Jump 9.5 / Jump Journal 3

On twitter, we decided this chapter might be more accurately titled "Hump," thanks to a near-slip of the keyboard on the part of Brookemopolitan, seconded by Polly_G_Lynn, and fully approved by Deb838 and CoraClavia (which individually would be like acts of Congress, but which together, become something nearer to a direct pronouncement from a higher power, should you believe in one).

She woke to his hands pressing her shoulders to the mattress, his chest resting firmly over hers. She felt the cold sweat, the gooseflesh, the tracks of tears. Her muscles were tight—she had been fighting him.

As she began to recognize her body as her own again, she heard his voice through the static in her ears. He was speaking words meant to soothe, but also tinged with a panic she hadn't heard from him in months.

When the words started to make sense, she made an effort to relax back under his touch, focus on slowing her breathing, listen to the litany of placation.

"You were dreaming… It was just a bad dream… It's over… It's me—it's Rick. Just try to calm down, Kate."

She tried to focus her shocky vision on the stark blue eyes fixed on hers, willing her to come out of this.

She blinked and he must have seen some flicker of recognition, because he let out a breath, let the tightness around his mouth relax.

She let out a little grunt of frustration. She hadn't had a nightmare in months.

"You're okay. Are you awake enough to talk to me?"

"I'm awake. I'm sorry. I'm… God!"

"Can you promise not to try to hit me if I let go of you?"

Her gut clenched, and she turned her head, twisted away from him when she thought the tears might resurface.

"I hit you?"

She shut her eyes, letting the misery and the embarrassment swallow her.

"You gave it a couple good tries, but I was too quick for you. That's how I knew you were asleep—I'd never be quicker when you're awake."

"I promise not to do it again."

When she tried to cover her face with her hands, he let up on her shoulders and caught her fingers in his, brought them to his lips. He held them, warm breath starting to thaw the icy cold.

"And I know you're a woman of your word."

When she did open her eyes again, there was just a trace of a smile peeking out to greet her.

"I'm—"

"You can stop with the apologies. This isn't the first time—won't be the last—and it's my job to drag you out of these dreams. Even kicking and screaming… or punching."

"I hate that this is still happening!"

He rolled off of her chest, tugged her with him until she was mostly on top of him.

"Tell me—you know it will help."

She tried to lay her head against his ribs, hear the steady heartbeat, let it soothe her.

"It's was the alley."

"But why? Did something come up at work about the case?"

"No, no."

She paused, tried to get in a slow breath, felt it catch in her throat.

"It wasn't my mom this time. It was yours."

She looked up through her lashes for his reaction.

"Oh… Oh. Well I guess that makes sense with tomorrow."

His eyes flicked briefly to the clock.

"Today."

The gentle stroking of his thumbs over the backs of her hands was supposed to be calming her down, but none of this was working. She jerked them out of his grasp, flexed her fingers. The adrenaline was still there—wouldn't let up.

"This needs to just go away. I want it gone. I thought it was."

Before another mollifying response could escape, she covered his mouth with her own. No more talking.

He let out a grunt of shock as she attacked his lips, parting them with a swipe of her tongue that was meant to invade and find his. She teased him until he followed her back inside her own mouth, then bit down lightly, encouraging him to answer back with the same roughness.

This was so far removed from their slow, gentle lovemaking the night before, when he had worshipped, and cherished, and loved. She had needed that just as much as he had. But now she needed fast and hard and hot.

Her hands were all over him, first stripping his shirt, then sliding down. She gave no warning when one hand slipped under the waistband of his boxers to palm him, still soft and small in her hand. Her lips swallowed his cry at the sudden contact, and she felt him twitch and begin to harden.

She kissed her way down past flexing neck and over now-heaving ribs, pausing briefly to lave and suckle at each flat nipple. He was growing steadily in her grasp and calling out incoherent syllables as her mouth moved relentlessly down, leaving a trail of pink and abused flesh in its wake.

Urgency to have him bare before her forced her to release him so she could hook both hands into his waistband and tug. The offending blue silk was lost in the sheets with a flick of her wrists and an obliging lift of his hips.

