144. Body talk

Beckett is barely inside the door before her coat is removed from her and unceremoniously dumped. Castle doesn’t wait to close the door before he’s crashed on to her lips and crushed her into him. Since she has been expecting something fairly similar since she stepped out the car, she is not surprised. She kicks her door shut as she opens under Castle’s assault and surrenders to his possession without a single hesitation. He’s hard, forceful and a little rough: wholly in charge and not inclined to brook any resistance to his absolute need to take her mouth. The power of his possession leaves her reeling: sends her soft and melting into muscular masculinity. She’s not frightened by his forcefulness: never scared by his strength, or the bulk that covers and envelops her; it’s simply Castle who loves her and who she loves in return; Castle who’s the stability and strength she never sought and never knew she needed. Castle who found Kat and lets Beckett stand down.

Castle who needs soft, open Kat right now. She gives way completely and lets him take her mouth as he pleases, wholly open to his plundering: wholly in the moment with him. It’s not as if he hasn’t been there to give her exactly what she needs, and in fact, he may need this more than she right now, but she needs it too.

His hand presses her into him: wide span covering most of her back; the other knotted in her hair and holding her head slanted for total access to her ready mouth: his arousal hard against her and his earlier rage all diverted and converted into raging heat and desire. His Kat in his arms under his mouth and against his body. The hand over her back slides down over her rear, then rises beneath her now-untucked shirt to scald his palm print into her skin. Her fingers run into the soft short hair of his nape: not preventing him from any movement he wishes. He lifts from her lips to pull her head back and open her throat to his determined kiss, moving down to the pulse beating frantically, only just stopping himself nipping and sucking and leaving a mark to prove his possession, his right. Not there. Not somewhere anyone could see, and draw conclusions. But elsewhere… unseen.

He rips her soft t-shirt off over her head and lets it fall where it may, roughly suckling her breasts, nipping through fabric and then stripping the simple bra to leave her naked to him above the waist, bent backwards to give him freedom to plunder, ravage, raid and conquer: to force the gasps and moans and sounds of pleasure from her; to grip with hard hands on satin-smooth skin, to take her and have her and keep her – his.

He doesn’t stop kissing her as he walks her to the bedroom, doesn’t stop holding her hard against him, doesn’t loosen the firm grip on waist and neck: she doesn’t stop the heated responsiveness that drives him up, to drive her up. He moulds and palms, still a little hard and rough; pushes her down on to the bed and strips the rest of her clothing. She tries to pull him down to her: one long leg curling around his waist and tugging, but he won’t be tugged: it’s all in his gift and he will touch and tease and play and take as he pleases.

Not a single word has passed between them since the front door opened. Breath falls heavy on the air: harsh noises of need and want and desire, the sounds of flesh on flesh and finally of culmination.

Castle doesn’t let go of his Kat, who isn’t letting go of him. That had very little to do with love, and much to do with anger and hurt – from both of them, against the whole situation. Raw need and anger is explosive, but now that the explosion has passed, they’re still both locked together. He strokes her back, she pets his shoulder; her head tucked into his neck, breathing him in as he breathes in the scent of her hair; legs tangled. The quiet becomes peaceful.

“We need to talk about my mother,” Castle eventually, reluctantly, says.

“Yeah.” Beckett is equally unenthusiastic.

“Burke asked me if he could help.”

“Oh.”

“I don’t think so. Even if you said he could explain to her – and I’m not asking you to – she’d just take it as a challenge. Succeed where the top shrink failed.”

“Top shrink?”

“Didn’t you know? I looked him up. He might be the biggest pain in the ass since Vlad practised impalement, but he’s the best there is.”

“Doesn’t make me like him,” Beckett says unkindly.

“You don’t have to. I don’t have to. But he’s the best. So I guess we just have to put up with the attitude.”

Beckett considers that. There is a brief aura of sulkiness.

“You’re right.”

“Uh?”

“Telling your mother anything more won’t help.”

“No. Anyway, he suggested that I keep her away from you till after Tuesday’s session. He seems to think everything’s going pretty well.”

“Really?”

