I Hate You

"I hate you," Beckett hisses. She's been angry with him since the moment they met and it shows no sign at all of diminishing.

They're sitting in her car in a dingy street in East Harlem, and it's not been a good day. Here in the labyrinth of streets and alleys in front of them, behind one of the reinforced, windowless warehouse facades, are Ryan and Esposito. Last Beckett had heard, they'd been going in after one of the enforcers for an illegal gambling ring, but four hours later it's clear something's gone very badly wrong. It's also clear which door she should be aiming for.

It's the one with the bruiser in front of it.

And sitting next to her she's got the other problem. Rich, arrogant playboy. Sadly not behind a door. Eligible Bachelor Number Four. And World-Class Pain in the Ass Number One. Bet he wouldn't like to see that award on page six. He's talking. He never stops talking. Days like this one, borrowing a ball gag from Vice and ramming it into his motorised mouth seems like a really, really good idea. She hates him. Can't stand him. And he's just so damn sexy and he spends his whole time looking at her like he knows what underwear she's wearing (It's sheer black silk and lace. She's worn sexier underwear since the day he showed up. Not that she'd ever admit it.) and suggesting with no subtlety at all that they go to bed.

"You're just saying that, Beckett. I know you secretly like me."

"Do not."

She's not lying. She doesn't like him. Not one tiny little bit. She hates him. She hates him every morning she wakes up from intense erotic dreams, wet and aching and needing release before she leaves for work. She hates him every minute he turns those bedroom eyes on her and heats her blood and fries her nerves. She hates every instant that he's using those large fingers to play with his phone and making her think how those same fingers could play with her.

And having him in her car smelling of some expensive aftershave (though since he never seems to shave properly she doesn't know why he bothers) and filling up the space with his very own brand of irritating-ness is not helping her work out how to get past the big guard. If she didn't have to worry about not getting her idiot shadow killed, she'd use good old-fashioned methods to get up close and personal, and then take him down. But it's a bit difficult to do that if you've got a man with you already. She curses his presence, not bothering to mute her voice or language.

"If you weren't here I'd be in there already," she mutters.

"I've got an idea." He sounds very smug. She already knows she isn't going to like it before he continues.

"No. Absolutely not. I am not pretending to be your drunk girlfriend." But she doesn't have a better idea, and every minute she argues is another minute wasted while Ryan and Espo are in god-knows-what kind of trouble. She undoes two more buttons, shrugs so that the neckline falls open to show a rim of delicate black lace and steps out the car. She hears Castle let out a slow breath and takes considerable satisfaction from his evident admiration. You can look but you can't touch. That'll teach you. She knows he's looking. She can feel him looking. It burns along every turbo-charged synapse.

"Just play along, Beckett." This was a mistake. This was a huge mistake. His arm has descended around her and she's exerting all her control not to run screaming. Straight for the nearest bed. The man exudes sex like it's going out of fashion. She couldn't say she's not affected by it. Certain muscles are rather more… liquid… than she'd like.

"I hate you," she says again, louder than she should have. The bruiser's head snaps round. Castle smiles down at her with an unbearably arrogant, just-fell-out-of-bed smirk.

"That's not what you said an hour ago, kitten." Kitten? She'll kill him. His voice oozes syrup and heat. "I seem to remember you saying please a lot. It didn't sound like you hated me. In fact, when I put my…" She elbows him in the ribs hard enough to hurt. She hopes he'll have a bruise. If she's really lucky, a fracture. It doesn't seem to affect him at all. "Kitten, kitten. I know you like it rough. Don't worry, we'll get to that soon. I know how you like it when I tie you up." He's purring, and she hates it. Hates how the voice and words and tone are sending sparks through her nerves and heat down her body and now his fingers are stroking hard enough for her to feel it through the coat and that is really not helping. There's a reason she's never let him touch her. Shame she forgot that she shouldn't let him talk to her.

