Why was it that my heart rate didn't slow a single beat when she said that?

His heart beat again, a single beat like a drum.

With a single, feathery beat of his legs he Waved to her.

As opposed to simple time which is ordinary single beats.

If anyone had told her that the world could change in the single beat of a heart, she would have laughed.

Inside her, something exactly like a heart thumped hard and fast for a single beat before she could control it again.

She paused for a single beat, then pointedly added two more words: "On stage."

He holds that connection for a single beat, not even a second, and then goes on.

"But as you see, that can change in the single beat of a heart."

What can you offer them that sets the heart a single beat faster, or promises one day different from the last?