Enlightenment 20.5

"Hey, hold off for thirty seconds, hot woman."

She had slipped her fingers under the waistband of his jeans, reaching for the tail of his button-down as he unlocked the door to the loft. He was at a disadvantage, trying to complete the task while still holding both giant bags from Dora's, so she took advantage, standing on tip-toe to allow her lips to reach over the collar of his shirt and brush the sensitive skin on the back of his neck.

The door finally swung open and he turned on her, ducking down and grabbing her around her thighs one-armed. She tipped forward over his shoulder and sort of fell into a fireman's carry out of self preservation, trying not to voice the high-pitched yelp of surprise her lungs were insisting on projecting.

"Castle? What the hell?"

She put one hand on his back to hold herself slightly more upright.

"Not exactly the most traditional approach, but since when have we been traditional?"

He stepped through the door, juggling her and her lingerie, then turned back to nudge the door closed with the toe of his shoe.

Oh. Tradition. Right. Maybe this was a slightly skewed version that didn't involve vows or a ring exchange, but she was moving in, and this was her first time through the door since they'd decided that. She somehow couldn't imagine him doing anything like this with Meredith or Gina, though. And what did that say, exactly?

"Rick, put me down before Alexis and your mother see you acting like a Neanderthal." Exasperation won out over indignation in her tone.

Once he'd gotten the door closed, he just kept walking past the stairs and into the living room. No noise from upstairs, no redheads sitting on the sofa.

"I don't think they're home yet, and besides, now that I have you up there, I figure I'd better take advantage."

Kate was proud of her self-restraint. She hadn't kicked, elbowed, or whacked him in any of the ways she knew would immediately end this romantic little caveman gesture. Like some of his other annoying habits, she thought maybe if she ignored it, he would stop. But as he ducked to go through the door into the office, she realized this was approaching the ridiculous.

He dropped the Dora's bags in his office and reached up to thwack her on the behind.

"You so did not just do that."

He did it again.

Enough was enough. She reached down to his sides and tickled him with both hands.

That got an immediate reaction, though not exactly the one she'd bargained for. He screamed like a girl, just as she'd predicted, but instead of setting her down and trying to run away, he'd actually grabbed onto her more tightly with one hand and grabbed for her hands, spinning around when he couldn't quite reach.

"Hey! No fair! Stop tickling! I thought we had a truce on tickling!"

"We did, until you decided you wanted to throw me over your shoulder and spank me! Castle! Stop turning around and put me down!"

Her head came pretty close to a bookcase on that go-round, and his balance wasn't faring so well now that she was wriggling and kicking and generally trying to escape.

"Stop tickling me!"

"Put me down, and I will!"

She couldn't help it; now she was laughing, too.

This was straight out of Lucy and Ricky's greatest hits, with a little bit of the Three Stooges thrown in thanks to Castle.

When he finally wised up and changed his tactics, reaching up to tickle the part of her side he could access, she did let out that yelp. The attack distracted her enough that she quit digging her fingers into his sides and lifted herself up to go for his hand in self-defense. That completely threw him off balance, and he released her with an, "oomph," letting her slide back down his chest to stand in front of him.

They were both out of breath, grinning like idiots and sucking in air as they tipped into each other to catch their balance. When he reached out to steady himself on her shoulder, their eyes met and simultaneously flicked to each others' lips. Levity immediately surged to lust, and Rick backed her up against his bedroom door, devouring her with a ferocious kiss. She moaned as he teased her tongue then sucked it into his mouth, nose flattened against hers, hands already under her sweater and working on the clasp of her bra.

She had his shirt mostly off when she realized they were still in his office. She reached back for the door handle, which in retrospect was probably not the smartest idea considering that all his weight was pressed against her, and she was pressed firmly against the door. When the handle turned and their support gave way, massive confusion and flailing ensued.

Rick's instinct had been to bear hug her as he spun into the bedroom, but thankfully he'd righted himself without tackling her. Now he walked her backward and shut the door, resuming their prior position in reverse. Before she knew what had really happened, he was tugging her sweater over her head and tossing her bra behind him, somehow managing to unbutton and unzip her jeans one-handed as freed her hair from the clip she'd tucked it up with after Dora's.

Oh, he was turned on, but Kate couldn't wait to see what he would do when—

"Holy Christmas presents, Batman- you're not wearing underwear?"

"Ha! I was in too much of a hurry to gift wrap, I guess."

He'd slipped one hand inside her jeans to start sliding them down, and now he added his other hand and slid the denim down to her ankles. She had to kick her shoes off to let him pull them off completely, and she couldn't help a giggle as he looked up at her from her feet with his sexy little smile.

"You are so naughty."

He stood and quickly shed his shirt and shoes.

"Oh, yes, Mr. Pure-Chaste-and-Innocent."

