49. T-t-t-t-touch me

Dinner proceeds extremely successfully, apart from a minor fight over the last piece of khachapuri, which is technically Castle’s but upon which Beckett essays a forceful raid and almost succeeds in capturing it. “You’ll pay for that, Beckett,” he threatens direfully.  She smirks, and at that point he notices that she’s been sufficiently happy and relaxed to drink not only the half glass she started with but most of another glass on top.  This, though, isn’t the desperate downing – or drowning – of vodka: it’s the normal, sociable sharing of a good meal and good wine.

After dinner Beckett produces not coffee, but milkless, aromatic tea in glass cups in metal holders, and, with the addition of the chocolates and occasional happy noises through their truffled unctuousness, condescends to explain what everything was.

“Okay, I told you about shashlik and the baklazhan’i. The bread is” – it’s still a noise of crashing rocks – “which is the best food I ever had.  The green dish was zelenaya fasol’i – mostly green beans – and then the mushrooms – greeb’i.  You recognised them.  The rest was pickled vegetables.”

Castle snuggles her in at an opportune moment but contents himself with that while the tea is still being drunk. No point tipping tea over them both, and he doesn’t want either of them to be scalded.  He has a much better idea, and it does not involve any of scalding, asking about her day or in any way ruining this amazing appearance of Kat-not-Kate-and-definitely-not-Beckett.  It does, however, involve taking advantage, in the old-fashioned parlance, of her.  With her complete consent, of course.  He somehow doesn’t think that that will be an issue.

The tea is finally finished, the dishes have been put in the dishwasher, but there isn’t a scrap of food left to be eaten tomorrow. Castle looks at Beckett, replete, relaxed and resting in the crook of his arm, and smiles lazily down.

“That was delicious, thank you.” His smile acquires a wolfish edge.  “So now that we’ve had dinner, I should thank you in the traditional way.” 

She doesn’t have a chance to query the statement. Castle leans over and invades her mouth without so much as a by-your-leave: completely possessive and thoroughly sure of himself, nipping gently on her lower lip and then sucking lightly to soothe it, bringing her up on to his lap to have her close and in the perfect position to plunder.  Once more, she’s relaxed into him and beautifully responsive and her shirt is infinitely strokable, so he does, and the curves under it are infinitely seductive, so since they’ve seduced him he seduces them right back, and the wool of her skirt is soft under his fingers and it’s really not his fault at all that it seems to have slid right up to expose her satin-skinned legs which are equally soft under his hands.  His hand drifts down over her hip and then thigh as hers comes up around his shoulder and neck to turn herself into him and open to his kisses and press against him.

He slides a hand around her back, untucking the silk top and pressing fingers to flesh, and suddenly it all gets hot and messy in a hurry as she opens his own button-down and he flicks her top over her head and flips her to straddle him so that his hard arousal is pressed into her and she must know what she does to him, she must know how she affects him, just as he knows what he does for her. Sitting astride him, rocking fractionally as he smooths over her back, arching as his mouth moves down over her throat, her clavicles, and then on to her silk-and-lace covered breast; she’s hot and beautiful and aroused and all his: just as he’s all hers.  He shifts the fabric over proud nipples and firm, neat mounds, and she sighs and leans back against his arm to give him better access to her.

He holds her there, supporting her easily against his strength, standing her down by winding her up and up and up: touching and tasting and teasing until all she sees and feels and knows is him – and then he stands and her legs lock around him, and he takes her to bed.

Her skirt is undone before he lays her down, slipped from her before she’s fully noticed that she’s lying in only her pretty underwear; but before she can protest the disparity his shirt and pants have hit the floor and he’s beside her: large and predatory, eyes gleaming, and intent in every inch of his posture. She smiles up, no uncertainty, no misery – and as fast as a striking rattlesnake reaches up and pulls him over her.

