Cuffed

The moment the door slams shut behind the masked men, Castle twists awkwardly in the chair and tries to see Beckett. Just at the limits of his vision, he gets an impression of dark hair and unconsciousness.

"Beckett," he hisses, unsure when the two guys will be coming back. He hears tires peeling away, so they have *some* time. "Beckett!"

She grunts; he feels movement at his back.

The chair behind his creaks; he feels his arm getting numb, but he can't twist far enough around to see her. His other wrist is duct-taped to the arm of the chair, but his left is cuffed.

To her.

"BECK-ett," he hisses again.

This time he can feel her jerking into wakefulness, the way her awareness fills the room. "Castle?" She grunts and his arm is wrenched backwards.

"Ah, Beckett. Not so hard-"

"We're handcuffed," she spits out, shock overwhelming her disgust, thank goodness, because if he has to hear the unbridled distaste in her voice he will truly, truly kill himself.

"We are handcuffed, yes. But-"

"Together."

"Ye-es, together. But-"

"Are those your *fingers*?"

He stumbles on that one. "Well. Uh. I guess they are. Kinda hard to move. But-"

"But what, Castle?" She jerks on their cuffed wrists and his jerks painfully, causing his fingers to brush her - he's not sure. Could be -

Not her legs. Could be not her legs. He's not going to ask. He will just. Gulp. Soldier through.

"But *what*, Castle?"

"Oh. But I have a key."

He feels the violent wrenching on their bonds as her body twists around, as if to see him better. "You have a key? To my handcuffs?"

He can just see the edge of silver duct tape on her right wrist, which means it's his left hand to her left hand, back to back. Entirely awkward.

"I have an all-purpose key. To any handcuffs."

"Where?" she questions, sounding completely taken aback.

"In my wallet." His arm is beginning to throb, pulled behind his back like this. And every time his arm pulses with his heart, he feels his fingertips brush her - uh - yeah.

"In your wallet? Are you serious?"

"Yes."

"You have such an overwhelming need for a handcuff key that you keep one in your wallet?"

"Why, Katherine Beckett. Get your mind out of the gutter-"

"My mind is *not* in the gutter-"

"-I happen to have gone through a Houdini phase."

"Which necessitated putting the key in your wallet for easy access?"

"Never know when you might need to pull a disappearing act. Also it came in handy that time you handcuffed me in the car."

"Castle," she grinds out, jerking on his arm again. "Just get it out."

"Ooh, that's what she-"

"If you finish that sentence, you will die."

He firmly believes that. "The key. Right. See it's in my wallet."

"So."

"My wallet is in my pocket."

"Okay."

"Which I can't reach like this. I've tried."

"Which pocket?" she sighs.

He closes his eyes. "Right. Back. Jeans pocket."

Castle hears her long sigh behind him, then feels the cuffs jerk and his wrist smack painfully into the slats of his chair. "Ow. Beckett."

"Back pocket." She's twisting around, their two chairs groaning as they rub together with her movements. "Back. . .Castle, shift your butt."

He laughs. Can't help it. A little hysterical, yes, a little gasping, yes, but he can't hold it in any longer.

"Castle. Focus."

"Where do I shift? I can't see-"

"Back. Shift back. My hand is almost-"

At my ass?

Uh, not good. Stop thinking.

He shifts back in the chair as best he can; his wrist knocks into the slats of the chair and blocks his effort, keeps him away those last remaining inches. He desperately wants to have her hand-

No.

Well, yes. But. No.

"More, Castle."

"I can't. My arm is back here too."

"I can't reach. Try to angle-"

"Okay. Okay, hold on." He uses his feet to give him leverage, tries to jam his body into the seat but his arm is solidly behind him, the cuffs pulled through the far slat so tightly that he imagines the chain must wind through their chairs and snake out the opposite side, cuffing her left wrist as well.

"Castle-"

"Can't. This is as flexible as I get, Beckett."

She growls.

He has a moment of flashback that isn't flashback, memory that isn't memory, deja vu, as if he's seen her over him, her hair falling around them, her eyes on his, that growl from her lips for some a comment about flexibility that has nothing to do with this-

"Castle, can you stand up?"

He glances over his shoulder, finds her head is so close to his that their cheeks brush. She doesn't move away, and he's stunned into immobility at her nearness, at the way her breath skirts his jaw, her eyes so very dark and startling that his heart stops beating.

"Castle," she says softly.

