Kate screamed yet another silent scream, as if it mattered, as if it ever changed a goddamned thing.

It was the lie she endlessly told herself, that she didn't want Richard Castle, that she hadn't wanted him since the first night they'd met. The problem was, like so many lies, the louder she shouted it, the more she tried to convince herself of it, the less true it continued to become.

In daylight and in darkness, on good days and bad, thoughts of him came at her like the winds of a hurricane, too powerful in their force to overcome, and she'd grown weary from the fight. Every innocent touch ignited her pulse, every look plucked at the string of her instrument, and even now, as she sat in the car beside him after having spent much of the previous night in his arms, pressed up against him in the dress he'd wanted her in, all she could do was imagine him pulling at its string and letting it fall from her body as he watched.

The fact of the matter was, just about the only thing that currently stood between the two of them and a bed was her hollow denial, and that rope she was desperately clinging to was in tatters.

The up-all-night fatigue wasn't aiding her ailing resistance, either, nor was the warm color of dawn that'd enveloped Rick's side of the car, highlighting his angles and curves as though he were a prized work of art in a museum.

Her body's response to him had become frustratingly automatic, almost Pavlovian in its reflex, and she could barely even glance in his direction, not without her fingers wringing the steering wheel like it was some sort of water-soaked sponge. It required physical effort, to abstain from yet another peek she swore she wouldn't take, but the traffic light that hung just ahead turned a cruel shade of red and her eyes shifted once more, without sanction, without care or consideration of the inevitable and familiar consequence.

A few degrees was all it was, a harmless ocular journey under most circumstances, yet that brief collection of seconds felt like a calculated assault on her willpower-the sheen of his lips, the lines a lifetime of smiles had left at the corner of his eye, the gentle shadow across his jaw cast by a day absent the scrape of a razor, the errant wisp of hair that danced along his forehead to the song of the breeze from his open window, the way his…

No more. Enough.

Kate slammed her eyelids shut, squeezed them with the might of a child spooked by a summer storm until those tiny floating strings of light appeared behind them, the ones that both confounded and dazzled. But her mind remained open-wide open-despite her silent protestations which surely served only to perpetuate the cycle she was trying so hard to escape from, and because of it, she could all but feel her mouth colliding with his in delicious surrender.

It was all so fucking ridiculous. She was a skilled homicide detective in one of the toughest cities in the world, a fiercely intelligent and capable woman, yet she couldn't stop thinking about having him. How she loathed anything she couldn't control.

She was pissed off. She was pissed off because she couldn't help herself, or because what the hell was he even doing inside her life in the first place, making her act that way and think that way and feel that way with his presumptuous goddamned smile lines? She hadn't invited him, hadn't asked him to stay, invade her thoughts, and Kate Beckett never behaved like some lovesick teenager with puppy dog eyes over some guy. If she did, it certainly wouldn't be over him.

The blast of a horn jolted her eyes open, the traffic light now green for who knew how long, her passenger having offered no helpful cue. The car screeched forward when her foot found the gas pedal, and Rick snickered in amusement, sitting there in his tuxedo with his shirt unbuttoned by three and his bowtie, begging for capable hands, loose around his neck.

"That would probably be points off on the driver's exam, Detective. I'm pretty sure the state of New York frowns upon its citizens driving with their eyes closed." He exhaled more than chuckled, but his satisfaction was resoundingly clear.

"Just shut up, Castle, okay? I'm not in the mood."

"Yeah, no shit," he mumbled as he turned his attention toward the cab stopped next to them at another red light down the avenue. A young blonde in the backseat smiled flirtatiously and he tossed her a cutesy two-finger wave.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Kate snapped, having witnessed the exchange. "If you can pull yourself away from that child to explain."

"Oh, don't worry, Detective, she means nothing to me. You know you're all I've ever wanted." He stretched his arm across the void between them and his hand came to rest on her shoulder. "And you're even sexier when you act jealous like this," he teased further with a grin.

Kate's fingers gripped the wheel again until her knuckles whitened. "You should be examined by a doctor. Has anyone ever told you that?"

"Well, my last ex-wife and I used to play…But, yeah, that's probably a story for another time." He pulled his hand back before she had opportunity to demand it. "You know, I have to say, Beckett, it kind of seems like you didn't really have fun tonight, or last night now, I guess. You've been ticked off ever since you picked me up, and that was long before…what happened." He brought his fingers to his cheek, drew them nostalgically along the curve where hers had earlier left their mark.

What happened. Her skin blushed with the mention.

"Clearly, Castle, we have very different ideas about what fun is. Next time you come up with some stupid plan that involves me having to squeeze myself into a dress I can't breathe in, let me know first, so I can tell you just how stupid it is and avoid any involvement." Her jaw clenched as his scent drifted beneath her nose with the crossing breeze-the spice of soap infused with braggadocio.

