Chapter 2: Present perfect

"I see you, Beckett. I see you naked under that oversize t-shirt. I see you swirling your tongue over your lips and I see your eyes dark and your mouth wet and I know what you want." He smiles lazily, and strokes the ankle he's still holding. "Even if I hadn't watched you, I would know that you're not wearing a bra, just from the way your breasts press into the t-shirt, the outline of your nipples." He watches colour limn her cheekbones. "Even if I hadn't seen them fall, I would know that you're not wearing panties, just from the way you walk, the slither in your cadence, the fluidity of your movement."

Beckett placidly eats her dinner. The high colour along her face gives her placidity the lie. She makes certain to let her tongue swirl around her fork where Castle can see it. His eyes are midnight-dark, focused on her. When the meal is done, she slides off her chair.

"I put it out. You clear it up." Castle smiles very slowly.

"Sure. Just sit over on the couch and wait. I won't be long."

And he isn't. But he is long enough for Beckett to recover all her game and remember what the purpose of this evening has become. When he arrives at the couch she unfolds her legs from under her, slowly and elegantly, examining their satin length and their lack of any covering; stands up and slithers over Castle, kissing him far too briefly for his taste. His arms automatically come around her, a hand on the nape of her neck, the other on the curve of her hip, pulling her in, trying to gain some – any – control.

Naturally, it doesn't work. It never does, when she's got a plan and intends to be in charge herself. And her plans are always very, very acceptable. She's wriggled out of his grasp before he's had a chance to start exploring the contents of that t-shirt, which is rapidly rising through the ranks of his favourites and is already hitting the top five. He pouts at her, which has no effect at all except to make Beckett grin evilly.

"Bedroom, Castle." He looks hopeful. "Stand by the bed and wait for me." Not so hopeful. He essays a grab for her and gets his fingers smacked for the attempt. She doesn't make him wait for long. Just as well. His patience is strained. Bit like his pants, really. Which Beckett has clearly noticed, from the satisfied smirk on her face as she prowls towards him. She undoes his shirt buttons, slowly, kissing as she goes. Then the evil succubus stops, and stands back. That's not fair at all. What happened to Rule Five? He reaches for her, and receives only a growl of disfavour in response.

"Tell me what you see, Castle." This again? He knows what he sees. Beckett, two inches out of reach, wearing some old t-shirt of his that he wants to see decorating the floor, not covering Beckett, and wearing nothing else, smirking like the Cheshire Cat and not letting him pet her. Or stroke her. Or anything. Where's Rule Six when you need it?

"You, Beckett, teasing me. Wearing my t-shirt and nothing else. Come back here." She doesn't move.

"Tell me what you see, Castle. You're the writer. Describe it." Which is another way, he supposes, of saying Talk dirty to me, Castle. He can do that. Oh yes. He likes this game. He always likes this game. Beckett's reaction, the first time, to him talking dirty to her was a revelation. If he'd known that when she came to his reading, way back when he killed Storm… things might have progressed a lot faster. A lot faster. She likes his voice, as well as his mouth. He drops into full, smooth, wicked tones, dark treacly molasses coating her, there to be licked off later; deep distilled desire settling into her and leaving her – he knows – hot and wet and ready, squirming in the seine net of his words. Oh yes, he likes this game.

"What do I see?" That's more like it, Castle. The sable baritone is perfectly pitched to set synchronous vibrations running down all her nerves and to pool them between her legs. "Your hair, long and loose, curling down around your wide, darkened eyes; contrasting perfectly with the soft white cotton of the shirt you're wearing. Your hair, waiting for me to run my hand up into it, to hold your head so I can take your lips and explore your mouth and taste you till you start to rub against me. Your mouth, just a little open, promising more, just a little glisten where you've slipped your tongue over your lips because you want me there. Your lips are red, no need for gloss. Your face is telling me in every detail that you want me." He runs his eyes a little south. The hot, dark gaze is exactly what she wants to see. No sadness left. Oh no.

"The t-shirt is too big for you. It's slipping over your smooth shoulders, not soft enough from use and washing to mould over your breasts. But you're so excited that it doesn't conceal your nipples. Your breasts, waiting for my hand, my mouth. I'll tease, and play, and you'll gasp, and moan, and curse at me because it won't be enough, because I won't take the shirt off. You're wearing it, and you'll stay wearing it, and everything I do to your breasts will be through the barrier of that shirt." Her eyes are impossibly dark. "It's my t-shirt, and you're my bad-ass Beckett inside it. What do I see? I see you. I see the t-shirt barely covering your ass, an inch or two below indecency. I see your smooth legs waiting for me to run fingers up them, over your knee, over your thigh, across your hip. Under the hem of the t-shirt, Beckett. When I do that, I'll find you open and wet and ready for me."

