A/N: This is it, folks. I feel so repetitive thanking you all for the well-wishes, reviews, etc, but I am still very much in awe and appreciate each of you so much. I had a harder time with this chapter. It didn't want to end. It is M-rated.

Also, mom is out of the hospital! Thanks for the prayers.

Disclaimer: Not mine. Even as an only child, I'm good at sharing.

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"Alright, I don't think there's any permanent damage. Nothing that wasn't already there, that is." Lanie stands from her squatting position near the bed, puts her pen light away, and taps Castle on the head in tandem with her later comment. Esposito snickers from across the room, where he's pulled the plastic from the small sofa and propped himself comfily upon it.

"Ha ha," Castle drolls. "Comedians, the both of you."

"Honey, someone has to add some levity here. You two are sitting here morose, like someone kicked your puppies. So, you got frisky and don't remember it? That's me every time I drink vodka." Esposito eyes her deviously. "If you think it might have been something worth remembering, do it again. Problem solved," she adds, simply.

"Lanie," Kate warns.

"Shut it. If you two would have jumped into this like normal people—when you first realized that you wanted to—you'd probably have obscenely adorable little holy terrors by now." Castle feels Kate shudder beside him and wonders if it's revulsion to the idea of having children or realization that she's missing out on it. "You two can choose to make this as complicated as you want, but all you're doing is wasting time. Take the leap together or let each other go, cause this is just getting painful to watch. Come on, Javi." He jumps from his lounging position and follows Lanie to the door, casting Beckett and Castle a sympathetic glance as they exit.

The click of the closing door echoes in the otherwise still room.

"I wish Lanie wouldn't hold back. You know, she needs to work on saying what she really means." He says, stoic. Kate huffs a laugh beside him and it makes him grin a little, turn to face her on the bed. "You're beautiful when you do that."

"Snort?" She shakes her head, brushing off the compliment.

"Your word choice, not mine. But, yes, anything that-" He takes his thumbs and runs them along her lips, tugging up at the corners, forcing a manmade smile. "-makes you do this. So stunning."

"Rick-," she breathes his name, and when her mouth parts, his thumb slips inside, grazes past her teeth to the warm heat of her tongue. She flattens a palm to his bare chest over his heart and closes her lips and eyes simultaneously, sucking lightly on the digit. When he groans, her lids shoot open and she jerks back from him and the moment.

"Sorry." He watches her slide to the corner of the mattress, further away. She told Lanie that if they would have had sex, it would have been consensual, but what does that even mean—just that he didn't force himself upon her? Or that she wanted, wants him too? He curses his necessity to push, but damn if he doesn't need her and he's so so tired of ignoring it. Now he's stuck trying to tame down his growing arousal, shifts on the bed and crosses his legs, and this is one time he wishes she'd run from him—just to give him a minute to compose himself. Geez, she sucks on his thumb and his body reacts like she was—okay, not helping.

"Esposito said he'd bring our clothes, but I think he forgot. He said they're just in the room next door. Do you think you can sneak over and grab them?" She's still not looking at him, he can tell by the way her voice is muffled, but that's okay because he's not looking at her either.

"You're gonna have to give me a minute." His voice is strained, he knows, can't help it, and that's what must draw her attention back to him.

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah. Just," he does a shooing motion towards the bathroom. "-just go in there for a second."

"Why?" She stands up and for a moment he thinks she's obliging, but she's scrutinizing him, eyeing him up and down, and oh, oh that's even worse. "Are you hurt?"

"In a manner of speaking. Bathroom, Beckett." He uncrosses his legs because he's cutting off circulation to vital parts, and he curls into himself, elbows on knees.

"What are you—oh."

"Yeah, oh." He rolls his eyes, a little annoyed at himself, his masochism, damn if this humiliation isn't still totally turning him on, and annoyed at her for not listening to him and because she's totally staring now. "Kate," he reprimands.

"Did I do that to you?"

Seriously?

"You, my vexatious biology, and active imagination, yes," he grumbles. She's probably totally thinking he's a horny pervert. Well... He's straining against his boxers and this is totally awkward and should be the bucket of ice water he needs, but it's not working. Ah, water, yes. "Actually, I'll take the bathroom."

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He's been in the bathroom for twenty minutes and she can still hear the shower running. She crept into the room next door to grab their clothes (thankfully the door was open and she just ducked under the crime scene tape, unnoticed), and she's been pacing in this room again for the past fifteen minutes, waiting for him to come out. She's contemplated throwing her dress back on and high-tailing it out of there, but for reasons unbeknownst to her, she chooses to sit on the bed—still cloaked in a sheet—and clasp on her father's watch. She stares at it, hypnotized, as she gazes at the hands spinning in slow circles.

