Thanks for the positive response and likes/follows. Please be aware that this chapter is very graphic. Should you wish to continue reading, be prepared for 50 Shades of Phantom. I warned you. Enjoy ;)
ERIK
It has been over a week since the night I sent her away. I had not eaten, despite Nadir's vain attempts to coax sustenance into my withering body. My soul was crushed; I was simply waiting for my heart to finally follow suit. I wanted only for the pain to end. It was only the tiniest flicker of hope that kept me from giving into to the peaceful darkness. Hope… how I despised it! As useless and painful as the memory of the one I could never have.
It was the promise alone she had made me which forced me from the bed to drown my sorrow in the Turkish bath that Christine had bathed in during her imprisonment in this underground hell. I can hardly say why, but my mother's insistence that cleanliness was next to Godliness would not leave me. Of course, Godliness was very far from my reach, but the flicker of light – that damnable, vain hope that she may return – urged me to present myself as a man, and not some filthy animal. At least I would die with a semblance of dignity. Death… I had never feared Him, and I did not fear Him now, but that bloody promise was all that kept Him at bay. A week without food. A week with only my agonising memory of her warm lips closing over mine. A week without the sweet relief of morphine; I could not give in to the temptation of that needle. I deserved to suffer, and in those first three days, my body almost succumbed to the violent agony of withdrawal. And yet… here I am. Still waiting. Still hoping.
I lay on her bed, twirling a tarot card between my fingers – The Lovers, of course – staring at the opposite wall, when the door clicked open. Naturally, I assumed Nadir was once again trying to persuade me to pick my heavy heart up from the floor, where it had been trampled and trod upon too many times to even acknowledge his attempts at keeping me alive. I did not look up, only softly, coldly, bade him to leave me in peace.
"As you wish," said a voice that had haunted both my dreams, and my every waking moment. Was my mind finally giving in to the madness that had been stirring, insidiously waiting for the moment to steal faculties from me? I flung the card down and looked up. It had to be a dream… a hallucination. Surely, the angel that stared at me with those lovely, tortured eyes was not real. I sat up straight, blinked, and yet, she was still there!
"Christine…?" was all I could manage as my heart seemed to leap into my throat. She clearly took this as a sign that I did not want her to leave my sight. She turned to close the door behind her, and as she pushed it shut, I saw the gold ring on her finger, and I fought to keep my grief from betraying me yet again.
"I see the blessed union has already taken place," I said with weak sarcasm, a pathetic attempt to veil the unimaginable pain of knowing that she finally belonged to that damned boy. "In any case, better late than never. No matter, my dear. I would still like the invitation… as a keepsake… you understand. I am sure your husband is impatient to return home." My façade of calm civility was slipping further from my grasp as she turned away from the door to face me. Silently, she walked towards the bed where I was fighting the urge to jump up and close the small distance between us. Still, she was silent as she ran her left hand, adorned with the golden band, over the mahogany frame at the foot of the bed. She did not take her eyes from mine as she walked slowly around the bed towards the trembling wreck that sat before her. I was vaguely aware that she was wearing only a lilac coat over a simple white dress.
A slight, ironic smile curled the luscious lips that I could suddenly taste once more – the only memory I was glad I would never forget.
"This is not Raoul's ring," she said simply. "I found it in the pocket of my dress the night you sent me away."
I could not comprehend what she was implying. I looked at her like a perfect fool, with utter confusion. The faint hope I had harboured these past few days brimmed to the surface as she stood before me, looking down at me, her eyes studying mine for some unknown response. For the second time in my life, she had rendered me utterly speechless.
She sat down beside me on the bed, her eyes never leaving mine, and she once again untied the mask and set it down on the bedside table. She cocked her head to one side as she rested her hand on my chest.
"I have no invitation to give you, Erik, because there will be no wedding."
Finally, the tears that had threatened to betray me from the moment she walked into the room were unleashed as I looked at her in utter disbelief. Then she leaned in and kissed me. There was no hesitation, no uncertainty, only a persistence that both astonished me and awoke the body I was preparing to leave behind in this mortal world with urgent desire.
With a gut-wrenching apprehension, I slowly, cautiously, pulled the lilac coat off her shoulders, and it fell to the floor. Again, she shocked me to my core when she pushed me back onto the pillows and straddled my waist, her tongue insistent as she placed her hands firmly over mine and guided them over her thighs, up her waist, and then she pulled her mouth away as she lifted her arms, allowing me to pull the thin fabric over her head. My eyes travelled over her naked body with breathless wonder.
Was this happening? This could not be real. I felt a moment of terror that if I touched her heated flesh, she would reject me, but that fear vanished altogether when she took my face in her hands and kissed me with an urgent passion that overwhelmed my senses. At that moment my mind ceased to function and instinct overtook my throbbing body. If this was real… If this was truly happening… It must mean that she wanted me! She wanted me…
Her fervent kisses and the soft moans that escaped from deep within her throat made me almost believe that her desire was more than merely a pale comparison of my agonising need to possess every inch of her body. My heart was beating an unsteady, deafening tattoo, pounding in my ears. I ran my hands adoringly over the hardened peaks of her breasts, and caressed her flat, dancer's stomach, until finally, passionately, they moved up the smooth skin of her back. I had never before touched anything as soft and perfect as the completely naked beauty of her body. Again she pulled away from me and pulled my shirt off as I planted urgent kisses over her collarbone, up her neck, to her awaiting lips.
