Chapter 3: 1x07, Home Is Where The Heart Stops

Do you mind? I'm trying to concentrate.

Beckett's in a really, really bad mood. Castle has, so far, spent the day watching her jaw get more and more set. It's cute.

The last straw comes when Mitchell alibis out and they can't shake it. She mutters something under her breath that suspiciously like the word his mother washed his mouth out with soap for saying when he was ten, but before he can say anything to her, she stalks out of the bullpen, leaving him to gape, because this is not something he's used to seeing from her.

Esposito tells him she's probably gone to blow off steam in the shooting range. The writer in him perks up. Shooting range? Good setting for a scene – the intimacy and warmth of the quiet togetherness, juxtaposed sharply with the mechanics of guns, spiced up with the element of danger. Perfect. Sexy.

He walks in to find her in a shooting stall, ear protectors and goggles in place, pistol in hand, blasting the daylights out of a target, and yeah. Maybe it's from watching Bond movies, maybe it's just intrinsic, but she's already hot when she's pissed off and she's even hotter with a gun.

And she's ripe for the irritating, so he bounds in cheerfully. He has her anger redirected at himself in record time (he's gotten really good at it recently). So she hands him the gun and tells him to try it himself.

He can't help but laugh. Beckett, who he is relatively sure has read all his books, apparently doesn't understand that learning to shoot was one of the first things he did when he started writing crime novels. Okay then.

And surprise surprise, she thinks he's an idiot. He's about to fix his stance and show her that he knows exactly how to handle a gun (and a few other things), but then he feels her hands on him, impatient and disdainful and light and soft and if he'd known this was all it took to get Kate Beckett to press her body against his and feel him up (or that it would have sent this sort of tingle through his body), he'd have played a fool weeks ago. Teach me, Beckett. Teach me real good.

He's enjoying it far too much, particularly the way her chest brushes against his arm, when his finger tenses and the gun goes off, the bullet ricocheting and missing the target by a mile.

"Oops. Shot too soon." Not something he wants Kate thinking he does on a regular basis.

"Yeah, well, we could always just cuddle, Castle."

He is delighted, because she's smiling and teasing and flirty and coy and right here next to him in this tiny little cubicle and he's half tempted to set the gun down and proceed to demonstrate just how much patience he has with a beautiful woman – oh, does it sound like fun – but his ears perk up when she offers a deal.

He wants photos; so she says hit the target and you can have them.

Really?

Okay then.

Without a word, he squares back up, sights the silhouette, and sends all three rounds straight through the heart.

Mouth open in shock, she turns back to him, whipping off her ear guards and safety glasses, silently demanding an explanation. Castle just grins. She's even hotter when she's flustered.

"You're a very good teacher."

Her mouth twists in annoyance, and in the split second her body tenses up, Castle has the brief epiphany that maybe annoying her while she's busy shooting things was not his brightest idea today.

"You – you son of a bitch! What the hell is wrong with you?" she hisses, her eyes narrow, body poised and coiled like she's about to attack. Castle instinctively tries to step back, but the wall of the shooting cubicle blocks his progress. Not good.

"I – thought – it seemed therapeutic for you," he answers lamely, and really, could he be any stupider?

Of course she doesn't buy it for a second. "You creepy – perverted – man!" She's gritting her teeth, unconsciously backing him into the wall, her glare like ice, and wow is she hot right now but he doesn't think this is really the time to point it out.

"I just thought you were here to blow off some steam. Thought it might help."

She pokes one finger into his chest sharply. "Don't ever try a stunt like that again."

He feigns innocence, eyes open wide, because he knows it drives her crazy. And for some reason, he's feeling particularly reckless right now. "Like what, Detective?"

"Playing dumb? Tricking me into feeling you up? I'm not stupid, Castle."

He ignores the death glare. "You weren't shy, either."

At that, her face tightens into the darkest scowl she's ever given him, and she plants her hands on his chest and shoves him back against the wall, where he hits with a startled oof, and before he can put up his hands to protect himself, she's on him in a flash, her mouth on his, savage and rough and territorial.

She's ferocious and pissed off and hot and biting and shit he likes it. Her fingers press hard into his chest and she's blocking his airway but then she slams his shoulders back harder against the wall and her tongue pushes his lips apart and sweeps a hot, wet path through his mouth and he's utterly lost. He lets out a helpless noise as she bites his upper lip, her tongue swiping over it roughly before letting it go, the sting warming under the heat of her angry mouth.

And then she's gone, and he blindly tries to follow her lips. Because damn. But her hand is flat against his chest, holding him back, keeping him at arm's length from the red mouth that just completely undid him till all he can think right now is more.

Satisfied he's staying put (for once), she leans in, her lips an inch away from his ear, and he swallows hard at the heat of her breath on his neck, the press of her chest against his, the heady scent coming off her skin. All he has to do is lean forward, just a bit – her throat is right there, so soft and pale and tempting and that is exactly where his lips need to be right now and he could just pull her closer and hook her leg around his thigh and slip his hands under that thin little shirt of hers and there's no one else down here and if she really does need to blow off steam, all they have to do is –

He's in over his head.

Her lips brush his ear. This needs to happen more often. Like every day.

"If you ever try to play that game again, Mr. Castle, I will be using you for target practice next time. And be aware that the head and the heart are not the only parts of your anatomy I can hit."

He's too incoherent for speech, so he mostly just blinks and stares as she steps back, shoots him a last look that's somewhere between I hate you and I'm going to pin you against that wall again, grabs her gun, and saunters out without a backward glance.

The shooting range really is a good place to blow off steam.

He needs to follow her here a lot more often.