He doesn't see her pay the guy anything, so he doesn't even have a chance to waylay Capp and take the check. Or slip the man a tip. Nothing.

They stand outside the restaurant for a moment, Kate shivering a little but not moving towards the car, and then Castle figures it out and wraps his arms around her, tugging her in close. He presses his warm mouth to her lips, begins heating her up.

She slides her hands inside his coat, her fingers find his waist, burrowing up under his tshirt to his skin. He flinches at the cold shock of her fingers, but he doesn't move away. Her mouth is dark and heady with chocolate and coffee; his fingers find her hair and curl in it, holding on to her.

After a minute, she breaks away, pressing her mouth to his cheek in reluctance, then she smooths his shirt, pulls closed the lapels of his coat.

"There's more," she says softly, and tugs on him to get him moving.

In the car again, he can't imagine what more there could be, except that sultry promise of her being his dessert. Which would require that she sleep in *his* bed though, and he doesn't see that happening. In fact, he almost can't imagine her staying the night.

He's had her under his roof for six weeks, and now he can't imagine her staying.

Hasn't she said that she's always got one foot out the door? He realizes they've been living like that for the last six weeks. Just in case his hands never rehabilitated, just in case she woke up and didn't want this life.

Still. More to come, she said. And she took him on a date.

He finds his lips are smiling quite without warning.

The rest of the drive is silent, even though he throws out ample conversation starters. They all fizzle with her one-word answers. At first, it makes him sad, but then he begins to realize that she's nervous, and having trouble keeping her mind on what's happening inside this car.

And that's interesting.

He tries out a few more topics, finds them all insufficient to hold her attention. She's thinking ahead. Thinking about that more no doubt, and he's suddenly intensely curious as to what it might be.

She said she doesn't want to recreate their first date, but she is giving it back to him, that time. Where were they when they got the call about the body? When the call interrupted them. In a taxi, if he remembers. He held her hand, he had gotten really stupid and admitted to wanting to show her the world and call her every night like a lovesick puppy, and then she'd said Get us a cab, Castle.

He still doesn't know what would have happened after that.

So he's clueless about what comes next. She refused to dance with him, that night, even though he really had thought he'd make her. Wear her down. And while he would love to dance with her tonight, he's not sure he's up for it. Physical therapy sessions are grueling, and he's on limited reserves of energy as it is.

When they park a block from his loft, he's surprised. And maybe, at first, a little disappointed. Then he remembers that she's as jumpy and nervous and distracted as he's ever seen her, and that. . .cheers him up.

So whatever is left, it's inside his apartment. He gets out of the car with a little more cheer.

When she locks the car doors, he slides his hand around hers and laces their fingers together, brushing his thumb over the soft part of her skin. They held hands like this on their first date too. And in the cab, even though he never made that final trip to her mouth, she'd let him kiss along her jaw, her neck; she'd made that little helpless sound that kicked the guts right out of him.

Tonight, as he strokes the inside of her wrist with his thumb, she looks so pleased, and he realizes that she was worried his hands wouldn't heal, that they'd be stiff and malformed for the rest of his life.

To be honest, he had moments where he wondered. But the surgeon was spectacular and the physical therapy intense, so if he has movement in his fingers at all, it's because of those two things.

And also, perhaps, the overwhelming motivation to be able to touch her like he wants to.

"You putting me to bed?" he asks softly, smiling at her with his eyes as they walk towards his building.

"Hmm, something like that," she flirts back, and her lips are pressed into that hidden, secret smile that he loves to catch. He's never seen her give that smile to anyone else.

He laughs and wishes there were a way to walk closer to her, to hold her even as they walk, because he doesn't want to *not* get to the more part of this evening, but he also wants to take her against him and hold her, just for a minute. Just until the overwhelming tenderness leaves him. He loves this woman, and here she is with him. Here she's been the last six weeks.

But he's trapped in it too; it fills up his chest until he can barely breathe, spilling out into his guts, pouring out of his fingers, beaming from his skin. Like molting. Like regenerating. Making him a new man.

He stops them at the crosswalk, even though it says walk, and catches her up in his arms, tight, lifting her up just a little because even in those shoes, she's not quite as tall as him. He buries his nose into her hair and breathes in, replacing the stale air of his lungs with the fresh mint-cherry-winter smell of her. Another breath because it is cold out here and he can feel her shiver.

And then he can breathe out again. Even as she laughs softly against his temple, her lips brushing his hairline.

He puts her down. "Okay, now I'm ready."

She smiles at him like he's crazy, but it's still a smile, and she takes his hand in hers again. They manage to walk a little closer this time, and into his building, out of the cold. He nods to the doorman, smiles, and pushes the call button for the elevator.

