Enlightenment: Magnification Chapter Five

She woke to the sensation of movement, a strong arm banding around her waist, dragging her back against his chest. A muffled grunt near her ear was followed in quick succession by warm lips on her neck, slow and a little sloppy, but hitting all the right spots. The room was still cloaked in quiet darkness, meaning it must be early yet. She was still sleep-hazed, dragging her consciousness forcibly from the depths of a few hours slumber.

"Good dream?"

Her voice was a gruff croak in his general direction, over her shoulder. He only hummed in affirmation, his tongue otherwise occupied tracing the curve of her ear. They had stayed up late, but not for their usual reasons. After a backyard cookout complete with s'mores, they had retired to the library—sometimes she seriously felt like this was the mansion in "Clue," except blessedly free of bodies.

But this library doubled as a movie theater, complete with projector and retractable screen, and Castle had set it up in full movie-style, complete with popcorn and every kind of candy Kate could imagine, half of which ended up in the bowl of popcorn that he and Alexis were sharing. Thankfully, Martha liked to keep her movie food groups segregated, so they got along well sharing one end of the sofa and the other tub of popcorn.

His "project" that afternoon had been assembling their feature presentation, a retrospective of home movies set in the Hamptons from the time Alexis could barely walk up through the prior summer. Generally, it had been hilarious, the Castle family hijinks in full force. And how could she complain when she had his arm draped over her shoulders, his head tipped sideways to nudge hers?

There were fully staged Shakespeare plays with every part covered by Castle, Alexis, and Martha, wigs, and swords and funny hats sometimes helping clear up exactly which funny accent belonged to which character.

One especially well-rehearsed performance involved a reenactment of highlights from the Revolutionary War. In honor of the Fourth of July, it was complete with Rick as a wigged General Washington crossing the Delaware (their swimming pool, on a floaty raft, in his swim trunks, propelled by a wading teenage Alexis in a tri-cornered hat), and Martha as, well, Martha, pining for her "husband" perhaps with a bit more wine than would be strictly accurate.

Alexis' portrayal of Paul Revere riding (piggyback on her dad) through the countryside had been particularly moving—it moved Kate to tears of laughter, thanks to Rick's impromptu collapse at the end of the take, flopping on the grass with all four horsey legs up in the air in the backyard, completely exhausted after hauling his gangly thirteen-year-old over hill and dale. Kate had gotten a few handfuls of popcorn tossed at her by the horse in question for making fun, but then she had let out one quite loud and unladylike snort in the midst of a fit of giggles, and all had been forgiven.

Kate was impressed at the dramatic reading of the works of Edgar Allan Poe, dark and spooky and set in this very library—he'd at least gotten two uses out of that Halloween costume, though it was sorely lacking in her feathered friend when they got to "The Raven." That must have been just two years before.

The one recurring theme was the annual sandcastle building competition, which Alexis had assured her would be happening before she and Martha left the next day.

Only one or two moments had given Kate pause. One appearance of Meredith was clearly more brief than her daughter would have liked, though seemingly longer than her ex-husband would have preferred. Gina showed up in surprisingly few shots; one of her in the far background during the sandcastles showed her lounging with a book and dark glasses, paying no attention to the rest of the bunch.

Kate's overall impression had been one of comfortable inclusion. She was being shown these things so she would know their history here. Maybe she was being presumptuous, but she thought it was at least in part because they intended for her to help carry the traditions forward.

They had played Trivial Pursuit until the wee hours, Martha teaming up with her son against Kate and Alexis. Though at first it seemed Rick and his font of random useless knowledge combined with his mother's command of the "Arts and Leisure" category would guarantee victory, it had been the synergism of the bookish reading habits of the two "youngsters," as Alexis' grandmother called them, that helped Kate and Alexis pull off the last-minute win. A very silly victory dance including high-fives and not a small amount of gratuitous chest bumping ensued before Rick had plucked them both up by the waist mid salsa, one under each arm, and hauled them off cackling toward the stairs.

Thankfully he had put them down before he started up, because she'd made plans for his back for the rest of their week together that involved a bed, but certainly not any rest or recuperation. But by the time they had gotten ready for bed, both of them had passed out the moment their heads hit the pillow.