“Something you want, Beckett?” he smirks. Smirk is removed when an elegantly evil hand performs elegantly evil deeds somewhere below his waist.  The smirk is replaced by hot focus and shortly by hot mouth on hers, venturing downward to return to her sensitive breasts; her hands are tangling in his hair and tugging.  He doesn’t want tugged.  He takes her hands away, linking their fingers by her head and effectively stopping her stopping him playing with them as he wishes.  It doesn’t stop her making her views clear by pushing up into him and emitting encouraging noises, which, in turn, doesn’t stop him ignoring her views and passing on down the flat planes of her stomach to settle himself comfortably to a second feast.   She writhes frantically against his demanding mouth before he’s even touching her skin: sliding the fabric to and fro against her before he accedes to her commands and strips them from her and she’s trying to move and he’s holding her in place and she’s crying out and he’s smiling ferally against her as he works her higher with tongue and fingers and then she explodes.

Castle collects up his bundle of blissed-out Beckett and amuses himself with some non-specific petting while she recovers. How nice that what he likes doing, she likes receiving.  Win-win.  She rubs against him like a cat and increases the similarity by purring contentedly.  He’s not at all sure she knows she’s doing it.

She knows she’s doing that, though.  Back to her evil, elegant hands doing evil, elegant deeds.  She seems to know just exactly where to touch him to best effect.  And then she slithers down his body, trailing kisses as she goes which leave little darts of heat piercing his skin, and adds her evil, beautiful, wicked mouth to the mix and his hands are in her hair and no matter how he tries he can’t stop himself thrusting into her hot mouth and then she does something with tongue that’s matched by her fingers and he’s lost.

When he’s recovered he finds that Beckett is peaceably curled against him, facing the other way but snuggled into his arm. He runs a delicate fingertip down her flank, and she shivers slightly and tucks in tighter.  A minor alteration in position, so that he’s on his side, later and she’s been spooned in and totally enveloped.

“Mine,” he murmurs happily. “Stay tucked up to me, all soft and cuddly.”  She wriggles slightly, the net effect of which is to bring her closer.  He thinks she might even have meant to end up closer.  He summons a little effort, and nibbles provocatively on her ear, which makes her wriggle enticingly.  Recovery time appears to have reduced to almost nothing.  Who needs di-lithium crystals?  He certainly doesn’t. 

He shifts a little behind her, and glides a broad palm down her front to cup her so that she wriggles some more, and opens for him, and he slides slowly into the exposed wet heat: forward and back, over but not in. She tries to move, and his arms clamp her close, keeping her still for exquisite teasing, leading to (he hopes) infinite pleasure.  She begins to purr long before he expects it, stretching and rubbing over his body in an effort to convince him to let her have her way, but he keeps her there until he’s finally ready to push into her instead, and then has freedom to move within her and simultaneously circle the nub of nerves and it’s so good, so incredibly good and she clenches and he’s still holding her and moving in her and together they ignite.

“Don’t you have to go?” she breathes, around a century later.

“No need. Mother will be home.  Staying right here.”

“Work tomorrow. You have to go sometime.”

“Yes, but not now.” Later.  He just wants to hold her, now.  Just for a little while.  She needs to be held: she needs to know that cossetting and cherishing and care for her are as readily available as her coffee.

Her eyelids drop. Shortly, Castle’s eyelids follow Beckett’s down.  He wakes briefly in the night, finds her still against him, and sleeps again, reassured.  No more second-best.  She’s shown him Kat.

When she wakes in the middle of the night, Beckett finds that she’s still close, though no longer wrapped in. She appears to be clinging to Castle’s hand.  This is surprising.  Nice, but surprising.  She luxuriates in the sensation for a moment as she falls back to sleep.

Castle wakes again, before dawn, and this time realises he really does have to leave, since he should have done so hours ago. Reluctantly, he dresses and slips out, leaving a neat note explaining his reasons anchored very firmly to Beckett’s nightstand.  There will be no miscommunications or abandonment issues here.

Beckett drags herself into wakefulness with an odd feeling that something – someone – is missing. Then her eyes snap open as the alarm goes off.  She sits bolt upright and slams into work mode, falling out of bed and into the bathroom in one movement, the practiced efficiency that has her washed, made-up and dressed in half an hour.  Breakfast – well, coffee – from the café, at her desk with said coffee in hand in good order in the shortest possible time.  She grabs the note, flicks her eyes down it, acquires a lovely warm feeling in her chest, and whisks herself off to work in the most positive state she’s been in since November.

It lasts right up until she sees Montgomery’s not-happy, not-smiling face, at which point she remembers about the other matter.