Five more minutes pass and she's getting antsy. Surely if he fell she would have heard it, right? She doesn't care, that's the excuse she's using—she's just checking to make sure he's not injured, crippled, drowning, whatever.

She pushes the door open and the steam takes her breath for an instant, the fine hot mist floats against her skin, raising the hair on her arms. She just stands there because, what the hell is she doing? Hi Castle, I just wanted to make sure you had the situation in hand. She mentally groans at the double entendre her mind conjures up. She's pretty sure he's not…he wouldn't…not with her just a room away, right? She's starting to regret coming in here—she's just going to make sure he's not dead, then she's leaving, going home. This is not a good idea.

She doesn't have to say anything; as she steps closer to the shower stall she can see his blurry outline, palms and forehead pressed against the frosted glass, so still. That should be enough. This is when she should turn around and walk away. But, she can't. Because even though he's not heaped at the bottom of the shower, he's still not okay.

She quietly puts the lid of the toilet down and sits, pulling a knee to her chest to rest her chin upon. She watches him, feels voyeuristic; she can only see the skeleton of his nude form, but she knows what's there in theory, what he was hiding from her—his want. Arousal slinks through her body, rich and heavy, betrays her. Always with him, it makes her feel fragile and she hates it, hates that she's powerless to it, forced to let it overtake her—head to toe it burns with no relief.

She sees his shadow move behind the door, stand upright and still, and she realizes that he now knows she's there, feels the atmosphere of the small room shift.

"Why did you go to Europe?" She whispers it, wonders if he can hear her over the water when he doesn't answer for long moments.

"Book tour. You know that." His voice is hoarse, painful to her ears.

"You also complained about that very tour months ago and said you had gotten out of it," she accuses, remembering very vividly him saying he had no real interest going to Europe, and that Paula wasn't happy, but compromised that he'd do additional cities in the states. He amended, with a sly grin, that he might change his mind if she wanted to spend a summer exploring some nude beaches with him. The not-really-an-invite-but-not-really-not hung heavy in the air between them until she responded with a 'You wish' and a wink and broke the tension.

"I had a reason to not want to go then. I didn't anymore."

"What reason?"

"You know what my reason was."

"I wish that I had the psychic powers that you burden me with. What changed?"

"You left, Kate," he spits, angrily, voice booming in the small room.

She flinches. "I left your loft, not the damn country."

"You left the precinct. I had to find out from Esposito that you took a leave of absence. You severed the only connection that I have you to. What was I supposed to assume that meant?" She can see his outline pacing the few feet that he's able to in the confined space of the shower.

"I killed the man who shot me, Castle. It was just like Coonan all over again, spilling blood instead of answers." She drops her head in her hands as she relives the still too-fresh memory. Then you let me kiss you, love you, and what, your guilty conscience kicks in?" Even over the spray she hears him take a deep breath to speak, but she keeps talking, drowning him out. "You show me a murder board, tell me that you've been investigating for a year without me. Then you leave me to push buttons on a remote, cycle through horrible memories while you take a phone call from a mystery man on a burner phone, who only hands us more questions. And I needed a little bit of time to process it and that's not okay? Damn it, Castle, how is that fair?"

"I wanted to help you, Kate. Do this for you, with you. I just wanted to be there." He smacks his hand on the glass and it startles her.

"I came back to you," she confesses, and it hurts, hurts that they manage to screw everything up. Always.

"What?"

"I came back to your loft the next night, but you were already gone. Martha said your flight left that afternoon."

"She didn't tell me. Why didn't she tell me?"

"I asked her not to."

"Why? Why did you come, Kate?" He slides the shower door open just enough that she can see his head and a shoulder, dripping; he leans both against the tile and stares at her.

"I was going to ask you to take me to the Hamptons, to give me what I wanted you to give me two years ago." He blinks, eyes as heavy as her heart, weighed down. "I was going to ask you to make love to me." He takes a stuttering breath and she gives him a sad smile. "But you weren't there. And then I realized this wasn't one of your books, we're not characters on a page, all romance and happy endings. Sometimes it's just not meant to be. Making love, what does that even mean, really? It's just a euphemism for sex, cordial and pretty. A fantasy."

"No, you're wrong."

"Maybe. I wouldn't know."

"I want to show you the difference." There is want in his eyes, of course there is, but there's something else there…deep, raw tenderness. Love.

She stands up and sees the claws of panic scrape down his face; he thinks she's leaving. He backs away, out of her sight and further into the solitude of the shower, giving up.

When she slides the door open, he's not facing her. He's in the midst of the stream, one hand bracing him against the shower wall while the other is laced through his hair, holding it back to let the water pelt him in the face.

"Show me." When he whips around, she's standing just outside of the shower. She takes the sheet that she's wrapped in and loosens it at her shoulder. It drops to her feet, and she feels the chill of the room against her back and the warmth of the shower and him beckoning her forward. She steps in. "Show me the difference."

