Bringing Sexy Back

Chapter One: The Shower

Co-authored by Cora Clavia, Sandiane Carter, and chezchuckles

Note: Co-authored, in this case, means one of us wrote the first three paragraphs, sent it to the next one, who wrote another three paragraphs or so, sent it on to the next one, and etc. When the end came, we all knew it was the end. Of this chapter ; )

Castle stopped suddenly in the upstairs hall, arrested by the sound of the shower running and the almost hum that seemed to carry just under the white noise of the water. Was she humming? Steam billowed out of the half-open guest bathroom door, curling around his feet and holding him captive.

Beckett was in there. Naked Detective Beckett.

He shivered and clutched the guest towels closer to his chest, blinked hard to erase the searing afterimage of Beckett, nude and huddled in her bathtub, holding a hand out for his jacket.

From his position in the hall, he could just see through to the pale shower curtain. The faint profile of her body was soft like a shadow in candlelight.

He closed his eyes immediately, partly because he could almost hear her voice ("Castle, *turn around*!"), partly because of a vague sense of self-preservation that kicked in even as the glow of arousal started to shine through his body.

But after a second (or maybe a minute), after his brain complacently pointed out to him that Beckett's voice was only in his head, and after self-preservation vanished altogether, without any warning, he found his eyelids sliding open again, found himself drawn to that shower curtain.

Entranced.

He could only see a blurry outline, could only guess at the graceful lines, the delicate curves; but it was more than enough, especially when Castle had his fertile imagination at the ready.

Except when she moved *that* way - oh, no imagination needed there. He gasped and froze, then pivoted, fixing his eyes on the hardwood floor.

This wasn't right. Some part of him exclaimed indignantly, Since when do you care? But he cared; couldn't help it really. This was Kate, and as much as he wanted her (he did; man, he *really* did), he was suddenly overwhelmed with righteousness, with a strange self-consciousness.

It was only then that he remembered his whole purpose in coming up here: she needed towels. Right. The best of intentions. Helping her cover herself from his prying eyes. Since apparently he'd turned into a lecherous old man.

He stared down at the towels blankly - the towels that were going to touch every inch of her wet, naked skin - and groaned because he shouldn't have let that last thought enter his mind. Great. He was never going to be able to look at the cover of a Nikki Heat book again, not when all he could think was how the real thing was so much better, even blurred through the shower door.

Speaking of which, if she discovered him out here staring at her like some perverted teenager, his death really was imminent.

But why was the door open? At least *that* wasn't his fault, he reasoned, though that probably wouldn't stop her from killing him.

She must have left it open; she must have wanted him to duck inside and put the towels on the counter of the sink so she wouldn't have to leave the bathroom dripping wet, searching through his linen closet, her skin rising with goose bumps, slick and wet and shivering-

He needed to breathe. He needed to *not* be upstairs.

He needed to just take one final look, a look to erase the one of her huddled in her tub, a look to last him until. . .however long it took.

No. Not-

"Castle? Did you find those towels yet?"

He jumped – there was no other word for it – jumped and took a retreating step, his heart hammering against his chest.

How could she – did she know – had she been aware of his presence the whole time?

Fear crept inside him, abject and irrational; fear that he had blown it, fear that she would take one look at him and frown in disgust, turn her back on him, kick him out (of her heart? her police station, her life).

The misery that sprung from that thought was devastating.

"Castle?"

Her voice pulled him back – her lilting voice, tinted with lingering amusement.

Amusement?

The icy remnants of his terror melted, washed away by a drowning wave of arousal.

God, he wasn't going to survive tonight, was he?

Still he found himself moving forward, as if her voice had tugged on an invisible chain that had an end wrapped around his heart.

"Yes," he answered, awed at how self-assured and in-control he sounded. "Yep. Found them."

"Well? What are you waiting for?"

Was she. . .Was she teasing him?

He swallowed nervously. Obviously she *didn't* mean she wanted him to enter the bathroom, strip down, join her in the shower and proceed to lick every inch of her. She didn't mean that, did she? No, that - unless - No, he told himself, so stop thinking about it.

So. . .um. . .what now?

