Chapter 1

He'd been watching her from across the room for the better part of twenty minutes, ducking and dodging the bodies of what he imagined surely had to be every other damn attorney in the state of Connecticut, the entire collection of which had-uncomfortably albeit impressively-managed to shoehorn itself into that hotel bar in Hartford right along with them that drizzly Friday night.

He could smell it in the polyester of some who muscled past in search of a fresh gin or a willing playmate for a romp in a room upstairs, the fusion of summer rain and desperation that oozed from their pores and their off-the-rack bests, and it amused him how distant their worlds truly were from the orbit of his own.

"I wouldn't expect to see someone like you in a dump like this." He heard the words, but like a gnat had buzzed past his ear, as little more than a nuisance he wished to swat away. "You're, like, famous or something," the woman giggled and with the grating pitch of it earned a sneer.

The only thing he cared about was her, the one seated alone at the bar surrounded by high-fives and braying laughs, and the attempt at his distraction had his jaw firmly clenched.

"Or something," he replied when silence failed, assuming his curtness and all the blanks his tone filled in would be enough to send her fluttering off to the next ear. It wasn't.

"You're pretty hot in those TV commercials. I never forward through them when they come on."

Her drink was a shade of science-fiction green and nearly empty, and it didn't require a host of clues to gather it wasn't her first. Christ, just a glance at it practically had him in need of an appointment with an optometrist to have his retinas examined for damage.

Blinking it away, he shot his eyes back toward the high chair at the end of the bar, but found it now occupied by another. She was gone. He'd looked away for seconds. It'd only been seconds.

"Where did she go?" he thought aloud, not worried but miffed he'd been drawn by the interference.

"I'm standing right here, law man. Maybe you should be looking for me. I promise I'll be no hassle at all."

Creeping up onto his toes, he left unacknowledged her tacky wink to his business persona's tagline as he struggled for a path of view around a cluster of twentysomethings exchanging horror stories about their professors from law school. It did him no good. He still couldn't spot her in the crowd.

"I've already found what I'm looking for," he said, and with making it all the way to the bar in one piece his mission set off and left her standing there flapping her wings.

The passage wasn't easy, nor did he reach his destination unscathed, but that mattered not. Hooking the besieged bartender's attention, he asked after the woman while dabbing away with a handful of cocktail napkins the cabernet his pinstriped Brioni had been splashed with along the way.

"Really? Look at this place, man," he got back with an expression as sour as the wedges of lemon the man's hands were busy slicing. "You think I have time for faces tonight?"

As impossible as it was to believe anyone could ever forget a face like hers, he hit him up for a Glenlivet XXV as amends for the bother, poured it back in two gulps, and slid him an extra twenty.

It was just as he was about to turn back into the room that he felt a hand at his lower back, and with it his eyes clamped shut, fearing what followed would be the unwanted ring of Miss Green Drink's piping giggle.

But it wasn't that at all.

"What the hell took you so long?" The warm breath tickled his ear. "You've been watching me for almost half an hour. I had to get up and walk so I didn't doze off sitting here waiting for you to make your move."

He wasn't surprised he'd been caught at it. He hadn't even tried to be subtle.

He pivoted on the heels of his loafers, dipped in close so he didn't have to raise his voice over the din. That and he yearned to inhale her fragrance, one more intoxicating than anything in the bottles lined up behind the bar.

"Maybe I was nervous. Your sort of beauty can be intimidating to a man, you know."

Unlike his swift work, she sipped from the bourbon in her glass, made love to it in her mouth, savored.

"And what sort of beauty would that be, exactly?"

"The sort that steals all the air from your lungs, which actually works out just fine, since it's already left you speechless." He cocked his head, traveled her with ravenous eyes. "I've seen you here before. You were at this conference last year. Same stilettos."

She grinned behind the rim of her glass. "So you either have a fine appreciation for French footwear or you're very creepy."

"Well, I don't happen to believe those two things are mutually exclusive, but I suppose I do believe I fall more into the former category. That is unless you prefer creepy. For some reason, I find myself standing here only wanting to please you."

In places he couldn't see and only she could feel, a profound twitch struck and rippled. "Just one reason, Mr… ?"

He offered his hand in formality, which she reciprocated. "Richard Castle. Rick. And so you know, it may be one, but it's a damn good one. Maybe I'll share it with you, if the right moment presents itself. In the meantime, can I buy you another or do you have to drive somewhere tonight? Safety first, as they say."

She swallowed what remained and handed over her glass, swiped with her tongue an errant droplet that clung to her lip. "Bourbon. Double. And I'm Kate."

"As Kate wishes," Rick said with a nod.

A dozen people passed when he nudged his way back up to the bar, but she let none move her from that spot, her focus fixed on him as his had been on her. She only hoped he wouldn't come around suddenly and catch the curl at the corners of her lips. His ego didn't need the boost. That was one of the first things she'd learned.

