24. Chapter 24

She must have fallen asleep in Dash's bed because she startles awake when his little body rolls onto her. The light from the television is casting blues and dark yellows around the room. He asked her to stay, she remembers, stay and watch cartoons with him.

She fell asleep. Darn. And Castle looked like he wanted to ask her something before she put the kids down for naptime.

Oops.

Kate rubs at her face and checks the clock. Only out for thirty minutes, not bad. She puts a hesitant hand to Dashiell's back, but he's pretty out of it, must be if he rolled over on her. She lifts her head to kiss the top of his, then tries to slide out from under him without waking him up.

She gets one leg down, has trouble keeping her balance, and falls out of bed. Wincing, she sits up and checks on Dash. Still asleep.

Ouch. As Castle says, That's gonna leave a mark.

When she gets out into the hallway, she can see her husband reading on the couch; he's bent back the cover and cracked the spine, no doubt, and she hopes that's not one of her books.

"Hey, stud, what're you reading?"

He doesn't even glance up. Which is fine; she likes the hair falling into his eyes, the concentration. Cute. Echoes of her son there. "Hey. A Visit from the Goon Squad. What happened to you?"

"Fell asleep. I read that one. I liked it."

"Yeah, yeah, really good. But. . .kinda sad."

"Yeah?" She plops down on the other end of the couch and leans against the arm, pushing her feet into his lap. He drops a hand over her ankle and rubs thoughtless circles. His eyes come up but still don't meet hers, his gaze abstract, focused somewhere else.

"Yeah. I mean, I'm not that far into it but Benny?"

"The record producer," she prompts, getting comfortable. Something so. . .electrifying in talking about books with him. He loves the words, loves the stories, inhales them. And then he gives them back with a light and a voice she never expected, never saw before.

"He's picked up his kid from his ex-wife's house, Stephanie's house, and is wondering how it got to this, their failed marriage. He's looking over at his assistant, who is kind of like a younger sister to him. Anyway. Let me read it to you-"

She wriggles into the couch, waiting for the warmth of his voice, the way it can wrap around her. His hand moves up and down her shin.

"'What he felt for Sasha' - that's the assistant, remember? - 'What he felt for Sasha was love, a safety and closeness like what he'd had with Stephanie before he'd let her down so many times that she couldn't stop being mad.'"

Kate sighs, watches Castle's face intently, the lines etched there, the focus. "Do you think like that?"

"Are you mad at me?" he says, confusion wrapping his face.

She bites her bottom lip and shakes her head. She thought, for a moment, he was thinking of *his* ex-wives, and how sad it was he'd let it get to that. "So why is that sad for you?"

"Because, at one point, Benny remembers how he and his wife, ex now, used to hold their son and nuzzle him, and how good that was and. . .does it happen that fast, Kate? When do I start letting you down more than make you happy?"

She sits up, grabs the book, drops it on the coffee table. "You make me happy. You, Castle. And when have you ever let me down?"

He traces the edge of her shins with his hands, cups the back of her knees, finally looks at her. "I know I have. Just yesterday? Yeah, I know I have-"

"Rick," she says intently, cupping his face in her hands because touch seems to get to him when words don't. Words are his stock and trade, and so they often mean less to him than they do to her. "Rick, for every time you might let me down, there are a million other things good and right. But you know that. Where did this come from?"

"Just. The book made me think. I've messed it up twice already-"

"I thought you said we were fated, Castle."

His mouth parts in wonder, and he tilts his head. "But you don't believe in fate."

"But you do," she murmurs, dropping her hands to his shoulders and shifting closer, up on her knees on the couch. "And if you do, then you didn't mess anything up, did you? It was always meant to be."

"Uh. I like the way you think, Kate Beckett."

She grins back, laughs when he tugs her into him, toppling into his lap. He wraps an arm around her from behind and presses his palm into her belly button, fingers traveling. She gasps.

"That make you happy?"

"Ohhhh," she murmurs, giving him a little extra noise, impress upon him just how happy he can make her.

"Mmm, that's hot." His mouth brands her neck and his hand - oh - his fingers-

"Castle. Castle, ah, Dash's tv isn't up loud enough for th-that," she gasps, writhing, trying to knock his arm away.

He chuckles into her ear, but soothes her, lets her go. Kate moves back to the other side of the couch, pressing a hand to her cheek, lifting an eyebrow at him. "Whew, jeez, Rick. Save that for later, yeah?"

He laughs again, clearly back from whatever place the book sent him to, and pulls her feet back into his lap. She arches her eyebrow at him and he shrugs. "What you do to me, Kate."

She shakes her head, moves her foot a little. Just to tease. "So. Change the subject before I combust."