He *had* to go into the bathroom. She needed the towels. Her life might depend on it. She might catch a chill, right? He would never forgive himself if she survived the explosion merely to die of tuberculosis. Or pneumonia. Or lupus. Or plague. Or whatever. (Lupus?) He might be saving her life. And if it necessitated seeing her strong, wet body (again), well, that was something he was willing to suffer for her sake.

But since he was reasonably sure she could kill him several ways, even naked and unarmed, he decided to go with, "Um - do you want me to just put them on the counter?"

The water shut off; he could hear her dripping, the fall of water syncopated to the thud of his madly beating heart.

"Too late," she said and poked her head out of the shower curtain, brushing her hair back with a hand. "Bring 'em here."

Oh no. Oh God. He was going to die.

Castle swallowed hard and came forth like a servant, towels offered up, fighting the urge to genuflect, watching all the while as beads of water skated down her shoulder, dripped from her elbow, like a royal robe of clear, crystal water.

He somehow found the presence of mind to meet her eyes and was nearly undone. Droplets clumped in her lashes and sent prisms of beauty across her cheeks, deeper into her dark irises.

"Hurry up, Castle. I'm freezing," she said, reaching out a long, wet arm.

He took that last step and she lunged for a towel, flashing more skin at him than he knew what to do with, think about, handle.

She disappeared behind the curtain with a flourish, giving him the chance to breathe again. "Have you got anything I could wear?"

All that fresh, wholesome oxygen vanished somewhere on the way to his lungs, and he almost choked, only very nearly avoiding a fit of coughing. Visions of Beckett in his shirt (and nothing but his shirt), Beckett in his boxers, Beckett naked with a sheet draped over the long line of her body assailed his mind, battered his defenses, left him helpless and gaping in front of the shower curtain that trembled with her every movement.

"Sure," he managed, and he had the terrible feeling that she could hear exactly how strangled his voice sounded. "What do you want? A shirt, I guess, and pants? Or shorts? I can always give you something of Alexis's, because the size would probably be more –"

"I'm sure yours will do just fine," Beckett interrupted confidently, pushing the curtain away and stepping out of the shower.

He was not ready – he wasn't – he would never be ready for the sight of Kate Beckett wrapped in one of his white towels, the hem barely reaching the middle of her thighs (which were lovely, of course, just like the rest of her). She had an arm folded across her chest to make sure the whole thing stayed in place; a mixture of disappointment and relief flooded him.

Relief was stronger, though, because he clearly didn't have the means to handle more Kate Beckett at the moment.

Especially when she met his eyes, the line of her mouth twisted like she was holding back a smile, and pushed back her dark, wet hair (he wanted to kiss the line of her neck, map her skin with his tongue, feel her shiver against him).

"Do you have magical powers that I'm not aware of, Castle?"

"Uh. . ."

"Did you have special lessons with Professor Dumbledore?"

He could tell she was still attempting to swallow her mirth, but there was no hiding the sparks dancing in those green eyes. Castle tried to focus, kick his brain back into gear, but it was a lost cause when she was standing so close that he could smell her, smell his soap all over her.

But it seemed that he was dealing with a merciful Beckett: when he looked at her in confusion, his eyebrows knit, she allowed the smile to bloom on her lips and condescended to explain.

"I asked you for clothes and you're still standing here, like you expect them to come to you. So, unless you've been practicing that summoning charm from Harry Potter, I'm not exactly sure why you're still here."

The words slowly translated into his fantasy-addled mind. She was making fun of him. She was using Harry Potter to make fun of him no less.

But rather than rising to the challenge, Castle found he had nothing. Brain running on empty. Dead from the neck up. "Uh – no, I, uh – I'll, um, go get them." He escaped the bathroom hastily, wondering where all his dazzling wit and innuendo had gone, leaving him staring at a nearly-naked Kate Beckett like he'd never seen a beautiful woman before. (He had, but none of them had been her.)

And now he got to stand in front of his closet and wonder what he wanted to see Kate Beckett wearing. (Nothing.)

He was half-tempted to just give her a button-down with several buttons missing, but then he decided the sight might seriously give him a coronary, and if she was going to parade through his apartment in his clothing, he at least wanted to be alive to enjoy it.

