46. Chapter 46

Kate waits until the kids are eating lunch at the table and involved with a game of Candyland before she pulls Castle aside.

"Hey, I'm really sorry-" he starts, ducking his head to look in her eyes, his hands on her shoulders.

"No, I'm good," she dismisses, waving him off. "Just wanted to tell you what we found."

"What you found?"

"Dash and I. There's a haunted maze just off the highway. I got directions from the couple that owns the surf shop."

"Oh, you went to the surf shop?"

Kate grins at him, gestures for him to follow as she heads into their bedroom. She grabs a bag from the bed and pulls out swimsuits. "Got these for Ella. But I also signed us up for surfing lessons on Wednesday. Alexis too. Here." Kate hands him the pamphlet the woman put in the bag. "Tells you all about it."

"Oh, cool. This is so cool."

"Dash looked pretty excited about it," Kate adds, dropping the swimsuits back on the bed. She moves to his side to read over his shoulder. Pointing to the picture in the center panel, she says, "These are the training boards. They have life jackets for everyone and they take you out; they teach you everything. Dashiell met their son, Micah, and he was really patient with Dash, showed him to stand on a board. They have a girl too, Maleah, and she's a few years older than Dash, but he totally fell in love with her."

Castle laughs and flips the brochure over, catching sight of the photo of the family of four. "Their kids surf too?"

"Yeah, they do. Maleah won some girls' competition locally, and Micah placed third in an older kids contest in Hawaii. We're lucky, because they close up the second week of November and spend the winter there."

"Where?"

"Hawaii," she says, sighing, visions of beaches and warm weather and the overripe land. Leis and luaus. Hula dancing would be fun to learn as well.

"I can easily close up and head to Hawaii for the winter. You just say the word."

Kate laughs, but when she looks up at him, he's entirely serious. It strikes her suddenly that it's possible. It's not probable, nor is it likely, but they have the means. She could quit the NYPD, they could pack up and live out the rest of their days on a beach in the sun.

Some part of her is so very tempted. A happily ever after. Away from the city and everything it's come to represent - the bad but there's good as well.

"No," she says finally, and she knows that her long silence has proved that she's given it serious thought. "It's not who I am."

His fingers wrap around her elbow, his thumb brushing her bicep. A mirror of the gesture she likes to give him, a way of claiming him that he's turning on her now. "I know. And don't sound apologetic for it, Kate. This is who I love."

She sighs and leans into him because she really would love to be on the beach for the foreseeable future, she's just not sure she could stay that way.

"Just make it to retirement, Kate, then I'll take you to the beach." He says it lightly, but she hears the distinct fear underlying his voice and hates it. Hates that she can't just be like every other socialite in his circle and let it go, drift away, be a professional volunteer or run the house or just. . .not be this. Driven.

"It's a deal," she says instead. She has to give something back, work on being that person capable of retirement from the force, because honestly, she can't picture herself at 40 and still doing this. And forty is only five years away. "About before-"

"I left everything up here because I didn't want to carry it all-"

She reaches up and hushes him with her fingers against his lips. "It's okay. You did fine, Castle. I'm going to be sensitive about you and Ellery for awhile. I can tell. I want you near me and when you're not, my chest is a little tight."

Castle wraps his fingers around her hand and leans in to steal a kiss, warm and soft against her. It already makes her feel better.

"That was a whole lot of explanation about your feelings, Kate Beckett," he murmurs, laughing at the corner of her mouth.

"Shut up," she mutters, but even that has made her lighter. "I can talk about feelings."

"No you can't," he laughs. "You can talk around them, but a direct conversation?"

"I just did, didn't I?"

"Yeah, which is making my head spin. Also, you combined a feelings talk with the phrase I want you near me."

She huffs and flicks his ear with her fingers, garnering only another grin from him. All of it eases the ache that set up when she called his phone at one o'clock only to hear it ring in the bedroom.

"Can I help it that my husband is such a stud?" she murmurs instead, running her fingers through the hair on the nape of his neck, watching the humor in his eyes distill into arousal. "That all I wanna do is get closer to him, be pressed right up against his body so I can feel every hard-"

He crushes his mouth against hers, sucks her tongue into his hot and welcoming depths. His arms bind her tightly against him, so unforgiving a grip that she's certain she'll have bruises on her ribs. She spreads her fingers at the back of his skull and directs his kiss by angling his head, allowing her to get her teeth on his bottom lip.

His moan startles her into releasing him, but he catches her, keeps at it, pressing her back until she's falling on the bed, crushing the swimsuits. She'll have to remember that for next time: I want you near me is somehow his kryptonite. Or his yellow sun. She's not sure which Superman reference is more accurate, and his wicked tongue is causing her to lose brain cells rapidly.

She's just reaching for his shirt, sliding her fingers against his ribs when Castle groans and lifts his head from her neck, breathing harshly, pressed fully against her so she knows just how difficult that was for him. How hard. She grins up at him, pushes at him with her hips and he chokes, drops his head to her shoulder.

"Kids are right out there. Can't do this," he mutters.

"Eating lunch and playing a game. If we-"

"Don't tempt me, you evil woman," he growls, but his mouth is nibbling at the tendon in her neck, and she arches under him, more than a little overwhelmed.

"Baseball statistics aren't helping?" she laughs on a hasty breath, trying to be responsible.