Apparently now Rick was ready to make up for their lost opportunity. With dexterity that belied his usual state of uselessness upon waking, he found the drawstring on her sleep shorts and tugged it loose, then skirted underneath, slid past her underwear, and lightly traced the curve where her thigh met her hip. The moan melted from her lips, and she lifted her leg to drape it backward, over his thigh, opening herself to his touch.

Almost immediately, one thick finger was sheathed inside her, and god that was so perfect, just exactly that. Frustration bubbled up as he almost immediately withdrew, but it receded again when he spread her arousal up over her hardening nub, teasing lightly, giving her just the right friction up and down for a single stroke, and then two. Before she could even vocalize her delight, he was slipping two digits inside, curling them against her sweet spot, and pressing his now-hard length into the crease of her ass. The heel of his hand circled over her center, and she couldn't help rotating her hips into that pressure, making him groan at the counterpoint her movement offered for his own arousal.

It was so good, but it wasn't enough, was never enough when she could feel him, thick and insistent at her back. Impatience rose in a needy sound from the back of her throat, and his hand stilled.

"What Kate? Tell me what you want."

He couldn't expect words from her now. Could he? She tried for a minimalistic approach.

"You."

But apparently that wasn't sufficient. Giving her no indication of intended immediate gratification, he calmly spoke again.

"I'm right here."

Oh, why was he torturing her? Dragging her out of sleep for frustration? She supposed she wasn't above a little verbal foreplay.

"N-n-no. I want you inside me."

He flexed his fingers where they were still buried between her legs.

"I already am."

Pulsing her hips into his hand, she tried to reestablish the rhythm, the friction. Her voice was a low growl, nearly unrecognizable to her own ears.

"You know what I mean."

He did this to her, made her desperate, and all their time together, all their mind-blowing, stupor-inducing, ten-fold-better-than-any-porn-movie sex, had spoiled her and left her wanting.

"No, Kate. I want you to tell me. Tell me exactly what you want me to do to you."

Implosion was imminent. Fine, if he wanted words, she would give him words.

"I want you on top of me."

Immediately, his fingers left her, only to snag on her thigh, tug her on to her back as he untangled himself from her and settled between her legs. But his weight rested on his hands and knees, keeping his body carefully separated from hers. He looked down with a challenge flashing in the midnight blue of his eyes.

"Castle?"

She tried to reach around him, pull him down on top of her, but he resisted.

"Tell me."

So he was going to push this. She could push back.

"I want your weight on me."

He sank, muscles bulging as he bent his elbows to pin her hips to the bed with his own.

In for a penny, in for a pound. She looked up at him through heavy lids and gave him her best sultry Beckett tone.

"Take off my shirt. Slowly."

His gaze went darker still, and she could see the arousal cresting, flowing out. Never had she doubted that he was a wordsmith, that he enjoyed their bantering wit, but it wasn't until that moment that she realized how much words could turn him on in bed.

His fingers reached for the hem of her tank top, fleetingly fingered the lace stitched around the edge before bunching the fabric as they slid excruciatingly, slowly up her sides. When he reached her ribcage, she lifted both arms above her head, shivered as he ghosted over that ticklish spot under her arms. Losing him for a moment as the fabric blocked her view, she anchored back on his lips, quirked in a cryptic smile.

"Put your hands on me."

And he did, palms laying heavy against her shoulders.

"Lower." He slid them down over her breasts, cupping her warm flesh gently, provoking her softness into firm peaks. Her back curved up, bowing, drawn to his touch. "Yes, oh, god you feel so good." He stilled, stayed just as he was, ever waiting for more instruction from her, it seemed.

"Kiss me, please, Rick."

He did let her put her arms around his neck then, let her pull him down to her mouth.

Applying himself to his task as though it were his only purpose in life, he kissed her. Quietly, maddeningly, teasingly at first, with just a brush of sealed lips tracing the outline of her own, but then a flash of warm, wet tongue snaked out against the seam of her mouth, measured the breadth and depth of her slow smile with curious, tentative strokes, each one making her more impatient to be taken.

How did this man manage to inspire all this wanton neediness? No one had ever made her want to be taken.

When his tongue asserted itself, she gladly parted, let him inside, and he didn't need instructions to find the deepest, darkest corners, to wrap his tongue around hers and let her chase him back into his own slippery depths. And once she was there, she explored, defining edges she might not have outlined before this night's bold assertions.