"Just out of curiosity, have I ever come up with a plan you thought wasn't stupid?" he asked sarcastically. Kate almost laughed, but managed to control herself. "Need I remind you that you just spent the wee hours of your Saturday morning questioning a very viable suspect in your case because of my plan-and looking rather fetching while you were at it, I must say. My acute fashion sense is but one of my many gifts."

"No, I don't need your reminder, Castle," she replied in a fluster. "All I wanted to do was to go in there and do what I had to do so I could get out of this damn thing." She glanced at the dress fixed snuggly around her body as though cursing it with her eyes, though in truth its embrace felt divine. "What the hell did you do that for, anyway, Castle? What were you thinking?"

Rick's eyes scanned her body, limited by her position though they were. "I was thinking strapless would be perfect with that milky skin of yours," he replied, understanding full well what she'd meant yet opting for playfully evasive. "One more thing I was right about."

The gravel in his morning voice had her positively humming, and, Christ, he had an infuriating knack for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, and an even more infuriating one for saying the right thing at the wrong time.

"That's not…I didn't mean the damn dress, Castle, and you know it. Why the hell did you-"

"Touch you like that?" he jumped in, not immune to the voltage in the memory, himself.

The contact had been too deliberate, too soft for him to have tried to simply brush it off, and when their eyes had met in its termination, he'd seen she'd known that. Maybe it'd been true. Maybe he'd gotten carried away. Maybe his hand hadn't belonged on her cheek, along her neck, in her hair, but she hadn't said a word to stop it. In fact, absent Mayor Bob's interruption, he'd actually wondered how much closer she would've allowed him to get. That was until the slap, of course.

"Really, Castle, what part of your brilliant plan was that? What was that supposed to accomplish?"

"First of all, thank you for finally recognizing it was brilliant. Second of all, the mission had a name: Operation Family Jewels. Thank you." Then his tone took a notable turn. "And third of all, it wasn't part of anything. Sometimes I do things just because I want to do them. You should try it sometime."

"You don't know anything about me or what I do, Castle, and my job isn't some Fantasyland you get to play in with your ridiculous code names and everything else you don't take seriously. You have your books for that crap." She finally pulled up in front of his building, threw on her signal but made no attempt to park. "I'm tired, Castle," she said when she felt him watching her.

Rick flipped the handle. "Yeah, thanks for the ride. Sorry I made you uncomfortable. It won't happen again." He climbed out of the car, threw the door shut behind him, and she watched him walk away without looking back.

When he disappeared inside, she gave herself a look in the mirror, could only shake her head. It was then she realized she was still wearing the necklace Martha had gifted her for the evening, the very expensive necklace, one she didn't feel comfortable holding on to for the weekend. So, despite the hour and despite the awkwardness of their parting, she found a spot for the cruiser around the corner and parked, to follow him inside to return it.

The doorman knew her, of course, sent her up without announcement, and rather than ring or knock, for Alexis's and Martha's sakes, she texted Rick to let him know she was there. He came to the door having already removed his tuxedo jacket, and Kate found her eyes instantly drawn to that fourth button on his shirt and his skin peeking through just above.

"Seemed like we were done," he said, not angrily she thought, but definitely something.

She drew her hands up behind her neck. "I forgot I still had this. I wanted to give it back."

He could see she was struggling with releasing the clasp and offered help. "Let me. Turn around." He stepped through the doorway when she acquiesced, put his fingers to work. He did everything he could not to accidentally brush her skin, not to touch her again, yet she felt him just the same. "So, I guess I was wrong then. You do do things because you want to." It was a joke, yes, and it also wasn't. "Okay, you can…"

Kate took the necklace in her hand and pulled it free. "Thanks," she said and then there was quiet. "I do think the dress is beautiful, Castle," she said because she had to be somewhere besides that button, and because that was the truth.

"The dress was just the lights, Detective. The tree was already beautiful."

Fuck. The lips and the lines and the scruff and the shirt and now the words. It wasn't fair how spectacularly they came out of him, and whether the exhaustion or the remembrance of his touch or the dare in his remark, in that moment, her rope of denial finally snapped.

"Castle, no matter how surprised you are by what I'm about to do, please just let me do it."

"Ooh, is it a magic trick? I love magic tricks."

With a fistful of his shirt, she pulled herself into him, the jewels still hanging from her other hand as her mouth found his, an equally enthusiastic participant in something she'd spent so much time and energy hiding from. A moment passed, and then two, and when they finally came out of it, breathless and buzzing, Kate's only thought was of more.

"Sorry, not magic," she said, thumbing his mark from her lip.

Rick bent over, set his hands on his knees like an athlete attempting to recover from an overwhelming feat. "Felt like magic to me," he panted.

Kate smiled, though he didn't see it. "Hey," she said and he managed to push himself upright. "I'm sorry I slapped you, and I'm sorry about what I said in the car."

"It's okay. I know you better than you think I do, and I get it. One question, though. You said you were going to do something that would surprise me. When's that gonna happen?" He crooked his eyebrow in that smug way he had.

"Maybe never again," she countered and shoved the necklace into his chest.