The next instant, his mouth is on hers, hot and hungry, taking taking taking anything she'll give. She can feel his anxiety in the way he jerks her to him with trembling hands, but still holds her a little away, forearms clutched tightly as if he can't bear to let her go again, but scared for her to be too close, afraid she'll leave at any moment.

"I'm not leaving."

He nods and meets her eyes, tiny beads of water dripping from his lashes. They remind her of tears and she swipes at them, closing his lids with her fingertips. She then pushes him further into the spray so she can follow, switch positions with him and pull him back to her. The water slicks through the infinitesimal space between them and she's crowded against the tile and so close to his body, and she can feel him hard between them, insistently pressed to her belly. She lurches forward, shifts upon her toes to reach his mouth fully, pulls at his lips and slides her tongue between them. He grips her skull in his wide palm, tilts her head and deepens their kiss. "God, Kate."

"I love you," she says. It isn't the first time, but she doesn't want it to be the last.

"You sure?" He licks down her neck, slides his tongue to her shoulder, and she feels the delicious prickle of pain when his mouth covers the bruise he provided earlier.

"Trying to change my mind?"

"Just making sure I'm not holding you against your will," he murmurs against the swell of her breast, working lower.

"Nope. You're holding me against the wall." His laugh reverberates against her nipple, sending a shiver down her entire body despite the warmth of the deluge surrounding them. "You're killing me, Castle."

"Turnabout. Years and years of cold showers."

"This water's hot."

"Did cold first. Moot point now, though." She runs her hands down his back and lower and his hips pitch against her, proving his point solidly.

She reaches between them and flits her fingers against him, curling her palm around—"

"Yo, Castle? Beckett?"

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Castle grunts and his knees buckle, a double dose of frustration paralyzing him. There's nowhere to run, so as he hears a hard rap on the bathroom door and Esposito's voice more clearly, he pushes Beckett behind him, preserving any modesty that may be taken from her through the milky glass. "Hey-oh shit. Are you both in there?"

"Esposito," Castle admonishes.

Kate scrapes her nails down his back and runs her mouth along his shoulder blade and, ohmyword, she's such a hot, vindictive woman.

"No, no don't answer that. I'll pretend that I don't know you're both in there, so I won't have to claw my eyes out. Um, I was just making sure that you got your clothes, but you know what, I don't care. Looks like you don't either. By the way, I'm so telling Lanie."

Castle hears the bathroom door, then the hotel room door slam within seconds of one another.

"I can't believe you think that's humorous. I'm disturbed." Castle turns to her and tastes her smile and laces his fingers in hers.

"You're all pruney."

"I'm what?"

"Your fingers. You've been in here too long." She presses his digits to her lips and it tingles a little where her tongue touches his rutted skin.

"If you commit a crime with wrinkled hands-," he wiggles his fingers at her as she turns the water off and opens the shower door "-do your fingerprints change?"

"Are you seriously thinking about that right now?"

"Could be the perfect crime, Kate." She looks at him like he's loony and sexy. He wants to focus a little more on the sexy part. "In print. Make us millions."

"You can ask Lanie. Later. While she's interrogating you." She takes his hand and tugs him backwards through the doorway and into the main room. They're naked and sopping wet and he's pretty sure he should be modest here, but he can't conjure up the strength.

"Nuh uh. Lanie scares me."

"Well, if she thinks you're making me happy, you'll be fine." He meets her eyes and there's love there, but also a deep, burning fire of arousal. "Make me happy."

"That's a lot of pressure, Beckett."

"Think you're up for it?" There's seriousness laced in her humor, and that's okay because he's absolutely going to make her happy, spend his whole life doing it.

"Good thing for you that I do my best work under pressure."

"Best work, huh?" She's smiling and gloriously nude and only his. She's staring at him like she's claiming him right back. It's finally really settling in what they're about to do, claim one another.

God, he wants it to be good for her, great even, but he'll take good. Page Six is his best friend when he wants to sell books, but damn if they don't exaggerate every single aspect of his personal life. Even in the past year plus, when there's been no one else in his bed, in his heart, leave it to the media to totally contradict that. One on occasion, they even snapped a picture of him with a suspect at a crime scene, touted her as inspiration for his next series of books. Hilarious lies. Kate actually came to him with that one, laughed with him, relief in her eyes, and he wondered then if that meant that she finally realized that what they printed usually wasn't true. He just hopes she has the presence of mind to realize that the complimentary rumors were exaggerations too.

"Stop thinking so much," she skims her fingers between his furrowed brows and slicks her lips quickly against his.

"Can't help it. You love me for my mind. Can't go cursing it now." He attempts to intensify the kiss, but she backs away from him.

