Kelpie: Akin to mermaids, naiads, and selkies, a Celtic water sprite who takes the form of a maiden with dripping hair, or a horse with a dripping mane. Known for luring unsuspecting men into the water to drown. See "The Kelpie" by Harold James Draper.

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"In the details lie the heart." From "New Year's Day," Ashes and Roses, Mary Chapin Carpenter, 2012, Rounder Records. No copyright infringement intended.

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Castle tapped the spoon against the edge of the bubbling stockpot and replaced the lid. Another half an hour and the flavors would come together nicely.

After setting the salad in the fridge, he opened the bottle of Pinot Noir he had pulled from the wine room a few minutes earlier.

A flash of lightening lit up the otherwise gray windows, followed closely by a clap of thunder. The rain was really coming down outside.

He had headed home while Kate stayed behind to finish paperwork, promising her comfort food to finish off the interminable week, and hopefully to set the tone for their weekend off, snuggling in at the loft.

She did that now, spent whole weekends with him when she had them off. It was unnerving sometimes to think about how quickly he'd become used to it, considered their time together a foregone conclusion.

Who was he kidding? He was addicted to her from the moment she'd said she wanted him. Addicted to her body, well obviously, but more to her… warmth.

That was one aspect of Kate that had been elusive before—seen in glimpses with families of victims, felt at a distance, when she didn't mean for it to be noticed, seen directly only once or twice, in a bank vault or on his own couch while listening to his mother's version of her life story.

But once Kate had let him love her, a door opened wide. It was as if the space he knew he already occupied in her heart expanded. She'd let him wander the rooms, put his feet up, get comfortable.

And then the warmth just flowed out, surrounded him. Even before she'd been able to say the words aloud, he could feel her love in those warm waves—tender touches, a hand clasped and then held rather than released, time she spent learning when to give him space to write and exactly the right times and ways to distract him from it.

She'd found his soap and shampoo and shaving cream to stock in her bathroom. She knew exactly how he liked his eggs, though she still refused to make him a smorelet.

He had always been observant. It was his job at first, writing her character, but then it had become a personal mission—knowing what made her smile, what made her relax when she was stressed, that she liked the spring rolls at China Garden but only the egg rolls from Kwan's.

And then she let him in, and all her detective skills were suddenly and thoroughly unleashed on him in a steady effort to know everything about him that she could possibly absorb.

It was her single-minded dedication to learning all the little aspects of his life that he had already memorized about hers that made him realize she wasn't leaving.

This was for real. This was worth her time.

He was startled out of his musings by three sharp raps on the door.

He wiped his hands and crossed the loft with no clue what normal person would casually stop by in a rainstorm on a Friday night. He swung open the door to find his muse.

"Kate! Why didn't you use your key?"

She was wet-hair dripping and frizzed, sweater molded to her skin.

And she was smiling at him with this shy, knowing little grin, waiting for his brain to catch up and answer his own question.

Lighting flashed through the windows, followed immediately by a clap of thunder, and it hit him.

"Oh… Oh."

And then he didn't care that it wasn't exactly how it happened six months ago, he reached for her hand and pulled her through the door and didn't stop until she was plastered to his chest. His lips were on hers and his tongue had already parted them when he heard her bag and unused jacket and umbrella hit the floor. She wrapped her arms around his neck, fingers threading through his hair.

His mind was reliving that night, the first time, that frenzy of lust and love and insanity, but this time without the fear that she might be using him for information on her mother's case, or that she might leave before dawn without a word.

He bent to reach for her thighs, and she caught on, latched her arms around his shoulders and hauled herself up as he lifted. She was wrapped around him, and this certainly hadn't happened at the front door that night, but it was the thought that counted in this little reenactment.

He backed her up against the door to shut it, but reached out to turn the lock this time, balancing her weight with one arm and the force of his hips pinning her against the door.

He tried to convince himself to let up on her mouth long enough to make it to the bed.

And this time they would make it to the bed.

He might never forgive himself for making love with her that first time on the floor of his office, because she'd pulled him in for another kiss and they just couldn't keep their hands off each other and then they were pulling off clothes and sinking down and it had been the most glorious experience of lovemaking in his whole life.

And later they had made it to the bed. And the shower. And the counter in his bathroom.

He hadn't been able to see the bruises in the darkness, but when he'd found them eventually, he couldn't help the wash of guilt, even if she had been the one pressing him into the floor.

No, this time they were going to get horizontal in their warm, soft, satin-sheeted bed on the first try.

To facilitate, he gentled their kiss, causing her to moan at the loss of contact, but God there were so many reasons tonight was better; for one, he already knew where that spot was just behind her ear that would distract her all the way to his bedroom. As he tasted it with his tongue, she gasped his name.

