warm you up
The morning after (or middle of the night after, just after).
castle/beckett - nc-17
a/n: Spoilers for 4.23 - Always.
She’s warm when she wakes up. Warm and naked and stomach down on…Castle’s bed?
Oh.
Something feels good on the back of her neck, on her shoulder blades. Warm and good and she sighs, pressing deeper into her (his) pillow. “Mm, Castle?” she mumbles, not opening her eyes. It doesn’t feel like morning yet and she doesn’t want to move.
The warm feeling spreads as she realizes what’s causing it, the feather light press of his lips across her scapula, the barest brush of his tongue on her bare skin.
“What are you doing?” she breathes softly, sliding her arm farther underneath her pillow and stretching out a little bit, lengthening the sore muscles just underneath her skin.
“Touching you.”
Her breath stops at that, a little groan stuck in her throat. He touches her now.
“Didn’t get enough of that before?”
“Never,” he whispers into her neck like a prayer. She moves to turn over, to look at him, but he holds her down with a gentle pressure against her shoulder. “Let me?” he asks, trailing his tongue up the nape of her neck, making her bite her lip. She’s wide awake now.
“Okay.” She relaxes again, letting her eyelashes dance against her cheeks, feeling the way his lips rove over every inch of bare skin he can find. His fingers start wandering too, now that she’s awake, from her shoulder down her side, under the covers and over the curve of her hip, tripping down and across her stomach where there’s a little bit of space between her and the mattress. When his palm is flat against her lower abdomen, pinky dipping precariously close to the place that would turn this into much, much more than just a gentle middle of the night exploration, she feels him shift closer and press his front against her entire back.
“Was it enough for you?” he whispers into her ear, voice full of gravel, scraping down her spine, making her shiver. “Before.”
“No,” she swears, and then she’s all sharp inhalations because his hand is sliding between her legs and it’s so new, so so new and she doesn’t know the way his hands work like this. She’s watched him scribble notes for his books a thousand times with those fingers but she’s never seen him slide them along her body, slide them like he knows every place she wants to be touched. She’s moaning his name as her fingers fist around the pillow case, her hips moving against his hand and the mattress, rhythmic and intoxicating.
“I never want to stop touching you,” he growls, practically on top of her back now. She can feel all the hard and soft planes of him, pressing against her, urging her on and setting her on fire.
“Don’t,” she gasps. “Don’t stop Castle.” He doesn’t stop, doesn’t let up until her spine is bowing and her hand reaches back to grasp onto his head, going rigid underneath him and then shaky and then done, collapsed under the weight of what he can do to her now.
Her breath is shuddery as she lets it fan out across her pillow, swallowing the thick taste of desire down her throat. His hand moves off her shoulder then, freeing her up to turn around, so she finally does, finding herself locked in the most intense stare she’s ever seen from him. He is really, really close.
They’re in bed together. Jesus.
“Hey,” he says softly, mouth curving up into a grin, and there it is, there he is, this adorable, infuriating man, the one who brings her coffee and has her back and can get her gasping in a matter of moments, apparently.
“Your turn?” she asks, dragging her fingers up the inside of his thigh without pretense, watching as his eyes go from warm to wide.
Oh this is going to be fun, she thinks.
The second time she wakes up, she’s cold. Cold because she’s not wearing any clothes and cold because Castle has somehow stolen all of the blankets.
“Castle,” she huffs, kicking the jumbled mass near the edge of the bed that she thinks is his leg. It’s so wrapped up in covers that she can’t even really tell. She grabs at the corner of the comforter sticking up around his chin, yanks it until he rolls over, almost sleepily crushing her. “Jeeze, Castle,” she grunts, scooting away so he doesn’t roll right over her, trying to cover herself with a corner of the blanket that’s as big as a hand towel.
He must be doing this on purpose.
“Beckett?” he mumbles, snuggling deeper into his cocoon of warmth. Lucky him.
“Yeah, remember me?” She’s going for annoyed but doesn’t really hit it, voice still too thick with satisfaction to hold any bite.
“Mmm,” he hums, rolling over so his face is pressed against her chest. He’s not even awake and he’s going right for her boobs, typical.
She gives up trying to unwrap the blankets from him, decides that the small amount of sunlight leaking through the blinds means it’s a respectable enough hour to get up. She leans into his ear, letting her fingernails scrape gently along the shell of it.
“I’m going to go get in your shower to warm up, since you’re stealing all the blankets,” she says, voice barely more than air. She feels him swallow against her shoulder, more awake than he’s letting on. “Come join me if you can tear yourself away.”
She slides out from under him, watches as his face connects with the sheet where she was just laying, scrunches her nose up at him because he looks so rumply when he sleeps.
His tile is cold as she pads into the bathroom on her tip toes, turns the water to as hot as she thinks she can stand it, waits with an outstretched palm for it to get warm enough to submerge herself. He almost catches her off guard when he comes up behind her, wrapping two big, hot palms across her middle.
“My bed is cold without you,” he kisses into her neck, open mouth taking liberties she wishes she’d always allowed him.
“Oh really,” she hums, turning the water a little hotter, though she suddenly feels less chilly with Castle’s body halfway wrapped around her.
“Mmhmm.”
She lets her hand trail down his arm until she’s grasping his, pulls him over the threshold of the shower stall. “Then let’s warm you up.”
His eyes sparkle at her as she pushes him under the spray and she laughs, watches him wince at the scalding water until he’s grabbing her around her biceps, pulling her right under with him.
“Castle!” she swears, arching her back out of the super hot spray and conveniently right into his slippery body. His eyebrow rises like this was his plan all along, to steal all the blankets and get her soaking wet in his overly large, ten spray spa shower.
“Beckett,” he volleys back, voice low and oh they’re both kind of naked and also they’re doing this now. She narrows her eyes, pushing closer to him deliberately, turning the tables a little bit, because in the end, it’s really her with all the power here. She bites her lip exaggeratedly, watches as his eyes trip down to it without his permission. She can already feel him reacting against her stomach.
“Warm me up, baby,” she whispers against his mouth, almost laughs at the noise he makes at the moniker, swallows it whole.
She’s never going to be cold again.