A/N: Based upon the first sneak peek ABC released for 7x03 (Clear and Present Danger) only in this version, the phone that interrupted them doesn't ring.

He's sneaking peeks at her over his iPad, staring for at least five seconds, and then returning his gaze to his screen before she can meet his eyes. Kate crosses her legs on the couch, tries to focus on the novel she's been reading, but it's been three weeks and she's missed him like crazy and her body is thrumming for him after so long of exchanging only tentative touches and a fleeting kiss or two. She wants to welcome him home in an entirely different way.

"You want to do something tonight?" she finally suggests, not looking up from the iPad even when his head snaps towards her.

"Sure, if you want."

"Sure."

"Like what?"

She makes a show of mulling it over, going over their usual set of activities they could choose from on a quiet night in like this in her head, but already knowing she doesn't want to cuddle up on the couch with another movie or attempt another less competitive game of Scrabble.

"We could um… go watch a movie?" she throws out, waiting for his reaction, secretly delighted when he appears complicit but not conclusive.

"Yeah," he agrees with a nod. "Yeah, if you want to."

"Well, not if you don't want to."

"No, if you want to-" His hand flutters in the air, shoulders shrug. She loves curling her hands around those shoulders when she's in his lap, loves shaping her fingers over the strong rounded bones and the muscles of his back. "I want to."

"You know what, we've watched a lot of movies over the past couple of weeks," she points out and he's quick to concede. "So, maybe we could… you know, if you wanted…"

His head tilts to the side as he leans forward, intrigued and inquisitive even though his eyes spark with knowledge and his voice lowers to that seductive tone he uses when he's trying to get her into bed.

"If I wanted to what?"

Kate bites her lip and flips the lid of her iPad closed. "We could try something else tonight."

"Something else as in…"

"Well, yeah, I mean we haven't since-"

"Well, given everything that's happened, I thought you just - you weren't… ready."

"I thought that you weren't ready," she counters, disregarding the iPad completely and sitting up from the cushion of the sofa.

"I'm ready. I'm - I -" He manages to scoff through all the stammering. "I am so ready."

"I'm ready too," she insists, relishing the familiar coil of heat tightening in her abdomen as she drifts closer to him on the couch. "Like, I'm really ready."

"Okay, well then what are we waiting for?"

She's not even ashamed of the way she jumps him. He had already been rising from the couch, prepared to lead her to the bedroom, but the distance from here to there seems impossible and the feel of him under her hands as she finally kisses him is worth the way they stagger and nearly tumble from the sofa.

Castle doesn't stop her, doesn't complain, allowing his back to fall against the couch cushions and splaying his hands beneath the black button up she hasn't changed out of since they returned home from the precinct. She mewls and sucks his bottom lip into her mouth as his hands explore her skin like foreign territory, burning a trail into her flesh, toying with the clasp of her bra. She rolls her hips when his fingers sweep beneath the lace, skimming the undersides of her breasts and making teasing brushes over her taut nipples. He groans around her tongue, pulls his hands from her shirt to cradle her skull, angling her head and seeking deeper access to her mouth.

"Gotta move," he mumbles, clutching the sharp bones of her hips, trying to control the almost frantic undulation of her body against his. She had always imagined their reunion slow, reverent, but her body has a mind of its own, yearning for his touch in such a savage way. "Kate," he grunts through the frenzy of kisses. "Can't do this here."

"Then take me to bed," she growls, accentuating her point with another sharp, insistent thrust of her hips that turns his eyes that storming shade of blue she hasn't seen since before their almost wedding.

He lifts from the couch with little issue, taking her squirming body with him. Her legs wrap tight around his waist, her hips keeping up a halfhearted rhythm that has him pausing every couple of steps to nip her ear in reprimand until they eventually end up stumbling through his bedroom door.

He slams her up against it and she arches, moaning louder than she would usually allow herself when inside the loft at the solid press of his chest against hers and the scalding touch of his open mouth to the sensitive skin just below her jaw. He still knows exactly how to touch her, exactly how to steal her breath and make her heart pound, and underneath the growing haze of lust, she finds comfort. Comfort in the fact that this is one of the few things that has not changed.

She's missed him, everything about him, including this, especially this. She's never been good with words, not like him, but she's always excelled in the physical connection they share so well, in using her body to show him things words could never express.