When his feet crossed the threshold into the bedroom, he counted it as a victory that he had kept his balance despite her lips and what they were doing to his earlobe.

Her legs relaxed their grip around his waist and he let her down next to the bed, where she proceeded to divest him of his button-down and t-shirt. She smiled wickedly as she unzipped his jeans, pressing her palm against him through his boxers.

Trying to keep up with her frantic pace, he started on her drenched and dripping clothes, tugging the sweater over her head and dropping it to the floor with a plop, unbuttoning her slacks. Oh, wet dress pants were so much easier than those damn jeans had been. He thought he was going to combust that night, trying to drag that soaking, clinging denim down her legs. Now, these pants pooled at her feet with no struggle.

Nearly naked, she reached for him, pulled his lips down to hers, pressed a soft kiss against them.

He swept her up in a tight embrace, feet off the floor, spun her to the bed, laid her down, covered her with his body. Her skin was freezing—November rain was colder than May.

"Jesus, Kate, you're going to catch pneumonia."

She chuckled at him as he ran his hands over her arms, trying to infuse some heat.

"Not when I've got you to keep me warm."

"Oh, you've got me, alright. Not getting rid of me, either."

Placing a tiny kiss on the tip of her nose, he tugged down the covers and rolled them toward the pillows.

Once they had scrambled under the sheet and down comforter, encased themselves in their soft cocoon, flipped positions, he ran his hands up her back, pulled her chest into his.

"If you're going to start walking home in every thunderstorm, I'm going to have to get flannel sheets for this bed."

Wet tendrils of hair glistened, surrounded his face as she hovered, eyes bright.

"So you have a problem with my moment of nostalgia?"

In a well-practiced move, he unhooked her bra and she rose up to let him shimmy the straps down her arms.

"Oh, you can come home soaking wet in Beckett-attack-mode any time you want to. I'm just trying to be prepared, in case it happens in February."

"It would be snow in February."

He had snagged his thumbs in her underwear and was sitting up to push them down as he answered.

"Okay, fine, I'll just be forced to get you naked and use body heat every time."

Her never-ending legs snaked out of the offending garment and her hands found and tugged off his boxers.

"It's worked for us so far."

The row of tiny kisses she planted down his sternum forced him to suck in a breath just as she veered off to tongue his nipple to attention.

Her path downward, beneath the covers, continued with a slippery dip into his navel, a trail of hot breath along the line of dark hair below it.

He gasped as she nibbled at his inner thigh, prompting her to repeat the move on the opposite side.

As she shifted across, strands of her still-damp hair brushed silkily over his obvious and now almost painful arousal.

She was going to kill him. Oh, but it would be a blissful demise.

With her out of sight, he had no idea what part of him she might target next, and every nerve ending stood at attention in anticipation. It was at once unnerving and highly erotic.

A puff of warmth teased him, and then heat, liquid and unrelenting, descended upon his over-sensitized flesh. The breath he had held escaped in a sharp cry, half curse and half her name.

His hands instinctively twined into her hair, fingertips brushed her scalp gently, brain resisted his body's urge to direct her movements.

She needed no direction—this was his favorite form of torture, and he was satisfied with her being completely in control.

Her tongue swirled over and around him as she wrapped her fingers around his base. Lips and tongue and teeth slid down, took more of him into the exquisite heat of her mouth. Her other hand cupped him, and he couldn't help the jerk of his hips toward her as her lips slid up his length and then took him deeper.

She knew just how far she could push, just how much contact, friction, suction would take him to the edge but not over it. His world had contracted to this bed, to the searing wetness of her mouth, the slide and grip of her fingers, the press of her tongue.

Every muscle tensed trying to maintain the focus required to hold himself at this precipice. When he thought the pleasure would drown him, he hissed out her name, gripped her head between his hands, guided her up.

She separated from him with an audible pop, feathered her hands over his length in one last caress, and slid slowly up his body, appearing from under the covers like a goddess, a siren, hair flowing wild, lips pink and swollen. Her eyes found his, looking dark and deep and ready to devour him whole.

He wasn't sure how much more he could take, needed to just have a moment to breathe, settle himself.

But instantly she was over him, and with her hair and her eyes and her skin and her lips he just wanted to be inside her. If his life depended on it, he couldn't tell her to stop now.

She was settling her hips over his and sliding along his length with a single-minded mission of possession. He felt her slick folds coating him with moisture—it still amazed him how aroused she could be just from the act of pleasuring him.

She had admitted to him months ago that it was all anticipation. She knew he was in this as much for her as for himself. There was a give and take, an understanding and a communion between them that he'd never experienced before. No scorecard, no tally on the bedpost, just sharing and loving and beautiful, mutual rapture.

Laid out over his chest, ankles wrapped behind his calves, elbows framing his face, she aligned herself with him and sank slowly, enveloping him, forcing the air from his lungs and the conscious thought from his brain.

