He idles his fingers through her hair, toying with one lock, sweat cooling on his skin as she curls herself up around him, limbs all languid and lolling, her eyes bright and green with the post-coital high. He loves the way she looks after they've gone a round or too, boneless and relaxed and a smile curving up the edges of her lips, her fingers dancing on the broad planes of his chest.

"Kept the seashells, huh? You big alpha male, you." Her voice has that slightly-breathless quality that indicates a job well done, robbing any sting from the words.

"Oh please, as if you didn't keep a souvenir or two of ours either?" He allows his own smile to escape, gazing down at her. "I know you."

"Oh yeah?" She presses herself to him, lips find his shoulder, teeth nibbling at his collarbone.

"I bet you have all sorts of reminders of…our story that you're holding onto."

"Name one."

"That signed photo from the cast of Temptation Lane. I bet that's sitting in your apartment somewhere safe. Framed."

She bites down slightly harder on his shoulder in response, nose scrunching because she can't bring herself to deny it to him. He knows he has her dead to rights on this one. Score one to Castle.

He lets his fingers trail out of her hair, over her bare shoulders to her upper arms, lean and wiry and muscled and ever-so-much stronger than they look. His fingers circle, drawing whorls and patterns over the slight goosebumps he raises in his wake.

The silence stretches out till she breaks.

"Yes, alright. I have that photo."

He lets the grin he's been holding in escape, and she rolls her eyes in response, finger gently poking him in the ribs. He reigns his gloating in.

"You should bring that over, pepper this place with more pieces of our story."

"Mhhm." She hums noncommittally into his skin, tongue flicking out and tasting him, before raising her neck, reaching for him. He turns to her, meeting her halfway, the warmth of her lips headier than any wine, her tongue insistently demanding entrance. He doesn't deny her, her hands possessively curling around his neck, gripping his hair. Thighs that feel like velvet and grip like iron straddle his, temperatures rising as she drives him backwards into the mattress, seeking dominance, and he revels in her aggression, her need, for a moment. But it is so much more fun to fight back and then he does so in serious, broad hands spanning her ribs, thumb skirting the underside of breast before lightly flicking against one peaked nipple, making her arch and gasp in one movement.

She's not one to take that lightly, not his alpha.

Round two starts in earnest and soon coherent thought is chased out of his brain by her mouth and hands and…

"Hey Castle, you home?"

The door thuds behind her, and he can hear the click-clack of her heels on the floor.

"In here."

Usually he writes in his study, but he'd been feeling lazy and crawled back to bed for an afternoon, and stayed in it to write afterwards. Two solid chapters that would need a lot of polishing tomorrow, but a fair effort overall, he judged.

She was later than usual, and held something in her hand as she appeared in the bedroom, heels already discarded. He scrambled out to meet her, bowing his neck down to lightly kiss her, arm folding her against her back for a quick but tight embrace.

"What's that?" He can't quite keep the curiosity from infecting his question, and she smiles playfully in reply.

"Just another part of our story."

The conversation filters back into his memory, sandwiched in between two rather excellent bouts of sex.

"The cast photo?"

The package is the wrong shape for that, even were it framed, too large and rectangular.

"Nooo…not that." He loves how she gets a little giddy and girlish in this mood, and the way she relaxes, bit-by-bit, in his presence- undoing her hair from its tight and severe bun to softly frame her features for one. "But I did stop by my old place and pick something on the way home."

Warmth still spreads through him unbidden at those words, whenever she refers to being here with as her home. He knows that his home with her now, wherever that may be. He was ready to follow her to DC. He'll follow her anywhere as long as they get to be together.

"Do you remember that case with the guy who lost his memory?"

"Jeremy Prestwick? Yes, I thought the victim had been killed by a-"

"Ice bullet. One of your remarkably plausible theories, as it turned out, given-"

"LA, yeah."

They both pause at the same time, grinning at the easy way they finished each other's sentences, and he can't help himself from reaching out to her, curling his fingers through her smaller ones, and tugging her out to the kitchen.

"Your mom still visiting her friend in Chicago?"

"Yeah." He leaves her at the couch, heads for the bar. "What's your poison, my dear detective?"

"I'll have some zinfandel, if you've got some handy."

"Of course."

He pours her a glass, and himself a scotch, ice clinking.

Hmm, Beckett and ice-cubes, now there was a memory worth reliving. Something on his face must show as he walks over to the couch, where she has curled up into the corner with her legs tucked up next to her, still in her grey pantsuit, and hands her the glass. He sits next to her, his free hand palming her ankle gently.

"What're you thinking, darling writer?"

"Oh nothing of much importance." He can bring up the ice-cubes later. "So, Jeremy Prestwick."