He blinks; his hearts starts again. "Yeah. Uh. Can I stand? Let's see." He braces himself and pushes off-

"Wait, wait-" she gasps, groans, and he drops back down, harder than he meant to but worried about her, and she strangles another cry, her head dropping back to his right shoulder, panting.

"Did I hurt you?" he says, craning his neck to see, trying to see her-

"Let's try to do this together. Give me a second."

He waits, watching her. She lays with her head back against him, her chest rising and falling. He twists his hand through the tangle of wooden slats, his chair and hers, finds the belt loop on her pants and gets a finger through it. Best he can do.

"I'm okay," she says. "Standing up just twisted my arm up-"

"Sorry-"

"You're fine. It was my idea. Okay. On three. One-"

"Wait, like, on three, or like, after three and go-"

"Castle!"

"On three. Right." Just like when they burst into a suspect's place. He knows this. It's just the closeness of her cheek to his, the way she tilted her head back and left it on his shoulder, the warmth of her at his back. It's muddling his brain.

Also, that there are masked bad guys with guns somewhere out there and-

"One, two, three-"

He pushes up and tries to coordinate his efforts with hers, but their arms are duct taped to the arms of their chairs and all it does is cause the cuffs to constrict, pull tight, and tip them forward, precariously, the chairs battling it out.

"Don't, don't-" she warns.

Too late.

They tip over, crashing to the floor on their sides. He groans as his shoulder bears the brunt of it, his bones popping out of joint and then slowly back into place.

"Castle?"

"Here."

"You okay?"

"Yeah, yeah." He's half out of the chair, arm still firmly pinned behind him. He shifts to get back into the seat, his left shoulder throbbing. "We need to get upright."

"Yeah. Actually, hold on. I might-"

He waits, breathing through his mouth to keep from smelling the foul, mildewed carpet of the old house. He closes one eye, shoves at the pain beginning to radiate from his shoulder, pushes it back. Behind him, he can feel Kate moving, the tug on the cuffs.

"I think I've almost got this, Castle."

"Yeah?"

"Duct tape is coming loose-"

"Duct tape never comes loose," he starts, incredulous.

"It's looser than it was," she hisses back. "Are you okay down here for a minute?"

No. "Yeah."

He feels her straining the limits of the cuffs, which only jerks his arm further behind him, makes his chest constrict. But he says nothing, the burn migrating from his shoulder to his arm, into his his fingers.

Oh. He had a hold of her belt loop, and then the fall, and so-

Castle closes his eyes to pay attention, flexes his fingers slowly, one at a time until he figures it out. His finger has twisted in material of her belt loop and is keeping his hand at an awkward angle. He works it free, slowly, and his arm relaxes a little bit, gives her more slack.

"Castle?"

"Here."

"What did you do?"

"My finger was stuck. Now it's not."

"I can just about reach-"

He twists his neck and sees her bowed over in the chair, her long hair falling around her face.

"What are you doing?"

She mumbles something and he realizes, shockingly, that she's using her teeth on the duct tape.

She's using her teeth.

On the tape.

His heart pounds. "Kate?"

She lifts her head with the tape in her teeth; it rips jaggedly, and Nikki Heat visions flash in his eyes, and then she's spitting it out, her head tilting away, and yanking on her wrist.

It takes a few more wriggling, twisting jerks but her right hand is free, her chest rising and falling with her exertions, his eyes glued to her brilliant, sexy frame.

It hits him all over again. How much he *loves* this woman. Damn.

"I'm free," she says, looking a little surprised.

He grins back at her, flexes his wrist behind his back. "Awesome move. Now. Back pocket."

She grins back. "Yeah. Back pocket."

He watches her hook a leg over the side of the chair and twist her body up, turning back towards him as she does. He cranes his neck and sees her straddle both chairs, her body close because of the still cuffed left wrist. She leans in.

"You want to get the chairs up, first?"

He blinks, arrested by the way she leans over his right side, her fingers already working at the duct tape around his wrist.

"Up?"

"You want to stay down there, Castle, or do you want to try to right the chairs first?"

"Oh. Yeah, let's right the chairs."

He wants to be able to truly appreciate this, and that means pain-free. She nods and slithers off the chairs, slides in front of him, her left arm draped across his shoulder, the chain pulling tightly on his arm, making him wince. Her face is right against his, her chest pressed to his, leaning over his body because of the restrictions of the cuffs.

He fights to keep his breath.

"You okay like this?"

He nods. Oh yeah, more than okay. What is pain? Her free hand brushes down his shoulder, his arm, to the floor.

