saudade (portuguese):

(n.) a nostalgic longing to be near again to something or someone that is distant, a love that has been lost but remains.

They fall asleep on opposite sides of the bed. Half of Castle's body practically hangs over the edge of the queen sized mattress in his best attempt to not touch her, while Beckett curls on her side, her back to him so she doesn't have to witness the reminder of the state they're in.

Weeks ago, he would have been thrilled by their current predicament. Planted in a motel room for an undercover stakeout of sorts, forced into pretending to be a couple in hopes of playing the perfect victims for a blossoming serial killer who targets lovers in various hotels. But not anymore.

She knows he only grudgingly accepted because he feels obligated after everything that happened with Slaughter last week, after she saved his ass and proved that even if their partnership is apparently coming to a gut-wrenching end, she still has his back.

For as long as he'll let her, she'll have him.

Her sleep isn't restful, or long. She's awake within an hour of drifting off, the bright red numbers of the digital alarm clock glaring the time back at her. It's only midnight and they have to stay in their room until at least seven.

Weeks ago, the scenario wouldn't have bothered her so much either - stuck in a bed with Castle, not yet ready to cross the line, but all too willing to toe it. They would have stayed up later, shared some innocent pillow talk before bed. Maybe she would have ended up gravitating towards him in her sleep, let his body wrap around her, offer her a place to find rest. To feel safe.

It could have been different, it could have been… great, but instead, she's stuck with her knees curled to her chest and her fist trapped in between, rubbing at her scar that's started to ache with the changing weather and the bitter chill from the man mere inches away.

Kate sighs into the overly starched pillow and attempts to unfurl her body, relax into the uncomfortable mattress, and unwind limb by limb. She should be tired; she hasn't been sleeping well - no surprise there - and work has been draining her these days. She feels it in her bones, behind her eyes, she does, but her restlessness consumes her need for slumber with ease.

Well, her restlessness and the misery that now comes with being stuck in a room with Castle for the next seven hours.

The mattress suddenly groans with the shift of Castle's frame, the exhale of his breath filling the tiny room, and Beckett instinctively tenses. She does her best to ignore him, the jostling of the bed as he moves around in his sleep, apparently somewhat restless himself, until she finally feels him settle again.

She releases a shallow breath through her mouth and stares across the room, through the small window that offers a view of the brick wall of an alley just outside. She wishes she brought a book along with her, anything to occupy her mind until she passes out from lack of sleep or just stays awake for-

The sudden heat of Castle at her back has her spine going stiff, her cheeks immediately flushing with the unexpected contact. He's mumbling, slurring words, her name, his lips grazing the sensitive skin behind her ear.

The mattress creaks again and then his chest is framing her back. He sighs out, ribs expanding to press against hers, and his arm snakes to cinch around her waist. But she forgets how to breathe, practically goes into a minor bout of cardiac arrest when his hand, that large palm and those thick fingers, settles so comfortably over her breast.

Her heart is racing, pounding so loud she can't think past the deafening drumming, but she still expects to feel him go slack against her, fall back into a deeper sleep. Instead, the change in positions, the drape of his body at at her back, seems to snap Castle awake.

"Kate," he croaks, his voice hoarse with the brief hour's worth of sleep, his body jolting with awareness and going as stiff as hers has.

His hand hasn't claimed her, hasn't had the chance to mold along the curve of her breast, just barely having the opportunity to rest over the t-shirt covered mound. But the second he realizes what he's done, where his touch has landed, he's immediately stuttering out an apology, jerking his hand back.

But not before she can catch his wrist, halt the movement, and stop his breathing just as he suspended hers.

Kate swallows, inhales through her nose to calm the wild cadence of her heart, and draws Castle's hand to its previous place of rest. She covers his knuckles with the drape of her palm, slides her fingers between his, and fits his hand back to the swell of her breast. Back to where she wants it.

