It should be no big deal, should be sweet and cute and nice, being kissed by Richard Castle with her kitchen table between them.

It's anything but.

What it is is hot and wretched and overpowering. It's intense, painful, soul-stripping.

His mouth fuses to hers, unrelenting, taking her. When the lightning bolt of her shock burns clear, Kate finds her hunger pushing her forward, intent and single-minded. Castle is half standing to get at her mouth, and she raises up as well, chair clattering, her hands at his back, tugging him closer to her.

He maneuvers them away from the sharp corner of the table, pushes her towards the couch, but it's too far. She wants to press against him now, not later, not sinking into the soft furniture but hard, rigid, against the wall.

She's hurt him, but she can heal him too. She erase those three months with the wild pressure of her body arching into his.

Kate shoves him where she wants him; his mouth falls away, his eyes wide, but she takes a shallow breath into her lungs and stalks forward, backing him up to the wooden bookcase dividing her living room from the dining area. She takes a moment to appreciate the fact that she's got the author Richard Castle up against the end of her bookshelf, then steps into the wide stance of his braced legs, lets her hands feather across the stretch of denim.

His hips jerk. "Uhhh, Kate. . ."

"Castle," she says softly. "I have to warn you."

She can feel the pounding of his heart under her palm, the heat of his body against her hips, her thighs.

He takes a breath, his eyes darkening, his head lowering to meet her gaze. "Yeah?"

"Now it's my turn," she whispers and leans in to devastate his mouth.

She favors his bottom lip and he's content to let her lead, the stroke of her tongue along his, the edge of her hip bones, the path of her fingers under his shirt. She rocks against him, the bookcase hard at his back, her teeth nibbling, her thumb pressing against his rib.

And then he wants less, less fervor, less frantic, more of the careful tenderness he's felt towards her all evening. More of that 'not yet' from her mouth.

He circles an arm low around her waist, brings his palm up to cup her cheek, brushing his thumb over the angle of her bone. She shivers and slows her assault, breathing against his mouth, her body suddenly easing into his.

She shudders on a breath, like coming down after a crying jag, and he feels her curl into him, her arms along his chest as she strokes her fingers against his face.

He gentles her with a brush of his lips, lets their bodies ease back down into their own skins.

She leans her forehead against his, her breathing more and more natural as they rest. He draws his hand up her back, presses her into him for an embrace, an easy and loose hug that he uses to envelop her with warmth, with love.

"That's enough, Kate," he says softly. Not yet is a long way from where she was leading them, with her driving body, her forceful mouth.

She lets out a long breath, almost a sigh, and circles her arms around his waist. "Will you be okay?" she says quietly.

"I'll survive."

"I want you to be happy," she says back. The with me is unspoken, but he hears it loud and clear.

Castle cradles the back of her head, keeps her close to his shoulder. He doesn't want to let go of this moment. "I'll learn to be patient," he says instead. "And I'll take a lot of cold showers."

She laughs against his shirt; it tapers into a sigh.

"And hey, I'm pretty happy right now. This has. . .made my day. My month."

"I wish I could say. . ."

"Don't," he whispers, feathering his lips against her temple. "Don't, Kate. Just let it be."

"I'm not sure I know how to do that."

He smiles against the top of her head. "Yeah, that doesn't surprise me. We'll figure it out."

The silence between them deepens, a flower in the silver moonlight, exotic and rich. He wraps around her so right, so fitting, his thighs bracing hers, the rise of her chest flush with his. He lets the moment spool out, drag through the minutes, until even the arousal has mellowed into a kind of quiet hum in his blood.

This is when he goes back for her lips, placing his palms against the side of her face, his fingers in her hair, mirroring a stolen, abrupt kiss outside of a warehouse. But he keeps this one gentle, light, grateful. He pours his love into it, a nectar brimming into the cup of her parted, petal lips.

When he drifts back to watch it cascade across her eyes, all of it, the thankfulness and the light and the love, she stays perfectly still, as if trapping the moment, the feeling.

She searches his face for a long second, then licks her bottom lip. "I need to tell you something. Something you deserve to know."

He brushes his fingers along her cheekbone, against the baby-soft skin just before her ear. She tilts her head into his hand and takes a breath.

"When I was. . .at my worst, when I was so low. . .because of my mom, I found your books with her things. On a shelf."

He blinks, his fingers curling around the soft shell of her ear. "Your mom read my books?"

She nods and circles her fingers around his wrist, as if to hold him there. Her lips brush the inside of his forearm. "That's where I first found you, Castle. At the beginning of it all."

Oh. His hand trembles along her ear, he drops it to her shoulder, a little overwhelmed.

"Even then, you had me. Your novels made the world right again, put light back into it. They illuminated the darkness. I wouldn't be. . .half of what I am without those books. Without you."

He rocks forward, shuddering on the wide, dark edge of his love for her, overcome by the strength of her, the will to battle back, awed and humbled that somehow the things he'd written so blithely, so unknowingly, had helped to rebuild a young Kate Beckett.

His words. To her heart.

"I stood in line for three hours to get my copy of 'Storm Season' signed," she whispers, and he can feel the embarrassed grin against his neck. "You smiled at me."

His heart pounds with the lingering image of this vulnerable Kate with his Derek Storm book cradled against her chest.

"I smiled at you."

"When you took the book from me. And then you asked me my name, in that soft voice you get sometimes with Alexis, like you think you're going to have to gently pry the information out of her-"

Oh, Kate. Oh Katie.

If he thought her 'not yet' admission was a beautiful confession, this story of their first meeting is a gift. A gift offered by a woman who knows he needs more than a hot kiss and the pounding of his heart.

"I was terribly young, Castle," she murmurs, her voice tinged with laughter. "And you treated me like your daughter."

"I will definitely not make that mistake again."

"I needed it," she says instead. "And I'm glad you did. You signed my book and then you said, 'Don't stop looking for the truth.' And I. . .I heard you say it to everyone in line before me, but I knew, somehow, that it was just for me."

He closes his eyes, relief and horror and tenderness nearly choking him. In 'Storm Season', Derek overhears a woman's terrible scream and insists a crime has been committed, even though everyone tells him to drop it. Castle told each person whose book he signed that same line, a line from a publicist or agent, he's pretty sure.

"I wrote it on an index card and kept it taped up to my bathroom mirror. . .for years."

He might break at the adoration in her voice. How has he missed this all this time? How much she clung to his books. . .it's humbling and amazing and she's so very beautiful it hurts.

"Kate," he says, his voice low, ragged with her story. "I love you. I love you, Kate."

She closes her eyes, like that's a body blow, but he sees her, instead of having to shake it off, he sees her absorb it, pull it deep into her. And then she opens her eyes.

"I know."

He wants to hear it again. The flickering thing that gives him hope, like a phantom in the distance. "And you?" he whispers.

She looks at him, at first, like he's crazy, like she can't understand why he'd say that, and then it breaks across her face - understanding - and she opens her mouth on a smile.

"Not yet, Castle."

Not yet. He lets himself grin, lets it be wide and thrilled and hopeful, lets her see the way it takes over him.

She ducks her head and laughs into his shoulder, her arms tightening around him.

"Just keep telling me that, Kate. Tell me that until you don't have to anymore."