“Reporting, sir.”

“My office,” he snaps. Ryan and Esposito acquire expressions of sympathy.  Their Monday visit to Montgomery’s office is not far from their minds.

The door shuts behind the Captain with an ominous crack.

“Report, Beckett.”

“I have an appointment with a therapist tonight,” she says baldly, and takes considerable satisfaction from Montgomery’s flabbergasted face. It almost draws the sting from the need to say it.  Almost.

But not quite.

“Dismissed,” Montgomery says weakly. He watches her leave, too surprised to work out – until she’s out of sight – that he’s completely failed to require her to report on her plan.  On the other hand, it’s a start.  He will be monitoring this development.  In fact, although he can’t and won’t ask what she covers in therapy – and the chances of Beckett telling him are marginally slimmer than the chances of him becoming President – this will go through the NYPD health plan and he will be able to monitor whether this is a one-off to appease him (and pretend to obey orders while actually not doing so at all) or a proper attempt to sort herself out.  Still, he might well spend a moment or two working out what to do with Beckett – and what to ask her.  He’s not going to let a Detective out-interrogate her Captain.  No sirree.

However, he still mentally curses the Berowitzes and then, on an instant’s thought, blesses his decision to allow Castle in. That had been looking pretty shaky a couple of weeks ago, but based on Monday it’s looking pretty sound right now.

Beckett retreats in apparent good order, and not until she’s fully out of sight of the Captain’s office does she flee to the restrooms, to lean her head on the cool tiles once more, and try to calm her roiling stomach. All her history, to be dragged up and examined, interrogated and evidenced until its truth or falsity should prove her guilt.  The warmth in her chest has been replaced by a cold, coiling ache. 

She exits, makes herself a scalding coffee, and returns to her desk. It’s barely eight-thirty, and the day is already chilled.  Worse, she can’t hope for a new case to distract herself.  If a new case arrives, she’ll have to break off to attend her appointment, and that will raise the very questions that she is hoping to avoid by scheduling it for after shift.  Not only that, but she can’t postpone or cancel.  Montgomery may have been rocked back on his Captain’s heels, but she certainly won’t count on him dropping the subject.  She can see another summons to his office arriving in the near future, when he realises that she hasn’t given him a plan.

She pulls a cold case and her hot coffee towards her, puts her head down, and starts.

It takes approximately four minutes – that is, as soon as they think she’s finished the coffee – for Ryan and Esposito to disturb her. They are, after all, her team, and they are definitely not happy at the way things have been happening for the last week and a half.  Ever since Beckett went rushing off and brushing them all off last Monday, in fact.  And then Montgomery benched her this Monday.  Time for some – um, help.  Thanks to Montgomery, neither of them had a chance to investigate before she was out the door.  At least Castle had gone after her, though since they haven’t seen him since he may be dead.  On the other hand, that would have made the news, so maybe not. 

“Yo, Beckett.”

“Hey.” She manages a smile.  It slithers from her face as she absorbs Esposito’s expression.  He’s aiming for his big brother mode, and finding it.

“What’s goin’ on?”

“Huh?”

“What’s up? You got sent home Monday and you were weird with Lanie the week before.  You were ill on Tuesday” – Beckett conceals any reaction to that – “and Montgomery made you take leave Thursday and Friday.  So what’s goin’ on, Beckett?”

“Stomach upset,” she says blandly. “Thought I was over it, but I wasn’t.  Montgomery didn’t like my overtime.  Guess there isn’t room to pay it in the budget, so he made me take time in lieu.”

It’s all terribly plausible. Espo doesn’t buy it for a second.  He also doesn’t buy the conversation-ending way that Beckett’s picked up her pen and flipped over a page in the case file.

“Okay,” he says, surprisingly mildly. “That’s the case, you’ll have some time to come sparring with me.”  Mildness disappears.  “Now.  Ryan’ll come and make sure your bug don’t join us.”

“I’m working.”

“So’m I. I’m workin’ on getting you fit again.  You’re not running, ‘cause it’s been too slippery, an’ yoga just don’t cut it.  You haven’t been in the gym in weeks, have you?  So c’mon.  Now, or lunchtime?”

“Lunchtime.”

“Deal. An’ no goin’ an’ callin’ Lanie to get outta sparring.”

