47. Love to love you

He doesn’t hesitate. He dips down, occupies her mouth without a hint of hesitation, and pulls her tightly against him, naked chest to mostly bare skin.  His hand slips down to unfasten her bra, runs around under it to loosen it from her ribs, plays a little under the fabric with the soft flesh and then removes it.  She murmurs wordlessly in pleasure as his hand slips over the revealed curves, palming and then gently shaping and moulding; pushes into his searching hand and holds his head to hers as if she’s never going to let him go.  She’s never held him so before, as if he’s the spar to which she’s clinging: even when she has been soft she’s never been – oh. Trusting.  Trusting that she can hold on to him and take from his strength, just like she’s done since she threw him that utterly desperate, wordless plea in the precinct.

So he’ll give her it. All his strength and all his stability, there for her.  He presses power and passion into the kiss, possession into the hands around her, showing her in every point of touch how much he has to give, how easy it is for him to support her, how easy it should be for her to rely on it, and on him.

He segues smoothly into firm masculinity and stops thinking about anything other than making Beckett-who-is-now-Kat feel very, very good, which will make him feel very, very good, and then when they are both feeling very, very good he’ll cuddle her in and cosset her comfortably and both of them will be much happier for the rest of the evening.

His palm returns to moulding her breast, fingertips gently teasing at her nipple till it hardens and peaks; repeats on the other side. His kiss is deep and sure, and she’s tucked close enough to be kept warmed from the heat of his body.  His hand wanders downward, skimming over her not-quite-prominent ribs, settling briefly on her waist to turn her against him, then lay her back again as he reaches the edge of her pants and flitters to the button and zip.  Shortly, her pants are gone, and his follow.

He turns her into him again, and one long leg curls around him to hold herself close. He presses into her, and she shifts a little against the pressure and opens a little more.  One hand keeps her tight, stretched over the fine skin of her back so that her naked breasts are rubbing against his own bare chest; one slips down to stroke her slim rear and then through and into the heated, damp cleft between her legs, covered only by the thin pale cotton of her panties.  She moans softly, and moves to the rhythm of his hand as he works her up.

He stops kissing her lips to turn on to his back and slide her over him, nipping teasingly behind her ear and no longer needing to hold her to him. Conveniently, this leaves both his hands free to pet and stroke, and so he does: one hand sweeps the length of her back to as far down the silk of her inner thigh as he can reach, the other continues to wander lazily over her ass and the damp fabric, sliding and pulling it; her small sexy noises captured by his mouth on hers, and then the panties are lost.

He doesn’t stop kissing her as he rolls them to put her beneath him, where he can transfer his tantalising little kisses from lips to neck to shoulders and collarbones; no marks on her translucent skin, that’s not what this is all about. He moves lower, smiling against her, and finally puts his mouth to her breasts again.  This time she arches up into him, soft murmurs of encouragement becoming less soft and more breathless: he tugs a little and nips very carefully and sucks harder and she likes that, oh yes. She may not be marked: her skin pale and perfect, but he will have half-moon bruising on his back, a finger-length below his shoulders.  Her words, such as they were, have degenerated into ohhh, occasionally cut with Castle! 

He’s deliberately slow. He could have brought her off already, but the slick, fast, repetitive sex hadn’t ever been in any way fulfilling: he wants her to enjoy it and he wants to enjoy her without feeling ever so slightly second-best afterwards.  It’s going to be different now, and slow, easy, and satisfying is so much better than anything else.  Her stomach muscles tighten under the trail of his tongue; her hands are clamped around his head and she knows where he’s going with this, twisting under him as he smiles lazily up at her.

“Lie back and enjoy it,” he says happily. “I will, and I’ll make sure you will.”  He prevents any commentary on that piece of deliberate smuggery by taking one slow, forceful lick across her.  She definitely enjoyed that.  His hands lie lightly – for the moment – on her legs; he wriggles into the most effective alignment, and begins his second most favourite pastime: teasing and taking her with his wicked, mobile, flexible mouth, with a twist of his tongue around her over-stimulated nerves which makes her cry out, with slow licks and circlings and sucking and a little penetration which causes her to writhe and then arch and then shatter completely.