While they wait, he gathers his courage, turns her to face him, and wraps her in his arms again, purposeful, pushing her limits. He hasn't pushed her for six weeks. Or at least, not since he got off the pain meds. She doesn't exactly snuggle, never Kate, but she does curl an arm against his chest and thread her finger through the top button hole on his coat. Warm and lithe against him, the angles of her bones meeting his knees, his hips, his ribs. He can feel the curl of her finger against his chest.

The elevator opens and she steps back, but holds on, dragging him after her as she gets on. He likes being. . .hooked? He likes her like this, proprietary and close; he likes this nervous-determined side to her. The one that doesn't know how things will play out despite her having a master plan, the one that wants everything to go right but knows it can't possibly.

She leans over to press his floor, then unhooks her finger, smooths her hand down his coat as they ascend. At their stop, he doesn't pay attention to her fumbling in her pocket because he's trying to work his keys out around his phone. He pauses in the hallway, finally fishes them out, and finds her already at his door, unlocking it.

He stands there, thunderstruck, as she pushes the door in and gives him a slow, crafty smile.

"Where. . .how did you get a key?" It sounds harsher than he mean it to, laced with surprise like that.

Nervousness flickers in her face for a second; he stalks forward, noticing that his loft key is on her key ring. Not just loose in her pocket, but on her key ring. In six weeks, she hasn't had a key; she steadfastly refused to take the spare from him until he gave up trying (giving up coincided with lucidity and a lack of pain medication).

She takes it out of the door and closes her fingers around it, as if to hide it from him. Protect it. "Alexis. I asked her first."

"Oh. She give you the spare or make you a copy?"

"She made me a copy," she says, and her voice is so. . .hesitant and fierce at the same time, that he knows there's something here he's missing. He just doesn't know what.

"Great," he smiles, shrugging his shoulders at her. He wants her to have a key. He tried to get her to take one. So. . .why is she looking at him like that?

He sheds his coat in the entryway and moves to hang it up in the coat closet; Kate is right behind him with hers. A flutter in his stomach warns him first, but he doesn't understand the warning, the message.

He opens the hall closet, the coat closet, and it's stuffed full. He finagles a couple of hangers out of the jumble, hangs up both of their coats, and it hits him.

He just hung her coat up in his *full* coat closet.

He's hung her coat up in there before, all six weeks of hanging up her coat (when he could), but-

Castle swings around to look at her, confusion making his stomach churn. She's not smiling any longer, and the intensity in her eyes is nearly painful. She knocks his hand from the door and gently shuts the closet.

"There's more," she says, and puts her hands on his hips, nudging him back, turning him towards the hall.

His heart pounds, but he turns and heads back to his bedroom, suddenly needing to see it, needing proof, practically racing there.

His eyes flicker over the room. Another pillow on the bed. A wooden box on the bedside stand. A littler box open on his bureau; he can see the gleam of silver earrings from here. He darts to the closet door, throws it open with his heart in his throat.

Her stuff is in there, all kinds of stuff, dresses he's never even seen before, work pants, jackets that didn't fit in the coat close, blouses and shirts and sweaters, soft and silky and appealing, and damn, a lot of shoes. Shoes still in plastic tubs, shoes piled all along the top rack winding around the closet, shoes tumbling down into the floor.

Castle grins, swallowing the lump in his throat, turns back around to her, unable to control the intense longing that swells in him. She's stiff and anxious and her eyes telegraph an SOS, but he throws his arms around her and squeezes, too tight, laughing, curling a hand around the back of her head so he can kiss her even as she comes willingly into his embrace.

"You have a lot of shoes," he says into her mouth.

She chokes on a laugh, sounding way more relieved than she ought to be. Why is she relieved? Like he would ever ever refuse her space in his closet.

"I asked Alexis first," she says back, her palm at his cheek as he finally lets her slide down his body, her feet back on the floor. "She said it was probably the only thing you wanted for Christmas anyway."

"She's a smart girl."

Her forehead rests against his; he realizes with a laugh that she basically asked his daughter for his hand. Well, as close to it as possible.

"Castle?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm not getting rid of my shoes."

He laughs again. "No, no. I love your shoes." He laughs again. "Well, that sounded dirtier than I meant it to."

She doesn't laugh back, and her fingers are tight at his neck. "Also, everything's not here. Just. . .enough to make a statement."

"We'll move it all."

"All?"

"We're doing more than making a statement, Katherine Beckett."

She sighs softly against him and her body finally relaxes. "Castle."

