Page 66 of Sigma

I sigh, close my eyes. “I’m sorry, Val. I’m sorry.”

“We’ll be there as fast as this jet can get us there. We’re about to go wheels up so I have to let you go. We’re going supersonic once we’re clear, so we’ll be there soon. I promise.”

“You’d better,” I whisper.

“Hold on, Key.”

“Hold on Rinna, you mean.”

13

Into Madness

I’m not breathing. I’m dizzy. Why am I responding this way? What does the pounding in my heart mean? Why do my thoughts twist and tumble like dandelion seeds in a storm’s wind? I can’t make sense of myself. I’m supposed to remember that he’s bad. That I’m a prisoner. That he scares me. That he could still hurt me. Or Mom.

I can’t.

Everything that roots me to reality is being ripped up and burned away by the heat and ferocity of him. This close, the intensity of his presence is like standing in front of an open oven door at full blast—perhaps more like standing too close to the sun.

I suck in a gasping breath, the first in a long moment, and my pulse sets to pounding frantically.

All he’s doing is standing behind me, holding my arms, nose against my throat.

“You feel it,” he murmurs. “I know you do.”

“Feel what?”

“Something burns between us, Corinna.”

I want to deny it.

He skates his hands up my arms, over my shoulders. The neckline of the tunic scoops low to leave a generous portion of my cleavage bare—his fingers trail over the expanse of naked flesh. “Your skin burns.” His palm presses over my left breast. “Your heart pounds.” He brushes a thumb over my lips. “You have to remind yourself to breathe.”

He spins me, crushes me against his chest. Pinions my right hand in his left. Presses my palm to the center of his chest in the opening of his shirt—his skin is on fire. “Feel.” He moves my hand over his heartbeat. “Feel it pounding, Corinna?” He leaves my hand there, and thoughtless wildling that I am, I don’t move it. “Hear my breath? Feel me gasping for breath?”

“What does it mean, Apollo?” I ask, meaning to sound sarcastic and failing.

He ignores my question. His face is close. His lips part. Brush mine. “If I kissed you, Corinna, would you flee?”

I don’t answer.

“You think me a monster, perhaps.” Those lips graze mine again. “A big, bad wolf. You are frightened of me, you say.”

“Yes.”

He reaches behind his back and produces the knife. Without letting go of me or looking away from my eyes, he flips the knife to hold it by the tip and whips it at a nearby orange tree, the entire thing done in a single smooth movement, draw—flip—throw. It thunks into the trunk and sticks, quivering.

“I have not so much as touched you, except with that. Until now.” He pinches my chin in his finger and thumb, and then that thumb brushes over my lips. “Yet you do not flee.”

I swallow and try to breathe. My heart is beating out of my chest.

“You are not afraid of me.” He touches his lips to mine, and I gasp a quiet, shrill breath. “It isthisyou are afraid of.” He kisses me, then, a slow, inexorable slide of his lips on mine. “You arenotafraid of me, andthatis what you fear.” Another kiss. “You like this. You want it. Andthatis what you fear. Not me.”

I’m shaken, shaking. I suck in a sharp breath, but it’s redolent with his scent, his presence. His breath. I could break away. I could knee him. I know moves that could take him to the ground and break his arm in three places. I do none of it.

I just shake in his grip, gasping for breath because his presence leaves me breathless and now his kiss leaves me battered senseless.

Because it wasn’t revolting.