He grins, starts rubbing her feet, digging his knuckle into her arch. "Did you get to run today?"

"Yeah, this morning before I woke you." She jerks as his fingers her a tender spot in her foot. "Oh, no. Don't stop. That's good."

"You were already out of the shower when you woke me," he pouts.

She grins and pokes his thigh with her foot. "Castle, I don't think I could've withstood your fascination with my sweaty self."

He grins and rubs his thumb lightly along her arch, making her hips jerk. She hisses out a breath and closes her eyes, tries to control her breathing, her reaction. She's not sure she can handle his fascination with any of her self right now.

"Hey, you know there was another record in there."

"Hmm?" She opens her eyes and presses a hand to her mouth, watching him. She's pretty sure she knows what he's talking about.

"I got you 9 times in one day," he smirks, entirely pleased with himself.

She grins back, raising an eyebrow. "Actually-"

He gasps. "Did you *fake* it?"

"-ten times. Wait-"

"Ten?"

"Did I *fake* it?" She sits up, pulling her feet out of his lap. "You know me better than that. You think I don't speak up?"

"Oh no. You're vocal. Just flashbacks, having flashbacks," he shudders.

She stares him down. "After that conversation, did you just bring another woman into our *sex* life?"

He gapes at her. "Uh. No? Just. Into the conversation?"

She draws her legs to her side of the couch. "You brought one of your ex-wives into how many times you made me-"

"No! Not at all. Kate-"

"You know, you get away with a lot, Castle, because I'm not a girly girl. But this-?"

"No. No, no, no. Not what I was doing-"

"It's exactly what you did," she hisses, narrowing her eyes at him and putting her feet on the floor.

"I can see you're mad. I don't. . .exactly know why, but I won't do it again." He gulps as she stands up. "It was a bad joke, Kate."

"It's not funny."

"No, no it's not. Not one bit. Kate-"

She stalks away from him, then changes her mind and spins back around, pointing a finger in his face. "Don't do that again. There's just you and me, Rick Castle. There's no one else."

He looks startled for an instant, maybe because she stayed and fought, damn right she did, and then he grins widely, grabs her finger and tries to pull her down. "Meant to be."

She resists, still completely pissed at him because it hurt, damn him, it did, and that's twice now, and she's on vacation, the idiot-

"Katherine Castle, get back down here," he growls, and her resistance crumbles just like that, at the sound of the mixed name, the two of them, no one else. She sinks onto the couch; he pulls her legs over his lap, tries to get her closer.

He spreads his hand over her thigh, grips tightly; she glares at him, but most of the furious and hurt heat is gone, leaving just the heat.

"No one else, Castle."

"No one. Not for a second," he says roughly, his fingertips digging into the muscle at her thigh. "Never."

"Damn straight," she growls back, bruises his mouth with her kiss, bites his lower lip in punishment, feels his teeth clashing against hers.

His hand grips her tightly, moves straight for the kill, makes her hips buck. She growls and gets away from him, pulls him to his feet as well.

"I was wrong. Dash's tv *is* up loud enough for this."

"I'll make it quick," he says, crowding into her back, his hands pulling her, pushing, maneuvering them to the bedroom.

"I'm gonna put every other woman straight out of your head."

He groans and stumbles into the doorframe, the sound of his shoulder hitting the wood is loud, sounds painful. He brings her with him though, and she's trapped by the steel in his arms, the leg that is already hooked around hers, the mouth sucking on her neck.

"You already have, long long time ago. But you're welcome to remind me again-"

"Shut up," she moans back, tightens her hand in his hair and yanks him into the room.

"Are you mad?" he says softly, brushing his lips along her ear in a grin.

"I'm raw," she mutters, pushing at his shoulder to get him off.

But he wants to hold her for awhile, that's all, and when his arms don't move from around her waist, she relaxes again and lets him stay. She even brushes her hand up and down his forearm, as if in encouragement. He thinks, he's pretty sure, that he's gotten her to love these moments as much as he does.

"Raw is good?"

"Good. And a good place to stop." She sighs and pushes back against him, bringing his arm up around her shoulders instead.

He likes to curl up behind her like this, her body fitted against his. "Too much?"

"Very close to it," she admits, her breath like a laugh, her lashes against the back of his hand.

"I'd say I'm sorry, but it would be a lie," he murmurs, pressing a chaste kiss to her neck, breathing in the scent of them on her skin.

"I'm not sorry. And you know. . .sometimes being mad at you, Castle, makes it even better."

She turns her face toward his, looking at him over her shoulder, and he's struck, all over again, with how amazing this is, she is, how just that look on her face can mean a hundred things, all of them good, all of them about him, about them together, this life they have.

