milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Beckett is running.

To work out, mostly, but also to clear her head.

(There's a lot in there that needs clearing.)

She's outside, dressed just enough to stay warm and trying to make her way back to the bar before it gets too dark and she's forced to dodge demon bunnies or whatever else lurks out in the shadows. By the time she returns, she's made good time, and stops to do a few finishing stretches, hoisting her foot up onto the railing and trying to touch her nose to her leg.

She's got headphones in, so she may not hear you if you approach quietly. And we don't advise sneaking up on her, either.

[ tiny tag: rick castle ]

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And now Castle has a chance to be brave where she doesn't want to be, thrusting his feet into the murky sand bar while hers wiggle for purchase beside him. He feels the pressure of her presence pushing against him, the wave form Beckett, and he draws some courage from the fact that she hasn't swum for shore yet.

Her finger has frozen, suspended in a damp brunette curl, and Castle passes his hand over her cheek, drawing her lips toward his. First kisses? Aren't invasive. They're exploratory. Beckett's upper lip submits freely, but her bottom is still hesitant. That's almost charming and coquettish. Castle brings his mouth close to hers, near enough to feel the ozone rising from her lips, close enough to let his mouth skim the edges of her breath.

It's quiet, almost too quiet now, and the only sound apart from the water lazily lapping at the intrusion of their bodies is their breathing, quickening and sharp. Beckett somehow manages to untangle her finger from her hair, letting her hand drift below the water's surface in the same beat that Castle cups her cheek in his hand.

He's too close for her to make an excuse, to laugh it off as some kind of play at humor, and she knows that even speaking at this point will cause her lips to brush against his with every syllable.

"Castle," she murmurs.

His surname has never sounded so intimate.

It drives and stokes whatever impetus has gotten him this far, coaxing his hands along her hips, his fingers trailing along the slim, calculable curve of her jaw. CAS - TUHL. That's a breath, and that's all that Castle needs to bring his mouth against hers, low and sweet.

It's slow, sweet, almost tentative, and then her lips part just a fraction of an inch to deepen it, her fingers sliding through the hair on the back of his head to grip just there. while she leans forward to press just there. She practically melts against him with a hitch of breath and a ghost of a whimper.

He has always thought of Kate Beckett as a warrior. Battlements full and prepared, ready to take on any enemy, ready to buck of any foreign invader and this -- simple, sweet surrender -- Castle barely has the means or will to explain it, her mouth parting beneath his, tasting of a brine as old as time itself. He's aware of the press of nails on the back of his neck and that's exactly his impetus to move forward, hands along her spine, his mouth responding in kind.

It would be easy, she thinks, to lose herself in this. To give herself over in a way few have been privy to witness, and so she doesn't. Not completely. There's something trying to draw her back - fear, maybe - but the pull of his body is strong, warm, his arms encircling her and tugging her in, his mouth unwavering against her own. She pushes away her doubts and jumps in head-first, her own arms sliding around him to close all remaining distance.

The strength of her arms bands around his middle and it's the first thing to shock him away from the immediate stupor of the kiss. 'Lips still against hers, heavy ozone weighing itself between their tongues, his breath a curl away from meeting hers. Kate Beckett tastes like fatigue, but also of the mellow, sweet taste that Castle always knew she'd been hiding from him. His lower lip rests against hers, plump and ready, the clinch of her arms soldering him closer still.

He slides his fingers past her jaw toward her hair, fingers folding in the wild untamed, his mouth deepening and securing.

He is strong, this close. She'd forgotten it for a little while, her earlier reminder being the time he'd pulled her into his arms on the dance floor. She's still not convinced he didn't have ulterior motives then, but here, there's no doubt where his intentions lie. It's enough to overwhelm her senses, her nerve endings, especially when his fingers slide through her hair.

Her head tips back against his hand, causing him to have to lean forward if he wants to preserve the intensity of the kiss.

Something pulls him back. (Something always has to.) Her lower lips is slim and perdant and he tastes the cherries he once teased her about before reality leaps ahead of him. Her small, aeroline nose against his, breath puffing against his lips. He's aware of it all as he draws away, the sticky fronds of her hair plastered against his skin.

He can taste her still. Coffee and coconut.

His fingers brush the bottom of her earlobe.

He says, "Told you so," like he's the be-all, end-all of kisses.

Her eyes track his before something in her forehead creases at his words and she manages a quiet, though not entirely convincing scoff. Her gaze rises then, as she shrugs one shoulder and glances up at the midnight blue sky with an expression of faux-innocence.

"It was alright, I guess," she says, feigning reluctance, though she sucks her lower lip into her mouth and tries not to think about what she's tasting that she can only attribute to Castle.