So he pulled out a hooded sweatshirt that zipped up the front, figuring she could decide if she wanted it zipped up to her throat or open to her navel. She could be a hooker or a nun, whatever she chose. Good plan. Leave difficult decisions in the hands of the woman who was laughing at him. While wearing only a towel and water droplets.

Sigh.

He found an old pair of sweatpants and some socks, thinking she might like her feet to stay warm on his hardwood floors. He was about to head back to the bathroom when he realized he didn't know if she was wearing underwear. (Well, of course, not right now, but with pajamas?) Would she want a pair of his boxers?

The images that blossomed in his mind were almost too much. He groaned, rubbed his head. Why wasn't Alexis here? He should have let his daughter handle this. Or his mother. Richard Castle was in no way equipped to handle the task of deciding which of his clothes should be draped over Kate Beckett's naked body. Her wet, naked body. Wet and naked and still warm from the shower and –

He clamped down on the thought before it could go further.

Well, better safe than sorry. He pulled out a pair of boxers, found a t-shirt, and decided Beckett could figure it out on her own. Since he was already a mess. He headed back for the bathroom. He was not running, no. Just didn't want to keep her waiting. That was all.

"I brought – oh. Uh."

He almost dropped the clothes as he peered into the bathroom to find Beckett rubbing lotion onto her long, smooth legs. Oh God. She was trying to kill him.

"I borrowed some. Think they'll mind?" She shook the lotion at him, and seriously, all he could think was that she was offering it to him, asking him to help her out.

It took him a moment to bring his brain back. "Here. Oh. Yeah, no, no one will mind." He handed her the clothes, but she held her hands up.

"Lotion. Just drop them right there," she said. Her lips were quirking at him. So amused.

Enough.

He dropped the clothes, took a step forward, and grabbed the bottle of lotion from her hand. He threw it aside. Her leg was still propped up on the sink between them; he wrapped his fingers around her knee, smooth and silky and smelling like honeysuckle.

"Beckett."

He brushed his thumb over her kneecap, his fingers at the back of her knee, the soft skin that twitched under his touch. She might be amused, but the flush creeping up over the towel said she was just as aroused as he was.

"Castle?"

He slid his hand down her raised thigh; she sucked in a breath, her eyes darting to his mouth and then flicking back to his eyes. He stopped at the bottom edge of the towel, entirely too short of paradise, his gaze arrested by her.

"Castle, what are you doing?"

"If I have to explain it, Kate, I'm not doing it right."

He saw the flicker of panic in her eyes, but he also caught the subtle dilation of her pupils, the darkness drowning the deep green of her irises. He drew his hand up again, slowly, his fingers splayed to make the most of it, touch all he could get of her.

His fingertips pressed on the delicate skin, not hard, just enough to get a reaction, to observe with secret delight the shiver that ran from the small of her back to her shoulders, the shiver she couldn't quite hide.

When he heard the hitch in her breath, he struggled to keep himself from leaning in and tasting her lips, sliding his tongue across the line of her mouth, inside –

Patience.

She wouldn't let him. Not yet.

"Castle," she hissed, as if to prove his point. But even in that pissed-off, scary tone she was trying to pull off, he thought he could hear a hint of. . .encouragement.

Of course, his too-eager brain might have been playing tricks on him.

But he chose to believe different.

"Just helping you rub some of that lotion in, Kate," he pointed out in the most innocent voice he could muster, managing to sound rather nonchalant, even with his heart pounding in his ears. "At Chez Castle, we take a special interest in our guest's well-being."

He let her interpret that sentence the way she wanted, let the words twist and turn in her mind until the lightest hint of red colored her cheeks (well, that might also have been in response to the sly smile now curling his lips).

In the meantime, his hand slid along the curve of her calf, wrapped around the sharp bones of her slender ankle, massaged gently before trailing his way back up, to the appealing sensitivity of her knee.

Her calf muscle flexed and tensed, strong and beautiful, leaving him a little breathless. When he glanced up at her again, he found her eyes almost shut, her lashes throwing dark shadows on her cheeks, her lips parted.

