ANATOMY OF A WRITER
For a certain group of writers...you know who you are. Slowly, she worked her way down from his ear, her teeth scraping across the tight tendons of his neck. "Nik," Rook groaned beneath her mouth. "God, Nikki..." "You know they're not actually tendons," her quiet voice startles him out of his absorption. "What?" he asks, glancing up to find Kate standing next to his chair, her eyes on the glowing screen of his laptop. Her gaze drops to his at the same time as her hand leaves the top of his chair and lands at the juncture of his neck and shoulder. "They're not tendons," she repeats, her short nails scratching against his sensitive skin, drawing a shiver from the writer. "They're muscles. The sternocleidomastoid muscle, and then the platysma. To be specific." Castle pulls his bottom lip between his teeth as he regards her, feels the corners of his mouth trying to twitch up at the seriousness on her face. "To be specific," he echoes, and she nods. "Yes," she answers. "You always say you want to get the details right. Or at least, that's the excuse you gave so you could follow me around for four years." "Hey, I-" She cuts him off, fingers rising to trace the border of his neatly trimmed hair, to follow the line around the back of his neck. "Then you've got the splenius capitus. And the trapezius, of course." He shakes his head, her hand falling away from him, unintended - undesired - consequence of his movement. "Details are one thing," he says, a puff of air escaping his nose, a little scoff that makes her eyes narrow at him. "That level of specificity though...it's like post-case paperwork. No one wants to read that." One sculpted eyebrow arches as she looks down at him. "Really." "Really," he defends his words. "If it starts sounding like an anatomy textbook, then-" He doesn't finish his sentence, finds himself suddenly with a lap full of woman, her arms twining around his back as she leans into him, her breasts soft and round against his chest, her warm breath bathing his skin as her nose bumps against his temple. "So you don't think specificity is sexy?" she purrs as her fingers curl around his shoulder blade. He turns his head, tries to meet her eyes, but she keeps her cheek pressed to his. "Well, I mean, maybe some-" "Slowly, she worked her way down from his ear, her teeth scraping across his tight sternocleidomastoid muscle," Kate murmurs, her voice pitched lower than usual. She follows the words with action, opens her mouth against his skin to demonstrate on his neck. "'Nik,' Rook groaned beneath her mouth. 'God, Nikki...'" He swallows hard at her recitation, feels her lips curling against the underside of her jaw. '"I can see the undulations of your jugular,' she whispered throatily," Kate says, her words calm and confident. Castle opens his mouth to respond, to give her some snarky comment for her description, but his mind whites out when her body ripples against his, her lips descending to the unbuttoned collar of his midnight blue shirt. "Pressing the flat of her tongue against the ridge of his clavicle, Heat let out a slow exhale against the journalist's skin," Kate murmurs, and he feels a soft, wet pressure sliding down toward the hollow of his throat. "Her nails scratched lightly against his cotton-covered pectorals, and she reveled in the contraction of his rectus abdominis as he-" "His what?" Castle asks, pressing his head against the back of his desk chair to get a good look at the detective in his lap. Her eyes are hooded, dark and mischievous, her face flushed with pleasure and teasing. She trails her fingers down his chest slowly, opening the rest of his buttons along the way. "Rectus abdominis," she repeats, tugging his dress shirt out of his jeans and rucking up the thin white t-shirt underneath to press her palm against the middle of his torso. "It's this long, flat muscle here. Your abs. Six pack." He frowns, his gaze on her roving hand. "Six pack. I wish." Her fingers curl against him, warm and sure, and her eyes lift to his. "You're perfect, Castle," she says softly, the teasing disappearing from her voice. "And you're mine." His breath catches in his throat at the tenderness in her eyes, and he sets his hand over hers. "Kate, I-" But she presses a finger to his lips. "I know. Back to the story?" He nods silently. "-and she reveled in the contraction of his rectus abdominis as he shuddered under her touch," Kate continues, her fingers still moving against his heated skin. "She loved this about him, Heat realized. The way his body responded to her, the way she could feel every inch of him reacting to her, the way she could look up and find his eyes hazy with desire, his pupils dilated, the way his lips parted as he sucked in desperate, shallow breaths that inflated his lungs, his ribs rising to meet her hands." Her eyes haven't left his as she narrates, and Castle realizes her words are a mirror of him, of the effect she has on him. He lets out a shaky breath, struck suddenly by how she knows him, how she observes him the same way he has always watched her. His hand falls to her thigh, his thumb rubbing against the worn inseam of her favorite jeans. She stutters for a moment, but recovers smoothly, her voice dropping lower, her head tipping forward until she regards him from beneath dark lashes. "'Rook,' Nikki growled, her palms flattening over his external obliques and sliding up," the detective says, both of her hands now gliding across his skin, beneath his t-shirt until the pads of her fingers find the slight curves of his chest. "'I want-'" She