156. Fire

“Well, really! How rude of Richard!”

“What do you mean?”

“How dare he drag Jim into this? He seemed such a nice, cultured man the last time he came to dinner. Richard must have completely misrepresented the position to him for him to react like that.”

“Really? You’re totally unreal. You’ve been trying to interfere and interrupt, and Mr Beckett just told you why you shouldn’t. Weren’t you listening? He said that Detective Beckett didn’t want someone else trying to be like her mom. And you’re just playing dumb about what he said. He knows you tried to get round him by lying about wanting to invite him to your opening and so do I. He doesn’t want you to mess up whatever’s going on. He’s trying to sort things out and if that was me and Dad I’d hate it if someone else got in the middle of it, especially if they didn’t have any right.”

“Your father is my son, sweetie. I have every right. When you have children, you’ll understand that you’d do anything for them.”

“You’re upsetting him. Where does that fit in? Or do you get to upset him because you’re his mom?”

“Darling, it’s for his own good. He’ll be so much happier if Katherine comes here, and if we just all got together here, even by a teeny subterfuge, it’ll all happen quite naturally.”

Alexis loses her temper. “You’re not making it happen! The more you get in their faces the less likely it is she’ll ever come here! Why won’t you see you’re making it worse, not better? I want Dad to be happy just as much as you do but Detective Beckett’s never going to come here while you keep on like this. Why do you think you know best? You don’t know anything about what she thinks but Dad does, so why don’t you leave him to it?”

“Sweetie” –

“Don’t sweetie me, Grams! Just stop interfering. Just because you do life coaching for idiots who couldn’t find their ass with both hands” –

“Alexis!” –

“and who could be sorted out faster if you slapped them, you think you can cure ten years of alcoholic parent? You’re not a psychiatrist. Just let Dad and Detective Beckett sort it themselves. And don’t lie to me again! If you screw this up I’ll never, ever forgive you. You’re ruining our lives!”

Alexis runs out of breath, glares furiously at Grams, and dashes upstairs, slamming her door pointedly. Why can’t her Grams just butt out? Dad’s doing just fine by himself, and she sees exactly why Detective Beckett won’t come here.

“That was delicious,” Beckett says happily, stuffed with Georgian food washed down with Georgian wine.

“Mmm. C’mere.” Castle reaches lazily for her, and draws her in. “I want my dessert.” He smiles sleepily, and leans in slowly. “Mine,” he purrs darkly. “My Kat. Come here and be stroked.” She doesn’t seem to have much of a choice, since he’s trapped her in his arms, on his lap. He positions her to be perfectly accessible to his mouth and hands, and, when she’s angled to his complete satisfaction, produces a thoroughly predatory expression of total male desire, and invades her mouth. He tastes of shashlik and sweet, heavy wine. It’s intoxicating, and she’s very ready to drink it down. He’s undertaking leisurely, assertive exploration: sure that she’ll open for him, as she has; sure that she’ll let his tongue take her as she’ll let his body take her, as she will; simply sure of her as she is sure of him.

His firm hand slides down, caressing her jaw, flirting with her neck, palming the curves under the silky t-shirt and finding stiff points; dropping further to untuck the top from the band of the full skirt which has swished so enticingly all evening. She’d changed, before dinner. He loves her kick-ass garb at work, and he loves equally this softer form of dress, when she’s obviously relaxed and comfortable.

Of course, it has some other advantages. Having untucked her t-shirt, his wicked fingers wander down, pause playfully on her leg, and then draw erotic patterns which slowly slide the soft fabric of her skirt higher. His delightfully receptive Kat mews under his hard kiss, and melts into him. He nibbles teasingly around her jawline and round to tantalise the nerve under her ear which always makes her wriggle and squirm. Squirming means that her skirt rides up and his palm meets the warm, firm muscle of her thigh which deserves stroked. He smoothly slides over the satiny skin and she breathes a little deeper and runs her hands inside his opened shirt: a touch of the edge of her nails to fire him up.

