You Owe Me

He opens the door at the knock, and she hustles inside, quickly shutting it behind her, flipping the lock. Castle lifts an eyebrow at her for the cloak and dagger stuff, and she pauses, still poised there, her body turning slowly to him.

"Your mother here?" she murmurs, and he can see the ribbon of desire snake behind her eyes, memory and want both.

"Oh, Kate, darling!"

He winces and Kate's shoulders slump, but she turns a smile towards his mother, bright and cheerful and even genuine - kudos, Kate - and she accepts the embrace.

"Are you here for dinner?"

Castle enjoys her open-mouthed flustered silence, smirking at her over his mother's shoulder as she tries to find an answer for that.

"Um. No?" she says finally and his mother withdraws, hands on Kate's shoulders.

"Oh-ho, I get it!" Martha says, waving a hand in the air. "I am on my way out, myself." She turns back to Castle, winking at him overlarge and expressive and not at all hiding it from Kate, who is actually blushing, and then his mother leans in to kiss his cheeks. "Don't wait up, Richard. Or well - neither of you."

And she waltzes right past Kate's still-open mouth, purse in the crook of her arm, jacket already on. Kate turns round eyes back to him and he grins.

"Oh, hey! Speaking of my family - Alexis doesn't hate you."

She closes her mouth and jerks her head back, lashes blinking as she absorbs that. Her face twists in confusion. "Wait. What?"

"Yeah, I totally jumped to the wrong conclusion. Silly me." He gives her a bright laugh. "She doesn't hate you at all. Just - you know, first time alone stuff. On her own, striking out-"

"Wait. What? Castle. When did you find this out?" Kate narrows her eyes and stalks closer to him, which normally might be a good thing, but right now feels rather. . .predatory. In the bad way. In the actual bad way and not the smokin' hot, box of kinky stuff way.

He swallows hard. "Uh, she told me. Earlier. When - when I dropped her off."

She leans in and punches his shoulder. "You couldn't find a moment to tell me this?"

"We were busy," he protests, rubbing his shoulder. "And I keep telling you, Kate; you don't know your own strength. Ow."

"Oh, when I mean to hurt you, you'll know."

"Um, can we get back to my good news? My daughter doesn't hate you. It was all just college jitters. Yay," he finishes weakly.

She glares at him. "And when exactly were you going to let me in on this development?"

He opens his mouth, stares at her a second. "Uh. Well, I think I just did?"

"You could be a little more timely next time, Castle. I've been worried about this all day."

He grins and catches her hand, works his fingers between hers to loosen her fist. "You've been worried about it all day?"

She narrows her eyes at him again, mouth pursed, but it doesn't do her any good. Still cute.

"All day, huh?" he murmurs again, tugging her so that her hips bump his. "You were worried."

"She's your daughter," Kate huffs, averting her eyes.

"Yeah, she is." He strokes his thumb over that sweet spot on her hand, their spot, and watches the ire melt. Half of that wasn't real anyway, was it? "And you were worried."

"I think we've established that, Castle."

"Uh-huh." He likes this. Kate all flustered and annoyed with herself for it, the shift from foot to foot so that her hips brush against his, the warmth of her hand, her thighs, the-

"Now we're even," she says decidedly, raising her chin as she looks at him.

"What?"

"I owed you, now you owe me. We're even."

"Not-uh. Nothing doing. You still owe me. I don't owe you - what do I owe you for-?"

"Making me sick over it this whole time when it was nothing but - what did you call it? - college jitters."

"You were sick-"

"No. Bad word choice. I mean-"

"Oh, too late. You said it - that's what you meant, and no, no. I am still collecting." He lets go of her hand to hook at her hip, pull her in firmly, loving that little caught-breath-lift-of-her-chest thing she does. Her eyes lock in on his.

"We're even," she denies, shaking her head at him.

Castle leans in and brushes a kiss to her jaw, teasing. "You still owe me. Big time. One little measly day of worry - which is entirely adorable, might I add - does not cancel out a whole storage unit worth of-"

"Crap? Glass eye?"

