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He just glares at me. I roll my eyes.
“Remember that timeyesterdaywith the bullets and the exploding window and the near death and all that fun stuff?”
“It rings a bell,” he grumps back.
“Wow! Amazing! Me too! Probably becauseI was there!” I smile sweetly. “So, yes, Castle, I’mwellaware of the security concerns involved with me leaving this apartment.”
“Fantastic.” He sucks on his teeth, his brow furrowing. “Are we also clear on the other matters we were discussing earlier?”
“You mean, am I clear that you just wanted to come in my mouth and go down on me, but that you don’t want us to fall in love with each other?”
Watching a grown man blush—especially a man as gruff, big, and imposing as Castle—is something I hope everyone can experience at least once in their life.
“Yes, dear.” I flash a saccharine smile at him as I pat his chest. “Yet again,I got it. Okay?”
After he leaves, I stare at the apartment door with a mix of annoyance and guilt. Annoyance because he keeps feeling the need to remind me that what happened between us was just sex—or at least as near to sex as I’ve ever gotten.
The guilt, though, is all me. Because not-so-deep down, even though I keep telling him to relax, and that I get it, and that it’s fine…
It’s not. It’s really, really not.
I’m lying to him, and therein lies the guilt.
But if I can’t get what I want from Castle, I’ll steal it from him in my own private way. So, fine, sure. Last night and what happened in the library at the brownstone can be “just sex” or “a mistake” to him.
To me, though? To me, a little taste of heaven is better than nothing at all.
* * *
For a week,we fall into a stalemate. It’s like the Cold War in here. We talk, but only peripherally about mundane things. It’s never conversation, it’s just information. Like “do you want the first or second shower, Callie?”
The answer in my head, of course, is “I want to showerwith you”, but I don’t actually have the ovaries to say that out loud to him.
Ican’tsay that to him. He’s made that abundantly clear.
But I can still think it, dammit. I can still fantasize about it, and gasp quietly into my pillow at night as I imagine Castle slipping into the room, pinning me to the bed, and ravaging me.
Finally, after about a week of him going off to play King of the Kildares during the day while I’m stuck like a prisoner in this gilded cage, feeling like I’m going to die of actual boredom from binging episodes ofNinety Day Fiancé, Neve stops by to keep me company. Security has been beefed up around everyone in her family as well as mine. But since it’s pretty clear who the target was, the rest of them are all still free to, well, be free. They’re not prisoners like me.
“So, how’re you doing?”
I shrug as the two of us lounge on the sofa in front of the big stone fireplace with cups of coffee. The fact that all I can think about is Castle pulling me onto his mouth after I moaned around his cock the other nighton this very couchhas my face burning hotly as I try to hide behind my coffee mug.
“Oh…fine.”
She snickers, shaking her head as she looks around the penthouse. “Sorry, I know this is serious, and I’m notat alltrying to downplay the fact that you got shot at and everything…”
My brows lift. “But?”
“But I’mtickledthat Castle is living his worst nightmare right now.”
I tense, frowning. “Um…meaning?”
Neve laughs, instantly reaching over to squeeze my arm affectionately. “Oh my God, no, sorry. That came out totally wrong. I don’t meanyou. I mean the fact that he’s forced to play house like this and live with a woman,” she giggles. “I mean, obviously you’re not like,a girlfriendor whatever.”
“Yeah…obviously,” I mumble through a forced smile. Then my brow furrows. “Wait, so…what exactly do you mean?”
She rolls her eyes. “Eilish and I—and Cillian, and Una, basically everyone—have tried to set Castle up with women like a million times.”
