I felt very still and very empty, the way the eye of a tornado must feel, moving dully along in the middle of all the surrounding hullabaloo.

The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath

Her hands find his face.

Even though she told herself she wouldn't, even though she wanted to go home tonight. Even though she's not sure how to look at him without the fraying edges of her ribs falling apart, the cage of bone cracking under the pressure.

Her hands find his face and her thumbs sweep under his eyes and crest his cheekbones. She clings to his ears, tugs his face down so he'll look at her. She misses his eyes, misses everything.

She wants the way his eyes crease at the corners and the seam of his lips breaks wide open. She wants his laughter back, aches for it.

She kisses him, surging up to meet his mouth, floored by the taste of him even now. He pushes her back, traces a line down the middle of her face from her hairline to the hollow of her throat, pauses for breath at the dip between her clavicles. It cleaves her in two, her whole self here and open for him.

"You can't be here," he grits out, his eyes closing. His lashes like smudged ink over his cheeks.

She presses two fingers to his bottom lip, tries to push the words back. "I know."

"Really. I'm a suspect. You can't." He sets his jaw against her, the muscles of his abdomen taut, calling to her in a siren song through his shirt.

Her head falls, a curtain of hair blocking her from him. He reaches out to push it back, even now so desperate for her. "I know. Damn it, Castle. I know. But I can't go. Please don't make me go." She looks up at him, her vision the flood he dances in, a mirage.

His resolve crumbles all in his eyes, floods out and down his face, his fingers burning with it when he touches her. He tugs her in to him, cradles her to his chest, his hands carding through her hair. "Of course not. Never. Stay."

Her hands slide underneath his shirt, slide over the smooth skin of his sides, so warm. She bows her head, hums supplication into his sternum. "Castle. I know you didn't do it. I know."

"Kate-" he trips on the stumbling block of her name, hands cupping her shoulder blades. The ridges of her bones grate against him, the lines of her body all at tangents to his.

"Shh." She stretches onto her toes, the momentum rocking her hips into his, her brain whiting out for a second. A startling moment of clarity where she feels every chemical process in every cell all at once, where she feels the slide of her blood cells through her capillaries and the racketing clamour of her synapses working. "Shh," against his lips now, her breath becoming his. "It's okay. I'm going to catch the bastard, I promise you."

She slides her hands around, locks them at his back, her nose settling in at the fold of his collar. She loves the way his scent gets trapped there for her to sink into.

He slides a hand over her back, climbs the ladder of her vertebrae and free falls back down, settles at her hip. His thumb strokes over the jut of her bone, presses hard into the hollow. She breaks apart on the keening edge of a sob, forehead slamming into his shoulder. "I'm not going to let them take you from me."

He finds her lips then, his tongue taking from her, tracing the roof of her mouth, the hard edges of her teeth. She sucks on his tongue, delights in the guttural moan that rips from him. He lifts her into him with his palms hot on her ass, her toes scraping the floor.

She pants into his ear, her tongue tracing the shell of it. Presses her smile against the side of his neck when he clenches his fists in the back of her shirt. "Kate." He breathes her name into her hair, his hands suddenly sliding underneath her bra.

"Castle. Oh shit-" she gasps as he flicks the fastening, starts tugging the hem of her shirt up. His knuckles dragging up her stomach, sending waves of tight need flaring across the flat plane of her abdomen. "Castle. Bed. Oh, now. Now."

Afterwards, when her eyes are still hazy and unfocused, when she looks at him like she still can't believe they're doing this, he only wants her more. He's never sated when it comes to Kate Beckett, will never get enough of the way she tastes, the measured arch of her back, the soft skin of her stomach brushing his.

He traces over her muscles, smiles as they bunch. Dips a fingertip into the pool of her navel and can't stop his laughter when she writhes and rolls over. He immediately fuses his mouth to her spine, sucks at her lumbar curve.

She grits out a sigh and rolls again, moves away from him. "Don't touch me."

He can't help himself, he presses his laughter into her bare skin, feels it resonate through her ribcage. "Sensitive?"

She groans, tugs the sheets up to cover her chest. "Yes. Can I just have a minute, please."

He manages not to anchor her to his side, folds his arms and sits up against the headboard, his whole body thrumming with need. She shifts back over, her nose nudging at the top of his thigh. He grits his teeth against her sloppy kisses, can feel how tired she is in the way her tongue keeps stroking out to taste him.

"Kate. If you want to rest you're really gonna have to stop licking me." He drops a hand to her head, cups her skull.

These are the things he started wanting in their second year. Her hair sifting through his fingers, the hum against his thigh as she finds her voice. The quiet moments that aren't about surging towards an end goal but about savouring each other's presence.

She slides her hand under the covers until she hits his knee, presses her thumb hard into the back of it so his whole leg jerks. "Mm. Claiming you."

He laughs, so delighted with her. "You don't need to claim me. Already been yours for so long now."

Her eyelids flutter, her lashes tickling his skin. "Not letting you go to jail."

Her words tug him back to their reality. Right now, the boys are going over the evidence again and again, trying to find something that points away from Castle. Right now, the captain is probably rubbing her hands together in elation at the thought of being rid of him.

Right now, his mother is somewhere doing something he really doesn't want to know about. Right now, his daughter is at college, still blissfully unaware that her father is a murder suspect.

He tries to forget, he really does. She must sense it anyway because she's sitting up, a hand at his neck to bring him in to her.

Her mouth is still so incredible even now. It still takes his breath away when she yields under him, grants him entrance. He pulls back, drops a kiss to the end of her nose. "Not going to jail."

She grins at him. "If you do, I'll get you out."

He darts forward, kisses her again for that. "Love you too, Kate."