Bodies at Rest, Chapter 4: A short Castle WIP, Now COMPLETE
A/N: Fourth and final chapter. Thank you all for taking this little ride with me and for your kind and thoughtful reviews!
Here's the first chapter if you missed it.
And here's the second
And the third
"I love your hands."
He's almost asleep when she says it. It's late and the day has been longer than long and the words hang in the darkness. They're quiet and matter of fact and so unlike her that he thinks he imagined them at first. He thinks he must have dropped over the edge into sleep and imagined them.
Everything about the moment is a little unreal. They're curled up with her back to his front, actually sharing a pillow, and that's unusual enough. It's unusual enough that she has his arm pulled across her. That she's the one who settled their bodies like this. That she has his fingers splayed out and she's pressing his palm to her skin. She has it resting against her just so. Just where the two halves of her rib cage sweep away and he can feel the breath gliding in and out of her. It's all unusual enough.
He can feel the words-the shape and weight of each one as she forms it and sets it free. He can feel the moment she releases each one and lets it hang there in the darkness. It's more than just a little unreal. It's new. It's all new and he's lost count of them all and he can't remember when this started. He's lost track of how many little steps it's taken to get here. To this moment.
She says it again, though. Softer this time, but not at all like she's uncertain. He realizes he's holding his breath. She goes on. There are more words and she's tracing the perimeter of his hand now. She's trailing a neat, blunt nail up and down and around the ray of each finger. An outline of him sketched on her skin.
"I love your hands." She says it again. Three times. Like a spell. Like a fairytale. And that's what it is. A story. He feels it as much as hears it. Her ribs rise against his palm and recede and she chooses each word carefully. She tells him a story.
"I didn't think you were real." Her nails trail over the back of his hand and she slides her fingers into the broad spaces between his. "I saw you lots of places. Morning shows and local news. Page six. I liked seeing you. But I didn't think you were real."
She pauses and he thinks she must be done. So many words together and she must be done. He half wonders how long the silence will stretch out from this moment. He worries, like she has a finite supply of words and she's used so many just now. So many.
But it's just a pause. One beat, then another and she goes on.
"I liked to listen." She reaches her free hand up and runs a finger down his throat. She traces an unerring line from the tip of his chin to the notch of his sternum and he doesn't think his skin will ever be the same.
"I love your voice, too," she says, but it's an aside. It's a promise. Another story for another day and he pulls in a breath more because he should than because he wants to. It's a promise, but this is so new, he's afraid he'll break the spell.
But she goes on. More words and more of the story. It settles over him in stages. Pieces. He's not used to so many words together from her. Not like this. Not hanging in the darkness. Not with him lying there with her. The quiet one. The still one. The one waiting while her fingers are busy, and now she chooses her words in twos and threes and they settle over him in stages.
"I stood in line," she says and her palm is heavy over the back of his hand. Their hands together are heavy, a counterweight to the ebb and flow of her words.
"I stood in line and you had this Band-Aid." Her fingertips travels over his skin. They skim over the spot. There's a scar. Hardly anything now except a sweeping arc that shines a little in the right light, but she traces it. She knows its exact size and shape. It's been years and he'd practically forgotten it, but she knows it. "Purple and pink with some cartoon character. I meant to look when it was my turn. I meant to ask. But I forgot."
She tips her chin way back to look up at him and he can't read her. She's smiling and it's playful and wary and open and unsure all at the same time. She holds his gaze for half a minute and decides on something. "I was star-struck."
He knows then. He knows that she's worried, too. That she wants this moment for them both. That she's the one making it and it's new and fragile and she's worried that he'll run his mouth off. That he'll be smug and satisfied and break it to pieces.
He's worried, too. For a minute anyway. But it's not there. The insecurity and bravado are just gone-mostly gone-and in their place is something new that he knows. Something he's sure of. It makes him quiet.
She waits and he's just quiet. He's shaky and he wants to help, but he doesn't know how, so he's quiet.
And then her smile softens and her lips just barely graze his chin and the worry goes out of her as she settles back to the pillow. "You weren't what I expected. And you were. You were cocky and a flirt. But the line was really long, and you took a little time with almost everyone and you weren't like that. When you took time. I didn't expect you to be real and when when it was my turn, I was so surprised that I forgot everything I wanted to say."
She spreads her fingers wide over his. She sets her whole hand inside the frame of his and he loves the contrast like always. His feel broad and clumsy and he loves her hands, too. He loves that they're elegant and slender and strong and every time she touches him, it's like she lends him a little of her grace.
