Chapter 21 - Blushing awkward

Lanie pretty much interrogated the poor man, I really didn't like the way she was talking to him in the beginning. She kept asking him a lot of questions about how he lost Alexis, if he had done something and I kept giving her a look telling her to shut it especially since I saw what the questions did to Castle. After about five questions or so she stopped asking about that and moved on to the more 'safe' things like what he liked to do and stuff like that. Before I knew it we were all three sitting in the living room on the floor by the couch laughing and I had almost totally forgotten how harsh she had been in the beginning, even though I knew that part was mostly to make sure I was right and not blinded by the crush I'd always had on him.

"Oh my god Kate, do you remember that party where you got so drunk that you..."

"Hell no! Lane you promised you would never speak of that night again! I'm warning you, don't you tell him!" I shouted out, cutting her off and I saw the disappointment in Castle's face almost immediately.

"Yeah but it's such a funny story come on!" she begged and Castle made a puppy face.

"Come on, Kate, I wanna hear about the story" he begged, pouting his lips and I narrowed my eyes.

"Over my dead body!" I said and Lanie laughed.

"Well, that we could..." Castle started, looking at Lanie and she nodded while I looked at both of them, terrified about what they were thinking.

Suddenly they both attacked me and I felt their fingers going all over my body tickling me as if their lives depended on it. I bursted out laughing trying to fight them off, Lanie soon retreated and I had a feeling she enjoyed watching us a little too much. I could hear her continue laughing as Castle continued to tickle me before he, out of the blue, crashed his mouth on mine and I immediately stopped laughing to kiss him back. His hands started to roam my body for a completely different reason than tickling and the only thing I could think about was him, I'd forgotten Lanie was in the same room until she let go of an 'awe'. That's when I immediately pushed Castle off me and felt my cheek go redder than ever before I put my face in my hands as I tried to catch my breath.

"You two are !" Lanie exclaimed and I peeked out from behind my hands.

I sat up again and I looked at Castle who had his eyes set on me with a proud smile. I bit my lip and felt the blush deepen on my cheeks.

"Now, about that story" Lanie began and I sent her a death glare.

"If you tell him I post that video of you on the internet" I threatened and she immediately narrowed her eyes.

"Oh no you wouldn't" she said with a small shock showing in her voice.

"Try me" I dared and I saw her defeat.

"Fine. Joykiller" she mumbled and I couldn't stop the gloating smile spreading on my lips.

I heard Castle sigh in disappointment beside me and I stuck out my tongue against him. I retreated my tongue the second I heard small feet in the stairs and looked over there to see Alexis and Molly coming down. Alexis shone up the second she laid eyes on Lanie and quickly set off her steps towards her foster-aunt.

"Lanie!" she shouted out and through her arms around my best friend.

"Hey sweetie!" Lanie shouted back in an excited voice.

"What you doing?" Molly asked us as she came up to us as well.

"Well, me and Lanie here just attacked Kate in a tickle war, we won" Castle said in a smug tone and I rolled my eyes.

"The only reason you won was because you surprised me" I defended myself.

The girls laughed along with Castle and Lanie while I suppressed a groan.

"Oh, Kate, won't you work today?" Alexis suddenly asked and I felt my eyes widen.

"Shit! I totally forgot!" I was about to jump to my feet when Lanie held out her hand to stop me.

"Gates gave you the day off, I came here to let you know since I'm free too and thought we could have a girl's day out" she explained when I asked for an explanation to her hand with my eyes. "But I guess we could just simply make it a girl's day in plus a guy" she added nodding towards Castle.

"Can't we go to the park then?" Alexis asked excitedly.

I met Castle's eyes and I really had no idea how he did it but when he answered he said exactly what I had been thinking, almost as if we had communicated somehow through our eye-contact.

"I can't go out in public with you, you and Molly can go out with Lanie because me and Kate got some work to do" he told the girls.

Lanie looked at me with a small hint of a smirk in her eyes. I shook my head, he didn't mean what she thought he meant. He really work as in work, work on a way to find out who had more specifically sent that anonymous tip about him 'abusing' his daughter and got her taken away from him. 

"What do you say Lane?" I asked and she just simply nodded while I could see she still had her suspicions in her mind.

"Sure, you girls can go start dress yourself for the outdoor and I'll come soon" Lanie said and the girls hoorayed as they sprinted of towards the hall.