Even without the benefit of position, Kate could still see the blue of his stare, and she blushed with everything it already knew. She never fathomed such a connection, such desire for a man that it ached, even when he was but a few short steps out of reach. But there she was in its bullseye, and there was nowhere else she wanted to be.

He returned moments later with a drink in each hand and a scowl to go along with them. "I tried to buy our way into a couple of seats. That didn't seem to go over. Being called a jackass is never a positive thing, right? Cheers," he said and tapped her glass. "Honestly, there must be some fire law against having this many people in here. I can't-"

"I have a room upstairs," Kate interjected.

"Oh? A room you say?"

"I don't live around here. I had a feeling I wouldn't want to drive all the way home after a full day at this circus." She tipped back a sip. "Figured I'd probably be too worn out," she said with a tug of his lapel. "Come on. I can't hear myself think under this big top. Let's go upstairs, Rick."

Having managed to carve their way out, her hand pulling him in tow, they stood in wait at the elevator doors in the lobby for the car to descend from floors above.

"You seem fidgety, Rick. Are you fidgety? How many of those have you had?" she asked about the booze.

The elevator chimed its arrival and welcomed them. "Your chariot awaits. After you, please." He braced a palm against the track, a voice inside him screaming in hopes that no one else came along. He had no interest in sharing her, not for one floor, not for one second. When he stepped inside and the lobby disappeared from view, he released with relief the gulp of air he'd been holding captive.

"Nine," Kate told him, an instruction accompanied by the arch of a brow. Clearing her double, she set her glass up on the car's railing, reached around Rick's body for his and provoked a flinch. "Finish it." He did, without hesitation, and she placed the empty beside the other. "Definitely fidgety," she commented a second time, again to no reply.

Without exchanging a word, they made their way down the hallway toward room 922, where Kate stopped and handed Rick the key card for the door. "In this case soft and slow is better," she advised as he dangled the card above the slot, her suggestive counsel causing him to miss the opening entirely on the first go. "Getting it in first helps."

He cleared his throat around it, because it was all he could do, the puddle he'd become. He succeeded with his subsequent effort, pushed the door open and allowed her to pass. Kate stopped where the entranceway met the room, turned and angled her body against the wall, her eyes meeting his and lingering there, their mutual fixation less wish than demand.

And so Rick came for her, fast and hard, tearing off his wine-splattered jacket and discarding it along the way. Sliding his hands up underneath the impossible angles of her jaw, his fingers bunched in her hair, their possessiveness a mere hint of the hunger the rest of his body felt.

"This is the same room," he all but grunted before taking her mouth in a searing kiss, fingers drifting to her thigh and hitching it up around his. "How very sentimental of you, Counselor."

Kate bumped her hips forward, and a sigh infused with the most devilish of grins trickled from her parted lips. "I guess I'm just a softy. But… you're definitely not," she teased, his body's response to their union providing her the ammunition. Then she plunged for another taste.

"God I missed you. I wanted to turn around and fly back the minute I landed in Chicago."

He'd been gone for four days, out of town helping an old buddy from college with a post-divorce move and a celebration of both. He'd asked Kate to join him, and though he'd done so in earnest, he knew she'd never agree. Her law practice didn't run with a team of people to step in, and that was exactly as she wanted it.

"I missed you, too. I especially missed having my hands on you." She planted both on his chest, walked him backward to the side of the bed until he had no choice but to sit. "All those people in that bar…" As she spoke, she slowly began to unfasten the buttons of his shirt, one by titillating one. "I could only feel your eyes." Her fingers took a pause. "If I'd had to wait any longer for you to come get me, a guy at the bar made quite a tempting offer. I might've just said yes."

Rick's smirk went swiftly flat.

"Hey, I'm not all law, you know. I've thrown a punch or two in my time. What guy? What offer?"

Kate snickered at the notion, resumed her task, while he licked his wound from the slight. Pushing the shirt from his shoulders and down the length of his arms, she left a peck at the curve of his neck. "Apparently Hartford is quite the hot spot, and he was very eager to prove that to me tonight."

Rick flew off the bed like a fire had been lit beneath him, spun her until she dropped in his place. When he leaned in and pinned his hands at either side of her hips, she flopped backward, dragged him right along with her.

"I'm the only one who gets to do anything to you, Counselor, tonight or any other night. Got it?" He hiked up the hem of her cashmere so he could speckle the skin beneath with kisses. "Whoever the hell that jackass was, he has no idea how hot Hartford can be."

His tongue swiped along the ridge of the muscle that framed her torso. He still marveled at the architecture born of her routines and regimens, worshipped it. "The last time we were in this room together is going to be pretty difficult to top, though. What do you say? Think you're up for the challenge?"

"I'm no expert," Kate came back as she gripped his hair in a fist, "but I'm pretty sure this only works if you're the one who's up for it."

"Oh, that smart lawyer mouth of yours is next," he muttered in promise and went for the zipper on her skirt.