Hello! This is your friendly reminder that this story has, and is quite deserving of, an M rating.
I've never written anything like this chapter before. I hope it works, and please leave a review in the tip jar if you're so inclined—even as a guest if you're shy. :)
When he first pressed his lips to hers, Josephine sensed that Erik was no longer Erik, but instead the Phantom of the Opera. It made her blood freeze.
The pressure from his mouth was like a dam bursting in the wake of a flood: fearsome, primal, unyielding. In one dizzying moment, as he curled an arm tight around her waist, she considered that he might actually intend to suffocate her.
Finally, he broke free and they surfaced the riptide, each gasping in a breath of air before their mouths found each other again. The pressure began to dissipate, coming in waves instead of a rush, until their lips and tongues began to move together in a deep, slow ebb and flow. Her arms encircled his neck for balance.
Never had she experienced anything like this.
She briefly considered the men she had been with. Kissing them had been a means to an end; she had never quite understood its appeal. She would endure the moments of sloppy, unfeeling execution for as long as she could until she finally turned her face away, with the pretense of offering up the tender skin of her neck and jawline.
This was not that kind of contact. It was something wholly intimate, an attempt to extract knowledge of one's physical person and, for her and Erik, the last in a line of connections to form between them.
It was wonderful and raw and terrifying.
It almost made her forget her encounter with Christine. Christine, the model wife whom everyone—including Josephine—could not help but adore, whose voice was like gold and whose womb was magnificently fruitful. Fresh anguish churned in her gut.
She sank into Erik's lips harder, deeper, as she made a desperate move for his waistcoat, her fingers fumbling at the top button.
He drew back with a sharp intake of breath and gently pushed her arms to her sides, where he held them in place. "Slow down, Josephine."
"Why should I?" She knew why, of course, but it was easier to delude herself into thinking that he did not see right through her.
He leaned forward to rest his forehead against hers. She could hear and feel his breath, steady and warm on her face. The rhythm brought with it a sense of calm that slowed her heartbeat and unwound the muscles in her shoulders. Oh, he was good.
"I do not want you to do anything you might regret later," he said quietly.
She took a moment to close her eyes and drink in the nearness of him. When he released her arms, she was content to put her hands on his waist and enjoy the solidity of muscle and flesh beneath her fingertips. She felt her body exude a contented sigh: finally.
She did not want to think about what was happening, what it meant. She only knew that she did not want to be physically separated from him any longer. She wanted to fold herself into him and remain there forever, perhaps emerging only to eat and sketch.
"You started it," she said.
"Touché. But you tell me when to stop."
Her answer was instantaneous as her grip on him tightened: "Never." And their lips found each other again.
It should have been difficult, kissing him with a mask over the deformed right half of his upper lip. Amid her haze of lust, she did not even think to try and remove it. They adapted quickly, though, favoring the left side of his mouth, as well as the succulent bottom lip on which she hungrily lavished attention, possessing it with her own lips and teeth.
There was a sudden, electrifying brush against her abdomen, and she opened her eyes to find Erik untying the sash of her peignoir, working loose the front knot with his long, dexterous fingers. It was surreal, as though she were watching him undress someone else.
He pulled the ends of the ribbon apart, and then his fingers were at her collarbone, sliding the gauzy fabric off of each shoulder. The garment pooled delicately around her ankles to leave her standing in her chemise. She shivered as the cold underground air hit her exposed arms and legs, and Erik drew back to regard her.
"You are cold," he observed.
"But you are warm," she said. She moved forward to tuck her fingers into his waistband, in that tender gap between trousers and shirt, and she felt his abdominal muscles contract at her touch. The sudden need to become better acquainted with those muscles overrode any level-headed thoughts that might have otherwise been floating around in the back of her mind.
She pressed her cheek to the unmasked half of his face. "My bed is also warm," she whispered. She kissed her way up his jawline and caught his earlobe in her teeth with a gentle tug.
She heard and felt his shaky exhalation of breath as it caressed the sensitive spot where neck met shoulder. Without waiting for a reply, she began to walk backward toward the door, tugging at his waistband so that he was forced to follow. Ever prepared, he found a lamp to illuminate their path as she led him out of the sitting room and down the hall.
Once in her room, Erik set the lamp on her bedside table and turned to regard her. A moment of awkward uncertainty passed between them, as though they were a pair of shy teenagers, each waiting for the other to make the first move.
Finally, he reached for her waist and pulled her to him. He began pressing soft, fluttering kisses into the corners of her mouth—a brief respite for her already swollen and tingling lips—as his hands splayed and roamed the surface of her body.