She'd first told him she loved him with her body long before her mouth could form around the confession.

The bed is steps away, he could reach it in two long strides, but instead he lowers her to the ground, waiting until her feet touch the floor to descend to his knees.

"Castle?" she pants, brow furrowing as his fingers fumble over the waistband of her slacks before deftly unbuttoning them and tugging the zipper down. The grey material pools around her ankles and his lips skate along the waistband of her underwear, teeth scraping the vulnerable skin of her abdomen and nipping at the contracting muscles. He pays homage to the hollows of her hipbones with his tongue, makes her jerk when he swirls over her navel before finally hooking his teeth in the lace edge of her panties.

"You can't do that," she groans, canting her hips towards him as he drags her underwear down her legs, trailing back up to the skin of her inner thighs and painting his mouth to the taut, flexing muscles there. "Castle-"

"I want to," he murmurs, so close to where she craves him. "I want to taste you again."

She buries her fingers in his hair, drops her head back against the door with a heavy thump as his tongue slides through the slick wetness between her legs. His palms rest over her hips, holding her body against the door as he curls his tongue around her clit and then closes his lips around her to suck the swollen bundle of nerves into his mouth and she has to purse her lips together to keep from screaming because she's pretty sure his mother and daughter are both upstairs.

He's just so good at it, knows her so well, how touch her with just the right amount of intensity to keep her teetering on the edge without letting her fall, and she never lasts long. But tonight, it's mere seconds before her vision is bursting with sunbeams and her chest is so tight she can barely breath through the flares of fire zipping through her veins at every stroke and swirl of his tongue.

"Fuck," she gasps when he draws one of her legs from the floor, guides it over his shoulder. "Castle."

"In a minute," he mumbles, the low vibrations of his voice against her making her writhe and curl her leg tight at his shoulder, her heel digging deep into the flesh below his shoulder blade.

His tongue flattens against her, his teeth drag over her clit, and she's already sobbing, cursing, begging, but then his fingers thrust inside. Her muscles quiver and clench around him as she uses the hands in his hair to keep the delicious pressure of his mouth right where she needs it while his fingers plunge and curl until the sunbeams behind her eyes finally explode into fireworks of color.

Castle gentles but doesn't stop his ministrations after she falls apart, trailing a leisurely path with his tongue, exhaling against her with hot breath that causes her trembling body to convulse against the door. He pulls away when she tugs weakly at his hair, travels his way back up her body with his mouth placing gentle kisses to the skin of her stomach, unbuttoning her shirt to touch his lips to her ribs, the swell of her breast, her clavicle.

Her moan converges with a sigh as he kisses her lips, allowing her the taste of herself still lingering on his tongue.

Her shoulders shrug her shirt off while he begins working on the discs of his own button down and she reaches for his belt, undoing the buckle in record time and adding purposeful pressure when she guides his zipper down.

"Kate," he grunts, darting forward to nip along her jaw and she can't help growing distracted from her task, lifting her hands to his bared back, mapping the stretches of skin, the ridges of bone and rippling valleys of muscle, holding him against her.

She walks him backwards, managing to keep his body close until they reach the mattress and he eases onto the edge, kicking his jeans off and opening his arms to her. She smiles at the gesture, crawls into his lap and molds her hands to his neck, peppers her lips to his jaw, to the stubble that burns her lips in the best way as he maneuvers them higher on the bed and unhooks her bra at the same time.

She tosses the lingerie towards the closet and notices his boxers are still on. She snags the waistband with her nails when he lays back, resisting his attempt to draw her down with him, deciding to repay him for the breath stealing orgasm he had given her against the door. She touches her mouth to as much of his skin as she can, memorizing the landscape of his upper body, dusting her lips to the still healing scar on his side, humming her contentment as she goes lower. He doesn't stop her until she's sucking on the twitching muscle of his inner thigh so hard she's sure she'll leave a mark.

"Kate," he protests even as she reaches inside his boxers, brushes her hand down the length of him and watches his breath stutter and catch, but he still shakes his head, tugs on her wrist. "I want to be inside you."

The returning desire between her legs pulses with heat and she discards his boxers from his body before returning to hover over him.