She takes an unconscious step towards him, and Castle reaches out and draws her in, moulds her against him, runs a hand into her hair just exactly as he'd described; glides the other over her back, pressing the cotton into her, ending on the delicate swell of her ass, still the right side of the fabric. He tips her head back to angle her mouth properly, and nibbles teasingly at her lower lip. He's still surprised how readily she opens to him, how quick and heated her responses. She's taken his mouth in an instant, her leg rising round him and pulling the t-shirt tight under his hand and he knows that as soon as he moves that hand the fabric will rise and he'll touch and she'll start to make those little nearly-moans that he loves so much. So he shifts his hand and slips it over her raised leg and over the outer line of her quads and round to find that silky skin: so far, but not far enough for Beckett. She pushes against him, moves to bring his hand where it should be, tracing through the soft wet folds: but he's alive to that trick and won't play. She growls gently into his neck, pushes his shirt away and nips him; wriggles her body over his and follows with a delicately scraping, questing hand to open his pants and push them away too.

He descends backwards on to the bed, one controlled motion, still holding Beckett and taking her with him, so that she's above him, straddling him, gravity his ally to bring her against his hardness, moving against him to try to bring herself friction and reduce him – them both – to gasping incoherence and noise. No. He rolls them over and props himself on his elbows, balanced in the vee of her legs and exerting just enough pressure that she can't writhe. Yet. She will. Oh yes. She's teased him long enough and it's his turn to make her desperate. He bends to her breast and does precisely what he threatened: palms and moulds and rolls and plays through the t-shirt – why did he ever dislike it? It's his favourite t-shirt right now – until she's panting and moving beneath him and trying to order him around and he grins widely because she always wants to be in charge and she's been in charge all evening so far and now she's not. Much. So he puts his mouth to her and draws each hard nipple between his lips and teeth and scrapes just a little and nips just a little more and then sucks to soothe it and then harder and that's better she's moved from panting to almost-moan and now he'll have some fun, amusingly laced with revenge for the way she's teased him since before dinner.

He rolls off, traps one slim, elegant leg between his, slips his hand over her to open her more widely to him and draws soft, unfulfilling patterns over her inner thighs, gradually getting closer and closer to where she's trying to drag him. When she tells him, only slightly impeded by an inability to force out more than one syllable at a time, that if he doesn't touch her properly she will break both his legs (didn't she say that once before? She didn't do it then, either, and he's called her his muse a few times since.) he gives her a bit more of what she wants: traces fingers definitively through her folds.

"You like that." He strokes a little harder. She emits a noise. "You're soaked. All for me." He strokes again, pausing at her entrance and sliding a fraction inward. She emits a more demanding noise, and pushes against his fingers. Her own hand flickers over him and extracts a noise in turn. His fingers may be wicked, but hers are hardly snow-white pure themselves. She traces the broad outline, strokes along the rigid length, grips firmly and slides up and down, foreshadowing what she wants. He groans. Beckett smirks, swiftly removed when hard fingers drive into her, thrusting and curling and oh God he knows just how to reduce her to molten and Castle he's rubbing his thumb over all those so-sensitive nerves and she's lost her grip on him and ohhhh her focus on anything but his hands and then she loses her grip on everything.

He plays her body so well. Virtuoso Castle. Maybe she should insure his fingers. And his mouth. And one other bit. Which, now she's returned to life, is making its presence firmly known. And that was not an accidental word choice. Oh no. Not at all. She should greet it properly, since it's been kind enough to show up again. Or still. Or some more. She thinks she knows Castle well enough that she can greet him with kisses.

Half a second later Castle is back to being flat on his back with Beckett sitting firmly astride his legs and looking rather interestingly predatory. He knows he's the prey. The only question is whether she kills him before she eats him. To which the answer turns out to be no. Though his butterfly writer's mind remembers that the outcome of this game is called the Little Death. So maybe he's been eaten and killed. Should that be killed and eaten? That might happen too. If he's really, really lucky. And then he stops thinking useless thoughts and gives himself over to the hot touch of her mouth and her delicately evil fingers and who cares which way round it was anyway?