When her hips met his, smoothly and snugly tucking her against him, then stilled completely, he knew he need not have worried about his restraint. Meeting his eyes, she began to rock gently against him. He reached for her, brought her to his mouth and kissed her, tangled his tongue with hers as she moved.

This pace and this angle and the delicious feeling of being surrounded by her would keep him in the game for as long as she wanted. The lack of friction, the subtlety of movement, let him focus on her and staved off his need for release. His fingers traced down her shoulders, over her ribs, finally found purchase at the flare of her hips where they could encourage the tight circles she pressed into him.

Very early in their relationship, he'd learned if he could keep going, so could she. Repeatedly.

He'd never been with a woman who could find that perfect rhythm and let herself go, no restraint, no self-conscious apologies. It was the sexiest thing he'd ever seen.

In no time, she was building up, losing her focus a bit, letting their kiss become a meeting of lips over shared breath. A whimper escaped into his mouth as her steadiness faltered, his cue to help her crest that first wave.

As her back curled and stiffened, he began to thrust up into her, keeping her same pace but increasing the force and friction where they were joined.

She cried out, found his eyes, held, breathless, and finally—completely—shattered around him.

He stilled, eased her down from her climax, let her tuck her nose against his neck, stroked his warm palms over the bare and now damp skin of her back. As her breathing slowed, though, he pressed his hips up against her, elicited a gasp, felt her shift into him once again.

Yeah, she wasn't finished yet. Not by a long shot.

Pressing her hands to his chest and drawing her knees up, she rose to straddle him, still joined.

She leaned back slightly, rested her hands behind her on his thighs, which he knew increased the pressure on the sweet spot on her front wall. She was enthralling with this intensity, directed solely at finding pleasure with him. Even now he couldn't fathom why she directed all her energy, her love, her devotion to him and what they had built. He didn't think he was worthy, but she obviously did, and he wasn't going to argue.

His fingers explored where they were joined, dipped into her moisture, then slicked up and over her clit. He knew that she was verging on over-stimulation, but he knew gentle pressure on her bundle of nerves, the lightest friction to match her movements, could start her climb back up toward release.

When he had it just right, she would let out this little breathy noise from the back of her throat. Oh, that noise could almost send him over the edge all on its own, and he needed to hear it from her now so desperately.

He loved her wanton and wild—could no longer see her without also seeing this mythical creature, this goddess, this woman who loved him—emotionally, spiritually, physically.

Her back arched, bowed back further as she began to lose herself in the moment. He switched his point of contact with her body from his fingers to his thumb, swirled over her as she increased her pace, and there it was—that perfect little throaty moan.

"Oh, Rick!"

She was nearly there, and he curled up to be closer to her, anchor her to him through her bliss.

One hand spread over her back, slid around her waist, leveraged her against him with the band of his forearm. The other, now trapped between their bodies, continued to build her up toward her peak, relentless in its thorough, gentle assault.

She was utterly gorgeous, teetering on this edge with a flush overtaking her chest and cheeks, eyes dark, lips parted, tongue flicking out to moisten them through her fluttering breaths.

"Can you go with me? Please."

They had other nights for a marathon. He smiled into a kiss at her jaw line.

"I guess I'll let you twist my arm…"

She bumped her nose against his forehead and huffed.

"How dare I inflict such a tiresome scourge upon your evening?"

"God, I love it when you're bookish in bed."

Her knowing chuckle told him she'd been planning that line all day.

Her arms came around his shoulders and pulled him with her as she untangled her legs and laid back, head toward the foot of the bed. Their hips parted and he slipped out of her, unfolding his own legs behind him and pinning her to the bed with the weight of his hips.

She cried out as he entered her with one firm, fast stroke. Though he'd become an expert at gauging her responses, he couldn't be sure this time if the cry was of pleasure or pain. He'd been rough in his enthusiasm, and his gut twisted thinking he'd hurt her. A quick glance in her eyes revealed only lust, love, trust and a mirror of his own impatience, and he felt the tension drain from his limbs.

Weight on his elbows, he set a steady pace, which she met thrust for thrust.

With each stroke, he could feel her inner muscles clench in counterpoint, gripping him fiercely, nudging him toward desperation. She tipped her hips forward, bringing herself into better contact with his pelvis as he bottomed out against her. That shift in position seemed to let something loose inside her, spurring little chants of "oh" interspersed with curses and what might have been his name to tumble from her lips with every movement of their bodies.

He was close, but she was closer. He sped up his efforts, pumping hot and hard inside her, her cries escalating in pitch and volume until she finally called out a strangled "yes" and opened her eyes to let him watch the waves overtake her.

One clutch of her climax around him and he could feel the tingle of his own orgasm ignite at the base of his spine. He let go of all his careful control and let her take him under, gasping her name as he spilled inside her.