“Really really. I think so too. If we can deal with Mother. Got any good ideas?”

“Is locking her up in Holding out of the question?”

“Not necessarily,” Castle says gloomily. “Maybe I could bribe Ryan to take her to the theatre? He does that sometimes.”

“Yeah, with women around his own age and the hope of getting lucky.”

“I do not need that picture in my head.”

“Which one?”

“Ryan and Mother.”

“Eurgh. Nor did I.”

“Like the octopuses.”

“I don’t want to know about the octopuses.”

“It was a bit disgusting. It was still wriggling. And the presenter ate it alive and just said ‘That was an experience’ totally deadpan.”

“I. Do. Not. Want. To. Know. About. The. Octopuses.”

“Okaaaayyy. No octopuses.” He sighs. “I’d rather think about the octopuses than my mother, though.”

“Surely I can avoid her?”

“You can. I have to go home. Alexis – who’s not asking any questions and is being really mature about this – oh, she was yelling that she liked you at Mother” – Beckett makes a strangulated er-glurp-what? noise into Castle’s neck, which sounds like he imagines a choking vampire might – “needs me there.”

“Yep.” Beckett sounds more than a little wistful.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologise,” she says forcefully. “Don’t ever apologise to me because you’re a good father. None of this is your fault. Just because my dad fell apart on me doesn’t mean you have to apologise for being better. Just don’t.”   She collapses inward against him.

Castle pets mechanically, until she recovers. His neck is suspiciously damp, but he doesn’t comment on that.

“So what do we do about your mother?”

“Hide. Or emigrate.”

“I’ve got a better plan. Don’t you have some pal somewhere who could call her for an audition – in LA?”

“No, unfortunately. Maybe I should cultivate some.”

“So what are we going to do?”

“I don’t know. If she keeps pushing I’m going to do something that I’ll regret ten seconds later, but it’ll be too late. I can’t stay out the loft all the time, and I don’t see why I should. It’s my home, and I’m not disrupting Alexis because of Mother.”

“We only have to get through the next four days. Surely we can manage that?”

Castle doesn’t say anything. Beckett nuzzles at his neck, and then drops a tiny, undemanding kiss there. He continues to say nothing, breath falling heavily on the air. He’s devoid of good ideas, and the ideas he does have are all illegal or immoral. Sending his mother to a spa (again) won’t work – he can’t make her go without kidnapping her; he can’t have her arrested because crimes against fashion don’t give grounds; he can’t have her committed because despite all best efforts she is not actually insane. Though he might be, shortly.

“I don’t know,” he says unhappily, and pulls her closer. “I just don’t know.”

“Unless…” Beckett says very doubtfully, “…unless…”

“Unless what?”

“If Dad told them the truth? Well, some of it. A bit. Enough for them to understand or, in your mother’s case, just step back. Without me being there.”

“Uh?”

“If Dad gave them a sort-of-bowdlerised” –

“Love the words.”

“Focus – version of the truth. Not the whole story. Just… enough.” She sounds utterly uncertain. Castle strokes up and down her slim back.

“That’s… that might actually work. Like when he talked to Mrs Berowitz.”

“She didn’t listen.”

“No,” says Castle, stopped for a moment. “But Alexis will, and it might just be enough because Mother adores her and if Alexis really lays into Mother it might just work.”

“You think it might work?”

“I don’t really know. But we don’t have any other ideas, and we can manage till Sunday – it’s only tomorrow – and ask your dad then. He was pretty cross.”

“Maybe run it by Dr Burke on Tuesday, if Dad’s okay with it.”

Castle becomes diverted. “How on earth did she find out his number? As far as I know Mother can’t even switch on a computer.”

“Alexis was asking him about being a lawyer. He probably said who he’s with. She would” – but Castle cuts her off.

“If Mother is dragging Alexis into this I am not having it. I think I need to have a chat with Alexis – I’m not angry with her, but I need to warn her that Mother’s overstepping and not to get drawn in. Ugh,” he adds.

“Yeah.” There is silence.