He closes his eyes and breathes. His ribs rise and his chest fits against her spine and it's this new, perfect moment they've just made. She's just made for them.
He wants to say something. He expects the words to come spilling out, but it's the opposite. This is a confession he's been half anticipating for a long time. He's seen the book and she knows.
She has to have known all along. She must have known all this time that he saw them the minute he walked into her place that first time. All those hardcovers in a row. The repetition of his own name.
She must have known that he had hardly waited for her bedroom door to close that night before he took them down one by one and rifled through them. That he examined every corner looking for dog ears. That he slid his fingers over every spine and edge in search of wear. For any sign of what she liked. What she didn't like.
She has to have known that he grinned over her bookplates. That she has them at all. That they're personalized. Her name in elegant type. The way they're affixed with care to each and every book. From the library of . . .
She must have known that he saw it. His own signature and a note. A little more than he usually writes, but nothing special. Nothing nearly special enough for her and he wants to remedy that. He's wanted to since he first saw it at her old place.
She has to have known that he looked again. The very first time at her new place. That he'd looked for it and been relieved-so relieved-to see it. She has all his books, but that one. That one with its contagious magic. The remnant of a moment he doesn't remember.
She has to know that he signed another copy for her. She has to know that he's wanted to replace it all this time. That one with its charred edges warped by water and the terrible smell of smoke. The one with a note that isn't nearly enough.
He'd signed a new one. A new one with a new note. Something better. Something almost enough. It was a long time ago-even before he knew she still had that one-he'd signed a new one. And then he crossed that out and wrote another note and another and another. Weeks later and months later and bleeding into years. He's held on to it for years and tried to make it enough. It's a mess. It's a mess and it's still not enough.
She has to know that he's been racking his brain since the first night he saw it. That he'd taken her warning about sleeping with a gun to heart and he'd almost gone to her anyway, because he wanted to know. He had to know. He's racked his brain ever since, but he doesn't remember. He doesn't remember at all, and it's a cold, hollow place where the moment should be.
But now the story settles over him and sinks in. Her story. A gift. Something new she's giving him and he doesn't know why. Why now?
He doesn't know, but it fills him up with light and this bubbling excitement and no words at all. He presses his lips to the crook of her neck and he can't even get her name out.
He remembers the Band-Aid. It was a deep cut on his right hand. He probably could have used a stitch or two, but Alexis was so sorry. One of the rare times she'd pushed her boundaries and it had come back to bite her almost immediately. To bite him, actually.
She'd taken an antique paper knife from his desk and used it for something or other. Used it for the sake of using it because she wasn't supposed to, maybe, and she'd put it back wrong. He'd sliced open the back of his hand the next time he went blindly rooting around in the jumble of his desk drawer. She'd been so tearful and alarmed that he'd done his best to laugh it off.
"It hurt," he says suddenly. It feels right. His words meeting hers. Hanging in the air and tangling together. She has more of the moment than he does, but not all of it.
He doesn't know why she's telling him. Why after all this time she's telling him, but he's thankful. He wants to give her something, and he can give her this. It's not enough. His side of the story isn't nearly enough, but it's all he has of it. And it's more of the moment. He can give that to her.
"It hurt," he repeats. "It had finally scabbed over and it pulled every time I forgot and grabbed a book with that hand."
He thinks a moment. He squeezes his eyes shut and wills himself to remember. And he does. He remembers some things. He doesn't remember her. No matter how he tries, he just can't picture her, but something clicks and it's relief. It's connection. It's something. It's just a little more than he's had to hold on to since he first slipped the book from her shelf. "Pen! That's why I signed it with pen on the inside. It hurt to hold a sharpie and everything took longer."
He tells her his part of the story. It's brief and inelegant, but he feels her heartbeat speed up. He feels it hammering suddenly beneath the weight of their joined hands, and he wonders why. He wonders if he can ask. If it will break the spell. If the unreal moment will dissolve.
But then she twists her head around to smile up at him. She asks about the knife. He still has it and she knows it. She describes it exactly and she knows where it is right now. Her words tumble fast and she's pleased. She's so pleased at the connection.
"I like it," she says simply as she turns her whole body toward him. As she kisses him with a sweet, satisfied smile. She shrugs down and his other arm comes around her. "I like that I got to ask after all this time."
His hand spans the distance between her bare shoulder blades and her eyes drift closed on a contented shiver. They lie there together and her heart is still tripping along and his with it.
Half his mind is frantic. Half his mind is scrambling for words to keep this. To pin down the memory. Everything he can gather from then and everything she's giving him now.