"Mm?" he murmurs, moving just enough to press his lips to her cheekbone, to the beauty mark under her eye, the one at her cheek, the line of her nose, finally her soft, warm, coffee-flavored mouth.

She turns her head slightly to break the kiss. "There's more."

"I don't know what more there could be," he says, leaving enough room between them so that he can see her eyes.

She opens them finally, giving him a look he can't decipher. But he wants to. A look of what? Thoughtfulness, judging by the way that tendon in her forehead jumps. Determination, by the set of her jaw. And. . .that final part he can't figure out, with the diamond hardness in her eyes and the light.

"Here's the rest," she says, and he sees her square her shoulders as if facing the firing squad. "I wouldn't do this. . ." She gestures to the closet behind him, the room. "If I didn't love you."

Didn't love-

"What?" he says stupidly, stunned.

"I did this because I love you," she says again and takes a step back from him.

"Wait. Where are you going?" he says in a rush, grabbing her and pulling her her back against him, his arms tightening around her back and shoulders. He huffs out a laugh. "You love me. I. . .I love you, too, Kate. I want you here; you know that. But if you don't want to, I don't want to *make* you-"

"I want to." She shakes her head against his neck as if she knows. And she does. He's told her before, under duress basically, and then again while drugged. She knows. She's known and now-

"You moved in with me," he says, grinning, and not even at her because his chin is on her shoulder, his whole body curled around hers. "You moved into my *room* with me."

She grumbles, and shoves at him with the most fake frown he's ever seen. "Okay, Castle. Man up, yeah?"

He straightens, determined to wipe that hint of disapproval out of her voice (however teasing). He crowds her, cradles her face between his palms, his fingers sliding through her hair. Her cheekbones are sharp angles under his hands and when he leans in, her mouth is already opening to his.

He meets her, hot, wet, rich, sweeps his tongue past hers even as she sucks on his bottom lip, her hands at his waist and moving up his sides, intimate and arousing and definitely moving faster than he is. He uses every trick he knows, slow and thorough and devastating, and yet she's still standing, giving it back to him, pressing closer.

Castle slides his hand to her neck, down her back to pull her against his hips, growling at the hitch in her breath when they meet.

That did it.

He lets her break away, waiting, as patient as a night hunter, his lips brushing her jaw, her cheek, that spot at her neck as she breathes raggedly, out of rhythm, against his hairline. He nips at her earlobe, lets his mouth soothe the skin, tugs on it again with his teeth as she makes that little sound, part gasp, part keen.

"Man enough?"

She brushes her hands over his chest and down, tugging on his belt loops, pulling him into her. He growls and bites the skin behind her ear, at her neck, causing her hips to jerk against his.

"B-better," she musters, drawing in another sharp breath when he sucks her skin to his tongue.

"Mm-hm, what I thought," he mutters, dark and aroused and scenting her. He bends his knees and lifts her up, carries her backwards a couple of steps and drops her on the bed.

She doesn't laugh, just stares him down as she gets to her knees, attacking his belt, lifting her chin to kiss him again, biting his lip in her rush, the feel of his belt sliding right out and tugging him into her so that he leans to the side, catches himself on her shoulders, pushing her back.

She looks up at him, eyes so dark and full that he can't breathe. "Take it all off, Castle."

His heart stops.

He sinks to his knees beside her on the bed, kisses her hard, pulls back suddenly. He has to - has to memorize this. The look in her eyes, the serious heat, the intensity; the way her fingers slide his shirt up; the rise and fall of her chest as she breathes shallowly, the almost painful need etched into her face.

She gives him the moment, her movements still, her eyes waiting for his.

Suddenly, it seems so very important to see her smile, for him to make her happy again and no longer worried and sad, no longer one foot out the door just in case, but with him, diving in with him.

"Kate," he whispers.

Her eyes regard him.

"God knows I love you, but seriously, Kate. We're gonna have to organize that closet."

Her lips split wide, almost against her will; she rolls her eyes and sits back on her feet, her laughter ripped free. She presses her hand to her cheek and shakes her head at him.

"I know you're worried about your precious designer suits, Castle. But I'd rather think about getting all your clothes off. Closet organization can come later. Much, much later," she says, her voice dipping low, her eyes burning into him.

One last time. "A messy house is a sign of a-"

She silences him with a hot mouth on his, her tongue pushing past his teeth, her hands tugging at his hipbones. Just when he gets into it, she pulls back, puts the back of her hand to her mouth with those alluring, dark eyes. Those Kate eyes.

"Quit stalling, Castle. I want you."

Only this time, some of that serious intensity has left her and more of the playful, smiling Kate is back. And that. . .he can do.

Yeah. In that sense too.

"Wanna help me with my home exercises?"