He leaned down to take her lips, swallow her hums of contentment with each aftershock.

As his heart rate slowed, he tipped his forehead against hers, breathed out against her flushed cheek.

"I love you."

Though her smile in return was genuine, she had tears in her eyes when she replied.

"Do you know how much I love you? Really, do you understand how deep it runs, every day?"

He saw, then, that this was more than just a sentimental trek through a rainstorm. Something was up. Before he answered her question, he separated from her, lamenting the loss of contact, and rolled to her side to take his weight on one elbow, propping his head on his hand. Covers forgotten in a heap underneath them, she was completely bare as she mirrored his pose. He could tell she was baring more than skin right now, but he needed to know why.

"I only understand because it's the same for me. Has been for a long time."

He stroked a finger over the curve of her shoulder, kept his eyes on hers.

"Where is this coming from? What happened after I left today that has you doubting us?"

Her voice was quiet but indignant when she answered.

"I would never doubt you. I'm doubting me, whether I tell you enough, show you enough."

He knew there was more. Knew if he waited, it would come out eventually. Silence was the greatest tool he'd mastered in learning how to be with Kate.

"Remember the boyfriend?"

"The guy we interviewed on Wednesday?" She nodded, focused on his fingers where they stroked her skin.

"He walked in as I was about to get on the elevator. Asked me if he could have Leah's journal. I told him the D. A. would probably release it next week, since they hadn't found anything in it pertinent to her murder. Told him it would go to her parents, though, and he'd have to ask them."

Her eyes were still avoiding him, now fixed on a spot on the comforter that she was worrying with one finger.

"He looked so sad, and I knew it wasn't my place, but the way his face fell, I couldn't help asking why he wanted it. He seemed so relieved that I had. Told me he knew Leah loved him, but there was so much he didn't know. He wanted to see what she was really thinking—about him, about them. Where they were going. If they had a future. She hadn't wanted to talk about it, he hadn't pushed, and he hoped maybe she'd written something, since he knew she wrote every day."

She looked up at him, then, eyes swimming but not yet overflowing.

"He needed closure. Wanted to know if he'd read her right. If the ring he'd bought was the right thing."

He didn't prompt her, didn't offer comfort or consolation, just kept up the light touch against her shoulder, let her decide when to voice it.

"I don't talk about those things with you. I know you want to, but I…." It was as though her voice deflated before the end of that thought. She couldn't resurrect it, so she moved on.

"And then with the job, I'm way more likely than Leah, the kindergarten teacher, to not come home one night. I was picturing you, as close as we've gotten, having to ask yourself those questions. I don't want you to have to ask."

Her long blink only pushed the tears out and down her cheeks. Before she could swipe at them with her own fingers, he moved in to kiss first one, and then the other away. When she opened her eyes, he was still so close she couldn't fully focus. Pressing his nose against hers, he finally answered.

"You show me how much you love me every single day. And you tell me. I don't think you would have walked through the rain and showed up on my doorstep—either time—unless you wanted to be with me."

She backed off now, made herself focus, placed a warm, open palm on his chest.

"But I don't just love you. And I don't just want to be with you. I want to stay with you. I want to keep loving you." She sniffed quietly, wet her lips, shook her head slowly, took a breath.

"I don't have a clue what I'm doing, but you need to know that I'm anchoring myself in whatever version of forever you can write for us. And I don't know what it is, but I'm already there."

The sting of tears surprised him, gave him no warning before streaming down. There was nothing he could do but reach for her, pull her against him and cling for dear life.

For their life, together.

His lungs wouldn't fill—they were clenched tight around his heart.

He had known.

He tried to convince himself, despite the knot in his chest and the clench in his gut, that if she hadn't come home tonight, he wouldn't have sought reassurance from her father, from Lanie, from Ryan and Esposito.

But he was a writer; words held sway in his consciousness and his heart. And he couldn't deny that at this moment, her words meant more than he could adequately express, maybe more than they ought.

She wrapped herself around him, hugged him so tightly he might have bruises. He didn't care. If he could have absorbed her under his skin, she wouldn't have been close enough at that moment. He would gladly submerge in this wave of love and rightness.

When his lungs finally began to cooperate, let in air and let out something other than strangled half-sobs, he spoke carefully, resolutely, into her hair.

"Kate, we're going to have to write forever together, because without you, I don't know how."

Tumblr: KathrynChristie

Twitter: Kate_Christie_

Visit to see the finalists for the Castle Fan Awards, and you'll see "Enlightenment" under the Fanfic: Romance category, along with some other fabulous stories. I'm so honored to be nominated with that crowd!

One last thing—go find Mary Chapin Carpenter's new album on iTunes, Ashes and Roses. I believe both of my favorite characters are looking for what she sings about.