"Oh yeah. Well, after the case was done, and Haroun washed his hands of the forgeries to keep his nose clean, he gave me the forgery of the painting he had. The one he owned with the thumbprint on it."

She glances across at him shyly, and he nods at her, encouraging her to go on.

"So I kept it." A quick swallow of wine. "Because it reminded me of how we both wanted him and his ex to have their happy ending."

His heart skips a beat. He remembers that moment so vividly. Remembers thinking how sweet it was that the gorgeous-but-frosty detective he was working alongside was an inner romantic, and how glad he was that her work hadn't made her cynical.

"And then you told me you slept with a gun."

This time her grin is more blatantly flirtatious, and she stretches her legs out over his lap, toes wiggling as those calves pressed down on him.

"Couldn't have you thinking I was getting too sappy."

"You knew I'd find out eventually."

She arches an eyebrow in protest, but gives up a second later when he digs his fingers into the soles of her feet, thumbs driving powerfully into the arches.

"Not…fair. Can't argue with…your…foot…massages."

"So don't."

The look she gives him is so radiant, the smile flush with emotion, cheeks pinking, that his heart swells a little. He is too blessed that she has chosen him as he has chosen her.

She must know what he's thinking, it must be written across his face or has transferred across their sometimes-telepathic connection, because her smile deepens and there's a little purr of pure contentment from her. He loves that sound, and what it means.

"Where are we going to hang the painting?"

"How about by the door?"

He lets the conversation turn into domestic trivia. He loves domestic trivia and planning their joint household.

From the glow in her eyes to the curve of her lips, he knows she does too.

He stops by Comicadia on his way back from Black Pawn, knowing they'll have his special order ready and waiting for him to go, so he's not surprised that by the time he gets back, she's already home. His flicker over the green-yellow pastels of the painting she'd brought home a few nights ago, and now he's ready to make his next contribution to their patchwork collection of decorations taking up place around the house (the Temptation Lane photograph now hangs next to the fridge).

"Hey, Castle. Run late at the publishers?"

She's cooking. She's dressed in an overlarge t-shirt and sweatpants, something spicy and sweet on the stove, bubbling away, and he's torn between two impulses as he walks over towards her. One is to start undressing her right there and then, because she is beautiful and lust-worthy no matter what she's wearing, and it's been at least a couple of months since they've had sex in the kitchen. The other is to sweep her off her feet, and take her into the bathroom and run her a bath and let her relax while he takes care of food and, well, her.

He tamps them both down…for the moment.

"Yeah, but I stopped by Comicadia too."

"Oh, is the new copy of the…"

She trails off slightly confused as he shakes his head, then reaches for him as he comes within range, hand angling his lips to her, her tongue and teeth slightly possessive. He's so very tempted to go for the undressing, but then she stops, and goes back to the food, and this time he's the one left slightly out-of-breath. By the way her green-hazel eyes are dancing, that's exactly what she intended. Bewitching woman.

"No, but it is something you might like." He brings out a newly-released comic book inside a plastic sheath, the colours and cover art familiar to them both.

"Lone Vengeance? Issue 1?!" She wipes her fingers on a kitchen towel then reaches for it greedily.

"It just got published. I reached out to Sean Elt to make sure we got the first ever copy. After what we did for him and Hastings, he basically tripped over himself to make sure we got it."

She glances up at him, a little worried.

"Hastings is still…retired from the superhero business, right?"

"Oh yeah. Now Lone Vengeance's adventures are purely fictional." He splays one broad hand against the width of her back, pulls her towards him, plucking the book out of her hands and putting it back in the bag. "Unlike Nikki Heat."

She leans into the embrace, but tilts her head up to look at him, the scent of her subtle but perfect. Cherries means he is home.

"A writer and his muse, huh?" She flashes him a cheeky grin. "You should've seen your face when they started making out in the elevator." Laughter winds through words.

"Hey, I wasn't sure that wouldn't lead to me getting poked, or my ears twisted or some kind of sardonic comment…"

The air around them stills, and this time when he looks at her eyes they are wide green pools, fathomless and sad.

"I'm sorry."

"Hush, Kate." He drops his lips to hers to seal the meaning. "Just because our story has its…darker moments doesn't mean I would trade it in. I wouldn't, for anything in the world." He imbues his words with fierce belief hoping the absolute truth shines through in his eyes.

It must because a moment later she recovers, her eyes now shining back with a fierce joy and even a hint of pride instead of tears. Her fingers grasp at his back as she presses herself to him, face burrowed into his shirt.

"Me either, Castle. Me either."

They hold each other for a second, and then she steps back, pushes him backwards, palms strong and warm against his chest.

"Go get changed and shower or whatever. I'll finish making dinner."

He nods in acquiescence, and then grabs the comic book on his way out of the kitchen. Before he forgets, he should add it to their collection.

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