A/N: Inspired by a tumblr prompt that I will place at the end of this story.

Set post 4x20, The Limey. After drinks with Colin Hunt.

His voice is rich and enticing in her head, seductive and hot, his accent adding an extra hint of appeal as his words whisper through her mind, but just as quickly as Colin Hunt's voice has filled her head, it's replaced by the voice of another.

The richer, more familiar and satisfying voice of a writer she's come to love. A man who quite obviously does not love her back.

Kate growls and switches the vibrator off, easing it from between her legs and dropping it to the rumpled sheets in frustration. It's not fair.

Drinks with Hunt had been… nice. The Detective Inspector had said and done all the right things, he was her type and she could even see herself pursuing a relationship with the man if circumstances allowed.

But he wasn't Castle and that single thought was ultimately what had sent her home alone with nothing more than a friendly peck to Hunt's cheek when they went their separate ways outside the bar.

Kate slings an arm across her eyes, pressing down hard when the threat of tears starts up. She refuses to soak her pillow with tears over him again.

It doesn't help that she still wants him, that her body still craves a touch she's never received from him, that no matter what scenario she creates in her head, no matter who the star is, it is always disrupted by his voice, his eyes, his body.

Richard Castle is who she wants, but she can't have him. Not in real life anyway.

But in fantasy… it wouldn't be the first time she fell apart with the image of him flashing behind her closed eyelids, the illusion of his touch on her skin enough to send her shattering. Just the first time she allowed it to happen when she knew he didn't want her back.

Oh, screw it.

If he's the only way she can get off tonight, she'll let him consume her mind, make believe that he still craves her and allow her body the luxury of pretending his hands are the ones teasing her breasts, traipsing along the smooth expanse of her stomach, slipping down between her legs.

She considers the purple vibrator still resting near her hip, but settles for her fingers instead, imagining they're his as they stroke through the growing wetness of her folds. She's pictured sex with him enough times to know how it starts, how he would tease her, get her all worked up until she was either threatening or begging, needing more.

Her teeth pierce her bottom lip as she glides two fingers inside, a poor imitation of what would be a single digit of his. She loves his hands, loves the thickness of his fingers, how his palms could span her body with ease. If she would have let him; she may never know how his hands would feel on her now.

A sorrowful moan rises from her throat and she presses her thumb to her clit, circling and gasping under the lightening bolt of arousal the rough rotation of her fingertip elicits. Her hips quiver through the steady rhythm she manages to create while her unoccupied hand cups her breast, pinching a nipple between her thumb and forefinger, trying to imagine the wet heat of his mouth on her skin.

Mm, the thought of his mouth alone is almost too much.

She's already so close, so much closer than she ever was with Colin Hunt in her mind and her vibrator between her legs. Her breath is coming in short, sharp bursts, her skin glistening with a thin layer of sweat, the tight coil of heat in her abdomen threatening to burst apart with every thrust and curl of her fingers...

When a loud, resounding series of knocks on her front door interrupts her just as she balances on the brink of release.

"Are you kidding me?" she hisses, whining low in her throat as she regretfully retracts her fingers from between her legs and wipes them on her inner thigh while the persistent knocking only grows louder.

Kate growls under her breath and snatches her robe from the ground, slipping her arms through the satin sleeves and storming out of her bedroom, practically stomping towards the front door.

She wastes no time in checking the peephole, not knowing, but having a sinking feeling of who it could be, and when she flings the door open, sure enough, Richard Castle is standing on the other side.

His fist is still raised midair where it had been knocking - no, pounding - on the surface of her door, and his eyes widen, almost startled by the abrupt answering.

"May I help you?" she questions, crossing her arms tightly over her breasts and mustering her best glare for him, but her voice is breathless, her chest is still heaving, the pressure between her legs still throbbing, and oh… shit, he knows.

He takes one look at her, at her dilated pupils and the flushed skin her robe doesn't cover, and he definitely knows.

For a moment, the sharp sapphires of his eyes go dark with unbidden arousal at the sight of her, but then they flicker with something else.

Anger.

"Were you…" His eyes drift past her, searching the empty space of her apartment. "With him?"

Her jaw nearly drops, irritation clearing the lingering vestiges of arousal from her blood. Since when is he allowed to behave jealously over her? He has his flight attendant, his fun and uncomplicated flight attendant whom he had so happily flaunted in front of her. She has every right to be jealous, not him.

"There's no one else here, you jackass," she bites back, turning on her heel to leave him standing tall, furious, and disapproving in the open doorway.

Of course, he follows her in.

"Beckett-"

"Why are you even here?" she demands before thinking better of it and quickly holding up her hand to silence him a moment later. "Actually, save it for after I get changed."

She leaves him in the foyer, not expecting him to follow her any further while she stalks towards her bedroom, intending to slip into something far more concealing, but apparently, Castle is feeling brave tonight.

She enters her room, starts for her closet, when she hears footsteps trudging after her.

"Castle," she hisses, jerking her head over her shoulder to see him inside her bedroom, his eyes already riveted to the bed, and the sex toy sitting atop the mess of sheets.

She thinks his cheeks are flushing worse than hers.

"Oh."

Kate lifts a hand to her face, covering her eyes and swallowing hard before abandoning her place near the closet to approach him next to her bed.

"Why are you here, Rick?" she repeats on a sigh, softer this time, hoping that for once they can actually talk rather than continuing to ache, to sin, by silence, but now he won't meet her eyes.

"I saw the way he looked at you, Kate."