"Kate?" Her name is still a strangled thing in his mouth, laden with sleep, confusion, and arousal. "Don't… please don't, not when I - I can't-"

"Why can't you?" she demands, her voice nothing more than a whisper, but still sharp, desperate to know, to understand.

What the hell has she done that he suddenly can't even bear to touch her?

She squeezes the hand heating her breast and the warmth of his palm spreads like a blossom of fire. Petals of flames searing through her skin in their bloom, expanding through her chest, and dripping down the bones of her ribs. Beckett hears his breath hitch, feels it at her back, but he isn't answering her.

"Why don't you want - want this anymore? Me?" she rasps, clinging to his hand even as she presses her hips back, his body close enough that it cradles her all too easily.

They could have been so good together, a perfect fit.

"Don't want you?" he echoes, incredulous.

Lying on their sides like this, his arm has to wrap around her waist from beneath to clutch her hip, and once the jut of her bone is puncturing his palm, his fingers bruising around the hollow space beneath, he purposely drags her body deeper into the cove of his.

"Are you actually - are you fucking kidding me?" he growls, the heat of his breath scorching the back of her neck, blistering her skin.

His trapped hand flexes beneath hers, his fingers like wings breaking free of her grasp to palm her breast hard.

Kate bites her lip to stop the gasp, failing as his thumb maneuvers to circle harshly at her nipple through the fabric of her bra.

"I want you too much," he confesses into her hair, his nose nudging that tender spot behind her ear while his other hand releases her hip to splay wide at her stomach. "That's the problem-"

"No," she moans, arousal and agony rolled into one, a devastating noise that clogs her throat.

She lets go of his hand, finds the other at her abdomen, his pinky skirting the hem of her t-shirt and tempting to touch her skin. She aids his seeking fingers in their search, guides his hand beneath the worn fabric of the shirt she packed for the sake of pajamas. His palm brushes along the naked flesh of her stomach and her abdominal muscles jump to meet his touch just as his opposite hand clutches harder at her breast.

She hisses. "How is it a problem? Why-"

"Because you don't want me back," he snaps, punctuating his words with the subtle arch of his hips against her. "You knew all along and you never even-"

Kate growls and jerks from his hold, can't stand another second of this, bewildered by his touch and his words and unable to see his face, read behind the mask he's been wearing in his eyes.

He looks shell-shocked beside her when she turns, his head only inches away from hers, practically sharing her pillow. And she just doesn't understand how she could have put the heartbreaking hollowness in his eyes, the burning need and the crushing anguish.

He wants her. He wants her so much, it's naked and gleaming in his gaze, but he thinks he can't have her and she has to fix it. She may have walls and he may be angry with her for no reason, but she just wants - no, she needs to fix this, fix them. Needs the devastation in his eyes gone, needs him.

"I don't want you?" she questions, demands, hooking her leg over his knee. She doesn't hesitate in rocking against the hard muscle of his thigh, suppressing a moan at the immediate friction, the spark of fire between her legs.

But Rick doesn't, a choked groan escaping his lips at the contact.

The arms still tangled loosely around her body tighten then, haul her forward until they're chest to chest and she can feel the ragged beat of his heart.

Kate rolls her hips again in response, brushing the solid length of him, already thick and hot against her stomach, and lifts her hands to his face. She cradles his cheeks until the squeezed shut lids of his eyes slip open.

"Would I do this if I didn't want you?" she husks, craning her neck forward, allowing him only a second to pull away before she slates her mouth over his.

She revels in the fit of his lips against hers before she's deepening the kiss, sucking his upper lip into her mouth and laving her tongue over the tender flesh. It's been over a year, but the memory of his mouth from their ruse in a parking lot, the way fire spilled through her veins from the moment he kissed her until the moment she spun away from him, never left her and her entire body exalts at the return of his mouth, the heat of his tongue. She's missed it, missed him, more than she'll ever admit.

Castle's fingers fist in the back of her shirt, threatening to tear the soft material, and she breaks their kiss to locate one of his hands. Easing it between them, she flattens his palm to her stomach once more.