“Um…” Beckett says after a while. “Maybe after Tuesday… maybe we can start thinking about other steps. If Sunday goes well.   Sometime. Take another step. But not here. I can’t do here. Out somewhere.”

Castle does not entirely follow. A number of key words seem to be missing. Such as what other things might be. And where they might take place, and who might be involved. He waits, to see if anything is clearer.

“Yeah?” he says hopefully after a moment or two. “What were you thinking?”

“If it’s all still okay after next week, maybe the next thing is for you and me and Dad and Alexis to have a meal somewhere? Try to move it along another step? But not with your mother. I can’t – I don’t think I can deal with her trying to mother me or second-guess Dr Burke. I’ll lose it and walk out and it’ll all be a disaster. We’ll be back to square one.”

“You really wanna do that?” He’s dumbfounded. That’s… well, huge. Even somewhere that isn’t one of their apartments, that’s huge.

“Yeah… maybe. Let’s see.” She still sounds totally uncertain, and she’s trying to wriggle away. Castle is not having that. He tugs gently. “Come back.”

Beckett cuddles back down into his shoulder and slings an arm over the other side. “Let’s not think about it any more,” she murmurs.

“What should we think about?”

“No thinking. I’m tired of thinking.”

“Are you?” Castle purrs darkly. He’s tired of thinking too. He’d like to do some touching and feeling, with no thought required at all. His hand wanders down her spine and lands up on a curved rear, which wiggles and presses into him.

“Mmmm.”

“Good. So’m I.”

He pulls her up from his shoulder and kisses her. Or she kisses him. Or maybe they both kiss each other. Whatever. Her hands are round his face, cradling him; his roam seductively over her, slipping into damp arousal and finding heated response. She squirms over him, quite deliberately rubbing against each hard inch: he’s holding her too close for her naughty hands to slide down but that hasn’t stopped her doing what she can, and what she can do is an awful lot. She’s open across him and his fingers have complete freedom and she’s hot and wet and slippery and his as he takes her with his hand and feels her tight around his fingers, small inner muscles already quivering; she’s raiding his mouth but then he rolls them and rises over her and thrusts home just once and stops. He simply wants to feel her, as close as they can possibly be: mouths and bodies joined and entwined: two made one flesh. She bites firm long fingers into his back: pulls him close and arches to him and they start to move in harmony and then there’s only them.

After a long time of cuddling together and a sensual joint shower later, Castle realises that he has to go home. He leaves on a slow, leisurely and loving kiss: the final thing he wanted in order to calm his ruffled soul and roiled temper; and slips into his loft and bedroom without disturbing a single mote of dust.

Castle doesn’t exactly want to have this discussion with Alexis. However, he has to. However again, he certainly doesn’t have to have it in the loft, and in fact on mature reflection it would be far better to go out to a café for breakfast without the risk of any interruptions.

He locates Alexis, still a touch sleepy and dishevelled, and informs her that he thinks a father-daughter bonding breakfast would be an excellent plan. A few moments later, they’re wandering into Amelia’s, neatly early and therefore missing the Saturday morning rush.

“What’s this about, Dad?”

Castle takes a draught of his coffee before answering.

“Did Grams talk to you about Detective Beckett’s father?”

“Oh, yes. She liked him. She said he was cultured and mature. She asked me to look up his phone number for her” – that explains a lot – “as she thought he’d like to know about her off-Broadway show.”

“I see.”

“She’s not trying to hit on him, is she?”

“Alexis!”

“What, Dad? Grams is” – she blushes – “indiscriminate.”

“You shouldn’t be saying that.”

“I totally hope she isn’t hitting on Mr Beckett. That would be embarrassing.”

“No. She wasn’t.”

Castle’s heavily annoyed tone registers with Alexis.

“Dad, what’s going on?”

“Grams is interfering with Detective Beckett.”

“I know that.”

“She and her father are having brunch on Sunday, for the first time in a while. Grams wanted Mr Beckett’s number to find out where they were having brunch on Sunday and interrupt it.”

“What! That’s totally out of order. She lied to me!”

