63. 65: Monday

65

She's on the computer when Alexis messages; Kate pushes off the couch and carries the laptop against her chest as she searches for Castle.

Not in the bedroom, the bathroom, not in Alexis's empty room, not-

The message goes off again and Kate glances down, bites her lip. She types one-handed, It's Kate; let me find your dad.

She slides open the glass door, steps outside onto the deck. "Castle?"

"Down here," comes his voice from the pool.

"Alexis messaged you."

"Ooh, hold on. I'm coming."

Kate hangs out there a moment, waiting on him with the laptop in her arms. When Castle gets to the top of the stairs, he's dripping wet, wiping a hand over his eyes. Her breath catches, entirely without warning, and she stares a moment, the water sliding over his shoulders and pooling arousal in her belly.

Again. Jeez.

"Let me dry off a little," he says, holding his hands up to ward her off as she fumbles the computer towards him, completely graceless, which is so not like her.

Castle rubs a towel over his head and she sucks in a breath, gets it together. When his head reappears, Castle dropping the towel over the wooden railing, he grabs the laptop from her and she stays rooted to the spot, trying to keep her hands to herself.

She really should. Right? She should keep her hands to herself.

He lays the laptop on the outdoor table so he can type, his back to her, his trunks clinging to his legs. She finds herself stepping closer, stops before she can touch him, puts a hand to her mouth to swallow it down.

Kate turns around and heads back through the sliding glass doors, cheeks flaming.

When Castle turns around, Kate is gone. He closes the laptop, hesitates on the deck, his bare feet burning on the wood. He shifts his weight to avoid the rough patches and scoops the computer up off the table.

Kate's not in the living room, so he deposits the laptop on the couch and heads for the bedroom.

She's there, lying on the bed with her chin on his pillow, reading a book, feet kicked up behind her.

"Computer's free if you want it," he says, smiling at her.

She avoids his eyes. "Thanks. I'm good."

"Want to swim?"

"Ah, no."

He feels something there, tension or aversion, something he doesn't like. "You want to do something else?"

She closes her book and he can see her bite her lip, draw a knee up to get her legs under her. She sits up and glances at him, and he can't read her face at all.

"Kate?"

She tosses the book off the bed and it hits the floor with a flop; he has no idea what's going or what that look is for and it's beginning to scare him. He thought everything was okay, more than okay, and she-

Kate stands up and comes to him, her fingertips brushing his sides, making him jump, and she lifts her mouth to his, her tongue painting his lips.

He breathes her in, swaying in relief, and his arms come around her. "What do you want to do? Anything, Kate. I'll do any-"

She kisses him again, a little rougher, her body coming up against his, her hands trailing at his sides, fingers dipping into his waistband. It makes his hips cant towards her and she hums, and then it hits him. What she wants to do.

He laughs into her mouth, snakes a hand up to curl in her hair. "We just did this," he murmurs, grinning against her cheek, brushing his lips down her jaw.

"You complaining, Castle?"

He laughs again and shakes his head. "Not at all. Anytime. You coulda-"

"Didn't want to interrupt you with Alexis-"

He pushes her back; she gets a knee up on the bed and smirks at him, fingers curling at at his shoulder blades. He watches her, wonders what that moment was - shyness or frustration or a sense of reservation he doesn't get (surely she wasn't ashamed of it, not Kate) - but she keeps grinning at him and tugs him down with her.

And then that moment of hesitation is gone and all that remains is this - the way she feels when she moves against him, her hands clever, her mouth at his.

Kate strokes away from him in the water, bobbing a little as a wave pushes her even farther. She laughs when he gets an arm around her waist, drags her back to him. He growls at her, biting at her shoulder; she curls towards him, pushing on his head with her palm but still laughing.

How is it that he can be both so annoying and so - damn - breath-taking at the same time? "Get off me, Castle-"

He gets his hands under her and hefts her up; she clutches at him, gasping, but he tosses her away. She sinks under the water with a splash and swims to the surface again, glaring at him.

He laughs at her. He looks sexy as hell and she has no idea why it's hit her like this, why she just wants to wrap herself around him-

"Uh-oh," he says, eyes growing comically wide. "I'm in for it."

She smirks at him to hide her flush of arousal, swims purposefully towards him, putting on an air like she knows exactly what her plan is - but she has no idea. She just knows she loves the way he plays, loves how he includes her in it, loves how he's come into her life and touched everything, messed with every carefully arranged piece, thrown her completely off kilter.

She loves it. She hates it, and she loves it, and she can't believe how much she wants it. Him. All of it.

How the hell did this happen to her?

Kate's feet hit a sand bar and she grins, pretends she's still treading water only a few inches from him. Castle is eyeing her, not moving away yet, but definitely wary. She steadies herself on the sand bar and then launches herself at him.

Her palms hit his shoulders and she bears down, forcing him under as he startles on a gasp. She draws her knees up as the momentum takes them down, pushes off of his chest with her feet just to shove him down a little more.

When she comes up for air, she's grinning, triumphant, thinking that will show him who's in charge here, but Castle isn't in front of her.

Her stomach drops and she moves to spin around, but she's too late.

Castle splashes out of the water behind her, grabs her waist and hauls her back down with him. She barely takes a breath before going under, feels his mouth coming over hers, opens her eyes in surprise to see him grin and then shove her off, heading for the surface again.

Kate swims up after him and then does what she's wanted to do all afternoon ever since they got in the water.

She wraps her legs around his waist, her arms at his neck and shoulders and squeezes, riding his back as she presses her mouth to his neck and sucks the salt from his skin.

He shivers hard, a hand coming up to wrap his fingers around her forearm, the other tangling in her hair.

Yeah, she doesn't care anymore. So what if she wants him all the time? So what if it's Rick Castle who annoys the crap out of her and fights with her about what kind of coffee they're drinking this morning and is always trying to invest some kind of meaning to every single moment even when it's just two people waking up in the same bed? So what?

She loves him. The idiot. The infuriating, beautiful, self-absorbed, tender man that he is. She loves him.

"Kate. Can we go back inside?" he whines into her mouth. "I want to do stuff to you that the fish shouldn't see."

She laughs and nibbles at his ear. "Only if you can carry me."