He's panting against her mouth, his brow furrowed deep and his eyes flickering down, and a strangled gasp breaches his lips when she leads his fingers past the waistband of her leggings.

"Fuck, Kate, don't-"

She ignores him, doesn't stop the descent of their hands when he doesn't even attempt to pull away.

His fingers are twitching beneath hers, dancing against the hot skin of her lower abdomen, and Kate bites her lip, stops guiding him as his fingers finally encounter the pooling heat between her legs. His hand is still for a moment before his palm cups her core, a single digit brushes through the slickness of her folds.

She doesn't bite back the whimper, doesn't try to conceal the stutter of her breath, because he needs to see it, hear it.

"Does it feel like I don't want you?" she gets out, fisting her fingers in his hair when he strokes gently through the embarrassing amount of evidence of just how badly she wants him once more, growing bolder and tracing his thumb over the swollen bundle of her nerves.

"How are you so wet?" he rasps, and just that question alone has her damn near gushing into his palm.

"Because it's you," she breathes, her hips indulging in a shallow thrust into his hand without her permission.

He teases her with his exploration, his fingers mapping out the entirety of her, sinking deeper into the scalding heat, rubbing and caressing and circling until she's writhing, can't take the torture anymore.

Kate shoves him to his back, her body following, and his hand slips from between her legs, a relief and remorse, and then he's sitting up with her in his lap.

She mewls at the renewed pressure of him against her center, the confidence of his hands stealing beneath her shirt and traveling up her sides with palms that burn her, brand her.

"Enough proof for you?" she murmurs, holding his gaze as his thumbs hook in the edges of her shirt, drawing it up to expose the naked frame of her ribs. Kate helps him ease it over her head, tosses it towards the bottom of the bed, has no chance to prepare for the open heat of his mouth staining the slope of her breast. "Castle-"

"It's enough," he mumbles into her flesh, grazing his jaw, the stubble of his cheek, along the sensitive skin of her chest. Kate arches into the burn, relishes it. "So much more than enough."

She cards her fingers through his hair, lets him touch his lips to her chest, the puckered circle of her scar, gripping his ears when he caresses the spot with his tongue.

She's the one to reach behind her to unfasten her bra, shrugging her shoulders to allow the lingerie an easy descent. Castle snags the straps before they can fall, though, drawing them down her arms and dropping the underwear off to the side, replacing the cups of fabric with the cup of his palms. The play of his thumbs to her nipples, each swipe of his fingers to the taut peaks, elicits jolts of electricity that spread from the points of contact, working in tandem to unravel her.

"Let me touch you too," she husks, her voice throaty, all sex and unfulfilled craving.

His breathing stutters and Castle releases her only long enough to strip his shirt off, flinging it away. Kate immediately takes advantage of the newly exposed skin, clutching his shoulders and scarring him with her nails when his mouth closes over her the tip of her breast. A breathless noises escapes past her lips and she can't handle anymore of this, the undivided attention to her chest scraping her raw with need.

Kate dips forward to steal his mouth, to press him down into the mattress, grinding in his lap and pushing her tongue past the seam of his lips. His hands skate down her bare back, thumbs caressing the edges of her spine while his palms glide downwards. They venture beneath the waistband of her leggings, kneading her ass and encouraging the undulation of her hips.

"You need to take your pants off," she gasps, already reaching for the waistband of his pajama bottoms, hooking her fingers in the edge of his boxers as well, and yanking.

Castle shifts, awkwardly helping her maneuver the last of his clothing down his legs and redirecting his focus to the pants she still wears once his bottoms are down far enough that he can simply kick them off.

They end up tangled, limbs and fabric and too much impatience, and Castle growls, flips them over. Sliding her leggings all the way down to her ankles, he follows their descent with his body, brushing a thoughtless kiss to her knee before he works her underwear free next. Her body ripples with anticipation, the cool air of the motel room sweeping over her skin without her clothes, without him there to warm her. But Castle is returning within seconds, crawling up to reclaim his place above her without hurry.