Alexis, teen-like, appears far more offended that she has been lied to than the mayhem that would have ensued had his mother turned up at the brunch.

“I need you to keep Grams out of trouble. If she upsets Detective Beckett then Beckett’s likely to be very angry with her, and I don’t think Grams understands just how bad that would be for her. So, pumpkin, I want you to be very careful about what you tell Grams for the next few days.”

“She’s being sneaky, you mean. She’s not being fair.”

“She means well,” Castle says rather weakly.

“If she messes up I’ll never forgive her,” Alexis declares very over-dramatically. “I like Detective Beckett. I want to see her again.”

“If you just wait and let her deal with everything in her own time I’m sure you will.”

“Promise?”

“I can’t make promises for someone else, pumpkin. You know that.”

“Mom,” says Alexis bitterly.

“Yeah. Well. I can’t make promises for Detective Beckett. I told you as much as I could about what’s going on. She’s trying. This brunch is part of that. Don’t interfere, please? She knows what she’s doing. I’m trusting you to behave better than Grams is.”

“I won’t,” comes indignantly. “But I wish it wasn’t happening. It’s not like I mind you being out more than you’re in, but if she could just come here…”

“It’s not that she doesn’t like you.” Castle says, before this can turn into Doesn’t she like me, why not and other unhelpful teen reactions. “Half the reason she’s really trying is because this has nothing to do with you, and she doesn’t want it to spill over to you. She wasn’t ever unhappy with you. She’s been unhappy with me, but we’re fine now.”

“Try to keep it that way, Dad.”

Castle regards Alexis very paternally. “My business, Alexis.” She looks pathetically at him, by which he has painfully learned not to be swayed. “Cute, but no cigar.”

“Smoking is bad for you,” Alexis says very sanctimoniously, and then dissolves in giggles. “Worth a try.   I didn’t expect it to work. Can I have some more pancakes, Dad?”

Castle growls in a fearsomely threatening manner which has not the slightest effect on Alexis at all, and then orders more pancakes and coffee. Conversation turns to ways of staying out of the way of Martha, and from there to Alexis deciding to go off to a friend’s for the day and Castle starting to look up distractions and diversions.

Of course, the best distraction or diversion would be going to Beckett’s apartment and arranging a day out with Beckett, or indeed a day in with Beckett. In meaning in bed. However, he’ll see her tomorrow. So maybe a little space, rather than suffocating her. He consults his phone for a while after Alexis has bounced off and finds an exhibition that (one) looks interesting and (two) is right at the other end of Manhattan. The Cloisters will do just nicely, and he’ll even get the slow train to waste some more time.

The Pictures Generation is indeed interesting, though Castle isn’t sure he can make it last all day. Still, if he has a snack in the café, and wanders round the museum itself, by the time he gets home it’ll be dinner time and his mother will not be able to do any more damage before tomorrow.

Probably.

Beckett spends Saturday domestically tidying, cleaning and shopping. None of these tedious chores require assistance, nor would any half-way sane person wish to assist. Not, at any rate, if they wished the bed to remain neat and clothes to remain in closets or on persons. It doesn’t stop her thinking about Castle, but she’ll see him tomorrow, and she has a slight feeling that they do need some time apart occasionally. Not too much, but some. Eventually she settles down with a book and occupies herself until dinner and then, later, bedtime. Along the way, however, she plots the next in her now-a-series of seductive Georgian dinners and frets about the Sunday brunch to come.

Maybe if she simply talks about ordinary things. The news. Maybe not sordid murders, but the use of a community service order to train recruits. Her dad would have appreciated that, once upon a time. Whether he’s been to the theatre or exhibitions. How his work is going. That sort of thing. Ordinary family gossip. And if all else fails Castle can talk about his writing – which come to think of it she’s not heard anything at all about.   Hm. She probably ought to know a bit about what he’s saying about her. Especially given that comment about using first O’Leary and then Dr Burke. Hm. Hmmmmm.

She falls asleep thinking of the interesting possibilities for O’Leary to arrest Dr Burke. All ridiculous, but it makes her smile. Just as well, since her sleep is fractured, limited, and unrestful.