fanofthegenre | [ forced decompression ]

Entry tags:

oom,
rick castle

[ forced decompression ]

Combing the parking garage for any sign of the third victim's body proves fruitless. The killer - whoever he is - isn't sticking to his normal M.O. of leaving the body where he's killed them, either. Forensics bags the lone pump, the clumps of blonde hair, swabs the places where her blood had spilled, but Beckett isn't hopeful yet. Changing his tactic means he's becoming more unpredictable, getting harder to pin down, but the fact that she's being sent home after feeling like she and her team can actually be a help is weighing heavy on her shoulders. Her protests fall on Agent Shaw's ignoring ears, and she leaves feeling more helpless than before - a feeling she doesn't appreciate having at the moment. It's not until she's climbed into her car and left that she realizes Castle's still there, but something tells her he doesn't mind being left with another brilliant mind to build theory with.

The unit, a small trio of suits wearing earpieces, are waiting in various places throughout her apartment building by the time Beckett gets there, a bag of takeout Chinese in one hand. The sight of them only re-emphasizes her frustration over the situation, and her other hand tightens around her keys when she lets herself into her apartment. She makes a point of checking all the windows, combing rooms, and then pokes her head out into the hallway and tells the guys to head on home. There's no point in keeping them around when everything's perfectly secured and she's got a gun in her bedside drawer - and one in the living room, too.

Beckett changes into a loose-fitting shirt and a pair of jeans and cracks open the Chinese, mixing rice and veggies together with her disposable chopsticks. Fifteen minutes in and the casefile is spread out on the couch in front of her, and Beckett settles in Indian-style, combing over the information: crime scene photos, eyewitness accounts, victims' backgrounds - searching for anything she might be missing, anything Agent Shaw and her team (and her "smart board") haven't pinned down yet.

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"In this case, how would you decide?"

She tilts her head from side to side, feeling the fingers of his hand splayed out against her cheek, one resting against the corner of her mouth. When she smiles slowly, she can feel it shift down along her jawline. It's getting harder and harder for her to maintain a vertical position; she can feel herself beginning to slip back towards him, limp and contented.

"Dunno." He frowns, thinking back to the body at the train station and its twin on the carousel. The engraved slugs were more than just a message to Beckett -- they were a game. The opening move of a chess match where one of the players is blindfolded and the other is a sicko with a metropolitan library card. He strokes his fingers over the shallow bow of her collarbone, his intentions maybe a little more personal than therapeutic.

"You think if it wasn't my books, it would have been somebody else's?"

"We'll never know the answer to that now, I guess."

Even if it was the kind of thing they could speculate on, her brain isn't feeling the urge to pursue anything resembling higher thought at the moment. She's just as content to arch back against him with another sigh, her hand going slack against his leg.

"I think I've lost all desire to move."

Castle discovers that he doesn't like the answer to that question, regardless. Speculation is the stock and trade of policemen and authors, and neither one of them particularly enjoys being left dumb and blind in the middle of a story. Right now, Beckett's sending him clear signals that she doesn't want to consider the case, and that's fine. 'More fine is the comfortable slump she's gotten herself into, her shoulder blades pressed against his chest. He gives her upper arm a soft squeeze and moves his mouth to the crown of her head, laying a kiss into the part of her hair. "My work here is done," he says.

She can still feel him tensing behind her in her relaxed state and knows that this is continuing to nag at his mind even when he moves to change the subject. It means the world to her that it does, for some odd reason. Their partnership has never been without its snags and hiccups, but they're starting to take a backseat to the more significant advantages and benefits. This, however, probably can't be categorized as the latter, since it falls under the realm of anything but professional.

Beckett turns her head to the side, her nose nudging up underneath his jaw.

"Not quite," she murmurs, drawing his arms around her waist.

"Little overtime?" he offers, amused, and slides his fingers over her palms, thumbs on the back of her wrists. "There's gotta' be some paperwork for that, right?" He slips his left leg out from under her and bends it at the knee, steepling her between his body and the back of the couch. His chin rests obediently -- or as obedient as he gets -- on her shoulder.

"We won't be putting this in any reports," she corrects, sliding her fingers through his and smiling slowly, her cheek shifting against his as her lips move. A brief pause, and then she moves again, to turn her head to enough of a degree where it places her lips against the shell of his ear.