Wasting no time, she took him into her mouth, felt his spongy flesh ever-expanding, silky skin tightening. He let out a bellow that sounded vaguely like her name, mixed with a curse. In no time, he was filling her mouth, nudging at the back of her throat. She was overcome by a heady wave of power and lust at the speed of his reaction to her.

She eased back to encircle his base with her fingers and dragged the flat of her tongue up along his length. When his hips surged up at the loss of contact with her mouth, she took just his smooth tip inside her lips and found the divot on its underside with the tip of her tongue. The undulation of his hips against the bed matched the tempo of her ministrations, as did the needy sounds he was struggling futilely to silence above her.

The word was writhe.

This was quite possibly the best example of it. Ever.

She took him back inside, stroked over him in earnest, and his hands tangled in her hair. His grip was tight enough to express his enthusiasm—there were lots of reasons why he liked her hair long, after all—but not tight enough to direct her.

"Kate!"

If she didn't want to finish this right now, she realized it was time to disengage. She did so quickly, then climbed up his body, stripping her t-shirt and underwear as she went.

Straddling him, perched to engulf him, she first found his eyes, hooded and dark in the faint city light sliding through the blinds. When they connected, latched on to hers, she registered that unadulterated lust that still astounded her with its fierceness so many months into this… relationship? That just sounded cliché. Love affair fit better, but lacked the permanence she had become reliant on.

Too much thinking.

Starting to sink, she gasped aloud and was forced to stop almost immediately. The intensity of the stretch was too much—apparently she hadn't had time to catch up to his impressive state of arousal, despite the fact that she had been its instigator.

Pulling away, she wrapped her hand around his girth, swirled his tip over her bundle of nerves.

Despite his obvious enthusiasm for her frenzied pace moments before, Rick now seemed just as pleased to watch her hovering above him, teasing herself. He leaned up to brush a whisper of a kiss against her lips, then bent to capture her nipple in the stark, wet heat of his mouth.

An intense flash of heat sparked straight to her core.

Oh—that would undo her.

Before he could give the other breast the same attention, she was shifting, slicking his length through the moisture now pooling in her folds. Trying a different tactic, he wrapped his hands behind her shoulders and pulled her into an unforgiving kiss.

Screw it. She wanted fast and hard. She wanted the heat of his body to liquefy the icy terror of that dark dream. And if that meant she was sore tomorrow, so be it.

Sliding her hips up and forward, tongue still exploring the farthest corners of his mouth, she sank down again. She had to slide her fingers to where they were joined, spread her folds, to take the last few inches of him. But once they were joined, she eased out of the kiss, let their breath mingle as she let everything inside her go loose.

When she lifted up to let him slide almost completely from her, he held her eyes and thrust hard back in.

Everything was aligned, and something about the angle, or the stretching, or the force of it just made him feel huge and perfect and she wanted to memorize this exact…

But no, she needed to move. Because as good as the stillness, and the fullness, and the pressure were, the motion, the catch of breath, the release of clenching muscles, the fat slide of them working each other up, were infinitely better.

Addictive, even.

Weight split between her knees splayed over his hips and her hands clinging at his shoulders, she set a blistering pace. He was hitting her sweet spot with every stroke, inciting little high-pitched cries with every panting breath.

But all this hot, sweaty contact apparently wasn't enough for him, and Rick's wide hands found her ribcage, pulled her down flush with his chest. His voice, rich and sonorant, cut through the haze of arousal, set some primal part of her brain to vibrating.

"C'mere."

She stretched out her legs, and he caught her calves under his, pinning her lower body tight against him.

Adding a tiny circle to the end of each thrust, he drove her closer, so close, but suddenly it was too much. She couldn't take the sensory overload. Burying her face in his neck, she tried to focus only on the flood of pleasure radiating out from where they were joined.

As the first tingles of climax rippled through her belly, she intentionally slowed their pace, breathed through her nose, took in the scent of his fading cologne mixed with sweat and pheromones and sex. She calmed her heart rate, reined in the frantic pull of lust, because for all her rush, now she wasn't ready for this ride to be over.

He followed her lead, switching to slower strokes, staying mostly buried and slipping his hands down to grip her hips, pull her pelvis snug against his. Their lips met, this kiss long and sweet and warm.