"Rick," she gasps, her spine arcing from the bed at the touch of his lips to her hip bone, the swirl of his tongue to the thin stretch of skin beneath, and the nip of his teeth to the taut flesh just below her navel.

She has to bite her lip to control the keening noise building in the back of her throat when he grazes the length of her incision scar with his tongue, dusting over the marred flesh with his lips.

"You're stunning," he mumbles, smearing the words to the underside of her breast while she cups the back of his head in her palm. She's trying her best to breathe past the overwhelming hammering of her heart, to resist the urge to band her arms around his neck and never let go, because they came so close. So close to him deserting her. "And so sexy, I don't know if I'm going to survive this."

A startled laugh bubbles past her lips and then Castle is there, catching it with his teeth, the seal of his mouth over hers. Kate widens her thighs, sighing out as his body slots into place against hers, sets her aflame with the graze of their skins, the pulsing length of him so close to where she aches.

"You better," she mutters, her hand snaking between them, finding him with her palm, the curl of her fingers stroking.

"Kate, oh - definitely not if you do that," he gasps, but she doesn't plan on teasing him, torturing him, not this time. She can't wait any longer, can't help guiding him inside.

He sinks in slowly, filling her at such a painstaking pace. A breathless moan echoes between them, from his mouth or hers, she isn't sure, and Kate closes her eyes for just a second. She savors the sensation of him all around her, inside her, drawing back from her only to glide back in, deeper, deeper-

"Castle," she breathes, her hand fluttering up his side to curve her palm at his neck. Her hips continue to rock, waves of movement that match his, building a strong current that already threatens to take her under.

His entire body is wound so tight, but he doesn't increase the speed of his thrusts, doesn't indulge the twist of her hips that has him gasping into her mouth. He brands a kiss to her lips that is too breathless to stay, prolonging every thrust, every kiss of flesh, every moment.

"Close, too close," she gasps, the white-hot burn of her orgasm beginning to bloom between them.

Castle steals one of her hands, laces their fingers over her head as she feels the ecstasy consuming her face, the cresting wave of release beginning to spill free, molten and thick through her bloodstream.

"Kate," he calls softly, his own voice taut with it, drenched in lust, but more than that, there's more- "I love you," he confesses before she can drown in the sea of it.

But that's all it takes to push her under.

The anchor of his hand squeezing hers is her only grasp on reality she has left as she floats further into the pleasant burn that unfurls throughout every inch of her body, twining her leg at Castle's thigh and undulating her hips just once to drag him deeper than before, impossibly far inside her, finally feeling him fall apart against her.

He's fought so hard not to crush her, but his body sags into her at last, spent and satisfied, and Kate turns her head, seeks his mouth. Castle hums, their noses colliding as he sips from her lips, lazily strokes his tongue along hers.

He shifts to his side and she follows, touches her fingers to his jaw to feel the bone work as he kisses her.

"You know I love you," he mumbles, and she closes her eyes. Her mind is still hazy, but coherent enough to know the statement for what it is.

"I did," she murmurs, slipping her fingers from the knot of his. "I do."

Castle cradles her cheek, his eyes clearing, a crisp blue staring back at her when she peels hers open. "I'm sorry if I made you doubt it."

"Pretty sure that's my line," Kate sighs, her fingers trickling down his chest, resting above his heart, able to feel it skip and stumble in its rhythm. "Sorry if I made you doubt how much I love you back."

His breath hitches for a split second, surprise glittering in his eyes.

"All doubts have been erased," he murmurs, grinning as she cranes her neck, dusts her smile along his. "Though, feel free to continue eradicating them as the night progresses."

Kate hums, shifts her hips against his to feel the sharp intake of his breath. "Don't worry, Castle. By morning, you'll be thoroughly reassured."

A/N: For the anon on tumblr who prompted:

"End of season 4, they must sleep in one bed, he accidentally touches her boob and immediately takes his hand away, but then she grabs it and puts it back."