7. Seven: Saturday

Seven

Actually, she felt like getting out today.

With him. Of course with him. But out of the loft. Into the sun and the warmth, wear a sundress and sandals, eat brunch at a cafe on the sidewalk, smile at him out in the open, flirt shamelessly with her eyes hidden behind her sunglasses.

But he's writing.

And it's probably her fault.

She has to keep her hands to herself though. She's already interrupted him once this morning when she came into the bedroom with his coffee and innocently enough set it down on the bedside table. Her hand may or may not have brushed his thigh, her fingers may or may not have curled in along the bare skin just below the edge of his boxers.

She definitely kissed him. But the rest - he was the instigator. Yes. That's her story and she's sticking to it.

Kate prowls his loft, careful to avoid the spaces that seem to be claimed by Alexis or his mother, searching cabinets and drawers idly and without real purpose. She finds a stack of unopened mail in the console table, wonders for a moment if she should hand it over, remind him, but leaves it there.

She passes him in the study on the way to his bedroom. (Yes, she keeps thinking our bedroom but that's only because she's been here so many days in a row and really, it's not a statement about - okay, maybe it is. A little. A lot. It's a statement her heart is making without her knowledge.)

Her clothes and his are in scattered piles on the floor of his walk-in closet; she nudges them with a toe and debates, for the first time, what exactly she might be wearing tomorrow or the next day. When she packed a bag, it looks like her statement-making heart wasn't thinking too far ahead.

She's got no clean clothes left. Even today, she's wearing a tshirt of Alexis's and her jeans from that first night, a little stiff with dried rain, the bottoms muddy.

Kate eyes the pile of clothes and then quickly strips off her pants, dumping them on the floor as well, then turns for the dresser and pulls out a clean pair of his boxers. Green alien heads on a black background. Her lips flirt with a smile and she slides them on, tries so very hard not to think about taking them off again. Her or him.

She starts piling her clothes up, paying attention to the shirts because she knows she brought a couple of blouses that will need special care and then hang up to dry, and in the middle of this, her fingers catch on one of his tshirts, one she wore a few days ago and then had to shuck rather quickly-

Oh, well, she should do his stuff too, right? All at once. Makes more sense. Plus she likes that shirt. It's a little too small for him now and it fits her nicely. She should appropriate it. She grins to herself as she wonders how he'd feel about her stealing his clothes.

Kate grabs a pile of stuff and eases out of the bedroom, her eyes glancing to him in the study. His fingers work the keyboard, light and quick, his eyes trained on the screen. He doesn't even notice her, or if he does, it's only a quick glance in her direction that registers no details.

She escapes to the living room, bypasses the kitchen for his laundry room, opens the door to the rich-smelling scents of fabric softener and clean clothes. She dumps her pile in the floor and opens the door of his front-loading washing machine.

Oh jeez. It just hit her.

She's doing Richard Castle's laundry.

He's not sure what brings him back. He's been adrift in his own mind, his own universe, the world of his creation, but something tugs him back like a rope pulling a boat slowly towards the dock. When his craft bumps the wood piling and he looks up, the study is orange and red with late afternoon light and his daughter is standing in the doorway, waiting on her father to emerge.

"Writing coma?" she asks with a grin.

"Yeah. Sorry. What's up?" He wants to ask, Where's Kate?, but that's not a fair question.

"Did you - I came home just now and Kate - did you tell Kate to do our laundry?"

He startles so hard the laptop slips from his fingers; he makes a quick grab for it, heart pounding, and sets it on the floor.

Alexis is chuckling. "I guess that's a no?"

"She's doing what?"

"I mean, Dad, it's all yours really, none of mine, which I guess I appreciate since she'd have to go in my closet-"

"She's doing laundry? Oh. Wait. All her clothes - everything was dirty." He rubs at the bridge of his nose. "I'm sure she's just doing her clothes."