His fingers meet the thin lace edging her panties, and skate over the soft material. She moves against his hand, his fingers measured and slow, wholly in control: he lays her out so that he can leave, oh so briefly, the damp heat and push her t-shirt up and off, over her head, and leave her in a wholly seductive – ohhhh, she knows exactly what he likes – crimson lace bra, almost see-through in its delicate tracery of pattern. He bends his head to lick a lasciviously wet stripe from clavicles straight down into her cleavage: his hand returning to cup her and his thumb pressing over the hard bud of nerve endings; she retaliates with evil, elegant grip sliding down his torso and finding hard thick arousal beneath.

Suddenly it’s not a game, no more teasing: he traps her hands in one of his and kisses her hard and deep and passionate, suddenly he’s wholly taken the lead and she surrenders to his mouth and his fingers taking her higher. She curves into his hand, fights for control of the kiss and is happy to lose the battle, snaps her hands free and hauls his head to hers, locking around his neck. He might be stronger, but she’s no weakling.

“Something you want? Someone you want?”

“You want me,” Beckett says smugly.

“And you want me, just as much,” Castle says, equally smugly. “So why, Detective, when there is a very large bed in my bedroom, are we still heavy petting on the couch?”

“Because you think you’re still seventeen?” Beckett snarks, pushes him away, escapes his grasp and makes it a whole four steps before he catches her.

“I assure you that no seventeen year old could make you feel like I will,” Castle rasps dangerously, capturing her before she can attain the bedroom. Beckett quirks an eyebrow at him, which turns to dark-eyed, slumberous desire as her skirt pools around her bare feet without her hands touching it. They can’t, being locked in Castle’s wide span and held against his chin, where he is currently sucking one finger with a filthy twining of tongue and an expression which says just you wait. His other hand is stroking over her panty-clad rear, with further forays into terrifyingly intimate territory. She’s pulled closer and closer, tattooed against his firm body and then opening against him to roll her heat over his hard weight. His palm keeps her tightly against him.

When he’s had his fill of grinding into the cradle of her hips, he lifts her so that she wraps legs around his waist and hands around his neck and carries her to drop her on her back in his bed where he simply falls over her: big, dangerous and wholly possessive.

“My Kat,” is all he says, and seizes her mouth. She’s ripping his shirt open as he does, barely leaving the buttons attached, shoves him back hard and whips the shirt off his shoulders as he’s forced to kneel up for the half-second it takes him to recover and repossess her lips. It doesn’t stop her attacking his belt and pants, forcing them down till he kicks them off. He recaptures her hands, pins them to the pillow by her head, and settles heavily between her legs, weight mostly on his elbows. All the while Beckett is fighting him for control of the kiss and trying to flip him over, but he’s as fired up as she is and he’s not giving up his dominance without a fight.

He switches up to be a little rougher, a fraction more forceful: to use the strength he knows she likes and, when she’s still trying to force his surrender, to lock her wrists above her head and start to reduce her to a melting, desperate mess.

“I’m no teen,” he growls, and nips her collarbone. “I’m a grown man.”

“So I notice,” Beckett purrs, and arches against his growth. “All grown up.”

“So are you,” he replies, as his lips move downward over some very grown up curves, and pause to explore them properly. She mews as he sucks and licks, and gasps when he adds a tiny bite: sharp sting swiftly soothed. She’s so responsive when he plays with her breasts: it’s so easy to arouse her and to fire her up, to make her soft, yielding Kat who’s happy and playful and loving and all his. He slips the dampened fabric of her bra from side to side, soft friction over her nipples, delicate seduction. He’s still trapping her hands, ensuring that the only person in the lead here is him. Quite-definitely-Kat is quite evidently happy with that. Something about the sexy little noises she’s emitting, and the flex of her lithe, beautiful body tells him that.

He lets go of her wrists and slithers down her form, kissing and nibbling as he goes, returning to undo her bra and slide it off, playing just a little more because he really cannot resist; and then slips back south.

“You liked that,” he rasps, “and you’re going to like this too. Strictly for grown-ups.”

Kat purrs, vibrating deep in her throat, as Castle licks a wet line over her stomach, down past her navel, over the pretty panties and through the centre of the fabric. She bucks and cries out under the erotic lash of his tongue, and he presses her hips back to the sheets, to continue whipping her on. He loves her taste; he loves the slick sensation of her skin against his mouth and tongue; he loves driving her wild and wanton and screaming his name; and that’s what he’s doing.