His hands come apart from her, as gradually they should, and sooner or later he's standing on his own on the seabed with the memory of her between his palms. He was sure that something passed between them between the coming and the going but, christ, it defies adjectives and Castle can only watch Beckett as her brow furrows in feigned reluctance, as if he's the last man she ever wants to see.

Some of that, he thinks, gives him courage.

"Better than your ex, right?"

"That, Castle," Beckett answers, "is something I think you're more than capable of figuring out for yourself."

She'll leave him to ponder that thought as she wades in towards the beach, squeezing out the ends of her hair, and spreads out the towel he's brought along with him, taking a seat to let the warm night air dry her off first.

It'll take Castle a little while longer to linger in the surf. She's breached the surface -- damn her prescience for being able to know when she needs a two-piece -- before he can squeegee off his shorts, stumbling ashore beside her with a puff of sand.

Shore is colder, closer, and he rubs his ears with the side she's not using.

"Jesus, it's cold --" he bundles half the towel against his ear "-- do you do this every night?"

"Not every night. You're cold?"

She glances back at him, flicking a few wet strands of hair out of her eyes.

"Here." Beckett picks up her jacket, brushing some sand off the sleeve, and settles it around his shoulders, pulling the sides in close over his chest.

Her jacket is at least three sizes too small and she knows it. Castle moves his hands along her new, warm hips and sees the edges of a crooked smile that he recognizes. She's trying to keep him warm, well, his hands move along the wheelhouse of her hips and over her waist, where the ties of her ribs stick out and risk comment.

He tucks his cheek along her own.

"Better," he says.

"Good," she sighs.

Her arms settle underneath his, encircling, tucking her hands in along the crooks of his elbows while she settles back against his shoulder.

"It's almost like vacation. Didn't I tell you?"

"You never take a vacation." Even as her elbows settle under the juts of his elbows, nesting in the cold oceanic breeze. The fronds of Beckett's bikini sleight over the back of his hand. He smoothes his palm over her skin -- brisk, comfortable -- to stir the heat in her so she doesn't miss the mainland.

There's something warm about not letting her go.

He curls his hands selfishly around her body. This is as close to Beckett as he's gotten in a while and, even if he's cheating with the weather for a reason, he's not going to give it up easy.

A beat. Then, because he can never recognize a moment and let that moment stick,

"I've got sand in my...well, everywhere at this point. The beach does not discriminate."

Edited 2010-02-07 12:59 (UTC)

"That's the thing about Milliways. You could take all the vacations you wanted here and it would be like you'd never left at all by the time you go back."

Which was probably the only reason she'd wound up in France - that, and because Kate wasn't going to let her hear the end of it until she tagged along. Beckett grins, first at that memory and then at Castle's admittance.

"Well, I am paying for the room back in the Bar for a reason, y'know."

Rinsing off in salt water had been less of a good idea than she'd originally anticipated; now, all she wants to do is shower and get a few extra hours of sleep here while she can afford to.

He gives her shoulders a brisk buffing with his palms and steps back, collecting the pieces of his suit from the sand like a beach-comber looks for shells. "I should get back uptown," he says. "I was on my way back to my apartment when I got stopped by your fitness regimen. Alexis is probably wondering where I am."

She's still not completely dry, but re-dresses just the same, using the hairtie around her wrist to secure her damp hair off the back of her neck in a messy bun.

"Well, time passes differently here, so unless you were late already, you'll be right back where you started as soon as you head back through," Beckett explains.

"I'm always late," he admits with a grin. "Except when I'm on time. Coincidentally, that ties in with the whole 'party sub' thing I mentioned earlier."

She steals her jacket back, sliding her arms through the sleeves and zipping it up to her neck, already dreading the short, chilly trek back to the bar.

"Don't I know it," she murmurs.

He looks ridiculous with his suit jacket over his bare chest, swim trunks dripping pitifully. He'll have to go back to Bar and regroup, 'try to come up with a story about why he's dripping wet in the middle of a Manhattan afternoon.

"This doesn't have to be weird, right?"

Out of nowhere.

She's in the middle of bending over to pick up the towel when he asks the question, and hesitates for barely a second before she follows through with the motion, busying herself with shaking off the sand.

"Why would it be weird?" she quickly answers, though she doesn't quite look at him in the semi-darkness.

That's the kind of question with claws. Jaws. A six-foot security perimeter. He either lies and says that it's not weird -- not at all, not one iota -- and she sees through him like plate glass, or he cops to the fact that it is very weird and then they have to talk about it. Right now, neither option sounds like a winner.

So he resorts to,

"I don't know?" with the upward, interrogative inflection that denotes he's really out of his depth.