Their bodies were entirely intertwined; she could feel the scrape of his chest hair against her breasts, the kiss of their belly buttons, slick with sweat, the bunching of his abs low on her belly as he curved up and into her. Intimate, detailed images of every point of contact floated through her consciousness; swept her up again, back into the fervor.

And just like that she was on the ledge: teetering, wanting, desperate.

He either felt the shift in her body, or heard the change in her breathing, because his rhythm changed, synched with her psyche, sped up again. Changing the angle of his lips under hers, he dragged her lower one between his teeth, bit down just enough to sting.

Her cry was muffled, swallowed by his mouth, because he wouldn't stop kissing her even though she desperately needed to breathe.

She felt a tingle and then a flutter, and she stilled, arched, tensed, let him plunge deep, over and over with everything perfectly pressed until she was keening out his name, begging him to go with her.

As the world contracted into one tiny point of light and heat and blissful, colliding completion, she felt his muscles tremble, registered the delicious warmth of him, pulsing in counterpoint inside her, opened her eyes and found her unhinged ecstasy reflecting back in the depth of blue before her.

Falling together, they landed in a tangled, gasping, sweaty heap of aftershocks and afterglow. At first her legs wouldn't comply with her brain's request to lift her up and off, but eventually they responded, slightly shaky and uncoordinated. She eased off to one side, but he gripped her against him so she couldn't roll completely away.

She was giddy with the surge of endorphins, so her voice wasn't as dark and teasing as she would have liked.

"Nice job there, Castle. Wasn't sure you could keep up with me."

If she was worried about the warbling or the sing-song pitch, she needn't have been. He sounded positively punch-drunk.

"Hope I've cleared up any lingering doubts about my stamina. And I not only kept up, but I went from zero to sexy in like…" he paused to pant "…a minute and a half. I haven't done that since I was about sixteen." Another harsh breath. "You are so not allowed to call me 'old' ever again."

Her laughter snuck out against his chest, nose nudging at his pec until the muscle twitched.

His fingers snaked into her hair and squeezed.

"Oh my god. You are so amazingly hot. Just when I think you are as sexy as you could possibly be, you pull something like that, something I couldn't even begin to imagine for page 105, and blow me completely away."

She lifted her head to find his eyes half-rolled-back, head flung haphazardly between the pillows.

"'Away' wasn't exactly where I was aiming with that bl—"

She was stopped mid-banter by his lips, sealing to hers as he answer with a murmured: "Mmmhmmm."

He intentionally separated with a smack and smirked at her.

"I love that your mind is just as dirty as mine."

"More."

"Really? Because I'm pretty dirty inside my head. I just don't let it out into the world, gentleman that I am."

"Out in the world does not equal in our bed, Rick. So quit holding out on me."

She felt rather than heard his answering chuckle. His voice was beginning to slur slightly, in that warm, light, unguarded way that always reminded her how open he was with her.

"I'm always up for exorcising demons with ridiculous sex, but just so you know, I'm gonna pass out in about ten seconds, so you're gonna have to do without the sweet nothings in your ear, lulling you softly to sleep."

"After sex like that? Fuck the sweet nothings."

"Oh my god, we so just did."

She laughed enough to snort lightly, which set her to giggling even more.

Fingers engaged at her side, and suddenly she was being tickled, flailing to get away and then fighting back in kind. She wedged herself back up over him and got the advantage quickly, likely because he was still mildly physically disabled from their love-making.

"Truce! Truce! No more tickling!"

"You started it!"

"Fine! Yes, and so I'll finish it! Enough!"

She collapsed back against his side, sated now in an entirely different and maybe more meaningful way.

Because now it wasn't just her body sinking into his, relaxed and warm, it was also her mind settling, her heart nuzzling next to his, beating in time.

Sleep would come now, dreamless and slack beside him, was already drifting over her.

She registered his mumbled, "I love you," which she answered back aloud.

Unbidden, she continued the thought in her head, "and I'm never going to stop."

But the swift rise of his chest and the tight clench of his arms around her ribs told her that her filter was off; that had been out loud.

"Gonna hold you to that, Beckett."

The answering curve of her lips matched the curve of the rib they were tracing.

"Good thing I'm a woman of my word."

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