His fingers glide through her hair, nails scratching and circling gently along her scalp, thumb tracing the shell of her ear.

"I missed you. God, I missed you."

He's said the words countless times since he's come home, but her heart still trips and swells, her eyes still burn with tears.

"I'm so sorry, Kate. I'm so-"

"Please don't," she rasps, slipping a hand between them, reclaiming her soft grip around his erection and aligning him at her entrance. "Please don't apologize anymore. Just - just be here with me."

She sinks down, moaning quietly through the welcome sensation of him filling her again after so long. They remain still when their hips meet once more and her muscles have adjusted to the familiar stretch of him inside her. God, it's been too long.

"I missed you too," she whispers, smearing her lips over his before she finally starts to move.

The warmth pools in her stomach as he meets her every unhurried thrust, drenching her insides with the unique slow burn only his body has been able to provide, and she grabs for the hands skimming her sides, tries to pin them over his head and lace their fingers, but he sits up before she can, the movement, the change in angle, eliciting a soft gasp from her lips.

He nudges his forehead against hers, holds her eyes as his hips press up and drive him deeper. Her legs fold around his waist and the sparks of friction, the jolting frissons of pleasure, strike something deep in her chest, that same well of emotion that has overflowed often since he's come back. It's usually tainted with sorrow, with pain, but not this time. Finally. She's overwhelmed with relief, with solace and reassurance, because he's home and he's hers and she won't let him go again.

Before she can hide her face against his shoulder, she involuntarily starts to cry, quiet tears that leak from her eyes no matter how hard she tries to swallow them back and trickle down her cheeks, falling to his chest.

"Kate." He tries to cup her face, to slow their rhythm, but she shakes her head, surges forward to staunch the irrational sobs in her throat with his willing mouth and distract them both with the rock and swivel of her hips.

His arms band tighter around her, crushing her chest against him yet cradling her at the same time. She's never understood how he always manages to be so attentive, so reverent and worshipping, every single time, even when he's making her scream.

Their rhythm hastens, climbing quicker to the white-hot crescendo of relief and she bites on his bottom lip, hums in satisfaction at the instinctive response his body gives, the arc of his spine and the claw of his short nails into her skin, the way he quickens their pace, sending her spiraling closer to the edge of release. So close. She jerks and mewls at the sudden pressure of his fingers between them, swirling over her clit, forcing her to break their kiss to breathe, gasping against the opened cavern of his mouth.

Her ring imprints against the skin of his neck as she clutches him through the sharpened thrust of his hips, the diamonds a sparkling blur in her vision as she starts to come apart, spilling fragmented whimpers of words against his lips.

Thank god you came back. Don't ever leave again. I love you I love you I love you. Together.

She slams down one last time, taking him with her as she catches fire and bursts into flames.

"Mm, I missed that," she sighs against his neck.

Castle's hand strokes through the sweaty strands of her hair, combing it from the damp skin of her neck and kissing her temple as she slumps more heavily against him.

"Me too."

They haven't moved, still joined and now propped against the headboard of his bed. She wants to stay like this for a while - just be and forget about his disappearance, about the two months apart, about the lack of answers, all of it. Because here, just the two of them in their bed, she feels the closest to peace she has since he returned home.

"We're spending all of our free time catching up on this again," he proclaims into her hair and her chest bubbles with unexpected laughter.

It feels so good, so refreshing, to laugh again. It fuels her hope that they really can find their way back to who they had been before the wedding, before the heartache and forming of wounds that are still weeping.

She nuzzles her nose to the side of his throat, inhaling the scent of his aftershave, and smiling against the cove of his neck.

"All of our free time, huh?"

He nods, the palm that had been resting on her tailbone slipping lower, fingers splaying over her ass, giving the muscle a gentle squeeze.

Kate smirks and lifts her head, sits back on his thighs and watches as his eyes graze languidly over her naked body. "Well, I am on call, but the phone hasn't rang yet, so if you think you can handle more…"

"Oh, I definitely can," he mumbles, eyes alight with eagerness, hands skimming her outer thighs with excitement. So eager to love her.

Beckett leans forward, smirking at the bob of his throat as her breasts glance across his skin. She teases her lips over his eyebrow, down the bone of his cheek, until she can brush her grin across his lips.

"Show me."