When she wrapped her arms around my neck and began to grind her hips against mine, my desire became so utterly overpowering that I flipped her onto her back. I kicked off my trousers – the last remaining barrier that lay between us. As we writhed against one another, I could feel the wet heat between her legs. I pulled away, looking into her eyes, which were dark with desire. I felt a moment of fear as I looked questioningly at her, asking her whether she was sure she wanted to commit to this act of consummation. If I had seen any doubt in her eyes I would have stopped immediately, however difficult it may be, but I did not need to, for she lifted her hips up to mine, and in a moment of blind ecstasy, she allowed me to enter her. The pleasure of her enfolding me in a tight grasp of hot wetness was so awesome that I groaned into her neck and had to clutch the headboard in order to stop myself from ending this intoxicating encounter before it could even begin. Although she clutched my shoulder and a faint cry escaped her lips, Christine seemed to find my struggle to regain some semblance of composure utterly enthralling, because she flexed the muscles of her abdomen, causing me to bite her neck in a vain attempt to stifle the moan that , as it turned out, could not be stifled.
"Oh, Christine…" I whispered between my staggering breaths. For a moment I dared not move for fear of my bliss ending this magnificent moment. Again, her boldness overtook any doubts I harboured when she pushed me over onto my back and pressed her lips to mine, as she continued to grind her hips in harmony with our mutual, breathless pleasure.
I pulled myself upright to a sitting position, so that she was once again straddling me, and I buried my face in her hair. She continued to grind her body against mine, with a steady, passionate cadence. I cannot describe in words the pleasure, pain, and awesome love that eddied around my mind, body, and heart. I had felt sexual release before, naturally, but for it to be brought about by another person - by the one woman in this world I wanted more than any man has ever wanted a woman - was... well, so completely different from what I had ever felt before. I had dreamed of this moment so many times, with no reference to compare the sensation of being touched with amorous ardour. However, I can say with complete assurance that none of my fantasies could ever have come close to what was occurring to my body at that moment. One could simply not understand the pleasure of making love if one has never become one with the love of one's life.
Christine's hips continued to thrust with slow, agonising force, until this woman ceased being my sweet, loving angel. Suddenly, she was a goddess. Aphrodite would have been wickedly jealous.
As I gently pulled her hair back to allow mouth access to her small, pink nipples, her back arched, her body tensed, and she threw her head back. Her eyes closed and her mouth let out a strangled breath which, at the last moment became a cry of ecstasy. I felt the rhythmic tightening of her groin and abdomen, and the pressure proved too much to bear. There was nothing to spare my senses - a carnal assault flooded my entire body as my fingers dug into the nape of her neck, while my other hand gripped the hips that were no longer grinding into mine, but the taut muscles were a testament to the onslaught of pleasure which I knew was still spreading a fierce, sensuous heat from her groin to every inch of her body.
"Christine…" I managed to utter urgently with my mouth pressed against her throat, "Oh, Christine…" And then, a blinding, rapturous release of a lifetime of suppressed longing flooded my entire being with extraordinary sensation. With every spasm, I pulled her closer, and I gripped her tightly against me, while I breathed her name over and over.
My God... nothing could prepare me for that moment - the moment when our love exploded into the beautiful pleasure that we shared. For a long time we clung to one another, our breath slowly becoming less laboured. Christine's hand moved to caress my neck, as she lay her head on my shoulder, exhausted. I, too, was filled with a contented warmth, but I could not allow this moment to end just yet. I had touched her… I had felt her… but I had not seen her. We were both sated, but I was never one for patient discovery. I was overcome with an overwhelming need to explore her body – to discover every secret, and to master the one skill on this earth that actually mattered.
While she rested her weary head on my shoulder, one arm wrapped around her waist, while the other gripped her leg, so that I could once again flip her over onto her back. She fell back onto the pillows, her eyes closed, her heavy breathing causing her breasts to heave steadily against my chest. I kissed her then, without the urgent passion that we had spent throughout our intense union. Instead, the kiss was unhurried, almost languid, as I took time to explore every crevice of her mouth. Very slowly, I lavished her with kisses that moved slowly down her warm, moist skin. My lips travelled down her neck, moving further down to meet the centre of her heaving chest. When I reached her navel, I pulled myself up on my hands, allowing me to view her - from the hips, still clutching my own, up her taut stomach, to her small, perfectly rounded breasts. I studied the naked body splayed before me with wondrous disbelief. Her dark hair, in stark contrast to the fair whiteness of her skin, had fallen over her breasts, partially obscuring them, and I gently pulled the soft locks aside to allow me a completely unadulterated view of her entire form. There was no shy modesty, no trying to hide from my wandering eyes. Her arms lay languorously on the pillow above her head, and while my eyes devoured her, she looked at me with a quizzical expression, as though she was watching me stare at her with mild amusement.
Her inviting eyes spurned me on, as I leaned down to kiss her stomach once again, and moved further down, down, down... until her sharp intake of breath and deep moans indicated I had found the place where her pleasure lay...
For the briefest of moments, I felt quite sorry for Nadir, as our cries of pleasure over the hours that followed could surely be heard in the country of his origin.