The feel of his hips grinding down against her thigh snapped her back to her original goal, before his lips had proved such an effective distraction. Her hands tugged on his hair, forced him back so she could speak, continue on this little vocalization exercise of his.

"You're wearing too many clothes. I want to see you. Take them off." His shorts were gone in a flash, and he was naked, obviously fully aroused and maybe a little proud of himself. But he knelt at her hip, waiting patiently.

"Go on. Take them off."

She lifted her hips as his fingers found the waist of her shorts, snagged her underwear at the same time. Sliding them down slowly, he stroked the soft skin of her thighs, her tightening calf muscles, the knob of each ankle. By the time she was naked, every nerve was vibrating with need. How could he be so calm? How could he not be climbing on top of her this very second?

There was no doubt in her mind she could make him lose control, if she was smart about it. Taking a deep breath and curling a half smile onto her swollen, slightly sun-reddened lips, she resolved to not only play along, but also beat him at his own game.

Her knees bent, tucked demurely together, and she drew her legs up, pointed toes trailing along the sheet. Looking him straight in the eye, she upped the ante.

"Rick, I want you to spread my legs."

Unfazed, he dipped one eyebrow, accepted the challenge.

One fingertip circled her knee, dipped to where it met its twin, insinuated in between. His other fingers followed, and then his other hand, and then he was splaying her wide, sliding both hands down her inner thighs as he crawled into the space he had made.

Reaching for him, she wrapped her hand around his length, guided him gently to her center, but instead of lining him up to enter her, she pressed his tip to her clit. Circling the smooth, unyielding flesh through her slick, impatient arousal once, twice, a third time, she released him. Her next words were breathless but clear.

"Tease me, just a little."

Laying forward over her, he took his weight on one hand, wrapped the other around himself and continued her earlier motion, swirling around and over her until she let out a whimper and arched her back, trying to stretch some of the delicious tension from her muscles. He dipped lower, sliding along her slit until she thought he might enter her, put her out of her misery. But he only reversed direction, returned to her nub, barely touching her tip with his, forcing an inhuman noise from deep in her chest.

"Enough, enough. I need you."

"Where do you need me to be?"

That smug, self-satisfied smile should be outlawed. Banned, at least within the confines of their bed.

"Inside me. I need you inside me right now."

Stretching his form over hers and bracketing her upper body with his forearms, he positioned himself at her entrance, and advanced until he had just, only just… just barely… penetrated. Her breath caught when he stopped. The darkness around them made it hard to interpret his eyes, so close to her own as he hovered, but her hands could feel the shiver in his muscles as they strained, fighting the urge to join them wholly, completely. Enough of this.

"More."

He nudged in barely an inch further, but just that stretch, that little expanding, spreading contact, brought on a quiver of her inner muscles.

"Deeper, Castle."

His breath rushed out as he pushed slowly, steadily inside, finally, deliberately completing the fat slide. When their hips met, it still wasn't enough-she felt greedy, needed more of him, all of him.

Pulling her knees up high, she wrapped her own hands around her shins, pulled them tight against her sides, and fuck, that shift plunged him deeper. As her body adjusted, she registered the feral look on Rick's face as he lifted up to hold his weight on his hands again, arms straight and straining. It was more a harsh whisper than actual words when she spoke.

"Move. You've got to move."

Sliding nearly out, he gave an experimental thrust back in, slow and even. He was right where she needed him, his length enough at this angle to nudge deep inside at the end of his stroke. That little shock at the moment of contact triggered her body to clench around him, squeezing down tight as he slid back out. He felt her reaction, she could tell by the sharp exhale as he registered the sensation, and she answered his breath, gasping at the gorgeous pull of one body so aware, so finely tuned, against another.

Oh, this would work. This would definitely work. The only thing she needed was a little more vibration. The command came out more as a plea, the sound half-drowned in desire.

"Harder."

Sinking in again, he did push harder, but still with hesitation, like he was afraid to hurt her, afraid to let himself go. No way she was settling for careful handling after all her verbal audacity.

"Faster… do it harder, and I'll come for you."