"You mean the way you used to?" she snaps, feeling her heart begin to pound the moment the words are out, wishing she could catch them with her teeth and swallow them back down.

He still looks angry when his gaze finally returns to her, he always does these days, but there's a hint of shock in those softening blue eyes.

It makes her brave, too.

"Why do you care how Hunt or anyone else looks at me?" she demands. "Why does it matter when you don't want me anymore?"

"Kate." Her name is like sandpaper scraping past his lips, raw and painful. "That's not - it isn't-"

"The walls - they're... I'm ready. I was ready - and now…" She shakes her head, her words falling apart on her tongue, shredding themselves along her throat. "I don't know how to flip the switch, I don't know how to just stop. I still want you, how do I turn that off, Castle?"

She turns her back to him before he can answer and forces her gaze to the ceiling, willing the sting in her eyes to subside. Never in her worst nightmares had she imagined them ending like this.

"Kate."

Her first name on his lips again has her body pleading for him, the touch of his hand to her shoulder making it worse.

"I never stopped wanting you," he murmurs through gritted teeth as he steps around to stand in front of her again. "I tried to-"

"Why?" She scrapes the word from her throat, lifting her eyes to his face and watching his jaw tense, the tired lines carved into his skin filled with more than anger. He's in pain, because she's hurt him somehow, but he doesn't turn away, doesn't hold the truth hostage from her any longer.

"Because you lied. You remembered every second of your shooting and you were able to confess that to a suspect, but never to me." His voice is still laced with subtle venom, but it's not nearly as sharp, as poisonous. He looks too exhausted to be angry anymore.

Her heart seizes in her chest and she almost clutches the silky material covering the atrophying muscle to keep the jagged pieces from piercing her lungs, but he speaks again before she can.

"Made it pretty clear that you can't possibly feel the same," he rasps, clearing his throat a second later, and oh god- "That's why I came here tonight, Kate. I just - I thought you at least deserved a goodbye in person."

Goodbye? He's leaving her and he thinks - she let him believe - oh no, no. She has to fix this. Now.

With tentative hands, she cups his face in her palms, smoothing her thumbs over the papery thin skin stained purple beneath his eyes. They flicker shut at the touch and her heart eases when he leans into the cradle of her hands despite the anguish that fills the frown lines bracketing his mouth.

"I'm so sorry, Castle," she whispers, dusting her lips along the bone of his cheek, listening to his breath hitch in his lungs before it exhales long and heavy through his nose. "But you're wrong. You're wrong. So wrong."

His eyes peel back at that, curious and following the line of her hand as it descends from his face, seeking one of the fists still pressed into his sides.

"Do you know who I was thinking of before you got here?" she mumbles, curling her fingers around his wrist and guiding his hand beneath her robe. He sucks in a breath when his fingers brush between her legs, blooming arousal coating his fingertips. "That's because of you," she husks, hissing quietly when he moves his hand, the heat of his palm encompassing her. "I just want you."

His eyes narrow on her for a long moment, dark and thunderous as they search her face, scrutinizing.

Castle withdraws his hand, fingers trickling along her inner thigh before skimming upwards to curve over the bone of her hip, and she can't help canting forward, into the warmth of his palm, the enticing call of his body in front of hers. Her own hands itch to touch him and she doesn't try to stop them when her fingers slide up to his shoulders, curling in the soft cashmere of his sweater.

"What about... what about your walls?" he murmurs, his voice a low husk and she has to fight to think straight against the back and forth brush of his thumb along her bare waist.

"I think they've been in ruins for a while now," she admits, the confession pathetically breathless, but it cracks something in his eyes, a shimmer of light breaking through. It gives her the courage to drift forward, to dust her lips over his in a whisper of a kiss.

His fingers on her hip bruise her skin, branding.

"I love you," she breathes, the words tasting like freedom on her tongue as they finally leave her lips and she can't help but offer him the smallest of smiles. "I love you, Castle. I-"

The outpour of her love is staunched by the firm press of his lips, the welcome collision of his body into hers, and she winds her arms around his neck, holding on.

She can taste the traces of alcohol on his tongue, the hint of liquid courage she has a feeling drove him here tonight, and the fading sorrow that she eradicates with the insistent sweep of her tongue, the arch of her body into his. She's not sure which of them unties her robe, but it isn't long before the fabric is fluttering to the floor and his hands are on her naked skin, better than she could have ever imagined.

He's panting when their lips part, his eyes brimming with something bright and beautiful, unburdened as one hand rises to cradle her jaw while the other lingers at her ribcage, grazing her incision scar with reverent fingertips. She traps the hand at her heart, lets him feel how it races for him, thrashing against the cage of her ribs to meet his palm.

"Stay," she mumbles, leaning forward to graze a kiss to his cheek, his eyes, coming to a hovering pause over his lips.

Castle nods and walks her backwards, easing her onto the bed with an awed, disbelieving look in his eyes that she wants to abolish. She tugs him down atop her, laughing softly into his shoulder when he huffs as he lands sprawled over her chest, his arm falling upon the slim length of her vibrator.

Her cheeks burn as he plucks the toy from the sheets and places it on her nightstand.

"There will be time to use that later," he murmurs, a flare of confidence setting his eyes alight. "But the first time I make you come won't be with a toy."

Prompt: After drinks with Colin Hunt, Kate goes home and uses her favorite vibrator to take care of the ache between her legs. She tries to think of Colin, but Castle's face keeps popping into her head. Eventually she just give in and thinks of Castle. Just before she can reach completion, a persistent knock at her door interrupts. Frustrated she answers it, startled to find Castle on the other side.