job, but he worries about how much pain she might feel from it every day. He wants to fix that.
He would do this for her every day if only she let him.
He works on the knots, presses and circles them, trying to get them to loosen and more blood flow restored. She drops her head forward, giving him better access. Her fingers are clamped against the counter, knuckles turning white whenever he hits a particularly sore spot. And yet she arches her back toward his movements, seeking out the pressure he adds to her bound up muscles.
He focuses on her reactions, letting her body tell him where she needs a specific stroke, but he quickly realizes how dangerous that approach is. Because now he can also hear her more vividly, the sounds she makes as he touches her. That peculiar combination of winces and groans, hissing mixed with moans. Dark sounds racing up her throat that should not be arousing but they are. Because he is touching her, touching her, and she is moaning and writhing under his fingertips.
His body heat climbs several degrees and he concentrates on the various ways he can use his fingers and palms to give her relief- No not that, just from her pain, relief from her pain. He breathes, focuses, tries to recall all the common points of women's back pains that he has once researched.
He climbs his fingers up her spine, digs them into the soft tissue underneath her skull and she groans again, slumps forward so that her back is now a concave bow against his chest. He has to slightly fold his body over hers to still be able to reach her neck.
Her scent lifts off her skin and enfolds him, draws him to her, subtle but ever so tantalizing.
He pushes, probes, presses against the tense hard muscle strands of her neck, and she moans.
"Oh god Castle," she murmurs on a sigh; his name is hoarse on her tongue and he's convinced that she is barely aware that she is even speaking intelligible words.
"Don't ever stop doing that."
It shocks him to immobility, for just a second, until he reminds himself that she is hardly coherent. And yet, and yet-
He wants to give her everything she could ever ask for. Wants it so badly that he aches for it, a strong insistent tug inside of him that pulls him ever closer to the woman currently cradled underneath him.
He renews his ministrations against her skin and scalp, running his fingertips along her tender, warm, enticing skin, while he leans forward, his face, his mouth close to the shell of her ear.
"I won't ever stop," he murmurs.
She stills in his arms, stops breathing, her whole body tenses under him.
"Breathe," he nudges her with almost a smile, reminding her as much as himself.
And she does; sucks a deep breath into her lungs as if her entire system needed a restart. Then she turns around. He almost loses his balance, perched as he was over her back, and quickly wraps an arm around her waist, holding on.
She straightens in his grasp, looks at him, her eyes wide and luminous, an almost translucent amber that shimmers with the depths of emotion.
"Never?" She whispers, hesitant and hopeful both. Her fingers rest lightly against his chest, right on top of his racing heartbeat.
Oh Kate. He feels as if his heart will burst out of his chest at any moment now. He hangs on to her with weakened limbs and heated, racing blood. Pulls her tighter against him, laces his other hand through her hair. And he smiles at her, smiles because she is so incredibly precious, and she is in his arms, warm and pliable, looking hopeful and desirous and expectant.
"Never," he assures her, cradles her cheek in his palm, the fingers of his other hand against her spine, pressing her to him. He will never stop loving her.
"Never."
She smiles, that soft, utterly breathtaking smile of hers and he frames her chin, tugs her closer to his mouth.
"Castle," she whispers, her eyes fluttering close on the word, and his knees go weak. He tilts forward the rest of the way, and covers her lips with his.
Her mouth is warm and pliable, inviting him in, and she tastes like sunshine and sugar when he dips inside. Their tongues meet, and suddenly it's fast, hot and needy, and he explores her mouth, delves deeper and she meets him, just as urgently, as passionately. She moans and the sound ripples through him, boils his blood while she clings to him, her fingers clenched into the fabric of his shirt, her other arm laced around his neck, keeping him close.
A loud knock against the glass startles them; they jump apart, turn toward the door in unison, breathing heavily. The grinning teasing faces of Ryan, Esposito, and two other detectives greet them, holding up their empty coffee cups.
Castle turns back to her, an apology on his lips for pouncing on her at the precinct, but instead she rests her forehead against his chest, and she laughs, a sound so happy and free that makes his heart leap all over again. He tilts up her face by her chin, aching to see her smile like that.
Then he drops another kiss to her lips, sweet and languid, for all the world to see.
"Let me make you some coffee," he smiles at her, ghosting his fingers along her cheek.
"Yours got cold."
End of Scene