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Sheldon does not believe in astrology. He's made that abundantly clear to Penny over the years, and she has always laughed it off with a comment about how he's typically Taurus-stubborn and far too down to earth.
When she gets the lead role on Em Theory and comes to him to ask for help learning to pronounce the endless strings of scientific words, he sees the leap and flare of the fire in her that she has been endlessly tending for years with a bit part here and a stage role there.
Out of curiosity, he looks up the elemental association for Sagittarius and isn't at all surprised by what he reads.
When he kisses her, he feels that fire, feels it begin to crack him.
When he tries to explain to her why he kissed her, he sees the fire, and knows he should have run before he even smelled the smoke.
Penny challenges him with her mouth. The words come to make sense to him; she's upset and he made her upset and he really needs to stop implying that she is promiscuous because she doesn't like it.
Then she challenges him again with her mouth and her lips on his don't make sense at all, not at first, because he can't categorize the feeling of her mouth against his, the slight push of her teeth behind her lips like a shielded bite, the way the tip of her tongue dancing over his lip makes his skin tingle. Can't box that up as neatly as words at all.
But slowly, as he touches her, this too comes to make sense. The weight of her in his lap, his physical reaction to it, the way touching her skin is completely unlike touching his own: it all coalesces into something that makes a lot of sense.
She is all heat and all warmth and her blonde hair is sunlight spun into a braid down her back that he can twist around his fingers as they kiss, as she guides him into her and he stops breathing for a moment at the sheer rush of sensation. He is painfully aware of the cliché of erupting volcanoes, but what else do you get when you combine earth and fire? What else but rock that splits open to spill the flames everywhere?
All joking and teasing aside, he finds himself fiercely glad that she pushed him beyond that first kiss; that it was a first and not a last. She moves over him with exquisite grace, and no matter what she says about this being rushed, not-special, she's wrong and they both know it, because it's not about the when or the where or the how or even the why, but about who.
Her body is soft but stable as stone as he burns in her, the heat they share exponentially more than any he's ever felt alone. He's aware that it could have been better for her, but as she slips back into her dress she looks well-satisfied nonetheless. He can understand that: fire likes to consume things utterly, and she's burned him to the core.
The only question remaining now is what will rise from these ashes.
Sheldon rather thinks it will be them.