Page 67 of Sigma

Because he isn’t wrong.

“I wonder how far I could push you before you break?” he muses.

“Apollo…” I breathe, but it trails off into nothingness.

He kisses me again, more deeply, more slowly. A touch of his tongue to mine leaves me whimpering, knees jellied. How can he do such things to me? Take my breath away, make me gasp, make my knees give out? I don’t understand my body’s reaction to him.

“Such sounds you make, Corinna.” Another kiss, then, and I whimper again at the touch of his tongue—the sound is involuntary, drawn from me. “From a mere kiss, at that.”

What’s happening to me?

I’m leaning against him, hands pinned between my body and his. My face is tilted up to his—our height difference is just enough that I have to look up ever so slightly at him. His hands touch my face. Gentle, fingertips grazing my cheeks, my jaw. Almost a tickling touch. Another kiss, this one lasting and deep and probing, his tongue slicking against mine. And at this kiss, his fingers trail over my neck and across my shoulders, down my arms. His palms brush against my sides, and then his hands come to rest on the swell of my hips. His touch makes me shake. I gasp into the kiss, and he breaks it.

“Here you remain, letting me kiss you.” A light squeeze of his hands, fingers dimpling into the swell of my hips. “Letting me hold you, letting me touch you. You could run, Corinna. Tell me to stop. Tell me you don’t still feel the sting of my lips on yours, as I still feel it.”

My lips burn from the sting of his lips.

“Will you kiss me back?” He nudges my lips with his. “Try it, Corinna. You have already fallen this far into madness with me, why not a little further?”

What is he saying? Where does this sorcerous poetry of his words come from?

“Kiss me back, Corinna. See how I taste. See how it feels to kiss me back.”

This far into madness, indeed.

It is madness.

But I have fallen into this with him. Allowed it, and now I can’t deny it. Can’t say I don’t feel it. Can’t say he’s wrong, because he’s not.

He teases his mouth on mine. His tongue flickers against my lips. “Kiss me, Corinna.” It’s a whisper—It’s hypnosis, surely. “Kiss me.”

I kiss him. Damn me, I do.

I gasp, and my fingers curl against his chest—against his skin, digging into the firm muscle of his bare torso. And I kiss him.

I push up, lift onto my toes and surge against him and taste his mouth, feel the heat of his breath and the strong press of his tongue as he meets my kiss.

Some wall is broken down when I kiss him. The thing which tells me how terrible an idea this is, how irresponsible and crazy and even sick it is—it’s bowled over and blown away.

There’s only the kiss, then.

His hunger is a tangible thing. I feel it. It’s in the way his fingers grip me and pull me closer, hold me against him. It’s in the way his lips guide the kiss, taking us deeper.

My palms flatten on his chest, and as the kiss goes on, hotter and deeper, with more tongue and no breaks for breath, my hands scrape up to his shoulders. Push at the shirt.

I feel it give. Something pops, and ticks against the floor. His shoulders are bare, suddenly, and I’m greedy for them. The hard round muscle fills my hands and makes my mouth wild for his, and I couldn’t stop kissing him if I tried. It’s his arms in my hands, then, biceps firm and thick. His chest. The shirt strains against my wandering hands, stopping their downward journey.

His hands jerk apart, and I hear a rain of clicking and ticking, and all I know is that I’m allowed to touch his chest and his stomach, that my hands have been granted an unobstructed path across the furrowed plain of his abs, and my fingers trace them, circling each hard block, following each deeply-etched groove.

More.

I gasp for breath, but then I’m right back into the kiss, tasting him and lost to the wild wonder of his mouth seeking mine, seeking more of my kiss as if he’s never tasted anything like it before and must have all there is, right now, forever. His hands score up my back, clutch me closer to him. I mirror his touch, and there is no shirt in the way. It’s gone, somewhere. There’s only skin—his skin under my hands, his muscle under my touch.

I’m hot—overheated.

Something opens within me—a void. A need. A gaping chasm that needs filling. It frightens me, the intensity of my need, but it’s too demanding to be denied.

My voice is gone. Stolen by the fire of this kiss. It’s a firestorm and I’m helpless before it.