He felt along her thighs until he found the lacy hem of her chemise, and he slipped his hands underneath the white fabric. She both heard and felt his sharp inhalation when he palmed the curve of her rear, confirming that there was nothing underneath the garment. His hands were cool on her skin, but as they grazed past her thighs to settle on her hips, they left a trail of fire in their wake. All the while, his mouth remained on hers, his tongue pulling hers into a heated dance.
His hands traveled upward again, past her waist and up her rib cage to settle just short of the soft swells of her breasts. She could not help but emit a small moan of frustration.
"Patience, Josephine," he murmured.
In one fluid movement, he had tugged the chemise over her head and tossed it aside with an indelicacy not at all befitting him.
Then all was still. She now stood completely exposed to him, and his gaze did not waver from her figure. She could not help but feel that he was somehow seeing past her skin, now that she had lowered her defenses, and she grew more anxious with every second. A flush crept over her skin, and she curled her forearms around her waist to hide the scar on her abdomen.
"No," he said quietly. He brushed her arms aside and began to trace the purple line with the pad of his thumb.
She could not stand it; she knew that he would feel just how empty she was beneath that mark of shame. She tried to reintroduce her hands, which made him growl in frustration and hoist her onto the edge of the bed.
"I dare you to look at this face again," he snapped, pointing to his mask, "and then tell me how burdensome you find your scar."
Guiltily, she looked down at her lap. "It is not so much the mark itself as what it symbolizes," she said.
He drew closer, his knees nudging her bare legs wide open to accommodate his frame. She nearly balked at the shock and indecency of such brazen exposure, but his focus was on her face. "If anything, it is a testament of your strength and survival," he insisted. He leaned in and pressed his mouth to one of the tender pulse points just below her jaw. She closed her eyes, distantly aware of her breathing becoming shallower.
"It reminds me that I am incomplete," she whispered. "Less of a woman."
"Ridiculous," he murmured into her neck, "and proof of the ineptitude of your recent line of paramours."
She was too surprised to protest when he lifted her and practically tossed her lengthwise onto the center of the bed. When he did not join her, instead stepping aside to unbutton his waistcoat, she draped the bedspread over her body and propped herself up on one elbow to watch. His execution was clinical, but the way in which he maintained eye contact cut her like a lance, dragging a line of fire from her chest down to the apex of her legs. He shrugged the impeccably tailored garment off of his shoulders and draped it over the foot of the bed.
"Do you trust me?" he asked. His fingers moved to untie the white silk cravat at his neck.
"Yes." It was almost unsettling how quickly she responded.
He slid the tie from his collar and kept it with him as he slid onto the bed. He reached for her, and she had a sudden vision of the necktie tightening around her throat, of herself clawing at it as she gasped for air, of her skin turning purple like that of her attacker near the catacombs. Still, she did not move. Could not move.
Instead, Erik pulled her wrists over her head, up to the intricately carved apex of the wooden headboard. It was here that he looped the necktie through the carved-out wood before wrapping it around her wrists, thus securing her hands to the bed. She gaped at him and rasped, "What are you doing?"
"Ending this preposterous notion that you ought to be ashamed of your body. Tell me, Josephine, how did you learn to swim?"
What was this madness?! But curiosity got the better of her, and she answered, "All at once. My father dropped me into the sea and said, 'Now swim back to shore.'"
He nodded. "Precisely." He yanked off the bedspread so that she was once again exposed and vulnerable, positioning himself between her legs to hover over her. He paid her no heed as she gasped, instead pressing his lips to the side of her neck.
A small sigh escaped her throat, and she closed her eyes. "And what would you have done had that metaphor not worked?" she asked.
"Adapted my speed and comparison accordingly."
"I will get you back for this."
"I have no doubt."
His swollen lips lingered at her neck for another moment before they began a sojourn southward, blazing a trail over her clavicle and through the valley of her breastbone, brushing against the gently sloping peaks of flesh on either side, stopping to rest at her navel. Her stomach muscles clenched at his touch. When he dipped below her midsection, her eyes shot open and she could not help but pull at her restraints.
Erik paused to glance up at her. The dark, heady resolution in his eyes encapsulated everything about him that she found thrilling and terrifying. "Clearly, no one has told you how desirable you are."
He seized her hips and pressed his mouth tenderly to the edge of the scar, raking warm, wet lips across its thin purple flesh. His attentions felt almost like worship.
She started to relax and shut her eyes once more. The knots in her belly were subsiding, giving way to a dangerous heat.
When Erik's lips reached the end of the scar tissue, they began to deviate, trailing instead across her pelvis, down one hip, and then—oh, God—over to the inside of her thigh. A whimper escaped her throat, and she thought that she felt him smile against her skin.