She was unbuckling his belt and unzipping his jeans, fingers meeting the evidence of his complete lack of innocence.

"I made no such claim."

He expedited his nakedness, then pressed her back against the door.

"I'm sort of liking the idea of vertical."

She chuckled and sought his mouth, then hooked her knee around his hip and pulled his hips against her.

His hands palmed her panty-less bottom and she grabbed his neck to hoist herself up, wrapping her other leg around his waist. She used her legs to lift herself up in position to take him inside her, and then relaxed enough to allow him to penetrate just enough to make him nip at her bottom lip and hum into her mouth.

She eased down, enveloping him inch by inch, until his restraint gave out and he thrust deep, pinning her hips against the door with the force of his movement.

"Oh God!"

Gravity and this angle were conspiring to make her vocal today. He set a slow, careful rhythm, making sure to connect with her pelvis in a little circle of his hips every time they came together. She couldn't keep her mouth shut—the sensations were too intense. What had started as little chanting huffs of breath escalated to sharp cries. She couldn't even focus enough to kiss him—just clung and concentrated on using her thighs to move in direct counterpoint to his hips.

He had just attached his lips to her neck, working his way up to her ear with warm, slippery kisses, when she heard the call from the front door. They froze, Rick buried deep, parting his lips from her neck with an audible pop.

"Hello family!" A brief pause with the closing of the door. "Alexis? Kate? Richard? I'm home!" Martha sing-songed as the sound of her heels hitting hardwood moved from the door to the living room. The heels came closer, muffled briefly as she crossed the shag rug in the living room, and then echoed in his office. They paused, perhaps seeing the bags from Dora's beside his desk. She must have seen his keys where he'd tossed them on the table inside the door.

She was trying desperately not to breathe, for fear of laughing. She had pulled back to watch Rick's expression, which was currently one of complete fear and mortification. Well, at least if she tried the door, she wouldn't be able to get it open…

Oh, that was not the right thing to think when she was trying so hard not to laugh… She could feel the giggle building in her belly and pressed her lips tight together, shutting her eyes.

After an eternity, maybe three seconds, the heels chronicled Martha's retreat out and up the stairs.

Kate opened her eyes to see Rick, still wide-eyed and teenager-caught-by-his-mom-with-a-girl.

She whispered, still worried about being heard by her near-in-law (oh, where did that dangerous thought come from anyway?).

"Rick—bed!"

He shook his head slightly, snapping out of it, and pulled them away from the door, swaying slightly as he stood back supporting her weight on his shaky legs.

He backed to the bed ungracefully and sat, Kate finally disengaging on a suppressed giggle to let him scoot back and under the covers.

"I'm not sure I can do this."

"What? Afraid you can't be quiet enough to keep you mom from hearing?" She was in full "bad-girl-teenage-Kate" taunting mode.

"Oh, I can be quiet. I'm worried about you, Miss 'I'm Going Commando and Being Vocal Today.'"

"Now that sounds like a challenge."

He raised both eyebrows and she climbed on top of his hips, kissing him until she figured she'd turned his brain to mush. He had surged back to his former state of arousal, and she wasted no time in impaling herself. She had control of her vocal cords this time, though, so she was in no danger of crying out at the addictive sensation of utter fullness.

She watched him literally bite his tongue and inhale slowly through his nose, lying back on the pillows as she sat upright.

Now on top and in control, she set the rhythm, and it wasn't slow or gentle. She was working him up, rising and falling above him with chest pushed forward and inner muscles clenched.

He was such a goner, and he was going to scream.

She couldn't bring herself to be embarrassed about it knowing that Martha was all the way up in her bedroom, where she most likely would not hear a single sound. This was all about the innate fear of being caught by one's own parent, in flagrante delicto. If it were her dad upstairs, no doubt she would be just as uptight as Rick.

He was making a commendable effort holding back, but she could see his tells beginning to surface—he was going to lose it, and she was going to make him. He was closing his eyes, reigning in all the parts of himself that only minutes ago were surging forth, making their presence known. Eyes, hands, breath, vocal cords. They had all been involved, and now he was suppressing them.

She wasn't immune to this advance—she wanted him just as much as he wanted her. It was at once a deep realization and an easy admittance. She shifted to lean over him, reaching his lips with hers again and aligning all the right parts to make them both happy.

His breathing was his biggest tell. He kept inhaling in little bursts, every time she shifted to clutch him deeper, grip him tighter.

"She can't hear us, you know."

She was looking at closed eyelids, hoping he would open them, and she wasn't disappointed.

He let out a little grunt with her next rock against his hips, seemingly against his better judgment.

"I want you in this with me—always Rick. I never want this to be a competition. I was joking—I shouldn't have. Making love should never be politics, or a contest, or anything other than exactly what it's called."

