A/N: Just as fair warning: this chapter skirts the edges of an M rating, but as this is about as racy as it gets, I'm not changing the fic rating. Thanks!

Eleven

"Oh my god I couldn't stand it!" Kate Beckett groaned when she felt the hands of her partner skim down her back and land on her ass. Using the lapels of his jacket for leverage, she spun them around so she was able to kick the door to her apartment shut with the tip of her boot. With this task complete, she pounced on his lips once more.

"I know."

"I really thought I was just going to explode." She pushed her hands underneath his jacket and began to slide it off his shoulders. He assisted by wiggling his arms and letting the item slide down. When it landed with a plop, his hands were back on her—roaming, caressing.

"I know."

By that point they had backed their way to the couch. Kate dragged him around to the front and pressed on each of his shoulders with her index and middle fingers. He sat down so hard it made the sofa squeak, but she didn't notice. She reached down and unzipped each boot before kicking the items across the room. Once sock-footed, she climbed on the couch and straddled his lap as he asked, "Who schedules a staff meeting at four o'clock on Friday anyway?"

"Right?" She proclaimed, her fingertips shooting directly for the buttons on his shirt. "I wasn't even paying attention."

His hands mirrored her actions. "Nope."

"All I could think about was your face."

His hands momentarily dropped as he eyed her curiously. With a heavy exhale he asked, "My face?"

She looked up at him with a devious expression. As she rolled her hips against his she informed him, "Yeah. In between my thighs."

"Jesus Beckett." Castle let out a groan as he lifted his hips off the couch to meet hers. She let out a low chuckle before covering his mouth with hers again, skimming her tongue against his. With this fresh reminder, Castle pulled back and said, "For the record I couldn't stop thinking about your mouth today."

She popped the final button on his shirt and ripped it open. "My mouth?"

"Yeah. When you were interrogating that guy. So fucking hot." He moaned when he felt her tongue skimming down his neck, stopping just at the edge of his under t-shirt.

She threw her head back, tossing her hair, wild and long, out of her face. She squeezed her knees a bit tighter around his hips and ground her pelvis down against his. God damn, he was already hard and ready for her, but she wasn't done having fun yet. "You like it when I interrogate, Castle?"

"So much," he mumbled, his brain barely functioning due to lack of blood flow. "So very much."

During the course of their three months of partnership with benefits (as Kate liked to think of it) she had learned many ways in which to please and torture her partner. Many, many ways.

After fifteen more minutes of tortuously slow undressing and teases from lips and fingertips, Castle was flat on his back on Kate's sofa as she rode him, her fingertips clawing into his shoulders a bit harder with each moan. Castle gazed up at her bouncing breasts and pleasure filled expression fully knowing she might very well kill him one day with those amazingly talented hips of hers. Literally, she might be the death of him and he was okay with that; what a way to go.

A few minutes later, both of them sated, she collapsed forward and rested her head on his shoulder. Still breathing heavy, he wrapped his arms around her back and pulled her in close, breathing in the cherry-vanilla scent of her hair and shutting his eyes tightly to reflect on what his life had become.

In the prior three months—ever since the untimely death of one of their colleges—things had certainly changed at the NYPD's twelfth precinct. McCreary had a new partner: a boring, by-the-book rookie whom he hated. Of course, Castle and Kate found great amusement in this. As she put it, it served McCreary right for being such an insufferable douche bag.

To add insult to McCreary's injury, he had also, for the most part, lost his only remaining friend at the precinct: Castle. True, Castle was still friendly with McCreary while they were at the office or on shared cases (despite Kate voicing that for the life of her she couldn't understand why) but they never spent any time outside of work together. Not anymore; all of Castle's free time was spent with Kate.

Initially, Castle feared his transition from just partners to more than partners with Kate would blow up in his face. Granted, in his mind's eye, he saw them fighting over something work-related, ending their sexual relationship, and having to stare awkwardly at each other across their neighboring desks until one of them could be transferred. Fortunately, this did not occur; the opposite did.

Somehow, spending time together outside of work only made their partnership at work stronger. They finished each other's thoughts more than ever. They were in sync both on the case and off, much to the envy of some of their coworkers (McCreary included, as his case closure rate had dropped significantly with the loss of Anderson.)

When they arrived at the one year anniversary of their partnership, Castle and Kate found themselves faced with another surprise. As I turned out, their coworkers had placed bets on how long their partnership would last. Many had guessed in the several month range at the most due to their bickering and Kate's history of brief partnerships. Only Anderson had bet they'd last over a year and, sadly, he wasn't around to celebrate his win.

Once they finished work that day, the partners celebrated their own way: in bed. (Well, technically they celebrated first on Kate's kitchen table, but then they moved to the bedroom.) They laughed and reminisced over their first day together and the threat she had made to him. She smiled and explained it away by saying she was a serious career woman and he had a reputation for being a loose cannon, but he knew her words had been just another way of protecting herself.

Kate had walls around her; there was no doubt about that. Fortunately, Castle had trenched several tunnels beneath them and thrown a rope bridge over the top. The more time they spent together, the lower her defenses became and the more often she laughed and smiled. Castle loved seeing her smile and hearing her melodious laugh; he viewed each occurrence as a personal triumph.

That autumn evening Kate and Castle's post-coital silenced was breached by the rather loud growling of his stomach, which made both of them laugh. Kate pushed herself upright and reached for her shirt as she stood. "Where do you want to order from? We can have it delivered."

