213. Kisses for me

“Home,” Beckett says happily.

Castle pouts, adorably, as she moves out of reach. Beckett refuses to adore it, on principle. If she once starts adoring the pout, she’ll be lost. Instead, she rolls her eyes, follows up with a raised eyebrow, and lets Castle’s pout slide away. When it’s gone, by which time the kettle is on (she doesn’t need to ask) and her shoes are off, she saunters back to him and kisses the no-longer-protruding lip.

“Feeling better now?”

“Mm,” Castle says doubtfully. “I guess. I think it’s better.”

“It couldn’t have got worse,” Beckett points out. “And you got everything out there in fewer weeks than I managed years.” She sounds a tad bitter, under the matter-of-fact tone.

Castle hugs her. “Only because you made me pull my head out my ass,” he says. “If you hadn’t – most unkindly, Miss Beckett – threatened me with the ghastly spectre of being marched off to Burke in handcuffs – though I have no idea how you think you’d manage that ‘cause I’m much bigger than you – I would just have carried on.”

“I could put you in handcuffs if I had to,” she says crossly. “We’re trained to do it.”

“Really?” Castle says conversationally.

On balance, that was a mistake. Yes, he is much bigger than Beckett. Yes, when prepared for it he is capable of stopping her moving him. Unfortunately, on this occasion she moves so quickly that he is neither prepared nor has any chance of stopping her: at least, not without breaking either his arm or (far less likely) breaking Beckett, which latter would be highly undesirable.

She sits down on the couch, smirking nastily, and surveys Castle, currently prone on the floor with his hands cuffed behind his back.

“You were saying?” she adds smugly, which is just plain mean.

Castle laboriously levers himself to sitting up on the floor, and scowls. “That wasn’t fair,” he grumps.

“You said you didn’t think I could do it. I proved I could. What’s unfair about that?” She watches his contortions with some amusement. “Are you going to admit you were wrong?”

He glares, and grumps, and grouses. Beckett makes the coffee, and returns.

“Yeah, okay,” he says. “I was wrong.” She unlocks him. On balance, that was probably a mistake on her part. Castle catches her by surprise and traps her in one swift movement. “Got you,” he says with satisfaction.

“Mm?” she hums. “So? What were you planning to do with me?”

“Oh, so many things, my dear Detective. Starting with disposing of these handcuffs so that you can’t use them on me again.” He tosses them well out of reach. They don’t need handcuffs – especially not standard police issue. Not cool, and on the basis of immediate personal experience, also not at all comfortable. He takes some care not to let his mischievous Beckett-bundle escape. Not that she seems to be trying to escape.

He manoeuvres them to standing, and celebrates this success with a prolonged and assertive raid on her mouth, accompanied by an assertive clasping into him. Protests are conspicuous by their absence. Instead, Beckett’s hands slide up around his neck, her lithe frame curves softly into him, and she succumbs. It’s precisely what he needs. He stops kissing for a moment, and simply buries his face against her hair, keeping her close: standing with her physically as, earlier, she’d made it clear that she stood with him against his troubles.

The moment of peace is ended when she nips at his earlobe and then kisses the nerve below it in an entirely seductive fashion. Castle ceases to be concerned about the evening’s events, decides that he’s done all he can to fix matters with his mother and that he need no longer feel in any way guilty about her decisions, and retaliates at speed and with some considerable further assertion of strength, culminating in hoisting Beckett up and transporting her to her bedroom. Protests, in the form of surprised squeaks, are swiftly silenced by hot hard kisses.

Castle keeps Beckett very tightly against him, devouring her mouth and pressing her into him so that he can hold and take as he chooses. He’s wholly sure of himself: possessive and passionate: losing himself in the certainty that this is his Beckett, or Kate, or Kat: his love and his future and his family-to-be. She’s soft and responsive and as into him as he is into her: soft but not – never – submissive; pleased to be purring and to follow his lead.

