QUOTE : Seven and a half.” He breathed the words next to her ear. <br /><br />Her eyes snapped open, all coffee-colored impatience. “You’re supposed to go lower, to meet me. Six and a half, you should say.” <br /><br />“Eight,” he murmured into her shoulder. “And I’ll go lower, to meet you, any time you like.” He flicked his tongue across her spine and caught the little shock that went charging up from her tailbone to the base of her skull. When he lifted his head to look in the mirror, her cheeks were red and her chin was down, all fierce attention leveled on his watch. <br /><br />Eight minutes it was, then. He kissed her, and kissed and kissed and kissed her until he knew that narrow path of skin, and the knobbly scaffolding underneath, the way he knew the lines on his own palm. He knew her scent, and he knew her taste, and he knew which vertebra put a catch in her breath when he brushed it with his lips. He could learn her whole body by mouth, if she would but let him, and distract her all out of her mind.