Castle slithers up the bed and cuddles Beckett in firmly. She’s not going to need to roll away or wriggle off or shut herself away, this time.  She’s going to be able to stay safely in his arms and then when she’s ready (he is so very ready) he’ll please and tease her some more.  She wriggles a little to fit more comfortably against him, her head on his pectoral, a leg thrown over his, an arm draped over his ribs; the whole of his Beckett snuggled against him in the way he’d wanted right back at the beginning.  He returns to slow, swooping strokes over her back, running over the sharp protrusions of her vertebrae and then the soft satin of her translucent skin.  She’s just a little thinner than she should be, her skin a little more drawn, her face a little more tired.

Shortly, she starts to curve into his easy stroking. She shifts a smidgeon over him, and the hand that used to be around his ribs essays some stroking of its own: first of pecs and the flat nipple to be found there; then towards his hip, and then inward until her clever fingers close around him.  She emits a satisfied, sexy little noise and he can feel her smiling ferally against his skin.  And then he very definitely feels a sharp nip on his chest and a tongue soothing it and he might have been slipping into the comforting pattern of stroking and snuggling but he certainly isn’t any more.  He is very much wide awake.

He becomes even more awake as her wicked hands slide up and down, gripping just tightly enough to hint at that tighter, hotter grip to come. She plays a little, teasing over and then under to stroke full, heavy weight, and his breathing deepens and turns harsher; his grip on her tighter, stronger.  The soft tips of her fingers contrast with the scrape of her fingernails: the contrast driving him up, firing his blood.

He flips them over, for her to be spread out beneath him, desire in her face and seduction in her touch, and there’s no more comforting, simply hard hot motion. He pushes into her as she arches into him; a tight glove squeezing around him, and it’s perfect.  She pulls his head down to her lips and kisses him, till he reverses the polarities and takes her mouth in time with his stroking into her body, and she opens completely and takes him home; digs her fingers into the firm muscle of his back as he thrusts and he groans and she moans and his fingertips find the bundle of nerves so that it changes to a cry and she clenches about him and it’s all gone in the white-heat rush of her and him and them together.

Afterwards, she’s cosily cuddled into him, wrapped up close and held firmly. Finally, the stiff tension that she’s suffered throughout the two previous months has released.  He amuses himself by dropping little kisses on her hair and intermittently trailing his fingers over a mildly ticklish point on her waist, which makes her wriggle and squeak.  Otherwise, she’s utterly boneless and still.

“Did you know you purr when you’re happy? Just like a cat,” he says, not entirely innocently.

“Purr?”

“Mmmm. Yes.  You should let me stroke you till you purr a lot more often.”   He demonstrates with a soft trace over her breasts and back again.  She makes an inadvertent small noise that is quite close to a purr, so he continues until it’s quite definitely a contented purr.  “See?  You like it, so you’re happy, so you purr.  Which I like, so I’m happy too.”  He carries on.  So does the purring.  He manages to keep his mouth closed on the words You’re Kat again. My Kat.  He just hopes he isn’t thinking them loudly enough to be heard anyway. 

The stroking becomes a little more determined, and reaches a little further down, and the purring stops being purring and starts to become panting and then gasping and then writhing against his wicked touch and then becomes a long sigh of release.

She’s fallen asleep, still in his arms. When she wakes, he’ll still be there.  So will her issues, but he’ll still be there to hold her up as she makes her decisions.  He curls around her: large and solid, enveloping her slighter form; protecting her even as he falls into sleep himself.

Beckett wakes because she’s hot. Roasting, in fact.  It takes her a moment to understand that the oven is actually Castle, and that extracting herself will not be simple.  Simplicity is not aided by the realisation that if she weren’t being broiled alive she would be perfectly happy to stay exactly where she is, curled in and largely covered.  Hmmm.  There is a solution here.  She shuffles the coverlet backwards a distance, and uncovers one of her arms and half a leg.  That helps immensely.  A small further wiggle allows her neck and collarbones to emerge.  Perfect.  She allows her eyelids to droop shut again.