She gets her legs under her and then slowly pushes off from the floor, easing the chair back. Instead of going up, it only slides away. She stops, panting.

"Can you get a foot-"

"Yeah, I get it." He twists his left foot to position it on the floor, finds his knee between her thighs, gulps hard.

She shifts her legs wider and nods at him; they push together and the chairs rise up, tilting back into place with a sudden thunk.

He opens his eyes. Kate is now straddling his left leg, leaned full over him, her arm up around his neck, her other hand keeping her balance by clutching at his shoulder.

Kate lifts her head; their gazes collide. Her eyes dart to his mouth and back up, that little unconscious movement she does whenever she's in close, and he has to grit his teeth to keep still. Utterly still.

She's hot on his leg, hot and tight, her knees squeezed together to keep from toppling off. He tries to breathe, but her scent surrounds him. Why isn't she moving?

"Castle."

Oh no. No. She can't breathe his name like that and expect him to be good. She can't. It's not fair.

"You okay?"

He can't. He really can't. She has no idea and she thinks they're doing this friends thing and she's just draped all over him like-

"Castle?"

He growls out something approaching an answer and tilts his head back to escape, but now he's leaning against her arm, entirely too intimate.

Why the hell is she *not* moving?

Castle shifts his knee, as if in reminder, raising it slightly.

Oh. Damn. Mistake. Big mistake. Her legs clamp down on his thigh as if riding him, riding him, and she's clutching his arm to keep from falling, her little gasp not one of surprise, no, not surprise, pleasure, aroused and visceral and breathless pleasure.

Beckett drops her forehead to Castle's shoulder, tries to breathe.

Damn. This is not good.

She should move. She really needs to stop straddling his thigh and get up and get them uncuffed-

His leg muscles flex - flex, holy mother of - and she sucks in a breath, can *not* stop her knees from squeezing togther, every hard line of his leg between hers, hot and solid and shifting slightly between her thighs.

Ohhh...

"Kate?"

He has to shut up. He needs to shut his mouth and not talk like that, like he's just woken up, like his voice is raw and ragged on the end of some amazing, sexy-

She needs to pull herself together. The key. His pocket. Get off his leg and get in his pants.

Oh, God, no. No. Sorry, wrong - wrong image. Not-

She releases her death grip on his arm and pushes up, but their cuffed wrists (which she actually, momentarily forgot) jerk her back down to his chest, making her jaw bump his cheek, her lips brush his ear.

He goes very still. She can hear the whistling in his lungs as he breathes, ragged and erratic.

She has to slide off of him, can't lift herself off like this, with the cuffs; she needs to slide off his leg, roll to one side.

Chest to chest. Her whole body pressed against his.

Last year, had this happened, the initimacy of this might have unnerved her, might have also made her cheeks flush. But this year. Knowing. . .things about him, about how he looks at her, how he must feel right now, how that catch in his breathing is about her, Kate Beckett, and not just about any willing body, just for her alone-

She closes her eyes. She needs to get control of herself and move.

"The key," he murmurs. "Kate."

"That doesn't *help*, Castle," she groans, hears it in her own voice a second later. Then hears what she *said* and what it means, and hates herself.

Wall? What wall?

He laughs, rich and delighted and warm in her ear. She drops her forehead back to his shoulder, giving up. She gives up. Surely by now he must know. After all this time? How could he not?

Seriously, he must see her smiling like an idiot whenever he walks into the precinct. How can he *not* know?

And that, at least, gives her the impetus to do what needs to be done. Her head is pounding, and that's not just arousal, it's also the bruise forming at the back of her skull where one of the guys got the drop on her.

Kate puts a hand on the chair and shoves, sliding off his thigh, along his chest, suddenly free, the chill of the air in the room making her skin crawl. She's now facing the same direction as he is, half crouched by his chair, her cuffed wrist lowering, tangled in the rungs. She hears him sigh, long and heavy, and has to press her lips together to keep from remedying that.

She will *not* kiss him.

"Back pocket?"

"Can you get the tape off my wrist first?" he says, his voice assaulting her.

She nods stupidly, uses her right hand to scrape her nails against the edge of the tape. She gets on her knees to keep from crouching awkwardly, accidentally catches the skin of his forearm, makes a welt rise up.

"Sorry," she mutters, bitting her lip, suddenly recalling the gravity of their situation. If the two guys in ski masks meant to kill them, they'd be dead already, but she can't take it for granted. The guys looked like they meant to run, but how can she be sure? She can't be stupid here.

