(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]

It's not the first time she's left him hanging, and it certainly won't be the last. Now, though, the focus isn't on what she might've said (I need you) or even what she never would have thought to say (I think I might be falling), but what she voices against his jaw in several quiet, harsh pants of breath as she tries to regain control of her racing heart.

She pulls away from him without really losing the warmth of him, preserving the contact between their bodies when she drapes herself along his side, one arm lazily slung across his middle. She hides her face between his head and the pillow, her fingertips drawing invisible symbols over his ribcage in light, slow touches.

She'll have to move, eventually. They both will. For now, though, she's content - perfectly content - to linger here a while longer. She doesn't close her eyes. She doesn't want to lose that visual confirmation of his presence just yet, even if she can feel his chest heaving under her bicep. Her lips push a brief kiss to his neck, one that nearly deepens when she tastes the tang of sweat on his skin.

"Castle," she sighs, less of a conversation starter and more just a quiet acknowledgment of the way he's managed to make her feel tonight.

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

Castle pushes his chin toward the ceiling, fixing his shoulders against the pillows so he can pull his arm out from underneath her and wind it around her shoulder. Her skin is damp in the places his fingertips touch. 'Same kind of buzzing, frenetic heat that he knows has taken possession of his own body.

"Mnh," he murmurs, then qualifies it with a more descriptive follow-up: "Me too."

He curls her shoulder in toward him and drops a light kiss onto her temple.

[fanofthegenre]

It'll take some time before she feels like she's back to a regular temperature, or even before her skin doesn't feel electrically charged, overly sensitized, the nerve endings firing to the places his hands touch on her body. She stretches against his hip as though she's trying to remember what it felt like to be tense.

"Mmm," she echoes, and then props herself up on one elbow, her hand skimming over his chest.

"Want some water?"

She's somewhat parched, and understandably so.

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

His throat is a rough tangle of dry thicket. "Yeah --" he touches his fingertips to the inside of her elbow "-- let me get it. You just stay right there." He pushes his feet against the bottom of the bed to work the sheets away from his ankles before he sits up, blinking equilibrium back into his brain.

He turns at the waist just before sliding out of bed, drawing his thumb and forefinger under her chin to kiss her again. "Gotta' say, I like that workout more than the other one."

The floor is cold, so he raises up onto the balls of his feet, comically postured, and makes his way out of the bedroom to the kitchen without a stitch of clothing on. In the living room, the DVD menu cycles over and over. He rummages through her kitchen cabinets for a couple of clean glasses, coming up with two short tumblers that he fills at the tap. He stands in front of the sink and gulps one glass whole, then fills it again and brings both back to the bedroom.

"Though, I guess, when you think about it, they both kind of had the same conclusion --" he passes her a glass "-- me on my back, sweaty, out of breath."

[fanofthegenre]

There's a moment when she's left alone, quiet and dwelling apart from the noises Castle makes - the creaking of the floorboards, the brief squeak the faucet makes when he twists on the tap in the kitchen, the groan of the mattress when he settles back in near her again. She cradles her head in her hand, elbow making a slight indent in the pillow, and then reaches out to accept the cool glass, sipping steadily.

"I was going to see if you were ready for round two, but if you're still recovering - "

Her eyebrows twitch over the rim of the glass, though she makes sure to finish off its contents before setting it aside next to the glaring red digits on the alarm clock. Relaxed, for the moment, she pulls the sheets up around her and rests her head against the pillow, grinning up at him.

There's no way in hell the image of him tiptoeing out of her room stark naked won't be burned into her memory for weeks - even months to come now.

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

He drains his glass and reaches over her to put it on the night stand, pausing for a second to press his lips to the turn of her neck. "I'm sure I can dig deep down and find some reserves." His hands, comfortable and familiar now, slide over her hip.

[fanofthegenre]

She sucks a quick breath in through her teeth, a soft hiss of pleasure, her skin still alive and humming with every touch of his hands and lips. Her arm slides around his neck to draw him in with a whisper:

"I could just tell you had it in you all along."