He slackens his grip to allow some freedom of movement, sliding one hand up to cup her cheek and one to cradle around her back: still kissing, less assertive and more seductive, fingers stroking, and then flittering downwards to meet the hollow of her throat, the vee of her shirt, the topmost button which only briefly prevents further touch, and falls open with only the slightest encouragement of deft fingers.

His hand is sure and confident as it slowly unbuttons: searching out the lace edges on silk over soft, small, perfectly fitting mounds; first teasing, then palming, then gently rolling erect nipples and winding her up: proving her helpless to resist his clever, arousing hands. Her one attempt to retaliate is gently but firmly rebuffed.

“I need you,” he whispers into her ear. “Let me. Just be mine and stand down and let me love you.” Her hands return to his face: permission and acceptance both. “Be mine,” he breathes again.

“Yes,” returns, more vibration than voiced, and then her lips meet his once again with a tiny, half-heard purr, and she’s lost to everything but him.

His mouth takes hers hard, a little rougher, a little force that he knows she likes; and sure enough she opens to him, pressing closer and rolling hips into him, pushing into his searching hand beneath the opened shirt. His other hand comes away from her cheek to seek and find bare skin below the clothing, to tug at the fabric from the inside and let it drop unneeded to the floor, and then, that removed, to glide around and play while the other releases button and belt and zip, for pants to join the shirt in discarded crumplement, leaving her half-naked in his grasp: flushed and stunning in scraps of green silk.

His own shirt has become open, as he’s sated his immediate need to touch and relearn her through his fingers: and he brings her closer so that they’re skin to skin: shoulder to hip. He keeps her there: wide span over her taut rear, a delicate splayed motion never quite near enough or hard enough no matter her enticement. “Mine,” he growls, and walks her backwards till her knees touch the bed, then balances her as he pushes gently till she folds and half-falls, open to his searing gaze and scorching kisses.

She reaches for him, pulling him down over her by his broad shoulders, swift deft hands denuding him down to his boxers before he can stop her. He smiles wolfishly, hot and predatory, kneeling between her legs and yet still looming over her.

“Something you want?” he rasps, and catches her questing hands. “We’ll get there. Like this,” and he takes one firm breast into his mouth: laving and sucking; repeats to and from the other till she’s panting and arching up towards him and her hands are locked in his hair. “That was something I wanted. Now I’m going to do something you want.”

“Castle!”

“I know what you like,” he breathes across her stomach. “You know what I’m going to do, don’t you?” His tongue flicks at her navel: above his head, the green silk of her bra is soaked; below, he knows it’s also drenched: all for him, only because of him. Only ever him, and her, and them: and it’s so much more than physical addiction.

Though physical addiction has its advantages, too.

His tongue slithers wickedly downward, flirting with the narrow line of lace, flat and forceful against the panel of fabric underneath: a kiss and just a hint of teeth to each side. She squirms, gasping, so that her hips move and he has to place wide hands across her thighs: a little pressure to give him space.

When he lays his mouth on the soaked fabric she bucks and tries to twist: he works her through the thin silk until the imprecations are wordless, frantic moans; and then pulls them off to have her open and naked and desperate for him: needing him, only him; every whimper and moan telling him, some way below conscious thought, that she only needs and wants and loves him; that she’ll stand with him and for him; that they will, sometime soon, be their own family; the two of them, while still having families of their own, separately and overlapping: a Venn diagram of families.

He plays her till she’s on the point of breaking, and then slides up her body, her hands tugging at him to bring him up, closer, nearer and then her mouth pressing against his to plunder her taste on his tongue and own him; elegant fingers still soft and seeking over his back and down, between them, encircling and teasing in her turn until he’s as high as she and groaning with the effort of control.

And then she shifts a fraction and he slides forward and then there is no control at all, from anyone: she fits so perfectly tightly around him; he feels so perfectly at home with her; he’s lost almost before she is.

“Do you think it’ll all be okay now?” Castle asks, cuddled round Beckett.

“If it’s not, it won’t be your fault,” she says. “You’ve done all you can. Told her the truth. It’s up to her now.”