The duct tape won't peel up. She needs two hands. She needs to hold down this side and pull from this-

Forget it.

Kate leans down and snags the edge with her teeth, pulls back-

hears Castle gasp-

gets her fingers around the rest of it and yanks it open, jerks it off the chair's armrest.

But Castle is staring at her, open-mouthed, his eyes burning into hers.

She frowns at him. "Castle. Your arm's free. Stand up so I can get at your pants."

Pocket! No. Damn it.

He groans and his eyelids slam shut, head tilting back.

Kate slumps forward, berating herself, a hand to her forehead. She feels him draw a ragged breath and shift forward, his arm still on the armrest turning beside her head so that his fingertips caresses her cheek, suddenly tender.

She jerks her head back, heart pounding, denial on her lips-

He says nothing, just watches her a moment, lifts his hand to close her mouth with his fingers and thumb around her lips, cutting her off.

"Key."

She nods; he stands up as she does, the chairs rising on the chain as they both face each other now, linked.

Kate's not sure what comes over her right then, whether it's just the whole situation or the phantom sensation of his fingers on her lips, but instead of moving around behind him to get the key, she tugs his cuffed wrist aside, clearing the way free of chairs, and steps in close.

He's not a small man, but his hips are narrow; his waist thick but she can easily reach. She stretches her right arm along his back, slides her hand down slowly, fishes out his wallet with ease.

Castle can't keep his eyes off her.

His cuffed hand flexes, his fingers brush hers. The chairs still dangle by the chain of the handcuffs, heavy.

She knows that movement was entirely unconscious on his part, just by the way his eyes darken, so she says nothing, chooses to ignore it. Can't ignore it, really, but she can try.

Kate brings her hand back around, shows him the wallet.

"Where's the key, Castle?"

No, no, her voice is *not* dripping with sex. It's not. She's not. It's-

Damn.

He narrows his eyes as if taking up a challenge, brings both hands in to cradle his wallet. Every movement of his wrist brings her cuffed hand against him, her fingers glancing against his forearm, his chest, the soft skin inside his wrist. The chairs clatter together, try to break them apart.

He pulls the key out of his wallet and shows it to her, smiling darkly. She realizes, after a long second, that he's waiting on her to do the honors.

Kate takes the key in her right hand, gripping it, raises her left hand (and his) up between them. She has to take a step back so there's enough room, (to her horror she sees she's been standing entirely too close); the chairs knock into her knee, rest against his hip. She's about to insert the key in the lock when Castle suddenly twists his hand and takes hers, lacing their fingers together, binding them tighter than the handcuffs ever could.

Castle's eyes are too intent, too knowing. But what can she do about it? She knows. And he sees in her all of that knowledge, ripe and flowering. If he picks the fruit, if he sinks his teeth into it, she can't do anything to stop him.

She turns the key, has to wriggle it to move the mechanism inside, and then the cuff pops around her wrist and drags open. The chairs tumble to the ground, the handcuffs swinging from Castle's wrist. He does the same as her; the handcuffs drop to the floor between them, lay across his foot.

She rubs her chafed wrist, glances up to look at him, meets his eyes.

His formerly cuffed hand drifts up between them, his palm slides along her cheek. Her heart flickers out, snuffed by the feel of his other hand framing her face, holding her steady, still.

She can't breathe. She can only gulp air and swallow it like water, hoping it gets to her sluggish blood.

Castle leans in and presses his mouth to hers, hard, mastery in the confidence of his lips and the unhesitation of his tongue. She parts her mouth on a sigh and takes it, her hands clutching his shirt and tugging him closer, lifting on her toes even as he tries to bend over her, bowing her to his will.

He doesn't need to even try. She's here. Fighting back, but here.

Kate slides her hand up his chest, brushes her fingers against his neck, uses the distraction to worry his lip, slip her tongue past his assault, ambushing his mouth.

His body ripples, his hands clench in her hair, pull on her to get her closer.

They can't be much closer than this.

His knee brushes hers; she lets him have room, molding around the long length of his leg; she squeezes her knees against his thigh in a reminder.

Castle breaks from her mouth on a gasp, breathless, laughs low and arousing, and wraps his arms around her shoulders, draws her in for a crushing hug.

"Oh, Kate," he murmurs, but she lifts her hand and covers his mouth before he can say anything more.

Let this be enough.

"Let's get out of here, Castle."