The Anatomy of Emotion

Chapter Four

"Corin?"

He doesn't respond, eyes closed with a pair of headphones wrapped around his ears. She comes up behind him and kisses the side of his neck, fingers crawling under his shirt.

He jumps, but his surprise turns into laughter as he pulls his headphones off.

"Hey, you ready?"

"Hm... five more minutes," she straddles his lap and dives further under his shirt.

There is something about his skin that she cannot tear her hands away from. Something about the ripple of his muscles, or the way his skin, even under his clothes, is a little bit coarse. And she loves the way his hipbones feel under her hands, his collarbone under her lips—sharp and delicate.

"If you insist," he stretches into her, "listen while you're at it."

Headphones cradle her ears and she hears herself singing, pausing, singing again. The last section of the song. She pulls away from Corin to nod her head along. It doesn't sound too bad. He spins the chair idly as he watches her.

The song ends, but the recording doesn't close. After a few minutes, there comes the slightly muffled sound of a woman moaning. Her moaning. She sees Corin grinning at her, and realizes she is gaping. There are a few little pauses, inscrutable murmurs, and then the noise gets louder. Louder, longer. Eventually, she hears herself cry out his name, and jumps. Corin laughs at her and spins the chair. She recognizes a few of the moments—her relieved whimper as he finally sank inside her, a ragged noise where he found this perfect spot in her neck, his name again as she came. She only hears him at the very end, groaning and collapsing into pants, and then the recording goes quiet. She pops the headphones off and finds Corin looking unbelievably satisfied with himself. Maeva grabs his face and spends an additional five minutes making out with him.

Finally, she rips herself away from him. All the way, back to her feet.

"Damn you, I'm so late."

"Do you want me to take you to your apartment or your gallery?" He shuts down the booth and grabs his keys.

"Gallery," she tucks her hair behind her ears, "god, Saria had better be able to kiss ass. I'd be reluctant to fire her."

"Really?"

"She's properly afraid of me, she gets shit done," Maeva races for the steps, "come on, move your ass!"

He races her out the front door and jumps into the car—somewhere in his morning accomplishments he had taken the top off. She almost rolls her eyes at his ridiculous productivity. Very seriously considers kissing him over it when she thinks about her breakfast. Neither is within her time window. The clock on the dash reads noon as the car roars to life. Corin puts it in gear and chucks his phone into her lap, requesting music for speeding.

She scrolls through the most ridiculous hodgepodge of music as they drive up the access road, finally settling on a sexy Eurobeat track with insanely accented vocals. The car's sound system is top of the line. As Corin slides his sunglasses on and floors the gas, she strongly suspects that as the reason he had bought it. She leans on the window to watch him drive, and promptly realizes how terrible of an idea that is. His graceful fingers tap out the beat of the song against the shifter, and those sunglasses look very, very good on him. She looks back out at the road blurring by, turning his phone in her hands. Eventually, her curiosity gets the better of her and she pops the case off. There are indeed two new condoms slid beneath it.

"Maeva, what are you doing?" She can see him raising his brows behind his glasses.

"Wondering who the hell keeps condoms in their phone."