"Nah," Castle said, scooping up his jeans and t-shirt. "I'll go pick it up."

"You don't have to."

"But it'll be faster and I'm hungry—clearly." He added with a laugh. Then, he told her to pick the place as he walked to her bathroom to clean up and redress.

Kate pulled on her panties and shirt, but made no other attempt to redress before walking into the kitchen. She opened her "drawer of menus" and began to rummage. What was she in the mood for? Italian was always a good choice, but she'd already had that this week. She and Castle had Thai on Wednesday and pizza for lunch on Monday and Thursday. "How about Chinese?" Kate called out to her companion.

"Works for me," he responded. "You want your usual chicken thing?"

"Yep."

"'kay; be back soon." As he walked out through the kitchen, he pressed a kiss onto the side of her head. She smiled as she watched him go. Only when she heard the door shut tightly she walk back to her bedroom to change into yoga pants and a sweatshirt. Unfortunately, it was getting to the time of the year when it was too cold to sit around the apartment in skimpy attire. As much as she would miss summer, she did look forward to the beautiful colors and crisp air of autumn; it was her favorite season.

Rummaging through her closet, Kate pulled on the first sweatshirt-looking textile she found only to discover it was vastly oversized for her. Confused, she stared down at it. Yep, this was her NYPD logo pull-over, but how had it doubled in sized?! Oh, she realized; it belonged to her partner.

Oh.

Was he leaving clothes at her place now? She wasn't sure she was alright with that. How long had this been going on, anyway?

Kate thought back to the last time he had been wearing the item. She decided it must have been the unusually cold weekend earlier in the month. That was also the weekend she had gone into a laundry frenzy and she must have gathered the item up by mistake. Shrugging to herself, she reached her hands down to the hem of the item, meaning to pull it off, but then she stopped. She kind of…liked it. It was large and cozy and faintly smelled at him. Maybe she would keep wearing it for that evening. After all, she already had it on, but she would return it to him after that; she didn't need to keep any of his clothes.

Walking back to the kitchen to set up for dinner, Kate thought about Castle. Three months—they had been sleeping together for three months. Three months, two weeks and day if she wanted to get technical—not that she was keeping track or anything. Honestly, she had to admit being a bit surprised by the duration of their partners-with-benefits relationship thus far.

In Castle's bedroom on their second night together, Kate softly explained to her colleague that she was not looking for anything serious, least of all a boyfriend. All she was looking for, quite bluntly, was someone with whom she could have sex. She didn't want dates; she didn't want commitment. Dinners together were fine as was spending the night on occasion, but nothing more.

Castle was visibly stunned by her comments, though he ultimately agreed to her terms. She sensed some hesitation in him, though, and figured after a few weeks their get-togethers might die off and that had almost been the case.

A little over a month after they started, Castle went on a week-long vacation with his daughter. During that time, he had very little communication with her save a few text message including one which included a picture of an ice cream shop with the name Beckett. She didn't mind this; he was spending time with his daughter and did not need to be thinking about work and thus her, but when he returned things were weird between them—really weird.

During his first few days back there was an atypical amount of silence between them as they rode in their squad car or sat at their desks. The first day she understood; he was tired and getting back into a routine, but as time went on she wondered if he had decided to end their couplings and simply didn't know how to tell her. If during his time away he'd wised up and realized something casual wasn't what he really wanted.

Kate wasn't sure how she felt about this. If that was his decision, she would respect it, but she couldn't help but feel disappointed and curious as to whether something specific had happened to change his mind. Her uncertainty led to tension between them and, four days after his return, they had a disagreement over an outlandish theory he cooked up to explain a victim's peculiar past. This led to an argument and, ultimately, heated makeup sex in a secluded precinct janitorial closet.

Ever since, they'd spent two to three nights a week together, depending on their caseload or Castle's schedule with his daughter. Kate preferred for their activities to take place at her apartment instead of his as she was not one hundred percent comfortable having sex with him while Alexis was around, but that was not always possible. If they had to meet at Castle's, Kate liked to wait until Alexis went to bed to go over. This was not to say she disliked the girl. She had dinner with the father and daughter duo twice over the summer and enjoyed each occasion, but she also wanted to be slightly surreptitious so his daughter did not catch on to what they were doing.

Thirty five minutes after he left Castle returned with their meal less the egg roll he ate on the walk back. They sat across from each other at her kitchen table as they sipped on wine and divided up their food. As they ate, they discussed their staff meeting from that evening and the refreshment on protocols neither of them felt they needed.

When they finished, Castle assisted Kate in the cleaning up process and removed a full garbage bag from her apartment. Upon returning, he found Kate at the kitchen sink washing dishes. He walked up behind her, slipped his hands around her waist and kissed the back of her neck. "You know," he began deeply into her ear, "Alexis is at a sleepover tonight."

"Is she?"

"Mmhmm." He slid his hand beneath the sweatshirt she wore and up the front of her body until he reached her breasts. There, he discovered she wore no bra; perfect. "I could stay a little while if you want."

Kate shook her hands into the sink to rid them of excess water. Then she spun around in his embraced as smiled up at him mischievously. "Well, that sounds good because I don't think I'm done with you yet." With that, she stood on her toes and covered his mouth with hers.