And half his mind is here-here. With her in this unreal moment. Here, with this lazy energy twining around them. Tugging her mouth up to his. Inching their hands together up her body and oh, thank God, he thinks.
The thought spills into his mind so suddenly that it surprises him. Because he wants her, even though they just . . . even though he was almost asleep. Even though he doesn't want to spoil this. He doesn't want this moment to be over, but he wants her and oh, thank God.
She's leading him. She's making his palm heavy and rough at one breast, light and teasing at the other. She's showing him exactly what she wants and her mouth opens on this soundless miracle when it's just right. When he pinches one nipple, then the other and soothes each in turn with his mouth. When he goes a little further-when he's sharper and rougher and more insistent with hands and teeth than he usually would be-and she urges him on.
She lets his hands go, then. She's on her back and her arms are stretching up and up like she wants them out of the way. Like she can't get enough of her body under his hands and hers are nothing but trouble.
And she's still talking and the unreal moment draws out because she's not like this. She's silent, mostly. Silent until the very last second. Until she breaks and then it's curses through her teeth. Then it's filthy, dark, fantastic things that chase him over the edge in a hurry.
But she's talking now. It's disjointed and breathy and it's hardly sound at all sometimes, but she's talking about his hands. What they're doing. What they've done to her. How she's loved them since the first moment she realized he was real. Fantasies and possibilities are spilling from her lips and it's unreal.
He drifts down her body. His mouth and hands drift and she doesn't hurry him. She doesn't rush him along or insist and that's new. She . . . suggests things. Her hip presses up from the bed into the sharpness of his teeth and his name caught in her throat tells him that it's good.
His tongue sweeps up her inner thigh and her words trail off. He feels her hands hovering. He expects to feel them fisting in his hair the next second because she's impatient. She's always impatient with this. She has definite ideas about this part and he expects the insistent tug and the sharp, wordless orders. He expects it and his head pops up, surprised when her hands hover and withdraw.
She's peering down at him and her face is such a picture of consternation that he laughs and she glares. For a second he worries that he's ruined something. But one of his hands finds one of hers and he drags it down to his mouth. Their tangled fingers brush together over the warm, wet heat between her legs and the world's longest shudder runs through her body.
His tongue flicks over her fingertips one by one and he sets her hand aside. He lays it to rest, gentle and emphatic against her hip, and trails his own fingers in a slow, meandering pattern, down and down and down. She watches him for another long moment, then draws both her hands slowly, deliberately up her body. She lingers with her palms trailing heavy over her breasts, and her name spills out of him in a low, desperate groan.
It's the first thing he's said in a long time and they're both startled by it. They're both startled and the newness of it makes him fierce and protective. He buries his mouth against her thigh and she shushes him crossly and he's lit up inside with it all. With this new thing between them and how much they both want it to work.
He meets her eyes one last time. One last time before her lids drop closed for good and her fingers curl around the pillow. She makes determined fists on either side of her head and her words come again. Slow and fast and throaty and full and hardly words at all. They trickle out intermittently and all in a rush.
His hands roam over her and his mouth is lazy at her hip and low on her stomach and between her thighs. He doesn't even know it's happening at first. That she's coming. He's not sure she does either. There's just a hitch of breath and a sudden snarl of tension that comes and goes-that comes and goes through her from head to toe-and it's like nothing ever before.
He glides up her body and finds her mouth with his. Her hips press and roll with the curve of his hand and it feels like it might go on forever. He's fine with that. He's fine with her words still stuttering out of her, asking and telling just saying like she's been keeping them inside all this time and they have to come out now. Now. And he's fine with that, too.
It feels like it might go on forever, but something changes. Something ends or starts over again, and her hands work their way free of the pillow. She reaches down between them and circles his wrist with her fingers. She drags his palm up her body to her lips. Her calf winds around his and she settles him over her. She curls her hips up and coaxes him inside and he wonders if he'll ever breathe again, let alone speak.
Her eyes flutter closed and her tongue runs over his fingertips. She lets his hand go and her fingers brace against his jaw. She opens her eyes with an effort. Her eyelids are heavy-so heavy-but she's watching him. She's watching him and waiting and he can't look away. He can't and she knows and that satisfies her and he feels like he's in trouble. So much trouble.
She nods. He is. He is in trouble and her tongue peeks out of the corner of her mouth. Her head falls back and he feels the words. Each one starting on a breath beneath him and his head falls to her shoulder and they break around him. He moves with her and her words break around him.
"God, Castle, I love your hands."