His hands moved down to grip her thighs, forcing them even farther apart. She barely had time to assess what was happening before he leaned in to capture with his lips that most sensitive nub between her legs. She cried out and tossed her head back as he worked to tease a reaction from seemingly every nerve ending in her lower body. When his tongue began delivering slow strokes as well, she clenched her fingers until she was certain that the knuckles on either hand had turned white.
She was stunned by the rapidity with which Erik had taken the lead. Hadn't she initiated this encounter? Her mind was so hazy that she could barely remember how she had come to be on the bed. Every movement of his was sudden and decisive, robbing her of breath at all turns. Here was an echo of the man who, she suspected, had once demanded control in all things—but now, in this moment, she did not mind so much. She gave herself over to the pull of his lips, the swirl of his tongue, and was content to lie writhing in a cloud of euphoria.
She had nearly grown accustomed to the rhythm of his movements when he thrust a finger inside of her, his mouth never leaving its post, and she was practically bucked off of her cloud and into the stratosphere. Her small moans punctuated the tense silence as he began to slide the digit back and forth with devastating precision, playing her as he might play his instrument, coaxing new and intimate sounds from her larynx.
It was too much—the pressure of finger and lips and tongue, the intimate knowledge that he desired her. Her legs started to tremble, and that was evidently his cue to pick up speed. The tempo of his pistoning finger grew to match that of her beating heart. Her legs shook harder. He closed his lips tightly on her and tugged, and that was it—she was done for.
White light exploded into her vision as almost unbearable pleasure shot out from the center of her body. She arched her back and cried out, her wrists pulling at their restraints as her body convulsed. Erik had stopped torturing her with his movements but deftly introduced a second finger, making it all the more delicious as her muscles spasmed around him.
As the convulsions weakened into tiny shudders, she became aware that she was panting. Erik withdrew his fingers and she whimpered yet again, her eyelids fluttering open to find him. He was still positioned between her legs, his eyes burning with lust as he waited for her to find herself again.
She gazed at him in wonder. You are not my Erik, she wanted to say, but that was not true. He had always been sensuous, always aware of and attentive to her needs; she had just never granted him unfettered access before. She wanted to laugh at how much the world had thus far underestimated this genius of a man.
"Do you feel womanly enough yet?" he asked, his voice low and heady.
Forget being a human: she felt as though she might to turn into a liquid, spill back onto the bed, and remain there until she evaporated. "No," she baited him. "You gave me pleasure but took none for yourself. How am I to interpret that?"
His eyes blazed. "You would be remiss to make that assumption." He extricated himself from the bed, and her heart picked up speed again as he untucked his white silk shirt and began to unbutton the cuffs, followed by each of the buttons from the collar down to the hem.
He removed the shirt to expose a pale, lean chest and stomach, riddled with his own faded scars, and she longed to reach out and run her fingers across them. "I changed my mind," she whispered. "You can untie me now."
"Oh, can I?" he replied, eyes twinkling. He stayed put, his hands moving instead to the fastenings of his trousers. She all but stopped breathing as he worked at them, and then he disrobed completely from the waist down.
He seemed hyperaware of her gaze and moved quickly onto the bed, where he positioned himself between her legs so that his torso hovered above hers. "I just want to ensure that you are fully confident before I release you," he said, and he bent down to her chest to pull a pert pink bud into his mouth.
She did not hesitate to emit a small yelp of pleasure now; he had earned it. "But you have not removed your mask," she protested, even as he gave her peak a long, tantalizing tug before tracing its circumference with his tongue.
"And I do not plan to." He was suckling now, his hand moving in to knead the flesh below his mouth.
She groaned and writhed beneath him. "You wanted to before, the night I kissed you."
"I was under the influence of alcohol, and it is not up for discussion." He nipped at her lightly.
"Hypocrite," she rasped as she arched her back again. Oh, dear God, she was going to burn without his cool skin smothering her to douse the flames.
She hooked her legs around his hips and, with a show of newfound abdominal strength, lifted her lower body from the bed to buck against him. He groaned into her chest and wrapped his arms around her back to hold her there. In that moment, the only thing anchoring her to the bed was the necktie around her wrists, as though the rest of her body were floating away.
She could feel the heat and hardness of him on her lower abdomen, and she moved her hips against him once more. He whispered an expletive, the first she had ever heard him utter.
"Please," she begged, and he pulled his face back to stare at her in wonder. "Please, Erik."
He hesitated and then lowered her back onto the mattress, peeling her legs from his waist. Her face burned with disappointment until she realized that he was leaning forward to untie her.