She was gripping the sink, her knuckles white.

Not such a tease now, was she?

Just. . .beautiful.

He watched in wonder as she breathed irregularly, as she reacted to his slightest touch. He had spent hours (every hour since the day they met, if he was honest) wondering how he could touch her and make her tremble. And now. . .

He ran one finger up her arm, watching the gasp run through her body as he lightly traced the dip in her collarbone, the silky warm skin so perfect under his fingertips, brushing her throat before pulling back. He could see her pulse. Her heart was racing.

She dropped her leg, and without thinking about it, he maneuvered closer, trapping her against the sink. He felt the slight bump as she hit the counter, her hands steadying herself on the edge. She swallowed, and he realized he was staring at her mouth. Her soft, warm, red mouth, open and so inviting. And the way her chest moved when she breathed, quick and erratic and lifting towards him, as if invitation. He took a step closer, seeing her eyes flutter a little, feeling the hard, still-damp lines of her body just barely touching his, his hands aching to roam over every inch of skin. He wanted her. He wanted her right now. Like this. Pressed against him, trembling, right here.

"Castle– "

The bite had left her voice. Now it was breathy. Shaky.

He leaned closer, his face so close he could feel the heat humming on her skin, smell her, see the haze of desire clouding her eyes. Her breath washed over his face, hot and rapid and so much better than *anything* he could ever, ever write.

"What do you want, Kate?" he whispered, his mouth so close to hers, hovering, ready. It was way too late to stop now.

He'd barely finished the words before she closed the distance between them and Oh God she was kissing him.

Her touch was tentative, a jolt of awareness flooding him as she breathed into his mouth, hesitating, her lips parted but not seeking, brushes of kisses, light and loose, as if waiting. For him or for good sense? He dragged his fingers up the line of her throat, felt her swallow hard, and wrapped his hand around the back of her neck to pull her against him, firm, tight, confident.

Her lips broke from his; she stared at him. He slid his other hand up the towel, brushed the top of her thigh with his thumb, found her hipbone, traced inward to see her eyes flutter closed, then snap open. She gasped and her chest pushed into him, too good, warm and damp, the coiled spring of his need tightening as his hands tightened around her as well.

He took her mouth again, pushed his tongue past her lips to delve into that hot, alive, uncharted darkness. She pushed back, brought her hands to his chest, fingers quick and hard, and he felt his back hit the wall, Kate pressed against him.

The towel clung tenaciously to her frame and he wanted it off, wanted his hands on her hot skin, wanted to drag his fingers up her spine, curl around the curve of her ribs, find her hard-beating heart.

"You," she said throatily, her mouth breaking from his. She nibbled at his adam's apple and moved across his throat to his jaw, took his earlobe between her teeth. "I want you."

He thought he might collapse – he had waited so long, dreamed so many times of hearing her say that. The words in themselves were surreal, too good, like the rich scent of amazing coffee that you can't drink yet because it's burning hot and would scorch your throat.

He fused his lips with hers, unable to help himself, to think of a better way of expressing the overwhelming tightness in his chest. She was so open, so responsive against him, her tongue firm and intent as it moved along the edge of his mouth.

Just the feel of it made him dizzy.

He flipped them so that he was the one pressing her into the wall, swallowed the moan she let out when her naked shoulders met the cold tile, absorbed the shiver that shook her slim frame.

Oh God, the way her chest heaved under the towel, the soft swell of her breasts – he dipped his head to reach the silky skin of her neck, lick at her collarbone, that sensitive place where his hand had been.

"Castle," she whispered, urgent, breathless, as her body strained towards his. This time he had no doubt about the encouragement in her voice, rimmed with rough, appealing need.

His lips wandered towards the top of the towel; he paused as he got to that mesmerizing line, the too-white cotton against the warm, delicate porcelain of her skin.

He looked up at her, a question in his eyes, because this was it – it was the last chance, the last stop. There was no getting off the bus after this.

She stared back, dark and divine and determined. He gasped when she rocked her hips against his knee (he didn't remember sliding a leg between hers, but that had clearly been an *amazing* idea) and she moistened her lips, her eyes feral.

"Take it off."