"Can't even come up with any players' names; you know I'm a latecomer to the Yankees fanbase."

That helps a little; she can nudge his cheek with her chin, dislodge him from the thorough seduction of her neck. "Save that for later, Rick."

He rolls onto his back, but he takes her with him, leaving her sprawled half on top of him, half off. "Don't call me that either. Doesn't help."

"What? Your name?"

"First name. You have this way of saying my name - kinda breathless, kinda slutty-"

She laughs at that, lifts her head and props her chin on his chest, drawing a knee up to help her keep her balance on top of him. "A Nikki Heat way?"

He groans. "No. Just maybe that original way you have. The thing I saw when I created Nikki. I hear it again when you say my name."

"Every time I call you by your first name? Or just when we're-" She runs a hand down his chest in indication, but he grabs her by the wrist and brings her palm to his lips.

"Pretty much every time. Used to be you only called me Rick when you were pissed or aroused, so you know, there's these connotations, these associations that bring about this automatic response in me-"

She laughs again and crawls up a little to kiss his cheek, then slides off him to sit on the bed, giving him some breathing room. He turns on his side and props his head up on his hand.

"Operant conditioning," she suggests. "Only your first name is the bell you salivate for?"

"Yes, exactly," he says gravely, and lifts a hand to slide along her waist, his arm resting in her lap. She draws her nails down his forearm lightly, presses the pads of her fingers to the skin. This is a different kind of arousing, having his arm in her lap and his mouth at the level of her hip, the warmth between them still flaring up every now and again.

"You said, used to. I used to-"

"Now you use either one. But lately, you've called me Rick when you need me, when something has struck too close to home or you're vulnerable or just tired. And Kate. . ." He sighs and leans in to press that mouth to the waistband of her jeans, lays his forehead on her thigh.

He doesn't finish, but she gets it. This was always their oldest conflict - that he wants to feel needed by her (for something, anything) and she never wants to need anyone. So when she does need him, and she calls for him, goes to him, it has an affect. She knows that; she sees it clearly. They went to marriage counseling around the time Dashiell turned two because they both realized they kept having the same arguments with no real sense of resolution. It helped, for sure, and Kate was even able to repair her relationship with his mother, mend the misplaced protective instincts that reared up whenever she thought about Martha and her husband, the little boy who needed-

No. Not going there today.

Kate leans over and cradles his head, kissing his forehead and brushing the hair back from his eyes. It's grown out a little long; she likes it actually. And here's grey right at his temple, a dusting that's usually mostly hidden. She likes the grey, combs her fingers through it to watch it appear and disappear in the weave of his hair.

"Stop playing with my grey hair," he mutters.

She laughs. "But I like it. It's manly."

"I don't play with your grey hair."

She shoves on his forehead in retaliation. "I don't have grey hair."

"Well, you wouldn't know, would you? Because I don't point it out."

"Hush, and just let me touch you."

"You have never - ever - said that phrase to me before. Oh wait. No, you have." His voice is seductive.

Kate laughs again and settles back against the headboard, still carding her fingers through his hair. "I love knowing this about you, these little grey hairs, being close enough to know, Rick."

"What did I tell you about that?" He lifts his body up by framing her hips with his arms, his hands pressed into the mattress on either side of her. She feels the bed dip towards him, the flare of arousal igniting in her belly again.

Castle rears up, presses a kiss into her mouth as he lays over her body, tugging her down under him. She sighs into his kiss, feathers her fingers through the hair at his temples, stroking his ears with her thumbs.

"What is your fetish with my ears?" he groans, but it doesn't sound like a complaint.

"It's the grey hair-"

"You were twisting my ear long before the grey showed up."

"Hmm, that's true. I just like holding on while you do dirty things to me with that mouth."

He groans into her lap, making her hips jerk against him.

"Payback's a bitch, Beckett."

She laughs breathlessly. "We really should check on the kids. Too quiet. No one's fighting over who won."

"Gimme a second," he says, and lays his head on her chest, breathing hotly. She can't help smoothing her thumb along his ear, scratching her nails on his scalp, warmed by his body sprawled over hers. Feels safe. And good. And hers.

After a few heartbeats, she can feel his breath even out again. She curls her knees up and he gets the hint, moves off of her. He holds his hand out for her and she takes it, letting him lift her up to standing.

She the leads the way back to the kitchen, stopping short in the living room at the sight before her.

A deck of cards litters the entire kitchen, playing cards over every available surface. Dash is holding the box and Ellery is bending down to inspect a card.

"Dashiell. What are you doing?"

Dash turns with a beaming smile. "I'm teaching Ellie a new game."

"A new game?" With the cards all over the floor?

"Him teach me," Ella speaks up, raising the card over her head and slapping it down on the table, grinning.

"Yeah. Daddy taught it to me."

"Daddy taught you poker?" she says, giving Castle a look.

His face changes from sheepish to indignant. "I didn't teach him poker! That's not the game!"

"Then what is it?"

He sighs and glances around the room at the mess of cards. "52 Card Pickup. Looks like he's initiated Ellery."

Fifty-two card pickup? Oh jeez. The trick. He pulled this trick on Dash and now Dashiell has done it to Ella.

"Mommy, what's poker?"

Ohh, darn.

"Castle. You're on duty," she says instead, and heads back for the bedroom and Ellery's new swimsuits.