"You know, that whole 'making me happy' thing isn't dependent on how this goes." He watches as she slips onto the bed, soft weight of her dipping the mattress. "The two aren't mutually exclusive." She crooks her finger for him to follow and his legs are moving before he even gives them permission. She's up on her knees waiting to hook her arms around his neck when his final stride brings him to her.

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She tugs him down on top of her and his chest is scalding, melting her further down into the mattress. He feathers a hand from her hip to her knee, curls inside—a detour—a slow burn up her inner thigh. The heat is making her shiver, the fire freezing her still, immobile as he comes so close to where she needs him.

"No no," she breathes out in a whoosh, grabbing his wrist and bringing it to her stomach to still his progress. She doesn't need…—she's already…—she just wants…-. "I'm ready now. Want you."

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He obliges because, how can he not? Her eyes are barely slits, mouth is open in tiny pants and he hasn't even touched her—not really—yet. This is amazing, and she's so gonna regret not letting him touch her, because no amount of self-control and practice pretending he doesn't want her is going to make this last more than a millisecond. He'll make it up to her later.

He nudges her knees apart and his body sinks between them. She crowds her hips to his, moving, sliding, seeking, and she'd better stop it or that millisecond might be generous. She leans up and kisses him, a plea with her mouth, then her voice. "Please, now."

He begins his descent into her, and his name is powerful on her tongue, startling his eyes to hers. Hers go wide and he feels her fluttering around him and oh, did she just-? The feeling of her tight, tight, tight is too much and the weight of his body drops to hers, sheathing him in one quick motion. "Sorry, sorry," he pants and the muscles in his thighs are flexing and screaming because he needs to move.

"S'good," she manages to get out against his neck. "Pressure's off," she adds, half laugh, half sob at his shoulder.

She's smiling shyly when he cranes his neck away from where she has it tugged to hers, holding him down. He tries to give her a smug grin, but he's sure it comes off looking more like wonderment because that's totally what he's feeling.

She wraps a leg around his waist and he takes that as her urging him to move. He does, on a long, deep stroke and he's already forced to take gasping breaths. He's keeping his pace as slow and steady as he can manage, but her hips are beginning to crash up into his, testing his resolve.

He's losing his train of thought, his coordination. Her hands influencing his momentum are making him clumsy, his thrusts disjointed and out of rhythm. "Kate, you're totally distracting me."

"Mm hmm," she hums the affirmative against his jaw, doesn't quite seem bothered by it. "Let go."

"You first."

"Did."

"Again." He feels her sudden, clenching grasp around him once more, and he can't hold back any longer. His body seizes and holds and he grunts into her neck, teeth finding purchase there. "Love you," he soothes into the flesh.

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When he comes out of the bathroom, she's on her hands and knees beside the bed, dress hiked up so she's not kneeling on it, and her head is halfway under the bedframe. He clears his throat and raises an amused questioning eyebrow. "I lost a shoe. Somewhere," she explains with a shrug, sighing and lifting herself back to her feet, empty-handed.

"Huh. Well, I lost some buttons," he smiles and gestures to the open ends of his shirt, fingers gliding down the material to where two of the middle buttons are missing. "Wonder how that happened?" he muses innocently.

"Don't look at me." She's glowering, but there's humor shrouded behind it. She stalks up to him and he flinches a bit until she takes the ends of his shirt in hand and begins at the bottom, slipping each remaining button slowly through its partnering loop. "I don't think I'd be that desperate to get you naked," she teases.

"You wanted me bad, I bet." Castle leans into her space and smooths his lips against her neck, opens them when he reaches her ear, nips at the lobe, tugs it in to meet his tongue.

"Eh," she breathes out, but even the one syllable comes out shaky, which spurs him on. "Party was probably boring."

"Yeah, that was probably it. For me too. Boredom." His fingers are at her thigh, toying with the fabric of her dress (and it's absolutely hot; how does he not remember it?), barely skimming the skin beneath. She's sliding her fingers in the plackets of his shirt and he's toying with her, but yeah this is totally doing it for him. "I'm, actually, quite bored again now, I think. Bored stiff."

She throws her head back in laughter and pushes him away, slapping him on the chest. "That was horrible." She tiptoes up and in to take his mouth, too swiftly for his liking. "I wanna go." She bends to pick up the one shoe she found and leads him by a shirt tail to the door.

He watches as she spins, surveys the room a final time, pausing her eyes at the fabric pooled at the foot of the bed. "I'm going to miss that sheet. Comfy stuff."

He palms the fabric currently clinging to her, eases his hands from shoulder to hip and back, hauling her to him in the process. "Ya know, I've got some thousand thread-count at home, just waiting on a girl like you to slip into them."

"Show me."

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Whew. I don't know why this one was so tough for me. I think it was trying to mix the angst and humor and...them that was so difficult. Hope I did them justice and that you enjoyed it. Feedback?