The guard is grinning in an infuriatingly stupid male aren't-women-so-cute-when-they're-angry way. But he's not nearly close enough. Another few steps nearer. Close enough for her to reach for her gun – and find her wrist gripped hard and she's pulled in and Castle's crashed down on her mouth and invades without hesitation and oh shit that feels good all the way down. He takes his time, exploring till she can't stop the little noises, raises his head.

"Told you not to touch till we got home, babe." Babe? First kitten, and now babe? He's dead. Just as soon as she gets Ryan and Espo out of there she's going to shoot him and ditch the body in the East River. First things first. The guard's moving nearer; looks like he's about to start trading women-eh? anecdotes. He's going to spot the gun. She does the only thing she can think of: pulls that irritating face down and kisses it aggressively, storming his mouth and making sure she bites down on that full lower lip. It's only to hide the gun at her hip.

Oh God. Huge mistake number two. He's taken it for permission and suddenly he's all over her, dominating and sure and hungry and shit if he doesn't make her so hot and what the hell is her name right now? He's pressing her into his body with a hand over the base of her spine and she can feel exactly what he wants to do next and it's making her wriggle and go damp and there's a reason she can't just push him up against the nearest wall but she's almost forgotten what it is. In another half-second he'll own her, and she'll let him.

She pulls away and deals a roundhouse kick to the bruiser; makes for the door and doesn't look back.

Ryan and Espo on the way to A&E for various injuries, Beckett gets back in the cruiser and doesn't say a word. Fury claws at the air around her. Of course, pain-in-the-ass-writer has to improve the not-so shining hour.

"I knew you liked me," he says smugly.

"Shut up."

"I like you. I especially like that lace edge on your bra. I really like kissing you. I think I'll really, really like - "

"Shut. Up. Or I will shoot you now."

"Oh, Beckett. You wouldn't want to shoot too soon, would you? Think of all the fun you'd miss out on." It's the last straw. She reaches down for her weapon.

She's never sure how reaching for a gun turned into scraping her fingers across the front of his pants and palming the hot bulge, or being hauled across into his lap, held in tight and kissed ruthlessly, still less how her hands made it to his neck to keep him in place and her shirt was pulled open to her waist and his hands and mouth were doing things to her breasts that are certainly illegal in at least five states. She'd arrest him for it, as long as she could be sure he'd be sentenced to keep doing it. Thirty to life would do. When he stops, with a growly gasp followed by a deeply self-satisfied smirk, she's wet and squirming and breathless and desperately trying to work out how this all went so very, very wrong though it felt so very, very good.

And he is still talking. "I think we should go back to your place." What? No. "Explore our partnership a little further. Make you a little more comfortable with having me." Isn't there a word missing there? Around?

The tone of his voice tells her, to her renewed fury, that he knows exactly how frustrated she is, how much she needs relief. Though he feels as if he's pretty much in need of relief, himself. She rubs very deliberately against his hard weight as she wriggles off his lap and takes malicious pleasure in his indrawn breath. That'll show him. All of him. There's a lot there. She makes sure she drags her trailing hand across him, too. There's a strangled groan.

"You are not going to my place."

He sighs at her. Sighs, as if she's being dumb.

"Well, we could go to mine, but my daughter and mother are there and I thought you'd prefer privacy when you start to scream my name. And a hotel for our first time is just so tacky. I'd feel really cheap."

"You are not coming with me."

"Of course not. I'm not selfish. Ladies first." She emits a strangled scream and fires up the engine, burning rubber as she U-turns the car. She's going to drop him in the middle of East Harlem and see how far he gets.

When he puts his hand on her knee she nearly swerves the car. By the time she's almost home his hand's moved up to the very top of her thigh and his fingers are circling so she's soaked and frantic and she needs it so badly that she doesn't care whether it's Castle or Brad Pitt or the Hunchback of Notre Dame just as long as he'll get her off in the next five minutes. She drags him into the elevator in her building and ignores every smirking word he says.