That’s not going to happen, Espo. No way am I calling Lanie.  No way.

Espo struts off, radiating satisfaction. Ryan doesn’t.

“What’s really up, Beckett?” he asks quietly. “We all know that was so much bullshit.  I don’t think it’s Castle that’s upsetting you – but if it is,” he says steelily, “then we’ll be having a little chat with him.”

“Not required.”

“ ‘Kay. ‘S not your dad, ‘cause you’d have done the usual.”  Ryan watches Beckett’s eyes shut down.  “Or… is it?”

“No,” she says tightly. “Everything’s fine.”

Ryan regards her unusually cynically. “Sure it is.  Suddenly you’re ill just when you’re brushing off us and your best friend?  Sure you’re fine.  We’re not buying your bullshit, Beckett.  If it isn’t Castle – an’ that I do believe – it’s something else.”

“Ryan, leave it.”

“Nah. Like it or not, we’re a team.  Means you got to play as a team.  So tell me what’s up.”

“Nothing to do with work. Nothing to do with my dad.  Nothing to do with Castle.”  She looks up, eyes cold and dead.  “Nothing to do with you boys.”

Ryan glares back at her. “You don’t get to pull that crap with us.  You don’t put us off that easily.  We know there’s something up, an’ if you don’t tell us we’ll work it out ourselves.”  He lowers his rising voice.  “We’ll help.  Whether you want us to or not.  So you can spill the beans now or later but we’re not leaving you to fuck yourself up on your own.  We don’t work like that.”

She can’t bear the disappointment in his tone, but she won’t show it and can’t talk about it. “Nothing’s wrong.  I’m not going to mess up the team.”  Dismissal edges her next words.  “I’ll see you in the gym at lunchtime.”

Ryan doesn’t look satisfied with that, but at that point a coffee cup arrives in front of her, followed by Castle arriving beside her, and the conversation drops as Ryan moves away.

It’s possibly very fortunate that Beckett didn’t spot the fulminating scowl Castle directed at Ryan in order to shift him away. He could see the stress in her shoulders from the moment he stepped out the elevator, and though right now he can think of a dozen reasons for that, starting with Montgomery and finishing with murder, the expression Ryan’s wearing and Esposito’s interested attention from his own desk make him think that the first reason is Ryan.  (And it really isn’t a little revenge for Ryan calling him out a couple of weeks ago.  Really not.  Much.)  So when he gets closer he fixes Ryan with a truly filthy look and a jerk of the head which is completely unmistakable. 

Any man would recognise it as leave her alone.  Any man would also recognise that the gesture carries a number of connotations which are not normally common between co-workers, however.  Chief among them is a definite layer of you hurt my girl and I’ll hurt you.  Ryan is a man who’s had a few girlfriends of his own about whom he’d cared and is a veteran of a number of emotional scenes, and he recognises that a few harsh words between Castle, Espo and himself are approaching. 

“Hey,” Castle says softly. Beckett glances up and achieves a smile of moderate sincerity.  It doesn’t wholly disguise the small stresses around her eyes.

“Hey, Castle. Thanks for the coffee.”

“Can’t have you suffering caffeine withdrawal. That would be dangerous.”  He waits a beat.  “You might shoot Espo.”

“More likely Ryan,” Beckett mutters darkly. “When I need a mother hen I’ll go to a farm.”

“Oh?”

“Never mind. It’s not important.  Now, what’s brought you here when there’s no new body to investigate?”

Castle makes sure his back is to the boys and then casts her a look that curls her toes. “This and that.  Soaking up the atmosphere.  Making sure the story runs smoothly.”  If it weren’t for the look, it would be trivial.  “Checking my understanding.  Confirming I’m on the right track.  Every story needs a supporting framework.”

“Good to know,” Beckett says dryly. “My apartment windows need to be cleaned.  You can lend me the scaffolding.”

“You wound me,” Castle declaims, pressing his hands to his heart dramatically. Beckett quirks an eyebrow.

“I think you’ll live.”

Castle humphs sulkily. “Just for that, Detective, I shall repair to the break room to suture my psychological wounds.  I’m sure someone will be sympathetic.”

“Only if you fix the coffee for them.”

Castle retires to the break room, punctured.