He doesn’t slip her panties off till she’s desperate: soaked and slippery; resettles at her core and she locks her legs around his back; her hands knotted in the sheets; wide open to him. He thrusts with his tongue and runs a pen-calloused thumb across her and she comes on a scream.

He slides back up the bed and, by the time she’s opened her eyes, is holding her in such a way that the next move is hers to make. She squirms across him so that he’s caught: trapped in her slick heat.

“Got you,” she says possessively.

“I thought I’d got you.”

“Nope. Mine.” She flops over him. “See?”

Castle rolls them over and pins her down again. “Mine.”

“That has no logic.”

“Yes, it does. You draped yourself on top of me and claimed that gave you ownership. So now I’m on top of you – and it feels really good – so I get ownership.”

Beckett makes a determined effort to flip them over again. Since Castle is using his considerably greater weight to stop her, and was prepared for her action, she fails.

“Mine,” he says very smugly. “See?” Beckett humphs. “You started it.” More humph. He shifts a little. Humph shifts to something a little more like ooohhh. Another tiny shift later, there’s a definite change of tone, and a determined wiggle. He wiggles a little in turn, and she moans very softly. “My Kat. All mine.”

“Prove it,” she purrs softly, and he thrusts once, hard, fills her completely, and couples it with a potent overpowering of her soft mouth.

And then there’s nothing but them.

“I need a shower.”

“Mmmm. I need to wash your back.”

“I’ve been washing my own back for a long time.”

“But it’s much nicer when I do it, isn’t it?” Castle’s palm rubs down her spine, and leaves excited little tingles as it goes. Beckett hums happily, and curves into the touch. He massages gently up and down her back, and listens to the contented sounds.

“Will you keep doing that in the shower?”

“Could do. If you were nice to me.”

“Nice to you how?” she husks.

“I’m sure you can think of a way.”

“Been visiting seedy clubs? That line came straight out of Vice.”

“I liked it,” Castle growls, and backs it up with a string of kisses down each vertebra, ending with a neat nip on her slim backside.

“No, you like what I might think up.”

“That too. But right now, I’d like it if we thought about it in the shower.”

Castle bounces off the bed, tugs Beckett into his arms, and swoops her off into the bathroom and the immense shower. Once there, he stands her up and turns the shower on. Fairly shortly, there is a mutual massaging of shower gel into each other’s skin; soft strokes and firmer touches, moving surreptitiously towards more intimate areas and then sliding away, reapproaching and sliding away, finally returning for slow, gliding grip and teasing thrusts. And then her hands move to his shoulders and his to hoist her up and hold her balanced against the shower wall and push slowly into her and feel and hear and see her pleasure rise and crest around him and then he takes his too.

Afterwards, when they’re dry again, Kat smiles sleepily, and puts on the same teeny-tiny babydoll that she’d had last night. Castle’s eyes flare, and he gathers her in. He’s simply there: big and muscular; her support as she – now – can be his. Somehow, some way, they fit together: each what the other needs. Two opposites, wholly attracted. She steps closer, and wraps her arms around him: petting him as he’s so often soothed her. They collapse on to the bed together, wriggle messily under the covers without actually losing contact with each other, and meet up again in the middle of the bed, warm, safe and perfectly content. Beckett nestles into the haven of Castle’s arm around her, her head on his chest and her arm over him; Castle tightens his clasp and buries his nose in her hair.

“We should do this more often,” he rumbles.

“I don’t get that much leave.”

“Not coming here – though that would be nice – just going to sleep together.”

“Mmm,” Beckett hums agreeably. “Mhm.” She nestles a little further. “Like it,” she mumbles sleepily, and then, “I’ll get there.” Her eyes drift shut, her mind quiet.

“I know,” Castle mumbles in sleepy turn. Shortly his grip loosens as he falls into slumber to the sound of Beckett’s soft breathing and her warmth over him.

Beckett wakes up not quite wrapped in and not quite detached. Perfectly positioned not to be broiled, in fact. However, being unbroiled, she could now usefully be quite a lot closer. That arranged, she wiggles hopefully and, despite the fact that Castle has not actually opened his eyes and is still snoring softly, elicits a very pleasant response. Perfect. She rubs a little more, and still without opening his eyes but with a definite lack of snore Castle cages her in his arms, spread over him, and pulls her down to be firmly kissed. She infers remarkably rapidly that he’s very pleased to wake up with her. Very pleased. Pleased swiftly turns into mutual pleasure turns into cuddled-up post-coital closeness.

