(no subject)

[mmkaternater]

The NYPD doesn't have an official gym. Not anymore, anyway. Not since the basement in the bottom of the 12th had been found to contain "unusually high levels of asbestos" and not since everybody agreed that it was probably not a good idea for New York's Finest to run on treadmills located underneath five hundred pounds of the stuff. For the last five years, the District Attorney and the mayor had been trying to talk their constituents into springing for a new facility, but response was as sluggish as the blood flow through a diabetic's arteries. In the interim, the New York City branch of the FBI has offered use of their gym to any officer who wants to come in and burn off a few blue calories.

And that's where Castle is today.

Or, would be, more accurately, if he could get past the security cartel in the lobby. Despite the fact that Beckett had finally gotten around to getting him his own sent of presentable credentials, the G at the security desk isn't buying the whole "authorial ride-along" shtick, and Castle has had to sweat through three inter-departmental phone calls, a background check, and a number of pissed-off-looking agents who have filed in behind him, already looking like they just need an excuse to knock a guy's block off.

"I'm with Detective Kate Beckett," he tries again, hoisting his gym bag along his shoulder. "B-E-C-K-E-T-T. Badge number...hell, I don't know her badge number. Page her. She's expecting me."

The badge behind the desk cups his large hand over the mouthpiece of his phone. He looks like the kind of guy who uproots tree stumps in his spare time. "I don't have a record of you on the books, Mr. Castle. You're certain she was meeting you today?"

"Yeah, today. She's got to get re-certified in hand-to-hand combat next week. We were going to practice a few moves."

Stony silence. Castle hears a couple of Gs chuckle in line behind him.

"What?"

"No offense, Mr. Castle, but unless you're gonna' take dictation during her re-certification, she's probably gonna' do better on her own."

Castle casts a glance down to his top-of-the-line sneakers and never-been-sweated-in NYU t-shirt. "You think I don't have what it takes? I'll have you know, I can be pretty intimidating when I want to be. I made a waiter cry once."

The badge chuckles into his collar and returns to his phone call. Castle scans the lobby, touching his stomach with the tips of his fingers, looking dejected. A few seconds later the guy hangs up, gives Castle a tight smirk, and says, "All right, man. She's on her way down to collect you. 'Careful you don't knock her in the head with those forearms of yours."

"Watch it. I can take a maître d' out in two seconds flat."

Comments

[fanofthegenre]

Her eyes go wide. A flash of warning - then, she disguises her anticipation of his movement with thinly-veiled anger, holding out a hand to brace herself along his shoulder to push him away if it comes to that.

"Castle," she mutters again, her voice rising in volume as the tension ascends to a crackle of energy.

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

He strokes his fingers over her hip. "You could always ju-jitsu me over your shoulder," he says.

[fanofthegenre]

"From this position?"

It's a little easier said than done, but she tries not to let on that obviously.

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

His grip is firm, but not unbreakable. She's got ways and means of escape and there's some wild, thrilled part of Castle that hopes she tries. Her forearm brushes his ribcage and he gets a shock of feeling. His grin is wide and peaky.

"We never struggled with positions before," he notes.

[fanofthegenre]

It would be easy - all too easy - but should she give him that satisfaction? Beckett shifts, trying to allude to potential movement on her part, but can't get far without certain body parts lining up with certain others.

"Funny. I don't remember us deviating all that much," she teases.

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

"Oh --" he affects a half-wounded expression "-- but not from a lack of imagination, that's for sure."

He reaches beneath her and scoops her hip with his palm, pulling her up and back, using her gravity so that they're both sitting up. Her knee is braced on the couch next to his thigh, one of her arms slung around his neck. Her soft, sweet perfume hints around him.

"In fact, I'm using my imagination right now."

[fanofthegenre]

"Well, you're never lacking in that," she mutters, swaying over him as he tugs her upward, trying to recover her center of gravity.

It's harder to manage when he's pressed against her, under her, her legs snaking around his waist in the process.

"Really now?" Beckett says, the question coming out in a half-gasp.

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

The light from the television filters in behind her, casting her upper half in a blue-green silhouette. Electricity seems to spark and jump across the soft, nearly-invisible pelt of hair on her arms; she's lit up like a New York night.

With her on his lap, Castle is coming very close to poeticizing.

(Well, among other things.)

He moves a piece of hair from the corner of her mouth, brushing her jaw with his fingers. "'Course, in my imagination, I put up a much manlier fight at the gym today. 'Not nearly so much shortness of breath and old man noises."

[fanofthegenre]

"Don't sell yourself short," she says, curling her fingers around his wrist, feeling the light thrum of his pulse under her fingertips. Her smile comes easily now, brought on by the beer and the proximity, and when she shifts, it's only to move in closer.

"Considering it was your first time and all, I thought you made a valiant effort."

There's the urge to tease obviously, somewhere in there, but she can't exactly persuade herself to do more in that department at the moment. It may have something to do with the fact that his eyes are the most colorful she's ever seen them, flecks of gold reflected in the irises, and all she can do for now is draw his hand to her lips, gently biting the tip of his index finger.

