a/n : A small offering this festive season. Set during S8. May the day ahead find you peaceful and content.

"Tomorrow-" she starts, and it already sounds like apology.

He cuts her off, "I know."

"We can't -" and there's a mist of regret filming her eyes, dulling the spark. He doesn't want that.

"I know."

It's fierce, his tone, snaps her eyes up. It coils her spine so she curls into him even as he presses her back against the wall, the door, the desk.

Oh. The desk.

She lands and he's right there arched over her, dark shadows spilling from the width and length of him, covering her. Cocooning her.

"I know." Something slides behind her, swept aside by the broad reach of his arm and he's laying her back, opening her button by button.

Button?

He's saying it too.

"Yes."

"What?"

His hands are spanning her thighs, dwarfing her shape but never stealing the strength. He wraps himself up in her, sighs like it's home. Laughs.

"There's a button," she shivers and he grunts then, dark, powerful, tugging her tight. "Don't lean back, things might explode."

It's splinters through her. Joy, delight, sexual thrill. Sparks of it relight her pupils. Give her away.

He growls - "Not what I meant," - fists a hand in her hair and draws her lips closer to his. Breath dances like fire, licks her skin until she's seared to the bone.

Hot, wet and aching.

She can't sit still, hard wood shaking beneath them and too many clothes between them.

"Castle -"

He hears the confession and waits, mouth hovering breaths distance, kisses held at bay to hear her words.

"I want to spend the day with you -" eyes search his face "- you all. My...my family."

"But you can't." It's a reminder, nothing more. "Keep up the facade, Kate." He strokes her jaw, fingers loose now and tangled in her hair.

"But -"

He kisses her. Silences the ache and swallows the moan, coming back in again, hands at her back now, removing her coat.

"If there was a way -"

"I -" she shakes her head, wrong, "- we would have found it."

He nods, smile there immediately at his inclusion.

"But -"

"No buts," he lays her hand over his heart, his already spanning her chest. "You're here. Everyday."

He catches her lips again on her sharp intake of breath, smiles as his words slink through her system, heating her blood. Their kiss is a roar. Purity and sin. Deafening. Their lips and hands speeding up in tandem.

Arms up around him, she growls, thighs wide and the sharp, familiar press of her heel at his calf. Demanding voice and liquid gold eyes drinking him in,

"Take this off -"

"You first."

And the rest is a blur.

Sharp nails - longer now she's Captain - bright red, rake his back. His belt clangs against the desk and doesn't leave the loops fast enough so she abandons it, comes back for his shirt. Three buttons down she loses patience and the rest are rent from their holes with force that makes him smirk, eyebrow quirking.

Nothing tears. They're too good at this now. Too practised in the art of having each other, relishing, stealing time in short increments.

One squeeze from her dastardly fingers and she's almost horizontal. Control snapping, violent shudders shake muscles strung too tight.

Shirt gone, skirt rucking - oh, just how he imagined it when they were building this secret room. Hot breath at her neck and the soft press of her breasts against his bare skin. He breathes her in, swipes a line with his tongue and follows it down with the press of his mouth, striking her pulse to hear her cry, feel her shake.

She does.

Fingers between them, he pushes aside the last barriers holding them apart and she reaches for him. Dark eyes, heavy lidded with lust, lock with his own. Gold burnt through with fire and ash, teamwork spilling from her lips, partner from his.

He pushes forward, sliding slow and deep. Her ankles lock, fingers skitter over his cheeks. A lifetime held captive in a single moment.

It's frantic then, one second of slow connection before they spark and feed off of each other. Stroke and flame, fire and sinew. Muscles meet and clench, ricocheted shivers bouncing back and forth between them.

Her heels dig, bruise, fall away as she flicks them off, rising until he's trapped. The tiniest thrusts, hard, purposeful, drawing gasps. Laughter, sighs and moans.

He finds her hands, draws her up, chest to chest and tighter still. Wrists claimed in the gargantuan grip of his thick fingers. Fingers whose stroke and caress drive her higher, quicker than she ever anticipates.

He touches her jaw, her breast, lingers there until she squirms, desperate for her hands back. He complies, barely, and she smiles, shivers, surges into him, dragging the hard lines of his body over hers.

Nails scrape his back, squeeze lower, ankles inches from her grip, she whispers, dirtily.

"Harder. Faster. More." An endless chant lacing through his blood, a nip to his earlobe for encouragement.

Sudden teeth to his shoulder, she gasps, hotly, wet sounds of desire snaking between them. He jumps, judders when she bites, hips frantic, her moan chasing away the sound of his surprise.

He does it again. And again.

White light shimmers at the edges of his vision. Her eyes closed and her hands tight, he tilts her head, traces the wet line of her lips with his tongue.

"Don't stop."

"Never."

She blinks as he speaks the word, lust livid in the burn to her cheeks and chest, love vivid in the soft press of her mouth, the whimper that coats his tongue.

Harder, faster, more and they stumble together, racing, eyes closed, bodies and mouths fused, frantic. More, more, more, the pounding of their hearts, the sweat drenched touch of skin on skin takes them closer.

Faster.

One more kiss chased by another and another, meet thrust for thrust and tangled squeeze.

"I love you."

And everything shatters.

Collapsing, heavy. They quake in the spill of pleasure, drowning as it engulfs them. Panting breath and shared euphoria. They cling, and ride the wave together.

"How long?"

"A few minutes," her eyes rise from buttoning her shirt, cheeks flamed, hair tussled, "You?"

"Same." He's just about recovered, she smiles at the ruffles of his hair. He looks dishevelled after. Like herself. Taken apart and put back together. Messy, but whole.

He catches her hand, "New Year's Eve."

She smiles, it's not a question. She likes that. "It's a date."

She strokes back the curls at his forehead. Sighing out her longing, stepping into him, she touches his face.

Castle tips into her hand, pulls her close until she's smiling again. He kisses her, long and slow.

"It's midnight, Kate. Merry Christmas."