This story is completely AU. So everything you already know about these characters and this show is wrong. I'm basically borrowing these characters for my own version of their love story.

Is a disclaimer necessary? If I were Milmar you all would get every Caskett wish you ever wanted! :)

Chapter 7

Dressed in a skintight pair of skinny jeans and a black lace top Kate slid her coat off before approaching his door. She wanted to make sure that she made a lasting impression tonight. If he was going away for a few days she wanted to make sure that he really did have Kate Beckett on his mind. She knocked on the door and stood there patiently. When the door flung open, Rick let out a gasp as his jaw dropped…

"Kate, wow. You look beautiful." He took a step back, clearing the doorway so that she could come in.

She had dressed this way on purpose and she knew that her outfit might have this affect on him, but it didn't keep her from blushing at his compliment. She walked in passing him and meeting his eyes as she did. He noticed the smirk on her face and he grabbed her arm pulling her back to him. They stood face to face as he slowly tilted his head to the side, placing a light kiss on her cheek, and then whispering into her ear… "mmmmmmm… cherries."

She ran her hand up his side pulling him in closer and partially hugging him as she whispered back "don't push your luck if you're trying to get a good night kiss Mr. Castle."

Pulling back slowly his eyes were focused on her lips, so she took her bottom lip in dragging her top teeth over it. He tilted his head to the side as he looked back up at her eyes, acknowledging that he knew she was a tease. Which brought a little bout of laughter from both of them.

"Daddy, I'm hungry.." an impatient voice came from the other room.

Castle nodded toward the kitchen, so that Kate would follow him.

"Well, it's almost done baby girl."

"What's on the menu for tonight, ." Beckett asked.

"Chicken parmesan, I hope you eat meat, and pasta."

"I might be a model, but when it comes to food, I love all of it." She responded, rubbing her belly.

Kate approached the bar and pointed to the seat next to were Alexis was sitting with her crayons and coloring book.

"Can I sit here?"

Alexis' eyes flew to Kate and then she spun the chair out for Kate.

"Wanna color with me?" Alexis asked enthusiastically as she flipped the page in her coloring book and tore it out for Kate to color.

"Of course." Kate said as she slid onto the barstool, pulling the paper from the little girls hand and placing it down in front of her.

Rick couldn't help but smile at their interaction, he knew Kate was younger and didn't exactly know how she felt about Alexis. He did give Kate credit for showing up and not running. Women were great at running from him once they found out about Alexis, and that he had sole custody. It wasn't that he tried to hide Alexis from anyone, but he did feel like it was his job to shield her from the very public life he had. He made sure never to talk about her in interviews and if she did go to anything job related she had to stay in the back. He felt the further away he kept her from that life the better off she would be.

Kate and Alexis sat quietly and colored while Rick finished up dinner. When everything was ready and the table was set he told both the girls to have a seat at the dining room table. They left their pictures on the bar to join him.

"Gosh, Rick this looks and smells amazing."

"I told you it was a make up dinner for regretfully not calling like I said I would."

"Well if it taste as good as it smells then all is forgiven and we can move forward… So what are you going out of town for?" Kate asked, switching the subject.

"I have a few business meetings in Chicago. It will just be three days, which wont be too bad, right squirt.." He said, poking Alexis in the side, showing her a little bit of attention so she wouldn't feel left out.

"I'm staying with Gram. Right, Daddy?"

"Wow Lex, Im sure you're excited to be staying three whole days with your Gram, huh?" Kate asked and the little girl nodded her head excitedly. Her mouth full of pasta and a little sauce spread over her cheeks.

She finished chewing, swallowed and let out a sigh.

"Daddy always goes away, but I do love staying with my Gram, she lets me stay up late." Alexis eyed her dad out of the corner of her vision, but made sure not to make eye contact. Rick let out a shocked response, he was clearly hamming it up for his daughter and it was adorable.

"I always loved when my parents would leave me with my grandparents when I was little. They would spoil me rotten and let me eat as much ice cream as I wanted."

"My Gram lets me do that too." Alexis gave Kate a big smile.