"I've noticed you walk that fine line between pissed and passionate," he remarks, brushing his hand across her forehead, her cheek, brushing the hair from her eyes.

"What can I say? You bring out the best in me."

He chuckles, props his head up on his hand so he can keep watching her, observing. She has all these little lines around her eyes, her mouth, that she didn't have before. Laugh lines. It makes him proud, because he's pretty sure that he put them there. "You know when I first met you-"

She laughs and twists onto her back, looking up at him. "Really? Going way, way back there, aren't ya?"

Gorgeous. She's just. . .gorgeous. His throat closes up to look at her like this, hair scattered over the pillow, skin bared to him, goose bumps brushing her arms. He puts his hand, heavy, over her heart, forgets entirely what he wanted to say before.

So he says instead what he's wanted to say since she brought it up. "I want to come back. To the 12th. With you. Kate-?"

Her face breaks into a wide, relieved smile, all joy and light, her eyebrows lifting, her eyes mossy in the sun-touched color of her face. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." He basks in it, how he makes her happy - he makes her *happy* - and brushes his hand down to her stomach, smoothing his thumb over her belly button. "Yeah. I miss it. I miss you. We have this, but I miss. . .how it was when I first met you."

"You mean sexually frustrated?" She quirks her lips at him.

"No. Definitely don't miss that." He grins and feathers his hand across her waist. "I like making you raw."

She sighs, closing her eyes as he paints her skin with his touch, light, gentle, not meant to arouse, just adore.

"When I met you." He remembers now. "You were so confident and serious and determined. And hot in a prickly, dangerous kind of way. I wanted you all to myself, peel back every layer and discover what was beneath it. But really, it was the way your mind worked. The way you saw the world, what was in your world, the people and the connections, the tragedy, yeah, but the way you overcame it anyway. That's what kept me coming back. I miss that sometimes. How that was."

She lifts an eyebrow. "Not knowing if I mattered or if I was just your latest toy-"

"Never." He presses a gentle touch of his lips to her shoulder.

"And then, somehow, we were friends. Carefully, tentatively friends." She lifts her eyes, studies his face. He wonders if she's sees his younger self, his stupid and immature self. Well, more immature than now at least.

"I miss being friends with you," he says gently. He knows she understands. Sometimes the friendship part is all that gets them through, sometimes it gets dropped altogether. With the kids, the books, the cases, the early morning bodies, the on-call hours, the broken promises, the stolen moments, the photographs in the paper, the articles, the gossip, the fan forums, the fans, the cop's hours, the bad communication, the fights, the sex, the day to day. "I miss my friend."

She smiles at him, an old smile, one he's seen so many times before but never fails to spread delight through him. "You were a boyish, charming, infuriating friend. Who kept chasing other women-"

"Only you, Kate."

"Only me, now."

"Only you, ever. Meant to be, remember?"

Her lips twitch; the smile moves into that smirk of pride and confidence and tenderness. All those things alive in her eyes as well. "How did we get here, Castle?"

He laughs back at her, shakes his head, smooths his hand down the side of her face. She lifts up and kisses him, slow and languid and warm, lets his mouth go to fall back to the pillows. He doesn't chase; he considers the question.

"Honestly, Kate. . .it has to be fate. Everything in me. . .was meant for you."

She blushes, full-bodied and pink, barely there but warm and suffusing her skin. She brushes her hand against her eye, smiles at him. "Anyone ever tell you that you have a way with words?"

"Once or twice," he says, but he wants her to know, needs her to know. "But that wasn't a line. It was just. . .the truth."

"I know," she says gently, brings her hand to his chest. "Those are the best ones. And Castle?"

"Yeah?"

"If you tell anyone I said this, you're dead. . .but sometimes. . .I think that too, that everything in me was meant for you. Just you. No one else would ever. . .You're the one I'm meant for."

She shrugs, as if disappointed with the way words fail her. But he's never needed her words, only for her to look at him like that, for her eyes to seek his out, needing, lovely, full.

He doesn't like to dwell on the ways they nearly missed this. He likes making her happy. "So. . .really? Ten times. That might be a record too."

She laughs, her mouth wide and lovely, eyes on him. "Of course. Having such a nice moment. You gotta ruin it."

"I think that only added to the moment."

"You would."

"You did say infuriating and boyish and charming, right?"

She hums at him, wraps her fingers around his ear, tugs lightly. "I did. And yes, Castle," -her voice dips low- "ten."

"Which one did I miss?" He can't imagine. She *is* vocal.

Kate laughs, throaty and rich and oh. . .so amazing, like a dream.

"Such a tease. . ." he groans.

"Mm, that's the best part."