She's barely opened the door when she's shoved through it and it's closed hard with her pinned against it and just get me off he's kissing her hard enough to curl her toes and that was my favourite shirt the buttons are pinging over the floor and he's stopped smirking and he's looking at her as if she's Little Red Riding Hood and he's the Big Bad Wolf. He's not smiling any more. This is pure predation.

"Get me off, Castle. Or leave, so I can do it myself." He growls, slowly perusing her body and smiling darkly at the black silk over her breasts. He reaches out and draws a languid finger down between them, traces back up and plays with the fabric, sliding it just a little across her erect nipples, watching with a hungry, dangerous gaze as she starts to breathe harder and the delicate friction translates to heat in her eyes and between her legs.

"I'm not leaving. I'll get you off. When I'm ready. You'll like it." He pulls the remnants of her shirt halfway down her arms so she can't move them in a hurry and drops to his knees in front of her. She gasps when he blows over her navel. When he slowly slides one hand into her pants she whimpers.

"You're all wet. Something you want, Beckett? See someone you like?"

"I hate you. Get me off. Stop teasing and get on with it."

She thinks she's commanded his obedience when he undoes her pants zip and slips them softly down her legs, lifts each foot to clear her heels of the pools of fabric. Two seconds later she realises that – so what's new - obedience is the last thing on his mind. He glides gently back up her legs, kissing and nipping up the inside line of her quads till she's quivering and her panties are drenched. She's stopped trying to give him orders. Mainly because she can't make her vocal cords form words. Unfortunately the same is not true of Castle.

"I think you like me," he says in a childishly annoying sing-song. "Do you like me better when I do this" – he runs his tongue over the wet black silk and she moans – "or this?" and he slides a finger past the silk into her and watches her writhe. "This," he licks some more and has to hold her still against the door, "or this?" and he glides firm fingers in and out slowly until she's biting her lip not to whimper pathetically please please please don't stop.

She calls on all her self-discipline to make her larynx work. "I hate you."

He deliberately puts on a pathetically puppyish face, still kneeling before her. "I guess I'll just have to try harder to make you like me." Puppyish alters instantly to wolfish and he holds her legs wider apart and nips and sucks and licks through her panties till she's back to moaning.

"Do you like me now?"

"No!" She shrugs her shoulders till the shirt drops over her wrists and she frees her arms and grabs his hair to pull him up.

"Ow!" But he rises. She uses the momentary advantage and his momentum to flip them round so that he's against the door and she's in control. She ruins his shirt and hopes that it was his favourite that she's destroyed, nibbles sharply on his neck and then slides down to bite hard over his nipple. He gasps and jerks into her and grabs her ass so she doesn't move away. She wasn't going to.

She grinds her hips into him and keeps going, frantically seeking friction and pressure, till he's completely lost those irritating words. That's better. If he won't co-operate she'll make it happen herself. She's halfway through unzipping his pants when he recovers himself and grabs her hands and flips them back again.

"I only let people who like me do that," he grins. "Thought you said you hated me. If you want that you have to admit you like me."

"I hate you."

"Liar."

"Am not."

"Are too. You just won't admit you like me." He slides a hand between them and slips it very slowly into her panties, circling just hard enough to excite her and not hard enough to bring her off. She writhes again. "You like that." A finger insinuates itself into her and she moans. "You like that, too." It's joined by another one and she's brought one leg up around his waist to give herself room to move against him. "And you like that. There's a lot you like about me."

"I hate you."

She'd hate him less if he would just shut up and kiss her. Anywhere. Everywhere. Just like a moment ago. She pulls his mouth down on to hers so he can't talk any more and invades it with her tongue to keep him quiet. Finally he takes a hint and stops using his mouth to talk and starts using it for something a lot less annoying instead. Thank god for that. If he'd kept talking she'd have had to kill him. After he'd got her off. At least three times. She deserves a reward for not killing him already.