After dinner Rick took Alexis upstairs to get her ready for bed while Kate nursed a glass of wine on the couch. She heard the stairs squeak as he started down them and she watched as he walked towards her. She felt butterflies every time she saw him and she couldn't contain her smile. The feeling was different than anything she had ever felt for Josh. Sure she had loved Josh and those feelings were completely different from what she was feeling now, but she assumed that this might be what lusting for someone felt like. The attraction was there, both of them knew it, and neither of them were afraid of it. Rick walked over to the couch with his glass of wine in hand and plopped down as close as he could to her.

"You don't know how nice it is to have you alone." He said gripping the leg that she had pulled up on the couch and placing it over his lap. She took the liberty of pulling her other leg over as well. "Not that I don't love watching you with Alexis, but I cant have her stealing you away from me." He teased.

"Yeah, I think she likes me." Kate joked as she lifted her glass to her mouth and took a sip. He watched as she lowered the cup back down and swallowed.

Not being able to control himself… "Everything about you is so sexy."

"Well that's pretty forward…" Kate giggled. "and how is drinking wine sexy?"

"It's not that you're drinking wine, it's everything about how you move." He was infatuated and she beginning to realize that he liked her as much as she liked him, if not more.

"Well, I think you're pretty sexy too, especially watching you with Alexis. I was intimidated by it at first, but now I think that you use her as bait? Am I right?"

"I'm not baiting anything. I've never introduced Alexis to a woman I'm seeing before. Besides Gina, which we weren't really dating, and Alexis had no clue that anything was going on."

Kate almost spit her drink out at Ricks confession about his and Gina's fling. She knew that there was something there when Gina first asked Kate about the job, but she never really thought much about it after.

"Listen, Rick… I don't really know what we're doing, or where this might go…" She paused taking a second to think about how she was going to do this. "Look, I really like you, and I don't know why I'm saying this out loud because it's so unlike me, but you just make me feel like I can tell you anything, and I hope that I can, because I need to tell you something before this… whatever this is, goes any further." She looked down into the glass of wine, scared to look him in the eye. She felt his hand on her chin as he raised her eyes to his.

"Kate, you can tell me anything."

"Gina hired me to date you…" She blurted it out before she even had a chance to think about it anymore.

Ricks hand left her chin and he retreated back into his own territory immediately.

"Wait, what?" he was confused and she could tell he was in shock at her admission.

"Listen, after I actually met you I told her that I didn't want her job. I told her I liked you. I just can't lie to you about it anymore, it really has been eating me up inside. After the last few days of not seeing, or talking to you I realized that I might actually have feelings for you. I knew that I couldn't continue to see you without telling you. I didn't really plan for it to happen like this, but you know…" Kate's eyes were everywhere but on his and she nervously ran her hand through her hair repetitively.

Rick lifted her legs from his lap and stood up. He started to pace a little bit silently as Kate watched.

"I think you should go.." he wasn't angry but she could hear the hurt in his voice.

"Now, Kate… I think you should go now."

Kate stood and her heart was pounding so fast she thought he might be able to hear it.

"Rick, don't do this. I…. I'm being honest with you. Would you rather me have gone on seeing you without telling you this. Maybe I should have lied, I'm so stupid. Why didn't I keep my mouth shut?" Now she was pacing frantically, she looked up to see him frozen in place staring at her.

"You're right… I'm glad you told me, and I'm glad that being honest with me was a priority to you." He was rubbing his forehead with his pointer finger and thumb trying to give himself time to think.

Eventually, after sorting his thoughts he looked back up at Kate who was staring down at her hands fiddling with a string on her shirt. He took a step towards her and pulled her into a hug.

"I do appreciate the honesty, but I think I need the whole story before I make any decisions." He was giving her a chance to explain and really that's all she could ask for at this point. She knew that he might react this way, but honestly she didn't come here planning to tell him like this. She thought she would have more time, but seeing him tonight she knew that she couldn't continue to do this without letting him know the truth.

They sat back down on the couch and Kate told him the whole story from beginning to end. Not skipping any details, and even throwing in a few cute remarks about how he gave her butterflies the first time she saw him.

"If I could go back, Castle, I wouldn't change it, because I wouldn't have met you at all, and I know that this is only our third 'date' if you want to call it that, but I'm not ready for this to be over, and I think that if we can make it past this, well…. we might actually have a shot at something down the road." She gave him a shrug and a shy smile reaching for his hand.