She's still wearing the t-shirt. He doesn't care. He'd prefer she wasn't wearing anything at all, just like somehow he's not wearing anything at all, but he'll settle for this. She's squirmed back all the way up over his previously lax body, which is currently leaving it anything but lax, and is nibbling at his shoulder, fortunately without anything more than a very gentle scrape of teeth. The squirming has left that damn t-shirt all rucked up, which means that some very interesting parts of Kate – she's currently soft enough to be Kate again, which may not last – are flush against some very enthusiastic parts of him. He doesn't want flush against. He wants tight around. Well, that's easy to solve. He pulls her upward so he can kiss her properly and have her in just the right place.

Kate properly rearranged, he kisses her for a while, just to ensure that everything's back in full working order, and to lull her into a thoroughly false sense of security that she's still in charge – the way she's invading his mouth she seems to think so – and then flips her over and thrusts in and presses down – and pauses. He's had enough of the t-shirt. He reaches down to its hem and wrests it upward, lifts Kate slightly with an arm under her neck, hauls it off over her head and throws it out the way. He doesn't care where it lands. She shouldn't be wearing t-shirts. She shouldn't be wearing anything. And then he moves and she moves and they find the hard, fast rhythm that always works for them and it really doesn't take long at all before they're cuddled up together, mutually satisfied. At least, Castle is.

Right up until Kate sits up, locates the crumpled t-shirt on the floor, crawls over him and retrieves it. And then she puts it back on. No. No no no. She shouldn't put it back on. She should stay right here, or possibly in the shower, but she doesn't need any clothes on at all. He tries to pull it back off. Kate holds it down. Castle pulls it up. Kate pulls it down. After a couple more go-arounds Castle gets fed up of the game and does something he rarely tries: exerting his full weight and strength to keep Kate still while he gets his own way. Amazingly, it works. Not at all amazingly, Kate doesn't appreciate it. Vocally.

"You don't need it on." She growls in response. "I've got the point." More growls. "You're cute when you're jealous – ow!" His ear moves in ways that ears are really not supposed to move.

"I am not jealous."

"Liar," Castle grins. "You are too jealous." He grabs her hands before his ear is actually removed from his skull, flips her down on to her back again and holds her there, kissing her gently and then working his way round and down till she's stopped arguing and started encouraging.

"Still jealous, Kate?" he murmurs as he laps his tongue around and over her breast.

"Not jealous."

"So I can stop proving you've nothing to be jealous about?" He lifts his head. He realises that was a mistake very quickly. Ow, ow. Ears are not meant to be used as a steering wheel. Ow.

"You never needed to prove I had nothing to be jealous about because I wasn't ever jealous. But you can make up for your grievous error in judgement by not stopping."

Castle smirks. Fortunately Kate can't see him. Far too much disbelief in his face to ensure his survival. However, stopping is boring. Starting again is much more interesting. He licks a wet line down Kate's sternum and then stomach and then veers off to nibble a sharp hipbone. She needs to eat better. Not that her figure isn't fabulous, but she's stretched fine. He stops digressing and moves to the main subject: reminding Kate that he can undo her in seconds flat. It doesn't take much: fingers pressing into soft wet folds, running up and down and teasingly just a fraction in and out; followed by mouth and tongue and wicked little circles hitting every nerve ending and then when she's incapable of speech he moves above her and she's open under him, pulling him closer, and he slides slowly in and fills her; slowly out again, slowly in; till she wraps her legs around his waist and moans and claws at his ass and he speeds up and touches the tight bundle of nerves and she cries out his name and shatters. He gasps out her name and comes himself.

When he wakes up she's wearing the damn t-shirt again. She must have slept in it. She really does want to drive his memories out his brain. He knew she was jealous, and it's still cute. She's cute, still asleep and sprawled all over the bed. How does someone so tidy all day get so messy when they're asleep? She's hardly left any room for him. It does have some advantages, though. The view is very nice. He has an excuse to snuggle up to her. And seeing as he's snuggled up to this excellent view, it seems a shame not to play with it. He doesn't often wake up earlier than Kate, and he feels this is an opportunity not to be missed.

He traces down the lean lines of her body, stroking lightly over the cotton, watching as she curls into his touch, not awake, nor quite asleep. He whispers in her ear.

"Admit it, you were jealous."

"Wasn't." She turns over and smiles. "Should I be?"

"No. Never."

"So are you going to keep this t-shirt?"

"Oh yes. It's my favourite." He pauses to tug it off. "It's my favourite floor covering."

FIN

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