AN: "I have seven minutes left at work. SAVE ME!" She yelled. Thus this was born.

She has seven minutes, seven mortal minutes in a heaven born of desire and longing and want. She has seven minutes to strip Castle of his clothes, to strip them both down to the skin and flesh that quivers and craves, yearns and exalts at the barest touch of the other.

She's not sure why seven minutes, why she even limits herself with time frames and boundaries with him when they have already agreed on a lifetime together, but it feels fated, these seven minutes to tear them both down to the foundations and build them back up again.

Seven seconds of staring into his eyes, seven hours in his bed that first night and seven months to say I love you. Seven different shades of blue that she has counted in the wellspring of his iris when he watches her.

The suit is silk and soft at her palms over shoulders broad and strong, down to arms with muscles tensed to carry the weight that falls upon them. He lifts her, physically, emotionally and with unknowing fingers she tries to convey her thanks, her gratitude for this man who supports her in all things.

She slips the jacket loose and feels it slide against her legs on it's flight to floor, crashing silently at their feet as she maps his chest and tests the beat of his heart against the warmth of her hand.

She has seven minutes and seven buttons on the shirt that trails her fingertips.

Her hands branch across his chest and her nails scrape as his lungs expand, bringing life to cloth and skin alike. She chases the movement and traces each rib with her thumbs, hands running down his sides in a race of delight. Her body moulds to his with finite precision and infinite wisdom born of moments just like this that have gone before.

Kate breathes his name and feels his exhale, light as it ghosts through her hair and heavy in the heated trickle that slips down her neck. One button becomes two becomes three and comes loose as she warms her hands over the exposed areas of his skin.

She reveals him slowly, even with time against her and those seven minutes, seven mortal minutes feeling like seven lifetimes, and all at once no where near enough to express how she feels.

To show how she loves him.

She brushes her lips at the pulse in his neck, the simplest tender touch not enough. Mouths wordlessly I love you at the base of his throat, presses the truth to his skin with the tips of her fingers, speaking to that magnificent beast that roars and thunders through his chest.

It is ferocious, it is terrifying and it is love in the pulsation of muscle and the ripple of heat that emanates from him.

He loves fiercely and undeniably and with seven minutes she seeks to do the same.

Cuffs loose she kisses his palms, his knuckles and the base of his wrists, hands that dwarf her own, that rail in violence for the protection of those he holds dear, that quiver with emotion, offer friendship and support and caress with devoted rapture. Hands that hold life and thread together futures born of imagination and dreams.

Hands that find her in darkness and bring her to light, to life.

He holds her, lifts her chin, seeks her eyes and understanding. She rises up and kisses his lips, soothes soft whispers across his confused brow and tastes a little shock there in the warmth of his mouth.

She laughs and smiles and closes her eyes with her forehead pressed to his, a single syllabled endearment enough to enchant, to charm, to silence.

Time is ticking away.

With wide eyes he releases her arms, traces a single digit across the wet smudge of her kiss stained lips and stares transfixed.

Time is ticking away, but for once it's on her side.

Six minutes to unbuckle his belt, to thread the leather through each loop and stroke out across his thighs, to curve at his hips and tangle at the seams that strain with the width of his legs.

Legs that run into danger, that stride into her life with purpose and intent, that wrap around her in passion, that thread with her own in sleep and lean against her in times of worry. Sturdy and longer than her own, his legs match her pace and fall into a steady rhythm at her side.

Her counterbalance, her metronome. The steady pounding of his footsteps all over her life, her heart, have kept it beating in time for longer than she dares to remember.

She tugs his shirt free and pulls down his zipper, with five minutes remaining to catch his eyes as they flash blue then darken with the brush of her fingertips and the warmth of her breath on his skin.

Skin in pink and amber glow meets her touch and her name becomes a whisper in the coils of her hair, each letter a sonnet, a symphony that plays along each tendril until it finds her ear and settles there, settles at the edge of his lips as they kiss the lobe and call her out.

His voice breaches the silence and shatters her calm, brings fire like a flood, molten lava cascading through veins and over skin, leaking into muscles and swirling in the center of her stomach like a whirlpool.

His voice, dark and rich and sinful in its thorough decimation of her resolve echoes out and over her skin, traces hot wet lines down her spine as if his mouth and teeth and tongue are already against her.

His voice, viscous and thick with desire, settles in her blood, in the moist and wanting recesses of her mind and body, between her legs and toes and tangles in the lashes of her eyes as he breathes across her cheek.

His claiming kiss is painstaking, born of consummate ease and pleasure, a ripple of movement from lip to lip and out over her tongue until mumbled sounds of velvet revelry tumble from them both.

Those large all encompassing hands slip into her hair, those sturdy, purposeful legs slide between her own and that sinful voice sends frissons of thunderous rapture to the tips of her toes.

Four minutes become three as they get lost in that kiss, heaving breath and chasing heartbeats and the touch of silken cloth.

She pushes at his hips and rids him of the last of his clothes, the shirt sliding down from his shoulders, clinging to biceps and elbows and forearms for the barest seconds before she replaces the touch of scant material with her own fevered clinging.

His arms are warm and hard and strong, and they wrap her up in an eternal embrace, a touch she would feel from a million miles away. His skin lingers over hers and fingers splay at the base of her spine as she strokes his face and flicks her tongue out at the early graze of stubble on his chin.

She moans and whispers, worships him with her hands under the silk at his hips and sighs at the drop of his boxers to the floor that leaves him naked. Eager hands spread and curve and mould against the softest of skin and two minutes finds her pushing him back to she can look at him, stare and commit to memory the muscled lines and beautiful details of the man she takes to her bed.

Two minutes to remember his shoes and, with her eyes flicked high to find his as she drops to kiss a path down his legs, she unties them and makes him step out of each one slowly as she grazes her knuckles up the backs of his thighs.

Time slows again in the endless shiver that ricochets out from the flare of her fingers, the hum of movement that makes him quake and surrender to her when she removes his socks and pushes him back onto the bed.

One minute to smile, to laugh when he grunts in surprise and to lose her own clothing, to climb up over him and steal the sound straight from his mouth.

One minute to remember that he is still wearing that long black tie.

One minute to tug it over his head and tighten it at his wrist.

Thirty seconds to loop the other end above his head and feel the shiver that ripples out over his skin when she tickles her way down his side, one arm raised and her hair spilling across his chest as she stares down at him.

It's loose, this nothing knot that comes undone when he pulls, comes undone like she does when he touches her, but for now it holds and good.

Seven mortal minutes in the arms of the man she loves.

Good.

Staring down she smiles, lets their word trickle from her lips and dance across his open, seeking kiss.

Times up, and he's right where she wants him.