She moves demandingly against his hand and presses herself hard against it, back to taking the friction she's been looking for. One hand comes off his neck and she finally tugs his zipper open, using the fact his hands are occupied elsewhere to push his pants off his hips and reach into his boxers to release him and stroke and slide and run the edges of her nails from root to tip and back again and he starts swearing into her mouth and fuck Beckett – yes, that's the idea, Castle, now get on with it – he wrenches his hand away from her and rips her panties down and thrusts hard into her and oh yes just like that right there right now and he's so big inside her that it just plain does it for her and oh fuck she really did scream his name as she came.

He's still hard inside her. "I think you really liked that." He moves, very slowly, brings a hand down to circle round her, move away. "I liked that, too. Shall we do it some more? Maybe you'll admit you liked it." He slides slowly out, in again, holding her still against exquisite torture. Shortly after that he's brought his fingers back and then she's nothing but a liquid flow of sensation around him.

"Like that?"

"Shut up and fuck me."

"Tell me you like it and I will." He's stopped moving and that is just so unfair because she's not quite close enough to finish it herself and she really, really hates him for it and that's what pops out of her mouth.

"I hate you."

He stays completely still inside her, hard and thick and long and everything her scorching dreams had imagined, moves his big fingers very delicately over her and starts turning her into a melted mess. His mouth is wicked on her neck and he's trailing his fingers up and over her lips and she doesn't even hesitate when he slides them into her mouth for her to suck them clean.

"Don't belieeeeve you," he sings. He plays between her legs a little more. She can't think. "If you really hated me you wouldn't let me do this" – he strokes across her folds and she gasps – "or this" – and he takes her mouth hard and rough and shows her just how much bigger and stronger he is and shit it's hot – "or this" – and he starts to move rhythmically inside her to hit every nerve ending she's got – "and especially you wouldn't be letting me carry you into your bedroom like this" – and he does – "and take off your bra and leave you spread open wide in nothing but those take-me-now heels" – and he does that – "and then pin your hands above your head like this" - and he does that too – "and make you scream for me all over again like this."

And she is.

"I know you really liked that." Hell yes. But she's not admitting anything. His ego's already visible from space. "We could do it again." He's soft and insinuating and sex is dripping from every word, but she still hates him for how good he's making her feel and why couldn't any of her previous lovers have been this hot so she didn't have to think that he's the best she's ever had?

"Still hate you." But it's losing conviction, and she knows he can hear it.

"Mmmm," he hums against her hair. "Still don't believe you." He slides out of her – when did he get naked? - and she whimpers at the loss. "Missing me already, Beckett? I think that proves you like me." She's too limp to growl. He's kissing down her body, punctuating it with flicks of his tongue and tiny sharp bites, not hurrying, and the tension's building again and no-one has ever brought her off three times in succession and maybe she could be convinced to like him if he tries hard enough. And then his tongue is dancing between the wet folds and lapping over her and where did he learn that trick he does something so unbelievably, dirtily hot with his mouth that she loses it completely and shatters for a third time.

When she opens her eyes again her heels are missing and Castle's slithered back up the bed and is leaning over her as if she's his favourite action toy. Come to think of it, he might be hers. He kisses her some more, deep and slow and predatory, stalking her for a moment of weakness. This time she doesn't say anything, just opens for him and lets him glide slowly back into her and oh-so-gently ratchet up the tension and desire and this time, finally, he comes too. Afterwards, she doesn't even care that he's cuddling her. She hates him. She hates cuddling, too. She's never felt so good in her whole entire life.

"Like me any better yet?" Her sluggish brain kicks back into action. She's too thoroughly exhausted to tell him No again. She can't deal with another round. She'll already need a long, hot bath before she starts the day.

"I'll decide in the morning." She's asleep before he can find his boxers.

In the morning, when Castle wanders in, late and scruffily unshaven, he smirks annoyingly and says, "Bet you don't still hate me."

His face falls comically when Beckett stares coldly back and deadpans, "I still hate you." There's a pause.

"But you can spend tonight convincing me otherwise."

Happy Christmas everyone!

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