That seemed to be enough, seemed to make whatever control he'd been tapping all night dissolve into his driving desire for completion. He let gravity pull his hips down, allowed his back to bow, used his arms and shoulders to hold him upper body steady as he rock his lower half hard against her.

He filled her, deep and solid, over and over as she gripped him. All of his weight, the heavy force of his hips, fell behind this merging. And god, he held on. He waited her out. Where he found the strength, the stamina, the fortitude, she would never understand, but he did. All she could hear was their panting breath, the sharp slap of slick skin meeting with every thrust.

The impact of his hips against hers stretched her taut flesh, reverberated through her whole body, settled deep in her pelvis. Something happened when they let go like this, when they allowed all their civilized inclinations to dissolve, when they just drove each other up to see how high they could fly.

It was something instinctual—their anatomy fit. She could feel him, with that perfect little curve near his base stretching her entrance every time he slammed inside, and the ridge at his tip dragging exactly against her sweet spot as he pulled out. No one had ever been able to make her body resonate, hum, echo back every advance, every retreat. She heard herself calling out—a tiny, high-pitched noise that couldn't even be called a word, but might have been his name—at the nadir of each heave of his hips. Teetering on the razor edge of release, she spread her legs wider, shifted her angle to give her more purchase against his plunging thrusts. He narrowed his scope, stayed deep, maintained contact with her as he read the escalating pitch of her voice. His brow furrowed in concentration, he cried out, a question, a promise.

"Kate?"

That single syllable spoke volumes. She couldn't help but answer.

"Let go, I want to feel you let go. Come inside me."

A groan ripped from his chest as he crashed down into her, and that sound, that unhinged, unschooled outpouring of lust and completion and possession sent her over. She came hard around him, her whole belly wracked with the spasms—scalp tingling, goosebumps erupting, toes curling, flush flaring, voice screaming but silenced by the sheer magnitude of indulgence erupting. He swelled, expanded, hot and wet and rigid, and her body responded in counterpoint, clinging, accepting, wringing every last drop of his release from his giving, unrelenting flesh.

Every muscle went limp; every thought left her brain.

He collapsed, completely spent, dead weight on her chest and hips.

Her legs fell to the bed, wide open and unashamed at their nakedness, at their continued but sloppy connection. Sheets could be changed. Bliss like this should not be belittled by self-consciousness.

It wasn't until much later, skin cooled and covered with sheets, muscles stretched and curled into their spent, intertwined meshwork, what had become their default over the past months together, that she spoke again, roused them both from the fringes of dreams that didn't venture far from reality.

"What was your dream about?"

"Hm?"

His eyes blinked sleepily open, closed again, his lashes brushing her brow where their faces rested together on the pillow.

"You said you had a good dream just before you woke me up."

She rubbed a hand over his biceps to keep him talking.

"Mm. Yeah. We were building sandcastles."

He shifted his knee to a more comfortable spot between her thighs.

"Sandcastles made you wake me up and ravish me?"

Her fingers reached around, scratched lightly over his back.

"Not exactly."

Her nose tipped up and bumped against his, a grin quirking at her lips.

"You gonna tell me, or do I have to tickle you?"

His eyes shot open briefly at that.

"No! No tickling. Too comfy for tickling."

He tightened his arms around her back, tugged her closer to his chest, smooshing her cheek into the stubble along his jaw line.

"Okay then… "

His breath hadn't yet fallen back into the easy pattern of sleep. He must have been considering his words.

"Wasn't the sandcastles. It was who we were building them with."

Now she really was confused.

"Who was it?"

"Didn't know their names, but they had their mother's eyes."

# * # * # * #

Joy, it only took me two versions to get the "eeeee!" (I take that as the highest form of compliment from my discriminating beta.) :)

Not sure what got into me, other than the promise of the ACTUAL HUMPTONS episode this week, and the repeated realization that CASKETT IS HAVING SEX IN CANON. There will be a couple more chapters of this little interlude over the next week or so. If you're coherent enough to write me a review, I'll be truly impressed as well as appreciative.

Twitter: kate_christie_

Tumblr: kathrynchristie dot tumblr dot com

Also, find the prequel to this story, "Enlightenment," in its entirety under "Title Archive" in the "E" section on the Castle Archive: thecastlearchive dot blogspot dot com