"Come to bed with me," Beckett whispers.

On impulse, he squeezes her wrist. Does she have any idea what that tone of hers does to him? She should file for a license -- Woman With a Concealed Sex Kitten Voice -- so there's at least some record of it, so unsuspecting guys like Castle know what they're getting themselves into. His thumb dips into the center of her palm and stays.

"M'I gonna' have to carry you?" Given that she's two state forms away from Jello right now, and the idea of him throwing her over his shoulder, caveman style, is kinda' intriguing.

It's not something she would ever openly broadcast, and even the times she has attempted to be sexy have usually come as a somewhat comical attachment to her undercover work, but where Castle's concerned, it just boils down to the fact that she likes to uproot him. He'd done it with the massage, but one choice sentence from her and he's hanging on her every word.

"I think I can make it," she says, even if her legs feel fairly useless at the moment. Regardless, she tries her hardest to feign stability as she pushes off the couch to stand on her feet.

Castle assembles his legs and gets up after her, his head swimming for a second or two (the perfect remedy for which, he decides, is another swig out of one of the wine glasses on the coffee table) while they both navigate the temporary awkwardness that comes after deciding to take things elsewhere. He's tired and worn out, sure, running on the last dregs of his own adrenaline, but Beckett being near gives him a stunning clarity of mind that's either madness or the sheer will to get to where they're going.

He drags the blanket up over the back of the couch for safekeeping and follows her, his hand floating in the empty space above hers while he wrestles with the impulse to take her fingers.

The wine's still messing with her head when she gets to her feet (she had chugged it pretty fast, admittedly), and she has a moment where it feels like her center of gravity is almost nonexistent before her stability returns and she can actually start moving. She can sense Castle near her, behind her and slightly along her side, his fingers occasionally grazing the inside of her wrist when their arms swing naturally.

The hallway down to her room feels even longer than normal, her perception dulled by relaxed muscles and alcohol surging through her bloodstream. In fact, the only thing that remains in focus for her is Castle when she stops in the doorway to her room. Her balance disrupted, she sways slightly, her back hitting the frame, and reaches out to grab a fistful of Castle's sweater, yanking him in towards her as her mouth tilts upward to seek out his.

Surprise, pleasant and palpable, ripples through Castle's middle. He almost wants to tell her, Stop, slow down, we've got all night, but he's dimly aware of the time and the fact that they'll both have to be back in the bullpen in a couple of hours. Why not? as his hands settle on her hips, gently pushing her back against the frame, willing as much contact between them as he can get.

Her mouth tastes like the wine; the wine and the ozone and her own, natural taste. It's got his head swimming. His hands come up on either side of her, pushing the t-shirt up her ribcage, thumbs getting lost in the thin cotton. He cups the underside of her breasts in his palms, testing their weight, thumbs skimming her nipples through the fabric of the shirt.

She sighs, the nerves of her body overstimulated as a side effect of the wine. Every point of contact his hands make with her skin provokes a different response of some kind - a gasp, a whimper, a shudder. She feels both out of her head and completely immersed in the sensations that are overtaking her, the need that courses through her system when his hands skim up over her hips, her sides. Her breasts fit within the cradle of his palms and she arches into them, shifting towards his body with a soft murmur of delight.

The doorframe digs in, hard and unyielding, against her spine, and her shoulderblades shift along it until there's nothing behind her back but air, air and the bed waiting, its sheets thrown back and mussed from her earlier attempt to sleep. Somehow, though, in the fumbling and shuffling of feet, it's Castle she nudges back towards it until his calves and her shins meet up with the side of the mattress. Her lips slide over his in a deliberate hunger, but her hands are moving below between them, moving fabric out of the way to expose more skin. Her fingers find his length first, stroking slow and experimenting, only to pave the way for the lips that envelop him when she sinks down to her knees.

She pushes him down and he's momentarily confused, hands sliding off her shoulders, until he realizes what she's doing (and where she's going) and then he's all at attention, focused as he can be under the circumstances. "Beckett..." What's that tone? Hesitation, readiness -- gratitude? They've done this dance in the dark before, but somehow, now, Castle's worried that he might not measure up. Then her mouth is on him and he thinks, good boy, before he groans around the feeling.