pauses and Castle discovers he's been holding his breath, anticipating what comes next. He doesn't have to wait long. "The journalist didn't let her finish," Kate goes on. "As Heat's fingers tripped over his pectorals toward his deltoids, Jameson Rook leaned forward, pressing his mouth to hers in a fierce kiss, and Nikki could feel his hands moving, twisting and maneuvering until he could pull off his shirt." But Castle makes no such move. He's not entirely sure, even now, exactly what's going on. She could be simply making a point. All the same, his fingers twitch toward the hem of his shirt, and he sees her eyes dart toward the movement. She slides off his lap. That was it, then. Except- "Heat slid one foot to the floor and then the other, breaking their kiss as she stood, leaning over to pluck the shirt from Rook's hands and depositing it on the floor," Kate says, her voice quietly devastating to his ability to keep from reaching out to her, to keep from picking her up and carrying her to bed. She reaches down, grasps the hem of Castle's undershirt, and for a moment he's sightless as she tugs both t-shirt and dress shirt over his head. Her hands curve around his back, and she pulls him up, still talking. "Rook got to his feet, his body pressing Heat's into the edge of his desk. Her fingers found his spine, the heel of her hand sweeping over his latissimus dorsi as she made her way toward the waistband of his pants." Kate's hands, like those of her fictional counterpart, are still on the move, and he hears himself let out a soft grunt as she caresses his lower back, fingers dipping beneath both denim and boxers. A puff of air against his neck lets him know she heard him. "The journalist sucked in a deep breath as Nikki's palms slid lower, the tip of one finger finding his sacrum and rubbing a slow circle over the spot. Rook's hips bucked forward, his quadriceps flexing so much that Heat could feel the movement, even through the barrier of their pants." Castle realizes his eyes are closed, that his whole body is canted into hers, that he's pressing her hard against his desk, their thighs overlapping. He leans back, tries to breathe. "'Nik,' Rook groaned, and the detective took pity on him, slid her hands back up and around until they met at his sternum so she could gently force him back a step," Kate says, her own hands coasting around his ribs to land on his chest and pressing against his flushed skin. "Kate," Castle groans, dipping his head to kiss her, but she turns and his lips glance off her cheek. Her palms are heavy on his shoulders, and he follows her lead, nudges his desk chair out of the way and lets her guide him down. "She pushed him down until he lay supine on the floor next to his desk," the detective murmurs, and then her eyes meet his, flashing with humor. "Supine. Not prone. I hate it when writers get that wrong." Castle grins, a little breathless with need. "I would never dare." She nods, smirking, and follows him to the floor. "Heat heard the soft thud as Rook's scapulae met the hard wood floor, but the journalist didn't seem to mind, not when Nikki was balanced over him, her thighs bracketing his hips, her thumbs digging into the soft flesh just below his navel." "The rectus abdominis muscle, right?" Castle asks, and she nods, one eyebrow quirking upward as he grins. "I've been paying attention." She laughs, the sound rich and full in his ears, squeezing something nameless inside of him. "And then the detective let her hands wander," Kate says in a near whisper. "She traced the taper of his abdominals, rasped the nails of one hand across his iliac crest and made him thrust his pelvis hard against hers, while the other hand set to work on his button and zipper." He's helpless beneath her now, drawn in by her voice and her words and her touch, mesmerized by the intoxicating blend of lust and mischief and adoration in her eyes. Her fingers tug on his waistband and he grits his teeth as she goes on. "Rook lifted his hips, and Heat raised her own body, sliding the expensive denim over his quadriceps, her fingers mapping his sartorius as she watched his face, the clenching of his jaw as he strained against the need." "Kate," he murmurs gruffly, unable to hold back any longer. Her eyes rake over his face, and then she leans forward, her hands on his bare biceps bracing her above him. "Still think specificity isn't sexy?" He shakes his head. "Anything that results in you undressing me is sexy." "Good," she says, sitting up suddenly and jerking her head toward the darkened laptop on his desk. "Then I hope you actually *were* paying attention. You should probably get this down." She lists to one side, smirking as she prepares to move away from him, to stand up. But he catches her, his hands spanning her trim waist easily. He grins, sliding one hand up to the back of her head and tugging her toward him as he carefully, quickly rolls them over. Surprise registers on her face as he hovers over her, his weight braced on his knees and forearms, one hand still cradling her head. "I remember reading somewhere that there are more than six hundred muscles in the human body," he drawls. "And Nikki and Rook haven't covered half of them yet." She rolls her eyes, but her lips curl in a tender, teasing smile. "So, what? You want me to do your job for you? Who's the writer here, Castle?" He leans down, his mouth hovering over that tendon - no, he corrects himself, the sternocleidomastoid muscle - in her neck, and breathes hotly into her ear. "I'm always up for a little collaboration." the end