“But…”

“I think she does love you. She was scared, though, and she lost the plot. If she’d told you how she felt it would all have been different.” Beckett swallows. “If I’d told Dad… it might all have been different.”

“But you and your dad are fixed now. Okay, likely there are still some things you need to deal with, but you’ve fixed the big issues. Everything else is minor. I… well, I don’t know if Mother and I are fixed yet.”

“Not the point. The point is, you’ve done your bit. It’s up to her now. You can’t spend your life second-guessing her or trying to appease her or trying to change her. Been there, done that, not lending you the t-shirt.”

“It wouldn’t fit.”

“Nope. So don’t try to make it fit.” She rolls over and drapes her arm round him. “We talked about this, and the answer doesn’t change. You didn’t cause it, you can’t control it, and you can’t cure it. Just like I couldn’t. Your mother isn’t an alcoholic, but it’s the same thing. She’s the only one who can fix it now.” She runs soft fingers through his hair, and nestles closer, understanding his need for tactile comfort. He’s so strong, normally; but now he needs reassurance and love, and she has plenty of both for him. “Just stay here for now.”

“I wasn’t planning on leaving.” His own arms lock around her. “You’re mine.”

“Uh-uh, Castle.”

“What?”

“You’re mine,” she says very possessively indeed.

Castle simply hugs her harder. There doesn’t seem to be much answer to that, other than yes, I am. And, of course, “You’re mine too. We’re each other’s.”

“’Kay.” As if there could never have been any doubt. Her breathing is already slowing, deepening; and his follows her lead. “Love you, Castle,” she murmurs into his shoulder.

“Love you too, Beckett,” he mumbles into her hair, and is asleep in seconds, comforted and eased by her about him.

Beckett is not quite asleep yet, though it’s close. She contemplates the evening. It hadn’t been pleasant, but she can easily understand where Martha was at. That wasn’t a good story. She knows, deep into her soul, that in Martha’s place she would have done the same. After all, she pretty much had: doing what she thought was best for her father. She knows, too, how one’s unconscious assumptions can come back to bite through one’s throat. It’s exactly what had happened to her. And just like with her, Castle’s done everything to try to understand, to support, to help fix it. She’d – too slowly, perhaps – accepted it, and him, and done the work to fix herself because she couldn’t bear to be without him.

Because, even then, she loved him.

She only hopes that Martha loves her son enough to fix this.

Beckett snuggles closer to Castle’s warmth, chilled. All her instincts and training suggest that Martha does love her son, but she’s not wholly sure that Martha can overcome pride and past. Then again, Beckett had, and it’s not as if she’s short of pride, or past. If she can, surely Martha will? Martha has as much reason, and more.

This, she realises uncomfortably, is how Castle must have felt, watching her implode around her own demons, hoping she’d conquer them, but not at all sure. How should he have been, when she had not? But these aren’t Castle’s demons, they’re Martha’s, and Beckett’s only twice removed, only as they affect her Castle. She can’t help fix this: she won’t give in to an implicit blackmail that she should let Martha be a mother to her, and likely nothing else would do.  

She shivers, and presses yet closer. Castle emits a sleeping noise, and cuddles tightly around her, even in deep sleep protective. He’s her place of safety.

She’s right not to compromise on this point. She simply cannot treat Martha as a mother and honestly feel that’s true; honestly behave like it’s true. It wouldn’t be, and lies are no foundation for anything. It would, quite swiftly, breed resentment between her and Castle; and that would be fatal, in time; just as her resentment (hidden, but no less poisonous for all that) to her father had nearly finished them before they’d really begun.

All she can do, in truth, is be there for Castle, whatever he needs from her, and let him decide. It’s up to him. Which won’t stop her pointing out truth in her own way, as he had pointed out truth to her in his, rather different, way.

Decision made, she drifts into sleep, tucked into Castle, finally warm, and finally sure that she’s doing the right thing.