She continued to move her body over him, let him press inside her, welcome the intrusion of flesh.

"I love you, and you love me, and when words fail, we show each other. If we hold back, then why bother at all? I'm sorry I ever brought it up—trying to see who could keep quiet. I don't want you to, and I don't care who hears us. We love each other, and that's what this is."

He reached up and took her mouth then, wrapping hands into her hair and pulling her down against him.

He met her thrust for thrust, then, the force of his fingers a little desperate, the pulse of his tongue inside her mouth unrestrained. He poured a raw, reckless groan into her mouth as she arched her back and pushed her hips tighter against him.

She was driving higher, riding on a wave of recklessness and rightness and confidence that must have stemmed from her decision earlier today to make this her home, make him her home.

His hands moved down her back, fingers pressed into the muscles on either side of her spine, drawing her closer against him.

She sped her movements and pulled away from his lips to see his eyes.

She was on the tipping point, about to fall, but she wanted him with her, wanted to see him go with her.

"Rick."

It wasn't a question—just a half-whispered statement of assurance about whom she was with, the only person she would ever think of at this moment when her body and her psyche were in flux, when she needed an anchor. And in that instant, he answered her plea.

"I love you so much, Kate."

Her vision contracted, and her ears rang, and she thought she had stopped breathing entirely except for the fact that she was hiccoughing little sobs against his forehead as her muscles began to clench around him.

She felt him surge up and into her, as his eyes widened, fixed on hers.

They pulsed and relaxed, clutched and cradled until both were still, breaths mingling, drops of perspiration and what looked suspiciously like tears merging on his cheeks.

He tucked her head against his neck and puffed out deep breaths against her curls. Her fingers were trailing over his biceps. She closed her eyes against his warm, moist skin.

"I love you too."

He gripped her around the ribcage then, squeezing so hard that her scar pulled a bit, but she didn't mind.

"You really want this? You want to be here with me? With us?"

"I'm already here, aren't I?"

"And you're not going to leave? Not going to change your mind in a week when you wake up and realize what you've done?"

"I'm staying. The best parts of me are here."

He took a page from her book, then, and flipped them, pinning her to his mattress with his hips and cradling her head in his hand.

"But I don't want the best parts—I want all of you. And I need you to promise me that no matter what scared, scarred, nasty, angry version of you shows up in the middle of a case or in the middle of the night, that even that part of you will stay. Can you do that, Kate? Can you give me all of you?"

She couldn't answer right away. She could just look into those earnest blue eyes, asking only to be allowed to love her.

"You already have more pieces of me than anyone ever has before. I wish I wasn't so broken. I'm less broken than I was, but I'm still not what I think I could be, what I want to be, for you, with you."

A tear escaped, almost unnoticed except for the fact that he wiped it away.

"But I promise that I'll let you help me to get there, and I know that means not running when pieces start to break off, when I fall apart a little bit, or a lot."

She took his hand and threaded their fingers together.

"You'll have to remind me. You might even have to throw me over your shoulder and drag me back, kicking and screaming. But now you know how that works, so…"

She smiled in spite of herself and he laughed low and deep in his chest, clutching her hand in his.

"As long as I get to remind you of this conversation when you assault-tickle me trying to escape."

"If you abuse this knowledge and power I have granted, I will hurt you."

She kissed his knuckles, interlaced with hers.

"Oh, I know, never fear. I'll always have a healthy dose of respect and fear for my badass cop."

"No, Castle, no fear. Never fear."

They heard the front door open again.

"Hello? Kate? Dad? Grams? Anybody home?"

This was so far from anything she'd ever experienced, being an only child and then a single woman in Manhattan. People came and went here: noisy, needy, at all hours, with all agendas usually on full display. Her old self would have shrunk from the intrusion, the expectations. But something had changed while she was loving this man, wearing his silk pajamas and eating his Saturday night dinners. It crept up on her when she wasn't paying attention. She knew what to do now. She knew how to be part of this. And she wanted it, craved it even. She carded her fingers through his hair.

"We'd better go feed her. She sounds hungry. She'll come looking for us next…"

"Oh God… But she's so much smarter than my mother." He kissed her on the nose.

"Let's not tempt fate." She tapped her index finger on his chin.

"I didn't think you believed in fate." She smiled and looked up at him through her lashes.

"Maybe I'm starting to accept that fate believes in me."

A/N: This just went where it wanted to—took longer, too. It has more meaningful character growth and plot content that I ever intended to put in one of the "Extra" chapters, but the M part was too crucial to edit it out… I've noticed the vast majority of readers seem to be reading both the T and M chapters, so maybe this split has all been for naught. Will take it into consideration for the sequel. We have barbeque coming up, so watch for that in the next few days. Much love for all the reviews, tweets, tumblr posts, and PMs. You have no idea how much I needed them this past week—thank you. -KC