"And yours," Alexis says softly. "Your shirts. Don't you dry clean those?"

He stares down at his daughter, then walks swiftly out of the study to go find Kate.

Why is she doing his laundry?

Kate opens the cabinet door and glances through the various cleaning products. The washer and dryer in the loft are a luxury; she's actually enjoying this. Kate's used to sharing machines with her whole floor, fighting over the dryer, feeding quarters into the slots, and never being able to get anything done because the only time she has available for laundry is midnight or one in the morning when no one is supposed to be using the laundry room.

She just spent all afternoon doing laundry and didn't come back to find her stuff dumped in the floor and someone else's load in the dryer. She was lazy and took her time with it, letting herself get lost in a few chapters of Castle's book before getting up to change loads, or eating her entire lunch before getting his boxers out of the dryer.

She found the rest of his stuff in a hamper in the closet and since she was already doing this, since Castle was holed up in his study writing, she just -

Did his laundry.

Alexis got home a few minutes ago, didn't say much, and went looking for her dad. But when the two of them come out of the study, Kate glances up from the dining room table where she's laid everything out, separating her underwear from the tangle of his.

"Kate?"

"You get enough done?" she asks, smiling at him.

He stops still in the middle of the living room as if stunned, gives a look to his daughter. Kate feels that flicker of wariness undermining her, battles it back. She keeps the smile on her face and tries not to feel like she's being ganged up on.

"Looks like you definitely got enough done," he says, coming forward again. "Kate. What are you doing?"

"All my clothes were dirty," she says, immediately defensive. She takes a step backward, but fights that too, stands her ground as he comes closer.

"So you . . .did mine?"

"It was there."

"Kate, you don't have to do my laundry."

"I know that," she says in a huff, rolling her eyes at him and batting his hands away. "You think I'd ever do anything I don't want to do?"

He tilts his head on a grin and some of her unease melts. "Good point." And then his smile grows wider and his hands come up to frame her waist, pull her in. "Does that mean you wanted to do my laundry?"

She sighs at him, insufferable man, but leans in to smudge the smirk off his lips with her kiss. "Not exactly. But close."

His eyes range over the pile of clean clothes half-folded over the table. "You have fun pawing through my underwear?"

"I have been," she murmurs throatily. "But it's not so much fun without you in them-"

He cuts her off with a hot kiss, his teeth at her bottom lip and pressing hard into her mouth.

When Kate comes back to reality, the feel of his chest against hers, his arms tight around her, she realizes Alexis has disappeared somewhere and Castle has her backed up against the table, laundry pushed to one side.

"Being domestic turns you on?" she says with a laugh, knowing that the heat staining her cheeks rats her out.

"You being you turns me on." He shakes his head at her and backs up, his hand falling down to her waist, his eyes glancing around for his daughter. His body eases a little when he sees she's gone, but his gaze slides back to Kate, hot and hungry.

He comes in close and instead of another devastating kiss, he slides his mouth along her jaw lightly, softly, his breath a sigh in her ear. His body leans in suddenly against hers.

"Castle?" she whispers, curling her hands at his cheeks in concern.

"Don't do anything you don't want to do, Kate. I don't want you to make yourself into something you're not just to-"

She gentles his words with a stroke of her thumb and a lingering kiss, wet and warm. She doens't know how to say this any differently than she already has. She doesn't need her job; she just needs him.

"Rick. Unless you're looking to do something with that tiger, I think I'm good."

His laugh startles out of him, rich and deep, his hands clutching her waist. "You know that's not what I'm talking about."

She smiles slyly against his mouth and kisses him again. "Mm, but that's what you should be talking about. The rest of this, Castle, doesn't change you and me."

He takes a long sighing breath and wraps both his arms around her, suddenly downshifting their touch to a hug. But it feels good too, like he's okay again, like his mind has stopped throwing out worst-case scenarios.