"Lanie, I know what you think but we're going to try and find out the bastard who framed Castle" I told her and her smirk truly showed itself as soon as the girls were out of sight.

"Yeah, sure" she said in a teasing tone and I sighed as I blushed.

Within a few seconds the girls came again pushing Lanie towards the door. I couldn't help but laugh at their eagerness.

"Be good with aunt Lanie now, okay?" I said to the girls as I followed them to the door, with Castle right behind me.

"We will!" Molly called out excitedly.

She probably hadn't been out much in parks because of her and her mother being haunted by that awful man who had kidnapped her when she was just a baby. We said our goodbyes and Lanie promised to be back latest at 3 pm, she whispered to me that she might take them for ice cream as well and perhaps even lunch. Me and Castle had to promise Alexis that he'd still be here when they returned before she could go out with Lanie without struggle. Once they were gone I let go of a sigh as I turned to Castle.

"I'm sorry for my best friend's behavior, she's... she's just weird" I said in a loss of better words.

He chuckled and shook his head.

"I like her, and I get a feeling she's told me more about you than you'll ever know" he said with a smile that made my insides flip.

What did he mean? She hadn't told him anything I hadn't heard, I was there the whole time.

"What...?" but I didn't get to finish my sentence before he cut me off.

"Not telling" he winked at me and I bit my lip.

I shook my head to gather my thoughts, we might only have today to ourselves so we needed to start investigating for real. Now.

"So you have absolutely no idea who would want to separate you and Alexis in that building?" I questioned and once again he shook his head. "I think I have a small clue. Now that I think about it, it all makes sense" I thought out loud and Castle gave me a questioning look.

I waved him to follow me as I walked past him into the living room where I had left my computer yesterday.

"Remember what you told me yesterday about my mom's case?" I asked but didn't expect an answer as I continued to share my theory, "what if someone in that house found out you were looking into it and found you were too close to the truth. That's motive enough to wanna break you so that you wouldn't continue to look into it."

When I glanced at him he had widened eyes and I could see he really thought about it. I sat down on the floor with my laptop in my knee and went into the site of the senator's building, I started my typing to hack into the staff list.

"What are you doing?" Castle asked as he sat down beside me.

"Trying to find a list of the people working in the building, once I have a list I can compare it to the NYPD's known criminals to see if anything pops" I explained and he 'oh'ed.

He sneaked closer to me to be able to sit right beside me and look at what I was doing.

"You to teach me how to hack" he mumbled in amusement as he watched my fingers glide over the keyboard.

"As if, I'm not gonna help you break the law and give them a real reason to take her away from you" I told him and he huffed.

"But it's okay for you to do it?" he complained, somewhat childish.

"Yep" I said, popping the p before I turned my head towards him to kiss him on the cheek.

I smiled with my teeth showing, which never happened, when he turned his head to look at me and I got caught up in his ocean blue eyes.

"Do you know you have gorgeous eyes?" he suddenly asked and I saw a slight blush appear on his cheeks.

"No, do you?" I asked him as I continued to look into his eyes.

My eyes flickered to his cheeks and I saw the slight blush turn bigger. I couldn't stop the wide smile on my face. What was this? Why did my body feel all tingly and react so much to what he was saying or doing? I had only about stuff like this. It wasn't natural, it couldn't be. Before I could even understand what was happening he had pecked my lips and returned to his former position, looking to my computer screen with a big proud smile on his lips.

"You gonna leave me hanging like that?" I half complained half teased.

He nodded with a chuckle so I put my hand under his chin to turn his head towards mine and crash my lips on his. I sucked in his bottom lip in my mouth to trap it between my lips, which earned a surprised moan from him. I didn't know how but he took my breath away. He was literally breathtaking. I couldn't help but think of all those dreams years ago when I had dreamt about meeting him again after that book signing. I had dreamt about kissing him, and he kissing me back, but I could've never dreamt it would be good. He let his tongue touch my lips and I immediately separated them to let him in. His sweet taste filled my mouth and I moaned.

"God, we should stop" I spoke with my lips against his, not wanting to let him go.

He hummed and I could feel him slow down the kiss only a few seconds later. We pulled away enough to let our foreheads touch.

"If you continue with your magic there" he pointed to the computer as he talked with a low voice, probably not wanting to disturb the peace in my apartment, "I'll go and find my phone to see if I can find something through that once you got the names" he ended and I nodded.

He gave me a quick but lingering kiss before he stood up and went towards my bedroom, where I assumed he'd put his phone.