A/N: Happy #CastleFanficMonday! I'm feeling a tad mushy.

"Want to feel burning flames when you say my name.

Want to feel passion flow into my bones,

Like blood through my veins."

It's different here.

Exposed.

She's not naked under the cover of darkness and pressed into sheets by the weight of his body, swallowed up in shadows and lightning streaks when he undresses her.

She's not hiding from herself either.

He's not like her. She's glad.

Comfortable in his space and his surroundings Castle moves as though he's forgotten he's not wearing any clothes.

He acts as though the sight of his bare thighs and naked backside disappearing through his bathroom door isn't in the least evocative or arousing. The ripple of muscle down his back not likely to draw her from the bed with curiosity and longing.

He's wrong because she swallows a deep breath, satisfaction thrumming through her, and follows after him.

The crisp linen of his bed becomes a caped swathe that swoops around her as she moves. There's a scent caught up there too. Their skin and rain, kisses, near misses and sex. She dips her nose to the cotton and inhales, smells herself and him and the cold blowing wind that settled on her flesh, all meshed together.

Can you start a new life at two in the morning? Be reborn and made anew? Her padding feet guide Kate back to Castle, the soft sweep of her coverings trailing the floor the only sound, and she thinks you can.

She watches him brush his teeth before she clears her throat.

His thick fingers hold the brush with near dainty precision and she remembers his hands on her shoulders with the same care.

He's a big man, built with force and power, strong muscles and hardlines all softened by the fierceness of his heart. She's underestimated him before now, thought him an easy mark when it comes to labels. To pinning him down with media born stereotypes and assumptions that helped her keep her distance. But she was wrong. She's never been more wrong about someone her whole life. Or more glad to admit her mistake.

His throat bobs as he swallows, the same way it did when she kissed it. His forearms bunched tight, biceps she gripped working as he moves. Her breath catches at the sight of his back, down both sides of his ribs the lines left by her fingernails.

Proof, undeniable.

Yet, it's lonely where she stands, her patch of darkness toe to toe with the bright white light of his bathroom. And as much as staring at him for hours is appealing - really, she can see why he does it - there's a yearning for his attention, his focus that's coming to life within her the longer she spends in his presence. An understated craving that's making itself known.

It's time to step into that light and join him. Put all her months of work and struggle to good use, meet him more than halfway and for once, be what he needs.

So she clears her throat, mumbles, "Hi," and doesn't hide the smile that follows the word across her lips. Giving it up to him easily, happily, knowing he deserves that and so much more. Everything she can give him.

His eyes dart up, towel at his lips cast instantly back onto the rack, his body pivoting to her with pendulum precision. He looks shocked and delighted, as though drawn from a dream too quickly, hovering between both realities unsure which way to turn.

"Kate?"

He's surprised and somehow not. Joyous and holding back.

His voice is gruff around the letters of her name, owning them, keeping them and a rush of shivers instantly race each other down her spine. Memories bombarde her, come at her quick and dirty and unrelenting. The night before, what they just did, a branding that stings anew behind her eyelids.

Him naked helps, and doesn't. She could hide her flushed cheeks and tangled breath, her body's instant reaction to being near him, but she doesn't want to. Could be cautious and worry what if but her ears are deaf to the world beyond.

Just him.

"Kate."

The unforgiving timbre of his speech caught in the tenterhooks of pleasure have laced her name with such meaning, no one will ever say it the same again.

"I heard you get up," she smiles and it's a slow thing that creeps up from the warmth in her belly, radiates across her cheeks with unfathomable heat. It's a silly and meaningless comment made richer by the unspoken I didn't want to miss you that only he would ever hear.

"I was coming back."

Somehow he makes the simple truth sound like a promise, an oath. His pupils dart rapidly from side to side as he takes in her expression, reading the lines of her face, the creases of her smile.

She extends her fingers and turns her palm upwards in offering, the invisible gift of her heart, her willingness to do this with him, beating in the pulse of her wrist, the heat of her hand as she waits - for once - for him.

"Or -" her eyes wander low, trail the line of his naked hips as she wets her mouth, lips a smooth line of anticipation, remembering the taste of his flesh over her tongue, "we could stay here?"

The lazy lift of her lashes has him drawing in breath, and it's different here in the bright light of his bathroom, eyes hungry over her skin before she's even stepped out of his sheet.

It's freeing.

Her hand hovers but doesn't waver. Waiting for him the easiest thing now hindsight has given her guidance.

He reaches behind him without breaking her gaze, barely blinking and focused so intently upon her presence that she nearly misses the moment he turns on the shower. The rapid flow of water hits the tile and ricochets loud. The force of it as hard and determined as the blood through her veins.

The first touch of his fingers to her palm, after such a short reprieve, is electricity. He's an adrenaline shot to the heart, spreading her fingers to make room for his own, sliding between each digit with slow and steady seduction. He watches every move he makes, twisting their knotted fingers until he can tug and demand she come closer.

Quietly confident in his own skin, his belief - his love - make her brave.

Braver than she's ever been.

Three steps and her vision tips towards the heavens, gently rolling when his hand lands low on her spine. His caress is a wave that swirls low and rises high, bringing her up on to her toes and into him.

The curl of his sheets at her breast is replaced by the questing stroke of his hand. He doesn't pull her free, instead touching at her waist. Marvelling at her wrapped up tight in something of his.

He curls the hair from her ears, exposes her neck and shoulder and leans into the space between them, obliterating it. Offering up the only invitation she needs.

"Join me."

His fingers squeeze and remind her this time he's leading, this time he knows what he wants and how, beyond her and forever.

Kate feels her eyes close and the smile come back, her grip on the sheet lost entirely in favour of the solid wall of his chest.

She finds she doesn't need the bricks and mortar around her heart when she can have his arms instead. Now, his embrace can be her retreat. It's taken her a long time to see it, see the truth, and now she does she can see nothing else. She just wants him.

Her Castle; her safe haven.