She can count on one hand the number of times she's done this, and for a second, Beckett freezes, unsure of how to proceed. Instinct and memory take over almost instantly when her name slips from his mouth in a quiet groan, and her free hand settles against his hipbone, squeezing her answer once. She's doing this out of what, exactly? No, Beckett thinks, reveling in all of it: the taste of him that lingers on her mouth, new and unfamiliar, the way he'd uttered her name like she's never heard before, the sense that even this gives her nearly as much pleasure as it does him - I'm doing this because I want to. It's a delicate combination of lips and tongue and a hand that every so often slips in to alternate while she glances up at him, gauging his reaction by the expressions that filter over his features.

Gotta' think about something -- anything -- to keep himself from losing it then and there. He tries counting street names, starting uptown and working his way back, but all that does is remind him of all the things they've seen and driven past together, her in the driver's seat of the squad car, the occasional glances he steals at the neck of her blouse when they roll up to a stoplight. Then he's thinking about the way she gets flushed when they get the squeal on the radio, when they're on their way to a scene, and it's the exact same concentration she's showing him now. All that focus and grit, the wild thumpthumpthump in her neck when her pulse accelerates, her hands on the steering wheel (now on him) and all that galloping expectation for what comes next.

He pushes his fingers through her hair because, honestly, he can't think of anything better to do with them and the touch grounds him, pulls him back to her, even as his hips twitch expectantly. He feels a bead of sweat roll past his shoulder blades, all the way down to the base of his spine. If this is alien to her, she could have fooled him. Castle's not the kind of guy who would turn this down -- and he hasn't, in the past -- but Beckett's got a way of working him, tongue and lips and teeth, that stands apart from everyone else.

She counts to a few more heartbeats before she finally breaks away, her fingers giving Castle's hip another squeeze, and it's then that she tilts her head to gaze up at him. His hand still rests in her hair and she nuzzles into the touch, her cheekbone grazing the inside of his wrist, but it slips loose when she rises back up to her feet and pulls him into her, her hips pressing firmly against his own. Her arms cross over her chest, hands curling beneath the hem of her nightshirt, and in a quick tug upward it's gone and all that's remaining is the bare skin of her upper half, her dark hair spilling down over her naked shoulders.

His shirt joins hers on her bedroom in the span of a blink, and when she kisses him this time, it's with a searching purpose, pressing herself to him. It's easier now to find where she fits with Castle up close, hands resting on the outside of his arms as she kisses the smooth plane of his chest, finds the angle of his clavicle and traces it with just the tip of her tongue. It's as much for her own benefit as it is his; she savors each sound from him as it comes while she commits him to memory by touch alone.

Brain still buzzing like a hundred honeybees, it takes Castle a couple of seconds to register what's happened. Then she's up and swaying in a steady, graceful arc, mouth on his collarbone, spinning his reason like a kid's Spyrograph drawing. He slides his hand up the side of her neck, gathering her cheek in his palm to pull her away from the exploration beneath his chin. A grin -- a starter pistol shot -- before he slides his other hand beneath her and flips her neatly onto her back beneath him.

Her knee bumps his ribcage and he thanks whatever god he believes in that she's got years and years of athletic training in her; she could probably put her ankles behind her ears if she wanted to, an image that Castle doesn't have any trouble picturing. The light coming in from the hallway hits her skin and pulls elongated shadows over her breasts and throat. Castle lays his hand to the outside of her thigh and bends his lips to her skin, flicking his tongue over her sternum, the outer curve of her right breast.

The grin she can see coming a split second before it actually happens on Castle's lips, pulling back to reveal that devilish smile that's graced the back sleeve of all his bestsellers. What she's not predicting is the flip, and she has the vague sensation that she's been moved to her back but it doesn't really register in her brain until he's the one gazing down at her instead of the other way around.

Beckett extends a hand to him then, fingertips grazing the angle of his jawline, her arm suddenly losing all will to hold itself upright the moment his lips press those kisses to her skin. Her eyes fall closed by reflex and she sighs, thighs tightening against his hips in mute reply. Never let it be said that Castle doesn't know every which way to drive her out of her mind.