When she wakes up again, it’s full morning. Castle is still there, but the cadence of his breathing doesn’t sound like sleep to her, and when she stretches and turns slightly his eyes are open: bright and appreciative. 

“Hey,” he says softly, and kisses the end of her nose.

“Hey,” she mumbles, through another stretch and yawn. “Coffee.”  She practically falls out of bed and stumbles out to the kitchen, automatically grabbing a robe on the way and donning it on autopilot.  As normal, filling and switching on the kettle requires no neural input whatsoever.  Castle pads after her, yesterday’s shirt on over boxers, looking ridiculously alert for only just awake and no coffee ingested.  Beckett is sure there is a place in the world for morning people.  It’s simply that their place is not forcing their shiny happy morning personality on her.  Fortunately Castle is not talking.  Yet.  It’s rare for him not to talk, but clearly he has instantly recognised her inability to function before coffee.  She manages to find a single firing neuron and therefore puts out two mugs not one.  She regards this as success.

Coffee restores her brain, from the first mouthful. Unfortunately, it reminds her of why Castle is here, what happened yesterday, and what she now needs to do.  She slumps under the weight of necessity, and drains her mug without a pause, only to put the kettle on immediately to make another one.  Chain-caffeinating.  It’ll be chain-chocolate to add to it as soon as she can muster the intelligence to shower and dress.  The frivolous thought doesn’t lighten her mood for more than an instant.

It’s not the likely cost of therapy. She has savings, and a good health-care plan.  It’s having to do it all over again.  It’s having to accept that she can’t have done it right the first time.

It’s having to accept that the last five years have been a lie. That all her efforts with her father have been built on an untruth – unknown, but that doesn’t help her now.  Now, she wonders why she bothered, if she couldn’t do it honestly.  What’s her dad going to think, when he finds out that their whole fragile relationship was a lie?  What’s he going to do?  How’s he going to feel when he learns that all his so-painfully, painstakingly made amends were falling on stony ground?

What’s going to happen when her dad discovers she’s been, however inadvertently, lying to him all this time? He’s not going to be happy.  There’s an understatement.  He was annoyed with her behaviour with Julia, he was suspicious about her behaviour at Castle’s, and their brief call yesterday evening didn’t touch on any matter of any importance at all even if they’d both said sorry.  Everything passed over, covered up.  This, though…this can’t be covered up.  Even if she could for a time, at some point the therapist – she remembers this from last time – will point out that she has to listen to her father’s explanations and amends and respond to them.

Last time, she’d thought she had responded honestly.  Mostly.  She’d been so relieved he was really sober that she’d been happy and forgiving and loving.  She’d thought that that was enough.  So anything that might point to a different answer was… ignored.  Buried.  She ought to be happy, and she had to make sure he never sank again, and so anything that might cast either in question was ignored.  Locked away, hidden from her dad, and then she pretended it didn’t exist and shouldered her burdens and kept him safe.

But all of it was lies.

She’d taken the – the easy route.  And taking the easy route, letting her father think it was all better, pretending to herself it was all about supporting him when it was also all about not having to do it properly, has led to her a place where she’s let herself down and let her father down.

He’s not going to be proud of her now. She never had saved him: he did that himself.  But her support wasn’t even honest: it was just a way to pretend she’s the daughter he wanted to have, not the one he’d told I can’t stand it. Go away.  I can’t bear it.  To be the one to whom he’d said You’re so strong, don’t leave me.

She drinks her coffee and thinks her bitter, lacerating thoughts; lost in her own head. It’s not until a Kleenex arrives in her hand that she realises she’s crying.  Again.  The Kleenex is followed up by her now-empty coffee mug being removed and her whole self being collected in and cuddled close.  There’s been a remarkable amount of cuddled close, recently.  If only it meant that everything got better. Hugs make everything better.  If only that were true.  Nothing ever gets better.