He hums a non-committal response and goes for her neck, the rapid flutter of her pulse belying the cool way she slides her hands up his chest. "Wanted to do this in front of the murder board. You owe me for that too. I am a paragon of self-restraint."

"Castle," she says slowly. "What exactly do you think you're gonna get for that?"

"Something from the box," he grins, scraping his teeth at her collarbone and nuzzling aside her shirt. She sucks in a breath and her arms hook around his neck, dragging him closer. As if he'd be anywhere else.

"Never gonna happen," she replies back, but her hips rock into his.

"We'll see," he mutters, but he can't be bothered with talking right now, not when he's unbuttoning her shirt and stroking his hands up her sides to take it off.

She trails her fingers over his desk and searches the shelves. "I can't find it," she calls out to him.

He comes in from his bedroom in those goofy pajama pants; a smile slides across her face before she can help it and he's coming into the study with that pleased smirk that should really put her off - it used to put her off - but now she really likes it.

Because she did that. Put it there.

"It's right here," he says, leaning in past her, his bare shoulder brushing her chest entirely on purpose, has to be. "See?"

"Oh, I see," she murmurs, watching the ripple of movement in his back down to the line of his ass.

"Ohh, you're dirty," he grins, eyes crinkling as he hands her the book.

Now she's not at all interested in his novel which totally was like this case, I swear Beckett, I'm prophetic, not when he looks entirely delicious, entirely too smug, and she can do something to knock him down a peg or two. Again.

Before she can start in on that, her eyes fall past him to the desk, catch the black and white photograph he's taped to the lid of his laptop. She reaches for it, tapping the image of an old woman with a frown. "What's this? Who is this?"

"Ug, what?" he mutters, his lips just missing hers and skimming her ear and into her hair. She leans into him, her other hand at his neck for balance, and he tightens his grip on her waist. "Where are you going? You leave bed when we're in the middle of a hot discussion of books - my books, no less - and then you're-"

She flicks his ear and he huffs at her, but turns to look.

"Oh, that. Well. Found that picture in Wendell's stuff. Some old relative, I guess. Took it as a reminder."

She blinks at him, wonders what he could possibly want to be reminded of. Something touching and poetic, no doubt, the way he weaves meaning into everything, takes it to heart, sentimental in a way that brings depths to him she never-

He snorts. "Yeah, so that old hag is gonna be Eunice. Thanks to you."

She laughs and slaps his chest, grinning back at him, tugs the taped photo from the computer. "Oh yeah?" Did she say deep? Meaningful? Uh-huh. "This is Eunice."

"That's your fault too. I gotta tape it there to remind me to give Eunice a shout-out."

She studies the photo, tries to picture this woman in the next novel, how she might meet Nikki, what her motives would be. "Is she going to be the kill-"

"No, course not. Just. . .scenery. But back to-"

"Is she going to be an old woman?"

"Who else could she be? You know any hot, young Eunices out there?"

She smirks at him and lifts on her toes to kiss his cheek, knowing he's so not satisfied with that brief touch. "It's sweet, Castle. Eunice will be thrilled to see her name in your next book."

He sighs and grips her hips a little harder. "Can we not talk about Old Lady Eunice while you're naked?"

"I'm wearing a shirt," she protests, working to hide her smile even as she tapes Eunice back in place.

"Yeah, but it's my shirt. Might as well be naked."

"Well, good to know." She trails her fingers from that fast-moving swallow of his throat down the line of his sternum towards his pants. "Next time I'll put all my clothes back on when I go roaming through your books, touching everything-"

"No, no. Forget I said it. My bad. Shirt - just the shirt-" He dips his head and captures her mouth, tongue insistent, no foreplay, just all in.

She grips the waistband of his pajama pants in one hand and circles her other arm around his neck, pulling herself up, pushing into his kiss, teeth clashing, noses bumping.

He does that growl thing, the hum that turns dark in his chest when she rolls her hips into his thigh, and his arms yank her closer, lift her up.

"Back to bed," he mutters into her mouth. "Forget Eunice, forget the storage unit, you and me, Beckett-"

She grins into his kiss, running her fingers through his hair.

"I wanna hold your hand."