"Maybe you should do laundry in just my cooking apron. Then we can talk about tigers-"

She tweaks his ear and tries to suppress her laugh. "Always ruining the moment, Castle. Jeez."

"You started it. Talking about that tiger. Now all I can think about is where I can handcuff you-"

She growls into his ear and bites at it. "Who says I'm the one getting handcuffed?"

The remark about the handcuffs made his eyes go dark and then hazy, as if he was somewhere else. And then she lost him to Nikki.

And she's not even jealous.

Okay, she's slightly jealous.

Still, when Alexis came downstairs and made some kind of comment about how she didn't know when Kate was getting any sleep with all these naps going on, Kate realized she looks pretty grim. Standing in front of his bathroom mirror now, she can see that yes, she needs some sleep.

Actual sleep. Not just sleeping together.

Dark circles stain her eyes, her cheeks; the livid fingerprints of the sniper necklace her throat. She's sure the bruise on her back looks worse too, because she can feel it every time she moves. Her shoulders are stiff again after doing laundry, the repetitive motion, and now she really could sleep. The need has fizzled out into a hum that vibrates in her blood but it's not quite as sharp as when he kissed her in the dining room.

And Castle needs to write.

When he's reassured that she actually is going to nap, a real one, he settles in with his laptop again, Alexis back upstairs with a snack and her phone. Kate slides into his bed and sinks down into his sheets, her body beginning a litany of complaints that she's just begun to listen to.

She wakes confused and in darkness, her right shoulder throbbing, her legs stiff. Kate pushes up with a hand to the mattress, tries to orient herself. When she checks the time, it hasn't been that long since she lay down, and she's not tired.

She's entirely the opposite of tired, and it's nearly four in the afternoon and she can still hear his fingers on the keys all the way from the study.

Okay, there's only so much she can take.

Kate slips out of bed and stumbles to the bathroom, waking up a little as she goes through the motions. She washes her hands, her face, scrubs the paleness out of her cheeks. She brushes her teeth and checks out her reflection. She does look better, even if the bruises are dark spots marring her skin.

Time to find Castle. Put a stop to this.

She haunts the edge of the doorway to his study for a moment, watching the rapt expression on his face, faintly surprised that she knows it's the same look he has when he hovers over her in bed, concentration and devotion and that intense way he has, building up the moment, the suspense.

Her chest expands with warmth and she slinks inside, wearing only the tshirt and boxers from this morning. When she's standing in front of him, she reaches out and skates her fingers along his temple, back into his hair.

His eyes dart up to her, back down to his screen.

"Castle, if you don't want to lose it, better save your work."

His fingers hit the keyboard shortcut almost automatically it seems, because he's frowning up at her in adorable confusion. "Kate?"

"It's saved?"

"Uh." He glances back down, does it again, a roll of his hand across the keys, and this time Kate watches the screen to make sure.

Then she closes the lid and takes the laptop away from him.

"Kate," he breathes out, his stunned eyes meeting hers as she sets it carefully on the desk.

She puts a knee to one side of his hip, her body swaying into his. She opens her mouth and lets her lips trail along his cheek, down his jaw. His hands come to her waist, clutching, fingers digging tightly. She lifts her other knee to straddle him and sinks down into his lap.

His breath jerks out against her neck and she grins against his skin, licks the corner of his eye only to feel his lids slam shut and his body lean towards hers.

"Rick, I haven't made love to you since this morning," she murmurs.

"Oh shit," he groans.

"That is entirely too long." She rocks her hips into him and he slides his hands under her shirt, pulls her against him. "Don't make me wait any more."

"Kate, oh Kate-"

"You trying to make me beg?"

He growls and his mouth claims hers, brutal, instinctive, and this, finally, this is the man who yelled at her last year and again a few days ago, this is the man who insists on her life, on her having a life. This is the Rick Castle who, wounded by her silence, made her suffer for it these last few months.

This is the man she needs to make it up to, and the man she needs to make pay.