He took her hand in his, intertwining their fingers and playing with her hand while he sat there contemplating his next move and wondering what he should do.

"I really like you Kate, and I agree, I think that we could have a shot at something in the future, and maybe I want to give you the benefit of the doubt and just pretend that none of that ever happened."

"Can we? Do you think you can put it behind you and forget about it, because if you don't think you can then I don't think we should waste our time. I don't want this to be something that comes back to haunt me or us in the future." she responded nervously, not knowing where he was going with all of this.

"I think I can, and I think that we have something special… You know, before I met you I told Gina that I wanted to be single for a year… That was all of two weeks ago maybe, and now you're here, with me, on my couch and I haven't been this happy to sit next to someone on my couch since… well, maybe, ever."

She leaned into his chest, wrapping her arm around the front of his body and nuzzling into his side. "Yeah, I think I like this." She said as she squeezed him.

He wrapped his right arm around her shoulders and pulled her in tighter.

"You're kinda squishy."

She slapped his chest and he let out a laugh.

"SQUISHY? You can't call a girl squishy." She sat up, her hand traveling up his chest and over his shoulder. She felt it click in her body and she needed to be closer to him. So she allowed her fingers to travel up and into the back of his hair, pulling him in close and kissing him passionately.

Just moments ago she was afraid that he was going to end it all and now she was throwing one of her legs over his lap to straddle him. She pressed her chest into his as she deepened the kiss. He took both of his hands and placed them on her hips pulling her down tighter into his lap. They feverishly made out for a few minutes until they both needed to breathe.

"That was….." he started

"EVERYTHING" she finished as she placed another kiss on his cheek and started to pepper his jaw with small kisses.

She pulled back and she could see the lust in his eyes, they were dark and she could tell that his attraction was turning into something more. She pulled her leg back over and plopped down on her bottom, keeping them close together by leaning into his side.

"Yeah it's probably best that you aren't straddling me, I don't know that I could contain myself much longer, and I'm trying really hard to be a gentleman right now."

"Yeah, I figures as much when your hands started to pull back after barely making contact wit my bum."

"I was shocked, and maybe a little nervous that if I let myself touch that I wouldn't be able to refrain from touching more.." he threw his head to the side, in a partial shrug suggesting that things might have gotten out of hand if he would have let his hands roam anymore.

"No chance that would have happened tonight anyway." She admitted.

"Oh, no, I didn't mean it like that. I was never expecting anything to happen like that."

"Look, Rick, I'm not a prude or anything but I also want it to be special. I'm a romantic that way." She was being more open than she thought possible. He was someone that she had grown to trust so quickly, and she wasn't afraid of him, or of telling him exactly how she felt. It was refreshing, and it felt so natural to both of them.

"I want this to be special too, and if and when it does happen I can promise you that it will be everything you want it to be, and on your terms." He promised.

They cuddled on the couch for a bit longer before Kate started to yawn.

"I think I should probably go.." She motioned toward the door.

"You don't have to. No funny business, but I would love to have a little spoon to cuddle with tonight." He smirked at her motioning away from the door and towards his bedroom.

"You'll be a gentleman, right?" she asked.

"as promised." He replied.

He stood, reaching his hand out for hers and pulling her behind him towards his room. As they entered his bedroom her eyes began to wonder. She took in everything from his curtains to the art. He had clearly hired a decorator and it was perfect.

He opened the drawers of his chest and pulled out a pair of boxers and a white shirt and handed them to her and shoved her in the direction of the bathroom. She took the hint and went to get changed. When she returned he was already under the covers waiting for her. He pulled the blanket back and patted the bed, she jumped in and cuddled in close. She thought maybe she was acting a little too excited, but she couldn't contain it, she was happy, and it was all because of him. He adjusted himself and pulled her in close, kissing the top of her head. Before long they were both fast asleep.

I just felt like writing, and then I couldn't stop. This is really helpful at relieving stress.

I finally got the whole situation out of the way, she was honest about it which I feel like is something that he should appreciate, even if he was shocked.

Hope you're enjoying !