“I like it here,” Beckett murmurs.

“Here as in my bed, or here as in the Hamptons?”

“Both,” she answers, and curls against him to point at least one moral.

“I like it too, but we can’t stay here for ever.”

There is a tiny, disappointed growl. “I know. I don’t really want to, but… sometimes it’s just easier to see when you’re somewhere else.”

“Thought you’d done your thinking?”

“Yes. But I still need to work out whether we do dinner with Dad and Alexis or whether we do it with Alexis at yours and how you make your mother stay away.”

“Short of shooting her?”

“It’s an option.”

“Get in line,” Castle says, with only a hint of an edge. Beckett snickers. “I’ll think of a way if I have to. Maybe your dad’s straightened up his thinking by now.” He ponders for a second. “I wonder how it all went.”

Beckett groans. “I wasn’t thinking about that. I was nice and warm and comfy and now you’ve spoiled it.” She flumps unhappily on to the pillows and away from Castle, who doesn’t appreciate it.

“Come back. I wanna be nice and warm and comfy and that means you here.” He tugs, and she is perforce returned. “We’ll work it out. Let’s see what happens” – he pauses – “tomorrow. C’mon. Breakfast.”

“Let go, then.”

“Why?”

“You said breakfast.”

“Mmmm. I did, didn’t I? I didn’t mean bagels, though.” His voice is deep and wicked as he draws her up his body to his mouth. “I meant you.”

Breakfast in bed is thoroughly satisfactory, on both parts. It is followed by breakfast in the kitchen, which is less physical but more nutritious.

Unfortunately, on looking out of the window, the weather is not playing nice. It’s raining, and it’s cold. Walks along the beach are not indicated. Castle bounces off to put the fire on instead.

“A lovely real fire, Beckett, to keep us cosy. We can watch a movie or read or write – well, I can write and you can read” –

“Who’s doing the ‘rithmetic?”

Castle guffaws, swings her round and up and kisses her soundly, and plops her down again. “You can. I don’t like math.”

“Okay. My arithmetic tells me that we have ten hours left.”

Castle makes a face. “I don’t like your arithmetic,” he pouts. “I’ve got a better idea. Be an astrophysicist.”

“Huh?”

“That way you can invent time slips and we can stay here as long as we like and go back to the right time when we’re done.”

“I think you’ve been reading too much Harry Potter. There are no such things as Time Turners.”

Castle pouts some more, which is cute. Beckett resists any urge to kiss it, however. If he once gets the idea that he can disarm her by pouting she’ll never be able to stop him doing all sorts of insane things. She manages a roll of the eyes, instead. It takes her considerable effort.

“Let’s watch a movie.”

They find a generic action movie and snuggle down to watch it. That takes them till lunchtime, for which they picnic on cold game pie and reheated Georgian leftovers. The rain continues to pour down, depressingly. Another action movie is located.

“Let’s work out where to go for dinner if Dad behaves himself,” Beckett says, half way through another set piece faked fight.

“Um…” Castle says doubtfully. He has lots of ideas, but only if he’s paying. He thinks that only a reasonably smart restaurant will keep Jim in moderate check, and those run expensive. He also doesn’t want to say this. Beckett has been notably unkeen on letting him pay for meals lately, which is simply not fair because he likes buying her meals just like he likes giving everyone presents. He’d like to give her other things. Jewellery. Specifically, a ring. But that’s not for now. He hopes, though, that it’s a lot closer than he’d thought a month or so ago.

“I thought you knew every restaurant in Manhattan?”

“I do.” He pouts. “You won’t let me pay, though.”

“We’re back to this? We’ll go Dutch. Okay?”

Castle doesn’t think that’s okay at all, but it’s the best deal he’s likely to get. “Okay,” he grouses. “But I still think you’re being unreasonable.” Beckett glares.   “O-kay. Dutch.”

A short argument later an Italian restaurant called Po has been selected. Apparently it has very discreet waiting staff and good food. Both may be required.