“What’s wrong?”

Where does she start with that? A shorter conversation would cover what’s right.  That wouldn’t take five minutes.  Or five seconds.  Nothing’s right.  Well.  One thing is right: the big frame around her and the broad hand swooping up and down her spine and the whole of him enveloping her and protecting her.  She leans into him and lets him hold her up.

“What’s wrong?” he asks again, soft deep tones swirling around her, as supportive as his arms.

“Everything,” she mutters defeatedly. “Everything except you.”  His grip tightens on her, then releases somewhat.  “Can’t work, can’t face my dad, can’t face families.” 

Castle notices that she doesn’t mention friends, presumably because the last she’d seen of Lanie was yesterday morning’s argument.

“And I need to find a shrink” – she might have said torturer – “and rake it all up again.” She sniffs, and then blows her nose.  “And at some point I’m going to have to tell Dad that everything he’s thought about me is wrong.”

“Like what?” Beckett doesn’t answer.  She’s still silently crying.  Castle only needs a moment to work it out.  “You think he’s going to be upset with you.  You think he’ll think you’ve let him down.  It doesn’t work like that.  It really doesn’t.”

“You mean that you don’t work like that. You wouldn’t know what he might do, because you’d never do that to your family.  He did.  He…” she dissolves, and can’t say it again. He ruined ours echoes in Castle’s mind.  “Why should he, anyway.  I couldn’t get over myself, could I?  Couldn’t forgive him.”  Her body is tightening unpleasantly.  “Probably he never really forgave me for walking away.  This’ll just prove he was right.  Didn’t matter how hard I pretended, I’m not enough for him.”  He can see the next words rising in her throat and seizes her mouth before she can articulate I’m not enough for anyone.  He won’t let her say that.  It’s not true.  She’s enough for her dad.  She’s enough for her job and the victims and her team. 

She’s enough for him.

He stops kissing her.   “You’re mine.  You’re enough for me.  I told you I knew what I was doing and what – who – I want.  Stop disbelieving me.”  He smirks evilly.  “It’s bad for me.  Upsetting.  You wouldn’t want to upset me.”   The smirk falls away.  “Your father doesn’t think that.  He said so, when he called me yesterday.”

“That was then. He doesn’t know this.”

“Stop it.” Castle’s voice is hard, to cut through her idiocy.  “Stop talking yourself down.  That is not true and if you stopped to think you’d know it.”  He shakes her, very gently.  “Your dad loves you and he’s worried about you and you need to start believing he means it.”  He tugs her back in. 

“It’s… I did everything I thought would be right.  And none of it was.  He manages to be normal and accepted and forgiven and play happy families and fit into yours and it doesn’t worry him at all because he doesn’t remember any of it.”  She’s nearly shouting.  “And I – can’t,” she drops her voice and tries to turn away.  Castle doesn’t know if can’t means can’t fit in or can’t play happy families or can’t forget – or can’t be forgiven.  Still, all of them are just plain wrong.

“You’re going round the same loop you were yesterday. Stop.  You decided what to do.  Stop thinking about this.  It won’t help till you get help, and doing this to yourself isn’t helping.”  He forces her chin up till she’s looking at him.  “Stop.  Find someone who’s going to help you or do something to take your mind off it” – he leers cheerfully – “but stop.  Anyway, you have to have a plan before tomorrow morning or you’ll be kept out the precinct for longer, and since Manhattan’s homicide victims want you to be back at work, Detective Beckett, that isn’t really a good option.”  She winces.  “Yes, they do.  You catch killers and get justice for them better than anyone else.  It’s that which really makes you happy – even happier than being with me, which is really quite unflattering if you think about it because I can make you really, really happy and if you just stop and be Kat once in a way and purr at me you’ll be even happier…” – oh, shit.  His mouth has just run approximately a light-year ahead of his brain.  He is about to die.  He’s sure she knows fifteen different ways to kill him with her bare hands and without leaving a mark and anyway the boys will cover up for her.

“Kat?”