Disclaimer: I don't own Castle.

A/N: So, I rewrote this several times. I'm not sure how I feel about the finish product. This short scene turned up to be much longer than I had already planned, and it turned into a full chapter. So yeah. It's not my fault, I just can't really have a scene with Alexis and Ryan alone in a bedroom without them wanting to band each other. I don't think you're really going to complain about smuttiness, but it kind of delays the action. Oh, well.

Enjoy!

He woke up from a foreboding dream, feeling too keenly Alexis' absence by his side. The bed was still warm where she had been, and his skin still tingled from her touch. He rolled over to find himself surrounded by the perfume of her hair and, as his eyes adjusted to the obscurity, he saw her. She stood, in all her naked glory, with only the faint red glow of her hair to cover her nakedness, her back turned to him as she looked pensively through the window.

His dream was soon forgotten as he basked in her beauty. He was in this half-conscious, half-dreaming state and he wasn't sure if any of this was real but still he enjoyed every minutes of it. So he watched the moonlight shining on her pale skin, and her languid gesture as she pushed back her hair, exposing the perfect curve of her breasts to his gaze. He could feel himself harden again as his gaze went down.

It was too dark to see, but he knew her body like his own now and he could feel, even from a distance, all of it's soft curves. And he knew she could feel him too, embracing her with his burning gaze.

The fire that had consumed them earlier was still ablaze in her blue eyes twinkling under the pale moonlight. She smiled.

"Come back to bed," he urged her.

"In a minute," she said, her gaze still fixed on the night sky.

He disregarded the tangled sheets and walked up to her and wrapped her in protective arms. She smiled and leaned back on him, but her eyes didn't leave the window in front of her.

"What are you looking at?" he whispered. He followed her gaze but failed to see anything interesting.

"Can't you see?" she answered in a whisper.

The night was dark and quiet, uninteresting and way less pleasing view than the one Alexis offered. But then, not many things compared favorably to Alexis and with her near he was blind to the rest of the world.

"What?"

"The city, it's sleeping. The city that never sleeps. I've never seen it looking so calm."

She wrapped his arms tighter around herself.

"I see it now," he said, still whispering. "It's too calm."

"No, it's peaceful," she replied.

To him it felt unnatural, the calm before the storm, he thought, but she looked so pleased he didn't dare to say it. He didn't say anything, just waited for her to continue, and she did.

"I had this feeling when I woke up, you know, this feeling of urgency, like I had to capture this moment in my memory before it disappeared forever."

He kissed the top of her head. "I'll give you something to remember forever," he teased.

"I know what you want to give me, I can feel it against my ass," she giggled.

It was true. Her contact, even the most innocent touch, always drove him wild and her naked backside wasn't something he even bothered resisting to. He still blushed slightly in the darkness.

"So what do you say, come back to bed with me?" he suggested kissing down her neck.

She shook her head. "Take me here," she said, "against the window."

She didn't need to say it twice. His right hand slithered down from under her breast to her sweet entrance, still tender from their earlier round, to prepare her for him. He found her already wet, as aroused as he was. He still took his time teasing her, playing her with his fingers and turning her all body into an instrument, one making the sweetest sounds and moans. Once she was begging, knees weak and despaired for relief he entered her—and not before. Watching and waiting was the most delicious pain, doubled by her reflection. He could feel her squirm against him, pressing herself closer, and watch at the same time the need and desire in her half-closed blue eyes.

He watched her face through her reflection in the window as she came, and had to put his hand over her mouth so she didn't wake her sleeping city with her screams of ecstasy.

"I love you," she repeated over and over, like prayer. It was nothing more than a brush of her lips against his palm, a muffled sound the silent night sky, a peculiar glint in her eyes he couldn't quite identify, and it was over once the waves of pleasure came crashing down.

Later, when her head was over his heart and his lips were vaguely trailing kisses in her hair she just said, "I'll remember.". It was all she truly needed to say, beneath her temple, she could feel his heart beat faster, and if she closed her eyes she could see the smile on his lips.

"Good," he said. "If you want to come over tomorrow night too, I'm sure we could come up with something else for you to remember."

"I can't, I have that conference, remember?"

"What conference?"

"The one about that book I gave you. The one you still haven't read."

He remembered. The book was somewhere on his night stand, but his days at work had been too crazy, and his nights too filled with Alexis for him to have time to read more than the first page. And so far it was a pretty boring book. She had wanted him to go with her to the conference at first, but they both knew it wasn't possible. As long as they kept their relationship a secret, they had to be careful about being seen together in public. Last he heard, she wasn't going anymore.

"I thought you had decided not to go," he said, confused.

"I had. I didn't want to go alone. You know I don't like being out by myself at night. But a friend offered to go with me."

"A friend, uh?"

She laughed. "A girl friend."

"Do I know her?"

"I don't think I've told you about her before, her name is Sara. We have classes together. She's really nice. You would like her."

He hummed.

"You still should read the book, you know," she added, raising herself half-up on her elbow so she could see him. "Just because I have nice science friends doesn't mean I don't want to be able to talk about it with you."

"How about I give it a try tomorrow night, and the next day you come over so we can talk about it?"

"Talk?" she repeated, raising a single eyebrow suspiciously.

"Yes, talk. Just like that," he said before demonstrating by crushing his lips on hers. She kissed him back.

"Or maybe you can come over right after the conference so we can talk about it," he suggested against her lips.

"I don't think so," she said, tilting her neck away and offering him her neck, "there's a Q&A after it that I don't want to miss, it could run pretty late and I have a pretty full day afterward."

"Okay," he said, stopping his attack on her neck. "I'll just wait for you the next day."

"And I'll be there," she promised with a kiss. "Now be patient, I have class in the morning, and I need some sleep."

Who can guess what's going to happen next?

Probably all of you, lol. Review with your prediction/advice/opinion anyway!