He made quick work of the silken knots, and as soon as she was free, she raked her fingertips down his chest, around his hips, and back up his spine. He let out a long shudder.
She twined her fingers around the back of his neck and pulled his face down to hers. "Now," she said huskily, "or I will see to it that you do not walk for days." She brushed his lower lip with her tongue.
Something in his face darkened. He lowered himself so that their thighs pressed against each other, and then he paused. She felt his restraint, like the coil of a spring awaiting its release. When she searched his face, she recognized his hesitation, and she knew what he must be thinking because she was now thinking it, too. This will change everything.
But it was too late to reconsider. She was on fire: lustful, all-consuming flames that exploded from her lower abdomen and crackled across her chest and through her limbs. Past the point of no return. She caught his gaze and nodded.
His arousal rubbed against her, slick with both her residual and her renewed desire; she let out a long, frustrated moan. Without warning, he pushed into her in one long thrust, and they both gasped. It was like finding the sole key to fit into a lock, granting access to glorious, brand-new, uncharted territory. She wrapped her legs around him to hold him there, her arms still encircling his neck. Stay. Do not ever pull back.
His breath was shallow as he began to move inside of her, slowly at first. Too slowly. She bucked her hips again to urge him on, and he increased his pace, hissing the word "vixen" into her ear.
Her grip on his neck loosened, and with each thrust she dug her fingertips further into his shoulder muscles, making an effort to keep her nails from his skin—though she supposed she would just be leaving bruises instead of cuts. This was the most complete she had ever felt, or possibly would ever feel. She shut her eyes tightly in order to drink it in, and she began to give credence to Erik's claim from so many weeks ago that darkness was best way to heighten the senses.
As their hips rocked against each other, his mouth found hers again. His breathing had grown heavier with exertion, and he plied her lips more desperately, more sporadically now. She felt one bead of sweat—and then another—fall from his skin onto hers. Below her neck, though, she could not tell where she ended and he began.
The tingling heat in her core began to build again, deeper and more intense than before. She emitted regular whimpers at their most intimate points of contact, hoping the sounds would urge him on, but he kept his steady pace. It was when she started to grind against him, forcing her own, faster rhythm on him, that he exhaled loudly and picked up speed.
She hitched her legs around his waist and angled herself to be more perpendicular to him, allowing him to plunge even deeper as he slammed into her. Her reactions were no longer in her control. Her mouth dropped open at the intensity of his movements, and her fingers permanently locked into his shoulder blades. Her ears were treated to the intimate, rhythmic slapping of skin against skin.
He bent down to her chest to pull a soft peak into his mouth again, and that was it. A ragged cry tore from her lips as she experienced a jolt of pleasure so severe that it practically ached in her bones. She felt him slow so that she could ride it out, her hips rising to meet his, and heard him hiss as her muscles clenched around him again and again and again.
When the flames subsided, she sank back into the mattress, with only her legs still attempting any sort of effort. But it was enough: a few more quick thrusts and Erik followed her off of the precipice, gasping her name as his pelvis dug into hers. She smiled muzzily and tightened her legs around him until he had spent himself inside of her. Then she let her limbs slide off of him like dead weight.
He collapsed on the pillow next to her, his loud breathing mingling with hers as they waited to regain control of their faculties. She managed to locate his hand and twine her fingers through his, and they lay like that for minutes or for an hour—she could not say.
Eventually, though, Josephine grew cold and uncomfortable, the insides of her legs still slippery with the evidence of their coupling. "I am going to wash up," she said, and she darted into the bathroom for privacy.
She made haste in the washroom, her teeth now chattering from the cold water that rinsed her skin. She knew that this new development required introspection, and probably an inevitable talk with Erik, but she was still pleasantly drowsy and had no interest in drawing her brain out of this hazy post-coital state.
When she emerged from the washroom, Erik was gone. He had made up the bed and taken his clothes, thereby eliminating any evidence of what had just transpired. She felt a lump in her throat.
They had skipped supper, but she could not bring herself to face him just then. So, instead, she donned her undergarments and a nightgown and slipped under the covers. The bed seemed unbearably large now.
She was on her side, floating in the odd transitional space between waking and dreaming, when she felt the weight of another body on the mattress. Her eyes flickered halfway open to find Erik sliding in next to her, now clad in some kind of silk pajama. Without a word, he wrapped an arm around her waist and pressed a long, tender kiss to her lips. She smiled; she could live with this.
At that thought, though, something tickled the back of her mind: Had he said he would be leaving? She needed to ask him. It was important. But before the thought could reach her lips, she drifted off to sleep.