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

"Valiant," he echoes, amused. "We're gonna' have to have another talk about adjectives."

The heat from her cheek collects in his palm, spreading and warm. Stronger, deeper reaction in his gut when she nudges her teeth over the edge of his fingerprint. Whoa, says Castle's higher brain and his lower stomach. He cups her elbow in his hand, sliding his thumb along the contour of her forearm. His eyes hold her in focus, very steady and very still. 'Thinks -- now, more than ever -- if he moves too fast, she might bolt.

His tongue unsticks itself from the bottom of his jaw and slides across her fingertip, almost dainty.

[fanofthegenre]

"Would you have preferred a different word?" she asks, mouth curving at the edges to reveal the row of white teeth that play along his index finger, then his thumb, in a gentle grazing.

"Chivalrous? Intrepid?" Beckett tests the words out loud, as if trying to debate over them herself, her gaze drifting to the corner of Castle's mouth as it twitches, betraying his losing fight against his own amusement. Her own is fairly obvious over her features, but also weighed down by something else - a heat, ironically enough, that burgeons low in her stomach.

"Vigorous, even."

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

"Look who's been thumbing her thesaurus."

He turns his mouth against her hand, kissing the thin band of skin between her thumb and forefinger where the body of her service piece normally finds its home. His fingers walk the inside of her arm, sliding into the flesh of her palm. He turns her hand and applies his lips to the center.

[fanofthegenre]

"It's a valuable tool to keep close at hand."

Like her gun, maybe - normally, it's like an extra appendage, always on her person, but it couldn't be further from her mind at this moment. Her gaze feels magnetically drawn to where his lips linger, first between her fingers and then against her palm. Unconsciously, she licks her own in response, the tip of her tongue brushing over the writer's callus that he bears on the lower part of his thumb.

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

Beckett's got good hands, small and utilitarian. Her fingers tapered, nails cut short across so they won't break the skin of the evidence gloves she dons upon arrival at a crime scene. 'Hard for Castle not to plumb the myriad ways she uses her hands: gripping a gun, parsing through evidence, thumbing piles and piles of mind-numbing paperwork. And some of his favourites: the way they splay when she handles a piece of pizza, or when she grips his wrist to prevent him from going on, head first, into a fresh scene. Some of that strength is born in her. Some of it has been learned.

By contrast, Castle's hands are large, his fingers blunt, nothing more worn into them than the writer's callus that's all but disappeared since the advent of the word processor. Even so, she's treating them like they were the finest instrument he owns, her mouth sending a warm pool of anticipation into his guts.

He folds her fingers into his palm and slowly draws their joined hands down to the cushion. 'Cups her jaw with his other hand and bends to kiss her again.

[fanofthegenre]

It's true that Castle's hands might not be the parts which he's most dependent on for making his living; apart from typing out the sentences he crafts, they pale in comparison to his mind, the brain that creates the scenarios and the elaborate plots that draw his readers in chapter after chapter, book after book, series after series. Beckett's allowed herself to be named alongside one of the many fans - hell, she's even confessed to as much as subscribing to his newsletter, for God's sake - but she's starting to recognize the reality that everything attached to Castle's brain is just as important.

It's his hands, for example, that find a way to delicately handle her, from maneuvering on the man earlier today to the way he cups her jaw in his fingers, gently tilting her chin up and just close enough for their mouths to meet.

Her lips part against his with a sigh, her eyes closing in contentment, and when she draws him in, it's with both arms and legs, leaning back against the couch cushions and pulling him down to cover her. For once, she's not complaining about his weight over her; here, she welcomes it and the warmth of his body, arching up to meet him.

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

All elbows and kneecaps for a second or two, Castle holds himself above her with one fist punched into the center of a couch cushion, the other hand exploring the dove-soft spot behind her earlobe. He moves her -- they move together -- down toward the couch with her ankle rucked high over his lower back.

Pinch him, he's gotta' be dreaming.

[fanofthegenre]

Beckett can identify at least one reason for the certainty that she's absolutely not dreaming, and her hands are fiddling with the buttons on that reason's shirt.

Her mouth claims his, in a slow and deliberate kiss, taking advantage of the time she has to revel in every little nuance in the way he cradles her, moves against her.

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

Jimmy's in the background somewhere, going on about neighborhood conspiracies and Grace Kelly's in all those fabulous gowns and Castle has a split-second flash of Beckett in the dress she wore to the MADT benefit. It felt good to have her on his arm that night.

Now, pajama pants and a camisole are not sequined gowns, but Castle thinks they're easier to work with and he likes Beckett when she's calm and relaxed, unbothered for the few minutes she allows herself to be. He arches his back to give her knuckles enough room to work the buttons on his shirt. 'Slides his fingers over her throat and collarbone, where the hammer of her heart thumps against his palm.

[fanofthegenre]

There's lines from the film, entire pieces of dialogue she has memorized, and even somewhere in her subconscious, between Castle's hands on her skin and his lips pressed to hers, she can still identify exactly what scene is unfolding on the screen in front of them, the precise moment of plot ("Well, if there's one thing I know, it's how to wear the proper clothes.") - but it's not a big enough distraction to tear her attention away.

