Her leg's come up to companion his ribcage, her heel pushing at his hip. He feels like he's moving through something thicker than air -- like the atmosphere has been charged, laid heavy, and they're caught in some kind of cosmic slowdown that makes everything feel like it's happening in slow motion. He drags his eyelids open (they feel like they're weighted with little lead sinkers) and is rewarded with a smokey-eyed, highly aroused Kate Beckett looking back at him, her lower lip plush and pouty. His heart rackets against his sternum.

Slowly dragging his mouth from her breast, down the railroad ties of her ribcage to her stomach. Her navel is small, an almost-invisible fuzz of baby duck-fine blond dusted beneath, a freckle like a punctuation point on the inside of her hip. He slides his hands over her waist, holding her hips beneath his palms as he slides down the mattress, knee going zzpp! with sudden sheetburn. He kisses her kneecap. The inside of her thigh.