Disclaimer: The only part of Castle that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

Castle stops and smiles. "Kate?"

"WHAT?" She's really wriggling now, and he's looking very pleased with himself.

"You taste sensational."

She gives a feeble kick in the vicinity of his clavicle. "Well, stop playing with the food and get going."

"I am. I'm returning to the task at hand. Not that this is a task." He swipes his tongue over her repeatedly and presses first one, then two fingers into her. He withdraws them slowly and suddenly buries them to the knuckle. When he simultaneously presses them forward and sucks on her, she contracts so sharply around him that he thinks she might have broken his fingers. Her body is raised dramatically high: she is balancing on her scapulae, and she's spasming so violently that it will take two hands and several minutes to calm her.

"Gimme a second, Castle," she says, covering her eyes.

"I'll give you more than that. I'll give you whatever you need."

She takes a long series of deep breaths. "You know what I need, Castle?"

"No, what?"

"This," she says, cupping him with a hand that's still trembling slightly. "I need this."

Oh, that trembling hand. "Already? You're ready to go?" She nods while he repositions her on the table, moving her hips right to the edge. Taking her ankles in his hands, he pulls her legs up until that they are at a right angle to her body.

She's grinning wickedly at him. Who knew what he could do with that tongue? And his fingers? And that was apparently just the hors d'oeuvre. Yes, ready. Ready, ready, ready. "This the main course, Castle? 'cause I'm waiting."

"Good, because your table is ready." Without taking his eyes off her, he strokes himself twice before returning his hands to her ankles. At the same instant that he pushes her legs apart into a deep V, he enters her, hard, and she gives a little gasp.

"You okay, Kate?"

"Yeeeesss." She knows what he's about to do, and she's nearly out of her mind with want.

Grasping her ankles firmly but gently, Castle begins scissoring Kate's legs. With each pass, he thrusts into her. It's an easy, intoxicating rhythm, but he doesn't know if he'll be able to maintain it. He has wanted this for so long, he so wants this to last, to lock it into his memory so that he can take it out anytime he wants, revisit every bit of it. Because what if—he can hardly think of this—what if this is a one-time thing? It can't be. It's too good.

At first they are silent, looking unwaveringly at each other. But she is soon moving, undulating, calling on a variety of deities, and describing lubriciously, if somewhat incomprehensibly, just what Castle is doing for her. He, the wordsmith, is uncharacteristically reduced to a repetitive chorus of "Kate Kate Kate Kate Kate," punctuated by the occasional "Beckett!" When she reaches around to grab his butt and drag him even closer to her, he can't help but accelerate. She comes on a full-throated wail, and with such force that she traps him between her legs. Losing his grip, first on her ankles and then on his self-control, he makes three frenetic, powerful thrusts and explodes into her. He collapses, vaguely realizing, with some relief, that he isn't actually crushing her since his legs are still holding him up. She's even keeping him there, with her legs as well as her arms circled tightly around him.

Kate is the first to regain her senses, or enough of them so that she can speak. "Much as I enjoyed this, and you can't imagine how much I enjoyed this, can we get up?"

Though he's still bleary, Castle stands and helps her off the table. "Oh, God, I'm sorry, yes. We'll get up."

They're both wobbly, both on a monumental hormonal high, and wrapped together they stagger to the couch. He falls backward onto it, bringing her with him so that they are lying chest to chest. "You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen," he says, brushing her hair away from her face. "You are unbefuckinglievable."

"Do you mind if I say the same about you? My vocabulary is a little weak right now. I can't think. Maybe because I have just been completely brain-and-body fucked. Inside and out."

"Yeah?" he says, looking unbefuckinglievably sweet.

"Yeah," she says. "You're unbefuckinglievable." And she hides her face in his chest.

She's still for a long time, while he cradles her head with one hand and caresses her back with the other. And then he stops. Wait. Is it possible? Is she bashful? Is Katherine Beckett, take-no-prisoners Beckett, bashful? Or, God, no, regretful? He runs his hand under her chin and tips her face up to his. "Kate? You don't, um, do you wish, uh—"

"Wish what, Castle? Wish that I hadn't come back here tonight? Wish that I hadn't just had the most incredible sex with you? Wish that I weren't lying naked on top of the man who has driven me crazy for two years? Wish that I weren't totally crazy about you?"

"Really? You're totally crazy about me?"

"Yup. Call me crazy, but I'm totally crazy about you."

They're silly and giddy, goofy and a little bit gooey as they make out like a pair of teenagers in the back seat of a Buick. Sometime, though they aren't aware of it, adoration creeps into his voice, and hers. "Beckett? What made you come back here tonight?"

"I think it was when I knew that you had bought this place, that you didn't want another piece of New York franchised to death, that you would fight so hard to save this little part of the city. I think that's what finally did it for me, because I knew that you'd never give up on me, either."

Castle takes her mouth in a kiss as passionate as she has ever known, and then makes his way to her breasts. "I didn't get a chance to appreciate these fully," he says. "I was so busy with other parts. Do you think they were jealous? Can I tell them how gorgeous they are?" He swirls his tongue around one of her nipples. "And tasty?"

"Speaking of gorgeous and tasty," Kate says, groping him, "what about these?" With one quick twist of her leg, she flips him so that she is back on top. They are slick with sweat, and she begins to glide sensually up and down his body. Every time she moves over his erection, she coats it with her own juices. "You know what you are, Castle? You are my own personal Slip'N Slide, and I'm just gonna slip down here a little and slide you right into my mouth."

Castle watches as she kneels between his thighs, working him, with just her tongue, to the borderline of some kind of unknown oblivion. Before he loses it, he puts his hands in her hair and pulls her off him.

"What are you doing, Castle?"

"I don't want to come in your mouth."

"Why not? I came in yours. You're not the only one around here who's hungry." She latches back on to him and, encountering no resistance, sends him to an oblivion that he hopes to get to know very well.

They wake up an hour later, chilly in the drafty office. "What do you say, Castle, shall we take this moveable feast somewhere a little comfier? Like my bed? It's closer than yours, and there's no one else in my apartment."

"Good idea." He waits a minute. "May I ask you something?"

He looks a little nervous, as if he's afraid that she might bolt. How can he think that now? "Anything."

"So, this is okay? We're okay? You're okay?"

She gives him a smile that would melt all the ice in the bar's freezer. "Never better, Castle. Until tomorrow, which I'm guessing will be even more never better. And think of how much fun we're going to have working all the way to best."

A/N Many, many thanks for all the follows and faves and reviews. I'll be back soon, I hope.