Both of them slightly buzzed from the wine and entirely ironed out from the case; something about this is important (different), and Castle can't put his finger on it. Maybe it's the way that they've become a refuge for one another in the last couple of months: from her mother's case, to the night swim, to old movie stars and expensive French wine. Neither of them have copped to admitting it -- that humbling, humiliating "n" word: "need" -- but they're saying it through touch, he thinks, and that's almost as terrifying.

Her squeeze pulls some of the breath out of him. He draws his thumbs beneath her hipbones, chin pulled across her resting breast. He considers her skin like he'd consider a wine: slow, savouring, appreciating the taste and the weight on his tongue. Low, warm breath over her araeola, watching the bud tighten and peak. He draws it between his lips, flicking his thumbs over her hips.

It may be next to impossible for those words to make it out of her mouth unless they're in the context of work ("Castle, I need you to stay in the car" -- or "Castle, what I need you to do is move out of my way"), but here, she doesn't need to put a voice to anything other than his name, a sigh and a gasp his touch elicits, and her shoulders roll back as her hips shift upward, her back poised in a delicate arch. His mouth, that damned mouth of his that holds one too many satisfied smirks and smug expressions for her liking, is one and the same with the lips that reel her in, her body taut and primed.

Her hands blindly fumble around for a hold and settle for the sheets beneath her, fingers clenching fistfuls while her head lolls to one side in order to catch a glimpse of his profile, his face a model of concentration, as she sinks her teeth into her lower lip up above him and releases it in a quiet exhale.

Her leg's come up to companion his ribcage, her heel pushing at his hip. He feels like he's moving through something thicker than air -- like the atmosphere has been charged, laid heavy, and they're caught in some kind of cosmic slowdown that makes everything feel like it's happening in slow motion. He drags his eyelids open (they feel like they're weighted with little lead sinkers) and is rewarded with a smokey-eyed, highly aroused Kate Beckett looking back at him, her lower lip plush and pouty. His heart rackets against his sternum.

Slowly dragging his mouth from her breast, down the railroad ties of her ribcage to her stomach. Her navel is small, an almost-invisible fuzz of baby duck-fine blond dusted beneath, a freckle like a punctuation point on the inside of her hip. He slides his hands over her waist, holding her hips beneath his palms as he slides down the mattress, knee going zzpp! with sudden sheetburn. He kisses her kneecap. The inside of her thigh.

Each movement he makes, each response from her is slow, deliberate, the kind of building energy that leaves them locked in a tangle of limbs, otherwise unaware to everything else going on around them. She's not about to dwell on anything case-related, or even cast her eyes toward the clock on her bedside table to calculate how many hours of sleep she'd be getting if she chose to go to bed now. At this point, it's nearly impossible for her to exhale without some tiny sound of pleasure hitching onto her breath for the ride.

Beckett squirms half-restlessly, half-impatiently. The anticipation is almost as agonizing as the main event itself, and she chuckles quietly when his mouth discovers the lone ticklish place on the inside of her thigh, right alongside the other spot that causes her muscles to tense and her fingers to slide through the hair on the back of his head. Her breathing quickens audibly, a renewed rush of warmth hitting her deep down and gradually spiraling out.

Edited 2010-04-13 23:17 (UTC)

Her nails send a zing of electric sensation down the back of his neck and into his spine. He's trapped by touch and tactility -- the smoothness of her skin, the taste of it beneath his mouth. He can feel the muscles of her inner thigh tighten the higher he goes and, being Castle, he takes advantage of every creative opportunity he can get his head around: a shallow, sharp bite to the inside of her thigh, smoothed immediately with a cool press of his lips.

He's making it impossible for her to even think about staying still underneath his mouth, especially when he goes and does that - Beckett tenses with a corresponding hiss, a jerk of her hips, followed by a slight tremor as he moves to soothe the tender skin with gentle lips. She glances down at him, his face briefly shrouded in shadow until he slides upward, ascending into some of the light that filters through her bedroom window. A grin filters on to her own features, but it's laced with the heavy look in her eyes, given more weight. Her fingers slide into his hair, tenderly ruffling, then moving down to his cheek.

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