#castle-writer

A glass of red wine beside her, Kate sat across from Castle at his desk, reclining casually, one leg resting over the other, multi-colored chips in stacks between them. It’s safer to play in his office, just on the off chance Martha or Alexis might drop in, and either of them are caught in a state of undress or in the process of something even more intimate. Putting their brains together to build theory or against one another in any competitive avenue always did things to her, not to mention the wine sluicing around in her system. 

Despite being relaxed and unwinding after a long day, her heels were still on, more layers to peel off during their game of strip poker. Her blouse was already unbuttoned, giving him the slightest peak down her shirt whenever she leaned forward to procure cards, or place chips for a bet, necklace glinting in the low light of the room nestled between the smooth slight curve of her breasts.

She kept herself cool, composed, years of staring down criminals helping Kate to develop a decent poker face, at least she liked to think it was but Castle had a knack for getting underneath her skin, in more ways than one and as much as she hated to admit it he could read her well. That still wouldn’t stop her from playing aggressively, full of pride, he brought out her competitive side and she didn’t want to lose, especially to him. 

A predatory determination glinted in her eyes when they dipped to survey her cards before lifting and locking back on Castle’s, teeth digging into her lower lip.  “Ready to lose both your clothes and the game?” she murmured, licking her lips and drawing his attention to them. Nothing wrong with a little distraction. 

Her own concentration wasn’t shot for the moment, but she knew it would be.. thing was she knew she could handle distraction better then he could, and she was counting on making this a little bit of fun for the both of them.

Kate supposed she should be grateful that the continuous noises from above were only the product of a man and woman acting like lovesick teenagers rather than anything nefarious. Well, that’s if she ignored the ear splitting squeaking of the bed above, the moans and groans of the loved up pair that often filtered through her desolate, lonely apartment. Now, that was close enough to criminal when she was returning home to her apartment bone weary and tired after late shift, only to be left trying in vain to get some sleep, cursing the two above. Her fellow officers relied on her to be well rested, to watch their back and so did the damn city of New York. Her hours were late, her own habit  of staying up late study her mothers, case, hoping to piece things together while filling out the requisite paperwork pertaining to her actual cases making rest even more difficult to come by. If they weren’t fooling around, they were playing music loud enough to reverberate around her silent room, heavy footfalls announcing every single movement either of them made above.

She hated coming off as a stick in the mud, but she didn’t have a choice. The noise forced her to play the grumpy neighbor, left her scrawling nasty rants in fits of anger and shoving them beneath his door, the words ‘inconsiderate jackasses’ making regular appearances only to be consistently ignored with the excitement from up above raging on as usual. 

Until suddenly, without warning all noise from above ceased and she actually began to get some sleep.  All the noise that had kept her up for months had seemingly disappeared, as though it never existed, and come to think of it, she hadn’t seen the woman who had lived up above her in some time, the red hair hard to miss on the occasion they had crossed paths within the building. No, she’d only seen the man and very rarely did she actually lay eyes on him.

It took her a few more days of talking herself into concern, her detectives brain working, mind picking away at the possibilities, most that she thought up much darker than anyone else would possibly entertain, cases sticking with her after making detective of people getting holed up in their apartments with no-one knowing that something had happened to them until weeks, even months later and she started to wonder if he was okay, finding herself  taking the lift up to his floor and now standing outside his door, a plastic bag containing extra Chinese food in her grasp, some sort of peace offering that she could use as an opening to sate her curiosity. The man who owned the restaurant she frequented was always giving her extra, probably because she was a cop and Espo who she was supposed to be sharing it with had cancelled on her.

[IMG MSSG] @castle-writer

[TXT] A Captains job is never done. I’ve been sitting on my ass for far too long. 

Kate didn’tlook at him, keeping her gaze trained on the murder board. She should have known he was up to something when hismindless chattering had disappeared earlier from her ear. Okay, somaybe she’d let her fingers drift across his knee here and there, made sure hewas looking when she bent to retrieve files, catching his glance whenever shecould. And maybe they’d been interrupted this morning by a body drop but still.

“Castle, we’re at work.” she whispered, swallowing quickly to remove the slight trace of a purr in her voiceand reinforce her tone. Her composure slipped only slightly, his proximity already having an effect on her, always had when he was this close to her, her heartbeat picking up, breath becoming shallow. Trust Castle to invade her personal space, barely a breath away, he’d done this far before they’d ever acted on these fantasies he was now spouting.

“I’ve had Christmas without a tree,” she replied, nonchalantly, her shoulders lifting into a shrug as Kate looked over at him from her seat at her desk, the edge of her lips lifting into a smirk, clearly unconvinced. She chose not to dwell on the reason why, the implication likely obvious to the writer who knew her so well but she wasn’t about to ruin Halloween for him. In fact, his excitement was actually infectious, enough so that her own words didn’t sting. He brought to her life a childlike joy that she thought she’d lost a long time ago and she didn’t have the heart to burst his bubble completely.

As if it wasn’t mortifying enough to dress up and have men bid on her, now spotting Castle in the crowd had her looking for a way to back out. No way. He was not about to embarrass her in front of all her co-workers even more than she already was. If it wasn’t for the mayor, and the good press the precinct needed she wouldn’t be doing this. Immediately, she tried to fake a smile when her name was called, stepping out and on to the stage, but it was probably more like a grimace, her hands tugging on the bottom of her tight blue dress that hugged her curves. While the swarm of faces gave her a sense of stage fright, she focused in on him, trying to catch Castle’s eye, giving him a stare that told him in no uncertain terms not to do anything.

It didn’t take long before the bidding started, and she allowed herself to breathe a sigh of relief as two men continued to bid against one another, but as soon as one pulled out, his hand shot up, his unmistakable voice, placing his bid she’d know it anywhere, she had it in her ear, day after day. There was a smug smirk on his face and it was blatantly obvious that he was loving her distress and his love for seeing her sweat never failed to get on her nerves. Or maybe, maybe he was just going to help her out, make sure that she didn’t have to actually go on a date. He had the money to play with, she dared to hope.