Castle wakes in the night, discovers sleepily that Beckett is the lovely warm snuggle against him, cuddles her in carefully, so as not to wake her, and takes comfort from her complete ease. Shortly, he’s asleep again, safe from his own demons: Beckett protecting him. With her, he can’t now doubt that he is loved.

Beckett’s klaxon of an alarm rouses them both, but Beckett gets to the bathroom first, clicks the lock shut, and then explains through the door that letting him in will only ensure that they’re both late. He humphs disgruntledly. He doesn’t get half enough chances to shower with Beckett. He returns to bed and breathes in essence-of-Beckett instead. It’s not nearly as good as having actual Beckett beside him.

She exits the shower, is dressed, brushed and made up in what seems like seconds, plops down beside him and kisses him soundly, and is half standing again before Castle’s instincts overtake his sluggish brain and ensure that his hand pulls her right back down.

“That’s not a proper goodbye,” he complains.

“It was so,” Beckett disagrees, somewhat muffled by her face being pressed into his chest.

“Nope. I want a proper goodbye kiss.”

“You got one.” She wriggles, and doesn’t get anywhere. “Let go. I need to get to work.”

“I want a proper kiss,” Castle says childishly.

Beckett sighs very audibly, and puts her mouth to his. Castle pounces. He has her wrapped up as tightly as a parcel in an instant and then takes his time devouring her mouth and quite deliberately ruining her lip gloss.

“There,” he says. “That was a proper kiss.” He smirks. “I like that lip gloss. It tastes nice.” Beckett emits a very unfriendly growl and tuts at him. “See you later,” he says. The growl intensifies, and he makes for the bathroom before his ears are maimed. Behind him, he hears the apartment door shut, one decibel short of a slam. He smirks, and pulls himself together perfectly happily, locks up and takes himself home, where writing is the order of the day. He does remember to text Beckett simply so that she doesn’t worry about him when he doesn’t show up, and then dives into his words.

Beckett’s morning is peacefully devoid of histrionics, lovers’ spats, and new murders. Montgomery’s Captainly attention is beadily fixed on a different team, and Ryan and Espo are amicably bickering over baseball. Life is pretty good.

In fact, life is good enough that she calls O’Leary and invites him for a drink that evening, with a promise that Castle will show up (she hasn’t asked him, but she’s pretty confident he won’t miss out on a night with the mobile mountain). In fact, she adds Ryan and Espo to the mix, and then, on a flush of sociability, Lanie; texting O’Leary to tell him to bring Pete, if Pete can stand the shop talk. Castle informed of the plans, she sits back in her chair and contemplates her rapidly diminishing paperwork with satisfaction, sipping her coffee and scrawling her illegible signature.

When her phone rings, she automatically swipes on without looking at the number. “Beckett.”

“Katherine…” says a very uncertain voice, “I wanted to talk to you. Without Richard.”

Beckett stares at her phone. “Uh?” she says, inelegantly.

“Please will you help me fix it?” Martha pleads. “I can’t bear the way he looks at me now, the doubt in his eyes. I have to convince him.”

Oh, dear God. Why me? Beckett thinks bitterly. But she’d thought last night that she’d do what it took for Castle to be happy, so she’d better grit her teeth and do this. Only because he’s hurting.

“Okay.” She thinks for a moment. “I’ll meet you at Ground Support Café, West Broadway. Five thirty. I only have forty-five minutes.” And even then she’ll be pushing it to get to Molloys by six forty five.

“Thank you,” Martha emotes. Beckett just about manages not to wince so obviously that the boys notice. “Please don’t tell Richard.” Beckett’s about to disagree vehemently when Martha carries on, “Not yet. I’ll tell him myself. Afterwards.”

Wonderful. So now the whole evening will be tainted by Martha’s problems. Again. Beckett wishes she’d never accepted the call.

“Thank you,” Martha says again, and dials off before Beckett can say anything more.

It seems like a very good moment to ask Esposito for some sparring practice, and to hold the bag while Beckett attempts to destroy it.

Fortunately, he’s up for a bout, and after a few exceedingly terse words of explanation, provides her with the workout she needs. It gets her through the afternoon.