Now, it's more of a pleasant background noise, the all-too familiar drawl of Jimmy Stewart and the soft lilting murmur of Grace Kelly when Beckett smooths her palms over the width of Castle's shoulders, his own touch eliciting a small sigh from her. All of this: it's slow, unhurried. She's in no rush to go anywhere, he doesn't have another place to be. They can take their time. It's why she breaks the kiss now, in order for her mouth to travel down the angle of his jaw, pushing her lips to the patch of skin directly beneath his earlobe.

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

Castle's 'three-cups-of-espresso-before-breakfast' kind of life doesn't lend itself to downtime. Even when he's alone in his office, stationed at his laptop, there's a Formula 1 race going on in his head; this character connects to that plotline, this evidence gets revealed at this time. Even when he's sleeping, Castle is dreaming in paragraph prose.

He's found that, with Beckett, time doesn't exactly stop, but it slows down enough for him to take a breath every once in a while.

Her lips find the sensitive nerve factory behind his ear and he tightens like a piano wire, pushing a warm sound out of his lungs. "Keep doing that," he says lowly, "and I might just roll over and let you scratch my belly."

[fanofthegenre]

And Beckett - well, it's possible that she may not have an off-switch, but if she does, Milliways has made it even more obvious than it was before she stumbled into a magical bar and decided to start keeping a separate room there. It's different though, here, where time doesn't stop - but right now, it sure as hell feels like it could.

She grins, silently pleased by his reaction to her action, and repeats it, her lips grazing his earlobe when she inclines her head to answer him.

"Maybe later," Beckett teases. "Right now, I like you where you are."

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

He likes it, too. 'More than enough to temporarily surrender to the actions of her mouth and let pure, raw feeling take over. Hell, who's he kidding? Castle is all about pure feeling, the more of it the better, 'til he's full to bursting and eyeing a helluva' hangover the next day. But Beckett, she's somehow got her hands on a direct line on everything that makes him feel good and confounds him at the same time.

Maybe she's right -- maybe there's a little more Nikki Heat in her than he first gave her credit for.

If that's the case, well, then there's more than enough Rick Castle to complement. The warmth of her ribcage is abandoned so that he can pass his palm over the curve of her hip, hiking her ankle over the small of his back. He finds an unexplored spot on her neck and devotes his attention to it, drawing the soft skin between his lips with a gentle pull of breath.

[fanofthegenre]

It's a unique kind of dynamic, the way they know all too well what makes each other tick - and, at the same time, what pushes each other's buttons. Their relationship is probably more often made up of the latter, but here, with Castle's hand on her hip and his lips hovering over the curve of her neck, Beckett's finding all too quickly that there are those few buttons, mostly left untouched, that he knows how to seek out.

She arches with a breathless sigh, her hand sliding from his back to cup the back of his head, finger-combing the short strands there and gently tousling, teasing his scalp and waiting for the inevitable response of a shiver. Beckett draws her own lower lip in with her teeth.

"Don't even think about giving me a hickey, Castle," she warns.

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

Castle tastes, but he doesn't dwell, as if he isn't interested to see how she'd manage to cover up a high school-style blemish at work the next day. He can imagine the looks she'd get from Ryan and Esposito, the soft cluck-cluck from Lanie. Hell, if he wasn't certain she'd make him pay for it later, Castle would make it a point to buy her turtlenecks in bulk. Maybe he'll send her one -- just one -- to test the waters.

His thumb slides in a slow arc over her hip bone, brushing the bare skin beneath her pajama top. He grins and the expression tugs his lips over her skin. "Why? You worried about what the kids in Homeroom are gonna' say?" He feels her nails pinch his scalp. "Give me a little credit, Detective. We're a long way from high school."

A long way, sure, but it sure as hell doesn't feel like it when they're like this: spread out on her couch, an old movie in the background, hands exploring where and what they can. Except now, instead of being interrupted by a parent, they've got to worry about either of their cell phones ringing to drag them to a fresh crime scene. Castle's praying that the city's ne'er-do-wells are taking the night off.

[fanofthegenre]

Beckett can remember at least one instance from her past where a little concealer went a long way in covering up some suspicious mark from her mother's eyes. Ironically, Johanna Beckett had not been easily fooled, especially when it came around to the fact that her daughter was wearing a turtleneck in the middle of July. (Freeze a spoon next time, she'd said, giving Beckett one of her infamous Looks. But there'd better not be a next time.)

She almost laughs at the memory as it comes now, hiding her grin against Castle's temple. She considers sharing it, but she's not sure she wants that story to take precedent over what's happening here.

"You're right," she murmurs. "We are."

It's then that she decides to flip them, though not with any kung-fu moves or fancy footwork. One minute Castle's hovering over her, and in the next she's the one who has him pinned against the couch, straddling his hips, her hands parting the open sides of his shirt when they slide over the bare skin of his chest. Her hair tickles his face, she's sure, as she leans down to kiss him, but when she lowers her head to let the kisses descend to his chest, her hair follows her, a dark curtain trailing behind.